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Wren / Le Chat Est Parti

by Joseph Quimby Jr

/
  • Limited Edition Double Cassette Release
    Cassette + Digital Album

    Both cassette comes house in a double sized case. All tapes a pro dubbed. Les Chat Est Parti dubbed on Pale Blue shells. Wren dubbed onto Pea Green shells. The 2 panel inlay has been printed on 300gsm recycled paper and also comes with an insert printed on 300gsm recycled paper. Only 30 copies in stock!

    Includes unlimited streaming of Wren / Le Chat Est Parti via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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1.
Mensonge 09:20
2.
Ariane 06:28
3.
4.
5.
6.
Sans Sommeil 06:46
7.
2 Years 08:53
8.
Bins 08:01
9.
10.
9 Years 04:35
11.
12.

about

Joseph Lawrence Quimby makes his monumental return to Tombed Visions with a double album of richly constructed and awe inspiring sound worlds. Both Wren and Le Chat Est Parti act as perfect companion pieces that solidify Quimby as one of the premiere voices working within the experimental ambient scene and shows, in abundance, a detailed and skilful consolidation of found sounds, textural manipulation and magnificent song craft . Of both cassettes, Wren has the darker heart and is built round two long form pieces that each stretch over 20 minutes. Viande Secète dark excavations soon moves from disquieting sighs of morose song into a shuddering hauntological dread whereas a ‘Return to Latvia’ glacial pace simmers into a blinding organ sunrise. This overblown radiance of color is shown again in opener Mensonge, whose organ tones grow round airport field recordings and climb to a brilliantly redemptive end. Ariane is perhaps the most majestic of Wren’s songs, whose stirring strings coruscate proudly through a sculpted, mechanical rhythm and offers tribute to one of Quimby’s musical heroes Jóhann Jóhannsson. The balm of this beauty is counteracted with a further jaunt into disquiet on Les Migrateurs as creaks of cello, snatched hummed vocals and a swirling alien exhale build curiously into a tapestry of audio ephemera. Le Chat Est Parti focus is more explicitly geared toward repetition. Bins might be the hit of the record; a gorgeous, nodding mind massage that throbs with the pulse of dub techno and blooms with every loop like some maximalist dedication to Oval. References to Markus Popp continue on Toute La Ville and Saint-Quentin-en-Tourmont, pinging across the mix spritely, citrus colors of clipped guitar tones awash with the sounds of the sea. Sans Sommeil and Scenes De Rue are voiced by lilting pianos, warm as they are ghostly and have a pronounced chamber music feel in their sensitive control of echo and space. Although sharing nothing in character, 2 Years and 9 Years are the most distinctive pair of songs the record. 2 Years clipped percussion and chirps of birdsong roll hypnotically and acts somewhat as palate cleanser in it sparseness. 9 Years is the truest song on the record, Quimby’s mournful voice simply framed by acoustic guitar and trampled gravel found sound, spilling forth a confessional tale of self-destruction that is markedly direct and all the more affecting for it. The breadth of Quimby’s compositional skills are shown in all their wondrous variety throughout both cassettes, offering a stunning multi-dimensional experience for the listener to travel through with their ears, revealing further treasures with every journey. It is without doubt his most assured and confident work to date and in turn his most beautiful.

"Darker, and somewhat harder to read, is Wren / Le chat est parti, a new double cassette release from Joseph Lawrence Quimby Jr on Manchester’s consistently excellent Tombed Visions imprint. This is dark ambience at its unassuming best, conjuring up images of endless dimly lit Alphaville-esque corridors and fog filled passageways. It’s a somewhat exhausting listen on account of its length, but it’s an enormously accomplished effort from an artist on top form."
- Benjamin Bland, Drowned In Sound

"For his fourth contribution to the label, Joseph Lawrence Quimby Jr has compiled a sprawling double cassette, containing 12 tracks of the man's often beautiful and meticulous drones, field recordings and generally fantastic sonic assemblages. The original source material is deeply veiled as on the harrowing 'Ariane', which opens to the noise of some sort of unidentifiable cutting machine. Past works from the composer, such as the swirling drones of Riga recorded in the Latvian capital, have drawn liberally from a deep well of rich melody, as seamless loops and haunting faded memories of ghostly cityscapes coalesce into rich, powerful, and emotive grand monolithic statements. The 23-minute 'Return to Latvia' aptly returns to Riga's pretty ambient lyricism, but takes several unexpected twists and turns on its journey, backward masking sounds and adding plucks and ultimately dissonance to the mix. Quimby's quickly maturing as a composer, broadening his palette significantly, and striding boldly into new and less comfortable territory, as on the chilling devilish urban night portrayed on 'Les Mgrateurs', or the glitchy rainswept stasis of 'Bins' (which incidentally sounds exactly like some long lost cut from techno Wolfgang Voigt's epochal ambient GAS project). At a full 2 hours both cassettes are a hell of a lot to take in, but in a sphere awash with throwaway drone projects, Quimby's created one of the few you'll end up loving, cherishing, and returning to in the future - late at night some evening when sleep won't come, but you still need to dream."
- Tristan Bath, The Quietus

"Double album split into two parts named Le Chat Est Parti and Wren is an astonishing piece of work released under the name of Joseph Lawrence Quimby Jr released by Manchester label Tombed Visions it sees Quimby performing under his own name, solo. Going beyond ravechild’s normal Scottish boundaries to include a review by an English label it should be noted to the uninformed that this is the same artist who manically shouted, spluttered and spewed vile messages in Take A Worm For A Walk Week, the one take wonder of Remember Remember’s guitar section and under the Hivver moniker provides Glasgow scene separate experimental music along with other solo artists as P6/Security and Ela Orleans. The tradition of reclaiming ones own name, or earning the given name, has to seen as the development in a performing artist’s career. This is no different; with the exception that with LCEP/Wren Quimby more than earns the right to perform under any guise. Clocking in at two hours, it is a piece of work that requires dedication and suitable listening equipment. In following these steps the listener is greatly rewarded with a highly textured, compositional sophistication wash that beyond providing an emotive wash results in aural transcendence. Use of environmental and found sounds it leans towards hauntology concepts rather than what is commonly associated with drone; this provides characters as opposed to intense sustained tones. Similar to the work resulting from his ongoing collaboration project Knights of the Invisible with contemporary dancer Iona Kewney, the compositions are a combination loops made of effected/manipulated electric and acoustic guitars, found sounds, cello, organ and vocals; each precisely situated and manicured to fit best within surroundings. Wren focuses more on mechanical found sounds, these eerie percussive qualities coupled with the bows of cello and what seems like horn drones in pieces such as ‘Ariane’. Wren’s is the lengthier side of the album with two sides having two 20-minute tracks. The distinct tactile aesthetic of Wren contrasts the smoother icier sheets of sound that make up Le Chat Est Parti. Fear not, the changes are not frustratingly slow; this partly due to the high definition of the recordings, details that would be lost in muddier production gleam and shine when they fade in and out of the foreground. Well worth the money."
- Paul Choi, Ravechild

credits

released January 31, 2015

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Tombed Visions Records Manchester, UK

Tombed Visions is a Manchester based cassette label specialising in improvisation, ambient music, experimental electronics and noir aesthetics and aims to showcase the fringes of contemporary independent music. All releases are limited edition and packaged with care, combining a love of graphic design, photography, typography with the wondrous sounds released. ... more

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