Unsound Intermission Album & Book Delayed Until 5th March 2021. Further Details Revealed.

For festivals, one of the challenges of 2020 has been transforming physical events – with their excitement and sense of community – into an online experience. With fragmented attention spans and an overload of Internet ‘content’, online festivals can feel even more ephemeral than their regular IRL version. This is why we decided to also create a component that is more lasting: the Unsound 2020 album and book are the final elements of this year’s program, intended as a response to the long months of pandemic and upheaval. 

For the Intermission album, artists have composed music, as well as made field recordings in forests, their backyard, an apartment and at protests; rather than a simple compilation, it’s intended as a time capsule of sorts, a multi-angled snapshot of this year. The book of essays intersects with the album, widening the response as authors tackle a range of subjects, using the tools of theory, memoir, fiction and poetry. By consciously connecting both the book and the album in one publication, the aim is to create an interdisciplinary work.

Both the book and album are still in production, due to unforeseen delays. The new release date for both will be at the beginning of March. We have also decided to release the album in a limited number on vinyl – more news on this soon.

Our deepest gratitude goes out to those who have already pre-ordered the book and album. Thank you for your patience and understanding. We will reach out to you in the meantime and offer some extras to thank you for your trust and patience.

As for further details, here’s the tracklisting and order for the album: 

Chris Watson - Unlocked

Bastarda - Aperte

Slater, Guðnadóttir, Grisey - Happy, Healthy, Safe

Weavings (Part 1)

Zosia Hołubowska & Julia Giertz - Community of Grieving (Part 1) 

Ben Frost - Ring of Fire

Lutto Lento - Good Morning Go Tears

Jlin X SOPHIE - JSLOIPNHIE

33EMYBW - The Room

Varg2™ & VTSS - VARGTSS2 (Miss Understanding)

Moor Mother & Geng - This Week (again)

Slikback - ZETSUBO

DeForrest Brown, Jr. & James Hoff - Project for Revolution in New York

Tim Hecker, Agata Harz & Katarzyna Smoluk - Demeter & Johannes' Song of Pandemia

Jana Winderen - re_Surge

And here’s the list of the authors and titles for the book, in the order in which they will appear:

Kristen Gallerneaux - Echomaking

J.T.Roane - Black Ecologies, Tidewater Virginia

Mat Schulz - Road To Nowhere: Tourism, Gentrification and COVID-19

Luke Turner - Nature Is Healing? Our Relationship With The Non-Human During COVID-19

Andrew Brooks - Five Propositions on Listening and Breath

Ayesha Hameed - The Variable

Sean Dockray, James Parker and Joel Stern - Machine Listening

Jace Clayton - That Singing Crowd

Jennifer Lucy Allan - Don’t Look Back: Nostalgia, Music and COVID-19

Philip Sherburne - Listening Through a Pandemic: How Confinement Taught Me To Hear Familiar Sounds With New Ears

Andy Battaglia - Falling Down on Turning Earth

S.J.Norman - Skin In The Game

Harmony Holiday - A Brief History of the Policing of Black Music 

Moor Mother - Endings

Dave Tompkins - It Takes a Cavitation of Millions

Gamall Awad - Beyond the Monoliths

Sylwia Chutnik - God, Honour, Homophobia

Olga Drenda - In/visibility: The Dynamics of Face Covers in Pandemic Conditions and Beyond

Jay Springett - Insufficient Tolkein 

Agata Pyzik - Touching, Seeing, Talking: On Self-isolating and Mental Disorders

Stephanie Phillips - Aural Escape: Finding Sound In The Midst of Procrastination

Ting Ding and De Forest Brown, Jr. - Edging the Glass Cliff: A Music Revenue Report in an Age of Diminishing Expectations

Steve Goodman - Listening to COVID-19: Audio Virology In The Age of Pandemic

Ewa Majewska - Everyone Is An Artist? Digital Intimacies In The Pandemic and Beyond

Armen Avenessian & HOMAR - The Post-pandemic Condition

If you would like to pre-purchase the book and album, you can do so via the Unsound online store.