Manchester-based producer John Howes has signed to Californian imprint Peak Oil to inaugurate his latest musical incarnation as Paperclip Minimiser.
For the uninitiated, John Howes produces throughly abstract, generative music on cassette tape using a modular set-up. His exploratory discography as Howes has seen him traverse the border between individualist dance music and expressive sound art, releasing music through imprints including Melodic, Share Xl, Youth and his own label Cong Burn.
Howes now steps up to Peak Oil to issue his debut LP as Paperclip Minimiser, presenting 8 tracks of elusively multidimensional constructs of stereo panned synthetics and slithering ambient techno, born of a web of generative patches subjected to improvisational alterations.
Made entirely on a Nord Modular G2, Elektron Machinedrum, and Monomachine, Howes’ production process involves “planting ghosts in the machines,” instilling each element with “some self-correcting behaviour in a cybernetic / lo-fi AI / semi-autonomous agent kinda way.” The result is an ambiguous and dynamic hybrid of accident and intention, chaos and control, shuffling through an inner-space wilderness of psychic circuitry.
‘Paperclip Minimiser’ is scheduled for release 14 October via Peak Oil. Order a copy from Bandcamp.
TRACKLIST
1. A1
2. A2
3. A3
4. A4
5. B1
6. B2
7. B3
8. B4