Hello all,

I’ve been shamefully remiss about posting news updates on this site for a long while now… Bandcamp announcements and the monthly newsletter on my Patreon page have essentially taken over everything else. I’ll work out a routine to get things posted here again when the other posts take place.

The main reason for this post is because a very long-prepared project has FINALLY been completed.

Here’s the announcement:

‘If Brass Wakes A Trumpet’
3CD limited edition compilation, 47 tracks

Finally available! Seven long years in the making!

In December 2017, I unexpectedly suffered a pulmonary embolism that almost ended my life. My response during my recovery was to reach out to many of the artists (some friends, some influences, some both) I had encountered within the experimental/independent music community. My intention was to compile a celebration of the uncompromising sound art movement that had inspired since my teens.

Around 40 artists were contacted. Only one declined and only one didn’t respond. The rest sent me tracks: many of them created especially for this compilation, the others previously unreleased tracks or mixes. Only one track in the set appears to have been released elsewhere. Some of these generous artists barely knew me at all, and I am still amazed by, and extremely grateful for, the generosity of all these creative people.

After this incredibly promising start, I organised all the tracks and designed and tested a (rather too elaborate) hand-made package. What followed was a seemingly-endless parade of difficulties that constantly delayed my completion of the project. Year after year I would send out announcements to the contributors that “this year it will be finished”, and year after year I would be proven wrong. But, at long last — seven years after conceiving of the project and five years after finalising the track list and package design — it IS now complete.

I was greatly inspired by the classic experimental compilation albums that were released during the 80s — ‘The Fight Is On’, ‘Devastate To Liberate’, ‘The Elephant Table Album’ — and I think this new collection is in that same league, if not actually surpassing them.

The details:

This is a sprawling 3 CD, 47 track compilation containing nearly 4 hours of almost-entirely exclusive material (only 2 exceptions) from an amazing range of artists from the experimental (or experimental-adjacent) music scene. It is limited to 250 handmade copies.

The 3 discs are housed in a self-designed and hand-assembled top-loading 3-panel fold-out pocket sleeve. The outside of the sleeve is decorated by 3 art panels, and the inside includes: a self-designed, old-timey ‘Ex Libris’ panel that will be hand-numbered and personalised for each owner; a wistful and sensitive photo portrait of my DVT filter; and a glued-in booklet with project origins, track listing, and a beautiful title design & background artwork created by Robynn Iwata.

It took a massive amount of effort and nearly 7 years to complete, so I’m not selling it cheap. Copies are $125 each plus postage. Due to the limited quantity, I’m only selling them one per customer. As mentioned before, each copy will be personalised to the individual owner.

IMPORTANT NOTE: As this is a very expensive item, so I want to be sure you know what you are getting. The discs are factory-pressed CDs (not CDRs) and the artwork was printed by a professional print shop, but the rest of the package is entirely hand-assembled: hand-measured, hand-cut, hand-folded, hand-glued, etc… While this was all done with considerable care and attention to detail, it inevitably includes all of the inherent ‘charm’ of an hand-assembled object, with plenty of small irregularities and imperfections. Also, it is not made with the usual machine-applied aqueous coating, so a little extra care should be taken in handling. Each copy will come in a protective plastic sleeve.

Copies can only be obtained here.

Here’s the full track list:

DISC ONE

1. Andrew Liles – Walnut Whippet
2. R K Faulhaber – Flood Blow
3. Happiness//Forever + Dorlandra Smith – The Worms Must Feed (Hexagram 27)
4. Af Ursin – Amulette
5. Colin Potter – Raining Rats And Frogs
6. Stilluppsteypa – Orgglee (Old Bali Magic)
7. Fovea Hex – Lullaby [Arise Again Version]
8. Bladder Flask – Zzeut-Zzt-Zzt-Zzt (Pour Chapeau Et Parapulses)
9. Matmos – Im Wald
10. irr. app. (ext.) – Organelle
11. Thomas Carnacki – Triple-Tined Upstanding (A Deliberate Meeting)
12. Current 93 – Passenger Aleph In Name [Unreleased Passenger]
13. Current 93 – Puff The Magic Dragon [Impromptu Live Version]
14. Nurse With Wound – Five Pieces Of Azimuth
15. Heimir Björgúlfsson – Experimental Surf Music (Fairly Acoustic Excerpt)
16. CMNR + irr. app. (ext.) – Rockin’ And/Or Rollin’

DISC TWO

1. The Hafler Trio – Being The Remains Of A Question Posed To Your Worship’s Complete And Utter State Of Being…
2. The Legendary Pink Dots – The Assistant
3. Esperik Glare – Talisman
4. The Bim Prongs – Svankmajer (Warblerized)
5. Christoph Heemann – Die Züge
6. Joolie Wood – Melt With The Snow [Early Thaw Version]
7. Aranos – Seed Of Contentment
8. The New Blockaders – Anti-Variations Pour Une Porte Et Un Roulette
9. Danielle Dax + irr. app. (ext.) – Mammatus & Asperitas
10. David Knight – Invisible Cities
11. Stephen Thrower – Destroying Angel Theme
12. Spoonbender 1.1.1 – The Sun In Tongues
13. Jim Haynes – Cobalt
14. Xambuca – Uhkaava
15. Diana Rogerson + irr. app. (ext.) – Movement In Various Directions [Parts 1-4]

DISC THREE

1. Circle – Rakkautta Al Dente [Finnomani TV, Sveriges Television 2016]
2. Nurse With Wound + irr. app. (ext.) – Hidden Variables
3. Lorraine Rath – Sudan
4. Andrew Chalk – The Chosen
5. irr. app. (ext.) + Coil – Faulty Ecology [Next Generation]
6. Umpio – The Cellarblock
7. Daniel Menche – Live At Leaven Church
8. circles of us – For Even You Will Call To The Ocean And Embrace The Sun
9. Jessica Way – Poems Of Impermanence
10. Thoabath – L. EV. E22
11. Petit Mal + irr. app. (ext.) – It’s Not The Why, It’s The How
12. Darren Tate & Daniel Thackray – Lava
13. App Jextie Irrchie – Shinjuku Elephant Over Tea Horse Moon
14. To End It All – No Hero’s Death [Live]
15. Kevin Gan Yuen – Lungless Ritual
16. irr. app. (ext.) – My Heart Is A Juggernaut

ADDITIONAL NOTE: Track 5 was done without any direct involvement from Coil. In 2003 I was sent some Coil source material by Brainwashed to create a track for a (never-released) split 7″ project. This is a completely reworked version of that track that incorporates some additional Coil raw material that I received later from a different source.