The Empty Room

Murdo Eason is delighted to have contributed a new text – Petrichor – to this ‘collaborative assembly’ with Amsterdam based musician Orphax and art director Dave Fyans. (aka Erstlaub). It is part of the continuing li_series on the Broken20 label.

li is the random but recognisable patterning found in many aspects of nature – the grain in wood or the fibre in muscle. While it is easy to recognise, it is impossible to define. li_series elaborates on this ‘thematic overlapping’ by combining sonic works alongside new commissioned texts. This series of 10 collaborative assemblies are released as a printed A5 text, audio download and high quality 7×5” photo print. 

Fourth in the series is ‘The Empty Room’ by Moving Furniture label owner and Broken20 friend Sietse van Erve aka Orphax. The text is a collaboration with Murdo Eason from the Fife Psychogeographical Collective, whose piece is entitled ‘Petrichor’. Broken20 art director David Fyans continues his visual narrative that provides a common context to the series, his found pieces once again reconfigured into the print that accompanies the release. In its sonic form, this instalment features two knee-deep sine wave experiments.

Eason’s text seems to modify the sound itself, shifting even the first piece from a plaintive reverie to channelling of dark spirits. One can imagine a languid Tarkovsky shot of the titular room, a dolly gradually encircling the empty space, the scent of musk and dank practically creeping out from the screen. The author takes inspiration from the environmental clues afforded by Fyans in his artwork. A chip of obsidian becomes “Smooth, solid flux”, a literal touchstone for the ideas of solipsism and dearly held memory that populate ‘Petrichor’.

You can find out more about the entire li_series, The Empty Room and other Broken20 releases here.

Now playing: Orphax – The Empty Room.