Soisong have announced the release of a book documenting the history of the experimental electronic group. The book is set for release on May 22 which is a couple of days ago now but hey. Edited by founding member Ivan Pavlov (CoH), the publication is a “collection of artefacts” which offers a rare insider perspective on the band’s evolution, creative process, and lasting legacy.

“Soisong was a music project and an artistic platform conceived in 2007 by Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson (Throbbing Gristle, Coil, Threshold House Boys Choir) and Ivan Pavlov (CоH). The project set out to offer an alternative to the conventional mechanisms of the music industry and the consumption of its products, favouring instead the idea of “active listening”, including audience participation in certain aspects of the creative process. The band temporarily discontinued its activities shortly before Peter’s untimely demise in 2010.

The Soisong book is an attempt at honest, chronological, if somewhat playful, documentation of the project, from the earliest moments of conception to the “after-effects” years later. Largely based on email exchanges between the two founding members of the collective, the book presents an intimate journey through the creative force and friendship of two mastermind musicians formed Soisong. Alongside previously unseen photographs, official announcements and pretentious manifestos, fake documents, as well as graphic contributions from the Soisong audience. “It took me quite some time to find and put together all these late-2000s cellphone photos and low-res images made for Myspace, to upscale many of them with the use of today’s technology, to select from a thousand of emails as few as possible… but the work didn’t feel hard at all,” shares Ivan. “The book is a proper Soisong release in the sense that the process of its creation has been fueled by the same joyful enthusiasm and sense of fun as every other publication, or action documented within”.

Alongside its thematic depth, particular attention has been given to the book’s visual presentation. “The design ideas were unfolding page by page, as I was putting it all together – and it also follows Soisong’s renowned passion for the amateurish, the non-conventional, the mildly confusing and in places erroneous”, explains Ivan. “A very satisfying effort altogether, a story that feels good to tell”.

The book is musically illustrated by two compact discs affixed inside the cover. The first presents a pre-Soisong recording of a 2007 concert in Tokyo, where the members are performing as separate acts, CoH and Threshold House Boys Choir. The second features a recent post-Soisong album featuring Julio Ecclesiast, the virtuoso trumpet player earlier appearing on the Soisong’s final album, xAj3z. Symbolically, closing the chapter of the project.

Released as a hardcover limited edition of 222 numbered copies, the Soisong book stands as both a definitive document and a collector’s item not to be missed. Order the book here“

Meanwhile, Soisong Broadcast #13

P.S – being based here in Hackney, a stonethrow from the old Throbbing Gristle studio and indeed the Beck Rock and the psychic TV house that still has the cross on the door, you are aware on it all…