East by Fortresses

"This isn’t a portrayal of the southeast English coastline per se, but of its incessant revival within the mind’s eye. Through the refractive retelling of memory, the beach of “East” becomes a surreal thing..."
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The first recordings for “East” were captured in late 2021, at various locations across the southeast of England: Dungeness, Camber, Margate and Hastings. The piece was finalised in January 2024, more than two years after those initial sessions and following Sam Ashton’s (who releases under the name Fortresses) move from London to Portland, Oregon. Suitably, “East” captures the sensation of a place held fondly but precariously in memory. As time passes, details begin to fade and events start to melt together. Sounds from separate locales merge into imagined aggregates, mostly manifested in wisps of vague reminiscence save for a few snagging, vivid specifics.

Central here are elements that loop continuously during these 22 minutes, fleeting and partial like washed-up debris: close-mic’d dried coastal flora, open-air recordings of seabirds and tides and breezes, a distorted rumble captured on a portable recorder with the wind cover removed. This isn’t a portrayal of the southeast English coastline per se, but of its incessant revival within the mind’s eye. Through the refractive retelling of memory, the beach of “East” becomes a surreal thing – it curves inward to form a closed loop, as the listener repeatedly encounters the same bird call, the same crunching of seaweed. Gradually these recordings loosen their affiliation with their original location of capture. Repetition renders them as capsules of self-reference, as memories of memories, gently dislocated from any time-space specificity.

Everything is cohered by Ashton’s guitar, which slips beautifully into the landscape and conveys the non-sensory, emotive aspect of memory: the serenity of daydreamt escapism, the soft melancholy of recollections fading. Pitch-shifted and blurred by reverb, it also emulates the spatiotemporal fluidity of the imagination; the collapsing of days, the consolidation of geographies, draped like an overcast sky that could well belong to an Autumn evening or a Winter day at noon, ambiguous in mood, perfectly encapsulating the quiet potency of (mis)remembering.

-- words by Jack Chuter.

“Flaming Pines is itself a topography of hidden global sounds." The Wire.

We are a label focused on field recording, sound art and experimental ambient music.

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