IN LIEU harrison & wand
(c) hot air releases 2020
catalog number: airborne016

on thursday March 26th myself and mr Richard Harrison were scheduled to play a duet improvised performance at a charming venue The Eagle in the Trinity area of Salford just a stroll across the Blackfriar Bridge from Manchester City Centre.
The other acts were a duet of the Sheffield based musicians John Jasnoch and Martin Archer, old acquaintances i was looking forward to seeing again and an act I am unfamiliar with ‘Bork’.
This was the first of a sprinkling of gigs & events that myself and Richard had coming as the world should have been waking up to a glorious spring of tentative austerity banishing optimism and activity. You all know by now how naive any of that anticipation was!
Silence seemed like defeat, so....
Not being one to engage in the paradox that is “Live Streaming” and DEFINITELY not having any urge to support in any way the hugely profitable slave racketeering that siren servers such as YouTube peddle ( profitable, of course, for no one other than Google ), a Bandcamp virtual ‘gig’ seemed the obvious solution.
tracks 1, 2, 3 & 4 of this release were performed in splendid isolation, in that Richard kindly sent me a number of solo drum recordings made in his rehearsal room. Not via the internet mind, no, on Compact Disc via the good old postal service, arrived the very next day, all due credit to Royal Mail in these times. These I overdubbed with my own spur of the moment performances, totally at odds with any normal sense of to and fro or synchronicity that would occur if we were improvising together, live or otherwise. Still, the results sounded OK , on one track i went to town processing Richards drums before adding my own disturbances but otherwise its just one take live overdubs.
tracks 5 & 6 are rehearsal room recordings of our duo from way back in 2016, unadulterated.
track 7? special guest: the inimitable REX CASSWELL on guitar ( whose newish solo recording Bricolage on Confront Recordings is well worth a listen ) I started Stock, Hausen & Walkman as a duo with Rex way back in 88/89 but this live trio recording of him, me & Richard is from the HY! festival in freezing Copenhagen on Feb 3rd 2018 ( thank you Mr Jorgen Teller and all who attended ) normally i would edit off audience applause but as this is a sound we all won’t be hearing for real in this particular context for a great many months I chose to keep it. It can also serve as a surrogate tribute to all key workers battling out there in germland, a version of the evening applause first seen in those poor benighted Italian cities. For how long will that be the only truly communal noise making audible?
so... IN LIEU
in lieu of ...a gig?
in lieu of ...a vaccine?
in lieu of ...the virus deciding to target ONLY the selfish and brainless?
in lieu of ...99% Herd Immunity?
in lieu of ...benign mutation
in lieu of ...proximity to strangers, a thing I never approved of but now see is a necessary glue for societies ‘airfix kit’ and am missing the smell of.

it’s pay what you like, including ‘bugger all’ as I have a feeling, like me, that’s what most of you will be existing on for a while. That said, Money is accepted with no sense of shame and will be put towards upcoming Hot Air physical releases.
Note: in accordance with government guidelines, this ‘virtual venue’ has a limited capacity, after the first 200 freebies are taken I will switch it to some nominal fee as otherwise Bandcamp start charging ME for those downloads. Don’t get me started on ‘inflexible systems’ :)
“ be seeing you “

more Wand, Harrison and other releases at: hot-air.bandcamp.com