"While the Coronavirous lockdown made many things impossible or infinitely more difficult and painful, it also opened up an unprecedented space to think, to reflect and to work in ways that the usual pressures deny. 

On March 17th David Toop and Lucie Stepankova were due to play in a trio with Yifeat Ziv at Café Oto; then on April 9th they were also booked to play at Iklectik as a duo. Both gigs were cancelled, of course, because of the virus. In support of Iklectik, Lucie and David agreed to record a track together in the only way possible, by exchanging files and passing mixes back and forth across the aether. The feeling of working on this first track was positive so they decided to make a mini-album. One of the elements from the first track was a reading by Lucie of a passage from Kenya Hara’s book, On White, and this preoccupation with colour became a theme for the whole project. Other tracks were inspired by the writings of Hilma af Klint on mystical blue, Hokusai on shades of black, François Jullien on the six colours of Chinese ink and Cees Noteboom on the yellow/orange hue of a ceramic bowl. 

Jullien wrote of a transition from ‘physical concretion to spirit dimension’, according to the dilution of the ink. This is how these tracks felt as they emerged between April and June of extraordinary times. When the album was finished it seemed fitting to offer it to Café Oto in a gesture of support and hopefulness for the future of London’s key venues. 

David Toop and Lucie Stepankova have previously played in duos at Café Oto, Iklectik and at the Jhilava documentary film festival. They have also played in trios with Yifeat Ziv at Hundred Years Gallery, Tania Caroline Chen at Iklectik and John Butcher at Hangar Bicocca, Milan." - David & Lucie

David Toop and Lucie Stepankova - composition & mixing

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Dave Hunt - mastering

Oliver Barret - artwork design

“Firstly I shall try to understand the flowers of the earth, shall take as my starting point the plants of the world; then I shall study, with equal care, that which is preserved in the waters off the world. Then it will be the blue ether with all its various animal species . . . and finally I shall penetrate the forest, shall study the moist mosses, all the trees and animals that dwell among these cool dark masses of trees . . .”
Hilma af Klint

“Later technical treatises will list six ‘colours’ of ink, but these are ‘black,’ ‘white,’ ‘dry,’ ‘wet,’ ‘thick,’ and ‘thin’ . . . Depending on the state of dilution of the ink, these gradations foster the continuous transition of beings and things from physical concretion to spirit dimension.”
François Jullien

“There is a black which is old and a black which is fresh. Lustrous black and dull black, black in sunlight and black in shadow. For the old black one must use an admixture of blue, for the dull black an admixture of white, for the lustrous black, gum must be added. Black in sunlight must have grey reflections.”
Hokusai

“The world is like a sumptuous feast of every imaginable colour. The freshness of the trees, the sparkle of the surface of the water, the intense colour of fruits, the fiery brilliance of a roaring bonfire . . . Yet, over a very long period of time, these infinite movements and palpitations of life mix to form the colour brown. The brilliance of nature’s colours is as boisterous as the palettes of the Impressionist painters. Once joined, however, they immediately turn to the grey of chaos. Green leaves are tinged with scarlet and gold in the fall, only to wither away, just like the metaphor ‘return to the soil.’ Yet chaos does not signify death. Rather it is filled with the energy of dazzling colour and will give birth to brand new colours once again.

We can place white within this realm of mutating and evolving life forms. White is the most singular and vivid image that arises from the centre of chaos. It works against the principle of mixture, revealing itself by breaking the gravity that pulls everything towards grey. White is the most extreme example of this singularity. It is not a mixed entity; it is not even a colour at all.”
Kenya Hara

“The bowl had the same colour as the dead leaves . . . the gleam of candied ginger, sweet and bitter, hard and soft.”
Cees Nooteboom