Alliyah Enyo X Angel R

Selkie Reflections

Somewhere Press

SP03

Somewhere Press

4
Format: 12inch VinylRelease: 05.09.2024
pre-order now 05.09.2024

expected to be published on 05.09.2024

Selkie Reflections
 
14

Alliyah Enyo’s genius 2022 ‘Echo's Disintegration’ album infused William Basinski's "Disintegration Loops" with choral smoke, and she now returns with an even more immersive followup alongside ambient enigma and Kelela producer Florian T M Zeisig, making heady and translucent loop-finding vocal soundscapes.

In 2022, Enyo worked with the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop on an epic two-hour composition made from tape loops inspired by selkies, mythical creatures in Celtic folklore. Contemplating memory, grief and time itself, Enyo devised a "sonorous myth" installation and performance that drowned her voice in the deep sea, using echo to help parallel the communication of humpback whales. It was powerful enough for her to net the award for Sonic Arts at the Scottish Awards for New Music last year, and it's this material that she revisits here, entering into a dialog with Berlin-based producer Florian T M Zeisig, here adopting a new avatar - Angel R.

On the A-side, Enyo distills two hours of the original composition into 11 haunted fragments that ooze in and out of each other like a dream. Reworked at Glasgow's Green Door studio, she sculpts her voice into weightless Radigue-style incantations, leaning into the tape loops' corroded inconsistencies. Enyo's voice becomes the selkie's song: wordless echoes that sound as if they're being dragged slowly towards the sea bed. There are remnants of folk forms in there; we hear traces of church music and Celtic ballads - but she obscures her influences with dubbed reverb, distortion and repetition. Phrases disappear and re-appear, time becomes a loop, best absorbed in a single sitting to properly perceive its graceful, sinking bliss. By the end of the side, Enyo’s vocals are completely waterlogged, dimmed against Robin Guthrie-like shimmers, all brassy, blurred incantations emanating from the depths of a floatation tank.

Florian T M Zeisig responds on the B-side with three flooded, longer-form pieces that will appeal to anyone who devoured his album of corroded Enya loops a couple of years ago. Enyo's voice is now reduced to a whisper, blistered and gauzy expressions that float over dense pads on 'Untitled I' before getting lost in the weeds completely on the muggy 'Untitled II'. On the closing 'Gates of Heaven', he sculpts Enyo's voice until it's just an illusory, hypnotic reflection, slow-fading into the aether.

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Safety and manufacturer information

Product information:

Alliyah Enyo x Angel R, Selkie Reflections SP03, 2024-09-05 00:00:00, .
12inch Vinyl 0.20 kg.
Material information: Vinyl (PVC).
Records should be stored upright at room temperature, away from direct sunlight.

Labeling requirements:

Morr Music Distribution GmbH
Anklamer Str. 30
10115 BERLIN

"Not suitable for children under 3 years due to small parts that can be swallowed.” (due to chipping or small inserts).
Remove and place records carefully to avoid scratches and breakages
Depending on the pressing plant, there may be sharp edges

N/ABPM
Vinyl