Release Date: 20.04.2024
Format: Gatefold Vinyl
Catalog: WLR158
Genre: Ambient, Electro Acoustic
Simon McCorry is a composer based in Gloucestershire creating music and sound design mainly for theatre and contemporary dance, working with companies such as Old Vic Productions, Tiata Fahodzi, House of Absolute, Javaad Alipoor Company & Fabula Collective. Simon is a cellist, often using the instrument in his work processed and combined with electronics, field recordings, and other instruments. His work has been described as “electro-orchestral drone-scapes of, by turns, gauzy intimacy and soaring grandeur” MOJO. He has recently collaborated with artists including Andrew Heath, anthéne, Requiem and, on this record, Wodwo.
Wodwo is the alias of Derbyshire-based musician Ray Robinson. An award-winning novelist and coveted screenwriter, Robinson's foray into the music world began in 2018, and his gentle ambient guitar and lush neo-classical compositions have quickly attracted a blossoming legion of fans. Ray also records as one half of JARR, alongside fellow Brit, Jon Attwood (Yellow6). Their albums have been released by Hush Hush Records and on the Sound in Silence imprint. Ray's solo output has appeared on NCTMMRN, Soundtracking The Void, Submarine Broadcasting Company and Fallow.
Every Creeping Thing is a celebration of mud and moss and slugs and bugs and roots and damp – songs of the forgotten, the small, the overlooked. A musical approach of letting things unfold and follow their path, passing material back and forth, leaving space and following a philosophy of less is more. A journey that evolved through coincidences, and shared interests in literature and the natural world – the music took its course, taking on its own life.
Guitar, cello, and modular synth are played, processed, and recorded live. Nothing is sequenced or quantised, maintaining an organic breath-like quality flowing throughout the tracks. Through the music’s echoes, whisperings, creeks, calls, fluttering and murmurings – sometimes as walls of sound, often as spiderweb-fine textures – Every Creeping Thing invites the listener to immerse themselves in the intricate net of the beauty of the more-than-human world.
The cover art illustrates John Masefield's lines from The Everlasting Mercy: ‘A rushing comet, crackling, numbing the folk with fear of judgement coming.’ Taken from their collection, The Book of Comets, the artists Christopher Crouch and Cherish Marrington worked together to create something that would be a synthesis of their practices, but which would also propel them into new ways of thinking about representing their ideas. However, these illustrations are less about comets and more about the artists’ retreat into the imaginary.
The track titles for Every Creeping Thing are from Jacob Polly’s wonderful poetry collection, Jackself, which Ray happened to be reading at the time of this collaboration. As the album was coming together, he felt a real connection between the sometimes off-kilter, ‘organic’ music he and Simon were creating and Jacob’s collection. It felt as if they were inhabiting similar worlds: a world of frosty mornings, kidney-coloured pools, rosehips, and buzzards’ wings.
Written and produced by Simon McCorry and Ray Robinson
Mastered by Simon McCorry
Art and design by Andrew Heath
The titles in this album are taken from the poetry collection ‘Jackself’ by Jacob Polly (Picador) and reproduced with kind permission.
The artwork is an illustration from ‘A Book of Comets’ by Christopher Crouch and Cherish Marrington, reproduced with kind permission.
Indie Rock Mag: "Repéré à une époque en violoncelliste pour l’excellent Wizards Tell Lies (cf. #25 ici) puis au côté de ce dernier au sein du projet Hidden avec un EP remarquable (cf. #44 là), le compositeur Simon McCorry, coutumier du sound design pour le théâtre et la danse contemporaine, avait fait ses débuts chez Whitelabrecs en 2021 avec l’excellent The Illusion of Beginnings and Endings aux cordes élégiaques et minimalistes parfois manipulées en nappes ambient ou en motifs rythmiques.
Quelques albums et collaborations plus tard (avec anthéne ou Andrew Heath, entre autres), c’est avec une 4e sortie pour le label britannique que l’on retrouve le musicien anglais, associé cette fois à un certain Wodwo aka Ray Robinson, moitié du projet JARR avec Jon Attwood (Yellow6) et dont l’univers musical est plus proche de l’ambient à guitare et du drone. D’une belle délicatesse onirique (Jackself in his Toadskin Hat, By Water Mite) ou par moments plus sombre et menaçant (cf. les harmonies inquiétantes et dissonances discrètes de By Spores), le résultat tient en 8 morceaux dont les intitulés, inspirés des poèmes de Jacob Polley, font référence à la nature et notamment à ses microcosmes les plus discrets, ceux des insectes ou des spores par exemple. Mêlant la mélancolie capiteuse des cordes frottées ou piquées du premier, plus mélodiques ici qu’à l’accoutumée dans une approche à la croisée du néo-classique et du western contemplatif, et les ballets de textures éthérées du second, Every Creeping Thing se fait ainsi tantôt introspectif (By Snail on its Slick of Light) ou presque kosmische via l’utilisation récurrente de synthés modulaires (The Snapdragon’s Snap, By Leech), lorsqu’il ne lorgne pas du côté du drone doom avec force saturations mais sans jamais se départir pour autant d’une belle clarté de production (By the Mercury Wires). Quant à la guitare de Wodwo, elle tient un rôle plus ou moins important voire prépondérant en fonction des morceaux, avec par exemple sur By the Green Atchoo de belles incursions en trémolos pour accompagner les effets de reverb appuyés sur le violoncelle. Un superbe album d’ambient en somme, comme souvent avec l’écurie d’Harry Towell."
Possible Musics: "C’est à un voyage lent et contemplatif que nous invite le compositeur Simon McCoy, notamment repéré sur Whitelabrecs en 2021 avec l’album The Illusion of Beginnings and Endings. Violoncellistes de talent, le Britannique s’associe cette fois à Ray Robinson (sous le pseudo Wodwo), pour un album qui navigue entre ambient music et Modern Classical. De la musique qui nous invite à parcourir des paysages imaginaires dépouillés à la vitesse de l’escargot. Huit titres dont la plupart dépassent les six minutes pour se laisser porter par les notes de cordes, guitares et claviers jouées par le duo."
Ambient Blog: "With some 160 releases (since 2016), it’s a bit hard to keep up with Harry Towell’s Whitelabrecs label. But it’s worth trying: there are many gems to be found in its catalogue. Gloucester-based cellist, composer and sound designer Simon McCorry is a regular guest on the label. His companion for this release is Wodwo – Ray Robinson, also from the UK – who contributed a track for the january release Sleeplaboratory 4.0. on Whitelabrecs, but has quite a few more releases available on his Bandcamp page."
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