Tom Harding

CAPAC - ‘After Lights Out with Tom Harding’

‘After Lights Out with Tom Harding’ is a musical collaboration with the band Capac.

Available here at bandcamp.  

‘The two main forces behind the band, Gary Saloman and Stuart Cook, are stretched across Athens and Bristol these days, and this, their third album, finds them in an ambitious mood as ever.

Stuart happened to hear Palewell Press author Tom Harding’s reading of his poem Night Work on the KCRW podcast Nocturne and was inspired by the inherent musicality of both his delivery and the nocturnal scenes he depicts, which prompted him to contact the poet and propose the collaboration that led to this full length work. 

The result is ten tracks that explore the crossover possibilities in areas of sound including new music, minimalism, ambient/experimental electro-acoustic and, of course, Harding’s spoken word world, as Capac offer his poems an alternative and entirely new context to that of the original 2017 Palewell Press publication.

The poet’s voice is heard alongside the nuances of his recordings — his page- turns and breaths, the creak of his chair — in combination with contemporary extended piano techniques, modular synthesis, altered field recordings, tape manipulations, and the vocals of Capac’s Kate Smith, all recorded and produced in and between Athens, Greece, and Bristol, Liverpool and London, UK.

Read and interview with the Bob Fischer from the Haunted Generation Blog about the collaboration with Capac HERE >

Capac continue to explore unconventional physical release concepts as they did for Through the Dread Waste, for which the Deluxe Combustible Edition comes in the form of a wooden log with a metal plate embedded inside - the log must be burnt to gain access to bonus tracks and additional material.

After Lights Out comes in the form of a Matchbox Player and Candle. Embedded within the matchbox is a tiny MP3 player featuring the album plus one unique bonus track per unit; the listener is invited to light their candle and enjoy the album as it was conceived and produced by both Capac and Harding: at night in an otherwise dark room. Each physical package also includes a unique Polaroid photograph taken in Athens or Bristol of a night scene that references - overtly or otherwise - an aspect of one of the poems.’