Ben Chatwin: Drone Signals
Village Green

Ben Chatwin: Staccato Signals
Village Green

Ben Chatwin's work has always been distinguished, whether we're talking about the guitar-based recordings he earlier issued under the Talvihorros name or the recent ones released under his birth name, The Sleeper Awakes (2015), Heat & Entropy (2016), and now Staccato Signals and its partner Drone Signals. Over time, Chatwin's music has grown increasingly sophisticated and ambitious with respect to compositional form and artistic conception, so much so that Staccato Signals in particular must be seen as a major accomplishment for this South Queensferry, Scotland resident.

Staccato Signals underwent an unusual genesis. Using primarily analogue and modular synthesizers, Chatwin initially planned to create a purely electronic set, one where he would subdue his customary compositional impulses and cede control to hardware sequencers for the melodic content. It's hardly the first time an artist has brought chance into the creative process, but it was a new development for someone like Chatwin who favours rigour and control over randomness and unpredictability.

However, as the project progressed at his home studio, he determined that something else was needed, something that would add an entirely different element to the material, and in an inspired move brought strings and brass players into the fold. The result symbolizes a dynamic reimagining of Chatwin's soundworld, one rich in drama, dimension, and texture and one where the electronic side meshes fabulously with the acoustic. In merging the industrial timbres of electronic gear with the warmth and humanity of acoustic instruments, tension naturally arises between the two worlds but integration, too, making for an exciting and intense listening experience.

With strings by violinists Liam Lynch and Kate Miguda, violist Asher Zaccardelli, and cellist Pete Harvey prominently featured (dubbed the Pumpkinseeds, the four recorded their parts at Pumpkinfield in Perth, Scotland), one might take “Divers in the Water” for a purely classical performance—were it not for the aggressive electronic gestures that impose themselves so forebodingly on the proceedings; as smouldering is “Silver Pit,” with again a satisfying rapprochement effected between the strings and Chatwin's bold contributions.

“Helix” strips its arrangement to Chatwin and Harvey in a shift that enables the seething swell of the former's pulsations to emerge audibly alongside the latter's outpourings. It's not the only time on the album the acoustic elements threaten to be engulfed by the distortions of electronics, but the track nonetheless provides a good illustration of that aforementioned tension. There are moments where synthesizer timbres brighten these largely brooding settings, even if they're eventually subsumed within deep pools of strings and electronics, as well as passages where the music accentuates the elegiac over the forbidding. The inclusion of Mike Truscott's cornet and tenor horn on three of the ten tracks makes a significant difference also, with his contributions to “Bow Shock” in particular adding a grand symphonic dimension to the project. However different Staccato Signals is from Chatwin's earlier releases, a representative piece such as “Knots” shows that his artistic sensibilities remain very much in place on this powerful new collection.

If Drone Signals doesn't signify as dramatic an advance artistically for Chatwin, it's nevertheless a credible companion to Staccato Signals and a fascinating one, too, insofar as production on the former involved him dismantling the earlier album's tracks and then re-shaping them into new pieces. A noticeable shift in emphasis is evidenced in the transition, with the later collection slightly more ambient in character and modular synthesizers more prominently involved.

Staccato Signals' strings served as a starting point of sorts for the related album, such that the strings on “‘Black Castle,” for example, re-emerge within the nightmarish dronescape “Burning Witches” in newly configured form as strangulated scrapes and dive-bombing cries. The burning textures that roll through “Nordsjøen” call to mind the guitar-centric sound design of Chatwin's Talvihorros output; in “Dendrites” and “Lost At Sea,” on the other hand, the natural sonorities of the string elements have been left intact, a smart move in ensuring that Drone Signals isn't too defined as an electronic recording. That said, settings such as “Coruscate” and “Bone” do tend to perceptibly accentuate the latter quality, though hardly offputtingly.

August 2018