Available to listen to and buy at Bandcamp
Release date: 28 May 2026
Format: digital download. Artwork and typography by Landschaft.
The Brickburner:
The Carlton and Mapperley districts of Nottingham straddle ridgelines of clay outcrop to the east of the city. Their present topography was shaped by the claypits of numerous brickworks. The title of this work derives from a different time and place but forms a joining in memory and association, linking the geography a mile from my home with the early twentieth century satirical publication Der Ziegelbrenner published, it is believed by Otto Feige aka Ret Marut aka Bruno Traven among other identities, an author who's shadowy existence captured my immagination as a child.
So to Carlton and Mapperley. As a child I was mystified by the great gougings out of the hillsides near my home I now know to be claypits. The brick manufacturing [ten or more firms were located here] has long since ceased but the workings remained, as did the remnants of the Nottingham suburban railway and the tramways which traversed the sites. Speculating, I see the brickworks taking advantage of the local clay and the ready supply of coal, both heavy materials expensive to transport and the extensive local railway network was available to transport the finished bricks to market. My wife lived closer to the brick pits - they were her childhood playground. Many houses in the locality have covenants forbidding the mining of clay in their deeds.
And to B Traven. There has been much speculation in acedemia around the identity and family background of this author who is long out of fashion. As a child I watched a documentary that has stayed with me over the years: Der Ziegelbrenner - The Brickburner literally translated, but more accurately though prosaically translated 'The Brickmaker'. Der Ziegelbrenner was a satirical magazine he is thought to have covertly published. My fascination was in the multiple identities of the author, now speculated as mischieviousness, but perhaps more practically driven by a wish to stay one step ahead of authorities who were less than enthusiastic about his political leanings. Such nuance was beyond my childish imagination - it was the mystery that fascinated me, in this author who made 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre'.
So there is the joining. Of childhood mystery, exploration and learning.
This multi-part work comprises a massive modular synthesiser patch that is based around a hub of Instruo modules driving a number of esoteric oscillators [Klavis Twin Waves, Jorganalogue Orbit 3, Instruo TsL], all synchronised and modulated by Erica Octasource, itself being modulated by a number of clock synched sources. It's a great big sonic soup of a self generative patch, very loosley at the start based on Penrose geometry and Mozart's Kyrie from his Requiem Mass - but all resemblance is consumed by the quantisation I imposed on the signals. It now stands as a unique work in it's own right as 'The Brickburner'.