Dead Voices On Air - Semple Soma Waal
Tracklist:
1. Scratch Hooky
2. Ka Ka Raga
3. Raadio Cage
4. Dieter-Cher Raga
5. Energie Raga
6. Sloworm Raga
7. Blo Raga
8. Yehudi Raga
9. Ear Raga
10. Hecker Rant
11. Yemina Raga
12. Lord Haa Haa Raga
13. Kurtz Said
14. Possible Raga
15. Hassell Raga
16. Land Raga
17. Semple Tutu Plougher
18. Soma Raga
19. I Am Not John Cage
Mark Spybey/Dead Voices On Air: Music and Production Mark Spybey, Steve Marsh: Cover Art Mark Pistel/Room 5: Mastering
Release Date: August 23, 2022
Catalog Number: eH191
Mark Spybey on- Semple Soma Waal - Collection:
When I started to work with Zoviet-France back in the late eighties, it became apparent to me that anything and everything was a potential source of sound. Whether that a was inserting a drum stick into a wheel, using a children’s xylophone or using the recorded sound of me walking on a five quid dictaphone stuffed into my jacket pocket, it really didn’t matter where the sound source came from. We didn’t listen to Buddhist chanting or gamelan and say “let’s give that a go.” Instead, we simply allowed ourselves to make and to compose music with whatever was at hand and I guess, we avoided discussion about what we were doing and why we were doing it.
I can clearly remember thinking, ‘this is meaningless,’ and you know what, it needed to be. The act of making music was for me and still is, a series of actions undertaken by a number of people, with no plan or strategic goal. The act becomes the goal. The doing.
So all sources of sound were considered fair game but especially those that by their design, did not require technical mastery. We just made music with whatever was at hand. Children’s toys are a real leveller, as anyone can play them. Most of the musicians that I admire clearly have catholic tastes in music. So for me, I like to feel able to explore sound and music. If that means using a drum from India or a flute from Egypt, then so be it. It’s why I have also embraced technology, with the same child like endeavour: I have no desire to know what I am doing and why. I just make music, I don’t really want to feel as though I have technical mastery over any instrument.
I was always fascinated by the Ethnological Forgery Series (EFS) by Can that I was introduced to when I bought the album ‘Unlimited Edition,’ so many years ago. There was a reverence and a playfulness to the way they utilised sources of music from around the world, pre-dating ‘world music,’ (whatever that means) by at least ten years. Other bands at the time such as Agitation Free also embraced this spirit of global musical adventure.
For a lad from the industrial, disadvantaged heartland of the UK, this music felt incredibly exciting and over the years I have sought out and embraced music from all sorts of locations and from diverse cultures. It’s bound to be assimilated in some way. I hope that I have managed to do this in a respectful and thoughtful way. I have not sought to replicate any particular form of music, instead, taking elements from anywhere and everywhere, placing them into a context that is very likely, entirely in keeping with the kind of music that I have sought to make over the course of my career.
Semple Soma Waal is one of the many albums I have made that mines this territory and is a collection of what I humbly consider to be the best bits from several recent albums that I have self published on bandcamp. I struggled to think of why I would do this as I really like the idea of using bandcamp to release albums, or collections of sketches, that feel a little unfinished but I believe that these tracks signal a bit of a breakthrough. - Mark Spybey 2022
