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walkabout IV

by Bradfield Dumpleton

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philomena
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philomena I love the sense of movement. A hint of ASMR in the intro. There is a sense of not one “walker”, but many. Maybe they are ancestors? A cavelike echo-y sound…. I can hear bats. Maybe a trip into the Eluesinian Cave… the grotto of mysteries where initiates fasted, pilgrimaged, “drank something, saw something”, but, all were sworn to secrecy. A dark and trance-like quality; a journey to the Underworld. High-pitched intrusions are like shafts of light from the Aboveworld.
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1.
Plexus Brainsaw Moussaka / Quarry 34:29
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Walkabout IV is the fourth in a series of semi-ambient electronic albums created during the Tasmanian covid lockdown in 2020. Each album is developed around realtime recordings of my body moving through space/time along various local bush and beach walks in SE Tasmania. Electronics have been added to create a meditative, dimensional journey.

In the state of virus lockdown, the simple act of walking can take on a different significance. On these recordings, walkabout is describing a sense of ceremony, walking the landscape of the self. Each of these albums takes me deeper into a layer of my psyche and offers reflection on particular themes in my life.

The walk in this recording we just call the Quarry Walk. It's a pretty, flat bush walk flanked on one side by Randalls Bay beach, and the other side wide open rolling green sheep paddocks, and an abandoned quarry full of white quartz. Tranquil.

Well not this day - the one day I planned to record my walk. The farmer in the sheep paddock was chainsawing some wood for winter. And despite the virus, people were out in droves. Dogs. Happy children squealing on the beach. Noise. I had a cranky walk and decided to use the recording anyway. The first piece in the "suite" features the distorted chainsaw as a kind of industrial folk throb, to mirror the violent intrusions of the afternoon and my cantankerations. As I later sculpted the music, it spoke of the trees being butchered, the rape of the land, the systematic slaughter of the Tasmanian aboriginals, the blood of the Mother, and the invasion of the human virus.

In the second stage of the piece, after bursting from the raw afterbirth, there is a walk in the bush of ghosts, the Otherworld. Dreamtime darkness, angry spirits, dead warriors watch in silence as we pass. Keep your eyes on the road, stay true.

In the third stage, the Dreamwalker emerges into a new shimmering vista, an open world and an empty mind - Buddha, mined. Quarry: the absence, the gouged bowl of stone and air. Quarry: the Hunted. At the end of time, the transcendent object awaits...

All the music on the walkabout albums has been generated using Spitfire Lab's Soft Piano & the amazing Surge synth plug-in via the qwerty keyboard on my laptop. The notes in the recurring piano theme throughout this piece spell the words "i love you", "people trees" and "mothers blood".

Heartbeat / footfall / birds & chainsaws, rhythms of life, forward motion.

A psychogenic Bark Fugue.
Walk the (black) Dog, and reach for the Star.
Siriusly.

credits

released May 3, 2020

Walked, imagined, improvised & recorded by BD, at Nicholls Rivulet, SE Tasmania, Apr 2020. Music & Art © 2020 Bradfield Dumpleton.
BD plays: Boots, electronics.

More info: bradfielddumpleton.com/walkabout-i-vii-2020-motion-in-lockdown/

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Bradfield Dumpleton TAS, Australia

A library of musical sketchbooks, mapping my various evolutions from 2005 to next week. Dedicated to exploring sound for its own sake. Many diverse delights here for the patient & attentive listener.

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