Fourth Sounds

Eddie Ruscha, a founder member of ‘90s LA shoegaze band Medicine, and last seen on a zinger for Good Morning Tapes, envisions a soothingly semi-organic ambient microecology for Fourth Sounds in the glistening wake of a Peter Zummo collaboration. Swirling around the square root of Balearic, Kosmische, and 4th world ambient styles, but deftly smudged in between their shiny eyes, ‘Seeing Frequencies’ projects a sublime sound-bathing experience that arguably lives up to the intent to paint a music where “There’s this beautiful moment where everything coalesces, and you just don’t think about anything.” The links between his dual practices of music making and painting are clearly manifest and implied within his richly impressionistic sound imagery, continuing in a vein of work since his 2018 album ‘Who Are You’ with a close correlation between the geometries of his sleeve art and the music’s harmonised patterns of aqueous synth colours. It’s a refreshingly effortless listen that conjures its magic on a near subliminal level, chiming with his instinct toward making sounds that gently “forces you to forget.” It’s an ideal of effect close to our heart, as some of our favourite work in this style has the ability to dim the lights upstairs before we’ve even realised it. Under poetically evocative titles the suite sashays from the shimmering melodic fronds of ’Submersion’ to the coruscating baubles of ‘Slowblooms’ via standout charms such as the sublime grog of ‘Infinite Wheel’, an expansive ‘Oceans Rolling’, and quivering dub of ‘Evening Tremors’. But they’re all best taken in context of the wider picture, which best reveals itself in certain lights and barometric pressures.

Original shoe gazer-turned-ambient electronic explorer E Ruscha V meets Arthur Russell collaborator Peter Zummo on a lush suite of cosmic harmonic projections for back of eyelids and astral armchair flight a la Jon Hassell... “'Thinking A View is a collaboration between E Ruscha V (Secret Circuit) and Peter Zummo, a fourth world meeting of electronics and wind instruments. A joining of East and West. This 14-track soundscape oscillates between ambient, psychedelic, electronic, spiritual and jazz, taking the listener to imagined realms. The sequence flows effortlessly for listening sessions, though each track is cut for DJ use.' Eddie Ruscha on synthesizers, keyboards, drum machines, vibes, tapes, clarinet, various percussion instruments and Mario C. instruments. Peter Zummo on trombone, cornet, euphonium, tuba, conch shell, plastic funnel horn, didgeridoo and voice.”

200 copies limited edition* In 2022, Gillies Adamson Semple made a pilgrimage to the Valère Basilica in the Swiss Alps to play the oldest functioning pipe organ in the world. Built in 1435, this unique instrument is the centrepiece of this sensitive and stirring 6-track release, tracing the elemental themes of spirituality, anatomy, ecological collapse, and the nature of listening in its glacial minimalist drones. Drawing inspiration from the long-form compositions of Sarah Davachi and Kali Malone, Volumes was built from in-situ recordings Semple made in Switzerland, with the aim of capturing the physical qualities of the sound, from the stops and pedals to the air rushing through the organ’s ancient pipes. Treated like sculptural material and re-assembled at Semple’s London studio in the tradition of musique concrète, the tracks evoke a sense of exquisite timelessness, at once part of and floating free of their environment. As Semple explains: “What I like about the organ is that you can make it feel very physical. It has all these mechanical parts that sound really beautiful. And the piece is never performed. It is something that is rooted in the site. The whole pilgrimage to see this organ in Switzerland ended up acting like that, where you’re going to this very sacred place to see this specific instrument, but all you’re taking back is recording.” Released on vinyl via Fourth Sounds, Volumes was initially conceived as the soundtrack to Semple’s 2023 exhibition of the same name at Cedric Bardawil in London.