Although recorded in the same basement studio where I spent many nights creating 'The Ghosts Of Bush', this album is not the official follow-up - it's actually something of a prequel. All of the music here was recorded in the few months before the 'Ghosts...' sessions began, as Dave 'Hills Have Riffs' Briggs and I started to improvise and experiment with tape loops while drinking copious amounts of tea (hence the title). It was the first time I had gone anywhere near music making for several years. Some might argue it wasn't near enough. Still, you have to start somewhere.
After a few of these late night sessions we had amassed a collection of brief, improvised sketches, largely recorded in mono and in a single take. We had tremendous fun and learned an awful lot about working with tape (such as 'will blow up as soon as back is turned'), but at the end I wasn't entirely sure what to do with them, and It wasn't until almost a year later that I got the idea of extracting some of my favourite moments from the gigantic pile of tapes marked 'Robin and Dave' and editing them together into a mixtape of sorts. So I did. And here it is.
It's perhaps a little wonky in places, but I like to think 'Earl Grey Whistle Test' is the sound of two people on their way to a discovery, a sort of sketchbook where the tape manipulation techniques that would eventually go on to haunt the corridors upstairs gradually took shape.
Thanks to DCWB for letting me sponge off his endless talent and I implore you to check out his solo Hills Have Riffs work, which will probably take the best part of a weekend, there's so damn much of it. Thanks also to Hannah for more amazing photographs; and finally thanks to Cari for endless Radiophonic conversations and equally endless enthusiasm. Hope you're still oscillating out there somewhere...
Robin The Fog, February. 2013
PS There is supposedly going to be a limited cassette release of this album at some point, if the lady at the tape manufacturing plant ever manages to get her s*** together...
credits
released February 2, 2013
recorded in Studio S6, Bush House, Aldwych at various points in 2011 and the early part of 2012 by Robin The Fog and Hills Have Riffs, remixed, edited and knocked into shape by Robin The Fog, January 2013.
drawing by DCW Briggs,
photos by Hannah Brown.
design by Robin The Fog
supported by 17 fans who also own “Earl Grey Whistle Test”
During the final days of writing my thesis I listened to this album on repeat for hours at a time. It was like being suspended in one eternal moment while all that changed around me were the ripples and eddies of a slowly meandering river. catharina_bee
Portland beat maker Paul Dickow does right by dub techno under his Strategy moniker, bridging immersive listening with immediate impact. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 1, 2023
The latest single from NY artist Maŕa is swathed in shadowy atmospherics and powered by jittery rhythms, ghostly & magnificent. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 2, 2021
supported by 15 fans who also own “Earl Grey Whistle Test”
Just imagine if these outtakes made it into EATEOT, the project would've been over seven hours! I love how "I Might Be Vanishing" is a stark contrast from other tracks, being only nine seconds. 913GA