After a quiet month in August, we return with two full-length releases on the Spirit of Gravity netlabel, from collective stalwarts Noteherder & McCloud, and a collaboration between members of the Gravity and SafeHouse collectives.
Noteherder and McCloud present ‘Clarity of Vision’, a 16 track album that is their first since 2015’s ‘Recent Observations’. Recorded at various venues in London, Croydon, Brighton and Worthing, it features (as ever) Chris Parfitt on Soprano Sax & Voice and Geoff Cheesemaster on Synthesisers, Effects and Voice, gleefully weaving an unsettling but very listenable kind of magic.
Stream and download the album here on a pay-as-you-will basis: spiritofgravity.bandcamp.com/album/clarity-of-vision
TRA 2 is a new name, with an eponymous 10-track album, and some familiar faces behind it. In 2019, I’m Dr Buoyant invited colleagues in the Spirit of Gravity and SafeHouse Collectives to contribute soundfiles for this project. McCloud, midierror, Noteherder and Ron Caines answered the call with recordings ranging from live saxophone and flute to electronic beats for the good doctor to manipulate – a remote collaboration before lockdown was even a thing.
The results are lyrical and evocative – you can hear the sound origins at times, but you can’t hear the joins. The group is dubbed TRA 2, as the 2nd iteration of the TR Agency, an occasional gathering of artists brought together by I’m Dr Buoyant.
Stream and download the album here on a pay-as-you-will basis: spiritofgravity.bandcamp.com/album/tra-2
In July, we released Cookie’s Man-tra EP.
Cookie is Mike Cook, originally from Cleethorpes, who was part of the band Planet Cook in the late 80s and early 90s, then partnered with the DJ Mickey Vespre to release under moniker The Medicine Cabinet. In the mid 90s, Cookie joined a brass band, starting a lifelong quest to improve as a brass musician. Fast forward to 2020 and with brass bands forced into virus-related hibernation it was time to start exploring electronic/brass hybrid music again.
Stream and download the album here on a pay-as-you-will basis: spiritofgravity.bandcamp.com/album/man-tra-ep
The second edition featured exclusive tracks by the artists who were slated to perform at the June Spirit of Gravity show, and is titled Distant Sounds.
Distant Sounds features tracks by Muster – James O’Sullivan (Found Drowned) on guitar with Dan Powell (Static Memories, Nil) on electronics – Meshes, an ethereal electronic noise maker from Kent – and Henry Collins, the artist, performer and extreme lateral thinker formerly known as Shitmat.
Stream and download the album here on a pay-as-you-will basis: spiritofgravity.bandcamp.com/album/distant-sounds
Also remember that the May release is still available: Behind the shutters
Including Vera Bremerton, a classically trained vocalist who specialises in extended technique – midierror, Spirit of Gravity collective member Chris, Synth Explorer, Renoiser, Sample Maker, etc – Yorkshire Modular Society is Dominick Schofield, and ‘is an ethos of creation by way of listening’.
Stream and download the album here on a pay-as-you-will basis: https://spiritofgravity.bandcamp.com/album/behind-the-shutters
Any monies made from any of these releases will go to the crowdfunder for the Rossi and the Green Door Store, our present and our former home venue. Please give if you can. https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/save-the-greendoor-store-and-rossi-bar
