No Disposition or Exit Plan

Forms of Things Unknown

VFI023

Tracklist

1. Enantiodromia
2. Unexpurgated Source Transmission

Notes

These recordings were begun sometime in 2008 as the preliminary tracks for the second proper Forms Of Things Unknown album. The lead track Enantiodromia became the framework for a live performance that same year in Oakland CA at the IAMINDUST festival followed by a fully fleshed out stage presentation with 39-minute commissioned video by Brian Traylor at the 8th Annual Outsound New Music Summit in San Francisco in 2009. As a standalone 24-track audio piece, it was completed in 2010, with final mastering done in 2016 before I liquidated my home recording studio and sold off half of my musical instrument collection. The second track (here titled Unexpurgated Source Transmission) was to have been developed into a more complex multitracked composition in the manner of Enantiodromia, but the various embellishments that were subsequently recorded failed to coalesce persuasively with the basic drone track, and so it was decided to release it as heard here.

Although I no longer own most of the gear I used to create these recordings and have since lost the tracking and mixing notes I’d written down at the time, some of the instrumental and electronic sound sources included bench test equipment (function generator, noise and tone plugs), Tibetan singing bowls and five-foot rag dung (ritual long horn), and sampled drones and field recordings from a licensed collection of sound effects by the late Alan Splet.

If there is a theme buried somewhere in the subsonic depths of these recordings, it might bear some connection with archetypal processes of transformation and revelation within the micro/macrocosmic field of Apocalypsis or ἀποκάλυψις.

“Let come what comes – Let go what goes – See what remains”

– Ramana Maharshi

Media

Bio

Initiated in 2002, FORMS OF THINGS UNKNOWN is the primary musical project of San Francisco artist Ferrara Brain Pan. A first album entitled Cross Purposes was issued in 2003, followed by sporadic live gigs and unreleased home recordings. The year 2008 saw the expanded CD reissue of Cross Purposes along with a second full-length CD of demos, outtakes and compilation tracks entitled Black Trenchcoats & Swastikas ‘n Shit. The recording of new material for a proper followup to Cross Purposes began that same year, but after a live performance at the Outsound New Music Summit in 2009 the project dropped out of sight. Until now.

No Disposition Or Exit Plan, released digitally by VF Industrial, unveils these long-shelved recordings by Forms Of Things Unknown for worldwide ingestion. Meticulously composed and sequenced from analog electronic sound sources with industrial field recordings and ritual Tibetan instruments, the new album features over 77 minutes of previously unheard material. Drawing from a sound palette of ominous drones and distant foghorns, bursts of white noise and clinically invasive bleeps and glitches, it is sure to appeal to enthusiasts of the Raster-Noton aesthetic. As a bonus, purchase of the album through VFI includes a 39-minute video created by Brian Traylor for the lead track Enantiodromia.

Presently Ferrara Brain Pan has ditched the digital recorders for a consort of Baroque recorders, and is currently occupied with exploring the acoustic musical possibilities of traditional folk and Early music by virtue of these venerable woodwind instruments from days of yore.

For more info please visit www.formsofthingsunknown.com or contact the artist directly at panaxis@formsofthingsunknown.com

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