Limited LP released in an edition of 150.
TO ARRIVE AT NOWHERE is part one in a series of six limited edition LPs by an array of artists on Lumberton Trading Company.
Side two of this record, The Inevitable Beatification of Diamond Dave, is dedicated to David Lee Roth.
David Lee Roth is a larger than life character. He is an abstract man. His interviews are fascinating. Diamond Dave is a unique enigma and (to me at least) unwittingly, or perhaps wittingly, an avantgarde performance artist.
This recording came to life from a seed, a seed that was inadvertently planted by my friend Matt Sweeney. He sent me a link to a long, rambling and often utterly baffling interview with David Lee Roth.
I extracted the audio from the interview and converted it into text. I then took David Lee Roth’s words and cut them up randomly. To further confuse matters, I had a text to voice plugin read back the tangle of words using a setting for reading Albanian rather than English.
The words no longer made any sense, they were no longer in any decipherable language. But they were, and still are, David Lee Roth, but simultaneously not him at all.
‘Why?’ you may ask. Basically because I can, and why not? But primarily to make my life difficult by setting myself musical and conceptually perplexing challenges. The result being, as with many of my recordings, a document that only truly makes sense to me.
Regardless of its convoluted pretensions, this recording is an abstract, disorientated and confused homage to Diamond Dave, and, as we all know, diamonds are forever.
Many thanks to Ben ‘Hot for Teacher’ Chasny, Giulio ‘The Things I do for You’ Di Mauro, Vivian Slaughter and Matt ‘Drop Dead Legs’ Sweeney.
This recording is in no way connected to, approved or related to David Lee Roth or associated companies.
Reviews:
ANXIOUS MUSICK MAGAZINE
This album, of course, is two sides of vinyl, but also two distinct sonic stories. Side A and the title track remind me of a vision straight out of a nightmare, where a dark atmosphere and a sombre mood prevail. Liles, of course, doesn’t create anything pathetic here; rather, he portrays his sounds in his own twisted way. He expertly weaves the various voices of angry and wild animals and birds, as well as processed ambient sounds, into the sultry atmosphere of the compositions. These are accompanied by metallic beats that set the pace of anxiety and neurosis. This creates a rather paranoid aura amidst the constant barking, reminiscent of a horror film. We can journey with them through a grim, sonic reality, waiting for what will happen next, listening to the howls, perhaps to the moon. This enigmatic journey, decidedly at your own risk, sounds like an electroacoustic ritual of terror and dread.
Side B, “The Inevitable Beatification of Diamond Dave,” is a completely different story, thrown into a different realm of space and time. This composition is accompanied by lyrics the artist “created” after watching an interview with David Lee Roth, lead singer of Van Halen. Andrew Liles extracted the audio from the conversation, which he converted into text, then further chopped it up and changed it from English to Albanian. The song, composed of five parts, is like a musical, cosmological puzzle that constantly changes and undulates, depending on the force of the impact. At the beginning, a circling electronic rhythm emerges, resembling a krautrock rhythm, before quickly transforming into a choppy, edgy texture. Later, the harmonies sound like looped, otherworldly spaces, occasionally interspersed with avant-garde overtones, before gradually fading into calm, keyboard tones.
To Arrive at Nowhere is an album that reveals Andrew Liles’s talent for juggling various musical moods and dressing them in multi-segmented abstractions. Having followed his own path of expression for many years, the artist imbues them with his own sonic ornamentation. It’s a world full of anxiety, ambiguities, and riddles to unravel. A multi-layered sonic mystery that encourages exploration and insight. It’s a wonderful listen… and remember, “diamonds are forever.” – Michał Majcher
