Double B by Seth Cooke

“Piling the earth until the central beam cracked, as though the whole government, the whole county were cracking. Really, we had a revolution then. lt was the end of one society and the beginning of the next.”
Nancy Holt

Don Drumm’s sculpture caught a stray shot on 4th May 1970. Sunlight strikes the bullet hole, constellations repeat as history revolves relative to a fixed point.

“The event must occur on Friday, May 4, for my purposes, because I plan to invite a number of guest speakers – including Richard Spencer of the National Policy institute and Michael Peinovich of The Right Stuff – to speak to attendees of my event about the unfortunate modern trend of violent left-wing Antifa protestors trying to undermine the free speech rights of right-wing people, and this date is the 48th anniversary of the Kent State shootings by the Ohio National Guard – which will be a very prominent theme of the discussion.”
Cameron Padgett

Jo Cox was shot and stabbed on 16th June 2016, a week later we cracked apart along every fault. An attic hideout, a project space, a woodshed, a field in England.

“If you keep harassing people like Jacob Rees-Mogg then you will get the Britain First cannons turned on you… stay the hell away from politicians on the right of politics. If you carry on then you are going to find Britain First and our activists on your doorstep.”
Paul Golding

Darren Osborne intended to kill Jeremy Corbyn and Sadiq Khan. In court he claimed his fictitious friend ‘Dave’ drove the hire van into the worshippers outside the Finsbury Park Mosque, another absent agitator.

“He's like Dynamo, an illusion. An illusionist. He can make himself vanish perhaps, I don't know.”
Darren Osborne

Double B is five tracks of one-take pseudo-performative no-input field recording/field recording, upon which compression was piled until the structure broke under the weight. Imprints, feedback, pitfalls and backmasking layered later.

Original release notes:
"Following up on his remarkable TRIANGULAR TRADE, sound artist (and operator of the Every Contact Leaves a Trace imprint) Seth Cooke offers with Double B another richly investigated, purposeful work looking into the sonic artifacts of the unresolved dissonances in constellations of history, politics, and media. Through his no-input field recording technique, Cooke brings into consideration the materiality of the inscription devices, a sort of sonic ghost hunting that rewards investigative listening. Like the work of Akomfrah or Sebald, Double B traces a path through seemingly disparate places, times, and ways of listening." Derek Baron, Reading Group

Reviews...

"Seth Cooke has created many fantastic sounds over the past few years (see especially his 'Triangular Trade' on suppedaneum) and here's yet another set. Here, we're dealing with field recordings but not only have they been sonically manipulated (as Cooke puts it, "Five tracks of one-take pseudo-performative no-input field recording/field recording, upon which compression was piled until the structure broke under the weight."), but they carry referential weight as well. Cooke alludes to bullet holes in a sculpture, MP Jo Cox' stabbing and plans for attempts on the lives of Jeremy Corbyn and Sadiq Khan. Even if, as I am, you're at some remove from these events, they and things of that nature are well worth keeping in mind as you listen to these five rather harrowing tracks. The sound field is abrasive, loud, skittering and clanging. Electronic scrapes collide with metallic bangs on 'Sun Tunnel (Solar Totem #1'). This segues to 'The Centre Cannot Hold'--quieter but just as agitated, even more so--windy, buffeted electronics mingling with rapid scrapes and rasps, then dark, deep metallic strikes. On purely aural terms, just a spectacular excursion. In an odd way, 'The Crossing (Syria Notes #1)' ratchets up the unease, with a repeated (backward, I think) sequence of about seven grainy sounds in swift succession, over and over, with scrabbling beneath--I found myself, especially given the title, thinking of war plane fire over a city, its inhabitants scurrying for shelter. Its conclusion is even darker, summoning images of soldiers sifting through ruins in the aftermath. 'It Does Not Further One to Go Anywhere' is brief but cavernous and full of foreboding. The final work, 'Return of the Jihadi/No Platform', the longest piece here, may also be the subtlest. While the sounds are as acidic as ever, their melding is more generous, more integrated, multiple levels weaving and intersecting, maintaining very separate lines on the one hand, forming complex "balls" of multi-element noise on the other. There's a slow but steady surge, chillingly enhanced by a siren-like grind--think buzzsaw slicing metal--interrupted by blasts of...radio static? sharp fragments of other recordings?...I have no idea. And then simply crumbles. Great work. Listen." Just Outside

Tracklist

1.	Sun Tunnel (Solar Totem #1)	3:13

2.	The Centre Cannot Hold	6:12

3.	The Crossing (Syria Notes #1)	5:32

4.	It Does Not Further One to Go Anywhere	2:12

5.	Return of the Jihadi / No Platform	10:56

Credits

released June 19, 2018

Field recordings and no-input field recordings at Sims’ Hill & Eastville, Bristol (2017)

Additional material (2017, 2018):
Rise; Clanging of the Swords, Nashīd of the Defiant – Unknown Artist

SOS – B. Andersson, S. Anderson, B. Ulvaeus; performance G. Barrow, B. Gibbons, A. Utley

RQ170 – T. Paglen

Theme from The Tomorrow People – D. Simpson

Enjoy the Silence – A. Fletcher, D. Gahan, M. Gore, A. Wilder, J. Garraud

Bummerism – K. Killgallon, S. Flato

Britain First Response to Antifa – P. Golding

Pony Tulpa Thread Simulator – Jackald

Extrapolated from:
Partially Buried Woodshed – R. Smithson
Triple Bluff Canyon – M. Nelson

License