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Alucidnation - Induction
Feedback from Alucidnation's Bruce Bickerton after The Big Chill Festival 2005...Did you enjoy playing your set?
I was on unusually late; I'm more used to playing an earlier slot. My intention initially was to play a very ambient set with near enough no beats involved, but once I'd been out into the crowd I realised that the audience wanted to move. I played a dubby set that everyone seemed to enjoy, although I went through the usual range of emotions whilst I was up there - one minute it's "Why am I doing this", next it's "this is excellent!"
What did you think of The Big Chill festival
I always enjoy the festival. This year however, I did feel a bit overwhelmed by the sheer size of it - I've been coming along since the days of hundreds attending, let alone thousands. But yeah, I had a good time on the whole - I find festivals are more about the social thing - hooking up with friends and family that you haven't seen for ages, so the music was almost secondary this year. I did enjoy Tinurawai (sp??), Sean Rowley doing his Guilty Pleasures, The Swingles and the weather. How do they do it? Have Cantaloupe made a deal with God?
What are you up to now?
Well you probably know already, but 'Induction' is out on BCR (see below! - ed).
I have a remix coming out on Dubmission for Pitch Black soon and there's a few other bits and bobs floating around in the Cosmos.
Listen to Alucidnation (128kb download excerpts)
Art of Conversation
I'm Not Bad
Secret Title
Suspended On Air
The Blue
If you had been walking past the Chill stage one evening at last year's Big Chill festival, you would have heard the sounds of Bruce Bickerton filling the valley with swelling chords, pulsing beats and dreamy vocals. You would also have noticed the huge crowd who had gathered to hear him; all of who were entranced, held captive in the gentle and evocative world of alucidnation.
To the unitiated, alucidnation's debut album on Big Chill Recordings will live up to its title. Bickerton's sound is so particular, that to spend any time at all with it is to enter and submit to an induction process, but a gentle one - without queues, waiting rooms or forms to fill. The experience begins with the album as object, beautifully packaged and designed with original photography by Bickerton himself: snaps of friends, campervans, roads and views. Before you know it, you're inducted...
First track 'The Secret Life' immediately introduces the listener to Bruce's unique vocal sound: a fresh and often fragile falsetto multitracked and layered with subtle delays and reverbs. The voice is often used to add texture to the music as with 'Beautiful House' and 'Blue', with sparse but emotive lyrics acting as a mood enhancer for the lovely electronic soundscapes beneath. Later in the album, the voice is that of a narrator: at times humorous (the excellent 'I'm not Bad'), but often taking the role of observer, offering advice ('Messing About') or gently chiding, but all delivered with a wry honesty and conversational tone that is deceptively wise and involving.
Throughout the album, everyday sounds (telephones, fragments of conversation, coughing, weather, water) are woven into the mix, giving the misleading impression of simplicity, a homely familiarity that belies the exquisite programming and songcraft involved in all of Bruce's work. 'Metal Bark' uses samples to similar effect; Bickerton has a knack of trimming and manipulating the samples he chooses to suit his own palette. In this case, eerily familiar vocal samples lend spice to fat bassliness, shimmering pads and wonderfully lazy beats.
'The Art of Conversation' sees the observer become the outsider; a moving and melancholy lament of detachment and isolation balanced by some of the most emotive instrumentation on the album. From here to Deep Rez, showing that behind the fragility and reflection, Bickerton likes his dubby, head-nodding beats. Next track 'A Quick Sketch' took me to balmy Balearic terraces to watch the sun go down with something chilled in a tall glass, and all from the comfort of my living room. The album closes with the aptly named 'Suspended on Air', an ambient instrumental with wistful Rhodes lines over spacious pads reminiscent of Eno's soundtrack for the Apollo missions. The perfect ending to a deeply accomplished and atmospheric debut.
Words: Nelson Rogers
Pic: Stephen Morley (Alucidnation live at Eastnor 2004)
Buy Alucidnation's Induction here!
Alucidnation Interview
Written: 6th Sep, 04
Read: 8245 times
