Hayward, Charles / Switch on War
Album: Switch on War   Collection:General
Artist:Hayward, Charles   Added:Aug 2004
Label:Sub Rosa  

A-File Activity
Add Date: 2004-08-16 Pull Date: 2004-10-17 Charts: Classical/Experimental
Week Ending: Oct 17 Oct 10 Sep 12 Aug 29 Aug 22
Airplays: 1 1 1 2 5

Recent Airplay
1. Oct 14, 2004: The Digital/Analog War
Crying Shame
4. Aug 26, 2004: Umami Jazz Program
Pinpoint
2. Oct 07, 2004: Stirling's Approximation
Crying Shame
5. Aug 25, 2004: Brownian Motion
Crying Shame
3. Sep 10, 2004: Bloodstains Across Atherton (the edit)
Pinpoint
6. Aug 21, 2004: On The Warpath
Crying Shame

Album Review
Your Imaginary Friend
Reviewed 2004-08-12
Experimental noise, synth/electronic based loops and layers, drones, samples. Long tracks, hypnotic, creepy. These are recordings of material originally performed in London as part of a performance art piece in response to Gulf War I in 1991. They were recorded a few weeks later in a “disused morgue” and are now being released via Forced Exposure. Though the theme is Gulf War, there is no overt mention of the theme, lyrics, samples, etc within the tracks besides a marching snare in track 3. Hayward was a founding member of This Heat and later formed Camberwell Now. Cool stuff.

1) slow quiet intro, synth kicks in with warm drone/wash tone and halting electro beats enter, eventually an organ lays down a songlike structure with looping strange almost animal-like noises interfering
2) slow with organ tone, minimal, almost just a soundbed
3) more loopy, noisey, droney, after ~10 min a militaristic marching snare drum enters the fray
4) very quiet dead air intro, careful, followed by creepy minimalistic sounds, and some voiceover a la Throbbing Gristle, then some seriously ill looped noise appears, lulling one into complacency which is shattered after ~8 minutes by a frightening explosion of drums
5) collage of percussion, low-fi electronics, strange beats, feel

Track Listing
1. Crying Shame   3. Pinpoint
2. Strong-Arm Dead-Line (Fortun   4. Sweetheard
  5. Never Before