drawn to… Country Tropics by Old Saw
I started drawing this a week or so back after first hearing the Country Tropics LP by Old Saw. I've had this four-track musical wonder on all week and—whenever I had an hour or so spare (not often, as it's been a bumper-sized, busy week)—I worked on this drawing while the music played. In no way does the drawing do justice to the simply AMAZING LP, nor, I think, does it really reflect the music. In retrospect, I think this drawing is just something I did while listening to the LP. Country Tropics is ambient, analogue, avant-garde, Americana, spattered with pedal steel, bells, banjo, fiddle drones, burring nylon, and pipe organ, and it is incredibly soothing. I like this description of the band by worriedsongs, A network of New England string pluckers, organ drivers and bell ringers crafting a rusted and granular shadow world where the dive bar meets the divine. Search out Old Saw on Bandcamp - you won't be disappointed (unless that is, the vinyl is sold-out). And, here is an interview with Henry Birdsey, one of the brains behind Old Saw. His take on how and why he makes music is enlightening and spot on, Sound is innately terrifying and haunting. And
drawn to… Hill, Flower, Fog by Emily A. Sprague
Emily A. Sprague recorded Hill, Flower, Fog at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. And, I have a feeling that, in the future, this LP might end up reminding me of these times more than most music of this period. She recorded its six instrumental tracks in a single week in March, in the early days of the pandemic. “I found myself suddenly a part of that stream which flows now separate from the reality we used to know,” she wrote upon first uploading the album to Bandcamp in March, just four days after she had finished it. (The RVNG Intl. edition has been expanded and resequenced.) “It is meant as a soundtrack to these new days, practices, distances, losses, ends, and beginnings.” Rather than fear or discord, though, she emphasizes a grounding tranquility. Pitchfork NOVEMBER 19 2020 A couple of days ago, the power went out for the whole day in our part of Dakar. This made it almost impossible to do anything apart from sweat and worry about the fridge and freezer contents. As I dripped, I listened to Hill, Flower, Fog by Emily A. Sprague on repeat and made this drawing - before the laptop battery finally evaporated,
drawn to… New Love Music (continuous mix) by Marta Forsberg
'Free' drawing is very meditative. And, in these dark times, I fully recommend it. I also recommend this mini-LP by Marta Forsberg. I discovered her work on Bandcamp about a year ago, and since then I've watched a few of her performances on YouTube. It's all gloriously experimental, but New Love Music is probably one of her most 'accessible' recordings - fantastically simple album title too. I made this drawing blind using a sharpened HB pencil on a 21x21cm square piece of 250g/m2 acid free Clairefontaine paper while listening to New Love Music (continuous mix). Have a listen below. https://youtu.be/A8fRrV5ZsRM You can find more of my drawings to music on Instagram. Lastly, below, is a live performance of New Love Music. https://vimeo.com/325696865
drawn to… Tibetan Bells by Henry Wolff, Nancy Hennings w. Drew Gladstone
An album of Tibetan bell music made by white folk in 1972 might conjure up images of hippy trail beatniks down a Kathmandu back alley attempting to jam celestial monk music. And, you'd not be far off—a lot of this recording is calming and other-worldly—but some strands within this seven-track album are also quite jarring. Various websites state that this LP was "the first recording to use Tibetan bells". I don't know if that's true or not or how you could even verify that claim. I do wonder how these artists discovered Tibetan bells back in the early 70s. Unfortunately, the Internet appears to have very little information about any of the musicians who played on this recording. drawn to… Tibetan Bells by Henry Wolff, Nancy Hennings w. Drew Gladstone (1972) close-up This is another drawing in my drawn2music series. I made this drawing blind using an unsharpened HB pencil on a 21x21cm slightly faded piece of 250g/m2 acid free Clairefontaine paper.
drawn to… A Piece for Tape Recorder – Vladimir Ussachevsky
A Piece for Tape Recorder is an amazing piece of music. It was recorded in 1956 and it still sounds like a transmission from the future. To make it, Vladimir Ussachevsky used "a gong, a piano, a single stroke on a cymbal, a single note on a kettledrum, the noise of a jet plane, a few chords on an organ" and "four pure tones, produced on an oscillator, a tremolo produced by the stabilized reverberation of a click from a switch on a tape recorder". This if the fifth in my drawn to
drawn to… Unerforschtes Gebiet A – Thomas Köner
I used a Marco 9001 sharpened pencil with the paper placed vertically to draw blind to the 21:50 track Unerforschtes Gebiet A by Thomas Köner from his Unerforschtes Gebiet album. It's an album of bitter cold, creaking ice and cutting wind.
drawn to… Vertigo KO – Phew
Why not draw while listening to LPs? It was a simple enough premise, and, in these COVID-times I thought it'd be a good time-filler, and it was. I decided to start this mini-project by drawing while listening to Vertigo KO by Phew (aka Hiromi Moritani).
drawn to… Music On A Long Thin Wire – Alvin Lucier
This is the third in my small series—where I draw to a particular piece of music—hence the 'drawn to..' project title. I drew each of the four drawings below blind while listening to a 6 minute 43 seconds excerpt of Music on a Long Thin Wire by Alvin Lucier.
drawn to… Palm Sugar Candy – Oren Ambarchi
I first heard of Oren Ambarchi last year, when I stumbled across the Patience Soup collaboration with Phew and Jim O'Rourke. Somewhat embarrassingly—given how good his music is—I'd never heard his solo work until last week. I dug around his discography and ended up listening to the 16-minute long Palm Sugar Candy track from the Simian Angel LP on repeat. Simian Angel LP by Oren Ambarchi Palm Sugar Candy is so good that I decided to use it as the starting point for the second in my "drawn to