A Perfect Blind (feat. Mark Van Hoen & Mike Harding)

The second album for Anna von Hausswolff's label, Pomperipossa Records, by Mark Van Hoen & Mike Harding. Also featuring Anna von Hausswolff, Philip Jeck, Bethan Kellough, Charlie Campagna, Paul Haslinger, Marie Takahashi and Oleg Belyaev. Limited to 500 copies.

oleg belyaev - baroque 'cello charlie campagna - 'cello paul haslinger - piano phiip jeck - pulse bethan kellough - violin, viola marie takahashi - baroque viola anna von hausswolff - voices

baritone guitar & cymbals dulcimer & psaltery field recordings lorenz cipher machine 1877 henry willis organ (union chapel) short wave

Disruption between then and now/memory and presence, dulcimer, psaltery, 'cellos, violas and violin embroider radio, static, stray voices and electronics… 'a perfect blind' is the second album by drøne (Mark Van Hoen & Mike Harding) with an array of guest artists, including label supremo Anna von Hausswolff, dreamer and composer Paul Haslinger, field recordist and sound designer Charlie Campagna and Touch artists Bethan Kellough & Philip Jeck. Strings by Seattle-based Marie Takahashi and Oleg Belyaev are also layered into this complex and perhaps more musical offering. Moving in all directions, 'a perfect blind' continues where 'reversing into the future' [pomperipossa records, 2016] left off;
'a perfect blind' was conceived and designed in Los Angeles with organ recordings from London (at Union Chapel), short wave radio, treated voices and other archaic sound sources.
A stunning front cover image by Maria von Hausswolff and miss-taken typography by Nico embrace this sense of dislocation; as the mediaeval language which enfolds our collapsing 19th Century institutions fails to find relevance, our sense of entrapment in the old is accompanied by an assault on the senses. The destabilising effect of "post-truth" adds to our sense of unbelonging, of being elsewhere, observers not participants.
'a perfect blind' is the term used for the best possible observation point where the viewer is unseen by the object of interest. Is this the best place to be? Memories which slowly fade away, also reverse back from the past shoving us into the future...