Maps & Diagrams charts Voices of Time

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  • Tim Martin has another lavishly packaged ambient album due out this month.
  • Maps & Diagrams charts Voices of Time image
  • UK-based ambient artist Tim Martin will release a new album as Maps & Diagrams this week, entitled Voices of Time. Over the course of his career, Martin has maintained dual obsessions: electro-acoustic ambient music, and handmade artwork to package it in. He's a prolific studio artist, having put out ten albums in less than a decade, plus a smattering of cassettes, 7-inches and CD-Rs. Voices of Time is his second album this month, after Get Lost, a travel-inspired album that comes with a compass. That one came out through the design-happy imprint Time Released Sound; Voices of Time will see release on Martin's own label, Handstitched* Recordings. Chatting via email last week, Martin told us about his two new releases, and why he settled on Portugese cork for packaging material.
    How would you describe your sound to the uninitiated? I'd describe my sound within the circles of ambient but there are tangents within my sound that venture off into the genres of electro-acoustic, synth pop, drone and electronica. Over the last few years I have used less rhythmic structures in my music concentrating on natural movements and human input rather than processed and automated sequencing. Tell me about your label, Handstitched. What's the guiding philosophy, if any? Why is the physical aspect of an album so important? Handstitched was born from a love of things (especially musical packaging) that have a handmade element to them, I felt the need to create something that had a different feel to the usual CD sleeves and cases that appear mass produced and generally have a plastic look to them. This is why the first three mini-albums I decided to use cork for the sleeve design, hand-stitched along the spine to make the sleeve for the CD. The cork was sourced from a cork tree plantation in Portugal that promotes sustainable cork farming, so I felt I was helping the environment as well as making a unique handmade packaging concept. I knew that cork trees regenerated their cork after stripping the bark so I could go back to them in a few years’ time and possibly use the same cork from the same tree for similar packaging ideas. The new album, Voices of Time, uses old case-bound book covers that were recovered and recycled by me - these have been wire-bound and hand-stamped to make the CD packaging and I have stencilled with a stencil I'd brought from Japan. You made Voices of Time during the winter of last year. What was your creative process like, and how did the weather affect your music? It was a colder winter than usual in the UK last year. During that time I had three solid months to concentrate on music projects so I spent a lot of time in the studio as well as out walking in the snow, finding inspiration for the album's direction. This increased creativity and it was good being able to dedicate time to focus on the process. I think this is definitely reflected in the overall sound of the album. The album comes out just 10 days after Get Lost. How are the two albums different? The two albums don't differ that much, as I was influenced by the time of year both of the albums have a coherence with one another although there are subtle differences, Get Lost is more central to a geographical nature with references to the sea, land-mass, oceans and travel, these can all be heard throughout its duration. The CD comes with an actual compass too, the design and packaging for Get Lost mirrors this geographical theme. Voices is focused on the art of language, the album has a more human-feel to it—less focused on navigation, more on communication. There is spoken word, tribal murmurs, archive recordings and found sounds that I'd recorded featuring on the majority of songs on Voices. I think there is a more synth-based element to Voices too that makes it slightly more experimental and looser than Get Lost. Why did you choose the title Voices of Time? I wanted to capture words and language that had somehow been lost in time, historical and modern speech features in the album—albeit very subtle. What's next for you? Where to begin! Apart from these two albums on Handstitched* and Time Released Sound there is a resurrection of the project - Somme currently in progress, I'm also working alongside Ian Hawgood on a project for release later this year. There are two Maps and Diagrams albums due out on Ian's label Nomadic Kids Republic label later this year too. I'm working with the Chilean poet Estela Lamat on a poetry-based concept. There is a follow up album to the Hessien album Home Is Where the Ghost Is, which is being planned now. I have a tape release out on Digitalis in the US this summer under the name Atlantis, this is focused more on experimental synthesiser and module work. Lots more compilation appearances and secret projects will be revealed throughout the course of the next few months, busy times ahead.
    Tracklist 01. Your Weakness 02. Letraset Addiction 03. The Infinite Delay 04. Longshore Drift 05. The Voices of Time 06. From the Archaeas 07. Shake your Bones 08. Odyssey Dawn ft. Ylid 09. Rapid Ear Movements 10. Looks Simple Enough 11. Three Blows to the Mind 12. In Golden Discontent 13. The Next Frontier Handstitched* will release Voices of Time on May 20th, 2011.
RA