Searching Erskine, by Arun Sood

Searching Erskine

by Arun Sood

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topographix This album becomes a fully immersive experience with the accompanying booklet.The photography, artwork and written work add enormously to the joy of listening. The quality of the booklet adds a very tactile element to this digital release. Favorite track: The Old Dictaphone.

Alasdair Duncan A wonderful sonic painting of a remote part of Scotland, it sounds like hazy half-remembered stories and pictures. Favorite track: The Lastborn.

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Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

£7 GBP or more
210 x 210mm 64-page soft-back book, printed in full colour.

Featuring visual artwork from artists Emile Kees, Rosalind Blake and Meg Rodger. These sit alongside Arun’s introductory essay, poems and extensive notes exploring the making of the album.

Includes digital download of the 12-track album.

Designed by Tommy Perman.

Shipping from around 16th March 2022.

Includes unlimited streaming of Searching Erskine via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 4 days

Purchasable with gift card

£15 GBP or more
Searching Erskine book plus 7" lathe-cut single
7" lathe-cut transparent vinyl single featuring 'Katie' and 'The Old Dictaphone' plus 210 x 210mm 64-page soft-back book, printed in full colour.

Featuring visual artwork from artists Emile Kees, Rosalind Blake and Meg Rodger. These sit alongside Arun’s introductory essay, poems and extensive notes exploring the making of the album.

Includes digital download of the 12-track album.

Designed by Tommy Perman.

Shipping from around 8th April 2022

Includes unlimited streaming of Searching Erskine via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Sold Out

1.	Katie 04:13	buy track
2.	The Old Dictaphone 03:23	buy track
3.	He Was Drowned 03:58	buy track
4.	The Cairn 01:57	buy track
5.	Taigh Mòr (featuring Alice Allen) 05:14	buy track
6.	Land Seeps 02:06	buy track
7.	Vasa 04:29	buy track
8.	Above, An Abandoned Piano I 02:19	buy track
9.	The Lastborn 03:08	buy track
10.	Above, An Abandoned Piano II 01:52	buy track
11.	Lachlan's Drones 03:11	buy track
12.	Crossing (featuring Rachel Sermanni) 05:29	buy track

about

"This gorgeous sonic tribute to the abandoned island of Vallay, where the artist’s grandmother once lived, is filled with folk memory and longing" JUDE ROGERS / THE GUARDIAN

‘Searching Erskine’ is a 12-track album that blurs the boundaries between ambient, modern-folk and contemporary classical, released with an accompanying book that responds to the uninhabited island of Vallay, which lies approximately two miles off the northwest coast of North Uist. On foot, it can only be accessed at low tide across vast tidal sands.

It’s the result of the channelling of voices, original music, oral histories, spectral sounds, and field recordings from the island.This is a project about ruins, land, memory, and the intersections in between.

In 1905, antiquarian, industrialist, and pioneering archaeologist Erskine Beveridge built a Georgian mansion on Vallay in order to excavate prehistoric duns and finish his book on North Uist. The mansion gradually fell into disrepair after Erskine’s son, George Beveridge, drowned in 1944 while crossing the tidal strand, leaving no heir nor work for the small population of crofters, groundsmen, and housekeepers who departed the island shortly after.

Arun’s grandmother (gaga), Katie MacNaughton, was one of the last islanders to leave, and these song tapestries locate his family story in a palimpsest of cultural, natural, and historical layers that comprise the now uninhabited island.

The 64-page book features visual artwork from artists Emile Kees, Rosalind Blake and Meg Rodger. These sit alongside Arun’s introductory essay, poems and extensive notes exploring the making of the album, which features contributions from musicians including Rachel Sermanni (guitar and vocals), Alastair Smith (synths, organs, tape loops and sonifications) and Alice Allen (cello).

An exhibition of the artworks featured in the book and a new sound installation and film by Arun will run at the Taigh Chearsabhagh Arts Centre in Lochmaddy, North Uist, from March until May 2022.

"This gorgeous sonic tribute to the abandoned island of Vallay, where the artist’s grandmother once lived, is filled with folk memory and longing" JUDE ROGERS / THE GUARDIAN

"Arun's new record traces the story of his ancestry back to the island, and he does it with fragments of memories spoken and images conjured through sound and field recordings, strings and electronics and tape loops that ebb and swirl like the tide." ELIZABETH ALKER / UNCLASSIFIED / BBC RADIO 3

credits

released March 4, 2022

Mastered by Sam Annand.

Book design by Tommy Perman.

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about

Blackford Hill Edinburgh, UK

Our releases encompass electronica, field recordings, modern classical, spoken word and jazz - all connected to or inspired by a sense of place, created in a variety of audio and print formats.

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