Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Purchasable with gift card
£4GBP or more
WF 63 - Limited Edition 7" EP
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Limited Edition lathe cut 7" eight track EP with die cut sleeve, generic Woodford Halse inner sleeve and insert.
Includes unlimited streaming of WF 63 - The Dead Astronaut
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Sold Out
WF 63 - test Cut
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
One-off test cut hand made in Sheffield by Jon Downing of Do it Thissen.
Comes on black wax with generic DIT labels.
Includes the usual die cut Woodford Halse picture sleeve with 3mm spine, colour insert and generic Woodford Halse inner sleeve.
As this is a test cut, it will have been played a couple of times at Woodford HQ.
Includes unlimited streaming of WF 63 - The Dead Astronaut
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Founded in 2018, Aural Design is the solo project of João Paulo Daniel, who also runs the Portuguese cult label Russian Library and the project Folclore Impressionista, with whom he shares an hauntological sensibility strongly anchored in psychogeographic folk, retro-futurism and library music. In 2019 Aural Design released “Pentagram” in the H Series #2, at the launch of Russian Library. At that time, the much missed Mark Barton wrote in his blog, The Sunday Experience, ”… who serve up ‘Pentagram’, a serious slice of dream machine hypnosis, cosmically cosied by rippling sprays of dancing lunar lights emanating from a pulsing central core, all wonderfully nostalgic and very much teased by the blissful echo of Raymond Scott”. In 2020 Aural Design released the EP “Looking and Seeing” on Russian Library. At that time, another EP, “Boeing Illusion”, was already ready to be released. However, major changes in context and mood put that work on hold (to this day) and “Looking and Seeing” was produced in a very short time to be released instead. “Looking and Seeing” is about atmospheres and a kind of meditation about perception and the psychological aspects of space, beyond the visual and formal aspects of things, where memory also acts as a mechanism of creation and invention. Regarding this edition, Rui Miguel Abreu wrote in Rimas e Batidas “… Aural Design is about reimagining that point of confluence between what memory kept from the soundtracks of documentaries that a certain generation avidly saw on television being presented by people as fascinating as Carl Sagan, Arthur C. Clarke or Jacques-Yes Cousteau, and what the continuous scrutiny of the present on the electronic past has revealed to us through reprints stamped by labels such as Finders Keepers or Trunk…” Aural Design released two new tracks in 2021. The first one was “Poema Triangular, an autobiographical theme presented as 4 small pieces, released in a 7” split with Listening Center for Russian Library’s H Series #8. The other one was “Concentric Waves”, a track produced for Woodford Halse, included in Undulation Waters #6. The relationship with Mat Handley has existed since the first Folclore Impressionista album was released, and has been reinforced during these years through some mutual collaborations. “Exit Utopia” was released by Russian Library in 2022, integrated in the L Series #2, a 7” split with Listening Center, Demónio António and The Heartwood Institute. “… a diaphanous folk fantasy fuelled by electronic fog…”, wrote Rui Miguel Abreu in Rimas e Batidas.
THE DEAD ASTRONAUT is the new EP by Aural Design (the second on their own), and will be released by Woodford Halse in the beginning of 2023. With a title borrowed from JG Ballard,
THE DEAD ASTRONAUT is a kind of metaphor about the disappearance of the progressive modernism and utopianism, and its psychological effect on social imagination, which has been replaced by a sense of finitude and exhaustion that we seem unable to escape from. But in another and under level, there is a strong connection, if not obvious, with “Poema Triangular”, earlier released. Like that, there is an emotional density and complexity that’s not very different from an album, despite its shorter duration, where some loosely connected ideas were interwoven as in a dream, encrypted by an autobiographical component that strongly modulates the whole atmosphere.
THE DEAD ASTRONAUT was composed, recorded and produced by João Paulo Daniel in Lisbon, in September 2022. Side A A1 - Notes for a Lecture A2 - Number Five A3 - Historical Transition A4 - Silver Clouds Side B B1 - A Lecture for Notes B2 - Utopia Now B3 - Projections for Dreams B4 - The Dead Astronaut
AURAL DESIGN DISCOGRAPHY
“Pentagram” - H Series #2 - (Russian Library - 2019) split w/ Supernova
“Looking and Seeing” - H Series #7 - (Russian Library - 2020)
“Poema Triangular” - H Series #8 - (Russian Library - 2021) split w/ Listening Center
“Concentric Waves” - Undulation Waters #6 - (Woodford Halse - 2021, various artists)
“The Dead Astronaut” - (Woodford Halse - 2023)
The Dead Astronaut was composed, recorded and produced by João Paulo Daniel in Lisbon, September 2022
credits
released January 27, 2023
Original Woodford Halse Livery - Nick Taylor
Collage by João Paulo Daniel
Layout and Additional Design - Mat Handley
Cut in Sheffield by Do It Thissen
supported by 54 fans who also own “WF 63 - The Dead Astronaut”
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