A Ladder Is Not The Only Kind Of Time

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Cat No: BRC021

Release Date: 08 December 2023

Label: Birmingham Record Company

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 5060644810200

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: A Ladder is Not the Only Kind of Time

Description

Sheffield's historic Rivelin Valley was once a thriving hub of water-powered industry. Today the ruins of 20 watermills can be found along the river's length - ghosts of the city's industrial past. But the river Rivelin is alive, teeming not only with life but with the stories of life - with the multi-layered mess of mixed-up times, and with an invitation, generous and accommodating, to be still and to listen. It is rich with layers of history; sedimented, overlayed, and obscured.

A Ladder is Not the Only Kind of Time features 3 water-powered historical instruments designed and built by Benjamin Tassie and Sam Underwood. Played by the river, these instruments produce sound mechanically. Waterwheels turn, plucking and bowing strings concealed within while another uses the river's water to displace air in its chamber, playing organ pipes according to an Ancient Greek design. The delicate recordings on this beautiful album feature the sounds of the river and its environment of birds, traffic, children, dogs and joggers joining in with almost forgotten instruments.

The historical nature of these instruments evokes an idea of a time before the world became loud. For us today historical instruments suggest something lost in the rush to modernity. They remind us that progress need not always hurry forward, that the past might have lessons for us - that a ladder is not the only kind of time.

Benjamin Tassie (b.1987) is a composer, artist, and researcher. He is particularly interested in how historical musical instruments, tuning systems, and performance practices can be recontextualised to speak to our contemporary experiences. His music has been commissioned and performed by organisations, ensembles, and soloists including The National Galley, Tate Britain, Historic Royal Palaces, Nordic Affect, Zubin Kanga, Liam Byrne, the Ligeti Quartet, and Juice Vocal Ensemble.

"The album was made in dialogue with this evocative landscape. New music reframes the river, blurring the boundaries between the cultural and the natural, the new and the old." - Sheffield Telegraph

"Musician Benjamin Tassie has built bespoke, hand-made instruments and then lowered them into the River Rivelin – and in the process reawakened older ideas about our place within nature" - Now Then

"What these ten tracks end up conveying most concretely is the physicality of the river itself, a landmark equal parts fixed and mutable." - The Quietus

"There is something wonderfully poetic about this disc [...] You have to listen with ears attuned to a different rhythm, but if you do then the results have a kind of magic." – Planet Hugill

"Benjamin Tassie explores the industrial heritage of Sheffield, UK, in this highly original album that draws on the city's rich past through three new water-powered instruments, made with instrument designer Sam Underwood. These were taken to the Rivelin Valley, which has been shaped by watermills. Tassie recorded there, and this relationship gives the river Rivelin its voice back, evoking a time of thriving industry with delicate, captivating results." – New Scientist / Best Science-Inflected Albums of 2023
Tracklisting