A whirred world of kinetic scree slopes with synthetic colourings.
‘Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius’ (1962) is a Jorge Luis Borges parable, in which an article about a mysterious land called ‘Uqbar’ is the first indication of a vast conspiracy of intellectuals to imagine, and thereby create, a world known as ‘Tlön.’ Stuart Chalmers (glimpsed on igloo here) is a tape-collageist and electronicist, member of the Oxford and Cheltenham Improvisers collectives, active under aliases tusK and skarabee, trailing obscure objects from unwonted realms (cf. Zamzam, Stomoxine, and fbox), and Liam Mcconaghy (Microdeform) is his knob-twiddling partner in Tlön. The link between a Borgesian Berkeleyan idealist theme—that ideas ultimately manifest in the physical world—and this eponymous Bristolian gruzzy electronics and tape collage project may be tenuous, but is nonetheless suggestive, a signifier perhaps of the aleatory creative act as played out on the duo’s debut, Truth In The 13th.
Chalmers professes inspiration from turntablists Martin Tétreault and Philip Jeck, as well as other-directed spirits like Lionel Marchetti, Eivind Aarset and Andrei Tarkovsky, an eclectic distillation of whose spirits presides, as Chalmers (mis)handles tapes, McConaghy (mis)treats synths, and both (ab)use loops and percussion. ‘Simultaneously dreamy and chaotic, swept in curving textures and intriguing torques’ (Rottenmeats), Tlön certainly torque the walk on Truth In The 13th. A whirred world of kinetic scree slopes with synthetic colourings, “Crepuscular” acts up to its name with twilight zoning tones, a viscid dreamscape swept with stretchy synth arcs and dives. Tidal washes sluice through as primal rhythms plague and intrigue, configure and disorientate. Swells and swirls of found sound and unsound clangour. Digital detritus gets caught up in odd angles, plundered junk room collage surfing on sinewaves. “In Accordance With Divine Laws” is Kosmische–inclined drone with incursions from chanting folk voice revenants. “The Secret Portal” is all enigmatic glacial floe before the beat doctor is called and it’s clubbed to life. “Obelisk,” “Truth In The 13th,” and “Ancient Ruins” offer various measures of eldritch digi-drizzle, synth spangle and groove-riven kraut disturbance
Overall, Chalmers, last igloo-viewed here, and McConaghy foment a quiet riot of sometimes freeform—by turns dub-tinged, post-punk, Kraut and industrial—electronics. They set the controls to the hardware heart of the sun in deviant aleatory flights of uncertain fancy, errant melodic doodle awash in thrift-store drift. Truth In The 13th was launched back in January with a gig@The Cube, Bristol, with each act remixing the title track, notably knackered electronicist, Ekoplekz.
Truth In The 13th is available on Birkhouse.
