" Second full length release from this solo project created by Gatesheads, Graeme Hopper. The electronics and treated source instruments are often flung at your head as though they were being slung around by tornado force winds, but the action is far from random. theres actually a central pulse audible somewhere in the mix most of the time, which means ( while scattered sounding on the surface ) is potentially danceable for people on the right drugs. Not all of the material is ornery; a few pieces are collaged loops as strange as any ive ever heard, but its almost always possible to pick out what Beefheart called " That mamma heartbeat stuff ". Which usually bothers me, but in this case doesn't." - BYRON COLEY, THE WIRE MAGAZINE.
There are a few tapes left at the label..follow the link below to buy a physical copy...Thanks.
crowversuscrow.bandcamp.com/album/gallooner
Crow Versus Crow is honoured to be able to present to you 'Gallooner', by Chlorine – alias of thee mighty Gateshead-based artist and multi-instrumentalist, Graeme Hopper. Following last year’s 'Loser Herd', released on the Panarus Productions label, 'Gallooner', digs deeper into the artists psyche to construct heavily layered and complex sonic evocations and excavations of the artist’s Self. It is by far the most personal collection of recordings Chlorine has produced.
Anxiety. Loneliness. Self-Loathing. Depression.
All hewn crude in catharsis.
That is not to say that 'Gallooner' is a violent, nihilistic, ugly record. As with many creative expressions of melancholy, there is a deep, complicated beauty within the intricate soundscapes. It’s probably a hopeful record. But its seeds are sown deep in frustration and doubt.
Gall.
Bitterness. Bile. Audacity.
A skin sore caused by chronic irritation.
Brazen boldness coupled with impudent assurance and insolence.
Flaw.
And doubt.
With 'Gallooner', Chlorine has produced 6 eclectic... more
credits
released July 12, 2019
All sounds captured, created, performed, produced and mixed by Graeme Hopper.
Artwork by Graeme Hopper
Layout & Design by Crow Versus Crow
Big thanks to Andy at Crow Versus Crow for his trust and support.
Thank you for listening. x
" Graeme Hopper, a Sunderland artist/musician drably dubbing himself Chlorine here, has his Gallooner tape next up in the Crow Versus Crow release schedules: before him and Posset/Ulyatt and Robert Ridley-Shackleton. This scene may seem cosy oftentimes, but the music isn’t. Here, it’s bleak, foreboding and perversely elegant noise which seems to be assembled using both analogue sound sources and digital processing. A front-loaded tape in terms of its harshness quotient, Gallooner’s opening 20 minutes harbour most of its horse-scaringest moments, layer-peeling fare along the lines of Damien Dubrovnik; in time, this cools into itchy quasi-ambient and, in the case of compelling final track ‘Guilt Swimmer’, massively tundra-banished dub techno that sounds like something plucked from an early-00s Staedtizism comp..." - Noel Gardner, The Quietus.
"" Gallooner I like to think of as a mild form of derision, as in ‘you gallooner’ something you get called when you’ve spilt egg down your shirt, a little bit like ‘you fucking gloyt’ which is the one I use at work. Gallooner is Gateshead based Graeme Hopper and is charged with constructing ‘heavily layered and complex sonic evocations and excavations’, words, which after listening to Chlorine, I agree with wholeheartedly while simultaneoulsy nodding my head ever so slowly. Where to begin? There’s Industrial Techno Noise and wide open spaces filled with dry strummed electric guitar, delightful tape squelch, Nurse With Wound creaky oddness, dogs barking and me trying to think up words to describe this disparate release. Apart from the rather abrupt ending of track one which made me think that this was edited with a machete to fit this is an engaging and eclectic gathering of sounds that leads me to believe that Mr Hopper has yet to find the groove he feels most comfortable with. This is no complaint. The long honking repetition of ‘Confessions of a Broken Temperament’ had me returning many times. " - Idwal Fisher Blog
" Does music(s) ever fully embody the historical contingencies present at its creation? Or perhaps asked another way, can the artist/musician (or the listener [or the critic]) ever sidestep genre conventions or recycled descriptors and simply (!) attribute an artistic work to being a product of its time? Well, sure. Maybe that’s all musics (and art) have ever been: the result of artistic labor framed and formed by the artist’s interaction with material reality in their lifetime (or perhaps that’s a load of historical materialist hogwash). Whatever sound art and musics are (or do), Gallooner, the latest cut from Gateshead’s Graeme Hopper aka Chlorine on Crow Versus Crow certainly embodies the zeitgeist of late capitalism better than many ‘a cultural object to emerge in the last 50 years.
As one might expect, Gallooner contains many of the signifiers, signs, trademarks, tools, etc. of late capitalist musicking; yet, the listener has the distinct feeling that the works are imbued with the artist’s deep introspection, while also possessing their own, autonomous negativity. In Basinski-esque fashion, if the tunes were played enough, they’d eventual dissolve* and any conception, execution, urtext, etc. etc. would be irretrievably lost, akin to planned obsolesce of both technology and goods as mandated in the lifeworld of homo consumericus. Over the course of six tracks, one encounters the symphony of insubordinate office machines (‘Song For A Silhouette’ or the first half of ‘Hindered By Humility’), yipping dogs that fade into Ambarchi-esque sonic voyages (‘Confessions Of A Broken Temperament’, last half of the aforementioned ‘Hindered…’), transitory piano loops flanked by sparse live drums (‘Protect, Lust’), and generally, the sounds of a tumultuous world where the portents of ruin have begun to show, yet the cracks continue to be glossed over in an act of desperate solipsism and penance to the omnipotent market.
In all, whilst not a total negation (i.e. silence), the works contained on Gallooner are something of an inversion: the mundane and incidental are focused (or blurred), manipulated, and reflected back in on themselves. From this, the artist manages to create theatrical soundscapes from the fragmented ephemera of the postindustrial 21st Century wasteland.
***
In the final scene in Akira Kurosawa’s late work Ran (A.K.’s retelling of Shakespeare’s King Lear), the character Tsurumaru [Gloucester] stumbles blindly on the precipice of cliff, dropping a sacred object, before timidly backing away from the edge. I am confident in asserting that the same sense of forsakenness or existential dread present in Kurosawa’s final scene — so grave that it borders on the sublime— can also be encountered on this release.
Fans of Oren Ambarchi’s early work, industrial knobheads, and bleak Warp-devotees would be wise to tune in sharpish." - Marginal Berevity
