Rocker (feedbot)
Platinum Member
Daniel Foggin aka Smote holds the unlikely dual-vocation of landscape gardener and purveyor of imperious drones. While these two professions may appear to be wholly disparate, it is his pursuit of the former – which has seen Foggin “more often covered in mud than not” – that has directly influenced the latter. “I think the music is a direct reflection of this feeling that I haven’t quite managed to define yet”, Foggin explains, “it is dirty and hard but there is an overwhelming comfort to it.” Perhaps Foggin is describing a paradox? Music that is grimy yet fulfilling.
‘Songs from the Free House’ is the fully formed exemplar of this paradox. Smote’s fifth release for Rocket Recordings – one of the UK’s most sonically adventurous record labels – is conceived from the mud, where it slept peacefully before writhing gloriously to the surface.
Despite there being an established connection between artist and label, Smote’s music long predates the project’s relationship with Rocket Recordings. The yet to be signed Foggin previously uploaded his creations to Bandcamp for the mere pleasure of making music. This early work forms a curious insight into Foggin’s progression as an artist. Projects like 2020’s ‘Questing’ are cloaked in a mystery that, while lacking in punch, laments listeners with its hypnotic glow. In terms of volume, however, 2024’s ‘A Grand Stream’ smothers ‘Questing’ like a burst riverbank flooding the surrounding land – leaving fertile floodplains where musical roots are to grow.
And grow they do. The five movements that constitute ‘Songs from the Free House’ are less compositions than they are megaliths. Foggin veers from interminable builds to sudden and beastly groans of folk-laden drone, laid out to echo upon distant moorland. The music is at once both temporally unpredictable and brutally repetitive. These would all be negative descriptions were Foggin not so adept at breathing life, and a dose of that aforementioned comfort, into his music.
‘Songs from the Free House’ begins with ‘The Cottar’, a word that describes a type of historical farm labourer whose work was reimbursed with accommodation or land. The cottar’s toil is reflected in the bone-vibrating lower frequencies that establish the extensive introduction. An eventual woodwind motif emerges, looping and lolloping towards an uncompromising conclusion. Volume and distortion both increase as the labourer’s muscles ache throughout the lengthy nine-minute runtime.
‘Chamber’ is even longer. While ‘The Cottar’ grows towards a definitive ending, ‘Chamber’ is the growing itself. The enigmatic landscapes Foggin creates are extraordinarily atmospheric. Imbued with a claustrophobic anxiety, this dread leads to guitars, which lead to distortion. The presentation is unorthodox. It is foreboding, heaving, yet strangely cathartic – another paradox inherent to ‘Songs from the Free House’.
Foggin’s craft is indebted to composition; which, in this case, is a markedly different skill to songwriting. The structures are loose, with verses and choruses often avoided. Even the notion of a beginning, middle and end is frequently rejected, as is the case with ‘Snodgerss’ – a 4-minute folk jam that lacks almost any semblance of an introduction. While its conclusion is more defined, there remains a lack any definitive form, as if the music is allowed to freely pause and re-start arbitrarily. Added intensity is then generated by thundering drumming that underpins ‘Snodgerss’ – an attribute that is all the more affecting given how infrequently percussion is deployed throughout much of ‘Songs from the Free House’. That said, when it is, the results are crushing.
So calls ‘The Linton Wyrm’ – the centrepiece of ‘Songs from the Free House’ – an opus of topographical obliteration, named after a legend of the Scottish borders. The apocryphal tale sees the knight John De Sommerville force his spear down upon the wyrms mouth. Retreating to its lair, the wyrm’s agonised thrashings prompt the hillside to collapse, thus forming the land’s unusually hilly geography. In Foggin’s care, this story is amplified to become a frenzied attack of barbed guitars that grind aggressively. Each iteration of the riff sees the wyrm squirm with increasing anguish. Time soon ceases to exists, as the riff becomes ossified, frozen in a perpetual saga of endless destruction.
‘Wynne’ concludes the album at its most distorted, with its echoic guitars warping to the point of deformation. Increasingly dense electronics contribute towards a finale that climbs towards ear-piercingly high frequencies. The cacophony produces a blend of frenetic melodies to form a stochastic harmony. As such, Smote’s five performances of contradiction conclude with the greatest one of all, an ending that is oddly beautiful, despite the abrasion. It’s an apt departure. As visceral as ‘Songs from the Free House’ often is, it’s never wholly inaccessible. Rather, it’s a rare case; a drone project that rewards patience, yet is immediate all the same.
BEN WILLIAMS
‘Songs from the Free House’ is the fully formed exemplar of this paradox. Smote’s fifth release for Rocket Recordings – one of the UK’s most sonically adventurous record labels – is conceived from the mud, where it slept peacefully before writhing gloriously to the surface.
Despite there being an established connection between artist and label, Smote’s music long predates the project’s relationship with Rocket Recordings. The yet to be signed Foggin previously uploaded his creations to Bandcamp for the mere pleasure of making music. This early work forms a curious insight into Foggin’s progression as an artist. Projects like 2020’s ‘Questing’ are cloaked in a mystery that, while lacking in punch, laments listeners with its hypnotic glow. In terms of volume, however, 2024’s ‘A Grand Stream’ smothers ‘Questing’ like a burst riverbank flooding the surrounding land – leaving fertile floodplains where musical roots are to grow.
And grow they do. The five movements that constitute ‘Songs from the Free House’ are less compositions than they are megaliths. Foggin veers from interminable builds to sudden and beastly groans of folk-laden drone, laid out to echo upon distant moorland. The music is at once both temporally unpredictable and brutally repetitive. These would all be negative descriptions were Foggin not so adept at breathing life, and a dose of that aforementioned comfort, into his music.
‘Songs from the Free House’ begins with ‘The Cottar’, a word that describes a type of historical farm labourer whose work was reimbursed with accommodation or land. The cottar’s toil is reflected in the bone-vibrating lower frequencies that establish the extensive introduction. An eventual woodwind motif emerges, looping and lolloping towards an uncompromising conclusion. Volume and distortion both increase as the labourer’s muscles ache throughout the lengthy nine-minute runtime.
‘Chamber’ is even longer. While ‘The Cottar’ grows towards a definitive ending, ‘Chamber’ is the growing itself. The enigmatic landscapes Foggin creates are extraordinarily atmospheric. Imbued with a claustrophobic anxiety, this dread leads to guitars, which lead to distortion. The presentation is unorthodox. It is foreboding, heaving, yet strangely cathartic – another paradox inherent to ‘Songs from the Free House’.
Foggin’s craft is indebted to composition; which, in this case, is a markedly different skill to songwriting. The structures are loose, with verses and choruses often avoided. Even the notion of a beginning, middle and end is frequently rejected, as is the case with ‘Snodgerss’ – a 4-minute folk jam that lacks almost any semblance of an introduction. While its conclusion is more defined, there remains a lack any definitive form, as if the music is allowed to freely pause and re-start arbitrarily. Added intensity is then generated by thundering drumming that underpins ‘Snodgerss’ – an attribute that is all the more affecting given how infrequently percussion is deployed throughout much of ‘Songs from the Free House’. That said, when it is, the results are crushing.
So calls ‘The Linton Wyrm’ – the centrepiece of ‘Songs from the Free House’ – an opus of topographical obliteration, named after a legend of the Scottish borders. The apocryphal tale sees the knight John De Sommerville force his spear down upon the wyrms mouth. Retreating to its lair, the wyrm’s agonised thrashings prompt the hillside to collapse, thus forming the land’s unusually hilly geography. In Foggin’s care, this story is amplified to become a frenzied attack of barbed guitars that grind aggressively. Each iteration of the riff sees the wyrm squirm with increasing anguish. Time soon ceases to exists, as the riff becomes ossified, frozen in a perpetual saga of endless destruction.
‘Wynne’ concludes the album at its most distorted, with its echoic guitars warping to the point of deformation. Increasingly dense electronics contribute towards a finale that climbs towards ear-piercingly high frequencies. The cacophony produces a blend of frenetic melodies to form a stochastic harmony. As such, Smote’s five performances of contradiction conclude with the greatest one of all, an ending that is oddly beautiful, despite the abrasion. It’s an apt departure. As visceral as ‘Songs from the Free House’ often is, it’s never wholly inaccessible. Rather, it’s a rare case; a drone project that rewards patience, yet is immediate all the same.
BEN WILLIAMS