Laurie Tompkins

HEX 007 - 09/06/2022

Sharp Love Slow Faint is Laurie Tompkins new release for Hyperdelia and shows the Sheffield-based composer as a hyperreal crooning entertainer. Backed up by Ashley Paul’s smoothly sailing saxophone and Eliza McCarthy’s hazy keys, the trio conjures a faux electric lounge jazz band rehearsing for a matinee.

Tompkins’ compositions, initially conceived as little self-contained postcard scores, functioned as short instructions for semi-improvised interpretations. Paul and McCarthy recorded guitar, sax and keys in July 2021 in an empty Café Oto. Tompkins then processed the recordings afterwards and cut his vocals on top. Throughout the record, his singing is mystically effected, sung through delays, echo, noise and takes on the persona of a private lover of karaoke. In these moments, the music is reminiscent of the late Scott Walker, someone who has also always impersonated more than one voice.

Similarly, the lyrics are polyphonous, they have no addressee but are sporadic and sub-conscious expressive ramblings; such as the wonderfully odd ‘Fashion’, a warped lullaby sung by a hoarse Stuart A. Staples, or the ode to automobile eroticism on ‘Car Arses’.

Much of Sharp Love Slow Faint is carried by a ghostly funkiness thanks to the melodic brevity of the tracks and the loopy character of the compositions. Sharp Love Slow Faint is a theatrical mood music – “emotional but out of place” – that lets listeners marvel at its strangeness. Tompkins’ intimate lyricism shimmers throughout.

Bio

Laurie Tompkins is a UK composer, performer and co-founder and co-director of the Slip label.

From scores for samples, instruments and voices he creates a grabbable music that dreams and confounds. Bodies, things, words, and sounds strain under duress, looping their way through scenes of grubby presence, not-quite riff, mouldy echo, and swollen bombast.

In spring 2022, Laurie also has discs coming out for Entr’acte and 33-33. Laurie’s projects involve regular collaborators Jess Hickie-Kallenbach, Teresa Winter, Gwilly Edmondez and Joel Wycherley.

Laurie helms Slip, which has released music by Yeah You, Mica Levi, Julia Reidy, Bass Clef, Object Collection, Mentos Gulgendo, Chaines & Competition. Old releases of his own include ‘Ample Profanity’ (2018), with cellist Oliver Coates; ‘Heat, War, Sweat, Law’ (2016); and ‘Exorcise’ (2021), as Yes Indeed with bassist Otto Willberg, justly hailed as “proper, mad scones” (Boomkat).

Performances: Café Oto, Aldeburgh Music, Spike Island, Harp Art Lab (Harplinge) and National Sawdust (New York). Commissions: House of Bedlam, Daylight Editions, LSO Soundhub Scheme, ddmmyy and 840 series. Radio: specials for NTS and Resonance FM and a session with Adam Bohman recorded at Maida Vale studios, broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

Tracklist

• 04:20 - Pink U
• 03:26 - Conk
• 03:20 - Slugs
• 03:01 - Sky sigh
• 00:41 - Talc
• 02:58 - Happy
• 01:32 - Grace
• 03:54 - Fashion
• 02:24 - Loom
• 01:18 - Past is past
• 01:13 - Witch
• 01:38 - Car arses
• 04:00 - Pump fake

Media

• 50 x CD in PP case
• download (mp3/wav) and online streaming

Release Concert

9th June 2022 @ KM28, Berlin

Credits

Laurie Tompkins - Music, Text, Voice, Samples

Ashley Paul - E-Guitar, Saxophone, Voice
Eliza McCarthey - E-Keys, Piano

Artwork by Mio Ebisu
Commissioned by Daylight Editions
Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi
Recorded by Shaun Crook in April 2021 in an empty Café Oto

Space