“This is an album on which craftsmanship and a dazzling, celestial futurism are gently and devastatingly melded. Light trickles through the record's every pore” David Stubbs, The Wire

“A strange album, yet a compelling one too. Music that is fresh! New! Exciting! Odd but great.” Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly

In the first of a series of reissues Sound Anatomy is psyched to issue the first digital release of Twinkle³’s debut album, originally released as a limited edition vinyl album on the ini itu label in 2009. (Twinkle³’s follow-up Debris in Lower Earth Orbit with Sidsel Endresen was released to critical acclaim on Cusp Editions in 2016 )

From the original press release:

“From the first sinuous tones, later augmented by a well-integrated mixture of acoustic instruments (shakuhachi, tremoloa, hang drum), analog sequencing, processing and Buchla Lightning infra-red wizardry, they sketch a (solar) system of their own, revolving around recurring themes, presented in various dispositions. At times nervous, lively, enthusiastically overactive (but never frenetic), evoking curious explorers still firmly rooted in melody and dubby basslines, they have the ability to switch off and to glide in an unexpectedly natural manner into more introspective, reflective and soulful moods, even sometimes venturing themselves into darker areas, where a sense of melancholy prevails. A journey from the flowing clear waters depicted in the cover (picture by Judith Goodman) to the dark still pool from the flip – and back.

Even though the comprehension of this album is quite immediate, the astonishing musicality, beauty and complexity of the work allows - and even asks for - repeated listenings. Something to file next to Mouse on Mars’ Iahora Tahiti for its freshness, and next to Ornette Colemans’ output for its intelligence of interplay, melody and rhythms. The band also cites the great King Sunny Ade, particularly his 70's output, as a real inspiration for this record, notably in the hawaiian guitar department, and in the use of the studio to enhance the spatial dimensions of rhythm.”

Some other reviews of the vinyl edition:

“A very unusual LP that occasionally stirs up references to organic electronic practitioners like Tape, or even Mouse On Mars, Let's Make A Solar System doesn't quite sound like anything else.” Boomkat

"Music that is brimming with life and light. In places it's almost dance music, some beat addict could add a drumline to these recordings and it could easily be a new album from Wibutee or Xploding Plastix. Without the drums however this still swoops and soars like a folk music for the most exotic of lands.” Ian Holloway, Wonderful Wooden Reasons

“Twinkle3 combine into a fluctuating musical entity not dissimilar to a solar corona, constantly brimming with light-filled energy, yet only occasionally releasing itself in volcanic outbursts. This intense metaphor may belie the quiet nature of the album, which always sounds as though someone were raising his finger to lips, careful not to rupture the gentle equilibrium.” Tobias Fischer, Tokafi

"The electroacoustic textures shimmer and the whole thing is so impeccably recorded that it's hard not to smile at the pure serotonin rush caused by wonderful bright synthetic sound.” Justin Wunsch, Dusted Magazine

“Scott's squealing and squiggling analogue synthesizers dart thither and yon as dubby bass lines etch out serpentine paths and Ross's Hawaiian tremoloa shifts the music to tropical locales (…) That Let's Make a Solar System proves to be an immediately accessible listen shouldn't be construed to mean the music's simple or unsophisticated. There's a plenitude of sounds in play at any given moment, and attending to the uncluttered interplay of the trio is one of the recording's major pleasures.” Textura

RICHARD SCOTT
Richard is an English free improvising musician and electroacoustic composer living in Berlin working with electronics including modular synthesizers and controllers such as the Buchla Thunder and Lightning. He has been composing and performing for over 25 years, recently working with Evan Parker, Jon Rose, Richard Barrett, Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Shelley Hirsch, Ute Wassermann, Axel Dörner, Audrey Chen, Frank Gratkowski and his own Lightning Ensemble. He studied free improvisation in the 1980s with John Stevens, saxophone with Elton Dean and Steve Lacy, and more recently electroacoustic composition with David Berezan and Ricardo Climent. He has had performed at many concerts in Europe and had several pieces featured at at the International Conference of Computer Music. He has released many albums, for example with Grutronic and Evan Parker for PSI records, “The Magnificence of Stereo” (sruti BOX), a series of duet and trio releases and a solo double modular synthesizer LP, “Several Circles. He is initiator of the Sines&Squares Festival in Manchester, and has curated several concert series in Berlin, including Basic Electricity, AUXXX and Sound Anatomy.
richard-scott.net
soundanatomy.bandcamp.com

DAVID ROSS
David Ross was born in 1967 in East London and lived and worked there until moving to rural Norfolk in 2016. He is a restless and eccentric artist who touches every instrument with his own unpredictable and disorientating sound.

David is a maker of bizarre electronics such as The Davestation, The Drosscilator, and is reportedly the only musician to have composed an album entirely using an analogue synthesizer built into a kettle. Alongside these devises, he also plays more conventional instruments such as Jew's Harp, Drums, Kalimba and Kantele.

He also drummed in the 90s cult band Kenny Process Team.

CLIVE BELL
Clive Bell is a musician, composer and writer with a specialist interest in the shakuhachi (Japanese flute), khene (Thai mouth organ) and other East Asian wind instruments.

He has travelled extensively in Japan (where he studied shakuhachi with the master Kohachiro Miyata), Thailand, Laos and Bali, researching music and meeting local practitioners. He joins koto and shamisen players to perform the Japanese classical repertoire.

He toured for over a decade with Jah Wobble, and has a substantial recording history as both a solo artist (his solo album, Shakuhachi: The Japanese Flute was reissued in 2005 by ARC Records) and as a composer for film, TV and theatrical productions (Complicite, Kazuko Hohki, IOU, Whalley Range Allstars). Jazz pianist Taeko Kunishima, Jaki Liebezeit, David Sylvian, David Toop, Jochen Irmler of Faust and Bill Laswell number among Clive Bell's collaborators.

He is based in Tottenham, London, and writes regularly for the music monthly The Wire. www.clivebell.co.uk