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п​о​д​с​н​е​ж​н​и​к​и

by MAbH

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New limited edition handmade art edition drops 1 June 2023

MAbH is proud to announce the release of his new album п​о​д​с​н​е​ж​н​и​к​и (snowdrops).

п​о​д​с​н​е​ж​н​и​к​и - 30m23s
покаяние - 30m00s

п​о​д​с​н​е​ж​н​и​к​и departs a little from MAbH's signature sound of musique concrète and tape collage, making way for a protracted exercise in perpetual tape decay/delay forging long, deep, and immersive pieces that consume each 30 minute side of the cassette. Both tracks are also made for perpetual loops (digital only).

This record was made to create a peaceful space for me to find solace from acute anxiety, depression and hitting 40. I use this music to accompany me while reading, walking, practicing mindfulness (which I’m shit at) and resting. I have been listening to this music on long walks by the Thames, alongside a wonderful podcast, Next Year in Moscow by The Economist’s Arkady Ostrovsky. There were moments listening to this haunting account of Russia’s lost - forced to rethink their national identity - that resonated with me and the horror of modern politics and power. The music I created could be construed as an attempt to bury my head in the sand, but it’s a balm - a soothing aural medicine to help me cope with the horror of war, modern fascism and the world of men.

По​д​с​н​е​ж​н​и​к​и (snowdrops) is the phenomenon of homeless people in Russia who die during the winter months and are discovered in the spring when the snow melts. Due to the similarity in appearance between the bodies and the snowdrops, they are sometimes referred to as "snowdrops" or "spring thaw" victims. This tragic, macabre event is a byproduct of Putin’s Russia and the great divide between the wealthiest and poorest citizens. The aim of this piece of music was to find something to get utterly lost in. It moves like snow in the wind, looping and never letting up. To me it is a blanket against the cold and something I return to frequently to help calm myself. To me it’s music to lay down with and look at the stars, to drift off with and waking up is a bonus.

Покаяние (Repentance) is the title of a Georgian film where Varlam, the despotic mayor of a small town, dies. After his funeral, his body is repeatedly unearthed and buried again. It’s a commentary on Stalin and the terror of Soviet Russia and the people it consumed. The piece of music is based on loops which evolve ever so slightly, yet remain as a single drone with subtle fluctuating tonal shifts that seem to constantly ascend. This is a piece that I find both tranquil, with an unsettling underbelly.

Method
This record was made by sampling and looping a collection of new-age cassettes from the 80s, which I’ve had for many years. I physically manipulated the tape itself, to record passages which I stitched together digitally, layering and adding delay and playing with frequencies to give a thick, warm fuzzy sound. I then refined each recording using micro-loops and longer pieces to create high-fidelity recordings. I then played the cleaner tracks through homemade objects to capture unique sounds and then mixed these into these to get a more decayed and analogue sound.

Art edition cassette
Each recycled cassette is a marbled purple “blackberry” C60) housed in a handmade recycled cream card sleeve. These are stickered and hand-numbered in an edition of 20. Both physical and digital are available from mabh.bandcamp.com [link]. Each tape is dubbed in real-time with a DIY feel, capturing each side with no fade in or fade out.

Here are some words for previous MAbH records:

"Funereal dirges sing over the horizon, beckoning us to inevitable doom. Romance blooms in the ashes of yesterday, though, and scratching out love letters in the blackened dirt, MAbH moves closer to transcendence."
Foxy Digitalis

"It’s the most transcendent piece of art I’ve heard in decades, pointing THE WAY FORWARD for genuinely artistic, expressionistic music in the new century and beyond"
Times Boredom

"This is the stuff to get lost in, to listen to on headphones and absolutely escape."
Tabs Out

"Taylor pulls out all the stops to create an album of maximum beauty with minimal inputs. It's got everything: Disembodied Julianna Barwick vocals, disembodied percussion, bells ringing through a thousand empty rooms."
Tome To the Weather Machine

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released June 1, 2023

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