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wzrdryAV

West Coast Systems Vol 2

In this second installment of West Coast Systems, we hear sonic impressions from a handful years of exploring time zones very far to the east and west of the artists home on the coast.

Upon returning home, years of living in limbo and uncertainty dragged on. The album represents the decompression of the years prior. As with the first volume on LINE, beginnings and endings aren’t a high priority. Listeners can dip in and out of the soundscapes and decide for themselves where the journeys begin and end.

This chapter makes use of manipulated field recordings from the World Soundscape Project library at Simon Fraser University. Many of the recordings used were made using analog tape in the 1970’s. Most are intended to develop their identity over repeated listens as they are often buried deep in the mix.

deep languid sonic spaces…

Bandcamp Reviews
Catalog:
LINE_127
Format:
digital
Edition:
open edition
Release:
March 2022
Tracklist:

1 . Swift Current
2 . Gravel Alley
3 . Manitoba
4 . Anti Hill University
5 . KTX Connection
6 . Early Exit
7 . Librarian
8 . Pathless
9 . Petrochemical
10 . Almost Here
11 . Island Shack
12 . Stopover
13 . Made It Through
14 . Manitoba (Roadtrip Version)

Produced & Mixed By Kelly Claude Nairn
Mastered by Greg Mindorff at Suite Sound Labs, Vancouver BC
Cover art: Constantine Katsiris

As a child of the 1980s, Vancouver-born producer Kelly Claude Nairn (WzrdryAV) was hypnotized by the results of New York City resourcefulness: raw, sparse, drum machine hip-hop and later, the eclectic sample-based rap of the 1990s. Raised by a new age mom and jazz freak artist dad, pillaging the family record cabinet for inspiration was a natural progression. Two turntables, mixer, and a sampler later, Nairn was soon making deft left-field instrumentals. Concurrent w/ electro-acoustic study under granular synthesis pioneer Barry Truax at Simon Fraser University, field recordings, audio collage, sound object manipulation, and slightly unhinged ambient works were added to his expanding cache. Foundation and technique in place, by the new millennium, the beat maker was putting a revelatory breakthrough into practice, “sample anything.” From big screen cinema and late night VHS sessions to TV sign off music and nature sounds, nothing was off limits. This not only led to the creation of WZRDRY (Nairn’s imprint and artistic umbrella), but a range of productions released internationally on vinyl, cassette tape, and compact disc.

Today, Nairn combines his academic background w/ a personal self-taught approach, equally informed by British Columbia’s street meets tree topped mountains and oceanic reflections. Utilizing analog and digital equipment, new tracks aim to create a place/atmosphere/mood via magnetic programming and universal rhythms. While deliberate melodies are uncommon, repeating fragments of tones/chords and foggy loops/drones manifest themselves in the most unexpected ways. “I’m putting together and playing back sounds for the audience that I find evocative for my own escapism,” states the producer, encouraging listeners to join the trip and interpret, as they will. The music of WzrdryAV goes beyond the increasingly fast-paced cultural landscape, gradually slowing the pace and returning some long forgotten feeling to auditory expression. Touching on the influence of Jamaican dub and Detroit techno in his oeuvre, “It’s about facing limitations by looking within to work in different ways and develop one’s creativity.”

wzrdryrecordings.bandcamp.com

REVIEWS OF
West Coast Systems Vol 2

  • Vancouver-based SKRS collaborator wzrdryAV follows up 2020’s ‘West Coast Systems’ with a second set of processed field recordings and hazed synthesis designed to create “deep languid sonic spaces”. Gorgeous low-key ambience for fans of Jake Muir, Ulla, or latter-day Biosphere.

    Inspired by a love of turntablism and hip-hop as much as his academic studies into granular synthesis, Kelly Claude Nairn’s music is ambient, but self-aware. On Vol. 2 he looks to areas far beyond his home on the Canadian West Coast thru manipulated field recordings from the World Soundscape Project library at Simon Fraser University—many of which were recorded to analog tape in the 1970s.

    Nairn’s music is distant and fuzzy, but—like Andrew Pekler—he sounds like he’s making soundtracks to imaginary places rather than awkward ethnographic studies. Nairn’s interest in sampling and turntable techniques slip into the mix too, giving them a lilting pitch-shifted bent that feels both psychedelic and seasick. The album works best listened to from beginning to end, but ‘Librarian’ is a particular stand-out, sounding like a half-remembered wildlife documentary.
    —boomkat.com

  • Kelly regularly expresses his work as an almost clinically defined exercise in granular synthesis, but the results offer so much more colorful and vivid sensations than that term would suggest. A gorgeous sun-baked experience.
    —idioteq.com