kymatik : midwitch cuckoos: anthropological constants

The works on Anthropological Constants straddle a fence between field recording and experimental composition. The intention of each piece is to lead the listener astray in their environment by firstly identifying cues or references, and then slowly transforming the cues without replacing them. In the words of one listener, the presence of "constantly changing soundscapes . . . of unfathomable origin, which act like some kind of travelogue of . . . your own memories," defines the intent behind these works. The original tracks that make up this LP were the first computer-based compositions (originally made between 1996 and 2001), derived from methods employed in live group performances during the late 1980s, which used the same techniques for transporting the audience from the known to the unknown, from the public to the private, or the external to the internal, by capturing and feeding back the listening space via chains of controlled processing. This isn't an attempt to separate the individual from the group listening experience but to try to demonstrate a method by which the individual listener is co-opted into a group experience of a space, via the removal of any specific meanings or cues in favor of potentials derived from the deconstruction of memory. First the environment must be un-learned, un-mediated, détourned. To some extent, these experiments are also psychedelic, in the sense that they aim at revealing something personal to each listener, which is also ever-present in the wider human experience of the surroundings. In that respect the work aims at that silence called "black noise": a purely human silence beyond that normally envisaged. A silence in which you can almost hear your own brain-ear mechanism scanning for references with which to define the dimensions of the space you are occupying. This vinyl edition was cut at SST and pressed at Optimal in a numbered edition of 500 and comes with an insert and download code.