Jon Collin - The Nature LP

Acoustic slide guitar improvisations accompanied by external arbitrary sounds, natural and otherwise; recorded in and outside, with and without electricity, in Stockport and Stockholm, 2016–17.

'What sounds tend to get silenced in the production of a record? Sounds are a perpetual and dynamic property of all landscapes but the walls and circuits of music studios largely exclude biophonic, geophonic and anthrophonic ambient sounds. If the unintended silencing of organisms by a myriad of human activities provides yet another indication of our impact on the planet’s ecosystems should we be concerned about the role of music in normalising this silence? Jon Collin’s conscious broadening of presented sound on this record, most prominently the inclusion of ambient birdsong, sirens, and aviation noise, is not novel and it is not necessarily a response to this question. However, his guitar playing acousmatically smashes the taxonomy of sound used above. It shares palettes and forms with vocalizing and stridulating animals, wind, rain, thunder and electromechanical devices without aping them or labouring under the conceit that it might meaningfully communicate with them. It is, however, attuned to the fact that a soundscape is necessarily made up of interfering and integrated signals (some tropical birds use protracted pure tones in environments with persistent geophonic sounds of wind and rain; song sparrows sing lower, great tits higher, nightingales louder and robins at night in noisy urban environments). This approach choruses, without clarion calling, the quandary and challenge of collectively accepting responsibility for our species’ impact on the stability of ecological systems whilst understanding that we are not external to them.'

– Jon Marshall, 2017 

Unapologetically pure wistful acoustic slide-guitar improvisations from who other than Jon Collin, finally back in print. 

What’s really left to say about Jon’s music?  Few contemporary musicians have the confidence (or virtuoso ability) to present two full sides of their own music with little other than feint atmospheric sound to fill in the space.  The Nature was recorded both here in Stockport and Jon’s present day home in Stockholm, notably without electricity.  Jon’s intuitive slide-improv shares space on the tape with sparrows overhead, the endless undercurrent of the wind and a distant urban hum.  As the title suggests, this is music in its most undiluted form.  It’s most likely the most common form of music, other than the fact that mostly moments this intimate and in-the-moment aren’t shared with people.  The pacing and unpredictably of Jon’s playing here is really inimitable, complexity presented as simplicity in the most time diluting manner imaginable.  One we’ll always go back to.

- All Night Flight