Music For Deathbeds (Lp)
Label: Emotional Response
Format: LP
Genre: Electronic
In stock
As with the first SchleiBen series, Emotional Response follows the
success of the second set of split releases with a stand-alone album by
one of the highlights, in Neil Tolliday. Recorded over a 17-year period,
the ambient, drone and noise pieces collected here offer a glimpse in
to the depth of a supremely talented, thoughtful and at times, troubled
musical mind. As his love for house music and the success of his Nail
moniker grew and waned during the ascent 90s boom, there followed his
somewhat surprising success as one half of Balearic-pop combo Bent,
propelling Tolliday in to a world of indie-charts and endless touring.
The eventual unhappiness of this 'music career' and increasing need for
personal escapism led him start experiment new musical forms of
expression. A thinker and oft-over drinker, success was viewed with a
deep suspicion and introspection, drug use and later, depression. As
his other music projects slowly imploded, this new, personal music was
for many years, made purely for Tolliday's own absorption and comedowns.
Taken from an initial 4 track recording in Nottingham in 2000, more
pieces were subsequently recorded around the globe on numerous devices -
old portable cassette recorders, hand held digital stereos and even
mobile phones. These heavily manipulated samples were slowed down,
reversed, smudged and stretched before analog and modular patching,
Mellotron, editing, programming and post production were added to the
melting pot. With hundreds of tracks collated, in the last few years
Tolliday began putting them out via Bandcamp using different aliases, on
made up record labels, with no press or mention to anyone. This would
happen every 6-9 months - a new label was created with logo, band/artist
names and a few albums worth of music, leaving it there for a few weeks
before then deleting the lot. Here then is a snapshot of those
recordings, chosen to represent the depth of music, while trying not to
think too much about in to the emotions that were used in making them.
With special hand painted artwork by Sam Purcell, commissioned from the
artist's own photographs taken from a adjournment at Homerton hospital,
the hope is to do justice to such wonderful music and present Neil
Tolliday, finally an artist, shorn of pseudonyms, in a broader light.
Cat. number: ERSS 039
Year: 2019