Petrels is the solo project of London-based musician and illustrator, Oliver Barrett. Since releasing his debut Haeligewielle in 2011, Petrels has toured across Europe and shared a stage with the likes of Tim Hecker, FIRE!, Nate Young (Wolf Eyes), Trouble Books, Demdike Stare, Nadja, and Hans-Joachim Roedelius (Cluster). Having also collaborated with and provided remixes for artists as varied as Duane Pitre, Brassica, Talvihorros and Max Cooper, Petrels' output is proving to be thrillingly eclectic and unpredictable.
New album, Flailing Tomb, takes the exhilaratingly huge sonic expanse that Petrels has become known for and pushing it further still, Flailing Tomb draws on a breathtaking sonic palette of influences and instrumentation to craft perhaps the strongest Petrels release to date.
Flailing Tomb's underlying theme is a many-layered obsession with – and joyous celebration of – the defiance in persisting with lost causes. Building on the mythological foundations of previous albums –
Haeligewielle,
Onkalo and
Mima –
Flailing Tomb takes an underlying current that ran beneath each of these and pushes it to the fore.
Flailing Tomb draws inspiration from sources as wide-ranging as Ursula K, Le Guin's speculative fiction, Indian-Celtic connections, self-mummification, Jude The Apostle (patron saint of lost causes), and Jean-Luc Godard's seminal sci-fi masterpiece,
Alphaville (much of the second-half of the album is adapted from music originally written as an alternate score to the film), weaving all this and more into six intricately-layered parts - at once forthright and ambiguous.
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Petrels will be accompanied at Contra Pop by Laid Eyes who will be providing live film.
Laid Eyes is a video artist and film maker based in South London. With a background in visual anthropology, he is currently drawn to making digital video works exploring mostly abstract forms. He has collaborated with a wide range of artists including Excepter, Maria Minerva, Ensemble Economique and Ekin Fil. He has performed live improvised visuals for Talvihorros, Pascal Savy, Anji Cheung, BBBlood, Embla Quickbeam, Time Attendant and These Feathers Have Plumes, and has had work screened at Denovali Swingfest in Essen, Ende Tymes Festival in New York and Le Guess Who? Festival in the Netherlands.
