Artists:
Toby
Marks &
Andrew Heath
Andrew Heath
Release:
Motion
Label:
Disco
Gecko Recordings
Released:
10th
May 2019
Motion
is an innovative new album by sound artists Toby Marks and Andrew
Heath. Although the pair have collaborated on individual tracks and
shows before, this is the first album they have worked on together.
Toby and Andrew started making extensive field recordings on trips to the four corners of Britain during 2018. They went deep into Llechwedd Slate Caverns in Wales, explored Suttle Stone Quarries in Bournemouth, hopped on the Swanage Ferry to Poole Harbour, took to the air with the Yorkshire Gliding Club, floated down the Leeds & Liverpool Canal and rode the Bure Valley Railway in Norfolk.
By the end they had a staggering hundred hours of audio in total, which they processed and transformed, blending piano, guitars and electronics, to produce a deeply meditative, endlessly unfolding collection.
Sometimes evoking images of machinery, sometimes of nature, these pieces flow and twist, at all times maintaining a humanity and sense of personal experience at their core. At times intense, sometimes barely even present in the mix, the music enthrals and entices, drawing the listener into a world both seemingly familiar and weirdly unknown – a quite alien, and yet still organic, space, which is of this world and yet ultimately of Marks and Heath’s own invention.
The
first track of the album ‘For Stone (West)’ sets the ambience
with an ethereal quality drifting through choral voices, delayed
guitars, melancholic piano, creaking floorboards and machinery. This
is followed by ‘With Iron (South)’ which beginnings with
footsteps and flowing water, subtle piano and guitar nestled amongst
eeire synths, which sets me in mind of Pink Floyds ‘Signs of Life’
from their album ‘A Momentary Lapse of Reason’.
Next
up is ‘In Air on Water (North)' where the intro of buzzing insects,
birdsong, boat engines and church bell chimes leads into passages of
piano, indistinct vocal samples and guitar licks that once again have
a Floyd’esque quality to them. The final piece of the journey ‘By
Fire (East)’ initially layers a shuffling train beneath brooding
synths before the guitar strings bring a gentle ambience to the
piece.
To
Summarise this
collection comes across
as a natural pairing of
Toby and Andrew
creating
this ambient sound collage, which
is probably more closer linked to Libary Music and Musique
concrète
than Toby’s
more dancefloor inspired Banco de Gaia releases.
Links
To
celebrate the release, Toby and Andrew are touring the UK, playing in
Stroud on May 10, Sheffield on May 11, Kingskerswell on May 17, Frome
on May 18, London on June 14 and Birmingham on June 15.
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