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Elevator Bath

Don't Ever Let Me Know - Limited Edition Vinyl LP

from Colin Andrew Sheffield

Black vinyl LP with gorgeous, full-color jacket featuring extensive spot gloss printing. Includes download code. Released by the aufabwegen label of Cologne. Mastered for vinyl by James Plotkin.

* * Oʀᴅᴇʀs ᴘʟᴀᴄᴇᴅ ʜᴇʀᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ʙᴇ sʜɪᴘᴘᴇᴅ ғʀᴏᴍ Aᴜsᴛɪɴ TX (USA). Cᴏᴘɪᴇs ᴀʀᴇ ᴀʟsᴏ ᴀᴠᴀɪʟᴀʙʟᴇ ᴅɪʀᴇᴄᴛʟʏ ғʀᴏᴍ ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴀʙᴇʟ ɪɴ Gᴇʀᴍᴀɴʏ: aufabwegen.bandcamp.com/album/dont-ever-let-me-know * *

Streaming/digital available from the above link.

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Colin Andrew Sheffield's work focuses on the recontextualization of samples derived from various commercially available recordings – generally those taken from his own expansive collection of records, tapes, and compact discs. Conceptually his output is akin to plunderphonics-style sound collage, though aesthetically it is perhaps closer to soundscapes of ambient drone. Since his earliest recordings from the 1990s, his work has developed into a kind of hybrid of the aforementioned approaches.
"Don’t Ever Let Me Know" is Sheffield’s first solo release since 2018’s "Repair Me Now" (Glistening Examples) and is a work in a similar mode to that album in that it comprises two lengthy pieces of multiple movements and moods. For this new work, and as a kind of ode to his late father, Sheffield has employed samples entirely taken from (or inspired by) the city in which both men were born. In this way, the sounds have been utilized as a kind of shorthand for the specific subjects at hand. The two audio assemblages, meanwhile, mirror the ways in which loss and memory are processed – with both melancholy and wonder in equal measure: at once beautiful and confounding.

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"A sonic explorer’s talent for evocation is closely associated with the capacity to elicit unorthodox acoustic imagery from instruments or media that, in the hands of anyone else, would simply remain what they are. Colin Andrew Sheffield has amassed considerable expertise in the use of sound for investigative purposes, including the psychological level, throughout the course of a now quite extended period. Beyond his role as a composer he’s also the manager of Elevator Bath, an imprint renowned for its idiosyncratic and plainly non-commercial choices in the realm of musical surrealism. That the most recent manifestations of Sheffield’s creative foresight are being disseminated by a label with a similarly open-minded philosophy, such as Auf Abwegen, shouldn’t be shocking.
While having identical length, the two sections of Don’t Ever Let Me Know cannot be referred to as “two sides of the same coin”, given the composition’s countless facets. Because of their constant shifting, an oto-holographic effect is produced that includes amorphous secretions, psycho-temporal upheavals, startling dynamic changes, suggestions of a chimerical nirvana. If, as this writer is led to assume, everything heard is the consequence of Sheffield’s manipulation and processing of pre-existing records and/or cassettes, one must laud a piece of art that, sometimes in a matter of mere minutes, combines the asphyxiating feel of an anthill suddenly overrun by mercury liquids with fleeting moments of openness toward a breathless, if somewhat oxidized, sense of hope. The traces of a harmony of the unknown, in which the minute details of non-figurative stand out as distinct aspects, are conveyed by Sheffield as he keeps in touch with an awkwardly throbbing concreteness. The preservation process of our short-term memories, however, is still a challenge. Notably, all of the above is transmitted to the listener with a substantial degree of professional finesse. You just can’t ask for more."
- Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes - touchingextremes.wordpress.com

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Colin Andrew Sheffield Austin, Texas

Colin Andrew Sheffield (b. 1976, El Paso TX) is the founder of the Elevator Bath label. He has released a number of solo recordings on labels such as Auf Abwegen, Glistening Examples, Invisible Birds, Mystery Sea, and more.

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