Arklight - "The Callow Summit" (Faulkner Tapes)


Not enough labels these days are named after classic American writers, allow me that editorial...Faulkner Tapes are both the sound AND the fury. The label's fourth release, Arklight's The Callow Summit, was a commissioned work. The label approached Arklight with the request of producing a "world music" piece. They delivered a strangely wonderful amalgamation of soundscapes and rhythms that defy typical associations one has with the loaded term "world music." Beats are cut and pasted atop skanky fuzz and blurgg. It's as if the dial has been set in between frequencies on several radios all blaring in a small room. Multiple rhythms shuffle in and out of these compositions, while genuinely beautiful melodic (samples?) strings and tones weave betwixt the beats. This tape could be called "tribal," I would call it highly evolved sound art. 

Side Note: On the label's page they describe the cassette packaging perfectly with this statement, "The tapes come with hand-cut "j-cards" of pseudo-"World" fabric, painstakingly made using a highly sophisticated method consisting of binder clips, scissors and a Michael Bolton j-card. I guess the band liked them, so maybe you will too." Order this tape because it is one of the better conceptual art projects you will hear this or any other year.

Buy HERE.