Michael Speers - xtr’ctn
CANVAS005
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synthetic listening environments :: created with material extracted from field recordings and processed/arranged using software, alongside electronic signals from no-input feedback + test equipment.
most of the source material was generated at my place of work[as a technician]—whilst testing large amounts of audio equipment—capturing electronics’ internal behaviours + using very high levels of amplification on various small capsule microphones, connected to wireless transmitters placed in resonant vessels/spaces and materials of interest
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"Hold tight the NHS, for I must have my ears syringed!! Never had that done but from friends’ depiction I imagine it sounds a bit like this thing?!
Upon first encounter it felt like “EXTRACTION” was some madcapper tribute to electricity and how much all us tossers take it for granted. However, with a bit less whimsical assumption and one full and interrupted whirl, it presents itself as a fucking WILD and inspired collage of Speers’ occupational hazards as an audio technician, blended with the passing moods of the incidental and otherwise forgotten experiences that make up, eh, YOUR LIFE! Perhaps that paints too humble a picture, given that yee have not yet witnessed what glass-shattering soundboy punishments that await. It’s pound for pound as outrageously nerdy as it is deeply personal. Speers takes high powered microphones and incarcerates them in all sorts of sonic tombs to expose all the subtly surging electricity and revealing the otherwise silent frequencies at which they operate, an omnipresent language within the dither of our surroundings. HARDCORE!
That it is. The crackle spattered seagulls and eye-rattling, low frequency feedback patterns on “obturo” reach new heights / depths of futuristic immersion inna no pyjama zone, before the sonic square-go that goes down on “tombeau” that feels like your driving an old Volvo sans tyres down Gypsy Hill. The grinding, disorientating shudders of it’s frame ripple across your entire frequency spectrum and - upon the introduction of dense, sampled strings - validates your brainticket to an obscene sense of bliss! High is the desire to shpeel about the deadly momentum and rhythmic horsepower showcased on the closing number - “ορμή” - but would once again have to fall back on parallels to malicious robots and this deserves better.
Detailed liner notes lay bare the methods and moments that make up each individual production and through their transparency offer a very much human, bordering FRIENDLY, insight to the inception of this new frankenstein sound work. There is undoubtedly warmth in the thought of someone recording a family member operating a power washer. It’s one of the many things that make “xtr'ctn” stand out from THAT crowd. A symphony of hypersensitive, microtonal happenings that somehow feels like an unlikely but firm kick to the condenser of the pantheon du sound-porn that has ruled the galaxy for f knows how long. Blown away by this. Not for the squeamish...nor is tomorrow!!"
-Kenny White
published by C.A.N.V.A.S.
also available at:
boomkat.com/products/xtrctn
released September 13, 2019
Realised by Michael Speers in London 2017 - 2018
Mastered by Ali Najafi
Additional Mixing by Jacques Beloeil
Artwork & Product Design by AALTAR
www.c-a-n-v-a-s.com
michaelspeers.net
