VERNON, MARK - TIME DEFERRED (LP)

"Followers of the artist Mark Vernon will note a subdued and pensive mood on this new record. Muted and sepulchral, these tracks are in a minor key, a key which opens the door to a damp cellar of the imagination. Too-many legged spiders crawl over dusty violins. Time lurches, loops and echoes like excursions on slow motion railways in reverse. Concrète noir sombre séances for non-believers. Tauntological voices from the past provoke us. Half guessed ghosts, magnetic phantoms from funereal-to-reel tape recordings. The sibilant persistence of the deceased evokes the exhausted dread of waiting for a medical test result. Enigmatic messages thrown to the werewolves with nothing but cheap medication and some breathing exercises for support. Mark Vernon is a Glasgow based sound artist who works with found tapes and acousmatic presence. His oeuvre explores themes of magnetic memory, audio archaeology, voyeurism and nostalgia. A rich collection of domestic tape recordings; audio letters, dictated notes, answer-phone messages and other lost voices often find their way into his unorthodox soundworlds. These diverse elements are distilled into radiophonic compositions for broadcast, multi-channel diffusion, fixed media and live performances. Together with his colleague Barry Burns he runs the renowned radio art festival Radiophrenia. Under the moniker Vernon & Burns the plunderfrolic duo's beguiling mix of Music Hall Revue and Musique Unconcrète has materialized in two critically acclaimed Gagarin albums, "The tune the old cow died of" and "The light at the end of the dial"." (label info) Mark Vernon's solo noir album on Gagarin Records comes in an edition of 300 copies. Cover art by Dennis "Ultra" Tyfus. Design by Meeuw. Caution: this record can cause dreamless nights.