Fredericton experimental music label Patient Records have announced forthcoming releases by Charles Harding, Counting on Downstairs, and more.
Matt Carter
It has been more than a year since we have been treated to new sounds from Fredericton-based experimental music label Patient Records. Launched in April 2016 with the full length debut by Counting on Downstairs, a project by label founder Eric Hill, Patient Records has maintained a slow, patient trajectory of new releases, compilations, and live recordings.
Last week, Hill announced a series of forthcoming releases for 2024 beginning with a new EP from Charles Harding called Hellsö featuring recordings sourced from a Finnish residency Harding participated in last year.
“This collection of compositions called Hellsö is a solo reflection on select key moments from my time at the Åland Archipelago Guest Artist Residence on the island of Kökar, Åland, Finland in October 2023, with two fellow collaborators from Trajectories, a group of electroacoustic composers based in Montréal,” explains Harding in the liner notes for the release. “The collection’s title of Hellsö, refers to the place that I was living throughout the three weeks I spent on the island, serving as my point of reference while becoming familiar with the geography, history, community, and sensory experience of the place. These pieces of music reflect on three particular areas of Kökar, a mythical island called Källskär that was pushed up during the ice age, a sheep pen housed among residential ruins of franciscan monks from the 1600s, and the wind-weathered top of a rocky hill in Hellsö looking north-west into the Baltic Sea.”
Each of the three pieces on Hellsö are rooted in a series of pipe organ improvisations Harding recorded at the Kökar museum.
“The organ itself was like an old sea beast, hissing air into its pipes, a song of deep weathering, a witness to time and many performers, all submerged in the curated memory of Kökar. The improvisations were subsequently altered and processed, then positioned among field recordings from the respective locations featured in these works,” he said.
Hellsö will be released on January 26. The title track is available now at Patient Records.
Hill’s announcement also included news of a new release by Counting on Downstairs, with a first single arriving later this month, as well as a forthcoming series of archive recordings from Furnace Hour, a collaborative project featuring a who’s who of Fredericton noisemakers.
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