148 x 210mm, 28 pages, risograph printed, staple bound, 2023

ZINE INCLUDES DIGITAL DOWNLOAD OF ALBUM

Optimo Music proudly presents Glasgow's Semispecific Ensemble, yet more incredible music from this city!

They say... "Semispecific Ensemble is a somewhat sprawling project that encompasses many passing interests, explorations and research. It exists as both a spontaneous live act and a painstaking studio practice. A collective celebration and a solitary obsession. An organic expression and a digital manipulation.

Live, I don't think we're ever really the same group twice - a constantly shifting line up of players and guests, a roaming pallet of styles, sounds and ever evolving intentions. Yes, there are some jazz and ambient elements but we're definitely not a jazz band or ambient act. Friends have described a "techno button", detonated at festival sets aimed at triggering fields of wild eyes and flailing bodies, but few DJs are likely to lend their full support (tip!).

Over time, like layer upon layer of scribbled Biro, these ongoing iterations gradually began to form a wider picture; a fragmented and sprawling universe that I thought was worth starting to capture and share."

Everyone Is Making It Up is our first full attempt to do that.

Recorded in one day as a series of improvisations in a hastily organised session between the waves of lockdown of 2020 then smelted and reformed through far-too-many hours of studio experimentation like some morphing primordial sonic goo. Over the course of the five pieces of music, four texts, one video and various artworks collected within the accompanying zine, Everyone Is Making It Up is messy and untamed, naïve, imprecise, short-sighted and long-winded but I am proud of it and hope you can give it a chance to lure you in to its world.

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