Professionally produced cassette in sea green translucent shell, with full colour printed card insert and clear plastic case. Designed by David Little.

Includes unlimited streaming of A Pocket Guide to Subterranea - Mysterious Caves of the British Isles via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

There are a few cassette copies left at:

daveclarkson.bandcamp.com

Dave Clarkson's fourth release for Linear Obsessional moves away from the coastal concerns of previous releases to explore the unique atmospheres of the UK's sonically rich underground. Six tracks recorded in unique caves, with no additional sounds to the orginal recordings but "Some left pure, some processed, some mangled, some untangled"
Released as a limited edition cassette and a download with PDF booklet of notes and images - "A Pocket Guide" enhances Clarkson's reputation as one of the most imaginative sonic pyschogeographers in the UK.

All sounds recorded on location. Some left pure, some processed, some mangled, some untangled. Instrumentation: Microphone and Logic Pro X / Sound Forge software

Composition, production and mastering by Dave Clarkson at Cavendish House studios during 2018.
Track verification, geological expertise and location safety and advice by Tim Fairs.

No persons were harmed in the recordings.



REVIEWS:

"Here's a new release by someone who has been regularly releasing new music; the last time was 'A Blue Guide To Shore Ghosts And Sea Mystery' (Vital Weekly 1117). This time his journey is not along coastal lines but going underground, into the world of caves. He recorded sounds in caves in Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Buckinghamshire, South Wales and Cornwall. The later being a sea cave.There is a pdf on the website that shows you these places and additional information (it is also part of the download). Back home he edited these recordings from these six places into six pieces; each piece using material only from that location. Some of the sounds are not treated at all while others are heavily treated, looped and edited. In 'Clear Well', the longest piece here, the looped sound becomes after a while a bit tedious. It has a rhythm-like feeling to it, but it doesn't work; the same goes for the looped voice in the second half of the track. The other five pieces are much better in that respect. The combination of treated sounds and those more pure versions work quite well here, with some spooky music in 'West Wycombe', the splashes of water in ' Church Cove', mixed with some very deep bass sounds, or the collated sounds of 'White Scar', going from very quiet, via birds sounds (inside a cave? Apparently) and ending with what seems a jackhammer. That sees a return in 'Blue John', which also ends on a rather noisy trail. throughout this is a most enjoyable trip down into the caves here, with the occasional miss".
Frans De Waard, VitalWeekly, 28 May 2019.

“Recent solo releases by Manchester’s Dave Clarkson have offered field recordings grouped by locale and/or type of environment. For his latest, he ventured into six caves, gathering sounds and adding nothing else to them. But these isn’t raw audio; Clarkson “processed, mangled, and untangled” the noises he captured, often chopping them up into loops and rhythms without diluting the organic quality of his sources. On “Blue John,” he transforms water lapping stones into a clanging industrial beat, while on “Church Cove” he turns a place rumored to hold paranormal phenomena into a bubbling soundscape. Often the noticeable presence of an editor can weaken field recordings, but Clarkson knows how to add energy to his discoveries, morphing them into glowing, hyper-real versions of themselves."
Mark Masters - Bandcamp Daily
daily.bandcamp.com/2019/06/03/best-experimental-music-on-bandcamp-may-2019

"This one starts off quietly, as if we're just in the middle of the woods listening to birds. It's somewhere between that place where birds and small animals live in the zoo, where you can go through and view them through the glass or these bird sound CDs my dad gave me so you can tell which bird sounds like which call. It's definitely relaxing as it feels like it is bringing us closer to nature. It gets quiet and then comes back with this huge gunshot type explosion.Notes come through like an electronic music box and there are still these sounds of nature behind it all. Another giant gong shot. A whoosh slowly forms as it begins to feel like the suspense is building. Another shot fired. Those little electronic tings persist and this has the makings of a film such as "Land of the Lost" but directed by Hitchcock. When you consider the title, it does feel like we are moving around in a cave somehow. Giant beats now come in and create a pounding rhythm. This culminates in some screeching and then the return of the birds. It's much louder now and there is a banging along with that background noise of being out in a crowd. The banging somehow turns into percussion and we have a great rhythm going now, where you would expect a steel drum dance to form in the middle of the sidewalk. A static mist is behind this as well. Quieter now, we get to a minimal place where there is chanting at first and then a ringing of chimes. Everything comes echoing through like footsteps in the hallway now. Words can be heard. We go into a mechanical rhythm now with beeping. Laser shots are fired now. This chopped up / distorted sound comes in next and this is electronic in all of the ways which you don't think of electronic music being made. It's like they have the recipe and are using different ingredients but it somehow still works. On the flip side we start with what sounds like bouncing words being repeated on a loop. An ohm drone comes in behind it to build. As this loop continues, the ambient drone which comes with it changes into different phases of suspense. It can begin to get a little bit sharper as well, somewhat screechy here behind this hypnotic loop. We eventually drop off into this glowing distortion which feels sharp like knives. A primal chanting comes through now with ambient waves and it feels like we could just be floating through space. It can also feel like we're drifting out to sea as this ringing comes in, much like you would find out in the ocean. Darker lasers now begin the next song and there are some higher pitched parts which make me think we're going off the rails on the crazy train and this is just electro-psychedelic now. Cymbal crashes enlarge the picture. It takes on this vibe like being hit with a raygun in a sci-fi film and then gets quieter, more to the dramatic side of things. A slow rumble builds. This really just becomes about those cymbals and then a slipping whirr comes through until it shifts to the flow of water. We're back in nature now, at a stream perhaps, but there is also a sound which wishes for us to beware of what trouble might be on the horizon. It begins to sound as if we're in the water now, some type of fight might be happening with an alien creature, but it is within the water as this can also take on this X-Files tone. As it reaches the end- all of these space, electronic sounds coming together in the water- it just sort of cuts off and I think that it's far better, based on what was heard prior to this on the cassette, for it to have done that than to have a long, drawn out ending. This will conjure up a lot of visuals in your mind so it is a trip worth taking".
Joshua Macala, Raised By Cassettes blog, 28 June 2019.

"After last year's 'Blue Guide To Shore Ghosts And Sea Mystery', Manchester-based field recorder/producer Clarkson moves inland where he explores the unique atmospheres of the UKs sonically rich underground. The six tracks on this longest album title of the year contender are composed using, in the main, untreated recordings from British caves. The use of the water pump to create the rhythm on 'White Scar' is exactly why artists like Clarkson are very welcome on these pages".
Neil Mason, Electronic Sound magazine, 12 July 2019.


BROADCASTS:

'Church Cove' on Reform Radio / Graham Massey & Sam Healey - 08 May 2019.
'Clear Well' on WFMU / Daniel Blumin (US) - 24 May 2019.
'Stoney Middleton' on Sonic Imperfections / Resonance FM - 27 May 2019.
‘Blue John’ on WFMU / (US) - 04 Jun 2019.
'White Scar' on WFMU / Radio Ravioli / (US) - 14 Jun 2019.
'White Scar' on WFMU / Mayuko (US) - 15 Jun 2019.
‘Church Cove’ on New New World / Shane Woolman (Wire) - 24 Jun 2019
‘West Wycombe’ on Space is the Place / Shaun Blezard (Cumbria, UK) - 02 Jul 2019.
'Blue John' on RadioFreeMidwich / Rob Hayler - 25 Jul 2019.
‘Stoney Middleton’ on RadioFreeMatlock / Lippy Kid - 03 Dec 2019.
'White Scar' on The Tone Shift / LooseFM - 08 May 2022
'Stoney Middleton' on The Freak Zone / Stuart Maconie (BBC 6Music) - 15 May 2022