Listening to Splinters, Kate Carr’s newest release, is like floating down a dimly-lit hypnagogic river. ‘Splinters’ explores the realm of sound and space, an idea that is wholly familiar to her as an artist. Kate Carr is seasoned in mixing field recordings with electronics to create landscapes but with Splinters the landscape is a bit different.
Released by the artist lead art organization, TACO!, the album follows an 18 month installation Carr had at the South East London gallery . With her new release the artist examines how sounds change our relationships to locations using her installation ‘Under Construction’ as a case study. Fragments of recordings from the gallery can be heard dispersed throughout the album, blending into the electronic sounds Carr creates to envelop the listener.
The beginning of the album sets the stage for what’s to follow, providing the background for an increasingly immersive landscape from here you get carried away and the environment expands further. Few glimpses of a steady rhythm are provided throughout the album and even when given is somewhat disjointed, feeling like it can give way at any moment.
The later half of the album consists of collages utilizing panning synth sounds with heavy delays and the perfect balance of negative space. Bass heavy tracks are balanced with bubbling electronics, the closing track “Time Out” builds resulting in the sound of kids playing in the gallery, one child calling out the tracks title.
Splinters transports the listener, not necessarily to a gallery space– but somewhere non-existent. Carr is a master of her craft when it comes to creating soundscapes and field recordings to bring the listener somewhere that can’t be traveled to in the physical sense, which is something we could all use right now.