Metals

At the heart of Scotland-based producer, composer and instrument maker Scott Gordon's Metals is his custom-made, self-built SPI (Spinning Plate Instrument), an instrument he constructed from industrial scrap metal bars, which are hung from a large vertical wooden frame, the metal struck by mechanical beaters driven by small motors. The bars spin when played – manually or by MIDI – emitting warmly resonating drifts of sound, sympathetic tones that resemble electronic sources, tintinnabulations in an electroacoustic lineage with Harry Bertoia’s architectural sound sculptures. The SPI is not tuned, or cut to scales, so each set is a study in pitch, rhythm and texture via unexpected objects and instruments.

Metals is his first release on Diagonal, joining their clutch of rebel electronic music innovators with this two part album. It operates in a near binary: the first four pieces on Side A, titled And Away I-IV, settle as introspective works, while the second suite of tracks on Side B, titled Tilts I-IV extol more extroverted forms of electroacoustic music.

And Away I-IV is meditative and reflective, where tones ripple outwards like waterdrops on a reflecting pool. Across four tracks it renders impressionistic visions painted in sound: brief rain showers; the Doppler effect of cars passing by; snowdrifts of tones that build and slide away, never coming to a crescendo, never resolving. The tracks on the second side, Tilts I-IV, invert this, bubbling up from the waters of And Away into crisp and brittle soundworlds of whirring machines and glassy architectures, drawing out the harsher sound palette of the SPI amid reflective surfaces and toothy sound waves, its raw metal and rhythmic potential wrapped and warped by sampling, manipulation and sequenced percussive synth lines.

Gordon works across experimental music, AV projects & sound objects, but was inspired to build the SPI and began recording Metals after experiments recording metal, car springs, pipes, and sheets. He describes the SPI as being like "a big vertical glockenspiel". Previously to this release, he has released on Editions Mego as one half of Oto Hiax, a collaborative project with Mark Clifford of Seefeel (Warp Records), as well as a series of EPs and an album under his Loops Haunt alias via the Black Acre imprint.