Colin Andrew Sheffield
Moments Lost
POLAND SUBLIME RETREAT SR023 CD (2024)
Short but powerful mini-disc from this imaginative creator who now resides in Texas and runs the excellent label Elevator Bath. Matter of fact today’s record was first heard in that American state in Denton at the Molten Plains festival (their local riposte to Burning Man one assumes, from its name) where the lucky few heard it in 2023.
I’m impressed to learn this subtle, but texturally rich, collage of layers and textures was made from sampling and processing old movie soundtrack LPs, an area of music and record-collecting that’s been growing in interest for the last 20-30 years now. As with previous detailed sample-and-stitch endeavours from the Sheffster – the 2017 cassette Polarities, with James Eck Rippie, is but one example – the effort spent in trying to transcend his sources is really starting to pay off, and there’s no fetishisation of the original music score nor the vinyl on which it was pressed (although we are advised to listen out for juicy moments of surface noise being folded into the whirlpool of colours). Fittingly, the original presentation of the sound was accompanied by a film, one hand-made by the creator and likewise using vintage cinematic moments as its starting point, and examples of same can be seen in the evocative monochrome near-abstract blurs on the artwork here.
Christian Marclay is another who has, in his time, interfered with both LP records and movie footage, but he’s far more histrionic and attention-seeking than the measured tones that emanate from Moments Lost. Sheffield claims – or at least the label does – that a part of him is reaching out to the past and attempting to layer it into the future, using sonic archaeology – and invoking meaningful nostalgic emotions without becoming sentimental or tawdry. In this, he’s not far apart from our UK electro-acoustic tape-salvaging genius, Mark Vernon. Very fine. (15/11/2024)