U57 | Jared Sagar | Tombland
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format : Glass mastered CD ltd to 200 hand numbered copies
Packaged in clear vinyl sleeve with folded insert and additional art card on 350gr matt laminated paper.
release year : 2019
length : 44’48
track : Tombland
status : OUT NOW !
>>> order your copy via Paypal at usual price : chalkdc@unfathomless.net
(Belgium) : 13 € (inc.shipping costs)
(Europe) : 14 € (inc.shipping costs)
(World) : 15 € (inc.shipping costs)
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: info :
Tombland at night or day, at certain times, feels like a ghost-town. One moment I am swept up by the passing traffic, in another I have turned into a side street and there is nothing but a throbbing stillness that meanders through the cobblestones. Here, there is the blend of old and modern; traffic noise, people with chaotic lives, cobbled paths, vintage shops, forgotten history to some. There are moments even in the most chaotic of places where there is a quietude, a tranquility of sorts, which deep down everyone craves. Here, at night, nothing is alive except flickering light bulbs, but I have to look and listen hard for those hidden sounds, tucked inside the alleyways…
I walk on, hiding in the shadows like sound itself, zigzagging through the winding paths, unseen. I am a spectre in this part of the city, woven into the night, woven into a new history. Some say these parts are haunted, but it’s not haunted, this is just a place where certain memories are trapped in time.
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Tombland is situated in the heart of Norwich City. It is cloaked in history, dating back before the Normans. There are tudor houses, gateways to the cathedral, one of them built in the 1300’s and the other in the 1400’s. The Maid’s Head Hotel dates back over 8 centuries, it’s thought to be the oldest and most haunted. Wherever you look, up, down, left or right, there is history seeping into your eyes. Beneath Tombland itself there are said to be 5000 people buried in mass graves as the result of the plague. The cathedral precinct is only a stones throw away, the River Wensum just a few mins walks away. Cobbled stones line most parts of Tombland, and Tombland actually meaning an empty space in Old English. This place is far from empty. It is a jewel that lies in the heart of the city.
(Jared Sagar, 03 September 2017)
: reviews :
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Here is the second of two latest editions from the always rightly curated Brussels-based Unfathomless, focused on phonographies, field recordings and other microsounds — both available on CD (limited + special edition for the brb>voicecoil one) and downloadable via Bandcamp.
Tombland is an actual place in Norwich City named for its mass graves as the result of the plague. Jared Sagar has re-envisioned a bit of tragic history with a singular work that ties in the in-situ nature of the place to the spirit of loss. He’s captured the essence of that empty ghost town with a drone, and the wind to complement its stillness. A deep rumble pulses beneath as the cascade of wind builds and fluctuates.
He’s captured something quite haunting, almost as if he’s deploying a ghost box method of spirit communication (EVP). Instead of real voices of the beyond, though, Sagar has managed to pick up tiny detritus on the land, fine crackles and pulses that seem like a mirage. This gathering of evidence from the site boasts an unusual audio phenomena that is specific to time, place and interaction – whether paranormal or not, it offers a bumpy (albeit minimally psychedelic) ride through this terrain.
The highs and lows all are contained within a range courting the deep listening experience. That said, Sagar uses the extent of that range to deliver something altogether unique and dare I say awe-inspiring. There is a reliance on the listener’s perception of a vicarious fly-on-the-wall experience which becomes an incredible phonic cinema. To some extent this involves some level of trust, not because of the maker’s ability to disclose direct happenstance, or even any form of science whatsoever, but because once you let go of part of your senses where will you land? You are in good hands here. Sagar dynamically guides you throughout this existential journey, with granular jostling and airy quietude that takes a minor turn for abstract fragmentation and evanescent industrialism and as it comes to a close.
a provocative and distinctly unique new take on our ephemeral environment.
TJ Norris
Toneshift
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The last time we encountered sound artist Jared Sagar, he was soundtracking the sea on a disc titled Holme. This time he’s brought his ears inland to a different sort of home: the Tombland district of Norwich in the U.K. Wandering the streets in the middle of the night, he catches all manner of intriguing sounds, proving that the name (meaning “empty space”) is a misnomer.
5000 plague victims are supposedly buried deep in Tombland. When Sagar describes a place as the “most haunted,” he implies that many ~ or perhaps all places ~ are haunted. One can hear these timbres in the wind, the rusty swing, the glass moved across a table. And of course there’s rain ~ a sad and lonely downpour that sweeps down the cobbled streets.
But there’s more here than simple haunting. Sagar describes “the blend of old and modern; traffic noise, people with chaotic lives, cobbled paths, vintage shops, forgotten history,” “the quietude … of flickering lightbulbs” and the sense of peace that arrives when one feels connected to memory and place. This too is home. In such light, the spirits seem like friends, the bricks ancestors, the wind encouraging whispers. Back alleys are not places of fear but of remembrance and discovery: not haunted, but hallowed.
Just as one is starting to feel at ease, a series of shaker sounds enter in the 33rd minute, at one point ending abruptly and restarting. It’s not evident what they represent: a seance, a visitation, a need to hurry down the rest of that alley. Just as swiftly, the sound retreats, replaced by dark toned drones. Hollow static fills the closing minutes, offering an audio Rorschach test: what do you hear in these sounds? Despite the composer’s comfort, he titles his CD Tombland instead of Norwich. It may be a jewel, but it’s still connected to a corpse.
Richard Allen
A Closer Listen
