It’s hard to keep up with the amount CH releases every month but I stumbled across this gem of an album today. It’s available in limited cassette tape, CD-r and digital.

In 2012, while preparing for the Leaf Cloak album sessions, I recorded a tape of mostly live jams using a lot of the sound palette that would end up shaping Leaf Cloak. Almost immediately after recording these tracks, the cassette was misplaced, and wasn’t found until earlier this summer in 2014. My memory led me to think there were only a couple good moments on the tape, but when I ripped the audio, I found almost 50 minutes of raw atmospheric techno that mirrored the Leaf Cloak album perfectly in some places, and went in the opposite direction from it in others.

I named the tracks Chemist Cloak, as the music sounded as if it were dipped in corrosive chemicals and then altered in strange ways. A lot of the content on Chemist Cloak ended up minimized and restrained on the Leaf Cloak album, which makes this album an interesting “behind the curtain” look at how those tracks were made. Even in the shadow of Leaf Cloak, Chemist Cloak is able to stand on its own legs, with solidarity earned via pure impulse and brute force. It is dirty, misshapen in parts and even primal at times. A formidable counterpoint to the gentle backyard rural techno of Leaf Cloak.

Coppice Halifax

Tracklist

1.Mk. I [Resin Peel] 07:06
2.Mk. II [Blacksmoke] 07:12
3.Mk. III [Soot Imprint Layer] 09:43
4.Mk. IV [Artefacts] 11:14
5.Mk. V [Red Yellow Residue] 05:12
6.Mk. VI [Burnt Remains] 07:12