Author Archives: Chaffinch

Ghostwriter – Dimensions. Write-up in God Is In The TV

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godisinthetv“And staying with strange sounds we’ve just eyed something rather tasty from ex-farina man Mark Brend. Under the guise of Ghostwriter Mr Brend has been working on some sonic mosaics with a collective of friends that include ex-farina partners Matt Gale and Tim Conway along with guest collaborations with belbury poly’s Jim Jupp and Suzy Mangion of george fame.  A seven inch is imminent via the chaffinch imprint, which according to the label blurb is a ‘walk in the 1930’s in the company of Charles Williams’, who for those previously unaware was a much lauded author admired by Auden and Eliot who described his novels as ‘supernatural thrillers’ and is thought to be the inspiration behind Lewis’s ‘that hideous strength’.  There are very brief sound sample of the tracks on the label’s website – ‘dimensions’ we are assuming being the full on 11 minute suite here revealed as being touched by the stilled atmospherics of a rustic flavouring, which later manifests into a decidedly demurred though tear stained lunar lullaby. Elsewhere you’ll find elements of sweetly ached piano braids dissipating into haunting sepia skinned sound spectres, much recalling it should be said the latter work of dream of tall buildings and a beautifully airy crystal tipped pop purred pretty.  As to the single itself, it’s strictly limited to just 200 copies. On a related note we here are still eyeing Mr Brend’s latest tome ’the sound of tomorrow’ published by Bloomsbury – we’ve been on its case for weeks now having been somewhat blown out by Waterstones, which might mean us having to sup with the devil and visit Amazon.”

Mark Barton – God Is In The TV

GodIsTheTVzine

Ghostwriter – Dimensions. Released 4 March 2013.

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Ghostwriter - DimensionsGhostwriter’s Dimensions EP is available from today!  It can be purchased from the Chaffinch shop, Avalanche in Edinburgh, Love Music in Glasgow, Monorail in Glasgow and Norman Records in Leeds.

Available on 7″ vinyl and limited to 200 copies.  It’s accompanied by a digital download which features an exclusive track.

Ghostwriter – Dimensions. Review in Record Collector

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Record CollectorThere is a review of Dimensions in this month’s Record Collector:

‘These quasi-supernatural concerns, dedicated in part to Christian mystic author Charles Williams, operate along similar lines to Susan Hiller’s art installations, raising questions located at the peripheries of the temporal and otherworldly.

Tuning into Radio Raudive, by way of Ghost Box transmissions (Belbury Poly’s Jim Jupp pops in for a cameo), the four pieces here evoke a forgotten and enchanted Albion, one presided over by gnostic outriders John Dee, Arthur
Machen and Austin Osman Spare.’

Spencer Grady – Record Collector

Ghostwriter – Dimensions EP. 7″ vinyl with download. 4 March 2013.

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Ghostwriter - DimensionsChaffinch are thrilled to announce that our next release will be from Ghostwriter.

 

Following the acclaimed 2010 release on Second Language, The Continuing Adventures Of The Strange Sound Association, Ghostwriter (aka Devon-based musician and writer Mark Brend) returns with the Dimensions EP.

 

Where The Continuing Adventures… parlayed literary ghost recordings and psycho-geographic notes into oblique vignettes, Dimensions offers sonic collage as a distillation of memory, place and recondite spirituality.

 

The title track finds Brend joined by Belbury Poly/Ghost Box’s Jim Jupp for an imagined walk through 1930s London alongside Christian mystic writer Charles Williams.  This 11 minute rumination is bookended with two short pieces, Autobiographical Sketch no. 1, and With Stringed Instruments, A Song, featuring Brend’s former Fariñabandmates Matt Gale and Tim Conway.

A fourth download-only track, Bidding Bell, finds Brend drawing regular Ghostwriter collaborator Suzy Mangion and new recruit Adrian Ramsey into a pastoral/choral conversation with God.

 

This is available on 7″ vinyl with accompanying digital download and is limited to 200 copies.  The release date is 4 March 2013.

Mark Brend – The Sound Of Tomorrow

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Sound Of TomorrowChaffinch will soon be announcing details regarding it’s forthcoming release from Ghostwriter (aka Devon-based musician and writer Mark Brend).  In the meantime, seek out his recent book titled The Sound Of Tomorrow: How Electronic Music Was Smuggled into the Mainstream.  You can purchase it at Amazon.

Here’s a little of what to expect:

Monterey pop festival, 1967. Bernie Krause and Paul Beaver demonstrated a Moog synthesizer to the assembled rock aristocracy, plugging into a surge of interest that would see synthesizers and electronic sound become commonplace in rock and pop early the following decade.

And yet in 1967 electronic music had already seeped into mainstream culture.  For years, composers and technicians had been making electronic music for film and TV. Hitchcock had commissioned a theremin soundtrack for Spellbound (1945); The Forbidden Planet (1956)

featured an entirely electronic score; Delia Derbyshire had created the Dr Who theme in 1963; and by the early 1960s, all you had to do was watch commercial TV for a few hours to hear the
weird and wonderful sounds of the new world.

The Sound of Tomorrow tells the compelling story of the sonic adventurers who first introduced electronic music to the masses.  A network of composers, producers, technicians and inventors, they took emerging technology and with it made sound and music that was bracingly new.