Contrary Motion

A Homeopathic Journey with Scanner & Nurse With Wound

Contrary Motion is an album for those who wish to embark on a journey of neurodivergence from the realm of traditional thought and into the soundwaves that give them access to remedies for relief from the complexity of modern life. This is live audio that has been refracted through the studio by means of frequency hopping between Australia, Ireland and England.

A kind of trituration that slips between the brain folds

Two great collaborators join together for the first time in a new collaboration. Call it an alchemical fusion in a marriage of true minds. Robin Rimbaud & Steven Stapleton have both collaborated with a ton of other artists and musicians. Now they meet together in musical mixing to create a homeopathic succussion. Here their combined powers reach a higher level of vibrational force through the energetic power of material dilution. Compare it to the Korsakovian method where the vessel in which the musical preparations are manufactured is first emptied, then refilled with a suitable electronic solvent, the volume and EQ of the of surrealist soundwaves adhering to the walls of the studio-vessel gets periodically scraped, stirred, and adjusted. After the contents have settled a new batch of material gets decanted from the material so conjoined.

On Contrary Motion, like is treated with like. Those who have long been keen on Nurse With Wound’s sinister whimsy will recognize the title of this album. There was a previous release from Stapleton with this title, a CD-R only available at the Unsound Adelaide concert in Australia, March 2014. The recording on that CD came from a live show at the Glasgow Tramway gig on 26 of June, 2010. The music on this CD is not taken from that CD however, but it bears a relation.

As Robin Rimbaud wrote on Scannerdot.com, “Steven always liked the title, but curiously the audio we used for OUR Contrary Motion was recorded at this very Adelaide show itself.” Such is the law of correspondences and signatures. That concert was probably recorded by Andrew Liles who is the only other personnel listed on the album, credited with “premixing.” I know Liles to have a lot of special powers in the realm of audio, but premixing, like precognition, seems to be especially psychic. This was the material Rimbaud was given to play with inside his studio sandbox.

The material all flows together and can be heard as one long piece, as often happens in the outer reaches of experimental music shows, and tightly cohesive albums of the same. But there are fade outs and fade ins. The pieces have been demarcated and aligned in such a way as to mark different possibilities and treatment protocols.

A perpetual motion rat-trap of energy ::

The first piece is “Causticum.” As a song it belongs to the family of remedies known as darkly immersive. It is the first step down a long corridor towards the operating theater where something is to be dissected before being sewn back together, possibly with umbrellas where the smiley faces should have been. This kind of music can be considered as a perpetual motion rat-trap of energy. Every once in awhile the trap it sets on your listening mind gets reset, even as the rodent animal is hiding out under straw. Listening to “Causticum” is useful for people who have to take care of a clan or family, all the while feeling trapped as a rat, and who face untoward threats from outside. Listening to it won’t forestall the threat, but it will weaken the effect of the threat. This is sympathetic music for those who feel unfairly pressurized. Turn it on and the pressure of rational thinking starts to ease.

A driving motorik bass throb pulses through as the strange sublunary dispositions of “Conium Maculatum” are examined. The piece conjures up the ghost of Socrates and the long hold he has had over the group mind, after he died from drinking wine laced with hemlock. This is hemlock music, and as it ruminates over a steady drive, sprinkled with squealing ululations. The song has a particular affinity for the sexual organs and glands. But in this case the dilution has made it so it is no longer toxic, and can be listened to in cases of extreme mental deterioration. The gradual onset of indifference, isolation, and contrariness are also characteristic symptoms of the person who really needs to listen to this music. Transmissions from inside a facility for the disturbed claw through the ratted cages. Their squeaks can still be heard here as traces left on the recording, subliminal voices chattering in the mind.

The rattling of the chains (Blake’s mind forged manacles, perhaps) heard at the end of the last track continue down the nuclear submarine corridor as the listener is plunged deep below into a derelict subconscious space. This is the world of “Cocculus.” The scanners here may be tuned to aetheric radio frequencies, but they are also dialed in to hospital equipment. It’s as if Pierre Schaeffer and Karlheinz Stockhausen had to use EKGs, sterilizers, ventilators, diffusion pumps and defibrillators instead of oscillators and bandpass filters. All while some guy is in the corner scratching feebly on some dusty guitar. How he is doing that while still in a straight jacket, I don’t know.

Potentized syringes of audio ::

These potentized syringes of audio inject a marvelous action on the mind. To begin with, you could use this song when besieged by mental fatigue. It will take you to another plane of there, where new insights can come in, refreshing the mind. It is an excellent medicine for managing complaints that follow nursing others back to wellness. It is also beneficial for cases of memory weakness. Several memories are forgotten and the mind goes blank at times, but following the lines of these sounds down different side corridors allow those memories to resurface.

Unrepentant organ chords take center stage in the operating theater on “Cicuta Virosa.” Here they resolve our sometimes weird desires, such as the desire to eat coal or rubber bicycle tires. Everyone knows they have dreams of drinking gasoline sometimes, and that these fantasies play inside the mind, along with suspicion, mistrust, with misanthropy. There is mania here, with dancing, laughing, and ridiculous gestures; with heat of the body and longing for wine. The person suffering from this ailment then wishes to escape and retire into solitude. But the creakiness is still there, whether the creakiness is an old mans joints, or the joints he used to smoke, or those of an unoiled chair in a studio wired to a microphone.

“Tartaricum,” also known to some researches as potassium antimonyl tartrate, to give it its clinical name, is a sonic equation best used for pickling sounds known to give relief to a variety of gastric and back related conditions. Respiratory ailments and excessive drowsiness are also indicated for the person who needs to listen to “Tartaricum.”

The final phase of this cerebral circus ::

The final phase of this cerebral circus, is “Mezereum” and it is for when a patient is feeling hypochondriacal and despondent; indifferent to everything and everyone; getting upset at the least offense, and going off at anyone close enough to disturb the disturbed. Then they get sorry about going off and feel sad about what they did. Even so, their teeth began to feel elongated, and they become prone to headaches and vexation. (Listening to Erik Satie at this time is not required). The music is like a thick and leathery head-crust, without the anarcho-punks, and white pus collects there. The hair is matted and glued together from all those days putting it up into liberty spikes. Ichorous and offensive, it begins to breed vermin. In other words, this is music for a real headcase.

All in all Contrary Motion is an album for those who wish to embark on a journey of neurodivergence from the realm of traditional thought and soundwaves so as to access the remedies that will give them relief from the complexity of modern life. This is live audio that has been refracted through the studio by means of frequency hopping between Australia, Ireland and England. It is a kind of trituration that slips between the brain folds to places where the poetry of echoes can reemerge. All you have to do is scan the airwaves to find the right radionic remedy. Six extremely useful medicines are given here. Repeated dosing might be required before the system can be successfully rebalanced before reintegration back into the outside world.

Contrary Motion is available on Bandcamp.

This article originally appeared in Igloo Magazine.

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