sgsr_044
another grey world was the forty fourth catalogue release.
it is available in digital format only.
this collection of ambient works continues my interest in cassette recordings and was made with a very simple, lo-fi recording rig and set of instruments. nearly every piece here is derived from piano recordings with the barest of synthesizer adornments; albeit every component was treated and reprocessed to accentuate some attributes like decay and room tone. everything was recorded out to cassette at least once, sometimes multiple times, to achieve a very analogue, broken, sound.
despite being an instrumental record, the intended message of the album as a whole is one of despair; the nightmarish regularity of news reports documenting the slow cancellation of the future via environmental degradation was a primary background texture of the creation process. as such, the textural processing of the sounds became more focused on moving away from clean digital recordings, and into a method where the limitations of the medium were pressed into service as a tonal characteristic. tape hiss is a vital part of the record; a static layer obscuring the dark and distant terrain.
the title itself is naturally a reference to brian eno’s ‘another green world’; eno is, for me, the most influential thinker currently working in the arts. but it’s also a reference to the work of mark fisher, whose stark depiction of our collective cultural malaise was also quite influential to me during the time i was working on this record. there’s something interesting to me around the notion of eno’s optimistic planetary outlook being melted down to a featureless slag heap, reducing it to an ashen negative where nothing can flourish.
even the artwork, from my photographic collection, is designed to reflect a dismal world where the horizon is potentially nonexistent.
personally, i consider this one of the most complete statements of intent that i’ve made in some time.
r.i.p. mark fisher & antonio di benedetto
i am grateful for the inspiration