watercoolerdictator
Exquisite. Great to reconnect with Jason's music many years after the Sensory Projects days...and it looks like with Sound In Silence I've stumbled across a great label as well.
This is a limited edition of handmade and hand-numbered collectible CD copies released on Greek label Sound in Silence. It is packaged in a lovely hand-stamped 127mm x 127mm 250 gsm smoky grey recycled cardboard envelope with the front cover image printed on a polaroid style photo paper and three insert sheets containing tracklist and information, two printed on a 170 gsm dusty pink cardboard and one on a 120 gsm cream recycled cardboard. It also comes bundled with a download code coupon and a Sound In Silence card.
Includes unlimited streaming of Decades (2001-2021)
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Observable Universe is proud to present an era-spanning compilation of ambient works, experimental scores and soundtracks by Panoptique Electrical, on the new double album Decades (2001-2021).
For twenty years Jason Sweeney, based on Kaurna Country in South Australia, has been composing and recording either solo, in various electronic bands (Other People’s Children, Pretty Boy Crossover) and under the composer alias of Panoptique Electrical. He has also been directing and creating interactive works for the internet, making experimental films, curating projects for galleries and theatre spaces and has collaborated with and composed for some of Australia’s leading performing arts companies, artists and organisations.
Decades (2001-2021), Panoptique Electrical’s eighth full-length album, spans 20 years of compositions over 70 minutes and 31 tracks. Starting in 2001, with pieces made from lo-fi synth drones, sampled loops and broken pianos, taking us through to more recent works featuring layered atmospheric strings, processed piano, field recordings, cinematic cello performed by frequent collaborator Zoë Barry and cut-up vocal pieces performed by Caroline Daish, Decades (2001-2021) perfectly blends melancholic ambient music, modern classical composition, experimental electronics and evocative soundscapes.
Exquisitely mastered by Room40’s Lawrence English, Decades (2001-2021) is an epic, but personal, record that takes us into the emotional landscape of Sweeney’s compositional world.
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Notes by Jason:
Decades (2001-2021) is a personally curated survey of 20 years of collected compositions made specifically for theatre productions, art projects and films. Each track featured on this double album is a document of the thematic and stylistic core of a larger suite of works made for each production.
To embark upon such a retrospective involved detailed curation, selecting a chronology of work in five-year increments: Part 1: 2001-2005; Part 2: 2006-2010; Part 3: 2011-2015; Part 4: 2016-2021.
I want the album to take you through various sonic doorways marking the passing of time. The titles of each work are names given to them at the moment of creation to indicate either a placement of sound in the production, a reflection upon the visual element being portrayed in a scene or a theme for a specific character. The brevity of each piece is how they were presented to directors or choreographers. Oftentimes these had to be looped or stretched over longer periods depending on a scene, its place within a sequence or its use as an underscore.
Decades (2001-2021) listens upon an expansive body of compositions created over the past 20 years. These pieces were made not only as commissioned scores for directed performance works but also as core collaborative elements that lay sonic foundations, give character to theatrical visions, and evoke bodily responses in precise choreography. It is an album that highlights a body of sonic work that otherwise would disappear into the lost and completed seasons of the productions they were composed for. It is a time-capsule to offer up and contribute to the legacy and archives of “Australian” contemporary music.
In setting out to curate this collection I wanted to ask: How does the music change thematically over time? How does my use of sonic production techniques and composition styles evolve year by year? In curating what would eventually be a 70-minute collection of scores, soundscapes and audio works that begin in 2001 and end in a new work made in 2021, I wish to tell a ‘sonic story’ of an composer who has literally grown up creatively in the ears of the public.
xx Jason
Bonus items include liner notes by Elena Carapetis and origins of all tracks in chronological order.
credits
released August 20, 2021
Written, recorded & produced by Jason Sweeney over two decades on stolen Aboriginal lands.
Mastered by Lawrence English on Turrbal & Jagera Country.
Cello samples on D25, D26 & D27 performed by Zoë Barry, recorded by Jed Palmer at Mixmasters Studio. Vocals on C22 & D30 by Caroline Daish. Voice on C21 is a recording of Pamela Rabe made at State Theatre Company SA. Voice samples of Ania Walwicz reading her text ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ on D31 is taken from a video recording uploaded to the ‘Ania Walwicz & the Poetry & Performance Class’ YouTube page in March 2015. Liner notes are written by my extraordinary comrade, collaborator & friend, Elena Carapetis. Cover image is a remixed photo originally taken by Joshua Nash on Pitcairn Island, 2016. All other images by Ania Stein. This release has been made possible with financial support from Arts South Australia & the APRA AMCOS Creative Recovery Fund. This limited double vinyl edition is released by Observable Universe. Listen on all digital platforms. This album was manufactured in Naarm/Melbourne & pressed in Thornbury by Program Records. A CD edition is released by Sound in Silence (Greece).
Panoptique Electrical is Jason Sweeney. He predominantly makes ambient compositions, queer sounds and instrumental music/ Based in Tarndanya on stolen Kaurna Yerta. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.
supported by 6 fans who also own “Decades (2001-2021)”
Structure of this quite illuminating, self referential yet universal personal/impersonal album is emotionally, intellectually and spiritually exquisite. Its power of off balance questioning reminiscence and refusal to achieve, let alone seek resolution is a profound recognition of life as jagged edges of incomprehensible incompleteness. ob1david
supported by 5 fans who also own “Decades (2001-2021)”
I heard this album for the first time right after my Father had passed and am forever grateful it entered my life. Aside from the deep emotional connection, musically, this is one of the most creative albums I've heard. Each track is another world and pushes the meaning "Banjo player" in a new direction! realhdna
Ten gorgeous compositions from Iceland’s Gísli Gunnarsson that ride the line between ambient & modern classical. Breathtaking. Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 25, 2023
