Automated Acoustics is an experimental music artist. His work sounds like if Tom Waits and Aphex Twin collaborated, then the results were remixed by Hans Zimmer. Influences of Autechre, Future Sound Of London and too many raves back in the day.

“Built From Memories” is Automated Acoustics’s first release in 10 years. An ambitious electronic and experimental music hybrid, Built From Memories contains huge found-sounds from illegal Scrapyard Recording sessions colliding with a live micro-orchestra of cello, violin and double-bass. Blended with savage analog synths and emotional vocals, it is epic battle music for a scene in your head.

The album is a collection of tracks originally written for trailer music, then remixed to flip the different elements into something new. You’ll hear glimmers of ambient, jungle, techno, classical, world and jazz music shining through on this exotic release.

The title “Built From Memories” reflects that every track Automated Acoustics has ever made is somehow blended with a snapshot of life recorded from around the world – a memory. The process is its own reward. His avant garde music is an outlet to soothe his soul, and bring light to the dark.

A few original found-sounds you’ll find buried deep within Built From Memories:

• His teeth being drilled at the dentist, hidden as a subliminal noise in a riser
• Big drums recorded in a church
• Many manipulations of metal from Scrapyard Recordings
• Bespoke moving water instrument
• Empty oil tank mic’d up and recorded from within to create a pad
• The London Underground train – tonnes of metal grinding together

Remixed from memories: the singles 

Due to the multi-mood, three-act structure of the original trailer pieces, they naturally lend themselves to remixing. 
 
Automated Acoustics has flipped the original four tracks into an ambient mix, a dirty warehouse techno mix, a jungle glitch remix, and two stripped-back versions of the hyper originals. 
 
With both classical music and raving entrenched in his blood, this genre-defying release is a natural hybrid of all his favourite sounds. 
 
The trailer tracks + remixes format is something we will continue for future Automated Acoustics releases.

More on the found sound aspect: 

Since college days Lawrence has been a menace with a portable recorder, gathering guerilla recordings of people, places, objects, situations. The recording quality has improved over the years, but the ballsy determination for collecting sounds has not been watered down. 
 
The scrapyard recording session flaunted many health and safety guidelines, & the cameras were switched off while the operator smashed cars together at his bidding, and he went round the place hitting anything in his path. Want weighty drums? How about a 1.5 tonne “dong” swinging into a huge metal bin that’s big enough to dispose of cars. 

He’s sampled insane street preachers in L.A., tree frogs in the Carribean, building work inside the Sagrada Familia Barcelona, the London Underground grinding away, and he carried a drumkit one-drum-at-a-time into an abandoned train tunnel age 17 to record subterranean beats. 
 
The found sounds are sometimes hidden in the track as subliminal emotional triggers The dentist drilling his teeth is found lurking at the end of a riser in the track “Battle Of The Gods”, for example. Sometimes he uses recordings instead of waveforms to drive synthesizers, or diffuses them in effects.

Built From Memories also features the vocal talents of his mother Rosalind Gill, an old opera singer on “Barebow Rebellion”. On “Battle Of The Gods” you’ll hear Bristolian singer Tamsyn Fallows alongside double-bass and violin from London based Ben Green, and Barcelona based James Adams performing the Snake Flute, Suling and Darbuka.

“Barebow Rebellion” has a meditative intro using layered ceremonial gongs, then drops to a fat gnarly bass drop at 1:00. Builds into an emotional wild piece with cello, violin and vocals from an older opera singer. Epic battle music with a regal vibe.

“Ghosting Again” is an exploration in space and distortion. It uses the Scrapyard sounds again, along with distorted piano through a guitar amp, dirty cello, and layered gongs melded with vocals to create an ambient wash. Epic dark music / fantasy music.

“Battle Of The Gods (Exotic Mix)” is epic battle music for a surreal desert world in my head. This trippy music uses an Egyptian Snake Flute, Suling, the church drums, cello drone, and wild vocals. I asked the singer get down on her knees and imagine she was about to be executed, and to sing to save her life – she got really into it.

A stripped-back, leaner remix. Minus the Vocals, Snake Flute and Suling for a less bizarre world.

Released on Alternative Blueprint Records – ALTBLUE014

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