DJ Ordeal
Sea/Seagull LP (E39)
DJ Ordeal has been creating his progressively strange tape collages for the
best part of a decade. Following more than a dozen releases, mostly on his
own Sparticus Stargazer label, Sea/Seagull may well be his oddest recording
yet. Based on a multi-tracked and speeded-up vocal riff, played alongside
recordings of sea breakers, voices, orchestral and seagull sounds, this is a
painstakingly constructed audio tapestry, the result of intense, hour-upon-
hour, tape-to-tape work. Get acquainted with DJ Ordeal via a fun Q&A with
Dave Heaton of Erasing Clouds and an interview by Jimmy Possession of Robots and Electronic Brains fanzine (who also hosts a show on 209radio in Cambridge [UK])
First edition of 200 copies.
£10
Ian’s aunt
DJ Ordeal, Brighton 2006. Photograph by Ema Bonifacic
Sea managed to cut up a whole side of ocean sounds, dropped in with the
Odd ominous clatter, and punctuated with a rather musical seagull effect.
On Seagull, things get really interesting as he strips it all out save for the seagull sample, which is actually made up of a vocalist singing in the artist’s neighborhood — the various samples of her singing are sped up and pieced together to the effect that she sounds like the titular bird of low tide filth. This is a fascinating side of music, hypnotic and strangely satisfying, its
noise simultaneously maddening and scratching an itch that it formed itself.
I feel like I’m going to be highly suggestible when this side closes.
Doug Mosurak at Dusted
—
[On Sea] There are glimpses of orchestral sound and speaking voices, but
the waves dominate, turning the side into a heavy and amorphous white
noise experience. Seagull isolates the bird-like sounds and produces a much
more intriguing result, with hard, bright oscillating tones, seesawing across
each other as Ordeal alternately runs tape forwards and in reverse.
Sam Davies in The Wire