Ceremonial Abyss - Despair c60

"In Despair, the dialectic between hope and disappointment unfolds as continuous nascence of each element in the other. The paradox being that the deeper the sound, the more withdrawn it is, and the more evocative that sound is of its silence. This two-part composition is thus a revisiting of the myth of Echo, whose whispers—in multiplying—emptied themselves of meaning while resounding of solitude. And yet, if Despair weaves its layers around a nucleus of loss, it also never fully stops. Time links up with space, only for an innermost universe to fall away. One is left with a shadow, but no layer of object; windows, but no views; statements, searching for their earliest questions." - Jennifer Soong

"What is Despair? Here, it’s the aventurine drone made by polishing the heart when it’s given up anything left to do. I could try to make a quip about Abyss’ release of this tape on the quarter moon, elide the nickelodeon fact with a line about the big, fat quarter-face of money, but this would get it wrong–here is a sound that even your forcefield chuckle cannot escape, a vox that cuts through cash to something before language, even laughter. Transmigrations of sublime proportions, flights of angels grounded by the heavy substance of earth, the mind’s one-pointedness while all else circles around it, what it feels like to look at things and think nothing at all. I want to drive into this sound in my aluminum can until I unhitch from gravity and float blissfully off, then be brought down by the low vibration of some chattering skull whose song is of a certain knowledge…of what, I don’t know." - Elise Houcek

Side A - "Part One"
Side B - "Part Two"

Total running time: 60 minutes

Light gray five-screw Type I ferric cobalt cassette in recycled soft poly case. Insert printed on second-hand, lightly textured swedish design paper.

Mastered by Michael Buchanan

Edition of 50