Kevin Tomkins

Music for an Unprepared Autoharp Kevin Tomkins

Kevin Tomkins is best known for his work in Whitehouse and his own group Sutcliffe Jugend, now called Sutcliffe No More. He also worked with Bodychoke, Inertia and Patient K. Most of his music has it's background in the power electronics scene that evolved in Great Britain around the label Come Organisation and the group Whitehouse. Power electronics is a style of noise music that typically consists of static, screeching waves of feedback, analogue synthesizers making sub-bass pulses or high frequency squealing sounds; with screamed and distorted vocals. The genre is noted for it's influence from industrial. It is generally atonal, like most noise music and also features a lack of conventional melodies or rhythms. To match it's sonic excess, power electronics relies heavily upon extreme thematic and visual content: whether in lyrics, album art, or live performance actions. For his solo work, Kevin sometimes uses a very different style to his group work. An autoharp or chord zither is a string instrument belonging to the zither family. It uses a series of bars individually configured to mute all strings other than those needed for the intended chord. This album's music was all generated on such an instrument and is totally different to Sutcliffe No More. It's roots lie in avantgarde music rather than noise, with rhythms and melodies generated on the instrument. It was edited from over 20 different recordings to present an album of stunning variety and beauty.