Balafon sketches

 

Last Saturday, Adam Turner - who takes us by the hand with wonderful daily posts to immerse us in the world of music and also shares very personal phases of his life - played a warm-up set for Marconi Union and Contours as part of “The Flightpath Estate DJs”. What reads very interestingly written will have made everyone's eyes shine even more and has already been confirmed as such by Adam.

An evening that I would have liked to have experienced in my city. Read it about here:

http://baggingarea.blogspot.com/2024/06/live-at-soup-marconi-union-contours-and.html

With Marconi Union I had some experiences with their Ambient Transmissions and the albums around it. Sublime ambient music, definitely worth discovering.

Here and today a few lines about Tom Burford’s Contours „Balafon Sketches“

In 2020, first released on tape & later also as vinyl, 100% of the proceeds go to Kids of color & colors youth network, super symphatical without having heard a single note. The album moves, as the name suggests, with the African xylophone/balafon as the main protagonist, between percussive Balearica and fourth world scenes. A very, very nice album that you can use on a summer evening to leave football behind and sit in the garden with a drink, or another place of your choice. If it is inside, then with the window wide open.

„When music speaks to both the past, present, and futures to come, it invites listeners to take pause and cherish the moment. Contours’ recent release Balafon Sketches does just that and this profound meditation is worth savoring. There’s a lovely melange of traditional instrumentation (Indonesian gamelan and West African balafon) alongside homemade string and percussive instruments that are drenched in delay and reverb to create interlocking polyrhythms and soothing ambient textures. Tracks like A2 “Keld,” featuring Abel Selaocoe & Callum Connel, illicit feelings of home and comfort with layers of wind instruments and an acoustic guitar that sounds like it’s in love. On the other end of the spectrum is “Okutama,” a synthesizer-driven track that uses field recordings of a nocturnal rainforest to conjure mystery. There’s also a lovely pattering drum here that is played with so much personality it sounds as if it’s speaking. We recommend playing this one on a quiet night at home paired with your favorite red wine.“

–Tana Yonas -

Balafon Sketches began as a series of live jams in Cumbria. Percussionist and producer Contours & instrument builder, musician, painter and ceramicist Seth Sutton experimented with balafons and a gamelan alongside Sutton’s homemade string and percussive instrumentation. The tracks’ foundations were built running these elements of tuned percussion through delay and reverb pedals, experimenting with interlocking polyrhythms and the overtones and textures created by the raw recordings. 

Contours built upon these recordings utilising a range of live instrumentation such as synthesizers, drum machines and other organic percussion. He worked alongside several instrumentalists: cellist Abel Selaocoe and saxophonist/ flautist Callum Connell feature on ‘Keld’, violinist Simmy Singh on ‘45npr’, and violinist Beka Reid on ‘Eastern Bells’. 

Balafon Sketches sees the coming together of electronic and organic instrumentation. It crosses musical traditions that makes for a sonic journey, taking as much influence from African rhythmic practice as it does from minimalism, electronic music and the transcendental nature of ambient music and spiritual jazz. 

This release is the organic output of spontaneous experimentation with friends, and was entirely recorded in our homes in Manchester and Cumbria. 

Originally self-released as a limited cassette run in July 2020. Balafon Sketches now sees a limited edition vinyl re-issue courtesy of new Stockport imprint 'Net Of Gems'.

Seth Sutton: Gamelan, percussion & homemade instrumentation 

Abel Selaocoe: Cello 

Callum Connell: Saxophone & flute 

Simmy Singh: Violin 

Beka Reid: Violin 

Tom Burford: Production, balafon, gamelan, percussion, drum machine, synthesizer, RE20 space echo & field recordings 

Mastered for vinyl by Dominic Clare @ Declared Sound

Artwork and sleeve design by Kitty Hopking

Released by Net of Gems

Distributed by All Night Flight Records

File under: Balearic I Fourth World