artist: LUKE FOWLER & TOSHIYA TSUNODA
title: Familial Readings
label: edition.t
country: Japan
format: CD
title: Familial Readings
label: edition.t
country: Japan
format: CD
"Today I played the recent release on Toshiya Tsunoda’s edition.t label, a duo by himself
and the Scottish film-maker Luke Fowler named Familial Readings. This is something of a
curious CD release. The first thing that hit me when I took it out of the envelope it was posted
in was the packaging. Or rather the lack of it. The CD itself includes the
musician’s names, the album title and the record label, and that’s it. The disc comes in a
standard clear jewel box with no paper parts. There is no artwork, no liner notes, nothing
other than what you can see in the photo pictured here.
So you put the CD on, and the display tells you there is one track and it lasts very nearly half
an hour. So you press play, and a quiet, crackle of static appears, not at all dissimilar to the
sound of a record player needle sat in a run out groove, or an old cassette tape used several
times but now wiped “clean”, just the inconsistencies of the recording medium remaining.
This sound is all we hear for nearly eight minutes until, suddenly a voice appears, apparently
reading a text from a book alongside the static. The text is in English seems to be from the
middle of a bigger work, and sounds completely random. The voice is that of a man, with a
British voice and lasts about forty seconds. It sounds like the recording was made over the
phone, When it ends, the static continues for just a second or two before cutting dead,
leaving digital silence. The silence remains for about two and a half minutes before another
voice appears, this time an older sounding lady, again maybe down the phone, and this time
without the static. Another seemingly random text is read, for nearly a minute, complete with
the odd mistake and stumble before cutting off and leaving another silence, this time of a
little more than two minutes before another voice arrives, female again, maybe slightly
younger, with a different text again, this time an excerpt from something about race struggles
in the American South. Again, it stays for a minutes before disappearing. This pattern
continues, with a different voice each time. The texts do not seem to be related, and seem
to be somehow random. If there is a pattern to the words read I cannot detect it. Some of the
texts seem to be works of fiction, others not, and all seem to be recordings recorded from
telephone conversations. Five minutes from the end the static kicks in again alongside a
male voice, and remains after he has finished reading. It then disappears right at the end as
another female begins, and when she stops the CD comes to a halt.
Several (but certainly not all) of the voices have Scottish accents, and this along with the
album’s title leads me to believe that what we are listening to are members of Luke Fowler’s
family. Having attended Luke’s recent exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, and having
experienced his work on several other occasions, the notion of the family, and the emotional
ties, struggles, joy and pain that come with it often appear in his work. The first time I met
Luke he told me his Grandmother lived very close to me. I wonder if she appears on this
recording? Family seems to be important to his work. There is something incredibly warm and
friendly about this recording despite its seemingly inaccessible form and presentation. I have
actually listened to it from start to finish four times now, and I find myself trying to put faces to
the voices, which feel somehow like people I should know, perhaps just because the accents
are British, but perhaps just because they are telephone recordings, and quite often when we
listen to people on the phone they are already family or friends. There is a sort of
documentary feel to it, a bit like a series of talking heads on a TV programme, but with the
clips of film between them removed. The static at each end of the disc seems to add to that
odd sense of warmth. There is something about it that suggests good old days to me, vintage
materials pulled from an archive, or just your grandmother playing an old cinefilm of when
you were very young. All of this is of course conjecture, and I am probably a mile from the
mark, but all you can do with a CD like this is allow it to play and let it take shape in your
head one way or another. In theory I feel like I should be annoyed by this CD, left frustrated
by its simplicity and lack of background information. I really don’t feel anything like that
though. It feels oddly comfortable, friendly and quite welcoming after a shitty day. I have
absolutely no idea why it makes me feel like this. Perhaps, like Luke himself, his family are all
very warm and friendly people. Make your own mind up on whether, given my description,
you want to buy a copy, but I will certainly say that there is a lot more here than what a
simple description of the recording may suggest." (Richard Pinnell - The Watchful Ear)
and the Scottish film-maker Luke Fowler named Familial Readings. This is something of a
curious CD release. The first thing that hit me when I took it out of the envelope it was posted
in was the packaging. Or rather the lack of it. The CD itself includes the
musician’s names, the album title and the record label, and that’s it. The disc comes in a
standard clear jewel box with no paper parts. There is no artwork, no liner notes, nothing
other than what you can see in the photo pictured here.
So you put the CD on, and the display tells you there is one track and it lasts very nearly half
an hour. So you press play, and a quiet, crackle of static appears, not at all dissimilar to the
sound of a record player needle sat in a run out groove, or an old cassette tape used several
times but now wiped “clean”, just the inconsistencies of the recording medium remaining.
This sound is all we hear for nearly eight minutes until, suddenly a voice appears, apparently
reading a text from a book alongside the static. The text is in English seems to be from the
middle of a bigger work, and sounds completely random. The voice is that of a man, with a
British voice and lasts about forty seconds. It sounds like the recording was made over the
phone, When it ends, the static continues for just a second or two before cutting dead,
leaving digital silence. The silence remains for about two and a half minutes before another
voice appears, this time an older sounding lady, again maybe down the phone, and this time
without the static. Another seemingly random text is read, for nearly a minute, complete with
the odd mistake and stumble before cutting off and leaving another silence, this time of a
little more than two minutes before another voice arrives, female again, maybe slightly
younger, with a different text again, this time an excerpt from something about race struggles
in the American South. Again, it stays for a minutes before disappearing. This pattern
continues, with a different voice each time. The texts do not seem to be related, and seem
to be somehow random. If there is a pattern to the words read I cannot detect it. Some of the
texts seem to be works of fiction, others not, and all seem to be recordings recorded from
telephone conversations. Five minutes from the end the static kicks in again alongside a
male voice, and remains after he has finished reading. It then disappears right at the end as
another female begins, and when she stops the CD comes to a halt.
Several (but certainly not all) of the voices have Scottish accents, and this along with the
album’s title leads me to believe that what we are listening to are members of Luke Fowler’s
family. Having attended Luke’s recent exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, and having
experienced his work on several other occasions, the notion of the family, and the emotional
ties, struggles, joy and pain that come with it often appear in his work. The first time I met
Luke he told me his Grandmother lived very close to me. I wonder if she appears on this
recording? Family seems to be important to his work. There is something incredibly warm and
friendly about this recording despite its seemingly inaccessible form and presentation. I have
actually listened to it from start to finish four times now, and I find myself trying to put faces to
the voices, which feel somehow like people I should know, perhaps just because the accents
are British, but perhaps just because they are telephone recordings, and quite often when we
listen to people on the phone they are already family or friends. There is a sort of
documentary feel to it, a bit like a series of talking heads on a TV programme, but with the
clips of film between them removed. The static at each end of the disc seems to add to that
odd sense of warmth. There is something about it that suggests good old days to me, vintage
materials pulled from an archive, or just your grandmother playing an old cinefilm of when
you were very young. All of this is of course conjecture, and I am probably a mile from the
mark, but all you can do with a CD like this is allow it to play and let it take shape in your
head one way or another. In theory I feel like I should be annoyed by this CD, left frustrated
by its simplicity and lack of background information. I really don’t feel anything like that
though. It feels oddly comfortable, friendly and quite welcoming after a shitty day. I have
absolutely no idea why it makes me feel like this. Perhaps, like Luke himself, his family are all
very warm and friendly people. Make your own mind up on whether, given my description,
you want to buy a copy, but I will certainly say that there is a lot more here than what a
simple description of the recording may suggest." (Richard Pinnell - The Watchful Ear)