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Cassette
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TTW 141CS
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Both tracks produced by Robin The Fog at The Sticky Shed, Penge during lockdown 2020. Side A features a recording of a wine glass. Side B is created entirely from closed input sounds of the tape machines themselves. One take, no edits, no overdubs, no artificial FX. Mastered by Steven McInerney. A.H.M.F. and long live the Wyrm. Robin The Fog is a sound designer, radio producer, audio archivist, educator and occasional DJ based in London. His work falls under the broad term "radiophonics" and includes composition, sound installation, field recording and documentary. Best known as founder and chief strategist of "tape loop quintet" Howlround, he also produces work alongside DJ Food and Chris Weaver as The New Obsolescents and with Ken Hollings as The Howling. Originally described as a "second wave hauntologist", his current obsession is attempting to use closed-input feedback loops to create primitive techno, which is quite a long way from where he started. His biggest fear is being swallowed by a python, but living in South London he appreciates the contingency is a remote one.
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LP
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TO 108LP
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In December 2017, Howlround (Robin the Fog) was invited to perform at "The Winter Solstice Soundscapes" for the recently opened record store "Vinyl Café" in his home town of Carlisle, Cumbria. Inspired by the reception to his first ever performance in the great border city, he covered his parent's dining room table with the same equipment, stretched loops of tape around his mum's seasonal candlesticks when she wasn't looking... and this LP is the result. The only equipment used on the album is two 1/4" reel-to-reel tape machines and one microphone. The sounds created are entirely at the discretion of the machines (much of them derived from "closed-input" recordings) and all tracks were produced in a single take. There are no edits, no overdubs and no additional effects. This marks a new, heavier direction for Howlround, a project better known for more ambient work. Described as "Tapeloop Techno", thick knotty tangles of dense, pulsating bass are an echo of Robin's early days making bad dance music, while the abrasive snarls of feedback swirling around these tracks point to his more recent embrace of indeterminacy and chance composition. Previous vinyl releases on Psyché Tropes, The Wormhole, A Year in the Country, and Front & Follow as well as his own label The Fog Signals have shown a deep understanding of the possibilities of tape manipulation. On The Debatable Lands, Howlround eschews the usual field recordings in favor of exploring the interior world of the machines themselves.
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LP
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TROPES 002LP
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Comprised of Robin The Fog, Chris Weaver, and four reel-to-reel tape machines, Howlround create unique and immersive compositions and performances by direct manipulation of natural acoustic sounds on magnetic tape, with additional effects and artificial reverb strictly forbidden. For the soundtrack of Steven McInerney's A Creak In Time, their most ambitious yet, the group have created a striking body of work made entirely from field recordings of different objects creaking: tiny and insignificant sounds that, when amplified and extended via magnetically charged oxide particles, begin to take on a curious new identity. Taken from source material discovered in London, Yosemite, and the Mojave desert, these sounds, through simple manipulation, gradually cast off their moorings and head into space, leaving their original identities far behind and chiming perfectly with the film's recurring themes of transformation and altered perception, switching scale from microscopic topography to the vast distances of the cosmos. Shot entirely on 16mm film with a musique concréte soundtrack, it's both science and fiction, marking a dramatic new direction for all involved. Psyché Tropes is an independent label and film project run by Steven McInerney (Merkaba Macabre) dedicated to exploring the synesthetic intersections between sound and its visual counterpart. Comes on 180 gram vinyl.
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