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BASS COMMUNION - The Itself of Itself

Format: CD Label & Cat.Number: Lumberton Trading Company Release Year: 2024 Note: STEVEN WILSONs earliest project with a stunning return of a very experimental 'advanced droning' album=> music of hissing, noisy whispering, backwards sounds, mechanic sounding circles, dark moods and dynamic changes.. - "and there is the addition of real instruments, such as a mellotron...Also, there are some shimmering chords played on a keyboard, crippled voices in the very creepy title track,..." [Vital Weekly] Price (incl. 19% VAT): €15.00 More Info https://basscommunion.bandcamp.com/album/the-itself-of-itself Steven Wilson is no stranger to composing music that appears to counter everything else before it in his catalogue. Bass Communion, his long running solo electronic project, is no exception to this perverse streak that apparently likes to turn all expectations upside down. The Itself of Itself, Bass Communion’s first album for 12 years, skillfully pays testament to this. Long established as a purveyor of mostly atmospheric or ambient textures, the seven cuts that represent The Itself of Itself take detours from this approach in order draw as much from musique concrete, noise music, abstract electronics and uneasy listening. Whilst still rippled with the same shades of light and dark that can be found throughout all of Bass Communion’s work, The Itself of Itself reveals a fascination with analogue sounds and, more importantly perhaps, ‘unwanted’ analogue artefacts like tape hiss, wow and flutter, static noise, and sonic break-up, taking the music into a space at once different yet familiar. ‘Apparition 3’ presents a stark nod to Wilson's established command of shifting textures steeped in penumbral gauze, while ‘Bruise’ is akin to a space probe adrift and headed towards a white dwarf as all communication is reduced to a disturbing and indecipherable crackle. Between the other five cuts we witness fragmented, garbled and buried voices, vast vacillating banks of grainy hum, what sounds like the dying gasps of an oboe, spooky swirls from an indiscernible source, swathes of tape hiss, moody drones, and spiralling slivers of noise. Meanwhile on the title track, a mellotron flute rusts and collapses in on itself in a way that renders it the very antithesis of the one deployed on ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’. Everything adds up to a dynamic listening experience where unease, dread and comparatively claustrophobic torrents of sound make (un)natural bedfellows to moments of enchantment and serenity. Above all, The Itself of Itself sees Steven Wilson cutting his teeth on an album that’s at once cinematic and moody whilst proving him to be a master in electronic music craftsmanship. It’s an album that might surprise some of those who have thus far been paying attention to his work as Bass Communion, but setting out to please everyone was never part of his raison ‘etre. 'The Itself of Itself' catches Bass Communion spreading its weatherbeaten wings to embrace new strategies and a strong desire to journey elsewhere. Arriving in a wonderful Carl Glover designed cover also comprising a 24pp. booklet of his photographs and an obi strip, The Itself of Itself arrives in late May 2024 on Lumberton Trading Company as a CD pressed in an initial run of 1000 copies. NOTE: An exclusive new Bass Communion track also appears on the When Worlds Collide 2LP compilation also due in May and available to pre-order in the shop (see link below). Other artists on this limited edition 2LP include Alternative TV, Final, Sion Orgon, Edward Ka-Spel, Splintered, Kleistwahr, Ashtray Navigations and more. THE ITSELF OF ITSELF TRACKLIST 1. Unperson 10:34 2. Apparition 3 6:04 3. Bruise 13:19 4. Blackmail 7:24 5. The Itself of Itself 10:24 6. Study for Tape Hiss and Other Audio Artefacts 11.58 7. Apparition 5 02:46 "...This new album has some interesting changes. On one hand, there are sounds of vinyl and tape hiss, heavily processed yet to be recognised as such, and there is the addition of real instruments, such as a mellotron (well, maybe not 'real', but a distinctly different kind of instrument than you'll find on your usual dark ambient record. Also, there are some shimmering chords played on a keyboard (in 'Apparition 3', for instance), crippled voices in the very creepy title track, along with more mellotron (I think). Using tape hiss in 'Tape Hiss Study' is quite a daring and risky movement. One could all too easily think, 'tape hiss, that we've heard enough of by now', but Bass Communion gives it an elegant twirl and creates an excellent collage, using various stages of the process. Throughout these seven pieces, there is quite a bit of variation so that there is no repeating of stale ideas of worn-out dark ambient. In 'Blackmail', Wilson ventures out to noise music and is more Merzbow (around 1990) than anything you would label as ambient music. Quite the accomplishment!" [FdW / Vital Weekly} https://basscommunion.bandcamp.com/album/the-itself-of-itself