New Release: Amy Cutler - 'the ends (also end) of (the) earth and variants' (CVC021) Limited Edition Cassette & Digital Download

 

Amy Cutler

the ends (also end) of (the) earth and variants

(CVC021)

Limited Edition of 50 cassettes and digital download

Available via the Crow Versus Crow Bandcamp

Crow Versus Crow is honoured to present the ends (also end) of (the) earth and variants, a new body of work from polymath artist and educator Dr Amy Cutler, available as a limited-edition of fifty cassettes and near-infinite digital download from Friday 14th May 2021.

These recordings spring from a strange medieval English riddle, the Harley lyric, Erthe toc of erthe:

 Erthe toc of erthe erthe wyth woh; Erthe other erthe to the erthe droh; Erthe leyde erthe in erthene throh; Tho hevede erthe of erthe erthe ynoh.

(Ms. Harley 2553).

The tiny lament or puzzle is impossible to translate, since in its four short lines the word earth appears twelve times. Like ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’, these identical words have different meanings – transitioning between soil, world, burial, cultivation, decay, earthly possessions, and our own bodies. The device of repeating earth so many times in such a short space creates an unsolvable lyric which, riddle-like, ‘only makes sense when we are prepared to hold several meanings of the word in our minds simultaneously’. How does one sing this tiny piece, or give it a tune?

This is an album of sonic variants, settings, and radio covers of Erthe toc of erthe, including those by invited guest artists and friends, Ecka Mordecai, Layla Legard (Hawthonn), Ceylan Hey (Bell Lungs, Mark S. Williamson (Spaceship) and Drew Mulholland. The modified field recordings, chants, twilight hums, nonsense riddles and layered repetitions are each inspired by the variant meanings of ‘earth’, in the ultimate group sonic field trip.

Cutler’s recordings were made in Luds Church, a naturally resonant mossy chasm in Staffordshire where Lollard ceremonies were held, including their alternative death chants. Combining guitar, voice, processed electronics, record hiss, and field recordings, these tracks (and the album as a whole) are each titled with phrases from the dictionary definitions of ‘earth’. Some of these meanings are undigestible by each other, whether scientific, metaphorical, or allegorical: e.g., the ground as a surface on which humans and animals move; the inhabitants of the world collectively; ‘earthing’ a conductive electrical circuit or terminal; to ‘go to earth’ meaning to take refuge as in an animal’s lair or burrow. Combining this mix of opposites – doom and refuge, sin and innocence – and playing on the end of the world-ness of elegy, this camper-van tape release becomes a sort of muted lullaby for earth itself.

the ends (also end) of (the) earth and variants is released as a limited-edition of 50 hand-numbered, professionally dubbed C70 cassettes (made from recycled materials) and digital download via the Crow Versus Crow Bandcamp. The cassette features full-colour artwork by Crow Versus Crow and Dr Amy Cutler.

Tape -  £8

Download - Name Your Price. All proceeds from digital sales will be split between Crow Versus Crow, and will directly (and solely) fund future releases, and the artist.

Available now via the Crow Versus Crow Bandcamp

New Release: Chlorine - Gallooner (CVC013) Limited Edition Cassette & Digital Download

Chlorine

Gallooner

(CVC013)

Limited Edition of 50 cassettes & digital download

Available now via the Crow Versus Crow Bandcamp

Crow Versus Crow is honored to be able to present to you Gallooner, by Chlorine – alias of thee mighty Gateshead-based artist and multi-instrumentalist, Graeme Hopper. Following last year’s Loser Herd, released on the Panarus Productions label, Gallooner, digs deeper into the artist’s psyche to construct heavily layered and complex sonic evocations and excavations of the artist’s Self. It is by far the most personal collection of recordings Chlorine has produced to date.

Anxiety. Loneliness. Self-Loathing. Depression.

All hewn crude in catharsis.

That is not to say that Gallooner is a violent, nihilistic, ugly record. As with many creative expressions of melancholy, there is a deep, complicated beauty within the intricate soundscapes. It’s probably a hopeful record. But its seeds are sown deep in frustration and doubt.

Gall.

Bitterness. Bile. Audacity.

A skin sore caused by chronic irritation.

Brazen boldness coupled with impudent assurance and insolence.

Flaw.

And doubt.

With Gallooner, Chlorine has produced six varied yet cohesive soundscapes that range from throbbing, percussive, post-Dub, post-Industrial, post-Techno, sunk ravers, to heavily textured string-scraping, tape-hissing evocations of nocturnal wanderings, both dreamlike and concrete. Found sounds and field recordings coalesce with keys, strings and percussion to form intricate compositions rich in a symbiotic sense of geographic and psychological place.

Gallooner is released as a limited edition of 50 hand-numbered professionally dubbed cassettes and digital download via the Crow Versus Crow Bandcamp on Friday 12th July 2019, featuring artwork by Hopper. 

Tape £6

Download £4

Available now via the Crow Versus Crow Bandcamp

New Release: 'States' - Photographs and Field Recordings by Crow Versus Crow

I'm very pleased to be able to present you with a new release of the Crow Versus Crow Editions imprint: States - a collection of photographs and field recordings taken by Crow Versus Crow whilst travelling through some of the southern states of North America during August 2016.

This is presented as a 48 page A5 landscape zine featuring 22 full colour photographs printed on 130gsm silk stock, with a 300gsm recycled card cover, which houses a 3" CDr featuring a single 17 minute composition of raw field recordings.
There are 25 copies available at the cost price of £5 per copy from the Crow Versus Crow Bandcamp.

A digital version, comprised of the States audio and a .pdf version of the zine, for those who prefer their wares ephemeral, is also available priced at £3.

Further contextual material for States can be found below the images.

Thank you for all of your continued support with Crow Versus Crow. It is very much appreciated.

Order a copy now via the Crow Versus Crow Bandcamp

States is not intended as an objective environmental document, rather it is a depiction of an experience of travelling through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Virginia during August 2016, as a tourist, an outsider.

Culturally conditioned experience, a pre-conceived notion of 'America', versus the aesthetic experience of being there in the moment. Simultaneously exotic and familiar. the two overlap uncannily.

Travelling through this part of the country was, very literally, an awesome experience. Expansive, sublime landscapes ripped from the pages of a John Steinbeck novel, the romanticism sharply punctured by anti-abortion billboards and ‘Vote Trump’ bumper stickers, hinting at the incredibly complex layers of history and contemporary socio-political flux beyond, or rather within, the beatific plains.

Overwhelmed by the vastness of the land, following the traces of old Bluesmen and -women through poverty ravaged states. Industry built on exploitation erased, leaving oppressed, isolated inhabitants in it’s wake.

Metronomic broken lines stretch into ephemeral, wavering pools. An eagles soars. ‘Think God’. Static hiss. Cellulose Nitrate film clicks, scratched, bubbled in heat.

'..and they ran in that resonance which is the world itself
and which cannot be spoken but only praised.'

Order a copy now via the Crow Versus Crow Bandcamp