1. She Is In The Ground
2. Narrow
3. Dialogue and Passing Judgement
4. Disquiet
Disquiet is the debut album of American composer, sound recordist and engineer Paul Corley.
Disquiet is music that never settles. Music that makes the listener fiercely attentive to the present, to the very idea of listening. It takes some doing, and some patience, to produce an atmosphere so unearthly and yet so radiant, to organise fragmented - sometimes found - sounds into such sparse, sustained and spiritual coherence. As we listen to Corley listening to himself listen and seek a fixed genre point for this music, we perhaps rub together glitch, drone, sound art, post rock and alt-classical, and an as yet unspecified genre called ‘hazard a guess’, and then employ our own discretion.
Although Disquiet is Paul Corley’s first album on Bedroom Community, he is no stranger to the label. Having collaborated extensively with the Bedroom Community collective since 2007, the label is proud to add Corley to the intimate roster that now comprises of seven highly original artists. Disquiet is a welcome addition to the catalogue; at the same time an album of delicate, primal (prepared) piano variations, a sequence of exquisitely reflective slow songs, and a metaphysical field recording where resonances are set off by real and imaginary geographical features. The album seems to be the recording of a dream, not necessarily Corley’s own, as if he slipped into the mind of someone asleep and calmly set up his equipment. Disquiet suggests a walk through an icy wasteland under a darkening sky, with unspecified creatures lurking at the edge of vision, a drifting walk that ends in the shadows of a vaguely familiar deserted city. Some might discern in the distance the footsteps of Morton Feldman who has once passed nearby or is about to, or might spot some wires discarded by Chris Watson and a question or two written into the sand by Anton Webern.
When asked whether this is music representing something coming into being - a growing in confidence or something dissolving into deep, equivocal quiet beyond which there is only space - the answer is simple, yet complex. “Both at the same time,” Corley replies - somewhere between hazarding a guess, and knowing for sure.
credits
released November 5, 2012
All songs written and produced by Paul Corley
Mix - Valgeir Sigurðsson, Paul Corley, and Paul Evans
Mastering - Valgeir Sigurðsson
Additional Engineering - Paul Evans
Guitar on 2, 3, 4. Programming on 1, 3 - Ben Frost
Contrabass on 1, 3, 4 - Borgar Magnasson
Guitar & Programming on 2 - Matthew Collings
Photography - Alexander Gehring
Graphic Design - Stephen O'Malley
Silicone cast - Max Goodman
Recorded and Mixed at Greenhouse Studios - Reykjavík / Studio Manager Sturla Mio Þórisson. Additional recordings in Ft. Greene and at The Wolfshack.
Contains a sample from “Occult Voices – Paranormal Music, Recordings of unseen Intelligences 1905-2007“ published by Thomas Knoefel und Andreas Fischer, Köln, 2007. Used with permission.
Special thanks to:
Everyone at Bedroom Community and Greenhouse
Family and Friends
Dan Bora
David Anderson
Antony Payn
Tim Hecker
Brian Eno
Ben Chatwin
Dan Dryden
Paul Corley is an American composer, producer, and sound artist who since 2007 been a member of the Icelandic music collective and record label Bedroom Community.
Densely bright, rhythmically inventive. The hostility in this music is incredible. It’s cool as hell all the way through. the_dirty_deed_you_requested_is_done
It certainly takes concentration to listen to this kind of music that flourishes on sensitivity for the detail, slow evolving movements, atmospheres of sound. A fresh experience in the overload of standard pop. Avant-garde without the intellectual distance often felt by listeners, although personally I don't have a problem with too much intellectualism, but still, this record works on many levels. Hesperus
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