Hush Hush Records is honored to help present a complimentary remix collection to Hamilton, Ontario-based musician Tewksbury’s 2022 album 'Brutes.' Featuring contributions from a handful of talented artists, including Hush Hush alums IKSRE and awakened souls alongside a trio of emerging Canadian acts, 'Brutes Remixed' reimagines Tewksbury’s sublime droning choral soundscapes and molds them into their own equally dreamy creations.
Originally released on Hush Hush in July 2022, 'Brutes' is a long-form, meditative work of slow ambient music made from very long loops of analog tape. The album’s two original 20-minute-long songs – “BANDA MOUNTAIN” and “COP26” – were built by layering, manipulating, and combining the raw materials of public-domain recordings of human voices and playing them through multiple amps in the same room. These two tracks were, in a sense, some weird form of remix, a mashup of different obscure voices repurposed to create a new voice.
Driven by a desire to pass on the creative torch to his close musician friends and fellow label mates, Tewksbury began to brainstorm artists that could find their own unique inspiration within 'Brutes.' He says, “I realized at the end of the recording sessions that these long works could be a blank slate for other artists to bring in their own voices, their own perspectives on these songs, using the 'Brutes' tracks as raw material for their own composition. And here, the tracks of 'Brutes' have, themselves, been again rearranged, and through the lens of these remarkable artists.
So much great creative work is transformative from its influences, and these works, ring true with the voices of the artists involved as they put their voice on this raw material. I love every note of their remixed works, and I am so humbled to have the songs from 'Brutes' lead to such great art being shared with the world.”
Kicking off the collection is an interpretation from Hush Hush alum IKSRE, the project of Melbourne-based musician and sound healer Phoebe Dubar. Taking the glacial ethereal drones of “BANDA MOUNTAIN” as her base, she beautifully folds in viola and her own soaring vocals to create a restorative neo-classical-tinted ambient cocoon. Fellow Hush Hush labelmates awakened souls follow suit, with the Los Angeles-based husband/wife duo composed of James Bernard and Cynthia Bernard (aka marine eyes) steering “COP26” into a calming ambient-pop lullaby through Cynthia’s delicate vocals, James’ deep bass tones, and the duo’s trademark enveloping atmospherics.
Toronto-based ambient-pop musician shn shn draws the listener in with an alluring beat-centric opening before allowing her own voice and lyrics to glide and shine bright over her illuminating remix of “BANDA MOUNTAIN.” Hamilton, Ontario-based newcomer Le Nozz adds an undercurrent of slippery atmospherics on their enveloping instrumental take of “COP26” and prominent Toronto-based ambient and electronic composer Kilometre Club applies a heady rhythmic pulse on his experimental IDM/downtempo flip of “BANDA MOUNTAIN” to round out the collection.
Revisit Tewksbury's 'Brutes' album:
hushhushrecords.bandcamp.com/album/brutes
releases March 17, 2023
Mastered by Steve Pitkin at Modest Heights Mastering.
Artwork by Rudra Chauhan.
Much love to the contributing remixers on this project:
IKSRE (Melbourne) - iksre.bandcamp.com
awakened souls (Los Angeles) - awakenedsouls.bandcamp.com
shn shn (Toronto) - shnshn.bandcamp.com
Le Nozz (Hamilton) - www.instagram.com/le_nozz/
Kilometre Club (Toronto) - kilometreclub.bandcamp.com
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