Ian Hawgood - Impermanence (2019)

Impermanence is a love letter to transience, fragility and the analogue machines Ian Hawgood persuades to articulate the poignantly brittle beauty of decay. After many years of in-demand mastering, label curation and collaborative focus Hawgood now offers us a definitive portrait of the technical expertise and personal integrity demanded by exemplary modern tape-based practice.

In studios between Tokyo and Warsaw walls of reel-to-reel tape recorders, analogue synthesisers, processed textures and degraded cassette recordings were all carefully coaxed into braiding together their hiss, wow, flutter and warmth into this beautifully flowing nine-chapter arc of delicately unpredictable sound. Impermanence is an understated, finely wrought work that honours process and outcome equally, exhibiting a rare tonal and conceptual elegance throughout and marking an assured return to solo composition from a true master of the analogue arts.

Impermanence is the fourth in the Slowcraft Presents series created and curated by James Murray: exceptional, unclassifiable music offered in carefully handcrafted limited editions for people who treasure beautiful audio artefacts.