Released by Confront Recordings:
www.confrontrecordings.com/grady-fermata-ark-wastell
Composed and arranged by Fermata Ark between November 2018 and April 2019 (UK/Iceland). Extra processing at Greenhouse Studios (Iceland). No extraneous instrumentation was utilised within these recordings. All sonic manipulation of a captured improvisation, all first takes. Instrumental source material from Spencer Grady and Mark Wastell recorded by Rupert Clervaux at Studio 3, London, October 2017.
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Harry Smith’s work is always looking in two directions at once: towards sound, and towards process. Listening to ‘Thus’, we are clearly immersed in both of these: it is a glorious celebration of sound, spinning a world of glittering textures, hovering drones, and fractured kaleidoscopes; but we are equally caught up in the unfolding of the work, with the riveting feeling that we are discovering the work at the same time as its maker is, with a shared sense of discovery and rapture. The soundworld evoked by Smith follows its own inevitable path, with Smith perhaps serving more as host or catalyst than calculating composer. But this image is deceptive: there is impeccable mastery and control here – control of his sounds and materials, but more importantly, an effortlessly masterful control of the shaping of time – that mark Smith as an artist of remarkable insight and talent.
‘Thus’ is a work that rewards headphone listening. No background music this; it is a work to lose yourself in. It is by turns intoxicating, hypnotic, ominous, serene, profound. It is a world of space and of texture, moving effortlessly from the gentle fluttering of insect wings to the dizzying swirling of primordial masses. Occasionally, the curtains part, to reveal a fragile and human world behind; before we can quite reach it, the fog rises, the clouds close, and we are lost once again in a sea of sound.
It is difficult not to be moved by the music on this album. It is a tactile and bodily experience, music to be felt as much as heard. The feelings it evokes, the imagery, the sensations, are all fleeting, transitory, evading any attempt to take hold of them and draw them into the light. Give yourself up to this music. You will not come away unchanged. (James Andean)
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Review by Downtown Music Gallery (NYC):
SPENCER GRADY / MARK WASTELL / HARRY SMITH a/k/a FERMATA ARK - Thus: Excerpts from a Smaller Work (Confront Core 15; UK) Featuring Spencer Grady on 5-string banjo, ebow, violin bow & brass slide; Mark Wastell on cello, double bass & harmonium and Harry Smith (Fermata Ark) on composition & field recording. The ever-evolving sonic explorer, Mark Wastell, plays cello is his main instrument, yet has consistently explored other instruments, manipulating other instruments as well as objects and surfaces not necessarily used for music making. Aside from being a founding member of IST, Mr. Wastell used to run a record store in north London and is always searching for other like-minded sonic explorers no matter what instrument or medium they’ve chose to work with. I can’t say that I know much about either of his music partners here. It seems that while Mr. Wastell and Mr. Grady did play their actual instruments, Harry Smith added field recordings and help mix and master this disc. The liner notes mentioned listening to this disc with headphones so that is what I did the first time I checked it out earlier this week. When we listen closely to field recordings (environmental sounds) and /or static, it takes time to adjust our focus. Slowly several layers of carefully manipulated sounds appear, swirling static, drones, buzzing, getting more dense as this piece evolves. The varied layers throb and pulsate together, we are caught off balance, sort of like trying not get sucked into (sonic) quicksand. The overall effect is mostly mesmerizing and finally calms down midway. As soon as I start to recognize the sound os a cello, we are soon submerged in another dense world of swirling sounds. The density builds and increases for a period of time and then several layers quickly drop out. We are left with another collection manipulated sounds: buried, a chorus of distant voices, a church organ, a clothes dryer tumbling… hard to tell what exactly we are hearing yet still fascinating. The overall sound/vibe is a glorious mess/mass/sonic wall. Just like a monolith would appear to a neanderthal man or woman. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG
Review by Vital Weekly:
Behind Fermata Ark we find one Harry Smith, of whom, I think, I never heard. Although Spencer Grady (5-string banjo, ebow, violin bow, brass slide) and Mark Wastell (violoncello, double bass, harmonium) get an equal mention on the cover, I would think it is all mostly Fermata Ark's doing here. Behind his name we see "composition, field recording, post-production, mixing, mastering". As far as I understood this, the music is based on improvised music recorded by Grady and Wastell, which Smith then took apart, edited, processed and then put back together again, in the composition that we now hear in the thirty-seven minutes. It is a piece of drone music, but more of the acoustic variety and with some interesting choices. No doubt that is due to the material played by the two instrumentalists, already offering a variety of tonal input. In the first ten or so minutes this is slowly building from rattling sounds (which, I later realized, might very well be field recordings) and slowly increasing drone sounds, building towards a climax at fourteen minutes and after a bit of a silly (as in 'non-dramatic') break continues to slowly built again in various parts but without any of these breaks and more or less in a slightly continuous flow. Sometimes dense and hectic, sometimes dense and slow. My favourite part of the piece is the whole part from twenty minutes onwards, to the end; a massive drone hum, with all sorts of small, obscured events taking place, bows upon strings, bending forward and backwards, in one long steady and majestic flow. I would have liked this to continue for some more time. The rest is great too, mind you, but this was the highlight. I'd be curious to hear more from Fermata Ark. (FdW)
www.vitalweekly.net/1251.html 
