INTRO:
Now in its eleventh year and following hype for recent releases from Osaka's Kiji Suedo (Hosek EP & Riot album) and Edinburgh's George T (Roll On, King's Cross single), Edinburgh's Hobbes Music label burrows deeper into experimental ambient terrain with brand new signing Galun. With a discography over 15 years deep, Galun brings no shortage of his own props.

Galun is the solo project of Moscow musician, artist, and producer Sergei Galunenko (currently based in Tallinn), who has performed at numerous prestigious Russian events and collaborated on projects internationally in a career spanning more than 15 years, with a discography to match, turning his attention to myriad styles: IDM, funk, techno, juke, post rock, beatboxing, free improvisation, drone.

“In my project, Galun, I do not use musical instruments,” he explains. “All the sounds are produced with only the use of my voice through beatbox and special vocal skills. Some effects are used to produce electronic sounds.” [NB Lately, Sergei has also been experimenting with synthesiser sounds and this album contains two electronic tracks - see below].

Hot on the heels of the new Golos album (out imminently via Berlin's One Instrument) plus a remix for US collaborator Alek Finn via Nevada's Mystery Circles label, Galunenko’s eighth studio album, Glagol (or Glagolь / Глаголь in Russian) is an ambient collection, recorded between 2013 and 2022. The title is an old Russian word which translates as ‘Speak’.

"This album consists of tracks written in different periods, so it turned out to be diverse," he says. "There are classic ambient tracks, as well as experimental ones in search of new possibilities for voice processing."

Why "glagol"? “Since the music on this album is 90 percent processed voice, it's a form of conversation for me," he reveals, “where I talk about my thoughts and mood, so speak music, while using my voice, is an amazing way of expressing.”

Five singles will be released on streaming platforms only, at intervals, over summer (starting 23.6.23), with the full album released on limited edition cassette, a series of three lathe cut EPs and digital, 25.8.23.

ARTIST’S NOTES FOR SINGLES:

1981 [out 23.6.23]
“One of the first tracks written after the Solitude album. The idea was to make a rhythmic ambient track, like techno without drums.”

Choral / Хорал [out 30.6.23]
“Conceived as a classic ambient. I sang a few notes, composed chords from them, then transposed some of the notes up and down an octave, plus processing.”

Quiescence (Grain Version) / Покой (Гранулярная Версия) [out 14.7.23]
“Came about by chance. I recorded a house track using my old recordings, and a good sample was chosen that combined harmony and bass. I placed this piece in the middle of the house composition, before the climax, and then began to play with the slowdown of the whole track with granular processing. It turned out that this sample sounded like a separate composition.”

Aurora (Feat. Alek Fin) / Аврора (Совместно с Алек Фин) [out 28.7.23
“I invited Alek Fin to record our second joint material. Usually I send my sketches, and he chooses what he likes and continues to refine them. So a little material was recorded, but we could not release it, and decided to disassemble it by compositions into our albums.”

Mirror (Synth Version) / Зеркало (Синтезаторная Версия) [out 11.8.23]
“This is the first composition that breaks my concept of this project (no synths). Here I use voice samples with virtual synths, and processing as always. The idea was to make a classic ambient track from VST instruments.”

https://glagol.netlify.app/contacts.html
https://www.discogs.com/artist/1930329-Галун

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