Today sees the release of what is technically the 4th Silvery album, Japanese HiFi. With the 2022 Silvery Singles Club now up to its 6th volume and showing no signs of slowing down, it’s a nice time to do a complete about-turn with some ambient, and sometimes noisy, sludge. Following up the holy trinity of Silvery’s first three records (the guitar-poptastic Thunderer & Excelsior (2008), Railway Architecture (2010) and Etiquette (2013), Japanese HiFi might need some explaining though. A sleevenote, if you will.
Imaginary lost recordings. You’ll have your own liminal spaces or objects that conjure up a strange and disjointed nostalgia. A borrowed and uneasy sense of time and place that cannot be expressed beyond mere emotion. Shards of memories, perhaps of people, that you can’t quite put your finger on anymore. It’s usually called Hauntology these days and has always been a huge part of what Silvery is. Psychogeography and time travel.
You’ll also have those reset days you’ve pinpointed to travel back to and live the whole thing again should the chance arise. Each one will have its own strategy so you can explore those parallel universes that sprung off from decisions taken on a whim. Remember those gloomy rainy Sundays as a child when you’d hazily imagine what life would be like in the next century? That’s when you remembered Future You. And right now, Future You is looking back and they’re seeing each other through the sounds you hear on Japanese HiFi.
I‘ve wanted to make this record for years. In fact, the very first sounds heard at the very first Silvery performance were not a million miles away from what you hold here. Why is it called Japanese HiFi though? Well, the track of that name was the first one completed and christened the whole project. It’s more borrowed nostalgia and is probably as preposterous a name as all our other album titles. It means something to me, and whatever it means to you is equally as valid.
When I started making this album, as the Sony MZ-R700 purred away playing found sounds through the studio monitors and the Tascam 414 grinded back into life for the first time in years playing old demos at the wrong speed, I made a list of mine. There’s nothing worse than someone else’s lists, but here it is anyway. And as always, thank you for listening.
Seventies Daleks.
Bootlegs of 1973 Japanese Bowie concerts.
The melancholy of the sea.
Tatooine.
Stephen Moore reading John Wyndham’s The Kraken Wakes.
Quatermass & The Pit.
10:23.
‘Art Decade’ & ‘Weeping Wall’ on a night drive.
‘Obulus’ by Thrones.
The Asphyx.
France Gall.
Spearhead From Space.
Backstreet Studios, Holloway Road 1998.
Debenhams at Christmas.
Renault 4.
Home demo tapes from 1992 – 1999.
Old Queen cassettes.
Carmarthen Woolworths.
Refried Ectoplasm.
‘Soundwave Low’ by The Low (1991).
Dealey Plaza.
A notebook of drawings found on an abandoned houseboat.
Waiting in the car.
73119 Kentish Mercury.
Made up tracks on Gran Turismo.
Out of place artefacts.
33025 Sultan.
Starman Jones.
Symmes’ Theorem.
Trees.
Sleep.
Hatfield Station.
Lewy Body Dementia.
Backrooms Level 0.
Old Lego (any).
Fortean Times.
The Atrocity Exhibition.
Jan Molby.
Judica-Cordiglia brothers.
The Tripods.
Lima OO gauge.
Rykodisc.
Ric Jerrom reading J.G. Ballard.
Carrefour.
Captain Zep.
Moschops.
Cardiff Canton depot bridge.
Winter.
Dave Thompson’s Moonage Daydream.
More Sleep.
Please note: As the programmes may be of unequal length, please spool to the end of the tape before playing the other side.
The Quaire Fellow 