Steven Ball
ground breath material wind atmosphere voice
U.K. WORMHOLE WORLD RECORDS C.D. (2023)
Down the wormhole it is then…Steven Ball first began to tweak the ears of the underground during post punk’s year one of 1978 as fifty per cent of the Storm Bugs alongside Philip Sanderson. Here was a duo who were immersed in the thriving “D.I.Y. / Cassette Culture” movement, their releases on their own ‘Snatch Tapes‘ imprint, being occasionally documented at the time within the back pages of Sounds and the N.M.E. A fully justified rediscovery of their back catalogue took place a decade or so later with retrospective releases coming from the houses of Fusetron, Harbinger and Klanggalerie. But it was around 2015 that Steven began to take a series of long excursions outside of the confines of his home/studio to extract the genus loci (spirit of place), from a large number of far flung U.K. co-ordinates. The intention: to create ‘field songs’ – improvised lyrics and melodies (backed up by sparse guitar lines), that act as a response to the surrounding landscape.
Excepting the self-explanatory and somewhat desolate “Wind, Mersea Island”; an Essex-based composition, the remaining tracks all have their origins in the Outer Hebrides. “Atlantic”, “A Picture Containing…” and “Ground Rule” for example, almost smack of traditional folk airs, but at other times, conjure up precious memories of Woo (Sunshine Series/Drag City Records), or the more reflective, sun-dappled moments of Martyn Bates’ Eyeless in Gaza.
Interestingly…”Ground…” is one in a tiny minority of Steven’s releases where the front cover art omits images of the areas under the microphone, (the back sleeve photo doesn’t help, being a strangely blurred and indistinct strip). I’d guess that the aim was to stretch the grey cells of the armchair traveller just a little. A less than passive experience perhaps – which is surely no bad thing.