Council Homes Destruction Provides Inspiration

The word experimental has become almost meaningless in the context of describing new music and bands. In fact, it should be reserved for music that invokes a genuine sense of WHAT THE FUCK? or else we’re doing it a disservice. Homes, Gone Forever by A Small Glass Ghost shows experimental the respect it deserves.  

Let’s get started. Chvrches, Boards of Canada, Roman Nose, Homework, Miaoux Miaoux, Discopolis, Grum, In Posterface and that’s just the ones off the top of my head.

Electronica and experimental beat noise is ever present in the Scottish music scene. Even Mogwai‘s ‘hardcore will never die but you will‘ album leaned more towards Boards of Canada than Codeine.

Artist, musician and podcast host Alex Botten has created a new project that fits into the fringe of this landscape despite having moved back to England several years ago.

He calls it Homes, Gone Forever by A Small Glass Ghost.

Living in Dundee for many years he helped shape the local scene and continues to this day to push the creative envelope. I’d namecheck a Dundee electronica act at this point but I can’t think of any aside from Man Without Machines and they’re more ‘indie with…’ than experimental. If there is an up and coming experimental beats artist you can be sure the Rusty Hip collective will feature them.

I’ll let Alex’s own words tell the next bit (taken from bandcamp):

A Small Glass Ghost was the title of the second album by a long running band of mine called Thee Moths. The album was released on vinyl and CD back in 2003, and seemed to be popular at the time, with everyone from the NME to the Montreal Mirror writing favourably about it. It was, looking back, probably the nearest I’ve ever come to ‘success’ that could be measured in critical acclaim, if not record sales. It was recorded in the flat I was living in at the time, a split level place in Butterburn Court, a tower block in Dundee. I loved that flat, and have many many fond memories of my handful of years there, a time that saw so much music recorded there, and many many musicians sleeping on the sofa as I promoted artists like Lucky Dragons, Bobby Birdman, Mount Eerie, Ghost Mice, and Casiotone for the Painfully Alone in the city.

Why am I telling you all that?

At the end of June, this year, Dundee Council finally followed through on their plan to demolish Butterburn Court, meaning that there was no way I could ever return to that flat, even if I wanted to. The timing matched with my desire to tear down what I’d been previously making, and gave me a jumping off point for the new record. As a result ‘Homes, Gone Forever’ opens with two tracks based on ideas first explored in the opening two tracks of ‘A Small Glass Ghost’ from a decade earlier, and the opening piece ‘Home’s Gone, Forever’ features a recording of a rain storm captured from the kitchen of the now gone flat, a sound that will literally never be heard in nature ever again. 

As a concept you have to admit it’s quite a hook. The music itself is as challenging and uncompromising as anything I’ve heard from him. It says a lot when a Glasgow art group like In Posterface sounds almost middle of the road compared to this type of music, on a par with U.S. acts like Dirty Beaches or Lucky Dragons.

My lack of knowledge of the experimental beats genre means I’m hesitant to write anything approaching a typical review.

Homes, Gone Forever by A Small Glass Ghost is not designed for dancing or to impress your friends with. It’s an expression of hope in a format so alien to the mainstream that it’s likely to be ignored. We live in an always-on demand, instant satisfaction society where our collective patience is being eroded. Who is going to take the time to really listen to an album that on first listen makes no sense to the average music fan?

Records are not always there to make you dance or sing. Sometimes a record can help you out of your tried and tested thought patterns.

Where else would new ideas come from if we didn’t set out on uncharted waters? How else are we to see things from a different perspective?

Ultimately, the destruction of council homes in Dundee has provided inspiration for music to be created hundreds of miles away which can be heard from anywhere with online access.

Many years from now this audio recording might resonate more clearly to a generation born of technology we have yet to imagine. Or they might think we were a bit mad.

The futurists among you might wish to go check it out.

LISTEN TO HOMES, GONE FOREVER ON BANDCAMP

Share This Article...