Front & Follow will this week release the fourth instalment to its split-release project The Blow’, featuring contributions from producer Jodie Lowther and the duo of A.R.C. Soundtracks. Above, you can exclusively stream both sides of the record ahead of its release on Friday.
The Blow is an ongoing collaborative project which sees the label invite two acts for each edition to each contribute a complete side of audio and do whatever they want with the time they have. They are also encouraged to work together on the release.
A musician, illustrator and video artist from the UK, Jodie Lowther records ethereal songs influenced by surrealism and psychedelia and inspired by her own dreams. Lowther’s 12-track side explores the process of layering and manipulating sounds like an audio patchwork, a technique she began on precursor albums such as 2016’s Circle and Holes and 2017’s Skeleton Moon.
For The Blow, Lowther was particularly influenced by natural landscapes and far-away worlds, and collaborates with A.R.C Soundtracks on the final track of her side.
A.R.C Soundtracks is the audiovisual project of K Craig and David Armes. Opting to turn their side into a single unbroken track, entitled ‘Taken Up & Dissolved’, the pair explore a topographical soundscape partly inspired by the mythic-space of the Upper Calder Valley (the pair are based in the North of England). Their half-hour track contains melodic vocal samples from Lowther and spoken word cut-ups taken from Otto Bollnow’s 1963 philosophical and anthropological tract Human Space as a means of exploring the relationship between the individual and the landscape.
Released on limited edition cassette with artwork by letterpress artist David Armes of Red Plate Press (and A.R.C Soundtracks respectively), each edition is also available for download. It’s out this Friday (June 29) and can be pre-ordered here.
