Stanier Black-Five
Avast!
CD (E158)

 

Belgium £13 (including postage)

Europe £15 (including postage)

Rest of world £17 (including postage)

 

Edition of 200 copies

Avast! was created from field recordings made between 2009 and 2012 in Lyttelton, a volcanic harbour on the
South Island of New Zealand. Sounds were captured at sites around the natural amphitheatre of this extinct caldera: from abandoned wartime bunkers on the top
of the crater rim to the port and its cacophony of cargo ships, tugs and workshops. The work is also haunted by
the resonance of buildings such as the Timeball Station, which were destroyed when the town was at the epicentre of 

a major earthquake in 2011.

 

Stanier Black-Five is the solo project 

of New Zealand sound artist and writer, 

Jo Burzynska, whose audio work is largely based on her own minimally processed environmental recordings. 

She uses these to create dense
soundscapes that use both industrial sources such as the pounding rhythms 

of trains to natural phenomena, such as seismic activity.

stanierblackfive.com

 

See also
Stanier B-F/Zeug Gezeugt (E157)

 

—
Review

Don’t be fooled by [Avast!’s] mock-historical title — the album’s three pieces zero in on the disembodied sonic textures of modern capitalism. As ships dock 

and steel containers move in transit, engines whirr and grind, and relentless mechanical rhythms are punctuated with sundry creaks, bleeps and clangs.

Nick Cain in The Wire