memotone: chime hours

Bristol-based multi-instrumentalist and producer William Yates aka Memotone returns with the bleak, beautiful Chime Hours, following his stunning debut album, I Sleep. At Waking. A master of 11 instruments, Memotone comes from a family of artists and grew up on a diet of grunge, minimal classical, and electronic music. Yates is also an illustrator and film music composer (his work includes a soundtrack for a horror series produced by Eli Roth), occupations that run deep within his avant-garde productions. Creating an otherworldly state of mind with sonic soundscapes, the album's roots twist around rural horror, techno, and classical sounds mixed with field recordings of archaic seasonal ceremonies. From the spiraling darkness and crackled techno pulse of "Poison Arrow" to the ghostly melodies and brutal electronics intersecting on "All Collapsed," the album buzzes with a variety of moods and ideas from an artist not afraid to run the full gamut of emotions. Emphasizing texture over tone, Chime Hours is heavily centered around the sounds of an analog synthesizer, while also featuring live cello, piano, clarinet, violin, church organ, guitars, bass, and trumpet, in various degrees of distortion. The album also sees Memotone bring his voice further forward, creating brief flourishes of glimmering effects. On "All Collapsed" and "You Saw the Future," Memotone toys with ideas surrounding a post-apocalyptic world that's stripped bare by humans, whereas the rest of the album takes influence from the Middle Ages -- rituals, civil war, gritty hand-to-hand combat, and a fear of ghosts and the religion that surrounds them. Memotone recorded the rituals practiced at a folk celebration in a village near where he grew up, explaining, "I thought, perhaps there is a reflection of our distant future in our past. Not only the middle ages but spanning human history. We have already lived, and more importantly survived; through times as hard as the ones we are self imposing now." The album's title comes from the belief in English folklore that those born at certain hours could see ghosts. With its layers of abstract noises, analog electronica, and snatches of fragile melody, Chime Hours evokes darkened alleyways and ethereal worlds, making for a deeply immersive album that's a testament to a distinctively inventive artist.