Bleep

UK electronic & ambient experimentalist Specimens presents his debut album ‘Sculptures’. Featuring artwork by the award winning Australian artist Kieran Ingram and mastered by Room 40 label boss and cornerstone of the Drone/Ambient music world Lawrence English. ‘Sculptures’ is a delicately and painstaking put together debut album, it follows up from releases on A Giant Fern, Amsterdam based Shimmering Moods Records & the collaborative Specimens x Daniel Wiesmayr release ‘Water & Concrete’ on London’s Tenderly Surrender, the title track of which soundtracked a short from film maker & director Sophie Littman & went on to get over 20,000 views in it’s Nowness premiere. 


Wearing his influences on his sleeve & with a nod to past and present noise pioneers such as Throbbing Gristle, Leyland Kirby, K.Leimer and Ben Frost, the record pans between a dream-like fog on the tracks "Cerulean Forest” & “French Morning” and cold industrial chops on “A Marble Hallway”. 



Specimens said of this release “I didn’t want to make a record intentionally difficult to listen to, but I wanted uncomfortable moments, It was important for me to try and make the record sound as human as possible and in some places distinctly live"



The lighter more gentle moments hold together the records more jagged edges, occasionally leaning towards a more classical feel, in a way the likes of William Basinski & Sean McCann display with regular expertise, this is best illustrated in the tracks “Piano Loops” & “VI.VI.MMXV”. Samples of Sudanese wrestling & Tuvan Throat Singing give the record the “human” feel Specimens describes and adds a charm which prevents the record from ever feeling too slick.



Over the past 18 months Specimens has been collaborating and releasing singles and EPs at a pace that hints at an artist never fully satisfied with sitting on a project, in this process he has undeniably broadened his creative sphere whilst also honing in on a sound unmistakably his own, the a result is a record distinctly individual and unapologetically enjoyable to engage with.