We’ve taken a pause from our schedule of CD albums due to our local post office closing, following the outbreak of Covid19. We launched a digital series called Home Diaries, in which we’ll release EPs and albums by an international line-up of artists, with the music created during lockdown and social distancing conditions.
The series reflects a range of sounds, styles and ideas, as each artist portrays their own reflections uniquely. Each release is digital only for now, as we hope to raise what we can to help keep our label ticking over at this time. The releases feature a recurring polaroid image of a small lonely house, with a coloured filter chosen by the artist for each respective release.
We’re now at 10 releases in our Home Diaries series today, as we welcome Edinburgh, Scotland’s Chris Dooks. Chris has released with labels such as Hibernate, Eilean and Idioholism and has even worked with Machinefabriek in a collaboration! Drones for The Borders is a five track mini-album of dynamic synths, field recordings and short wave radio. It includes music/video drone footage of the landscape near to the border, not far from where he lives. This record deals with this landscape, the drone footage and themes of failing communication too.
We have an exciting line-up to follow and each release will include bonus PDF liner notes, which has an interview with the artist on how they made the album, what their situation is like, what they have planned, their influences and what equipment/techniques they used. There are also additional photos provided by the artist as part of the PDF too. Click on the link below to check it out:
-LABEL LINK-
https://whitelabrecs.bandcamp.com/album/home-diaries-010
-ARTIST LINK-
https://chrisdooks.bandcamp.com/album/drones-for-the-borders
press release
“Home Diaries is an invitation to artists and musicians to create an album or EP to document their personal experience during the lockdown or social distancing conditions that are upon us, due to the coronavirus outbreak. The series reflects a range of sounds, styles and ideas, as each artist portrays their own reflections uniquely. Each release is digital only for now, as we hope to raise what we can to help keep our label ticking over at this time. The releases feature a recurring polaroid image of a small lonely house, with a coloured filter chosen by the artist for each respective release. We interview each artist and this is included as a bonus PDF with the download. You can also check out the Home Diaries series on Spotify if you prefer, which will be available to stream in due course.
For our tenth release, we’re joined by Edinburgh, UK based artist Chris Dooks who as well as being active in the photographic field, has releases on Hibernate, Eilean Rec, Idioholism and Komino. The latter was a collaboration with the prolific Machinefabriek for an album titled The Eskdalemuir Harmonium which was pressed to red vinyl back in 2012.
Chris and his family have remained indoors more frequently than others during lockdown, to shield themselves from risk. Drones for The Borders is a five track mini album of synth, field recordings and short wave radio. The work is full of dynamic character and wide ranging moods lending themselves to the landscape of the borders, which Chris captures during recorded drone flights. Themes of communication failure also bleed into the grand, wide-open spaces of this record, as the fuzz of short-wave radio hums. A short video for Soutra Aisle has been included as a bonus item as part of this Home Diaries release.”
credits
Written and produced by Chris Dooks
Mastered by James Edward Armstrong
Artwork by Harry Towell
whitelabrecs.com 