WE ARE THE WOODEN HOUSES & LORÉN CLARE - (UNEXPECTED)

Treehouse Orchestra Recordings 2016

01. Standing Still/Departure and Arrival
02. Spine Fin/The Carcass
03. The Brown G/Out of the Woods
04. Slow/Burn
05. Death and Horses/Ashes and Passion


It's been almost nine months since the last TOR release; the last few months have seen new methods, new sounds and new collaborations.

The first of these collaborations to be released is '(unexpected)' by We Are the Wooden Houses & Lorén Clare.

The beginnings of this set began last August. The first of three improvised sessions provided the bulk of the material; after discussing performing and recording, Lorén and I decided to improvise some music and put it to tape. Autoharp, Bass, Percussion and various effects were used and a date was set for further sonic explorations. The next session saw the recording of a performed sound collage and the final session more autoharp and percussion recordings.

The week after these sessions had been concluded, the next project began. 

Not wanting to postpone inspiration, the sessions with Lorén were put to one side as further recording began.

Al revisited these tracks a few weeks after the initial sessions and began re-sculpting and re-composing.

In January, Al and I decided to have a final improvised session for additional sounds. This was performed with shamisen, violin and effects.

The hazy sounds of the evening weave in and out of new ambient soundscapes created by Al from sounds on the recording, distorted and effected beyond recognition. The sound veers between live improvisation and drones created from the ambiance with some tracks being wholly created from heavily treated samples.

It took Al a few months, on and off, to conclude the reconstruction of these recordings, ensuring this spook folk, ambient, found sound and avant garde project made sense; to ensure this trip had the right trajectory.

The artwork also demanded patience and experimentation to get right. I had initially met with Lorén for a photo shoot, and some of the images from that day are featured in the artwork. An extremely limited box set edition is also accompanied by a set of ten prints of photographs taken by myself and Al throughout 2015 and 2016. In this special edition, the tracks are spread over three 3" compact discs and are housed in a wooden box. The regular edition comes in a jewel case with two randomly picked images from the set of ten.

As always, there is a free download and limited physical copies for purchase over at Bandcamp.