Bleep

The Eternal Present does a lot of borrowing, in fact, as ideas and connections from Van Hoen’s past continuously crop in thickly atmospheric tracks. Way back in the late 90s, Van Hoen was releasing music on Apollo and Touch, collaborating with the likes of Seefeel and Neil Halstead, and those episodes of his life replay in the glistening cover of Slowdive’s ‘Shine’ featuring Rachel Goswell, alongside textural pieces overflowing with walls of ambience and cyclical rhythms, or the blurry morning dew guitars of ‘Xmas’ plucked quaintly like a high pitched music box. These aren’t nostalgic references, but recognitions of his musical past flowing through the present moment.

And as Van Hoen’s legacy flows through The Eternal Present, it snakes its way through more relatively recent productions to create a career long, cohesive snapshot of his skills. Detuned synths drift loosely across harmonies and pyrotechnic beats on ‘Multiplex’, while the jagged bass and distended vocal edits of ‘Only Me’ coalesce as a technoid rhythm splashes in a corrosive concoction. ‘Gone To The Unseen’ introduces the album on a more emotional note, with piano and mellotron lamenting in the flurry of resonant pads, dancing a delicate dirge as the ambience bristles into a blizzard.

From gently weaving melody to gale force rips and tears, The Eternal Present shows Mark Van Hoen at all angles of his sonic practice.

Artwork by Ian Anderson in The Designers Republic™
Mastered by Stefan Betke

01 Gone To The Unseen - This has a kind of Soviet-era feel. Akin to the instrumental tracks on Bowie’s “Low” LP and OMD’s “Architecture and Morality” LP It was done without a grid (ie played live without clicks etc). Recorded in Somerset, England in 2022.

02 It’s Not You (In A Way) - Recorded in LA in 2016, this was recorded mainly on Modular synths and effects, to tape. The vocal refers to something someone said to me in an argument..about blame. It’s not you - in a way.

03 Only Me - I would say this is most influenced by Cabaret Voltaire (The early incarnation, when Chris Watson was a member). It features abstracted voices and vocals, indistinct vocalisations. It’s fairly industrial in its feel. Recorded in 2017, Los Angeles.

04 Frontier Song - This is quite minimal, has really only 3 sounds. I had an experience the I was about 8, I went to a concert of Christian choral music in Birmingham, in a big auditorium. I was in awe at the sound of the choir in the large space. This is an abstracted version of my memory of that event.

05 Multiplex - This was recorded in 2016 in Los Angeles. Entirely performed on modular synthesizers, is in 5/4 time and features polyrhythms. It also has a continually drifting key centre that rises and falls on all instruments simultaneously throughout the piece. The vocal part is constructed from samples of an undisclosed (but very famous!) female vocalist. The word most prominent ‘Multa’ which was assembled from 2 syllables from different words means ‘Many’ in Latin. It refers to the multiple fluctuating and changing elements of the music, which, without close scrutiny, seem quite static to the casual ear.

06 No-One Leave - In 7/8 time, features polyrhythms and a floating lead vocal ‘No-One Leave’..which is a wish to have everyone stay and remain in this life. Lots of dominant 7th chords giving a kind of tension, with the bass notes changing accordingly. Some nice ad-libs from vocalist Clare Dove.

07 Shine - Recorded in 1998, London. Rachel Goswell recorded the vocals at my studio in EC1. After, they were processed and manipulated in some software called “GRM Tools”. This piece is similar to the track “Real Love” on my album “Playing With Time” in that it uses the vocals as the sole source of Melody and Harmony over a routed key centre provided by the drums. The snare sound is a TC 2290 delay line in resonance mode. This idea was from Robin Guthrie who told me that he’d done something similar on the title track of “Blue Bell Knoll”

08 Theme From The Present II - This features an almost child-like melody with later harmonies, over non-synced string samples, bursts of random vocalisations…and a vocal part reminiscent of Grouper’s “Cover the Windows and the Walls” LP.

09 Xmas - A simple piece using a single synthesiser through a granular synth processor. I recorded this on Christmas day 2017.

10 Somewhere - Similarly to “Multiplex” this takes a subtle route to disorientate the listener. It has a constantly fluctuating tempo, and a reversed processing on the percussion. The vocals (Megan Mitchell) are multi layered, filtered and none synced to the rest of the piece. There is a simple string melody and 8-bit synth chord part which provides some kind of more friendly musicality to the piece. I enjoy having this element over the less conventional rhythmic aspects of the track.