robert hampson: repercussions

Editions Mego is very happy to announce the release of UK experimental musician Robert Hampson's second solo album under his own name. Released as a special two disc package: one a Stereo CD the other a 5.1 Surround DVD-A (NTSC format/region-free -- playable on standard DVD players and home computers). "Répercussions": an acousmatic multi-channel piece commissioned by the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM) in Paris for a performance at the Akousma festival, diffused on the Acousmonium speaker system in 2011. Recordings of percussive instruments of all kinds -- piano, drum skins, gamelan, metal grates, etc., are treated and manipulated to form a dense, non-linear or non-rhythmical narrative. Each instrument has been "remixed" repeatedly, to change its sonic shape or timbre, to try and form new textures from normally recognizable ones. A more direct 2-channel Stereo version is available and a 5.1 surround version, mixed at the GRM, gives an indication of how the piece was originally conceived as a diffusion. "De La Terre À La Lune": an acousmatic multi-channel piece commissioned by Espace Mendes France for a performance at The Planetarium in Poitiers, France, diffused on an 8-channel system. The second piece, following "Ahead - Only The Stars" (released on Vectors, [TO 071CD]) takes its influence from the early NASA missions into space, but more directly from films such as Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Tarkovsky's Solaris and even earlier films such as Pal's Conquest Of Space. Of course, there is also a serious debt to Jules Verne's novel of the same name. Again, a straight Stereo version and 5.1 diffusion mix are available. "Antarctica Ends Here": originally released as part of a split 10" vinyl-only issue with Cindytalk on Editions Mego, this piece has its first digital format release in Stereo and also 5.1 surround. Three textural drones, derived from single piano notes, stretched and looped blend with a field recording of bamboo rustling on a breezy autumn day. Overlayed is a simple and repetitive piano motif which gradually disintegrates into a spectral blur. Its title is in homage to John Cale's final song on the album Paris 1919 "Antarctica Starts Here" and the piece is dedicated to him.