WE ARE THE WOODEN HOUSES - IMPROVISATIONS

TOR44. Released September 2014.

The first finished We Are The Wooden Houses project of several started this year.

In 2005, I attended and performed at a wake for a friend of a friend. At the wake, my friend was presented with a guitar that belonged to the deceased. Perhaps unprepared for the heaviness,  I was given the guitar to look after. He left the county shortly after and the guitar resided in my attic for nearly ten years. On the 18th of April this year, I decided to retrieve the guitar from my attic, clean it up and re-string it. Once I had done this, I had it connected through several effects boxes and amped up. Instead of playing the instrument, I allowed it to build up noise through resonance and feedback and recorded the sound.

The result of this guitar 'séance' is 'Improvisation II'. The next day, out of the blue and having not spoke for months, my friend called and asked if he could collect the guitar.

The other recording was the first piece of music I made after a rather heavy personal episode. 'Improvisation I' was recorded on the 19th of August this year.

Both pieces of music explore my interest in sound, feeling and the seemingly endless way in which music can be made on electric guitars.

Both tracks were reviewed months later, as Alastair and I decided what to do with our ever growing stash of music. We decided to work on these two tracks quickly, re-structuring and re-mixing. Only using sounds recorded at the original improvised sessions, both these tracks were re-composed into something new.

- Stephen.


 

THE DEAD WEST - THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING

TOR43. Released September 2014


“The Year of Magical Thinking”: a book by Joan Didion, which is an account of the year following the death of her husband, the novelist, screenwriter and literary critic John Gregory Dunne. Didion started writing the book on October 4 2004 and completed it on December 31 2004, a year and a day after Dunne’s death. Their daughter, Quintana, was hospitalised just before her father died and Didion was also caring for her throughout this period (Quintana died in 2005, before the book was published). Didion deals powerfully with grief, illness and loss and documents the process of coping when your life is turned upside down. It is also about coming to terms with such experiences and figuring out what it all might mean.

‘Magical Thinking’: a theory that attributes causal relationships between actions and events which cannot be justified by reason and observation. It posits the idea that people can affect their lives and avoid bad things happening by performing particular actions or rituals. This theory relates to religion, folklore and superstition as well as to clinical psychology.

“The Year of Magical Thinking”: the third album proper (and second double album) by cult beat combo, The Dead West. It was recorded and mixed from early October 2013 to mid-September 2014 - an almost twelve month period during which the band experienced change, loss and much soul-searching, both within the group and in their personal lives outside it. It has been a very strange and demanding time indeed and the 22 tracks which have resulted will most likely reflect this, though exactly how is hard to say at the present time. It is probably the most varied collection of songs the band has yet produced. It may also be the strongest. It’s certainly been a bugger to get into any kind of reasonable shape, if indeed it is.

So, the period has ended and the album is finished. What it all means is open to interpretation.

It’s yours now – make your own mind up.


- David Thompson.