Kemper Norton – ‘Loor’ Limited 2CD [Front & Follow]

More brilliance from the great Kemper Norton here, released in a limited quantity as a double CD that collects not only the new album Loor but also a disc of unreleased bits, versions, rarities and the like.

From what we understand, Kemper Norton is still the one chap, despite being described as the Kemper Norton Collective from various sources. The live shows have become much-talked about, with regular appearances at The Outer Church putting an end to rumours of the group, and instead birthed a desire for more from ‘the Cornish slurtronic folk scene’ that brought us Kemper Norton. Oft-associated with the time he recorded at burial mounds, and despite not delving in to the occult in interviews, there’s definitely something other-worldly about the way he works.

We first entered the world of Kemper Norton through an unhealthy obsession with Hacker Farm. As an occasional West Country cohort of the group we soon started seeing a healthy influence working between group recordings and solo outings emerging from a similar mindset that happened to be geographically tied together.

Loor is Kemper Norton at his best. Field recording sound sources manipulated in to electronic-folktronic drone atmospherics that take you to another head space.

The structures are subtle but the layered electronics are kept as fuzzy as they are natural sounding, and warm without ever peaking on the recording. Norton sounds like no one else, totally able to tap in to a vein of primitive lore but with new structures and approach. Whether it’s a solo string on a guitar, chords or the winds pushing against a microphone, everything is deliberately and intricately placed, every part with it’s own reason.

If you’ve ever listened to a deep-throated male choir, of traditional Scandinavian theme preferably, you’ll understand the way that Loor might move you; primitive and effective, each part if the sum of many more smaller parts, allowed to evolve in to a full soundscape through repetition and minor adjustments of it’s core.

At 46 minutes the thirteen track album is a cohesive plan of ideas, intricately thought out and not rushed in to, and the more you listen to it the easier it is to get lost in to. It’s definitely one for personal listening, and the more you listen to it the more you want repeats.

As good as this main course is the twelve track 60 minute bonus CD, Salvaged. In some ways summing up the last six years or so of pushing boundaries, there’s depth and subtlety in the different themes and messages here.

Check out one a track from Loor below, press release just underneath that.

via Front & Follow
Seen as a nocturnal and corrupted sequel to their previous album, Carn (released last year on Exotic Pylon), the album’s creation was inspired by real and imagined cities from childhood, bathed in traditional folk, found sounds and community chants, celebrations and invocations. Loor (which is Cornish for moon) represents the next ambitious transmission in the expanding audio landscape that Kemper Norton are creating.

The limited first edition of Loor comes with a second disc entitled ‘Salvaged’ – a collection of rarities from the Kemper Norton archives available on CD for the first time. The collection is also available to download.

The songs on Loor are a loose trilogy of nocturnal encounters, searches and awakenings, often with Kemper Norton revisiting old foes from previous albums and encouraging new treacherous encounters.

The limited first edition of Loor comes with a second disc entitled ‘Salvaged’ – a collection of rarities from the Kemper Norton archives available on CD for the first time. The collection is also available to download.