This collection consists of my side of tracks created for and originally released on the Blow volume 4 album. The album was a collaborative project with A.R.C Soundtracks released by Front & Follow in 2018. We each contributed a side of tracks, originally released as a limited edition cassette (100 copies).

You can find A.R.C Soundtrack's side on their Bandcamp here (arcsoundtracks.bandcamp.com/album/the-blow-volume-4) and details of the full release on the Front & Follow page can be found here (fandf.bandcamp.com/album/the-blow-volume-4).

All of the tracks 1 to 12 from my side are released here, which I have titled as a collection named 'In The Trees’. The release includes some new artwork I have created to accompany the tracks. I have also included the original artwork as a bonus downloadable item.

All tracks created between 2017/2018.
Tracks 1 to 11 written, recorded and produced by Jodie Lowther.
Track 12 as above but featuring ambient soundscape/texture samples provided by A.R.C Soundtracks.
Mastered by Mark Beazley.

'In The Trees' artwork by Jodie Lowther.
Original Blow 4 artwork by David Armes of Red Plate Press (redplatepress.com).


About this album:

In 2016, Front & Follow very kindly asked me to be a part of their ongoing tape series ‘The Blow’ in which two artists take up residence on a side of tape each, collaboration also being encouraged between the two in any way they see fit, there are absolutely no rules. The tape features myself and A.R.C Soundtracks.

I started working on the songs that make up my side of this cassette in late 2016. I am inspired very much by the seasons, and I feel that this collection of songs although started in the Autumn, actually became very much a ‘Spring’ themed collection to me. There is a sense of nature, landscape and far-away worlds within these songs, although the nature is eerie, claustrophobic and constructed.

Some specific examples are:

‘The Dream of the Melting Plane’ which conjured up to me a lysergic psychic cornfield, the place where The Empress of the tarot might reside. Warm and gloopy harp and melting siren vocals.
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‘The Trees’ which was born from the idea of a mechanical forest, with distorted chirping birds.

“Delirium Sea” which is a metallic, industrialised sea shanty.

In regards to process, I layered and manipulated sounds almost patchwork over time until I felt the tracks said everything I needed them to say. This was sometimes initiated by a vocal recording, or sometimes by an instrumental or sample recording. I feel that working on tracks at all times for me is an intuitive process and sometimes an effect or manipulation of one sound within the composition sparks a lot of new ideas about the atmosphere that is being created, and the song develops and becomes something very different. The tracks just keep growing and developing in this way.

I collaborated with A.R.C Soundtracks on the final track ‘The Occasional Sleeper’, which was comprised of separate ambient soundscapes/textures sent to me by A.R.C, which then I layered and manipulated, and added my vocals and some instrumentation. I felt when working on this track that it all made me think of a sort of gothic horror ambience, like tip-toeing around a sleeping machine in a castle that occasionally opens an eye and stares. I sent A.R.C some solo treated vocals of mine for use on their own side 'Taken Up & Dissolved'