offthesky & Bill Seaman - Layers of Memory
'Layers of Memory in the Quiet Voice of Motion' fuses together a collaboration of the highest experimental order: offthesky & Bill Seaman. This record details memories of increasing distance as well as times past. Nothing and no-one can stop, reclaim, or reverse the flow of time; once the moment has happened, it has gone. Years seem to speed up the older one gets, and all of a sudden 2020 is on the horizon. Where did the time go? There isn’t a better way to end a decade.
Transience is also felt in music, which is never stationary. The tones are always moving, receding further and further into the distance, like that one experience, like that single moment. Longing can replace logic in the blink of an eye, but sadness doesn’t seem to coat the music, and it doesn’t want to – it’s a realistic and accepting sound, looking back on events with some slice of inevitable nostalgia, but keeping an eye on the present, too. The past has power in reeling people back into its history.
There’s a sweet flow to the record, which is intentional. The music resembles a single lifetime thanks to its uninterrupted state, turning the pages and segueing from chapter to chapter. People, experiences, and events all bleed in and out, sometimes emerging from a cocoon at just the right time, sometimes overlapping between the various stages of life, or sometimes being suddenly severed, guillotine-like, after having served their purpose.
Some say that everything happens for a reason, that people come in and out of a life for one beneficial reason or another, staying for a season or a lifetime. The tones overlap and disappear, too, as does a female vocal, which swings and sways in a place outside of time, rising up from trench-deep pools of memory. Her voice, which one will never hear again, still plays in the mind, although it’s altered and fabricated thanks to the passing of time and the inaccuracies of remembrance. It’s a pitch or two off, bent out of its true tonality.
The major takeaway from this record is a feeling of growing distance, a pitch-black hallway elongating and stretching until its immensity makes it impossible to measure. Time teaches one to relinquish the false idea of control. Things slip through the fingers. So do the years.
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Building on the theme of memories past and fragmented fragility, we have come up with something that perfectly captures the audio exploration of 'Layers of Memory in the Quiet Voice of Motion'... old / vintage 7" vinyl, taken from a family collection of classical music has been used as the back-drop for a design that also includes CDs housed in circular see-through covers, oversized vintage prints, vintage ephemera, vintage cine-film strips, film negatives and antique photos. All of the above comes from the same family collection.
As with every Fluid Audio release, each copy is completely unique from the next. The word limited edition is used cheaply these days just because a label decides to write a number on the back of a CD cover... when we state our releases are limited edition, we mean it!
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Made by hand...
Vintage (circa:1930-1960) 7" classical vinyl covers
Vintage (circa:1930-1960) 7" vinyl
Glass mastered CD (full size)
Circular see-through CD covers
10 x prints (150mm x 150mm) on luxury uncoated paper (designed by Craig Tattersall)
Various vintage ephemera inserts
Vintage family photographs
Vintage cine-film negative
Vintage photo negative in original glassine bag (numbered)
Stamped / hand numbered / scented
All of the above rests inside stitched / sealed see-through wax bags
Download code (includes 10 PDF prints)
Limited to 175 copies
Made with love...
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Credits:
Clarinet Solos – James Chu, Recorded by Seaman
Violin Solos – Wei Ping Lin, Recorded by Volkmar Klien
Horn and Violin Arrangements Seaman
Singing - Rin Howell
Produced - Corder / Seaman
Mastering - Corder
Design - Daniel Crossley
Print design - Craig Tattersall
