TARAB
Surface Drift
Nature Strip CD

Paris Transatlantic:

The magnificently-named Naturestrip label (nature strip - a strip / slice / cross-section of nature - or nature's trip? both will do just fine) is based in Melbourne, Australia and concentrates on the work of "artists whose aesthetics range from raw documentation to concrete music to instrumental composition in which field recordings form a core element." Sort of like Ground Fault with more ground than fault, as it were. Local sound artist Eamon Sprod, aka Tarab, kicks off the label with Surfacedrift - not sure all these names shouldn't be lowercase.. forgive me if so - which the accompanying press release describes as "traces of sonic texture created by microphones dragged through leaves and gravel / rain pounding against buildings / waves crashing inside of an abandoned factory / surfaces against surfaces, scraping against one another. Marks are left." Reminds me of that Luc Ferrari autobiography: "It took a long time to realise that scraping (frotter) is what interests me most".. Unlike Toshiya Tsunoda, of whom more below, Sprod doesn't provide a blow-by-blow account of the recording process, preferring to let the music speak for itself. The above listed sounds are all more or less recognisable, along with others - the roar and crackle of an open fire, birdsong near and far - but Sprod uses them not as mere local colour, as Ferrari might, but as raw material to build larger, more abstract structures with. The most satisfying piece in terms of form is the opening "surface" (track titles like "iron" and "leaf" hardly communicate the meteorological turmoil that underpins these pieces), but the most exciting sounds are to be found on "bottle". You might have dreamt about finding a message in a bottle, but I'll bet you never wanted to be one yourself - I wonder if this is what it sounds like in there out on the open sea." -- Dan Warbuton


The Wire:

"Surfacedrift is the impressive debut for Melbourne's Eamon Sprod, who has adopted the moniker Tarab for his exploration of field recordings coupled with found object improvisation. Each of the four lengthy tracks maps out a psychogeography through sound, specifying the intimate details of these environments and accentuating the pre-existing natural elements with sympathetic textures provided by Sprod. Most of the time, his hand (which can be heard rustling leaves or dragging objects through gravel) is perfectly attuned to the natural settings, so as to render his own scrabblings almost indistinguishable from his recordings of wind, violently creaking door hinges, waves lapping at coastal boulders and rain water spewing out of a clogged gutter. Where the boundaries between what are natural and performative are blurred on Surfacedrift, Sprod's compositional wandering through his complex spaces recalsl the intuitive collaging of material found in Francisco Lopez's epic La Selva and Chris Watson's Weather Report." -- Jim Haynes


Touching Extremes:

"In concrete music, space dimension and sound placing are everything, more or less the key to an active participation by the listener. Surfacedrift by Eamon Sprod, aka Tarab, is put together with class and extreme care of the acoustic detail, as a single entity but also in a group of concordant events. Sprod takes any challenge like the most obvious and natural thing to do, using natural elements' intrinsic value as means of personal contact with the world around; he just cuts a way to a listening experience that includes daily life timbres - the rain, a creaky door, liquids flowing into cups or bottles - gently mutated and inserted in your own environment after electronic/ambience treatment, therefore introducing fresh perspectives to otherwise easy to forget manifestations. Tarab's research is extremely focused, never intransigent; challenging and stimulating, the whole work pays back your attention with its resplendence and limpid character." -- Massimo Ricci


Earbash

"This is a journey into sound."

If we can bypass for a while the cheesy ambient chillout connotations and po-mo irony that the phrase invokes, then we can consider that this is indeed what surfacedrift is. Not a "psychedelic" journey, enhancing some sort of altered state, but a carefully guided journey into focussed and attentive listening. These are pieces recorded and mixed with an ear that obviously delights in the textural complexities and aural subtleties of our everyday soundworld. Environmental recordings of the likes of open fires, rainstorms, birdsong and ocean waves are amplified, layered and re-contextualised to form the basis of the mixes of these tracks. Sonic minutiae are repositioned and foregrounded into new and sharper juxtapositions. Regular dynamic and volume relationships are altered–askew. There is a feeling of being drawn into a familiar soundspace, but at the same time reverberant spaces and aural cues seem slightly disorienting, perspectives are shifted and blurred.

Favourable and well-deserved comparisons have already been made with the structured field recordings of Chris Watson's Weather Report and Francisco Lopez' La Selva. This is high praise indeed as these CDs (the latter especially for me) are classics of this genre. However what sets this work apart from other purely environmental collages/remixes is the way that these environmental recordings are layered and offset with the improvised playing of found objects. It is here that Tarab's (Eamon Sprod) live performance techniques intersect with his mixology. In performance Sprod performs using a variety of materials such as rocks, leaves, scrap metal and glass as his sound sources. Using techniques such as rubbing, scraping or dragging he is able to generate a wide palette of textures and rhythmic impulses in much the same way as that most unheralded of sound practitioners, the foley artist. Here however, these foley-style gestures are not aimed at reinforcing the believability of visual imagery or to sync action with sound, but to enhance and subtly focus the environmental recordings. They are mixed so that it is often impossible to tell what is played and what is environmental sound. The intention is not to draw attention to any distinction between performed or environmental sound–the two combine synergistically, complimenting and reinforcing each other to produce a familiar yet hyper-real soundspace. Definitely a journey into sound worth taking. -- Tim Catlin