"I left London at the beginning of March to spend lockdown in Portaferry, Northern Ireland with my family. I ended up staying there for 5 months. I feel incredibly fortunate to have such a place to return to and even more so to have such supportive parents. Many nights were spent talking shite with my dad and further developing our affinity for a certain single pot still whiskey. I spoke to Olan Monk about my contribution to this series—he suggested that I submit a recording of my dad’s advice. My original plan was to distil material I had generated over lockdown, using processing and synthesis techniques I had been working with, alongside recordings of a local barn that I had some open microphones in, which live streamed throughout April. Upon returning to London, I called my dad asked him how he thought I should approach generating a new piece. I recorded the call, combined elements of his instructions (loosely followed and executed) with some of the processing techniques I had been working with during my time in NI—applied to his voice and the material generated over lockdown." - Michael Speers -- “Now it’s time for a Green Spot!!!!! After a few Green Spots it may sound completely different.” —Paul Speers

Stemming from Speers’ background as a percussionist and technician testing large amounts of audio equipment, ‘xtr’ctn’ pairs nanoscopic recordings of electronic equipment’s internal behaviours with samples of the natural world and feedback from no-input mixers to yield a visceral and inventively personalised view on sound phenomena and resonant spaces that lay beyond the threshold of human perception. Arranging his unique palette of field recordings, SFX library, YouTube samples and original instrumentation by Olan Monk into non-linear, non-narrative structures, he invites the listener to immerse in a form of sonic fiction which highlights the fine line between referential, objective reality and pareidolic subjectivity. Distinguished by an otherworldy, meta sense of detachment shared with music by Giuseppe Ielasi, Mika Vainio, and :Zoviet*France:, the four pieces form a fascinating sonic weltanschauung that acknowledges and articulates the complex role of non-human and material sound generators upon the self. From the way seagulls resemble death metal screams in ‘obturo’ to the uncanny manner in which Olan Monk’s piano pulse and samples of Liam Byrne’s viola de gamba in ’tombeau’ recalls a scene of ravenous whistle and horn blowing at The Eclipse in Coventry c. 1992, each piece is densely packed with acousmatic data that will stimulate a broad range of reactions as listeners fill in the perceptive gaps according to their own sferic conditioning and grasp of worlds natural, and synthetic. Where the first two pieces steer clear of any blatant emotive cues, the fragmented shrapnel that opens ’sul. locus’ changes at the mid-way point with the suggestively gloomy strokes of a Kemençe, a stringed middle-eastern instrument held in subtle contrast with the sound of ice hacking taken from a 1984 BBC SFX library sample to sound like a location recording from an alchemist’s lab, or passages of When’s proto-BM classic ‘The Black Death’, while ‘ορμή’ follows with an eerie vent of percussive improv, the sound of filing metal, and a pressure washer that recall the lurching rhythm and gauntlet grasp of textures also found in the remarkable debut by Cairo’s 1127. It all points to a penetrative pair of ears and mind that sees the world differently, and should inspire listeners to pay closer attention to the world around them. --- C.A.N.V.A.S., 2019