This project is due to be completed in June 2011.
"It's about a recollection of a past that never existed, and being in love with the idea of the past and nostalgia. It's something that underpins most of my music, but something I've never written about before" - Hypnotique
The second project by Dead Air Recordings is Give Me An England, a phonograph cylinder single by English chanteuse, multi-instrumentalist and thereminist, Hypnotique. It will be manufactured in Sheffield, England by the Vulcan Cylinder Record Company.
Hypnotique formed in 2001 originally as a theremin cabaret duo before becoming a solo vehicle for the artist's darker narrative and sonic ideas. Hypnotique's 2005 debut album The Hanging Garden combines Berlin cabaret and industrial sonics with songs and stories about a transforming Britain in post-industrial decline. The original concept for Give Me An England was penned by the artist when she was an 18-year-old school girl living in the claustrophobic landscape of rural Nottinghamshire whilst attending state school in a cathedral. The song develops the trademark Hypnotique style of looking backwards (in technologies and world view) whilst commenting on society today. It is particularly relevant as we live through a breaking and shattering Britain, while viewing with rose-tinted nostalgia the times before.
Hypnotique trained on the theremin with the inventor's grand-niece, Lydia Kavina, and has performed on Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth, on BBC Two and Channel 4 Television and as part of a multiple theremin ensemble at London's South Bank and King's Place. Hypnotique currently fronts Manchester-based industrial trio Babyslave, performs with Canadian space-rock orchestra The Flowers of Hell and has previously performed with Gong side-project Zorch and NME supported independent bands Dawn of the Replicants, Heist and Nought.
The release is being moulded onto hard plastic, as this provides a far longer-lasting cylinder, compared to the traditional wax cylinders, pioneered by Thomas Edison, which generally last for fifty plays. This process is unique to the Vulcan Cylinder Record Company, who have over twenty years of experience working with contemporary and vintage recordings in cylinder production.
Due to high production costs, with each cylinder being painstakingly recorded in real time, the estimated RRP for this item will be £20. Ordering details will be announced shortly. Please note, there are currently no plans to release the single in a digital format.