Stuart Chalmers - Fata Morgana

Stuart Chalmers's recordings that feature the swarmandal instrument are his best, even with the songs that don't have it! This one is not an exception and it's one of his darkest releases yet. 2017 self-released CD.

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PS. Stuart has made a new recording called The Heart Of Instinct (his two previous The Heart... installations were peak releases) and he's looking for a label to put it out. If you have any info or offers, contact him through his bandcamp or whatever. It sounds like a great recording and yes it has swarmandal! You can hear it here.

Stuart Chalmers - Sound Environments 2: Woodlands

Following his Sound Environments 1, which Stuart Chalmers recorded in caves in the UK, for this releases wandered around forests in Cumbria and Yorkshire and made a series of recordings out in the open with sounds of birds, insects, and flowing water interfering. He used his beloved swarmandal, a destroyed piano, bones, pieces of wood, and other things and created a hauntingly beautiful collection of material that shifts between pagan ritual music and magnificent physical ambient created mainly by the swarmandal. I love Stuart's noisy and loop-centered stuff, but when he plays on this Indian instrument, the results are always outstanding. This is a digital-only release accompanied by a number of pics of the forests where he recorded, but don't be content with downloading for free. He gives half of the proceeds from this release to the Woodland Trust that is in charge of preserving these forests, so I highly recommend you give something back through bandcamp, mmmmkay?

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Stuart Chalmers & Yol - Discarded Bag Epiphanies tape

Maniacal incomprehensible skronk mayhem on this collaboration between the super-talented Stuart Chalmers on tape loops and tortured swarmandal and Yol on a completely fucked-up stream-of-consciousness vocal performance full of anxiety and chaos. 2018 tape on Beartown.

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Stuart Chalmers - Self Destruction cdr

A dystopian work of environmental collapse caused the self-destructive tendencies of humanities is presented here by Stuart Chalmers, one of the most interesting musicians at work at the moment. Once again he graces us with his dream-like playing of the South-Asian swarmandal instrument, generating pieces of immense fragile beauty contrasted with samples of logging and pieces of horror-like ambient noise, obviously wanting to reflect the immediacy of preserving whatever pristine's left of our nature from the devouring greed of capitalist gluttony. 2017 cdr on Reverb Worship.

PS. Stuart has just released a new one called The Shadow, which is again great. Check it here.

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Stuart Chalmers - The Heart of Wilderness & The Heart of Solitude tapes

Stuart Chalmers is a British self-described sound scavenger of junk cassettes. His very prolific output includes collaborations with Sindre Bjerga, Posset and Neil Campbell. While he mainly utilizes tapes and found sounds, on these two related tapes he has composed some of the best things ever recorded, mostly with swarmandal, a string instrument used in Indian classical music. Two masterpieces of desolate beauty which would be best described as Stephan Micus gone industrial. Check Stuart's bandcamp for more of his releases.

The Heart of Wilderness tape



2016 tape on Was Ist Das?

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The Heart of Solitude tape

  

2016 tape on Constellation Tatsu.

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