Wednesday 16 September 2009

Ghost Box 12: The Transactional Dharma of Roj


One of the projects I have been engaged upon over the summer is composing the booklet text to go with Ghost Box’s latest release: The Transactional Dharma of Roj. As is usual with Ghost Box, the concept dictates the content. Jim Jupp and Julian House share a strong feel for context: there is always the feeling that some strange new narrative is unfolding just outside the established ranges of human perception.

From the Ghost Box Press Release:

Ghost Box is very excited to release what we believe to be one of the most original and unique albums of electronic music for many years. The Transactional Dharma is haunting and immersive experience. That Roj lectures in electronic music is clear in the signs of academic rigour that emerge in this album but it also channels the wild eyed outsiders of the genre, like Angus Maclise or Bruce Haack but with an oddly British twist.

Roj's work is the culmination of a long period of painstaking work, the results of experimentation in both sound and consciousness. A very personal and spiritual work for which Roj was eager to find exactly the right sound and home.

Always an important part of any Ghost Box release, the album artwork by Julian House features text by Ken Hollings. Hollings collaborated extensively in the concept and hit upon the perfect textual environment of snappy, far out, aphorisms. As if the reality-tampering tape experiments of Burroughs and Gysin were neatly delivered by Marshall McLuhan. This album imagines a kind of cultural and psychic revolution exploding in the rigid confines of a small English town.

The CD is also available via the label’s own small distribution network which includes the following stores: Monorail (Glasgow), Analogue (Edinburgh), Jumbo Records (Leeds), Resident (Brighton) Tower Records (Dublin), A-Musik (Köln), Ananana (Lisbon), Get Real (Amsterdam), Cheap Thrills (Montreal), Other Music (New York), and from a growing number of download vendors including, iTunes, Amazon, and eMusic.

Ghost Box 12, The Transactional Dharma of Roj, by Roj is available on CD and download from the Ghost Box
shop on 28th September or you can pre-order it right now. Roj, a former member of Broadcast, executes psychedelic tone paintings with a battery of exotic percussion, analogue electronics and tape. Beautiful booklet design by Julian House and text by Ken Hollings, journalist, broadcaster and author of Welcome to Mars . You can hear some album clips here.

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