Alexander Tucker & Keith Collins: Fifth Continent

Subtext 044 (LP) - € 25
Touching meditative Neo Classical / electronic Drone / Musique Concrète cinema

"(...) Fifth Continent, a posthumous collaboration with Keith Collins (1966-2018) (...) which pays homage to Keith Collins, his partner and collaborator Derek Jarman (1942-1994), and the Kentish headland, Dungeness (...).

The album’s genesis came from a chance meeting in Dungeness. Tucker was visiting his parents, who moved there in 1997, and while out beachcombing he met Collins and the two became friends. Tucker was already a fan of the work of the British artist, activist and filmmaker Derek Jarman, having been alerted to him by an art teacher at school, and Collins would invite Tucker to Prospect Cottage. Over time casual chats between Collins and Tucker developed into bigger ideas. In 2014, the two collaborated on ‘Between The Ears: More Than A Desert’ for the BBC, splicing guitar improvisations Tucker recorded on the beach in Dungeness with Collins' readings from Jarman's ‘Modern Nature’, and Collins and Tucker talked about collaborating further at a later date.

Sadly in 2018 Collins was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour. Whilst in hospital he asked Tucker to look after his vast music collection kept in Prospect Cottage, tasking him with cleaning up and pruning the many CDs. After Collins passed away Tucker would travel down to Dungeness, helping Collins’ husband Garry Clayton with the Cottage. Tucker mentioned to Clayton his idea for making a homage to Collins, and he suggested Tucker bring down recording equipment. A few weeks later Tucker set up a modular system, cello, microphones and electronics in Jarman’s old writing room, the Spring room. Clayton also lent a digital recorder to Tucker belonging to Collins, containing spoken word pieces and fielding recordings. "It was strange collaborating with someone who wasn't there anymore," he admits. “But I had this idea of knitting Keith’s recordings into the track, not just to play alongside them but to integrate him into the fabric of the music”. Tucker had the idea to attempt a whole record using only extended and concrète techniques, with Collins' recordings as the springboard for a more wide-ranging set of experiments, some featuring the improvised trumpet drones and pulsing electronics of the artist and musician Kenichi Iwasa (Exotic Sin, Maxwell Sterling).

(...) Contributors (in alphabetical order): Barry Adamson, Jennifer Lucy Allan, Sarah Badr, Derek Brown, Keith Collins, Garry Clayton, Peter Fillingham, William Fowler, Dan Fox, Elise Lammer, Matthew R Lewis, James Mackay, Frances Morgan, Garrett Nelson, Stephen O’Malley, Paul Purgas, Damien Roach, Howard Sooley, Mark Titchner, Alexander Tucker, Peter Tucker, Luke Turner, Simon Fisher Turner, and Cosey Fanni Tutti."

Tracklisting:

In Smiling In Slow Motion

The Spring Room 1

The Spring Room 2

Dome

Salvage

The Spring Room 3

No

Level 7

The Spring Room 4

At Dungeness