Labels: Jonson Family
Review by: Alex Deller
The story behind this release is an intriguing and somewhat worrying one. Our guides are two brothers hailing from the Somerset/Dorset borders, possessed of what can either be seen as an intrepid sense of adventure or mulish foolhardiness. Having chanced upon a so-called “bottomless” hole, our brothers decide to do what others before them had failed to accomplish and chart the recesses of this strange chasm.
Equipped with a microphone, a miles’ worth of electrical cable and their homemade audio recording apparatus they proceeded to lower the microphone down into the impenetrable darkness and record what, if anything, was to be heard beneath the earth’s surface.
This experiment was a fraught and highly turbulent one, plagued by unnatural occurrences, unnerving discoveries and the apparent frailty of the brothers’ own mental health. With each successive lowering of the microphone came stranger revelations, the likes of which are rarely encountered and even less frequently documented, often through fear of persecution or pillory at the hands of skeptical naysayers.
Snatches of ghostly music rose from the depths, at times lullaby-sweet and at others touched with a sense of deep foreboding. Seemingly familiar piano phrases merged with indistinguishable instruments harking from distant shores, effortlessly seeping into the heady sound of phantom orchestras in full sway. Voices too were sometimes evident. Warnings, half-remembered stories, hushed confessionals and single lonesome syllables were to be heard in various tongues and dialects, though their source appears to be impossible to ascertain.
Doubtless any one of these incidents in isolation would prove to be perturbing, but, when combined, the effect is nothing less than staggering. The shifts in tone, time, mood and style are capable of disorientating the sturdiest individual, and though the rewards of immersion can be bountiful it is not without potential risk to the listener’s mental, physical and perhaps even spiritual well-being. Indeed, the brothers seemed to realize the perils of their work, and the subsequent attempt to destroy the tapes shows a rare moment of moral fortitude on their part. That the Jonson Family imprint has seen fit to release the recordings into the public domain alongside the brothers’ increasingly erratic field notes can either be seen as prophetic daring or an act of grotesque mischief, perhaps influenced by similar forays into the unknown by the Album Leaf, Tristeza or Boards of Canada, likeminded stargazers and mapmakers all.
We hesitantly recommend further research into these intriguing audio recordings, but not without strict supervision and thorough psychological profiling both before and after any fresh experiments. As of yet we have reached no firm conclusions, and it is not thought that this perversely beautiful mystery will be unraveled in the foreseeable future.