J.WLSN - Slipped (2023)

A Note from J.WLSN

Last Christmas (2022) we gave our 7-year-old son a ¾ Nylon string guitar. He had been learning to play over the year and it was fitting that he had his own instrument. What I hadn’t banked on was the fun and joy I would get from playing this tiny beginner guitar. It was like a time machine – shuttling me back to my teenage years where I would play for hours on a similar and equally as odd sounding muted 6-string.

Using my phone as a sketch recording engine, I played loops and small ideas and short moments that had stuck with me. I’d then use guitar pedals to manipulate these recordings, sending them to a vintage Audio Technica RMX64, a 1980’s recording console and cassette 4 track loaned from Newcastle-based musician Tim McPhee. He had restored it and it was soaked in a bizarre and wild arcane magic. It sparked a renewed interest in me to explore the making, the cutting up and seeing how and where sound could be pushed to.

This collection of tracks is like drawing and collage to me. It is a continued exploration of lines, abstract shapes, tones, and images through sound. At its core it is simple. Pure sound further worked into oblivion. Melded nylon guitar loops, FM synths, minimal Buchla 200 modules, a cassette tape delay, an electric guitar, lots of guitar pedals and some dictaphone-based field recordings of the piano, random people, my kids and family and the instruments – they are all here, slipping and sliding within and around each other.