Matfelon by Oliver Barrett

Noise;
Iron hoofs, iron wheels, iron din
Of drays and trams and feet passing;
Iron
Beaten to a vast mad cacophony.

In vain the shrill, far cry
Of swallows sweeping by;
In vain the silence and green
Of meadows Apriline;
In vain the clear white rain—

Soot; mud;
A nation maddened with labour;
Interminable collision of energies—
Iron beating upon iron;
Smoke whirling upwards,
Speechless, impotent.

In vain the shrill, far cry
Of kittiwakes that fly
Where the sea waves leap green.
The meadows Apriline—

Noise, iron, smoke;
Iron, iron, iron.

- Richard Aldington, 'Whitechapel'

Tracklist

1.	Matfelon	24:00

Credits

released September 5, 2024

In 2005 I performed a set at Whitechapel Gallery as part of the first 'Wormhole Saloon' night. It was an 8-speaker surround-sound piece, but this basically just involved me playing four pre-prepared cassette tapes out of four walkmans whilst playing cello, violin and other bits and pieces over the top. Recently I found those four cassettes but I no longer have any recollection of what I played alongside, so this piece is a sort of collaboration with myself from nearly two decades ago, playing with the source material and adding new instrumentation on top.

Maybe a companion piece of sorts to 'Shad Thames, Broken Wharf', geographically if nothing else, hence the similar cover: floatinglimb.bandcamp.com/album/shad-thames-broken-wharf

I'd forgotten, but I can hear that a couple of fragments of the orignal piece eventually grew into tracks from "All That Was Missing We Never Had In The World": floatinglimb.bandcamp.com/album/all-that-was-missing-we-never-had-in-the-world

- Written, recorded and produced by Oliver Barrett.
- Guest vocals by Max Bondi

License