Cassette tracklist:
A: The Engineer (Narrated by Barney Ashton-Bullock)
B: The Engineer (29 sound responses)
Digital tracklist:
1. The Engineer (Narrated by Barney Ashton-Bullock with 29 sound responses)
Concept and story by Mat Smith
Assembly and mastering by James Edward Armstrong
Design by Neil Coe
Narration by Barney Ashton-Bullock
Narration recorded by Christopher Frost
Sound responses by:
Rupert Lally
Veryan
Laica
Please Close Your Eyes
Dave Clarkson
Gareth Jones
Reed Hays
Elizabeth Joan Kelly
Alka
Xqui
Stephen Vitiello
Charlotte Keeffe
Penelope Trappes
Vince Clarke
Chris Illingworth (GoGo Penguin)
Jess Brett
Lara Jones
Hattie Cooke
Todeskino
Audio Obscura
The Silver Field
Symphorian
Erika Tsuchiya
Fiona Soe Paing
Simon Fisher Turner
BMH
Luce Mawdsley
Claudine Coule
Aniza Douangdara
All profits from this release will go to the Alzheimer’s Society – alzheimers.org.uk
Digital edition and limited cassette edition of 40 copies released June 16 2024 through mortalitytables.bandcamp.com
For press enquiries please email mortalitytables@gmail.com
ABOUT THE ENGINEER
In 2012, writer and Mortality Tables founder Mat Smith (Electronic Sound, Clash, Further.) wrote a short story, ‘The Engineer’. A work of fiction, the story was loosely based on his father, Jim Smith, a skilled mechanical engineer who had spent most of his adult life working in a factory in Stratford-upon-Avon. ‘The Engineer’ represented Mat’s thoughts, feelings and fears about his father’s retirement.
The story was later narrated by author, producer, playwright and poet Barney Ashton-Bullock. 29 artists, working in the fields of sound art, electronic, experimental and contemporary jazz music, were then approached to provide a sound response to a thirty-second extract of Barney’s narration. The order in which they agreed to be involved determined which section of narration they would be asked to respond to.
The collated 29 responses were curated and recorded over the next two-and-a-half years and assembled into a single, 14-minute collage by James Edward Armstrong. Its sprawling, disjointed presentation of short, rapidly-replaced ideas is intended to evoke the devastating confusion of Alzheimer’s, which Mat's father was diagnosed with in 2018.
The sleeve image depicts a teenage Jim Smith on Margate’s Promenade in the 1950s.
The copyright in this project is retained by the contributing artists.
A Mortality Tables Product
MTP1
https://mailchi.mp/3aba76a62693/mortality-tables-mtp1