Premiere: Erstlaub - “Marconi’s Shipwreck”.

24 Aug 2012 — Henning Lahmann

Dundee's Dave Fyans, art director of seminal Glasgow imprint Broken20, has been pursuing his musical needs under the moniker Erstlaub for quite some time now. His latest work, Marconi's Shipwreck, is another piece of sublime drone soundscaping, albeit a convincingly focused example of its kind. Though running across no less than 72 overwhelming minutes and composed entirely of a single take of synthesis, without any further editing or processing, Fyan's arrangements enter the subconscious yet still manage to draw the listener's attention to the immense richness of details that emerge while the ambient drone moves along. Conceived as an homage to Italian radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi, the sounds attempt to explore the dialectics of modern modes of communication. In the artist's own words: From the age of radio onwards, we have been cast adrift in a sea of technology, waves of information crashing against our hull. Technology has the ability to connect people; conversely it can lead to intense feelings of isolation, lack of human contact and disconnection. And so we find ourselves scuttled, clinging to the wreckage we drift, trying to make sense of the new horizons we inhabit. Marconi's Shipwreck was planned and executed not only as an aural, but just as much as a visual experience. The accompanying video was made live, as the label explains, "using tail-chasing recursive feedback loops, these ‘films of film’ creating layers of otherworldly dream machine simulacra that depict busy friction between violently dying information packets". Marconi's Shipwreck is out digitally and on DVD-R on Monday, August 27 via Broken20. Highly recommended. Watch the stunning visuals in their entirety below: Read more → Dundee's Dave Fyans, art director of seminal Glasgow imprint Broken20, has been pursuing his musical needs under the moniker Erstlaub for quite some time now. His latest work, Marconi's Shipwreck, is another piece of sublime drone soundscaping, albeit a convincingly focused example of its kind. Though running across no less than 72 overwhelming minutes and composed entirely of a single take of synthesis, without any further editing or processing, Fyan's arrangements enter the subconscious yet still manage to draw the listener's attention to the immense richness of details that emerge while the ambient drone moves along. Conceived as an homage to Italian radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi, the sounds attempt to explore the dialectics of modern modes of communication. In the artist's own words: From the age of radio onwards, we have been cast adrift in a sea of technology, waves of information crashing against our hull. Technology has the ability to connect people; conversely it can lead to intense feelings of isolation, lack of human contact and disconnection. And so we find ourselves scuttled, clinging to the wreckage we drift, trying to make sense of the new horizons we inhabit. Marconi's Shipwreck was planned and executed not only as an aural, but just as much as a visual experience. The accompanying video was made live, as the label explains, "using tail-chasing recursive feedback loops, these ‘films of film’ creating layers of otherworldly dream machine simulacra that depict busy friction between violently dying information packets". Marconi's Shipwreck is out digitally and on DVD-R on Monday, August 27 via Broken20. Highly recommended. Watch the stunning visuals in their entirety below: