iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Thanks so much to Sara Mohr-Pietsch & BBC Radio 3 Night Tracks team for playing Affix Stamp Here (written by me, performed by EXAUDI) on the show last night. "...these gathered fragments are surprisingly moving as they take us on journeys and ultimately return us to a sense of home and love..."

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

One more song from Affix Stamp Here by me (based on messages taken from picture postcards), sung by EXAUDI on their new album Pocket Universe.

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Another song from Affix Stamp Here by me (based on messages taken from picture postcards), beautifully sung by EXAUDI on their new album Pocket Universe, released on @nmcrecordings.bsky.social

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This is the real shame of Bsky: it hasn't worked for music. Twitter was dreadful, but there was a decent period of lively discussion around new music, between musicians themselves of all kinds, fans, writers, students, broadcasters... posting about it here results in next-to-no engagement.

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Out now! EXAUDI's new album... Listen here: found.ee/exaudivocale...

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Lovely review this morning of EXAUDI's new album 'Pocket Universe', featuring music by me alongside pieces I really love by Cassandra Miller, Geoff Hannan and Andrew Hamilton. I'm biased of course, but I genuinely think it's a fascinating collection of work: really rich with ideas...

theguardian.com

Exaudi: Pocket Universe album review – virtuoso vocals with a joyfully bonkers bent

Four substantial, eclectic works written for James Weeks’ ensemble are brought together here, encompassing swooping folk phrasing, delicate harmonising and exuberant stylistic skill

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

'Affix Stamp Here' by me: part of EXAUDI's wonderful new album, coming out this Friday.

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I feel like not many people are looking at Bsky regularly, but If you'd like to join my infrequent mailing list, for details of new releases / events, subscribe here (or link on my website in bio): eepurl.com/iXufJY I've got a couple of things coming up in the next few months I'd love to share. X

Leo Chadburn, in chevron shirt, in black and white, 2026.

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

It has only just come to my attention that in 2024 Uncut magazine put my album at #271 on their list of "Greatest Albums of the 2000s". They were, weirdly, faintly fucking rude about it. But they still rank it above John Cale and Paul McCartney, so I guess I'll take it. LOL.

Magazine cover. Text: "The Ultimate Record Collection: 500 Greatest Albums of The 2000s... ranked! From the Makers of Uncut". Bob Dylan's moody face peers out.

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SIMON BOOKISH, EVERYTHING/EVERYTHING
TOMLAB, 2008
Leo Chadburn threw everything at the chamber/electronic pop wall here for this debut album. A kind of less clever Neil Hannon, it’s not for everyone, but the songs often open out into genuinely delightful arrangements.

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

It just occurred to me to look up the etymology of the word 'magazine', with its distinct meanings of armoury / ammunition holder / paper publication. It comes from the Arabic makhzan ('storehouse'); the more recent use to describe a glossy periodical is metaphor ('storehouse of ideas').

1826 print of "The Magazine" in Leicester, the mediaeval gateway used as an armory, also known as the Newarke Gateway.

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Otto Hashmi (Recorders) + Leo Chadburn (Production / Remix), 'SESTA', reimagining 16th century music by composer Giovanni Bassano. Watch Otto's video for this project here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDxw...

youtube.com

SESTA after giovanni bassano // otto hashmi + leo chadburn

YouTube video by Otto Hashmi

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

A little quote from me alongside other Bsky denizens, in the current issue of Mojo's "How to Buy... Steve Reich" piece.

Steve Reich/Alarm Will Sound: Tehillim/The Desert Music (Cantaloupe, 2002)
You say: "Alarm Will Sound's version of The Desert Music is much superior. They use an arrangement for a smaller ensemble: the result is tighter, more vivid, more urgent." —Dr Leo Chadburn, via Bluesky

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Walking home across Walthamstow Marshes this evening. She landed about 6 feet away from me.

Female kestrel perched on a fence post on Walthamstow Marshes, early evening. A Red Poll cow is grazing in the background.

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Coming up in September: a new album by your favourite intrepid vocal ensemble EXAUDI. Music by me, alongside astonishing works by Cassandra Miller, Andrew Hamilton and Geoff Hannan. Looking forward to this one.

Cover art for the album "Pocket Universe" by EXAUDI on NMC Records. Drawings of moons in neon colours.

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

John Smith's brilliant, witty short films = a big inspiration. Strong recommend for this programme at the Whitechapel Gallery running till September, including his unsettling masterpiece of ingenuity and resroucefulness, The Black Tower: www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/...

John Smith's The Black Tower: a mysterious building with a void-like black roof looms over a hospital gate.

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

A wonderful, unique album, that I think is a bit overlooked: 'Endless' by Vainio Vaisanen Vega (the collaboration between Pan Sonic & Alan Vega). Frenzied vocals + glistening machines. www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgKA...

youtube.com

Vainio Vaisanen Vega - No Home Kings

YouTube video by Jeam_True

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Pierre Boulez's Provence home. It's a miracle the man lived to the age of 90, having had the stairs of death installed in every room.

Stairs of death: bannister-less, with a drop on one side and a big hole in the wall on the other. Seemingly made of polished metal.

Stairs of death: bannister-less, extremely tightly spaced concrete stairs u the side of the building onto the roof, with a sheer drop at the top.

Stairs of death: open backed spiral staircase, with flimsy bannister on the inside and nothing on the outside, leading into the sonic basement.

Stairs of death: extremely shallow steps up from the garden. Handrail on one side, drop on the other.

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Really interesting gig in Clapham this Sunday (12 July): music including my string quartet with the names of 70 species of moth, 'The Indistinguishables'. Ticket link: www.omnibus-clapham.org/whatson/to-y...

TO YOUR
EAR
MUSIC FOR STRINGS & PIANO
FEATURING MUSIC BY:
PATRICK ELLIS, CASSANDRA MILLER, LEO CHADBURN, SOPHIE STONE & MATTHEW GILLEY
SUNDAY 12TH JULY DOORS 19:00/MUSIC 19:30 OMNIBUS THEATRE, SW4 0QW £15 STANDARD, £10 CONCESSION
@TYE COLLECTIVE

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Christoph Büchel’s vast, nightmarish 2006 installation “Simply Botiful” (with its hideous title). Rooms that were too cluttered, too hot, or too loud. Rooms that smelt wrong. There aren’t any photographs online that portray how truly bizarre and oppressive it was.

One room of Christoph Büchel’s sprawling installation “Simply Botiful”: a harshly lit white room, with a radiator, bricked-up window and office-type carpet. The room contains a motorbike on a plinth in a vitrine, a bare matress, some plastic bags full of rubbish and a old ghetto blaster. What the photo doesn't show is the incredibly loud, distorted metal music playing.

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Currently on show on a street in London, E10: "Cello" (2026, mixed media: granite, television screen and urine) by unknown artist, clearly influenced by Nam June Paik.

An abandoned flat screen television on a square bollard on a street in Leyton, London.

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

My current album, Sleep in the Shadow of the Alternator, is four tracks, corresponding to the seasons, of course. The 'Summer' track is "Magic Flora of the East Midlands", which opens with a list of plants, their folkloric powers, and heat-haze harmonies... leochadburn.bandcamp.com/track/magic-...

leochadburn.bandcamp.com

Magic Flora of the East Midlands, by Leo Chadburn

from the album Sleep in the Shadow of the Alternator

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

There's a 1965 orchestral piece by Stockhausen called 'Stop'. What's remarkable is that he wrote it at the blackboard, in a single, seven-hour composition seminar, after a student asked a question about his process for creating a new work. What an amazing, exhausting session that must have been.

The first page of the score of Stockhausen's 'Stop' for orchestra (1965).

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

I worked at Reckless Records, early 2000s. Staff took it in turns choosing the music in the shop. One afternoon, I chose Anthony Braxton's Composition no. 247 (sax and bagpipes); all the customers left, then the manager went home early. Great music. anthonybraxtonleo.bandcamp.com/album/compos...

anthonybraxtonleo.bandcamp.com

Composition No. 247, by Anthony Braxton

1 track album

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

Easter egg for anyone who has a CD or vinyl copy of the new Squarepusher album: I am the uncredited hand model for one of the booklet images (photos by the brilliant Joanna Apps). My paws at the harpsichord.

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

The first Simon Bookish album, Unfair / Funfair, is 20 years old this year. I have a lot of feelings about it, and I'm thinking of writing about it in greater depth at some point. For now though, if you’d like to hear it, it's available on Bandcamp here: leochadburn.bandcamp.com/album/unfair...

leochadburn.bandcamp.com

Unfair / Funfair, by Simon Bookish

9 track album

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Live at legendary club Trash, 2004.

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Live with Abstruckt percussion ensemble 10 years ago, performing some angry songs I made for the occasion: "you can't reform profit capitalism; just kick it, kick it till it breaks."

Leo Chadburn (singer) flanked by drummers Elsa Bradley and Emma Arden, in an Islington Church.

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

The moment in Roxy Music's Re-make/Re-model, where everyone in turn plays a *ridiculous* solo: a squiggle of noise, cluster chords, anachronistic Beatles quote, Ride of the Valkyries on sax. Introducing the band, absurdly. A genius way to open an album/career: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWNs...

youtube.com

Re-Make/Re-Model

YouTube video by Roxy Music - Topic

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

I love Grace Jones (78 today!) so much: the drama of her voice, her superlative skills as a performer, her role as creator and subject of the most indelible images in music. I'd love to see her masterpiece music videos remastered and reissued (lots currently circulating on YouTube in very low-res).

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

David Munrow: what an amazing and inspiring musician. Great to see him getting some plaudits. A career cut short after only a decade, but he changed the direction of not just early music and musicology, but folk, prog, film music, music education and broadcasting. www.theguardian.com/music/2026/m...

theguardian.com

The connoisseur of the crumhorn, the showman of the shawm: the brilliance of early music pioneer David Munrow

Six decades ago, Munrow’s passionate and persuasive advocacy for early music opened audience’s eyes and ears – and took the rackett on to primetime TV. Fifty years after his early death, we look back ...

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Big fan of harpsichordist Jean Rondeau's playing. Listen to how beautiful this is... www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKCr...

youtube.com

Jean Rondeau plays John Bull on original 16th-century virginal (Melancholy Pavan)

YouTube video by Warner Classics

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

The music download platform Subvert launched today. It's a cooperatively owned alternative to Bandcamp. I'm very interested in seeing how this kind of model works, so I've made my music available on it, here: www.subvert.fm/leo-chadburn

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Throwback to 20 years ago today (10 May 2006): here's me onstage at the short-lived but brilliant London venue The Luminaire. The other acts on the bill that night were Grizzly Bear and Owen Pallett as Final Fantasy.

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

"Prince of Wales": song by me with lyrics by David Shrigley, originally released c.20 years ago. Part of 'Worried Noodles', a compilation album: Grizzly Bear, Max Tundra, David Byrne, et al setting Shrigley's words. The album is currently unavailable everywhere else. soundcloud.com/leochadburn/...

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

This feels like quite a heritage activity, but I've overhauled my website to make it more "archival", with programme notes, album lyrics, score excerpts, a whole load of press cuttings, and information about things I have worked on in the last 25 years - there's a lot:

leochadburn.com

Leo Chadburn - Composer and Performer

UK composer, performer, producer and writer.

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

I just found this photograph, taken by me c.1990, on a school trip to Sellafield. There was quite a lot of this kind of thing in my childhood. As I recall, its history as the site of the UK's worst ever nuclear accident wasn't mentioned.

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

(1/4) I'm still not sure many people release the full impact that Section 28 had on LGBT people growing up in the UK in the late 1980s / 1990s (such as me). This was Thatcher’s legislation banning "promotion of homosexuality" in schools and other institutions funded by local authorities.

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

If you haven't already heard my album 'Sleep in the Shadow of the Alternator', and you'd like to buy a copy, today is the ideal day, it being Bandcamp Friday... leochadburn.bandcamp.com/album/sleep-...

leochadburn.bandcamp.com

Sleep in the Shadow of the Alternator, by Leo Chadburn

4 track album

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

I've never given much thought to the work of Bridget Riley, which has always seemed a bit like trendy wallpaper to me, but I saw some images of this painting, "Vespertino" (1988), yesterday and I'm completely mesmerised by it. I'd really like to see the real thing somewhere...

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Like a motorway journey, the landscape changes incrementally, but the hum of the engine remains constant. This piece by me, 'Freezywater', premiered 10 years ago this week. www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUkl...

youtube.com

Leo Chadburn - Freezywater (2016)

YouTube video by LibraryOfNothing

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

Kenneth Williams' 1963 reading of Gogol's 'Diary of a Madman' is on Radio 4extra this afternoon (part of a whole day of programmes to coincide with his centenary). It's an extraordinary performance: unexpectedly dreamlike, haunting. What a great dramatic actor he was. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

bbc.co.uk

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Diary of a Madman by Nikolai Gogol

An insight into the mind of a man sliding into madness. Read by Kenneth Williams.

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

One of the things I love about the music of Iannis Xenakis is how “Xenaskissy” it can be. Unmistakeable, almost like he’s parodying himself sometimes. Who else would have written this? A little 5-minute cataclysm. Sounds like a fissure opening in the earth. Fantastic. www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJMU...

youtube.com

Iannis Xenakis - Voile [w/score]

YouTube video by Four-hobbies-man

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Reposted by Dr Leo Chadburn

Caroline Potter @carolinefrmus.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

Late to the party here, but I’m another fan of @leochadburn.bsky.social latest album: it’s swirling, mesmerising and I’m haunted by its stories of the Midlands - not far from where I grew up 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

I don't want to say that music peaked in the early 1400s and it's all been downhill since then, but listen to how astonishingly beautiful this is (Bartolomeo da Bologna's 'Arte psalentes'): www.youtube.com/watch?v=4He_...

youtube.com

Arte psalentes (Ballade)

YouTube video by Mala Punica - Topic

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Reposted by Dr Leo Chadburn

The Tonearm @thetonearm.com · 10/01/2026

Experimental composer Leo Chadburn's album 'Sleep in the Shadow of the Alternator' transforms his childhood memories of Coalville's mines and factories into a dreamlike narrative about the East Midlands' vanished industry. Leo Chadburn Broadcasts a Radiophonic Lullaby of Industrial Decline:

thetonearm.com

Leo Chadburn Broadcasts a Radiophonic Lullaby of Decline

The experimental composer's album 'Sleep in the Shadow of the Alternator' transforms his childhood memories of Coalville's mines and factories into a dreamlike narrative about the East Midlands' vanished industry.

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

If you’d like to buy any of my physical or download releases on Bandcamp, I’m having a modest January sale. Use the discount code newyear2026 (valid till the end of January) to get 25% off anything of mine... leochadburn.bandcamp.com

leochadburn.bandcamp.com

Leo Chadburn

Leo Chadburn (London, UK) FKA Simon Bookish is a composer of experimental and 'avant-pop' music, vocalist and writer. His unpredictable work includes music for classical ensembles, dramatic solo perfo...

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Dr Leo Chadburn @leochadburn.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

"The record Chadburn has been working towards for years, gloriously realised..." Thanks to Tim Rutherford-Johnson for putting my 2025 album in his top 10 releases of the year. Take a look at his other (impeccable) choices too, here: purlis.substack.com/p/purposeful...

purlis.substack.com

Purposeful Listening 5: Albums of the year, LCMF at Wigmore, London Sinfonietta play Grisey

Collate/curate

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Reposted by Dr Leo Chadburn

Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH @gavinyamey.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

A masterpiece, one for the ages, a truly monumental artistic creation & achievement, by @leochadburn.bsky.social "Sleep in the Shadow of the Alternator," self-released My favorite experimental/spoken word album of 2025 leochadburn.bandcamp.com/album/sleep-... Here's the review I wrote for WXDU

On his new album, acclaimed British musician and composer Leo Chadburn, who also releases music under the name Simon Bookish, has created an extraordinary self-contained world set in the East Midlands of England, in the county of Leicestershire—a world that that both harks back to the past, to a time of coal mines and power stations, and stretches out far into a post-apocalyptic future. Over four pieces, all around 10 to 11 minutes long, Chadburn narrates his poems, somewhat in the spirit of Ivor Cutler or Alan Moore. Track 1 transports us to abandoned post-industrial towns (it opens with the words “Held in the open hand of the crease of the valley/This town has been abandoned twice”). The opening of track 2 is Chadburn narrating a list of flowers of the East Midlands, and then he turns to the lost occupations of the region (“Collier/Farrier/Rollerman/Waterman/Steeplejack”). On track 3, there are forgotten machines of disused coal mines. Finally, we’re shot through time, to 1000 years from now, on track 4, a landscape of the future where “pink aeroplanes drift overhead/Without pilots/Without passengers/And the sky is a gauze between this world and infinity.” Beneath his words, Chadburn plays bass drum, bass recorder, bowed vibraphone, cymbals, glockenspiel, harmonica, harmonium, prepared piano (fishing line, neodymium magnets and neoprene), shortwave radio, tam-tam, thundersheet, wine glasses, and synthesizers—he creates ambient electronics and drone (track 1), Gregorian chants (track 2), intense, percussive beats with a krautrock feel, beats that become increasingly frantic and train-like (track 3), and crunching footsteps over twisting synth-lines (track 4). “Sleep In the Shadow of the Alternator” is a monumental artistic creation and achievement.

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