blue thirty-six: Stuart Chalmers and Claus Poulsen

My two favourite albums of the past year might have been blue thirty-two: Stuart Chalmers and Taming Power, and the remarkable Fictions in the Age of Reason by Stuart Chalmers and Claus Poulsen. Blue Tapes released the first of those; now, to square the circle, we’re proud to present a brand new collaboration by Stuart and Claus.

Recorded completely live and hammered and tacked together out of bits of swarmandal, tape loops and Casio SK-1, these improvisations somehow transcend their component parts, feeling immersive, 3D and full of gleaming alien intelligence.

As a counterblast to the gently unfolding long-form narratives of Fictions…, these new pieces are short, eccentric, and sometimes jarring. They scuttle around the listener and claw and then, when least expected, swell to unimaginable proportions and eat you whole.

I love this monstrous brood of not-pop songs and I hope you will too.

Praise for Stuart Chalmers

“Stuart Chalmers has taken Laraaji’s cult classic, cosmic-zither aesthetic, and expanded the lungs wide enough for a whole other world to drift right on in there. Themes haze & meld along Primordial beginnings, Call & Response spirit fights; Oh, the Light, Ahh the Dark, Owe the Other…” – Cassette Gods

“Chalmers career in soundtracking sci-fi movies or the works of David Lynch should be assured.” – Idwal Fisher

“Beautiful tracks of downbeat tape loops, dreamstates, hypnagogic soundfields, paranoid moonlit scenes with werewolves and ghostly children, snythesizer and tape hiss.” – Open Sound Group

Praise for Claus Poulsen

“In the case of Claus Poulsen, it is a bit more complicated to say anything about genre or style. He operates in different musical fields, from noise to improvisation and surely something else as well. Yet, what I am served here is quite a surprise; a pleasant surprise at that. They call this 'fifth world' music, which is, of course, a bunch towards Brian Eno and Jon Hassell's 'fourth world' music, which the latter described as "a unified primitive/futuristic sound combining features of world ethnic styles with advanced electronic techniques." - Vital Weekly