[Cover photo credit to Marta Ruly]

Simon Fisher Turner has announced details of a new album for Mute, Instability of the Signal, that will be released on August 2, 2024 on limited edition vinyl and digitally.

The composer and musician has worked on and performed in underground music, film and art scenes since the ‘70s. The 13-track album features Fisher Turner singing for the first time in many years, accompanying compositions built from “tiny snippets of sound” along with piano, classical strings, a detuned Fender Telecaster and his collection of field recordings. 

The album’s opener, “Barefeet”, with its accompanying video by documentary filmmaker Sebastian Sharples is out now.

Instability of The Signal pulls together Fisher Turner’s sonic experimentation, including “Slivers, Sounds, Strings, and Singing.” His lyrics scramble cut-ups sourced from two of Harold Pinter’s poems, words from a book on the video work of Czech filmmakers Breda Beban and Hrvoje Horvatic, flashes of memories of riding buses in London, and cycling topless in jeans around the city.

The album is rooted in the sound space of a small studio, where Fisher Turner recorded with producer Francine Perry. The intimacy is mirrored in the album’s artwork, a photo of his regular collaborator and long-time friend, the filmmaker Isao Yamada, listening to the album for the first time. The album is also another document of Fisher Turner’s life and curiosity.

He shares:

I’m now a 69-year-old man and by hook or by crook, and some good luck, this album has turned into something which really sounds like me. I’m singing how I feel I truly sound; this time, I’m not hiding anything.