#todd barton

Ursula K. Le Guin & Todd Barton - Music and Poetry of the Kesh

blue twenty-two: Wild Anima

Raw (these recordings aren't even mastered), direct (the tracks were recorded in a single take) and heartfelt, blue twenty-two kicks off with a suite of haunting acapella pieces.

Subtitled Songs From Above, these works see Wild Anima make lovely, alien-feeling ballads that sit perfectly alongside classic outerdimensional explorations of folk music such as Anna Homler's Breadwoman and Ursula K. Le Guin and Todd Barton's Music and Poetry of the Kesh.

The second main movement of blue twenty-two is a 20-minute ode to the moon, breathed into life with the ambient dub producer Natse.

In this piece, Selene, Wild Anima's voice guides us into a minimal and gently evolving soundscape. Listen to it while on the edge of sleep and dream deep.

“Quail Song,” in the Kesh conlang from Always Coming Home

Was honoured to be invited to make this mix for I Heart Noise, summarising not only Blue Tapes' output over the cursed 2020 but also some of my favourite music that got me through that year.

Features:

Heystring

Okkyung Lee Music Page

Anna Homler

Taralie Peterson

Laura Cannell

The Blue Tapes House Band (feat. Abysmal Growls Of Despair, Benjamin Fingeer, Leedian, Todd Barton, Constantina, Wild Anima and more)

My Panda Shall Fly

Aksak Maboul

Cadu Tenorio

Biga Yut

Oranssi Pazuzu and more

After Sugimoto Seascapes, this was my other main release of 2020. Born in the same recording session as that album, it was eventually released under The Blue Tapes House Band brand after sonic augmentation from our roster.

I like Earthtone even better than my own album!

Available on digital only. All proceeds go to charity. Features Wild Anima, Leedian, Constantina and more.

All proceeds from this release will be donated to the charities INQUEST (www.inquest.org.uk) and 350.org.

INQUEST is the only charity providing expertise on state related deaths and their investigation to bereaved people, lawyers, advice and support agencies, the media and parliamentarians.

350.org is building a global grassroots climate movement that can hold our leaders accountable to the realities of science and the principles of justice.

**

It has been said that the frequency produced by the Earth’s revolutions is 136.102 Hz, or C#.

It has further been suggested that this tone corresponds to the meditative ‘Om’ sound, or even the ‘Amen’ of the Christian tradition.

At Blue Tapes, we have absolutely no idea whether any of this is true. But it’s a nice story, and a nice way to frame a dialogue between musicians from across the world, reacting with horror and sadness to recent events.

Earthtone is a 24-minute collaborative piece in C# by the Blue Tapes roster that has been structured to figuratively depict 24 hours on the piece of rock hurtling through space that we all call home.

Although it was completed during lockdown, we actually began recording the piece back in November 2019. Then, it felt important to make a collective statement about life on our rock, emphasising our similarities over our differences in the face of mounting division, inequality, nationalism, and the rejection of science and sanity by our leaders.

Then 2020 happened. Breathtaking environmental destruction, global pandemic, civilian uprisings against oppressive governments and institutionally racist law enforcement.

Life for all of us changed a lot during the time it took to make this poem about Earth. No piece of music can salve the injustices and pain felt by so many people right now. This collaboration – dreamed into life by musicians from Brazil to Japan and all kinds of places inbetween – is just a useless, beautiful reminder that we are all one species, one organism.

Our sicknesses and plights don’t start and stop along the fiction of national borders. If one of our groups is suffering, then the responsibility lies with the rest of us to provide protection and implement healing measures.