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Belan -

NoCorner

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>>Last handful of copies now up, once they're gone, that's it!<<


The 2nd split release from NoCorner x Stone King.
A surprise drop of this extra lush, extra-woozy ambient-folk trip from Catrina Davies and Andy Mac, together as 'Belan'.

This one has been playing on repeat here now for many months, and it's only grown on us more and more with each listen - The perfect down-time company and a real soother for when it's most needed. It's a beautiful thing, and makes complete sense (to us at least) as a linkup between Andy Mac's Stone King imprint (their first 7" a few years ago was a Catrina Davies track w/ Andy Mac dub) and NoCorner (fans of O$VMV$M & E B U might dig this type of weird & wonderful too).

"Belan is a set of d.i.y-pin-drop-acoustic songs, field recording collages and endless loops for horizon-fixed eyes.
The themes are loss, desire, freedom, redemption, and ecological obliteration.
Temporal human stories that skit across the surface of the slowly shifting earth.
The material was recorded in winter, 2015 during a lengthy stint in Mid-Wales using a single
(borrowed!!) Sennheiser MD 441 cardioid mic while field recordings (owls, crows, rain, streams,
trees) played on hi-fi speakers in the background. No separation, overdubs or multi-tracking.

The instrumental pieces were made during the same stint in Wales using a Roland SP808 Sampler, a
Korg Stage Echo Tape Delay and a single record of piano sonatas, belonging to the owners of the
house we stayed in.
The field recordings were made in Wales and Cornwall and the songs themselves were written at
various times and places over the last decade and half.
Almost every aspect of the album was passed through the delay at the recording stage, and the fully wet feedback signal used as the final audio making for a heavily tape saturated sound.
The pace is slow. The songs are direct, concise but never rushed and the loops unfurl in their own time, sometimes the mood is tranquil, sometimes it’s desolate. It is an album that operates on it's own terms, like a dream.
Sounds overlap and lengthy sections of hiss occasionally halt the flow between songs, open-air atmospheres and decaying, earthy, tones.
Belan is the memory of a life in the empty space in which it was only ever passing through."

Edition of 40 cassettes, pro-dubbed and served with printed inlay.
Painting by Humphrey Clark, design by Studio Tape-Echo.

TRACKLIST:
Introduction
Homesick
Belan 2
Kingsize Bed
Belan 4
Lost

Belan 1
Cabbages & Kings
Sparrows
Belan 3
Interlude
I Remember

Songs written and performed by Catrina Davies.
Loops by Andy Mac.
Field Recordings by Andy Mac & Catrina Davies.
Produced and Mixed by Andy Mac.
Recorded in LLanidloes, Wales.

 


Belan 2



Cabbages & Kings



Belan 4



Lost