HUMAN HEADS
IN THE AFTERNOON (2020)
Olfactory edition: vial of scent & digital download. Also available as a cassette.(Fractal Meat Cuts, UK)
// familiar but not mine
a sweet spot between nape, pit, popper, pear //
Trying
A breathing cog
Not circular but returning
Do it with your eyes closed
For
A sweet spot between now, then, the rear of a dream
Rebecca Wilcox
‘In the Afternoon grabbed hold of my ears—gently, but with thin, frigid fingers made of silicone and metal—and yanked my head to the proper angle for the full Gestalt switch. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard something so surreal and whimsical yet so bleak. Little is left unturned by the artists’ assimilating gazes. [...] Yes, there’s a disconcertingly scientific atmosphere at work here, and that’s part of what makes In the Afternoon so unforgettable.’
Jack Davidson, Noise Not Music
Sounds recorded in Manchester and Glasgow between 2018 and 2020. Scent mixed with the help of Clara Weale at the Library of Olfactive Material, Glasgow.
To accompany the cassette edition, we asked Rebecca Wilcox to write something to convey the full, olfactory experience of listening to the album. Her response to the album’s mingling of sounds and smells can be found in full here.
PAROCHIAL ACTIONS (2017)
A set of songs inspired by Ann Quin's novel, Berg. The album developed from a performance, The Speaking Machine, first produced as part of a Psykick Dancehall residency at Colour Out of Space festival of experimental sound, Brighton, in 2013. Versions were subsequently presented at ASC Gallery and Valentines Mansion, London, during 2014. A risograph edition of the text was also produced.
The project draws on the work of Brighton-born Ann Quin (1936-73), and in particular her debut novel Berg. The work adopts a version of the novel’s revenge narrative, and its themes of doubles and imposters, to produce a hallucinatory polyphony of voices in performances and video.
This edition includes remixes by Kelly Jayne-Jones; Rob Lye; Hobo Sonn and Nika Son. The prints and cards were designed by me.
TRIGGERS (2015)
Cassette (Tanzprocesz, France)
‘Welcome to the gentle world of Human Heads where ‘barely a whisper’ pillow-talks onto your hot cheek making your ears sing like a high-tension cable. The keys (mainly played by Hannah Ellul) bump low and slow, relaxed and poised. The voices (mainly chanted by Ben Knight) plumb a negative zone of reality, a psychedelic domestic where Lambkin spikes Pebble Mill with beige Mandelbrot.’
Joe Murray, Radio Free Midwich
THE BEAUTICINIST (2013)
Cassette (Singing Knives, UK)
'Equally funny and unsettling... The combination of cheap analogue keyboards played at invasive pitches, primitive percussion presets and cut-up vocals blurting private anxieties allies Human Heads to Industrial revolutionaries like Whitehouse and Throbbing Gristle. There is something of the transgressive humour and ineffable melancholy of those groups on "R. Swil Impotency" when, out of a horizon line of searing drones and wind-damaged dictaphones, an anonymous lady asks in a sullen Yorkshire drawl: "Are you all right? Do you know where you're going?.'
Alex Nielson, The Wire
‘Classic and domestic fung-poetry! Like a pie chart: stream of consciousness verb & strum (37%), interrupted field recordings (45%) and aching vowels (18%) this pretty pink tape clearly displays the everyday psychedelic for all to see. The faint whiff of petrol (aphrodisiac to some, emetic to others) clings to The Beauticinist with its see-sawing collection of spoken word rambles and delicately knitted tones and recordings. Tarnished beauty seems to be a central theme; from the hard gloss of grotty nail bars to the washboard stomach of a tabloid personality we are asked, as beholders, what do you see?’
Joe Murray, Radio Free Midwich