Seasons (pre-din) - Your Eyes The Stars and Your Hands The Sea

Our review
Customer reviews
Press release

5...according to our Brian on Thu 24 Sep, 2009.

Seasons (Pre-Din) is a mysterious sound artist/architect whose album 'Your Eyes The Stars and Your Hands The Sea' is in now on Type. Beginning with some nice gluey static and some mundane dripping noises before exploring a more sandpapery vibe, smooth to medium grain, I think, then some drifty guitar nadgers is helpfully employed to help ease the chaffing. The record continues onto another level... Erm song, with low-end drone & field recording, this album lulls you into a messy ditch by a nature reserve with a generator thrumming inside your tortured, hungover skull. After passing out again, I find myself in a puddle by a motorway flyover, in the rain, with a dog pissing on some binliners. Following my discharge from hospital, I accidentally discover a weird flea market in Bradford where people are displaying old aluminium camping pans strapped together and selling them as chimes. After visiting the pub for a few halves to reflect on the strange events of the last 24 hrs, I collapse predictably onto some rubble in a wasteland and wake up, head relentlessly throbbing, by yet another generator, ominous, industrial & strangely comforting. Then I had to help Anthony finish the post before stumbling back through that weird, urban ghetto market, only this time it was much windier & there was also a coarse grain sandpaper application display busily attracting a rapt audience next to Camping Pan Man's joint. Phil is reminded of the OST to Eraserhead. Ltd LP only.

You might not be familiar with the work of Seasons (pre-din), but the shadowy northerner has been honing his craft for some time now, covertly issuing a slew of stunning albums while the world ticked on. He cut his teeth performing and collaborating with Richard Skelton and Xela, but over the last couple of years has busied himself prepping a range of hand-made releases on his own label. Often gone in a matter of hours, these lovingly crafted curios caught the attention of astute listeners worldwide and it is now our pleasure to announce the first widely available album from Seasons (pre-din).

'Your Eyes The Stars and Your Hands The Sea' is a collection of tracks crafted from hours of field recordings and instrumental takes. Using a small hand held recorder and a collection of string instruments, Seasons set about using 'spaces' – recording sounds in different areas to create a certain sound or mood. These rooms, fields and abandoned buildings form the backbone of the sound and give a curious cinematic quality to the record. You can almost place yourself in each space, and while it isn't always obvious beneath the chatter and manipulated radio static, there are always skeletons of real life just around the corner. It is eventually the artist's humanity that sets these compositions apart from those of his peers; rather than simply dry recordings, they are merely starting points for layering and sculpting. The result is thick, detailed pieces which, while subtle, pack a clout more readily associated with the contemporary noise scene.

Restrained and totally enveloping, this is an album which resides somewhere in the undergrowth, emerging slowly before drifting gently out to sea. Turn down the lights, lower the needle and let it pull you away. You might not want to come back.

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