JOYFULTALK releases new a/v single “New Biology”, part of the Corona Borealis series from Constellation

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JOYFULTALK’s new a/v single “New Biology” is the seventh entry in Constellation’s Corona Borealis Longplay Singles Series. “New Biology” follows the acclaimed full album, A Separation Of Being released this past March, and includes an experimental film by JOYFULTALK’s Jay Crocker. “New Biology” is exclusive to Bandcamp and PWYC for the first week of release. JOYFULTALK’s Constellation digital discography is also on sale during this time. Proceeds from all these sales go 100% to the artist, as part of Constellation‘s pandemic initiative for immediate artist support.

“NEW BIOLOGY” is an extended improvised piece with a focus on the exploration of “free” electronics. For the past decade my practice has been working towards the construction of a portable electronic music system completely based on the principles of immediacy. I have tried to design a system where I can explore improvisations without ever being “cornered” by the system itself. A system that can be played and manipulated as easily as a guitar, saxophone, drums etc. I wanted to be able to play in time or with the absence of time to perform manipulations of stored sounds or constant recycling and reimagining of new sounds with no dead ends and only the limitation of creativity as an obstacle.

The visual aspect of the piece works along the same lines of improvisation. It is a meditation in smudging, painting, glitching and pulsing analogue and digital strains into endless video streams of trans-configured consciousness. NEW BIOLOGY follows a loose narrative of moving from this physical manifestation of being to another. Bypassing linear time to be recast as something new. – Jay Crocker/JOYFULTALK

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JOYFULTALK

“New Biology”

Corona Borealis Longplay Singles Series
Constellation 2020

Music and video by JOYFULTALK

In the early months of 2020, multi-disciplinary artist Jay Crocker released music and video from his superb kinetic sound-sculpture installation BIBELOT, alongside the highly rated A Separation Of Being album under his JOYFULTALK moniker.

A tour-de-force of modern composition for electronics and gyrating strings, based on a kaleidoscopic graphic score, A Separation Of Being was lauded as an “elegant example of contemporary minimalism…mak[ing] densely assembled music sound feather-light and, yes, joyful” (The Quietus) and “a colourful, sophisticated, tripartite composition rooted in his unique brand of minimalism…pristinely executed; every note is essential and happens exactly when it should” (Musicworks).

The pandemic derailed Crocker’s 2020 tour plans, but the extra time woodshedding at his rural Nova Scotia compound has been put to good use, yielding (among many other things) this extended new track and accompanying video.

“New Biology” in many ways synthesises the strategies and sonic palettes of JOYFULTALK’s previous two albums: weaving ever-shifting slippages of clockwork repetition and randomization in the spirit of Separation, with sounds and beats that hit harder and crunchier like 2018’s Plurality Trip.

Crocker’s junkyard video art practice gets a great workout here too, as his signature lo-fi VHS re-projections and analog light treatments jam along in a glitchy fever-dream to the relentless exuberance of this real-time improvised machine-music.

The 28-minute “New Biology” is the seventh track in our Corona Borealis series – the longest in the series to date! – and a terrific follow-up to JOYFULTALK’s last couple of albums.