Beltane greetings

Mayday! 

I *almost* had a new Soloman Tump album ready for Bandcamp Friday tomorrow (2nd May) but its just not quite there yet.  I don't want to rush it, and theres a couple of tracks that I'm not fully satisfied with yet to call them done. But for me, this has been great progress in terms of having an idea, recording things, and being happy with the process / output.

The release will be limited CDr and digital, and i've not quite settled on the name of the album yet.  I had fun printing the card sleeves, an excerpt below, I used storm-fall lichen gathered from Dartmoor, dried out then used as a sponge on ink pad.  The results are pretty striking and each cover will be unique.

The album is a dark drone love affair with discordant dismal loops and low-key murky noises.  Currently 6 tracks weighing in at around 50 minutes long but subject to final tweaks and sprinklings of  mushroom dust.  Hopefully released later in May or I might wait until the start of June.  I will probably play a track on Tump Clump Radio #46.

Happy Beltane one and all.

safehouse demo(n)s

27th August 2019, Safehouse Studios, Oxford.  Where professional greats such as Foals and Glass Animals recorded some of their seminal works. But on this day, it was I, Soloman Tump, who plugged in a load of stuff and made a right old racket for a couple of hours.

I recently listened back to my studio recording, with all of its static, feedback (some of it which was intentional), the plugging in and out of stuff, the fiddling with cables and the general chaos of it all.  And I decided I actually liked some of it enough to stick it on bandcamp.  So, I present "safehouse demo(n)s", 4 tracks in all of their naturally entropic states.  Kind of noisy droney dismal electronic stuff.... exactly what you might not expect from me I guess.

All of these sounds were improvised.  There was barely any planning, I just turned up with a couple of boxes of kit and plugged it all in on the fly.  I probably should have spent a bit more time deciding what I wanted to do, but such is the nature of Soloman Tump that I am pretty proud of how this recording turned out.  If you take time out for a listen, I hope you enjoy it, warts n all. 

And thanks to Safehouse Studio for letting me make silly sounds for a few hours.  I wanted to go back again but then Covid happened, and I moved to Devon.  It's a great little studio, really compact, atmospheric, and given this was August, damn sweaty in there! It helped get me in the "mood" for jamming hard. 

The Tump Clump Episode 10

 

Welcome to Tump Clump Episode 10!

I enjoyed putting this show together - for some reason more so than usual.  Listening back to the recording, I do sound quite relaxed.  Hmm, strange.  A lovely selection of dimsal music for your ears.  

I hope you enjoy listening.  

Please support the artists. 

00:00 Metgumbnerbone - Cailleach Bheur [Anthropological Field Recordings for the Dispossessed, Old Europa Cafe]

06:40 Pact Infernal - Circle 3 [The Circle, Horo]

10:30 Allegory Chapel Ltd - Come Forth [Harsh Noise Movement Compilation]*

*Hmm..doesn't appear to be on bandcamp anymore.  Not sure where you will find it?

16:35 Beth Gripps - Your Stolen Land will Boil Beneath Your Feet [Heal The People, Heal The Land, Vital Things]

22:00 Chafik Chennouf and Kasunori Sawa - False Paradigm [Fragments of Reference EP, The Stone Tapes]*

* I falsely referenced this track as not being from The Stone Tapes release - my bad! It is the opening track of the EP.  Check out the full release HERE. And it is also a collaborative release alongside the artist Kasunori Sawa, so again my apologies for not referencing them on the recording.

25:58 Alberich & Lussuria - Anti Renaissance [Borgia, Hospital Recordings]

32:10 Convulsive Action - Sick, Twisted [Pulverising Image, Strange Rules]

36:19 Stone Jaw - Ourselves in Relation to God [Amphibian LP]

42:35 Dregs of Zen - In Beat-Ween The Days [Dregs of Zen, Weird Garden Recordings]*

*Thanks to TQ Zine 50 for getting the code for this album to me, excellent stuff.  Everything I have heard on Weird Garden is indeed fab so check out the label....

47:52 Mutant Beatnikz - MaCKeral Sky, Mad Piglets and Panda Bear [Bandcamp?]*

*I just discovered this is in fact 3 separate tracks from the 2008 album Animal Farm

54:01 Plague Arish - Cascata (Waterfall) - EXCLUSIVE!

Dartmoor or less

I am currently working on the final part of my folk lore inspired trilogy of EPs.

The first parts were "Grim's Ditch" and "Weland" which were released in the year of the plague 2020 while I lived in Oxfordshire.  They concerned the stories behind the ancient network of man-made ditches and the story of Weyland the Smith respectively, both of which are stories with roots in Oxfordshire.

Now that I live in Devon, I am looking to complete the trilogy with some new local folklore.  I am however finding it difficult to connect with the stories of the surrounding area since I am still fairly new here.  I lived in Oxfordshire for my entire childhood and a good portion of my adult life - so I was able to relate to the stories I wished to tell with relative ease.

Hamel Down Tor at dawn, August 2021

I am however trying my best to do justice to the landscapes and stories that surround me now around Dartmoor.  Using various library books, wild camping trips and excursions into the wilderness, I am beginning to appreciate the wonder and scale of my new home.

It is a daunting prospect attempting to distil a legend of this landscape into a 21 minute EP (yes, I will complete the trilogy with a 3" CDr to mirror the first 2 releases) yet I hope to do it justice by not rushing.  So it should appear at some point later this year.

Sunset over Dartmoor from Bovey Tracey

So far whilst researching Dartmoor I have discovered the principle of the "Palimpsest" - something which is reused or altered but still bears visible traces of its earlier form.  This can apply to literature but also of the physical landscape.  Past generations of human activity have left scarring and debris for us to discover.  Drone photography allows us to see ancient farmland markings during hot summer months on ground which is now considered inappropriate for farming.  A drying lake can reveal ancient settlements in a particularly low water season.  

I am making use of this principle in a year long "remix" effort - I will be recording live performances over the course of 2022 using samples and ideas from the previous recording.  These can be found here for free streaming and download (or a payment if you prefer and you can add it to your Bandcamp collection). 

VITAL THINGS RECORDINGS - STILL ILL

 

Still Ill is a compilation from Vital Things, raising funds and awareness for the Gidimt’en Checkpoint legal defence fund, part of the Wet'suwet'en resistance against the Coastal Gas Link.  The indigenous Wet'suwet'en people of British Colombia, Canada, have faced constant pressure and invasion of their land from private security forces and gas / fracking industry employees.  

There is a whole raft of information on the ongoing struggle here - www.yinthaaccess.com - which is currently a rapidly developing situation.  

Vital Things is the home of the artist A Beautiful Idea, who used to run an excellent podcast which kind of helped to inspire me towards starting The Tump Clump.  

You can buy the digital compilation from Bandcamp HERE or the physical release can be purchased direct from vital things HERE.

Track listing as follows, and as you can see includes a track by myself on CD2, alongside many excellent and more competent artists so it is very much worth your time and money!

CD1
SINNEN - Longshadow    4:24
COLDSORE - SHUT DOWN COLONIALISM    7:01
SANKT - Totalitär2    4:56
1Ö - Struggle    8:15
there are no birds here - Loess    5:20
The Creeping Man - A Veneer Of Patience 4:27
QUARTERSIZED - The Promise of Oil The Cost our Land    5:24
YOL - Frozen    3:12
Bloodkry - Haunting    3:15
Allister Thompson and Matt Borghi - River Of Tears    5:22
 
CD2
Caroline Mckenzie - ...but you cannot own the skies    5:29
WXR_JR - Deep Dirty Water    6:48
St James Infirmary - blood of the red chamber    2:26
Soloman Tump - The Time Is Now    7:28
Henrik Meierkord - Asche    6:18
DEATH/VOW - moth vs the flame    5:10
Boughs - Pray The Sun Rise Again    5:48
Alien Sin - CSF    5:41
truthscan - Music for Influencers    3:19
The New Emphatic - Despotism    5:30
A Beautiful Idea - We Don't Fear You    4:36

I enjoyed creating my track for this compilation.  I channelled some anger at the situation the Wet'suwet'en people find themselves in.  So it ended up as quite a noisy / chaotic offering.  I layered up some digital synth noise, distorted percussion, vocal feedback loops and even my kids shouting - all through my old Tascam 4 track.  So it's got quite a primitive sound to it.  But overall, I personally think it works.  The words "The Time Is Now" comes from the quotes on the Yintha website where they are urging for direct action against the oppressors now.  I hope that in some way my track helps.

2021 EOYL

For anyone out there who has read my zines, you may know that I love a good list.

So this is my end of year list for 2021.  These are the releases I have listened to most often, in no particular order, with links where available, and some photos of the physical stuff where applicable.  I hope there are not things I have forgotten.  

There are 3 great collaborations in here, and numerous self released / small label works.  A lot of things were released on tape because that was an easy medium to self release where record pressing plants were snowed under / closed due to covid / low on materials.... also nice to see a semi-resurgence for the CD for this same reason.  

This shows what an important year it was for artists coming together to create and keep things ticking along. Enjoy and support the artists!

Top row: Shackleton, Lucy & Aaron

Bot row: Ekoplekz, Mark Dicker, Scald Hymn, Knifedoutofexistence, Campbell & Edwards.

1. Dit Sese - Dit Sese (Invisible City Records, March 2021, Cassette / Download).  30+ minutes of "dense electronics and void drone" which take you to the precipice of the event horizon and back.  Recorded live in Tokyo, these 2 tracks contain many of the characteristics of drone music, yet there is a hell of a lot going on in the depths.  Obscure shrills slowly rise and fall, chattering layers are buried in the depths, things drip and grind, heavy tones come in and out of focus.  The sounds mesh together as a heavy smog to get lost in, and I have done so on many occasions.