Navel-Gazers #67 is an interview with Dan Burke who is going to talk to us about Ecstatic Crisis . First released on cassette in 1986, it’s one of the earliest releases in a vast discography of music by Illusion Of Safety, Dan’s nom de plume over the decades as he and his cohorts have traversed the field of experimental sound across multiple idioms, as his website recounts. I’m drawn to voices in the mix on ‘Ecstatic Crisis’ which grab hold of my attention, seeming to suggest that this album would very much like to be discussed, that the work warrants some kind of a response. It’s as though I’ve permeated an lllusion Of Safety solar system somewhere in deep space, and among all the planets and satellites of various hues and shapes and sizes at which to marvel, I’ve spotted one with signs of an especially attentive, sentient kind of life, one I just might be able to communicate with. Illusion Of Safety hails from Chicago, and I’ve always appreciated the eclecticism of that...

Navel-Gazers #66 is an interview with Miki Yui who is going to talk to us about small sounds . One thing I can scarcely resist is an album comprised of numerous very short pieces of music. It’s an inviting format, perhaps subconsciously because some part of us imagines - accurately assesses, in many cases - that maybe, we can drop in to sample a track or two and get the flavour without listening to the whole thing! But the impression of this even being the format is somewhat illusory in the case of ‘small sounds’ - none of its tracks is under one minute, in fact one is over seven minutes long. It’s perhaps something about that title - and the brief track titles - which reads back like such a succession of vignettes, and yet simultaneously seems to suggest that we’re very much meant to listen to the whole thing, in sequence. And to my ears, this is where the reward lies for the listener: the enchantment of ‘small sounds’ lies in the contrast between different pieces as the...

Navel-Gazers #65 is an interview with Nicola Woodham who is going to talk to us about Parenthesis . Lurking around music events in London one encounters countless performers who have some sort of presence on Bandcamp or Soundcloud - it’s not always easy to navigate through everything being released and locate the special gems. For some reason when ‘Parenthesis’ was released, it instantly caught my attention. Despite Nicola being a prolific artist with an affinity for all different formats - she performs, she produces tangible media of various kinds, she even invents new technology for artists - I’d never come across any full length albums. ‘Parenthesis’ radiates with a sense of purpose and determination. Its sole sound source is the human voice, and I like the way that those voices - along with that title, explicitly - send me scrambling for context in tried-and-true Navel-Gazers fashion. There are supplementary materials which are integral to the work, starting with the t...

Navel-Gazers #64 is an interview with Francisco López who is going to talk to us about HIMAVANTA . I’m sure that this is the most preparation I’ve ever done for an interview, as we’re going to be discussing a work which is nearly 11 hours long. These recordings, which are all from rainforests in various parts of Thailand, have certainly gotten under my skin over the last few days, as one can imagine. In terms of formulating the right questions it’s an essay of Francisco’s called Sonic Creatures which he mentioned to me - accessible on his website - that’s guiding me in the right direction, towards a line of thinking which is non-intuitive but most illuminating. You may know of a thought experiment where if you repeat a word enough times over, it may seem to lose its usual associations… that’s a peculiar consequence of extended listening, and after 11 hours of ‘HIMAVANTA’ I’m in a similar frame of mind. There’s a rational awareness of course, that these sounds are tethered...

Navel-Gazers #63 is an interview with Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson and Andy Heck-Boyd who are going to talk to us about Ideas On Tape . Easily my favourite release of 2022, I recall what first caught my attention, it was that title: it seemed to denote something fundamentally vague, non-committal, perhaps unfinished even, and yet - to my ears - simultaneously mythic somehow, or conceivably so and that’s how I’ve come to regard it. If you’ve not heard ‘Ideas On Tape’, prepare to be pleasantly bewildered as its creators conjure 39 minutes of material in a format which drifts between real- and deeply unreal-time, each taking turns muttering into the microphone in ways which are remarkably consistent in terms of a certain offhanded tone of delivery from the two artists but which vary in all other observable aspects. The vocal passages here range from found text to self-referential narratives to totally wordless ghostly wailing. Playback timbre and speed fluctuate wildly. And am...

Navel-Gazers #62 is an interview with Tatyana Waldron a.k.a. Cosmeana who is going to talk to us about Swamp Lantern . This is an album which managed to come along just at a point when I was looking for something new and different. What got my attention - as is so often the case - was a cover image, in this case an artwork of Tatyana’s. It depicts a pair of outlandish figures, painted in cold, iridescent colours of a shade I’d wager anyone rarely encounters outside of the subconscious, mired in what one assumes is the titular swamp. And the music in turn seems to transport us to that very place. In fact an album like ‘Swamp Lantern’ causes me to stop and reflect on the wonder of sound-making: how is it that an artist using only the production, placement and presentation of sound can seem to conjure something so similar to tangible, observable space in the ears of the listener? Knee deep into track 3, Unrecognised flowers it’s as though I’m right there in the marsh with th...

Navel-Gazers #61 is an interview with Daryl Worthington a.k.a. Beachers who is going to talk to us about There are no cicadas in this town . I’ve been lucky enough to obtain access to this music prior to its release - I have to say the effect is rather ominous, almost like glimpsing into some previously-thought-to-be-indeterminate future, maybe one pervaded by ketchupy red smog of the kind depicted on this album’s cover. The soundscape of its first track, where Daryl has recorded the mechanical malfunction of a bus careening around London’s Zone 2 (or who knows, maybe Zone 3), is familiar enough to me, but it’s not long before the plot thickens. With Daryl’s music what always intrigues me is a jarring sort of interplay between different ingredients in the mix, being imparted to the listener-observer in a particularly transparent fashion. In a live context, no matter how clueless I personally am about electronics I can always follow along as he collates all the various ele...