The All Seeing Hand, Alphabethead and Motte

The All Seeing Hand | Motte | Alphabethead | Castlecliff Lights

The All Seeing Hand are about to embark on their ritual pilgrimage around the country. A time to collect, reflect, consolidate, and create; to tap into, and give back to, the resilient nurture of weirdos and beings of heart. We come to resonate on the harmonic lines that bind thought to shared belonging.

This tour is a special one, we travel in support of the new musings on music that Alphabethead has committed to cassette for your consideration.

Alphabethead’s new offering, the first in three years, is called Topography and is a journey through imagined land-forms. Some shimmering and teeming with abundant life, others bleak and inhospitable. These sonic maps compress time to a point that we can hear transformative geological processes at work, the ensuing comings and goings of flora and fauna, mass extinctions and new life; from single cell soups, to new technologies unfolding before our eyes, several of these worlds become flourishing utopias while others can be seen crumbling under the weight of change. Some just remain…

The album is made up from long-form instrumentals, the main instrument being the turntable. Alphabethead’s hands contort the many and varied sounds manifested in vinyl, ripping through waves so there is no beginning or end, just this moment now; a smooth wail or a stuttering attack, a distortion, a quote of old made new.

We are very excited that Motte (Anita Clark) is going to be able to join us on this trek of Aotearoa. One of our favourite musicians, she has a way of articulating complexity so simply that you are lulled into contemplations normally reserved for solitude. She creates a warmth that brings all into its embrace, and in that hug, solidarity; at once soothing and disorienting, she rides the thin line between relaxed beauty and uneasiness. With layers of reverb swamped loop violin and dream like vocals she conjures a cinematic soundscape where you are lost in the tropics, or perhaps inside a hothouse full of moths.

Her debut album Songs For Movies (2015) is a series of improvisations recorded straight into a Tascam 4 track and Mottes newest album Strange Dreams was released on vinyl in Feb of this year through CocoMuse Releases and cassette tape through Sonorous Circle.