Holmes + atten Ash / Saturnian
The moons of Saturn are the inspiration for this brooding, often soaring and searching odyssey of dark electronica.
The second largest planet in the solar system after Jupiter, and the sixth planet from the sun, Saturn is orbited by 53 confirmed moons, with another 29 that are unnamed and still being studied.
Saturnian is a suite of thirteen choral tracks taking their names from some of Saturn’s known moons; Dione, Daphnis, Phoebe, Prometheus, Rhea, Janus, Titan, Enceladus, Tethys, Telesto, Mimas, Hyperion and Iapetus, all named after figures from Greek and Roman mythology, each loaded with their own turbulent back stories. It is the debut release by Holmes + atten Ash, written, recorded and produced remotely in Edinburgh and Bristol by the duo Simon Holmes and Paul Nash.
“The soft background textures and gently unfolding melodies of ‘Daphnis’ carry an inquisitiveness and beguiling sense of vast, unknowable mystery, while ‘Phoebe’ centres itself in nature through birdsong samples, its tentative synth pulse sounding like a damaged broadcast from a ruined Earth. Ruminative and thought-provoking.”
The cover of ‘Saturnian’ features robot drawings by Simon Kirby and artist/designer Tommy Perman has created this series of video clips incorporating Simon’s work. Tommy explains…
“The artwork for ‘Saturnian’ was made by Simon Kirby and his robot drawing machine. It features intricate line drawings – visualisations of NASA sound recordings captured around Saturn and its moons. Simon and I decided to collaborate on some videos to accompany Holmes and Atten Ash’s music.
Simon set his drawings in motion through a series of beautiful undulating digital-animations. I took these animations and projected them onto a range of different surfaces inspired by the music, the moons and the Greek myths that gave them their names. ‘Saturnian’ not only soundtracks the imagined environments of moons orbiting a distant planet but also seeks to address themes of ecological crisis on our own world. I chose a selection of materials both natural and human-made to reflect this – bamboo, copper, fabrics, ice, plastic, rock, rubber, wood and water.”
“Sharing its name with a moon and a mythic figure, each track on ‘Saturnian’ makes connections through space and time. Individual listeners may choose to pursue those trajectories, within and beyond the music, or they may prefer simply to savour the persistent air of mystery and sense of cosmic drama that Holmes + atten Ash have caught so effectively in these compositions.”
Opening with the glistening, hopeful brightness of Dione, increasingly urgent rhythms give way to digital, otherworldly calls from what might be rainforest creatures chirping into life with robotic squawks and delicate keyboard lines on Phoebe, followed by slowed down, monastic song on Rhea. Tethys is a hypnotic blur of synthesiser and soft chanting, while Rhea is a mysterious, echoing chasm, lifted by melodic, gentle male vocals. Janus has a glowing, effervescent energy, swiftly followed by a sense of tension on Titan, which throbs with driving percussive unease.
The album artwork is a pencil drawing created by Edinburgh artist Simon Kirby. It was made by a robot drawing machine, using custom algorithms that bring to life recordings of the sound of magnetic waves near Saturn’s icy moon, Enceladus. The lines in the centre of the drawing are distorted by sound captured by the Cassini spacecraft which studied Saturn for over a decade.
