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DRONE HILL: 2nd Survey & Repossessions

by Richard Harrison & Matt Wand

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    2 fully glass mastered ( ie: proper ) CDs in the appropriate gatefold sleevage, shrink wrapped so you know you got yrself a virgin item, 24 tracks, a full 72 minutes on each CD makes for a full 2 hours 25 minutes of stereo landscape to languish in. only 40 available via Bandcamp so hurry scurry to yr mum’s purse and ‘half inch’ that credit card!

    Includes unlimited streaming of DRONE HILL: 2nd Survey & Repossessions via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    edition of 40 

      £9.50 GBP or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      £4.90 GBP  or more

     

  • Even MORE limited Compact Disc with 1 of only 20 Button Badges
    Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    limited ‘novelty’ bundle of the double CD PLUS one of only 20 Button Badges based on the design of the original 1999 Drone Hill release sleeve. Show your allegiance to ‘the drone’ on yr sleeve or perhaps your lapel or bobble hat?
    2 fully glass mastered ( ie: proper ) CDs in the appropriate gatefold sleevage, shrink wrapped so you know you got yrself a virgin item, 24 tracks, a full 72 minutes on each CD makes for a full 2 hours 25 minutes of stereo landscape to languish in. only 20 available so hurry scurry to yr mum’s purse and ‘half inch’ that credit card!

    Includes unlimited streaming of DRONE HILL: 2nd Survey & Repossessions via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

1.
MY.19.02 05:23
2.
DC.26.02 00:01
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DC.27.01 04:02
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AG.16.03 02:37
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AR.27.07 09:04
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MR.12.05 07:16
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FB.21.03 00:01
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NV.05.04 08:15
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OT.04.10 03:11
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FB.22.09 00:01
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SP.27.08 00:01
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AR.12.04 06:02
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admittance 09:33
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cross talk 05:17
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earth fault 05:32
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messenger 00:01
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abrasion 05:44
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cold flow 09:54
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creepage 05:40
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litzendraht 00:01
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flashover 05:43
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offgassing 00:01
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plasticizer 09:25
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core 00:01

about

strictly ( ouch! thank you ma’am ) limited edition of 200 physical copies. only 40 available via this bandcamp outlet. Purchasers of the download or physical get ALL tracks, those 8 tracks listed at 1 second long are in the download and add up to an extra 42 minutes of bonus audio. Message Bandcamp and ask them to reinstate the blank track label for bonus tracks feature which they have idiotically now removed!

AT LAST ... after a pause of only 23 years, the eagerly anticipated ( by? ) follow up to Mr Richard Harrisons Drone Hill 225 compact disc arrives in a semi-luxurious gatefold sleeved double CD package, ‘double’ being a first for Hot Air in any format.
The original Drone Hill release is here:

richard-harrison.bandcamp.com/album/drone-hill

OK. the knowledgeable amongst you can skip this next paragraph.. but for the un-initiated a small explanation might be due on the audio contents of the first of these discs.
All 12 of those recordings were made on location by Richard using only 2 diy piezo contact transducers attached to hectares long fence wires descending a hillside intimated by the maps and photos on the sleeve art. Exactly the same method as on the original Drone Hill recordings. Effectively this technique creates a sort of Duchampian audio Readymade, a ‘found object’ Aeolian Harp ( look it up ). I’m certain volumes could and probably has been written about this unique use of the landscape as ready made environmental sound art object? With the components being standard agricultural fencing apparatus of the factory produced ‘assembly-on-site’ form, it could also be said that these recordings embody a kind of industrial ‘folk’ music and in this second volume the tonalities head even more into those dark wave burrows. The recordings aren’t treated, overdubbed or messed with in any way, they are as they were captured on that generally freezing hillside. The only human interference is the selections made from much longer recordings and the sequencing of such to give some form of ‘album’ shape and highlight the incredible differences that atmospheric temperature, wind speed/direction and wire tension can bring to the same location over the years, months, hours even.
The contents of the second disc by Mr Wand might also benefit from a few words of explanation: These aren’t ‘remixes’ in the usual sense of the word but a selection made from the original CD, the new Disc 1 and Richards many unreleased recordings, those selections have been subjected in real time to a matrix of processors that are fed back on each other and inter-modulate with the original audio, the recordings keep their original dynamics and duration, only the tonalities and timbres are reconfigured. Mostly just one stereo track was subjected to these processes but a couple of the end results have two separate recordings ‘ring modulating’ each other to great effect and one has 4 or 5 layered choices that are being switched between by various loudness thresholds in the audio automatically triggering a new channel selection. Hopefully such prosaic technical explanations aren’t enough to dispel any special aura the mixes might hold for the listener.
( Matt Wand )

“ I’m pretty sure the Drone word wasn’t a genre back then, apart from in a derogatory sense or as a noun for a certain development in radio guided death deliveroo? “ - Hornby Weatherfield, the Pleasington Pancake Emporia Newsletter -

“Why more wires ? - After Drone Hill was released in 1999 , I carried on recording the wires up until 2009 when my sister’s family had to sell the farm . Over the years I collected a bunch together and played them to Matt , I suggested I fancied a vol 2 for a new generation of ears. Matt thought another cd of fiddled with recordings could work , a double cd ! Here it is !
Response to the original DH was very interesting , a lecturer told his class of drama students they MUST go out and buy it. Indie film makers have used bits*, several infamous sound artists found them seminally inspiring ( apparently ),  my friend Pete used to put it on to get rid of lingering guests. “ ( R.Harrison )

*(in the case of one ‘reasonably sized’ budget French Sci-Fi/Art film: without any contact with the label/publisher Hot Air to ask for the various mechanical rights permissions or to negotiate a fee or even a waiving of a fee. These fraudsters also included audio tracks on a CD packaged in with the commercial DVD. Happily their movie was a huge pretentious flop )

“ clearly some sort of nasty C.I.A. mindwashing experiment, it probably has hidden frequencies that re-programmes reviewers to rave about it! that’s really the only explanation for all the ridiculous accolades that I can think of? All the clues are there on the sleeve hidden in plain sight! “
- Sebastian Weetabix, Compact Discs R the Future: Quarterly -

CD sleeve text:
A lot can happen in 23 years but sometimes a fence will stand and areas of the landscape remain untouched. This CD set is a follow up to the 1999 release DRONE HILL 225 on Hot Air. A decade before the 'hauntology' pun became a cipher for ambiguous musical narratives purporting to uncover the magnetic audio ley lines connecting Britannia's diverse dreamscapes, Mr Harrison was capturing the very essence of the islands northern earthsong, across the seasons and spanning many years by simple, if not exactly pagan methods. CD1 is a selection of Richards further recordings made in the 2000's all the way up to the hillside area being sold off and his access to it disappearing in 2010. Often more aggressive in tone than the 1999 sounds, as if anticipating the coming schisms the country would face. Still the same equipment but somehow a different signal was being picked up. For CD2 Mr Wand has trawled through all 2 decades of recordings and subjected his selections to further alienation utilising the many sonic 'dérives' available, although he emphasises the actual 'real time' durational flow and dynamics are kept intact out of respect for whatever message might be 'in there'. (m@w&)

“ Is this the one that was discussed in Parliament and resulted in all those Arts Funding cuts?? fine work! “ - Dolly Snifflé-Pepys, conservative M.P. for Roehampton -

Originally set for a 2020 release , the restrictions of the covid crisis caused a rethink on that, any interesting opportunities the release might bring ( and let’s face it significant phynancial remuneration wouldn’t be likely ) would most likely be postponed or severely curtailed especially anything in europe or further afield. It’s a gamble now even, but hopefully if it doesn’t pay off the optimism might be appreciated at least?

“ Of course, Harry and his rabble have been keeping up the pressure from their end, while a small but powerful lobby of concerned business vampires at our end greased the machinery a little. Drone Hill 2nd Survey is the big pay off! “. - Hot Air head of A & R just before being let go -

credits

released January 27, 2022

disc 1 ( tracks 1 to 12 ) recorded on location by Richard Harrison.
disc 2 ( tracks 13 to 24 ) reprocessed at Dicky’s Skull by Matt Wand.
sleeve design, mastering & production for Hot Air by Matt Wand.
sleeve location photography by Martin Briscoe.
thanks to: Richard Lehrman, Liz, Duncan & the Orr clan, Kees Immink & Joseph Braat, Paulette Brien.
(c) Hot Air Releases 2022

file under: Barometric Phenomenography.

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about

Small Rocks Eccles, UK

Matt runs the Independent Record Label HOT AIR. He formed the seminal electronic sampling & improvising group Stock, Hausen & Walkman in 1989 and also works under various other pseudonyms, Small Rocks being one.
He has remixed many people ie: Ground Zero, PULP, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Hawkwind, Peter Thomas, Steve Reich, Buffalo Daughter, Lady Miss Kier, Thurston Moore.
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