Whole Wide World [LP Clear Vinyl]

The Body & Cel Genesis - Whole Wide World [LP Clear Vinyl]

Tension, contradiction, curiosity, animosity and affection - these are all essential to the collaboration between The Body and Cel Genesis. Also essential are the sounds of trance music, the weight of distortion and the grinding of experimental electronica - all counterpointed against the viscerality of two live drummers. “A bunch of the album has Lee (Buford) and Nick (Cowman)... two drummers locking in together. There was a really great moment where they kept playing after the song had ended, because it was just so much fun.”- Chris (Cel Genesis) The intensity of the vocals are such that experience and emotion are often conveyed wordlessly and intuitively, with the meaning bending to each vocalists’ intent. And whilst some of the vocals were recorded separately, there are goosebump-inducing moments on the record - such as the opening to the whole record - where the two bands come together to chant in unison. The idea to collaborate and make Whole Wide World was hatched on tour, with few parameters other than to use friendship, humility and each artist’s distinct processes to create music. Cel Genesis’ creative practice tends towards maximalist writing - coupled with aggressive editing. The Body’s process as exploratory shape shifters is foundationally improvisational, and inclined to push ideas to their outermost limits as they have with distortion, vocal techniques and in other collaborations’ samples and beats. Recorded at Machines with Magnets by Seth Manchester with additional recording in California by Andrew Oswald, Whole Wide World evolved over a period of two years, several recording sessions and meticulous editing. Some songs were built from beds of electronics generated by Cel Genesis, served to the group to be edited and arranged; others grew from beds of live drumming by Lee Buford (The Body) and Nick Cowman (Cel Genesis), that were similarly worked and re-imagined. This intensely collaborative approach was liberating and joyful - a giddiness born of boundless exploration yet shaped by an elemental tension as methods of creation were forcibly altered by compromise and revision. The inherent contradictions in process and emotion compliment the themes addressed on the album - a reckoning with the past, nostalgia and lost hope. Whole Wide World is a dense and heavy album, but one that nevertheless feels joyful and fresh - an uncategorisable ode to egoless invention. It’s a work born of artists with disparate approaches, who feel compelled and comfortable to surrender them, in service of the birth of new art. Whilst the album was made with joy, the themes of the album confront today’s harsher realities; we see this play out as through the eyes of an unrelenting optimist processing the death of possibility itself. 6