Psyché Tropes / TROPES007 / LP / DL
Mark Vernon’s expanded soundtrack to the award-winning film by Steven McInerney. Heavyweight vinyl mastered by Rashad Becker. Comes with a 12-inch 16mm strip of found footage from the film.
An existential drama exploring the universal themes of death and rebirth. Tape Letters from the Waiting Room is an experiment in film archaeology and magnetic memory as it navigates past life experiences. Shifting in succession from the mundane to the metaphysical, the film is composed of extant 16mm found footage from the past century. The original soundtrack by Mark Vernon encompasses a rich collection of domestic tape recordings; audio letters, dictated notes, found sounds and other lost voices.
Available to buy here.
All tracks composed and recorded by Mark Vernon.
Mastered by Rashad Becker.
Lacquer cut by Ruy Mariné at Dubplates & Mastering.
Artwork and design by Steven McInerney.
Screenings:
IKLECTIK, TROPES007 Album Launch (Extended cut with live Soundtrack) January 2022
Istanbul International Experimental Film Festival (In Competition, Turkey) November 2021
MICE – 16ª Mostra Internacional de Cinema Etnográfico (Official Selection, Spain) April 2021
9th International Video Poetry Festival (Official Selection, Greece) June 2021
ULTRAcinema 20 (Official Selection, Mexico) November 2020
Proceso de Error 2020 (In Competition, Chile) October 2020
Family Film Project #9 (Honorable Mention, Premiere. Portugal) October 2020
The Delaware Road (Pre-release, extended cut with live Soundtrack) August 2019
Reviews:
“A world in motion where eroded reels and manipulations create intense affecting mindscapes…”
Daniel Crokaert, Unfathomless
“Disembodied voices, ambiguous fragmented stories from abandoned tapes, backwards tapes and chilling atmospheric moments, all amounting to a suitably unsettling sojourn in this strange world that lies beyond the Veil of Tears. … although this LP is thrillingly weird, what comes over in the final analysis is a sense of longing, regret, nostalgia for the past, and sympathy for our dead relatives and forebears, some of whom appear wreathed in misery and trapped in an endless loop of reliving their past sins. Vernon has consistently exhibited this compassion and warmth, this connection to humanity, throughout all of his unique work, and this is further evidence of it.”
Ed Pinsent, Sound Projector (June 2023)
Reviews in Full
“More enjoyable to my macabre ears is Tape Letters From The Waiting Room (PSYCHÉ TROPES TROPES007). Even before you play it, you can tell from that title alone, and the eerie cover image, that we’re pretty much getting a semi-occult transmission here, messages from the beyond, delivered by séance and psychic forces. Vernon’s music here was composed as the soundtrack to a film created by Steven McInnery, a cinematic work which received several citations at experimental film festivals in 2020 and 2021, and was apparently made entirely by splicing together segments of found 16mm footage. McInnery intended to author an “existential drama” and explicitly wanted to explore themes of “death and rebirth” with his edits. I never saw the movie, but it’s evident that Vernon’s sounds here are in total sympathy with the project, taking the listener directly into a strange, spooked-out paranormal world from the instant the stylus hits the grooves. Disembodied voices, ambiguous fragmented stories from abandoned tapes (see Time Deferred, above), backwards tapes and chilling atmospheric moments, all amounting to a suitably unsettling sojourn in this strange world that lies beyond the Veil of Tears. Even Vernon’s track titles are evocative and poetic, for instance ‘A Photograph of a Photograph’ alluding to the mysteries that can be induced by the mechanics of refilming (and indeed reprocessing magnetic tapes, a process that he knows so well); or ‘Beforetime Guests’, a very lyrical way of alluding to the dead visitors arriving at the séance in the form of floating ghastly heads or ectoplasmic manifestations.
In my mind I can’t help connecting this LP to certain records by the Italian artiste Simon Balestrazzi, who has likewise revealed a penchant for the supernatural and the occult in his work, using the tape machine and processed drones as his private portal to visit the “other side”; one excellent example (and a favourite of mine) is the Candor Chasma collaboration, a very evocative set in which it appeared to be possible to travel time to visit certain famous mystics and visionaries of the past. However, Mark Vernon might not exhibit the exact same relish for the supernatural; although this LP is thrillingly weird, what comes over in the final analysis is a sense of longing, regret, nostalgia for the past, and sympathy for our dead relatives and forebears, some of whom appear wreathed in misery and trapped in an endless loop of reliving their past sins. Vernon has consistently exhibited this compassion and warmth, this connection to humanity, throughout all of his unique work, and this is further evidence of it. Vinyl release; issued with a section of 16mm film in the sleeve. Scry your own copy with a magnifying glass to reveal your own personal ghosts lurking in the frames.”
Ed Pinsent, Sound Projector, June 2023
