U57 | Jared Sagar | Tombland
Tombland_excerpt1
Tombland_excerpt2
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)
~
: 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.
~
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 :
~
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
