Keynsham by SA - TTTTTTT

ABOUT THIS RELEASE

SA -TTTTTTT #01

The original audio used to create this release comes from the LP "Keynsham" by Bonzo Dog Band (Liberty Records, 1969).

Tracks from the original LP were used as raw audio for improved jams using Forrester 22 software (link below). Minimal edits were made to finish the tracks.

leafcutterjohn.com/forester-2022/

The process of creating this release was influenced by gentrification and the ongoing housing crisis in the UK. I lived on the edge of Keynsham in Somerset for just over three years after being forced to move from my home and community in London due to not being able to afford to make ends meet there anymore. It was heart-breaking and a huge challenge to my mental health.

My experiences living there have been mixed. Being near nature and wildlife has been special but the extreme isolation and sometimes days on end lack of human contact has really taken it's toll on me. I've discovered that if you don't drive a car you are at a massive disadvantage in a rural environment.

Tracks 1, 3 and 5 are reflections on the countless hours of trudging along potholed roads in the countryside often dodging cars and lorries as they passed, sometimes at hair-raising speed as if I didn't exist.

The title of track 2 is a reference to the track "Hackney Parrot" by Tessela.

Track 4 is a tribute to the beautiful pair of otters I encountered briefly in late 2022 on the river Avon. They disappeared as quickly as they arrived probably fleeing the increasingly polluted water of the river in my area.

Tracks 6 and 7 were inspired by the extreme sense of loss I felt and still feel at having to leave home, community and friends in London, a place I had lived and worked in all my adult life.

Sending a massive wholehearted FUCK YOU to anyone making a profit from housing. A stable and affordable home should be a right for everyone not the luxury it is in the messed up situation we are living though right now.

Thanks to the original artists sampled on this release and also Leafcutter John., the otters, Nick, Wayne, Alan, Iain, Shaun, Kent, Kaz, Adam, Jim, Ian, Alice, Tommy, Chris, Jenny, Aidan, Heather, Henry and most of all Carey.

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SA -TTTTTTT EXPLAINED

I was on a bus in mid April 2025 and saw some unusual graffiti on the window at the back of the top deck. I took a few photos and really enjoyed the way the background to the graffiti had changed due to the bus's motion so I took more, a few hundred in total.

As the journey continued, going from small town to city, occasionally words cropped up in the background of the photos. The instances of this increased mainly due to a higher number of street signs, adverts and graffiti and then, at the end of the journey, many shop signs way more than I could capture with the glitchy camera I had on my phone. Thinking about the words appearing in the images I then came up with the idea for this project before my journey's end.

I decided to use the words in the background as search terms to find audio to use in creating this project. I used the exact words or letters (there are just fragments of a word in some of the photos) as search terms in Soulseek and from the search results I selected music to use as martial to create the final tracks. I deliberately selected sound or music that I had never heard before discounting any search results I was already familiar with.

The artwork of each SA - TTTTTTT release is a photo from that one journey. The photos will be presented in the order in which they were taken. I am sticking to the sequence of photos and also strictly working on one release at a time. I am not starting on the next until the one I am currently working on is uploaded to Bandcamp. This is an attempt to maintain the "here and now" feel of the project that was so important at it's inception.

This project will most likely last a long time. There are 79 images I have identified that are potentially usable in total although the final number of releases might end up being less depending on the search results I get from my audio searches. How I use the sounds I find as I go along will be influenced by what is happening in my life at that particular time and the sound and style of the releases may change. Only time will tell.

I will add background info about each release as they are uploaded along with any personal reflections that seem relevant or potentially interesting at that particular point.

Vicious Sticks Recordings: VSR052