MOON ZERO is the enigmatic and ethereal project of London-based Tim Garratt. Composed and recorded entirely in churches, Moon Zero's compositions explore the harmonic chaos of competing frequencies. 'LOSS' is the result of a year spent working out how to play Moon Zero live and then going on to play concerts. Using a wide range of instrumentation such ad drawbar organ, bass synth, vocals, fx processors and guitar pedals, Loss was written & recorded over 2 days at St George in The East Church in London, October 2013.
The music spools out of Garratts mind in the form of extensively screwed up synthesizers, bowed cymbals, liquidated instruments and detuned tape loops. Bounced between effects chains, music software, mixing desks and tape, his materials are then inflated and tampered with, in different venues of a particular significance or suggestive atmosphere. The results are enigmatic, hypnotic and register a note of mourning. They are mercifully free of the obligatory club references of electronic music thats destined for a different mood but nonetheless confines itself to bygone post-club tropes. "I was listening to a lot of William Basinski, Bowie's 'Low', Swans, Messiaen, Stars of the Lid, Cluster, Eno. Carl Sagan," remembers Garratt.Garratt seeks out spaces in the city which can be turned into echo chambers for his ambient, avant-gardist material. Yearning to derive some meaning from a point in space-time, these resonances turn back and pacify some of the frenzied and alienating forces in both the human and the place. Like the preceding EPs, Moon Zero was recorded at St George in the East in Shadwell, London. Having written the preliminary tape loops (this time secluded and out-of-signal in rural Wales) at the end of 2014, he returned to St George in June 2015. "I only had a five hour window to record everything, which I hope gives the record a sense of spontaneity and life". Religious themes pervade the album, drones imported from ancient sects and the never-silent industrial era - a convergence that is mirrored by the dead history of the Thames and present-day flows of money and data outside his Limehouse studio.
The first set of new Moon Zero cuts in two years, Relationships Between Inner & Outer Space' is a product of fevered displacement that nonetheless achieves a temple-like sense of calm, proportion and permanence. Scheduled for release in November 2017 on Denovali, the record is carpeted in traces of the settings that producer and composer Tim Garratt has found himself since we last heard from him, from Reykjavk to Leipzig with anything from a Dictaphone up to a studio to hand - it bears sounds from a vast number of different spaces, instruments and machines across its four colossal tracks. Paying attention to these rich patterns, they move and wind you in, producing a deep and rewarding catatonia. Each expansion of the Moon Zero universe has felt like a logical progression along lines set before, becoming ever more inventively structured and ambitious with its sonic palette but never straying from its nucleus of menacing, meditative drone. Fresh from playing Ruhrtriennale Festival alongside Actress, Demdike Stare and Ricardo Donoso amongst others, elationships Between Inner & Outer Space' is due to be released in November and Moon Zero will be announcing further shows in due course. This latest installation is the most profoundly affecting Moon Zero work to date; an unparalleled piece of infrasonic, atmospheric manipulation.
MOON ZERO is the enigmatic and ethereal project of London-based Tim Garratt. Composed and recorded entirely in churches, Moon Zero's compositions explore the harmonic chaos of competing frequencies. 'TOMBS' is, especially for a debut, a bold and confident musical statement, which reimagines the possibilities of processed organ and vocal sounds in a live context. The opener 'Dalyan' builds from slowly wavering layers of sound into a crumbling, decaying wall of fuzzed-out, peaking noise, which in turn builds again into ever-moving blocks of chopped loops and feedback, absorbing the listener completely into Moon Zero's musical space. A remarkable listen.
MOON ZERO is the enigmatic and ethereal project of London-based Tim Garratt. Composed and recorded entirely in churches, Moon Zero's compositions explore the harmonic chaos of competing frequencies. Moon Zero's second EP 'LOSS' on 2xCD, where the second CD will contain the first EP 'TOMBS' and remixes thereof, previously available only as a limited cassette release. 'TOMBS' is, especially for a debut, a bold and confident musical statement, which reimagines the possibilities of processed organ and vocal sounds in a live context. The opener 'Dalyan' builds from slowly wavering layers of sound into a crumbling, decaying wall of fuzzed-out, peaking noise, which in turn builds again into ever-moving blocks of chopped loops and feedback, absorbing the listener completely into Moon Zero's musical space. A remarkable listen.'LOSS' is the result of a year spent working out how to play Moon Zero live and then going on to play concerts. Using a wide range of instrumentation such ad drawbar organ, bass synth, vocals, fx processors and guitar pedals, Loss was written & recorded over 2 days at St George in The East Church in London, October 2013.