Towards a new release

The world is terribly distracting now isn’t it? No need to go into detail but I doubt there is one continent, country, province, city or town or even neighbourhood that has escaped the great distraction.

Yet, with all of the distraction and in many cases, the ensuing down time I’ve seen many note that the increased availability of time on your hands hasn’t led to increased creative output. It certainly hasn’t around here.

The G.O.B has managed one (very enjoyable and satisfying) release with the ‘Kafou’ album, although a large part of that was produced in the back part of 2019. I have numerous notes pages with ideas for new themes for the next thing, but none have that buzz yet.

I have spent a little time playing through older releases, not something I tend to do after something is finished, and it surprises me that in many cases I have no idea how they were done, were the parts originated, what apps or other things were used. Many of the better pieces have been collaborative productions, were different skills & aesthetics have made space for freshness and something wholly new. Many of the collaborators are also musically skilled which helps me out a lot.

So, to that end I would like to invite anyone interested to indulge a game of Exquisite Corpse. Cousin Silas & I did something of this type of thing on the New Dub Manifesto track, Bone Yard 391.

Exquisite Corpse is a surrealist game of free association. The participants contribute to a joint work that without seeing the contribution of the other participants. The end result takes on an overall character that would never come into existence in any more linear way.

This is a fairly straight forward thing to achieve ‘on paper’ where the rules are simply that there is a single piece of paper and shared pencil (obviously that wouldn’t work at the moment, but you get the picture). For an audio document there may need to be some stated commonalities (key, BPM etc) but these parts could be anything from environmental recordings, loops, drum tracks, drones, riffs, atmospheres, voices and spoken word, literally anything. These don’t need to be fully formed and complete works, in this instance less is more as it will be more flexible.

Text may also be useful if it can be put through text to speech applications.

Note that pieces may be chopped and edited in the process. This isn’t really a traditional RMX or collab project, it aims to be more chaotic & experimental. It isn’t something I’ve really seen before and I have no fixed idea of what the outcomes(s) might be.

The parts might be leftovers from previous projects, deconstructed works or new pieces. No rules in that aspect, all content welcome.

As far as the theme goes, the overall working title is ‘The Warlock Tapes’. Firstly, because some magic may be needed to get this to work. Secondly I’ve been spending far too much time reading graphic novels. There are a number of individual titles (all subject to change) or hat pegs, which might or might not inspire an idea. I’m not sure if these are the paper or pencils in the arrangement. Possibly not important. They are;

Jackanape
Particle Dream
Candy Colour
Aperite
Everything is forever until it ends
A distant mirror
Bunny Hop Mambo Dirge (Tutti Fruitee)
Baal Wants
Doll House
Salt
Beesblossom The Fey
The Joy of Magical Thinking
Bliss and wilful ignorance
Antifasto

Feel free to suggest others. The page really is blank. Magic is the overarching theme, otherness and external.

It occurs now in trying to mash this idea into words that there is no reason to limit this to audio. I would happily work with images and moving pictures if that would make a more rounded project with graphics & video material.

So, fight the distractions and ennui and get your Exquisite Corpse on.
Please use We Transfer or Dropbox to send files to therighthand@gloveofbones.com

Full credit will be given to every contribution and a theoretical release on a well-known net label if it works out isn’t impossible. Depending on the length of the finished work, it might get a physical release. My only caveat in this is that I don’t make commercially sustainable work. Basically, there is no financial uptick in this for me or anyone who wants to join in, certainly not at this stage. If/when the work gets a release I am minded to make all digital sales a donation to some yet to be decided cause (suggestions welcome, but youth related mental health charities spring to mind). If we do a physical item we will work on cost+ as a price point. Whilst I don’t want this to put anyone off joining in, I would prefer to pre-empt this aspect to avoid future concerns.

Lastly, please feel free to adopt heteronyms & pseudonyms, this was common practice amongst the originators of the game, I may well birth another for this. There is currently no time scale, just a desire to be new and throw a little crazy magic back into the world.