tim parkinson: pleasure island

Pleasure Island is British composer Tim Parkinson's disquieting and joyous Slip debut: play time in end times. Titled after the Disney adaptation of Paese dei balocchi (or the "Land of Toys") in Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883), Pleasure Island is a metaphysical playground of organic and digital cohabitation, its inhabitants pacified by toys and comforts. Alongside Dawn Bothwell, Suze Whaites, Laurie Tompkins, and Francesca Fargion, Parkinson exerts an uncannily emotional pull from an unlikely but potent alliance of ultra-minimal aesthetics, dead-beat drums, junk electronics, and mechanized mantras. Voices are hemmed in by electronic sound. People buffeted around by machines. Words surrounded by garlands of digital interference. Time repackaged as countdown. Tim's trash-opera "Time With People" continues to be performed around the world, past champions of which include Object Collection, a.pe.ri.od.ic, Edges, and NEC, and he is a co-curator of London's longstanding "Music We'd Like To Hear" series. Despite decades of fiercely independent production, this is his only piece conceived of first and foremost as an album.