We’ve another release lined up, and we head back across the pond to the UK as we welcome a label debut for Cambridge based artist Samsuo. This one sees us present some of the purest, most restful drones you’re likely to find on our label in the form of The Other Gold Side which features photography by our regular collaborator Peter Nejedly. This will be available in 2019’s signature gatefold-LP style CD, in a run of 100 copies. We’ll release this on or around the 25th of May 2019. Those who follow artists such as Field Rotation, Stars of the Lid or Chihei Hatakeyama should enjoy this!
Whitelabrecs low-run releases will be made available suddenly without official release dates, meaning they’re likely to sell out fast. The best way to keep informed is to join our mailing list which can be located through our website menu or you can click HERE
press release
“Samsuo is an artist based in Cambridge, UK with a previous release on the Recycled Plastics label and also records as S L Visitor and Demi Odessa. His work as Samsuo began in 2017 and The Other Gold Side is the debut album release on a label outside of his Bandcamp page.
With a background in DJing including work for Ministry of Sound, Samsuo’s Ambient work here draws in looping techniques to create revolving drones, perhaps in a style that meets the minds of Jan Jelinek and Stars of the Lid along with the tranquillity of Chihei Hatakeyama.
The Other Gold Side is as murky as it is fragile, both resting and haunting at the same time. A substantial amount of the music was built around guitar and synth improvisations, looped and with additional overdubs. Sessions could take from between 5 and 20 minutes and it was discovered that within the mistakes, some of the more interesting sounds could be achieved with time stretching and additional processing techniques.
The album was produced after a hectic summer, during a particularly quiet Autumn, when all of the business seemed to feel as it were fading out. Samsuo was drawn to drone and looped sounds to fill in the spaces of silence and he’d spend a lot of time watching the trees and changes in nature during this colourful season. The album he was producing would start out large and drawn out before branching off like a tree, with the tiniest sonic details forming into countless minutiae. The Other Gold Side is a record which explores repetition and the potential complexity of replication is depicted in the quarters of ceramic dish in which photographer Peter Nejedly has supplied for the cover artwork. For the CD packaging, this cover image is flipped as if the dish is turning back into itself, just like the folds of warm, lush drones which represent the turning of seasons, the endless passing of time and things being broken down and reforming anew.”
credits
Written and produced by Samsuo
Mastered by Tim Diagram
Artwork by Peter Nejedly
Packaging design by Harry Towell
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