MICROCORPS is the new project from Kent artist and sound venturer Alex Tucker, better known to those of us who venture experimentally in our music by the fuller, more formal version of this name; as a member of Grumbling Fur, of Imbogodom, &c – and it’s a project which intends to explore electronics, cello and voice.
The new project’s debut release is entitled XMIT, will take the shape of an eight-track album featuring collaborations with Gazelle Twin, Nik Void, Simon Fisher Turner and Astrud Steehouder, and will be out on April 16th.
He’s released a teaser track this morning, “XEM”, which is garlanded by the infernal pastoral subversion of Gazelle Twin, which hallucinatory trance-scape you can step through the portal into down at the end.
Alex says of the collaboration: “I love Gazelle Twin’s androgynous, dislocated vocal delivery and asked if she would record something relating to the Alien film, which we both draw inspiration from.
“She came up with this claustrophobic monologue and coiling wordless vocal drones, which duet with my own heavily processed vocals.” Eerie, enveloping; these should be your watchwords.
Tucker’s mutating soundworld continues to unfold with this collection, which is centred around altered voices, sound synthesis and atomised beat constructions.
It intends, conceptually, to investigate the erasure of the self, removing obvious traits of the hand and voice, and allowing a focus on the humanoid rather than the human. Instead of recognisable lyrics and coherent imagery, MICROCORPS evolved synthesised voices to generate alternate milieux.
Alex says: “I was investigating how language brings our world into being and how manipulating the actual grain of the voice could open up momentary shifts in perception.
“I’d been looking into combining dream music with machine rhythms, but there are so many great examples out there of both music forms, so I started to cut up the drones and really filter the drum patterns to create a hybrid space.”
The album’s artwork features manipulated ink drawings by Tucker taken from his recent comic ENTITY REUNION 2.
And that title? XMIT refers to a time in which information, both physical and nonphysical, transfers at an alarming rate – and one beyond human comprehension.
MICROCORPS’ XMIT will be released by Alter 64 on April 16th; you can place your pre-orders at Bandcamp, here.
Follow Alex Tucker on Twitter, Instagram and Bandcamp.
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