288 / Babel - 95CD (2020) | Bo Meson & Martin Archer

288 / Babel - 95CD (2020)

by Bo Meson & Martin Archer

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Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Beautifully packaged and factory produced to Discus Music's usual high standard. Artwork by Bo Meson.

Includes unlimited streaming of 288 / Babel - 95CD (2020) via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

£10 GBP or more

1.	Nachtraglichkeit (288) 06:21	buy track
2.	Cat on a Hot Tin Drum (288) 08:34	buy track
3.	The Mill on the Gnostic (288) 04:04	buy track
4.	Life’s a Beach (288) 01:08	buy track
5.	Deutschland’s Greatest Love Machine? (288) 04:06	buy track
6.	Einstein a No-No (288) 05:52	buy track
7.	Coda (288) 04:48	buy track
8.	Branching (A Horizontal Babel) 02:22	buy track
9.	Emotional Thumbnail (A Horizontal Babel) 04:02	buy track
10.	Neuronal Schism (A Horizontal Babel) 06:46	buy track
11.	Tyranny of the Masses (A Horizontal Babel) 05:37	buy track
12.	Our Soul’s Small Print (A Horizontal Babel) 05:51	buy track
13.	Got Root? (A Horizontal Babel) 02:12	buy track

about

Collaborations between poet / composer Bo Meson and composer Martin Archer tend to stray into odd places where neither of them would normally venture, and when they meet up normal rules cease to apply. Quite how the initial idea for this piece, inspired by the odd fact that Matt Damon’s script for the fourth Jason Bourne movie comprised a total of just 288 words, ended up as a metaphysical dialogue between Rasputin and Goethe set to a kind of surrealistic take on a middle-European palm court trio, is frankly anyone’s guess. Nevertheless, the end result, which gives plenty of room for the wonderful improvising skills of Graham Clark and Maja Bugge on violin and cello respectively, plus interludes from Archer’s creepy clarinets, is another fine example of Meson’s poetic exploration of arcane and obsessive detail.

These two compositions for sextet originate from very different sources but share a mode:

The text for 288 represents a rewriting of lines from a specific protagonist caught up in ‘world-historic’ events whose thoughts have been re-arranged into a new narrative here, as they have been misconstrued politically by many since those events… The false dichotomy of Apollonian vs Dionysian is invoked as is the way Nietzsche’s interpretation influenced Mittel-European thought. The premise of 288 is that if Jason Bourne can get away with just 288 words in a film then perhaps anything else, no matter how emotionally complex, might be summarised with a similar number.

A Horizontal Babel originates in poems written whilst considering both the differing exegeses (Jewish & Christian) concerning Genesis xi 1-9 and a colleague’s archaeological work in Hawaii with horizontal stratigraphy.

credits

released May 25, 2020

Bo Meson – voice, software instruments
Wolfgang Seel – voice
Peter Rophone – choral voices
Martin Archer – Bb and bass clarinets, software instruments
Graham Clark – violin
Maja Bugge – cello

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Discus Music Sheffield, UK

Discus Music was founded in 1994 by Martin Archer. The label releases leftfield rock music, free jazz, extended songform, electronics, improvised music, and other sounds which defy categorisation.

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