Lawrence English / Werner Dafeldecker, Tropic of Capricorn, Switzerland, Hallow Ground, HG2301 limited edition vinyl LP (2023)
Both prolific artists individually and in collaboration with others, Lawrence English and Werner Dafeldecker have worked together before, on “Shadow of the Monolith” which they released back in 2014. Their second release together, “Tropic of Capricorn”, is heavily based on field recordings that English made on two trips, one through the Pilbara region of Western Australia – an area famous for its large-scale mining operations – and the other in the lands of the Arrernte people in the Northern Territory in central Australia. In making these field recordings, English paid particular attention to places and environments where European settlement or development had been attempted, had perhaps flourished for some time, and has now ceased or been abandoned, leaving behind machinery or structures in ruins and perhaps repurposed by local plants and animals. This source material was then passed over to Dafeldecker for further treatment which included re-recording some of the source material, and the treated results were then inserted into the original recordings.
The recordings have that expansive, sunny air of field recordings made in Australian natural environments but there are also noises that might have a mechanical or other technological origin: skittery clattering noises suggestive of wooden rattles or swarms of wasps or hornets that seem bigger than they really are, behind a flickering fire, appear early in Track I, leaving behind an atmosphere of slight unease. Sputtering fire ash, night cricket ambience and the distant sounds of strong winds riffling through tree canopies set a darkening atmosphere where almost anything, be it natural or not, might happen. The ghosts of past times, when the landscapes might have been used for purposes and rituals now long forgotten, pass through these environments; then again, those ghosts could actually be just tape loops playing over and over, to give the impression of something returning from another dimension to repeat an action over and over, in the manner of Lady Macbeth obsessively cleaning and rubbing her hands after murder. You really do not know if what you are hearing is natural, man-made (at either English’s end, recording sounds on his field trips, or at Dafeldecker’s end) or your own mind playing tricks on you. Even the sounds of birds can come across as artificial, when they repeat over and over and end up sounding mechanical.
Track II, a continuation from Track I, keeps going with the bird song for some time but a looming low-end drone sets the scene for a mix of other noises, including a scratching metallic drone and a series of white noise taps. There are still plenty of bird calls and other such avian sounds, including what appears to be an annoying seagull call in the background somewhere. (I must admit to feeling grateful that, at the time English made his trips, the parrots and cockatoos that may frequent the Pilbara region and central Australia were absent, probably making their usual racket elsewhere in the cities of southeast and southwest Australia.) In the last few minutes of Track II, metal drum noises and piano notes bring another, more plaintive mood and another ambience, one of isolation, into the recording.
As always, with this and other recordings based on field recordings and their further studio treatment, you’re forced to confront the immediacy of these sounds and become completely immersed in the worlds they magick into being. All stereotypes you might have carried about the sonic nature of the natural world fall away and you start to realise that notions about the natural world being different from the man-made world themselves are artificial and based on assumptions and opinion, not on the reality.