I Can’t Hear Anything, a track featuring the Elysian Collective, is taken from renowned composer Simon Fisher Turner‘s forthcoming album, Instability of The Signal, out 2nd August 2024. The album is out on 2nd August 2024 on Mute. The video that goes with the track released todsay is made by artist John Lee Bird..

“Watch the video by artist, dollmaker and filmmaker John Lee Bird, to the diaphanous ‘I Can’t Hear Anything’. Across the track, the Elysian Collective’s strings are punctuated by Simon Fisher Turner’s delicate piano and electronics as whispered voices take us on a nocturnal journey”

“The composer, musician and Zelig-like artist who has worked and performed in groundbreaking and underground music, film and art scenes since the 1970s has created a lush, soothing and intimate album, a landmark in his ever-expanding catalogue of projects. The 13-track album features Fisher Turner singing for the first time in many years, accompanying compositions built from tiny snippets of sound along with piano, classical strings, a detuned Fender Telecaster, and his field recordings”.

More from the press release…

“Instability of The Signal pulls together four strands of Fisher Turner’s sonic experimentation: Slivers, Sounds, Strings, and Singing. The ‘slivers’ are tiny snippets of audio he used as source material for the tracks, all created by Salford Electronics (aka David Padbury), and reworked by Fisher Turner into foundations for entire tracks. The ‘sounds’ that pepper these tracks are sourced from Fisher Turner’s relentless magpie-like field recording, and include a rhythm created from the sound of a spinning bicycle wheel recorded in Berlin; the percussive sounds of objects on hard floors inspired by his collaboration with artist potter and writer Edmund de Waal; a hand-made mechanical pencil sharpener made by Tilda Swinton’s father (recorded while working on a film with Swinton and the Derek Jarman Lab), along with an extended index of guerrilla field recordings and sonic textures. The album’s ‘strings’ are recordings made with The Elysian Collective (who have recently been performing live with Pulp). Fisher Turner’s voice is the centrepiece of this album – it is the ‘singing’ that draws all these sounds together into a complete and distinctive album of songs. “I was making these tracks with Padbury’s slivers one day, and then the penny just dropped,” he explains. “I just knew I wanted to sing over them: to use my voice again.”

His lyrics scramble Burroughs cut-ups sourced from two of Harold Pinter’s poems; words from a book on the video work of Czech filmmakers Breda Beban and Hrvoje Horvatic, flashes of memories of riding buses in London, cycling topless in jeans around the city. The intimate, soft vocals feature his own memories, pulled extracts from diaries and other texts, some of which are political and subtly delivered the frustrations he felt at the beginning of the project. These lyrics, he says: “reflect how I feel without standing on a soapbox and screaming.”  

The album is rooted in the intimate sound space of a small studio, where he recorded with producer Francine Perry. The intimacy is mirrored in the album’s artwork – a photo of his regular collaborator and long-time friend, the filmmaker Isao Yamada listening to the album for the first time. Film plays an important part in telling the visual story of the album, with several filmmakers, including the documentary filmmaker Sebastian Sharples (who previously collaborated with Simon Fisher Turner for Lana Lara Lata (Mute, 2005) invited to create short films to accompany tracks from the album. 
Like Fisher Turner’s long and varied career, Instability of The Signal is an accumulation of experience, effervescent memories, sounds and textures. It contains hidden learnings. It is about how restorative singing of ourselves and to ourselves can be but is also a document of times and places delivered in beautifully impressionistic palettes of sounds and voices. It is also another document of Fisher Turner’s remarkable life and unshakeable curiosity about sound. “I’m now a 69-year-old man and by hook or by crook, and some good luck, this album has turned into something which really sounds like me,” he reflects. “I’m singing how I feel I truly sound; this time, I’m not hiding anything.”

Simon Fisher Turner’s Instability of the Signal is released by Mute on 2 Aug 2024 – More here or via Bandcamp

Meanwhile artist John Lee Bird has a solo exhibition coming up…

“Enter the wonderful world of John Lee Bird with this exhibition of his small-scale textile sculptures. Following on from his 2023 exhibition at Ugly Duck in London, John Lee Bird will be presenting a new solo exhibition, of Dolls. With influences stemming from film, cult TV, performance, drag and music, the exhibition will be a celebration of culture, London, and the LGBTQ+ community. So ‘doll’ yourself up and come on down to this quirky east London arts club for some cocktails and arty fun”.

The exhibition will be opening on Friday 9th August and run until 29th August, at the Stash Gallery at Vout-O-Reenee‘s with events throughout:
Opening night party – Friday 9th August -6pm til late

The opening night party will bring performances by some of the artists immortalised in doll form; Jemma Freeman and the Cosmic Something, Sukie Smith, Dusty Limits and more!

There will also be a night with tAngerinecAt on Friday 16th August -6pm until 10pm. The incredible tAngerinecAt will return to London for a special one off show performing music from their album Glass for the last time at an intimate, limited-capacity venue, as part of the John Lee Bird exhibition.

Then a closing night party – Thursday 29th August -6pm til late. A last chance to see the exhibition! With performances by SLapPeR, Pretzel Cage and Baby Lame!

Stash Gallery at Vout-O-Reenee’s is found at The Crypt (below the Church) off 30 Prescot St, London E1 8BB. The Facebook event page

More from Simon Fisher Turner’s fothcoming album…