Say hello, Impose readers, to Crawford Philleo, a writer for the wonderful blog Tome to the Weather Machine. Tome specializes in weird, out-there stuff – lots of drone, lots of engaging visual work, lots of ambient beauty – and we've been admiring their work for a while now. We'll be hosting occasional re-posts from Tome, starting out with this amazing video Crawford premiered, but if this isn't enough for you, you should go read the archives. –Eds.
Paul Skomsvold, if you didn't know/don't remember, is the name of a young Californian who has quietly emerged as one of today's strongest voices in the ambient/drone scene under the moniker Former Selves, releasing several short-run tapes over the last couple of years. His music stands alone quite nicely, but his video work really separates him from the pack—look no further than last year's thoroughly engrossing DVD, Fait Accompli, for some proof. Actually, we should look further. After all, we have this amazing video in front of us right here, a promo for his new tape. More convenient that way. Another excellent example of his work, this video companion for the new tape's lead track, “Many Moons,” finds Skomsvold using a new technique called “video feedback.” I'm not sure what exactly that means, but the results sure are pretty. What I'm seeing is a lot of frames within frames, layers of prismatically mulitplied images, pastel colors blending softly and unique uses of perspective, breaking a wall of sorts by filming a screen and letting that panel loose to wander about the visual space. And what I'm hearing? The typically beautiful music of Former Selves; weightless, melodic, carefully structured and formed in design, free-flowing in feel… just plain lovely.
While I secretly pine for a vinyl offering from Former Selves, I can't help but recognize the sheer functionality of the tapes he's produced. Perfect bedtime cassette-ness. Soothing, textural, massaging, relaxing, and just really, really fucking pretty. Fucking beautiful. This preview has me thinking the full tape from Hooker Vision (as part of their brand new, just-announced batch, which looks and sounds as amazing as it probably is) will be one of his best releases yet. We're quite proud to have been asked to premiere this wonderful video, and hope you enjoy the sights and sounds of Former Selves as much as we do. So do it already:
Former Selves – Many Moons from former selves on Vimeo.
