Sounds from the edges of culture and between the cracks of category

COVID 19 - Just a note to say that during this crisis physical releases are being posted as normal, the postbox is on my exercise route!

Latest Releases- 
​Cassette Imprint

LOR 138 - Solaris
​-Findings and Soundings

The long awaited follow up to their debut on Linear Obsessional (itself, arguably some 45 years in the making!) "Findings and Soundings" was recorded by Mark Spybey in the coastal town of Redcar, in the North East of England, where the three members of the band first met as children in the early 70s. Mark Spybey (later to work as Dead Voices on Air), Richard Sanderson (later to found Linear Obsessional Recordings) and his cousin Mark Sanderson first started playing together in 1974 as (just) teenagers - "Findings and Soundings" sees the band aproaching their 60s.
This album continues to work in their late syle - a mix of free improvisation (in fact all the music is improvised), a psychedelic electronic influence, and, undoubtedly, the sound sometimes labelled "spacerock" which was the sound that brought them together in the first place. Playful, explorative and economical "Findings and Soundings" is the triumphant return of the North East's longest running experimental band.
Released as a limited edition cassette and download.
To purchase or stream please visit the release page

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LOR131 - Grundik Kasyansky -
​-Lepus

Composer and innovator Grundik Kasyansky works with tiny sounds created with a "feedback synthesizer" of his own devising, to build totally engrossing works. "Lepus" is a series of solo improvisations for feedback synthesizer.
Grundik Kasyansky is based in London and works with some of Europe's leading improvisers, he was a founder of the Israeli electronic duo Grundik  and Slava, and plays in the groups Staraya Derevnya, Denis D’or, and Llull Machines.
"Lepus" is an utterly unique listening experience...
Available on cassette and DL
To stream or purchase please visit the release pagelinearobsessional.bandcamp.com/album/lepus

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LOR129 - Duncan Chapman
​-Cove

Duncan Chapman's second release for Linear Obsessional is this beautiful cassette - "Cove" based around recordings made in Cove Park in February 2019. The tracks are a mixture of field recordings, live improvisations, sonification of landscape images and manipulated recordings.
The four tracks are bright evocations of landscape, whether a calm pond or a view of mountains - still and haunting, enveloping and luminous.
To listen or purchase visit the release page

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LOR119 - Richard Sanderson
​-Compass Rose

Richard Sanderson releases his first solo album for three years. "Compass Rose" consists of three longish tracks for amplified melodeon (diatonic button accordion). Side one has two tracks recorded at Brighton Road Studios in Sussex, whilst side two is an improvisation recorded live at  London's IKLECTIK by Saint Austral Sound. The tracks were mixed by Sanderson, with no overdubs or processing, these recordings present the raw sound of the melodeon rendered as a melange of noise, feedback and free-reed dynamics - reminiscent at times of bagpipe music, John Cale's viola, or doom metal, and even occasionally folk music. Recorded in 2019, this is perhaps the purest representation of Sanderson's live sound, and of the influences he has absorbed since taking up the instrument 15 years ago.
​Available as a limited edition cassette and download.
To stream or purchase please go to the release page

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LOR132 - Tigersonic
​-Blipcuts

Linear Obsessional is delighted to present this amazing album of micro-dub, glitch-funk miniatures by the London based producer and musician Tigersonic. Using an technique of carving her tracks down to the essentials Tigersonic eschews the 12" stretch of a lot of dance, dub and electronica and instead produces a set of 20 tracks - (average length two minutes or considerably less) none of which outstay their welcome. Moving through abstract noise, majestic cavernous dub and angular funk the ideas keep flowing, restlessly, inventively and compellingly in a stop/start exercise in 21st century blip dynamics. Early ACR, On-U Sound and PIL may come to mind, along with a post-punk energy and willingness to experiment, but this is mainly an exercise groove based abstractica for the restless and the curious... ​
Released as a limited edition cassette and download with PDF booklet and short videos.
To stream or purchase please visit the release page

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Forthcoming Releases

LOR142 - Charlotte Law
​-Ice Since Fire

Linear Obsessional is very excited to release the debut album by London based guitarist, sound artist and multi discipline performer Charlotte Law. Charlotte plays mesmerising live concerts using a table-top prepared electric guitar producing scintilating sounds and tones as she balances objects on the strings and bows the instrument with an extraordinary level of control. She also incorporates text into her performances and has worked with film.
​Available to preorder on cassette and download....

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Latest Releases -
​Compact Discs and Downloads

LOR139 - Duncan Chapman
​- Transporter

Linear Obsessional announces a new series curated by David Little and Richard Sanderson, with Duncan Chapman's "Transporter", Download singles (two tracks; A and B sides, each around three minutes or under)  of field recordings. Rather than the longform field recordings usually end up being, the Lin Ob singles will be perfectly crystalised moments outside your normal daily experience. At the time of writing, the whole world is in Covid 19 lockdown, so these audio bulletins from the outside world are even more pertinent.
"Transporter" consists of two recordings made at the famous Transporter Bridge, the skyline dominating symbol of Miiddlesbrough. Side A is a walk across the top as the mechanism of the gondola move across the River Tees, Side B is the sound of the Winding House as it pulls the Gondola full of cars and people across the river. An audio slice of 19th Century technology.
​available for classic single price of 75p. 
To download please visit the release page

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LOR141 - Cyff Gwawd
-We Love To Wash Our Hands

"In 2011 I had a thought: What if a minimalist composer, like Reich, Glass, or Riley, wrote children's songs about things like washing your hands? The kids would wash their hands all day! Fast forward to 2020, and we're ALL washing our hands all day."
                                                                    -Alex Sramek
Cyff Gwawd is Stuart Estell, a piano, and a barely-functional cassette recorder.
This album consists of versions of Alex Sramek’s piece “We love to wash our hands”, played considerably more slowly than Alex’s own performances. When transferring the recording to the computer, the cassette motor decided to play back only at high speed, so the Bb version is actually as it came out of the cassette player, overlaid multiple times. The raw track was then processed to bring it back to original pitch, and a “field recording” (recorded digitally!) of ambient lockdown sounds, recorded from our kitchen window in Redditch on a sunny spring afternoon, was added. The third and final track takes the field recording and adds a drone created by processing low piano notes.
To purchase or stream please visit the release page

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LOR140 - Various Artists
​>>>>>Self Isolating Congregation<<<<<

​
Twenty New Quartets and One Trio.
After releasing the >>>>>Self Isolating Compilation<<<<< of 85 tracks of solo music performed under lockdown, I invited 21 artists to mix tracks together to create new musical units. To avoid any bias every artist was alotted their tracks via the use of a random number generator. Once given the tracks the artists could do what they wanted with them, as long as elements from all the tracks were present.
The result is a fascinating collection of virtual ensembles, in which every track from the original compilation re-appears, often in a miraculously mutated fashion.
​To view listen and download please visit the release page.

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LOR137 - M.A.K.T. Sono
​- Do Da Dangle

I'm delighted to present these two lengthy electronic improvisations by the Parisian duo M.A.K.T. Sono.
The pair of Magali Albespy and Kecap Tuyul both use the warm and mildly unstable sound of analogue synths to create a kind of alien discourse - (think of the "Music of the Krells"), which pulses and winds it's way through a series of fascinating and playful scenic metamorphoses.
To stream buy or download visit the release page

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LOR136 - Various Artists
->>>>>Self Isolating Compilation<<<<<

These 85 (Eighty Five!) tracks are an attempted answer to the conundrum - how do we make social music when we're all isolated. All the tracks were recorded in isolation at home, and almost all solo . There are tracks from UK, USA, France, Spain, Finland, Sweden, Ireland and the Canary Islands. The result is a kaleidoscope of variety - electronics, acoustic improvisations, the odd song and a poem.
This may feel like 85 individuals shouting into the maelstrom, or whistling in the dark, but it's really the sounds of people coming to terms with the isolation and being creative, and it is remarkably cohesive.
Volume Two ">>>>>Self Isolatating Congregation<<<<<" will bring the musicians together in quartets and trios mixed by Linear Obsessional artists.
To stream or download please visit the release page

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LOR130 - Ben Glas
​-Rhizomatic Music

Linear Obsessional is delighted to present the second album on this label from the extraordinary American composer Ben Glas.
Rhizomatic Music explores further his interest in philosophical themes, and playful, interactive music.
"...This work is an attempt at a type of music that allows for listeners and active participants to drift in and out of a rhizomatic structure, in an egalitarian manner. These compositions consist of a series of static pentatonic tones and their fluctuating acoustic beating counterparts. “Rhizomatic Music (0-∞)” is seemingly stagnant, at first listen. Polyrhythmic standing waves fill space and make for a myriad of various listening perspectives. The acoustic beating allows for a spatial polyrhythmic experience, allowing the listener to mentally move through different time signatures, as well as physically moving through space to navigate the physicality of the tones and their unfolding patterns in spacetime..."
From the notes by Ben Glas
To purchase or stream please visit the release page

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Forthcoming Releases