ligeliahorn (redux)





COLD AND DARK IS THE PLACE WHERE METGUMBNERBONE WALKS. MITRE HANGES UPON THE SODDEN WALLS AND DAMP FILLS THE SEWAGE LADEN AIR. THE RUINS OF INDUSTRY, LEFT TO THE RAVAGES OF NATURE LONG AGO, BECOME AS ONE.
DESERTED AND FORGOTTEN, THE TEMPLE STANDS ALONE. FORSAKEN BY MOST, HELD SACRED BY THE FEW. BUT SOMETIMES A DOOR IS OPENED, A SHAFT OF LIGHT DESCENDS TO ITS SUBTERRANEAN DEPTHS. CANDLE-LIGHT SENDS THE SOFT SHADOWS SCURRYING FOR COVER IN THE CREVICES AND ALCOVES ALONG THE TUNNEL WALLS. THE SOUND OF A DRUM MEETS THE SILENCE, MIXES AND DEPARTS.
DARKNESS AND SILENCE ARE ALL ONCE MORE...
:THIS IS A RECORDING OF JUST SUCH AN INTERRUPTION









Ligeliahorn was recorded during the summer of 1983 at The Ruins of Industry, Elswick, Newcastle-upon-Tyne; long abandoned post-industrial sites along the banks of the River Tyne providing ideal if somewhat hazardous environments for the sort of musical activity Metgumbnerbone is known for - i.e entirely live on location improv / action in which the location itself determined the musical outcome as much as did the performers and / or their instruments.

The vinyl edition of Ligeliahorn ( a mission rev 13:18 / 1983) contained four edits from master tapes the location of which are presently unknown. For the CDR Redux edition the music has been taken from an original cassette demo edited from the master tapes during the process of deciding what to put on the record. This is a rare piece of archive source material in itself which, for the most part, contains longer edits than those which appeared on the album. The exception is the fourth piece - the beginning of which has been lifted from a vinyl copy and edited snugly into place. The over-all sound quality is good, but not perfect - we're dealing with highly sensitive & very old source material here, which is, of course, all part of its charm.

John Mylotte & Sean Breadin are presently assembling what promises to be a definitive retrospective Metgumbnerbone CD for which purposes we've trawled the archives for appropriate material & in the process uncovered a good deal of material which in all likelihood hasn't been heard since it was recorded. Amongst this was a sequence of recordings made at The Ruins of Industry in 1983 - five of which have been used to make up the extra material on the CDR Redux edition of Ligeliahorn. These take the form of exploratory vignettes; self-contained in real time with no editing necessary & the quality of both sound & performance is particularly high making the process of digital transfer relatively simple. This makes the CDR Redux up about 76 minutes in total.

At the moment attempts are being made to track down the original album masters & when, if, that happens there may well be a CD edition issued - in the meantime Ligeliahorn (Redux) is available in the UK from ligeliahorn@sedayne.co.uk and in the USA from Anomalous Records - all proceeds will go to financing the above mentioned retrospective.





Metgumbnerbone are a basic nucleus of four:
JOHN MYLOTTE
RICHARD RUPENUS
PHILIP RUPENUS
SEAN BREADIN
...with a surples of other devotees to draw from at any given time. the first ritual was performed at MORDEN TOWER in april 1983 and was a mixture of acoustic and electronic music, since then the electronics have been discarded the music has concentrated soley on acoustic instruments. the music is totally improvised and the use of studios to record the material is avoided at all costs, prefering to use the place of playing as another instrument. cavanous places are prefered or outdoor locations, subterranean railway tunnels and the ruins of industry. the music portrays a close link with nature, evoking in our minds the different aspects of the year but mainly dwelling on winter.