Another fine set from Mark Vernon – Sheet Erosion (SONORIS sns-25), mostly made in Brest in France around 2020 and commissioned for a radio station, I believe. He combined recent field recordings of storms with “found” materials from the 1970s and 1980s, donated by one Michel Le Bras. This gentleman’s home taping hobby led him to record segments from his favourite radio and TV shows, and also some more “ordinary” domestic scenes of his family. Music, dialogue, sound effects.
If you’re at all familiar with Mark Vernon’s work, you’ll know that everything in this list so far is meat and drink to this very original tape collagist and electro-acoustic composer, who delights in old recordings wherever he can find them, savouring not only the contents – glimpses of the past – but even the condition of them, doing what he can to rescue audio fragments from crumbling tape and flaking oxide. As always, a very sympathetic and humanistic view of the world emerges from his gentle editing interventions, all enhanced with evocative titles such as ‘A Convocation of Ghosts’ and ‘Empire of Dampness’, and every moment suggestive of a radio play. From 22 November 2023.