Damaged Tape & Andrew Bland - 2012 - Beyond the Ghost House

While we're on the topic of collaboration, here's a new set of recordings that I worked on with Andrew Bland. This is the first time we've shared space on a record since 'Paper Fences' in 2006. From what I understand, Andrew spent 2007-2010 working on his "Field Pictures of Echoes" album (which you'll find at his website http://andrewbland.net/. I took a bunch of bits and pieces that didn't end up on the album and worked them into finished tracks. I sort of assumed that we'd be working with a rustic groove (as you'll hear on his 'Cosmic Relief' album), but I guess that he'd been infected with the synth bug at the time, so I ended up adding a lot of percussion and guitar to the soundscapes in order to get them nice and warm.

I enlisted Scott Atkinson to add a bit of spoken word, and he came up with most of the song titles while flipping through a biography of Chairman Mao. I didn't touch Andrew's track for 'Sailing on the Mekong,' while 'Riptydes of Existence' is actually an outtake from the Damaged Tape album 'Ambiguous Reality.' It didn't make the cut for that one as the completed album was a little too ambient for the tune.

I do hope that you dig spending a little time in our miniature sonic worlds. I welcome any comments and if you're running another blog and like this, I'd be happy for you to repost.

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