Kevin Sanders :: A Purification of Space (Hairdryer Excommunication)

Cleverly, and most likely a finnicky bit of work, the liner notes have been typewritten onto a single double-ply tissue, in case one needs to dab away a tear in the corner of one’s eye.

Two, eighteen-minute “heavy tape anxieties” by Kevin Sanders, field recordings from empty libraries—a harbinger of a near future, after every written word has finally been digitized and the books have been abandoned? Slowed down, reprocessed as cassette loops clunky and atremble and patinated with guitar, synthesizer and voice, the first piece on A Purification of Space, “Behind the Silence,” sounds congregational and isolationist at once, the sanctification of a factory still being run by its ghosts. A poignant drone exquisitely drawn out.

Whining like an armada of air-raid sirens arrayed on the hilltops of a country already left far behind, “Reflections on It All” grows grand and symphonic, even though many strings snap under an overwhelming low pressure system which, as it swirls, brings those distant sirens back just within earshot. Happily, and highly affectingly, Sanders tames this vortex into the soothing shiver of violins.

Cleverly, and most likely a finnicky bit of work, the liner notes have been typewritten onto a single double-ply tissue, in case one needs to dab away a tear in the corner of one’s eye.

A Purification of Space is available on Hairdryer Excommunication.