Debut recording from two troubadours of oppositional creep. Inspired by Philip K. Dick and the useless machines that haunt us all, Disfigured with Abbreviations is a roundtable exquisite corpse which crawls through a miraculous environment, at once sensual and sinister. How is it that the perpetual promise of a future lands us in a deeper quagmire? How do two gentlemen with scruffy vocabularies fall into a sonic landscape of such haunted beauty?
Following their debut live performance on the rooftop of a bakery in Northcote, Victoria in January 2018 Harwood and Hopkins soon set about making a recording. Initially structured with individual recordings placed on each other regardless of content and positioning. These works soon evolved into a rich labyrinth of found sound, field recordings, electronics and voice with all elements mapping out a landscape heroic in it’s embracing of utter failure.
Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi with artwork by MP Hopkins and Mark Harwood.
Available as 320kbp MP3 or 24bit FLAC
Tracklisting:
1. My Computer - 10:20
2. Dogon - 6:44
3. Nothing - 4:54
4. Local news - 6:43
5. Dilemma on page 43 - 8:06
Mark Harwood (b. Melbourne) is a London based performer and recording artist working with a variety of sonic and performative elements. Under the guise of Astor he deploys a wide variety of techniques including field recording, musique concrete and electronics resulting in works that are developed as a means of bypassing the cliches imbedded within these disparate worlds in order to coerce a sound world which is simultaneously contemporary, foreign and engaging. Astor takes a magnifying glass to reality and unfurls it into uncanny audio essays. . His live performances encompass a variety of procedures incorporating the immediate surrounds where improvised actions yield spontaneous results leaving both performer and audience in unexpected predicaments, a state of mild hypnosis and potentially even laughter.
He has released four critically acclaimed recordings. His release Inland (2014) came second in the outer limits category for record of the year in The Wire’s 2014 summary. Astor has also made collaborative recordings with Graham Lambkin, Timo Van Luik and Matthew P. Hopkins.
Recent solo performances include New York (Blank Forms), London ( Cafe OTO, St John’s Church) Melbourne (Liquid Architecture), Berlin (NNOI Festival), Antwerp (Brusimelk Festival), Los Angeles (Human Resources). He has performed in collaboration with Áine O'Dwyer and Graham Lambkin at Counterflows, (Glasgow), Kraak (Brussels), Union Poole (New York) and Sonic Protest Festival (France).
Matthew P. Hopkins is a sound maker based in Melbourne, Australia. Hopkins employs a mixed bag of source material; prepared cassettes, found sounds, feedback, assorted electronics, processed voice, and occasional instrumentation, to produce work characterised by awry ambience, sombre refrains, hissing clunk, and odd atmospheres.
Hopkins has released recordings through Penultimate Press (UK), Vittelli Records (UK), Alberts Basement (AU), Canti Magnetici (IT), and Thalamos (GR).
