“Everything in The Dramaturgy of Decay speaks of death – of the irreversible passing of time, of vanishing places and voices – of that which will not return.”
Released by Futura Resistenza as limited edition LP in full colour sleeve featuring artwork by the artist.
Accompanying text written by Elodie A. Roy.
For UK customers purchase here:
For EU and the rest of the world purchase here: https://futuraresistenza.bandcamp.com/album/the-dramaturgy-of-decay
Recalling early fears of recording technology, The Dramaturgy of Decay explores ghostly voices, distorted and intangible. Vernon’s aural cinema reflects decay in ruined films, echoing the sonic texture of vanished places and voices. Amidst matters of death and environmental degradation, the album still holds tones of humour and familiarity. Through fragments of reworked audio letters, it unfolds a sonic journey through forgotten moments, wresting life from the ephemeral. The Dramaturgy of Decay is a deeply haunting but beautiful reflection on time in the form of sound—an otherworldly musical experience resonating between past and present.
“There is something wonderfully ghostly about The Dramaturgy of Decay. It contains many distorted voices, close yet infinitely impalpable, out of reach. The voices appear and disappear. They merge with other elements. Sometimes they get submerged, erased. They infinitely become something else. And I wonder: Am I now hearing the sound of the sea, of the wind in the trees? Is this the sound of a haunted house – or the haunted house of sound itself?
Vernon has long been fascinated with home-recordings and the urgent poetry of the everyday. On The Dramaturgy of Decay we hear snippets of audio letters, messages left on answering machines (“Pouring From Hollow to Empty”, “The Years Simply Dissolved”). The messages get reworked and rearranged, slowed down and taken apart. Somewhere people are forever clapping, laughing. Tentatively playing the piano. Singing uncertainly. Vernon patiently excavates the real, revealing a soundscape of the forgotten, the buried, the invisible.
As Vernon converses with the lost, the transient and the dead, it seems to me he is tirelessly extracting life from them. And he reveals not their deadness but rather the quick, living eternity of instants. The Dramaturgy of Decay is a reflection on time through sound. But, most importantly, it is extremely beautiful music. Not quite of this world and, yet, not of any other world. It is music for the here and now.”
Elodie A. Roy, January 2024