Into Music Review: Arun Sood – Searching Erskine
Artist: Arun Sood
Album: The Searching Erskine
Label: Blackford Hill
Blackford Hill’s latest release is Arun Sood’s Searching Erskine which comes with a lavish 64 page book and limited edition lathe cut 7” single.
‘Searching Erskine is the result of the channelling of voices, original music, oral histories, spectral sounds, and field recordings from the island. This is a project about ruins, land, memory, and the intersections in between.’
This is a rather lovely, delicate and complex work which reminds me a little of Lud Heat, Iain Sinclair’s kaleidoscopic collection of poetry, maps, photos diary extracts and remembrances of film.
Arun Sood seems to have tapped into a similar area but creates his own unique tapestry: drawn from his personal experiences and woven neatly into those of his enquiry. The project’s label, Blackford Hill, state that their releases are connected to or inspired by place, and this is certainly true of Searching Erskine: a study of a mansion on a now abandoned island by North Uist.
The music embodies aspects of contemporary folk mixed with minimalist composition techniques. It’s all quite beautiful, elegant and stands as a remarkable composite piece of art on its own which is not really true of many music releases these days.
Searching Erskine: on art, ancestry and place Exhibition takes place at Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum + Arts Centre, North Uist from 5 March – 14 May 2022. The opening performance with music + spoken word is at 7pm on 5 March 2022. Details HERE.
Grant McPhee
@GrantMcPheeFilm