Paul Cousins – Queen City Sounds and Art

Paul Cousins used reel-to-reel machines, tape loops, speed alterations, random assembly and frippertronics in recording and manipulating the music that became “Broken Patches of Sky” (from the artist’s debut album Vanishing Artefacts which released on April 14, 2023 on digital and bone white vinyl). The process video demonstrates a bit of this level of craft alongside pastoral footage and snippets of lead cells of film and what looks like educational and industrial cinema of a bygone era. Cousins left in the tape hiss to give the track a sense of texture to ground the introspective and echoing melody, the sounds of tape speeding up and slowing down to suggest organic transitions and the hint of percussive artifacts from piano and/or struck, prepared guitar before being put through processing to give those notes a lingering and streaming aspect. Overall it’s like using older technology to simulate what some now might do with full digital technology and sampling and putting that extra effort in gives the song a mysterious resonance that keeps your attention to its minimalist composition like a soundtrack to a dream following a deep session of meditation. Fans of early 80s Eno forays into outer and inner space will appreciate the vibe here. Watch the video for “Broken Patches of Sky” on YouTube and follow Paul Cousins at the links below.

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paulcousinsmusic.com

Paul Cousins on Bandcamp

Paul Cousins set up reel-to-reel tape machines with a fifty-eight inch tape loop running between them to craft the warm yet otherworldly sounds for his composition “Afterimage.” It is a whorling tone that sounds like it’s breaking up as it ripples outward and repeats at unexpected intervals like an extended sample but one which has slight changes with every iteration due to the physical quality of the tape running and underneath are what sound like the mechanism of the tape machine captured on the recording like a built in counting of the passage of time rather than a more traditional beat. The gorgeously repetitive dynamic is reminiscent of the work of ambient band The Kevin Costner Suicide Pact and as gifted at creating music that suggests cinematic aesthetics of collage images and improvisational sound design. Listen to “Afterimage” on Bandcamp and connect further with the London-based composer at the links provided.