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Possible Futures

from Paradise Cinema by Paradise Cinema

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Limited edition transparent green vinyl pressing. (x 500 only)
CD & LP editions printed on reverse board with pantone colours.

Multi-instrumentalist Jack Wyllie (Portico Quartet/Szun Waves) presents his new project Paradise Cinema. It was recorded in Dakar, Senegal, in collaboration with mbalax percussionists Khadim Mbaye (saba drums), Tons Sambe (tama drums) and recording engineer Mao Sidibé.
The impressionistic and dream-like quality of ‘Paradise Cinema’ is a stunningly effective realisation of Wyllie’s experiences in Senegal:
“I had a lot of nights in Dakar, when drums and chanting around the city would go on until 6am. I could hear this from my bed at night and it all blended together, in what felt like an early version of the record.”
Atmospherically ‘Paradise Cinema’ is vaporous and enigmatic, but also percussive; existing in a paradoxical sound-space that’s amorphous, yet still purposeful, serene, but propulsive and aesthetically sharp.
‘Paradise Cinema’ is informed by notions of hauntology – a philosophical concept originating in the work of French philosopher Jacques Derrida – on possible futures that never came to pass, and how directions taken in the past can haunt the present.
On the album’s title. Wylie comments, “there are a handful of old cinemas in Dakar – these big modernist building dotted around the city, built just after independence. They’re old and derelict now, but feel to me like monuments to that period, when the city was flooded with utopian ideas about its potential futures.”
Setting the tone for the long-player’s themes and sonic scenario is the optimism-driven, balmy beauty of ‘Possible Future’, where rich-toned drums throb and levitate in a stratospheric ether.
Like a time-lapse video of plants in bloom, ‘It Will Be Summer Soon’ is the sound of anticipation and growth, inspired by that season in Senegal when the entire country turns green in a week. Rhythmically it flickers and flutters, evoking rainfall, or the blurred wings of a bird in in flight.
With field recording drifting in and out of focus, beats pitched-down low and sax unfurling, ‘Casamance’ is an ode to a place south of Senegal with a slower pace of life, whilst the ambient ‘Utopia’ was made mainly with processed saxophone – capturing the hope for a perfect world, but tinted by a sadness it can never be reached.
Galloping percussion juxtaposes with a wistful mood on ‘Liberté’ – a title that references a derelict modernist cinema in Dakar of the same name – a hauntological landmark, made more poignant by the origin of its name being the French national motto.
Tying into the cover artwork, Jack explains, “the ‘Digital Palm is a telecommunications mast disguised as a palm tree in central Dakar. As a modern piece of technology that looks natural, it mirrors our combination of modern and acoustic elements.”
Perhaps eliciting golden years that never came, or maybe still in hope of those yet to come, ‘Eternal Spring’ concludes the LP’s otherworldly beauty with hypnotic drums powering a subtly-building, sparkling and powerful crescendo.
Jack Wyllie is a musician, composer, electronic producer, and practitioner of jazz, ambient, and the trance-inducing repetition of American minimalism. For ‘Paradise Cinema’ he drew influence from the Fourth World music and concepts of Jon Hassell (especially his ‘Flash Of The Spirit’ release with Farafina), and UrsulaK le Guin & Todd Barton’s ‘Music and Poetry of the Kesh’.
Wyllie performs and records in Portico Quartet, Szun Waves (with Luke Abbott and Laurence Pike) and Xoros. He has also collaborated with Charles Hayward, toured internationally and released on Ninja Tune, Babel, Leaf, Real World and Gondwana.

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from Paradise Cinema, track released October 9, 2020

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Paradise Cinema Senegal

Jack Wyllie (Portico Quartet/Szun Waves) presents his new project Paradise Cinema. It was recorded in Dakar, Senegal in collaboration with mbalax percussionists Khadim Mbaye (saba drums) and Tons Sambe (tama drums).

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