Ben Shemie - Desiderata - Star Dust - VINYL LP

Vinyl LP pressing. Following Staccato Signals, the much-acclaimed third album under his own name, composer/producer Ben Chatwin returns with it's companion piece Drone Signals. Unlike Staccato Signals where Chatwin started with a blank slate and built the music up layer by layer, finishing with the string quartet, this time the process began with everything on hand. The task became dismantling the tracks stripping them apart to see what was left, letting certain sounds or instruments become the focus, and then rebuilding the arrangements around them. This allowed elements to breathe, yet also to become more static. The less chaotic and more ambient nature of these pieces suggested a related album of versions, a conceptual sibling Drone Signals. Feeding string parts through an array of modular synthesizers, utilizing modern sampling and granular synthesis, Ben remolded what was once players performing in a room into new microscopic electronic textures. By using the final element of the previous album, recording the strings, as a starting point to feed into his machines, Ben developed a central conceptual tool of his previous album giving up control even further. The result is a fractured and dissembled interpretation of Staccato Signals as performed by modular synthesizers.

Along the outer limits of the universe, where no path forward can be found, what else remains but the self? Desiderata, the fourth solo offering from Ben Shemie (of SUUNS), grapples with this question. Over the course of ten tracks, Shemie chronicles a wandering soul tangled in it's own dark orbit, searching for meaning in a world of stardust and astral mirages. InchIt's a soundtrack to a movie that doesn't exist,Inch Shemie said of the album's themes and structure. True to it's interstellar themes, Desiderata literally fell from the stars. It's name, derived from the Latin phrase de sidere (Inchfrom the starsInch) bows to the fantastical and galaxy-wide compositions that comprise this ambitious new work. Inspired by the sci-fi media like 2001 A Space Odyssey, Solaris, and the novel Neuromancer, Desiderata conjures a universe of fantastical proportions. Continuing to chew on themes of mindfulness and self-discovery with pop-spiked teeth, Shemie wrestles with orchestral flourishes and synth-powered chaos to tell the story of a world beyond conception or reach. Channeling his classical background and tutelage under acclaimed composer Ana Sokolovic, Shemie combines string fractals, manipulated vocals, and synth-powered chaos to bridge the universes of past, present, and future. To launch his vision of Desiderata into the corporeal world, Shemie constructed a score that was both informed by his experimental pop groundwork and destined to be played by a string quartet. Breathing life into Shemie's orchestral maneuvers was the Molinari String Quartet, one of Canada's most celebrated contemporary ensembles.InchIt's more composition than experimentation,Inch Shemie said of the album. InchThe band is incredible and it mixes some contemporary chamber string writing, with some improvisation and feedback. I want to write severe 'serious' contemporary music, but I can only go so

Following Julys Staccato Signals, the much-acclaimed third album under his own name, this autumn composer and producer Ben Chatwin will it's companion piece Drone Signals, available via Village Green Recordings on 14th September. Unlike Staccato Signals where Ben started with a blank slate and built the music up layer by layer, finishing with the string quartet, this time the process began with everything on hand. The task became dismantling the tracks stripping them apart to see what was left, letting certain sounds or instruments become the focus, and then rebuilding the arrangements around them. This allowed elements to breathe, yet also to become more static. The less chaotic and more ambient nature of these pieces suggested a related album of versions, a conceptual sibling Drone Signals.Feeding string parts through an array of modular synthesisers, utilising modern sampling and granular synthesis, Ben remoulded what was once players performing in a room into new microscopic electronic textures. By using the final element of the previous album, recording the strings, as a starting point to feed into his machines, Ben developed a central conceptual tool of his previous album giving up control even further. The result is a fractured and dissembled interpretation of Staccato Signals as performed by modular synthesisers. In this way, Drone Signals might best be understood as the aftermath of Staccato Signals, a post-apocalyptic sonic landscape. It retains much that made Staccato Signals such a rewarding album it's mournful beauty, the tense, ambiguous relationship between electronic and acoustic elements, and a delicate if not volatile balance between elegance and intensity. This time, however, the palette is broader, more static concerned more with monolithic structures than with sharp edges.1 Burning Witches2 Unravel3 Chiral4 Nordsjøen5 Dendrites6 Lost At Sea7 Cor