Loss Prevention by Hello Spiral

Voice 3am

A failed attempt at emoting. I wondered if I could capture how I was feeling. I am under immense negative pressure + stress, maybe more than I have ever experienced in my life, but any attempt to express it felt very false and instead I defaulted to making patterns. At the time of these recordings I was thinking I might be dying and quite pragmatically considering suicide.

In The Grey Man’s Den

Title comes from a dumb book I stole from a hotel that hosted my aunt’s wedding in 2009 called ‘the hundred best animals’, which also aptly describes my living space. I have been putting up with insane building noise for 10 months now, every day Monday to Friday. I decided to do a performance with the workmen here.

drilljazz

A recording made when trying to listen to music in my flat but everything was being drowned out by the incessant drilling

Gentle sabotage

Another trio between me and the workmen, but recorded 6 months later from Grey Man’s Den

Gate

A recording of the gate of my local nature reserve. I buried my last cat there and this is the gate leading into the spot where she is. I was midwife to that cat (and her sister) in the early hours and I had her for 8 years before she died of stomach cancer. Burying an animal in a park in London is highly illegal.

Background Noise

When I was putting this album together I was searching my whole hard drive for M4V files and I found this. It was only when I was converting them to WAVs that I saw this was stereo and not mono. This then lead me to believe that this was probably not mine. I did some detective work and worked out this was made by my friend Andrew, who sends me little things he has made (a lot of people send me things they have made) constantly, so I download them to remember to listen. I asked him if it was ok to put this on this album as an intermission and he was more than happy with that. He said it is entirely synthesized. This amused me as I said it resembles some lossy recorder in another room recording someone playing a video game. It reminds me of a recording I made of my stepdad losing at a video game and having a temper tantrum (a recording which peppers my whole discography).

Ashwin Street

This is a recording of a woman bursting into Cafe Oto to beg for money during a performance. I know most of the panhandlers in my area and I have known this woman for probably ten years. She will approach you in a hysterical tone and crying and ask you for £1. It must be exhausting and honestly I respect the hustle. The whole drama that played out where the nice middle class man took her outside to give her money was honestly the best performance I saw that night.

Teeth Remember

I became aware of my default grinding and recorded it with my phone held up tight to my cheek, it seems I was listening to Basic Channel

Drilljazz2

Same as the first one, another take. I actually don’t think this was jazz playing, some form of post rock maybe

Mask

My girlfriend was refusing to get the elevator to my 8th floor flat, taking the stairs as it is ‘good for the bones’ we had briefly talked about the movie Brazil and I told her I had the famous mask from it, so when she came in I was wearing it. It took her 5mins to notice. I found the mask on the side of the road in 2019.

Voice, 3am(2)

Second attempt, a day after the first

Skwokskwokskwok

This is a recording I made after moving into my room in Edgware Road in 2018. There was this sound that was triggering the fuck out of me and I couldn’t work out where the fuck it was coming from. Eventually I realised it was a hanging shop sign of a closed down business establishment next to my window, which was gently swinging in the wind.

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