ArtistInfo

Christopher McFall
Lost At Sea And Seldom Found

Album PT 2010 on Impulsive Habitat label
Electronic and Spoken Word (Field Recording, Abstract, Experimental)

When I started working on the Impulsive Habitat release, I first composed the track 'A Black Nightingale Ascension' which reflects some of my newest workings done with treated tape, vocal, field recordings, piano recordings and sampled material. There's a lot of twists and turns with this particular track and the routing of the composition seemed to imply an innate sense of journey. Some of the field recordings were composed from source material of birds here in the city, a favorite recording source for me for some time now. With all of this in mind, the title came into being. There are some engaging melodies that emerge out of the murky static and to me, the recordings convey a sense of broken nostalgia, of loss and recovery. With the concept of broken nostalgia and of loss and recovery in mind, the idea of going back to the archives and work with lost and unfinished material seemed like an interesting way to give to "Lost at sea and seldom found" a substantial turn. The track 'As Red As Snow Could Be' is an alternate version of a release I did for 'Self-Preservation Intact With Teeth.' Effectively, this work was reworked and remastered for the final composition. I rather enjoyed this version in particular and wanted to share it with everyone. It reflects a certain subtle interplay of sounds; a slow swoon into the abyss. 'Hallowedweenie' has remained unreleased to date and was composed from sounds from the local train yard as well as random field recordings. A funny story accompanies this piece, as I originally composed it for play in a haunted house at a Halloween party that this girl Beth had organized. The whole affair turned out to be a bust because when the party came around I was sick with the flu. I had this infatuation with Beth at the time and she was interested in my work, so there were a few other possibilities at play there, I suppose. On the day of the party she called asking that I bring the work to the haunted house but I was too sick to drive it there. She refused to send someone by to pick it up, so it just stayed on my computer until now. My friend Robert stopped by to check in on me that day and I was sort of down about how things had worked out with this one, as I had put some serious time and effort into composing this track. I was also a bit upset about Beth. Robert listened to the work and really enjoyed it. He also sympathized a bit with me about blowing things with Beth. As he left he said "Well, it is what it is. You should just call the track 'Hallowedweenie!' Hahaha! You win some and loose some." and so that's what it became. So, everyone please do me a favor and give it a play on Halloween, if you think of it. 'The Persistence of Breakable Memory' is a rework of some of the material I did for 'Grayscale Is Failing' and the result came out really well. 'Track III' is a variant of the release 'Friend of 12.' This version is shorter but the remastering really brought out certain aspects of the work that seemed to be missed in the original version of the release. After listening to the original version a few more times, I felt that some of the parts came off a bit 'murky' and there were parts that I wanted to rework, so this is the resulting track. -Christopher McFall

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