Ash Grey and the Gull Glides On, by Andrew Wasylyk | Tommy Perman (2024)

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Better prices and more shipping options at Greedbag:

claypipemusic.greedbag.com

Andrew and Tommy's are on tour across the UK from August

Tickets and info:

thegullglideson.surfacepressure.co.uk

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‘Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On’ is the new album by
Scottish composers Andrew Wasylyk and Tommy
Perman. The pair have orbited each others worlds for a
number of years through audio-visual collaborations
spanning record releases, films and sound installations.
Wasylyk’s cinematic compositions have been nominated
for the Scottish Album of the Year Award and been
awarded BBC Radio 6 Music’s Gideon Coe’s Album of
the Year. He has collaborated with former National Poet
for Scotland, Liz Lochhead, and written soundtracks for
Radio 4. Perman’s work as a musician and DJ has taken
him across the world, with numerous record releases
under his own name and with experimental group/arts
collective FOUND, alongside visual works at the Sydney
Opera House and National Museum of Scotland.
‘Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On’ is the pair’s first
collaborative album as a duo. The record is rooted in
Perman's ambient-acid-house grooves and multi-textural
percussion built from sampling the knocks, clangs and
creaks of Wasylyk’s upright piano. These are woven
through a palette of drum machines, rolling
transcendental piano motifs, fluttering synthesisers,
saxophones swells and hymnal choral vocals.
Approaching the meditative ten-song collection, Tommy
posted Andrew three envelopes containing ‘Recording
Instructions’, ‘Tempo Cards’ and ‘Chord Cards’. Nodding
towards the Fluxus instructions of Yoko Ono’s
Grapefruit and the environmental cues of Perman and
Wasylyk’s collaboration on Sing the Gloaming (‘If it’s
wet outside: 100bpm. If it’s dry outside: 70bpm’) the
cards inspired exploration and improvisations which
were then cut up and collaged.
The spirit of this project channels through ‘Communal
Imagination’ as Wasylyk’s trademark airy piano chords
float above Perman’s juddering rhythms, conjuring a
Balaeric abstraction of Basil Kirchin. The group brass and
stuttering echoes of ‘Root Grow Emerge’ are
accompanied by field recordings of Tommy’s children
playing and reciting cyclical chants. ‘Blessing Of The
Banners’ slowly unspools through spiritual cinematic
jazz patterns into a hymn of hope, whilst ‘Spec Of Dust
Becomes A Beam’ ignites into an expansive, kosmiche
four-to-the-floor crescendo.
A sense of warmth, openness and curiosity floods
through ‘Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On’. A document
of forward-thinking artistic union from a pair at the
height of their imaginations, perched over the Tay estuary.
“So leave us as you found us, walk with us or around us,
you might find nothing to see here, but come tomorrow
we’ll still be here,” warmly warns Aidan Moffat (Arab
Strap) over ascending chords on the album’s closing
track ‘Be the Hammer’: a mantra of quiet defiance from
idiosyncratic composers in full flight. Liminal, illuminating
ideas landing where melody meets rhythm: ‘Ash Grey
And The Gull Glides On’ is a place where community,
love and goodness

releases July 30, 2024

Written, produced, recorded, and mixed by Andrew Wasylyk & Tommy Perman.
10 written by Andrew Wasylyk, Tommy Perman & Aidan Moffat.
Strings recorded by Pete Harvey at Pumpkin Field Studio, Perthshire.

Nina Perman: vocals.
Paddy Perman: vocals
Aidan Moffat: vocals.
Pete Harvey: cello, viola & violin.

All other instruments by Andrew Wasylyk & Tommy Perman.

Mastered by Robin Sutherland at Esko Mastering, Finland.
Design and Illustration by Frances Castle.
(P) & (C) 2024 Andrew Wasylyk & Tommy Perman.