Test Chamber, album going on sale today
I attended the launch party last night and the excitement was palpable and there was an immense sense of well deserved pride
Yours truly, despite already having the digital downloads for the review last month, I just had to buy a physical copy, this beautiful double album; I’m looking forward to popping it on the turntable later on.
Last night the artists, newer ModCaf members who weren’t around during the Test Chamber recordings; plus family, friends and other guests assembled for a listening party. A number of tracks were played either from the vinyl LP, cassette or digital; which of course you can get your hands on today from Bandcamp!
Whilst there I did grab some recordings, mainly for note taking purposes but I thought the background stories, as told by the artists themselves were very interesting, heartwarming too, as there were a number of dedications to loved ones and absent friends.
I was also fascinated by the way in which history played a part in the composition process, whether parts of spitfires were used for percussion, pilot recordings used as samples or the enigma machine being decoded into perfect fifths for musical context; the concepts were all brilliant. It was clear how much the Test Chamber meant to so many involved and I’m sure some might have compared it as being the second best life event after the birth of their children; nonetheless as a listener, I felt it was one of the most inspirational things I’ve ever heard after attending my first live concert in 1987, Jean Michel Jarre’s Docklands in London — that is only a slight exaggeration but both made use of historical contexts, the inspiring leading the inspired.
Music brings people together and especially when it is in extraordinary spaces such as the Test Chamber.
I may be biased but we would love it if you can listen to the entire project, support the artists by buying the album, which is available for digital downloads, on vinyl (see photo above) or cassette, and can be purchased from there.
I shall be back soon with some recordings from the event, I just need some time to edit them and weave it into a podcast episode.
How about this — if you buy one of the physical products from Bandcamp, it will be fun to know where in the world they end up, so take a photo of the record or cassette in the context of where you live; I shall share these with the artists and here on the newsletter. That will be fun and just nerdy cool.
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If you missed the review I wrote:
ModCaf: “Test Chamber”, an album review
If you have been following me for awhile or best of all subscribed to this newsletter, you will know that I am a member of ModCaf and have attended many of their meet-ups in Aldershot since last year.
Hi Nick, like you I was at the launch party last night. I was not one of our so talented Q121 performers but had the privilege of being a helper and "roadie" at Q121 during the rehearsals and live recordings so got to experience the incredible acoustics of the venue which I was able to explore at home using the convolution reverb files MODCAF provided us. Listening last night highlighted to me how the artist's sound or layers of their sound were sometimes controlled by Q121 rather than the artist themselves and at other times the artist was in control of Q121. Mesmerizing.
Thank you so much for your support, Nick! :)