TL027. Sage Pbbbt - three journeys

Limited ed. of 50 Zine with essay and individual, hand-printed art work. Signed and numbered by Sage Pbbbt.

This album continues my exploration of ‘timbral listening’ and a drumming inspired by Siberian, Mongolia and Korean shamanic drumming practices. In some ways, it further explores ideas from my “shamanic black metal” album invocations of unknown entities (from 2017). On this album, though, I have stripped things right back to a single drum track. I really love the sound of these drums, and while I have explored the range of textures that they offer in various contexts, often alongside similar explorations with vocal texture, I have felt that the richness of the drum sounds perhaps got lost; using just the drums really highlights the nuances of the timbres that they can produce. I also wanted to record something that more explicitly, or directly reflected my ritual practice and that made a perhaps useful offering to others working within—on interested in—this context. While other recordings and performances of mine embody my ritual practice, they perhaps do not offer much ‘of use’ for other ritualists. These recordings, however, can function as audio to use for (shamanic) journeying or exploring trance states and in that sense, extend an invitation to the listener, and offer themselves for use by other people exploring trance through the use of music. They also seek to explore the overlap of this kind of ‘functional’ audio recording with improvised music and minimalism.

Sage Pbbbt (drums)

Recorded over five days in October 2019 (single takes, no edits)
Recorded and mixed by Sage Pbbbt
Mastered by Dan O'Connor

2020 CC BY-NC Creative Commons licensed: attribution, non-commercial