Otoroku presents "cracked breath folds", a heady, labyrinthine release from Nantes-based artist, David Papapostolou. Mixing phone recordings, percussion, saxophone, and voice, the album blurs the boundaries between found and composed, hi-fi and lo-fi, vocalisation and meaning, performer and place; with the outside world never far from encroaching upon the performed elements, sometime adjacent, often seemingly a willing accomplice.

In David's own words: "I wanted to find some form of immediacy in the process of making the music happen. I explored creating material using means that I would have with me at all or most of the time: my voice, my phone, outdoor space. Finding a sense of freedom in voicing sounds outside, on the street, in an underpass. To reach that tipping point in pushing a musical situation towards something happening, It often feels like taking a bold step had been necessary."

The bold steps of the undertaking are hard to refute. Opener, babnacrabni, sets the tone for the album, with disassociated spectral voices merging with the muted natural sounds, whilst a spasmodic saxophone line punctuates the crepuscular murk. Second track, crrrrrrrtttttttii runs on its own internal logic, each rising vocal refrain leading to the next in a ceaselessly yearning chorus that builds inexorably before seemingly interrupting itself, leaving the disparate threads to fray freely at the edge of the weave.

Elsewhere, grrgles seems to eavesdrop upon an urgent undertaking whose purpose remains tantalisingly opaque; mlzaamlzfcrx's initial pastoral idyll gradually takes a turn into the eerie, with a tentative choir underpinned by cymbals sighing into the gloaming; and closer mmsmmsmsmmmm knots an intricate tangle of voice tones which gradually glitch and distort into new assemblages that slowly rise up out of the throat until only the breath remains.

Drawing concrete meaning from the album's five pieces might be akin to seeing shapes in smoke; such a conspicuously personal creative approach must surely yield an equally unique response in each listener. Immerse yourself in its patterns however, and your own forms and visions will surely come.

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Recorded and put together between April and June 2024

Available as 320k MP3 or 24bit FLAC

Tracklisting:

1. babnacrabni - 7.45
2. crrrrrrrtttttttii - 7.50
3. grrgles - 5.01
4. mlzaamlzfcrx - 8.06
5. mmsmmsmsmmmm - 7.33