Paul Kendall

from the pen of Mat Smith:

PAUL KENDALL

Boundary Macro

Boundary Macro is the fifth solo album from producer, engineer and electronic musician Paul Kendall.

Beginning with his tenure in anarchic London post-punk unit Dry Rib and on through his respected studio work with Recoil, Wire, Barry Adamson, Nine Inch Nails and many others, Kendall has always maintained an acute focus on the intricate properties of sound. Each of his solo albums has showcased an approach to complex sound design as well as the darker, emotive side of sonic processing. His pre-lockdown live sets with Daniel Dickel as LeCabLe were noisy, highly sculpted improvisations that drew a connective line to his work on the grimy fringes of industrial music.

The impetus for Boundary Macro came through a remix completed for Downwards, the label run by Karl O’Connor (aka Regis). O’Connor was familiar with Kendall’s tenure as an in-house producer, engineer and mixer for Mute Records in the 1980s and 1990s, and sought him out for the remix of Veronica Vasicka’s ‘From Here’ in 2018. “He liked the remix I did for him and I remember him saying to send him some of my stuff if I so wished,” recalls Kendall. “I sent him the ten tracks that make up Boundary Macro. He came flying back to me having fallen in love with a couple of pieces and offered to put the album out on Downwards. It really was a seductive enthusiasm and I readily agreed.”

Boundary Macro was recorded after the COVID-19 pandemic had first emerged and our daily lives were suddenly put on hold. “I experienced a sort of creative paralysis from the start of March until the end of April due to early lockdown and an endless concern about food supplies,” Kendall reflects. “Around May I started to experiment sound processing apps on my iPad – apps like Borderlands Granular, Tardigrain and Enso. I was astonished at the relative affordability of these apps in comparison to studio multi-effects units or computer plug-ins.”

Having identified the tools to unlock his lockdown-inflicted writer's block, Kendall began experimenting with recordings of his own voice and the Leaf Audio Soundbox instrument, capturing hours of improvised performances which were then microscopically edited, superimposed and processed to form eight of the tracks on the album. The album was completed by the addition of two older pieces created using completely different methods (‘Distor ADIO’ and ‘Are You In?’), but which were entirely in keeping with Kendall’s May 2020 experiments.

It’s easy to see why O’Connor fell for these tracks. These pieces each have a latent energy, like industrial techno with all the familiar references points suppressed under heavy distortion, blocks of noise and an oppressive, cloying blanket of impenetrable tension; music devoid of any discernible certainty, made at a time when life’s certainties had become abruptly upended. The name of the thunderous, vaguely orchestral opening track – ‘Restless’ – encapsulates the mood of this album: sounds and ideas arrive, hang around, evolve, mutate and are then immediately replaced.

On ‘The Chattering, Class’, we hear Kendall’s distinctive attention to atomised detail, with an ever-changing array of fluttering, backward sounds and brittle textures, while a subtle hint of an exotica melody feels like lonely wind chimes in an abandoned landscape. On ‘InHarmonic’ we experience a characteristic disquiet, built from a dense and unswerving drone and pulsing signals offset by minimalistic, shamanistic percussion patterns. On ‘ReBurst’ rumbling, ghostly processed voices jab at you viciously, like a pissed-off demon roused from its sleep, its relentless onslaught buffeting you like a wild storm; in its wake comes a distorted, sinewy sequence, as insistent, angular and thrilling as a prowling heavy metal solo.

The concept for Boundary Macro unifies an approach that Kendall takes to both images and sound. “I absolutely love macro photography,” he explains. “Macro photography is where you magnify the minutiae of an object. It's a similar method that I’ve used a lot in sound design, where I take found sounds then exploit and zoom in on them.”

If ‘macro’ is the descriptor for Kendall’s process, then ‘boundary’ is about revealing another personal side of himself – his hearing difficulties, a condition caused by too many loud studio sessions. “A boundary can be thought of as being like binary, with its two states – on and off. With this album, the boundary in question is the one between my ability to hear and not hear. Because of that deafness, I sometimes have to rely on graphical representations of sound to ensure there’s not something happening sound-wise which I am unable to hear. It’s also about the supposed boundary between sound and noise, which, for me, does not exist. It’s also the idea of the boundary as a limit – but a limit to go beyond, not one that stops you. Suffering with loss of hearing could have easily acted as a limit for me. Boundary Macro is the sound of me going beyond that limit.”

Boundary Macro by Paul Kendall is released on vinyl and digital on Downwards Records, 29 July 2021 through Boomkat: https://boomkat.com/products/boundary-macro

Track list:

Restless

The Chattering, Class

Nowhere, A Twisty

Missing The Fierce

Contrail

InHarmonic

Distor ADIO

ReBurst

No Door

Are You In?

Paul Kendall solo discography

The Faulty Caress (as Piquet) (Parallel Series / Mute, 1996)

Angleterror (Cat Werk Imprint, 2011)

Family Value Pack (Ant-Zen, 2014)

Continuing to pursue analogies between sound and visual, finding certain processes are more adaptable across disciplines. Half speed playback allows us to hear between the grains in a much more detailed soundscape than a half light sheds on an imagescape; not underestimating the subtleties of shadow and light, honest.

Or, there’s a start point and you plunder forth, and see what’s round any particular perspective. Maybe in the visual process there are more satisfying artefacts (in an antifact era) generated through the stages of manipulation during the realisation of a final object?

With the last major project, the box set ‘From the Penman Press’ trawling the residue, all packaging having been recycled, there was a good supply of tricolour tissue paper which proved a remarkable sound source rustled or tapped creating acceptable snares and panning white noise to mock the barrier between visual and audio.

The economic decision was made to dispatch via bubble wrap and a plastic envelope. Packaging has become a particular fascination for me in this on-line purchasing era.

See here the plastic Mailer:

From this utilitarian object remained the clear plastic strip which protected the envelope’s adhesive strip until addressed and sealed.

See here (just visible) the detached plastic strip from the envelope:

Rather than throw these away they were put to one side, lurking feeling they could have some future use. Collected in. See here a plastic bag:

One idea was to fill a vessel with these plastic strips to create a light deflecting sculpture of some description (static lava lamp) but the vessel creation proved problematic. And the hairdryer was occupied.

The idea of using them as part of a stencil came to mind.

From a record Mailer stiffener, keeping in the Norman theme, a frame was made to mount the plastic strips which were then sellotaped making a spray ready straight line stencil.

Before and After Spraycan and other relevant images now follow:

Geometric parallel lines were a basic way to see if the principle of making a stencil from the strips would work.

(Is it more mask than stencil? Here beginneth the learner’s block of phohostop… all is mask, stencil, smear)

The canvas chosen was a record Norman mailer (if you didn’t, now you do) destined as a present for my friend Daniel’s birthday.

Big birthday card here:

So the first level and original raison d’être was complete. The remaining stain on the mask/ stencil from the 2 coloured sprays were most surprising and interesting so now was the time to shine some light, comme ça:

Through which was generated this object:

As an aside the SprayCans drips did this unrequested dance:

The stained stencil stared at me for a couple of weeks, surely not the end of its use? When once again the illumination light was switched.

The simple yet effective process of moving the object whilst the scan is doing its scanning, resulting in pleasant smears of which the world can’t have enough. Although reflection and taste should perhaps direct us to use smudge in preference to smear.

The potentially last offshoot from the humble plastic strip,

SmearScanStencil in Red and Black:

Well I haven’t been here for sometime. The text below starts an explanation which will eventually spotlight all the new facets!

Towards the end of last summer I finished a project which had occupied me on and off for 2 years. A monumental a cappella composition for 20 voices based on texts from Samuel Pepys and composed by Benjamin Till. It would be easier to describe my work on this remarkable project in visual terms. Imagine taking a photo that is blurred and attempting to sharpen the image pixel by pixel. My work was the audio equivalent, massively time consuming and satisfying but in some ways the end point of my obsession with detail. After the damage, I took the headphones off.

Since then I have been concentrating on visual creation, graphic/ geometricised pen and ink drawings of shapes (human spirograph) and words/ letters. When I was a lad I did the self same thing with ruler, flexicurve and Rotring, throwing in bits of Schwitters concrete Cobbing in a typewriterly sort of way. The arrival of a Revox A77, my first tape recorder occupied and enslaved me until arriving at the very recent now it is as if I am attempting the translation of 4 decades of 2D Sound Architecture into a 10 week crash course for the graphic engRaver, sinking in the not so derivative son.

A5, it had to be A5. The size of a serious paperback the spine which displays well on a shelf also the size of ipad mini on which I was happily doodling, screen grabs can be seen on the video of ‘Aspirateur’, somewhere above or below.

Hand drawn/ Scanned/ Phohostopped/ Printed. Few pixels were hurt as I preferred to retain the imperfection of the original (analogous at heart) drawing. The digital process was necessary for duplication giving the means of production,

OF, 

100 numbered limited edition, 

A5 size Box Set through Cat Werk Imprint:

From The Penman Press

Ten original A5 printed artworks, containing copious amounts of my DNA. Please notify me of projected clones.

One CD, a re-imaging of my 2011 ‘Angleterror’ album previously only available on download. Time has allowed the possibility of adjusting some elements which improve the album but the real source of happiness is having it mastered and a further layer of aural excitement brought into focus by AGF, @poemproducer.

The final 2 elements of the Box Set are A5 sheets again, one of which is a hand printed letterpress credit sheet, the other a composite scan of all 10 pieces of artwork called, ‘suggested orientation’. 

watch me here

WHAT

Is this server thing? I no chance understand. Scudded cells that replaced a once fine engine, Now the torso thin cracks start to appear. I dish dirt, server this, scuba dat and salad dish Then wonder why I am not able to consume any quantity of nourishment

ALL

The bowls are empty mine was never full. Another gutsy performance trampled by the ogre of self doubt it will matter in the long run

WHAT

excuse is there for this fine hermitage? A family of burrowers and borrowers You reach such an impasse Pride, resentment, desire they all take their role and toll And you mutilate each other with each in turn It's cataloging a disaster on

giga

20 Years Ago A young member of my family would take 2 consecutive baths in one visit. The first for her body, the second for her hair. I can't remember how I discovered this, probably the repeat sound of the water boiler alerted me to excess. And, as a sensitive eco-warrior a devotee of the newly created Dave Angel (see Fast Show), I had opinions, beliefs and causes and more significantly a sedentary demeanour. Nevertheless water wastage appeared on the agenda for the first time. I explained to her my eco-position regarding water and how I believed the future would pan out.   The crux of my biscuit was that I feared water would soon be as politically poignant as the oil crises were in the early '70's. Prior to '73, Saudi and the majority of the Middle East had a marginal presence within the British psyche, Israel being the major exception.   Oil enforced a new world order, dominating as it still does much of our foreign policy, wherever we may live. Water I could see becoming similarly politicised. I felt the need to express the importance of conservation.

Deadly sins, seas and some say senses, ages of man, brides and brothers Year itch and Robert Pires.

Seven is, the perfect number.

There are 7 compositions on Family Value Pack. The CD will be available on the perfectly formed Ant-Zen Label in September 2014. Thanks to Stefan, Christian, and Frank for their valuable contributions.

For this walk I shall be illustrating a few aspects of the new long-playing album, Family Value Pack. The projected release date was psychologically 18th April 2014, a date chosen as “Track 2 Water” was mixed on this same date in 2004. The version appearing on the final incarnation has been vocally enhanced (equalizing and brutal editing), to be in line with the general role of the voice throughout FVP.

Before acknowledging the specific collection, FVP, I had resolved that, as the guitar was the thread through “Angleterror” so the voice should be lacing through the next project. The major stumbling block was always going to be having to listen to the sound of my own voice. In my work for others the voice is very often the focus of my attention and the detail is my obsession. There would be no album without overcoming the vocal impasse, solving it proved quite simple.

Eno, I recall, faced a similar problem with his own voice which only evaporated once judicious effects were used to mask the unforgiving timbre which caused the affront in his head/mind. So, armed with my favourite plug-ins and careful tonal bollox I was able to survive the listening process and reach a happy plateau of accepting my voice had to be there so just live with it. This did not solve the potential problem of text quality, i’ll return to this later.

The voice "mask" was made even easier as many of the source voices were from recordings made in the mid 70’s through various sound recording devices: with a pre-walkman hand held phillips cassette machine, mono voice through intense cheap tape haze, then through onto mini-cassette dictaphones with a further degraded signal, and finally to "proper" microphones, and hand held DAT recorder.