Tremble With Joy is a new collaboration between Cinder (Cindytalk), Michael Anderson (Drekka), Mark Trecka, and Michael Carlson (remst8). Their debut, >Born Trembling<, comprises two longform, complementary experimental compositions.

>Born Trembling< is the first in a series of limited edition CD releases from False Walls: 300 copies each, including visual artwork by David Caines and letterpress packaging by Hellbox Letter Foundry (Kent, UK).

This is the second release by Cindytalk on False Walls, following Subterminal (2022).


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Emerging intuitively and somewhat mysteriously, in fits and starts, throughout 2020 and 2021, the material that would become Tremble With Joy’s debut recording, >Born Trembling<, was handled a bit like an exquisite corpse. Mark Trecka’s stretched and stranged piano and cassette experiments were passed to Drekka’s Mkl Anderson to be manipulated and redrawn during a six hour live performance at Sint-Baafsabdij Abbey, Ghent, which was recorded and sent on to remst8’s Michael Carlson for further altering.
 
“One night in 2020,” Anderson says, “I was listening to the track and had a vision of Cinder adding to it. I sent it to her and with that, this project was born.” Those initial experimentations were largely shaped by Cinder, becoming ‘Where We Are Is Here’ [the first track]. Anderson says, “’Our Birds Live Fraught With Danger’ [the second track] began similarly, using Trecka’s recordings of prepared piano cassette loops, which I manipulated and sent to Carlson, then to Cinder.”
 
>Born Trembling< is a spectral sort of collaboration. “In the earliest, hypothetical stages of this project, I passed a recording of mangled harmonium cassette loops to Drekka,” Trecka says. “This is from a series of recordings called ‘Trembling work’ that I’ve since used extensively elsewhere. The truth is that I have no idea –– and can only guess –– whether this phrase somehow became the name of the project, as we never discussed it and I think never will.” 
 
Congruent with the exquisite corpse dream logic of the project as a whole, excerpts and vignettes from the total recording were shared while in progress as unannounced and often unnamed flashes throughout 2021 and 2022, e.g. as part of Radio Alhara’s Sonic Liberation Front, and in mixes on various radio broadcasts.
 
Mkl Anderson says: “I first became a fan of Cindytalk in the mid-80s, when I heard In This World at the college radio station I was DJing at. I became friends with Cinder in the early 90s and have always felt a kinship of spirit and intent to manifest the present and future.” Following the process outlined above, “the final outcome was shared with False Walls, who had recently released Cindytalk’s Subterminal, and who were initiating a new limited edition letterpress series …”


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— Cindytalk:
“Cindytalk are pushing the boundaries of what music can be, reinventing and pursuing sonic possibilities, combining the actuality of the world with the imaginary and hallucinatory to create a magical, intriguing four-part work.”
— International Times, review of Subterminal (False Walls, 2022)

Cinder has been Cindytalk’s sole constant member since they started in the early 1980s. A series of band albums from Camouflage Heart (1984) to Wappinschaw (1995) saw the group develop an often uncompromisingly dark, intense and poetic body of work; DAIS Records (USA) are currently reissuing those albums. Since 1995, Cindytalk has continued in both group and solo form, across live performance and recordings. During this period, Cindytalk increasingly embraced improvisation in live settings and electronic work through recordings. A series of solo and predominantly electronic albums on the Editions Mego label, from 2009 to 2016, saw another formidable body of work developed. Most recently, Subterminal was released on False Walls in 2022, and Cinder continues to perform live as Cindytalk (group/solo) and Becoming /// Animal (with Massimo Pupillo).

— Drekka:
“Drekka's latest set of rolling drones displays Michael Anderson's deft control of sonic texture.”  — Marc Masters for Bandcamp Experimental Highlights selection / "Beings of ImberIndus" (2019, Somnimage)


Working under the name Drekka since 1996, composer Michael Anderson has toured, traveled, and collaborated extensively; collecting memories and building a personalized archive of sound that dates back to the mid-1980s. Their singular and very personal work owes something to the soundscapes and non-linear impressionism of Cindytalk or Coil, the industrial gravity of Einstürzende Neubauten or Hafler Trio, and the cinematic collaborations of Edward Artemiev/Andrei Tarkovsky or Simon Fisher Turner/Derek Jarman. Throughout years of performing and recording, Drekka has explored early industrial tape culture, fragile bedroom noise-folk, and expansive cinematic textures.

— Mark Trecka:
Mark Trecka is a Paris-based singer, sound artist, and writer. Fool Signals is his latest full-length recording and features collaborations with Midwife, Evan Hydzik, and An Heap. This was preceded by The Bloom of Performance which was praised by PopMatters as “the work of an artist who is forging a unique path”, while his 2021 release Implication was selected as among Bandcamp’s Best Experimental Music, where Marc Masters called it "intriguing,” noting its “memory drenched aura.” In addition to recorded music, performance, and writing, Trecka has been active in broadcast experiments, working with Raven Chacon's Radio Coyote, and is a resident artist with Radio Alhara.
 
— remst8:
remst8 is an experimental computer musician who began exploring sound in the early 90s, using tracker programs on his Amiga 500 and later a PC to create soundtracks for his friends’ creations (computer games and an independent film). Following a 7 year hiatus to focus on his software engineering career, remst8 returned to tracking music. Rather than aiming for a particular genre, remst8 prefers to follow the sounds where they take him, informed and inspired by the eclectic styles of music he listens to. Recently, remst8's explorations have focused on deep drone and dark ambient tracks with a smattering of noise and experimentation.


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Mmmusic & Cantraip:
M.Anderson, M.Carlson, M.Trecka (USA)
Cinder (Scotland)
 
Mastered: James Plotkin
Artwork and design: David Caines
Letterpress: Hellbox Letter Foundry

Packaging: letterpress CD sleeve; two letterpress 4-panel inserts; CD


CDs ordered from False Walls and Bandcamp are mailed from the UK. CDs can also be ordered direct from Michael Anderson / Drekka in the USA: [email protected]