Artist: Beachers
Title: There Are No Cicadas In This Town
Label: Bezirk | Cat. No: IS002 | Release Date: 2024-11-01
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'There are no cicadas in this town' is the new album from London-based producer Beachers. It explores the experience of duration and the intrusions of place while feeling burnt out and exhausted on the green fringes of urban spaces. It has a particular focus on chance sonic encounters and the strange serenity of cacophonous soundscapes, not so much the beach beneath the pavements as the noisy cloud above them.
The seven tracks are constructed from recordings of environmental sounds and attempts to reflect them with warped and abstracted guitar. Opener “More important than the destination” begins with a wheezing rail-replacement bus, instrumentation added in an attempt to reorientate the intrusive sound. On “Beatings” and “Electrosmog” sculpted delay feedback weaves together tableaus of discrete and discreet environmental recordings. The title track layers heavily effected guitar and drum machine with the aim of simulating organic volubility through a tangle of chaotic urban noise. Closer “The river is a waveform” is built on field recordings from an overflowing lock on a London canal and fluctuating overlaps of a single chord, aiming to conjure stasis and restlessness in one. A rumination on attempts to find peace on a late night walk around the outskirts of the city and finding a torrent instead.
Accompanying text
It all started on a rail replacement bus service. The kind that both takes time and frees time. Space to look out the window as surroundings move slower. But this bus on this day was screaming. The driver warned us it would happen, told us not to be alarmed. Every time we turned a corner the bus shrieked.
The sound was transfixing and horrible. It’s the first sound here and everything else stems from there. Rivers flowing too fast in the year where it wouldn’t stop raining. Walks through the park where everything seemed to be a joyous cacophony. Trying to make a guitar sound like insects and frogs and humming electricity. To join in with the strange equilibrium.
It all started at a Joan Miró exhibition in Porto. The paintings, the strange combinations, the brilliant constellations. I went outside into the surrounding park just after a fierce storm. The colours were dripping and vibrating. The exhibition made a different kind of sense.
It all started when I kept hearing records with cicada sounds on them. There are no cicadas where I live. I probably heard them when I was younger. But I didn’t notice them. I heard them last summer, it was awesome. What fills the space where the cicadas should be?
The seven tracks are constructed from recordings of environmental sounds and attempts to reflect them with warped and abstracted guitar. Opener “More important than the destination” begins with a wheezing rail-replacement bus, instrumentation added in an attempt to reorientate the intrusive sound. On “Beatings” and “Electrosmog” sculpted delay feedback weaves together tableaus of discrete and discreet environmental recordings. The title track layers heavily effected guitar and drum machine with the aim of simulating organic volubility through a tangle of chaotic urban noise. Closer “The river is a waveform” is built on field recordings from an overflowing lock on a London canal and fluctuating overlaps of a single chord, aiming to conjure stasis and restlessness in one. A rumination on attempts to find peace on a late night walk around the outskirts of the city and finding a torrent instead.
Accompanying text
It all started on a rail replacement bus service. The kind that both takes time and frees time. Space to look out the window as surroundings move slower. But this bus on this day was screaming. The driver warned us it would happen, told us not to be alarmed. Every time we turned a corner the bus shrieked.
The sound was transfixing and horrible. It’s the first sound here and everything else stems from there. Rivers flowing too fast in the year where it wouldn’t stop raining. Walks through the park where everything seemed to be a joyous cacophony. Trying to make a guitar sound like insects and frogs and humming electricity. To join in with the strange equilibrium.
It all started at a Joan Miró exhibition in Porto. The paintings, the strange combinations, the brilliant constellations. I went outside into the surrounding park just after a fierce storm. The colours were dripping and vibrating. The exhibition made a different kind of sense.
It all started when I kept hearing records with cicada sounds on them. There are no cicadas where I live. I probably heard them when I was younger. But I didn’t notice them. I heard them last summer, it was awesome. What fills the space where the cicadas should be?