MORC RECORDS
  • Home
  • Artists
    • Jessica Bailiff
    • Bingo Trappers
    • Boduf Songs
    • Matt Christensen
    • Circle Bros
    • Delphine Dora
    • Drekka
    • Hellvete
    • The Iditarod
    • Karina ESP
    • Lowered
    • Luster
    • Roxane Métayer
    • Annelies Monsere
    • Pefkin
    • The Puddle Parade
    • R.O.T.
    • Soccer Committee
    • Wouter van Veldhoven
    • Edgar Wappenhalter
  • Releases
    • Morc 87 - Pefkin/Roxane Métayer - split lp
    • Morc 86: Delphine Dora - Hymnes Apophattiques
    • Morc 85: Luster - Luster
    • Morc 84 - soccer Committee: Tell from the grass
    • Morc 83: Roxane Métayer: Eclipse des Ocelles
    • Morc 82: Bingo Trappers: Giddy Wishes
    • morc 81 - Pefkin: Celestial Navigations
    • Morc 80 - Lowered: Music for empty rooms
    • Morc 79: R.O.T. - Klein Eiland
    • Morc 78 - Matt Christensen / Circle Bros split lp
    • Morc 77 - Edgar Wappenhalter: s/t
    • Morc 66 - Jessica Bailiff/Boduf Songs: split 7"
    • Morc 46 - The Iditarod: Kleine
    • Morc 45 - Jessica Bailiff: Old Things
    • Morc 44 - Soccer Committee: sC
    • Morc 32: morc zine
    • Morc 16 - cardcarrying supporters of romance
  • Store
  • Morc fm
  • contact
    • Live

Pefkin: Celestial Navigations
morc 81 - lp

Picture
track listing:
A1. Celestial Navigations 
A2. Tulungusaq 
A3. Numenius Borealis 
B1. I am John Rae 
B2. Aurora Borealis 
released february 25th 2020
ltd to 150 copies

--> sold out! <--


Gayle’s third lp on morc truely brings together everything we like so much about her work:a mesmerising and enigmatic layering of vocals, violin, analogue synth, zither, psaltery, harp, guitar, found objects and field recordings, all blending together into slowly-unfolding, ritualistic hymnals that draw heavily on the landscape and natural world 
 
In 2018 Gayle was asked to play at the Øy Festival on Papa Westray with a brief linking islanders to space exploration. These 5 tracks are the result. 

The opener and title track describes a past method of navigation across the seas using a sextant to read the stars and plot a course. It features Gayle's fellow Celestial Navigator from Electroscope on VCS3 and Revox A77 tape recorder - John Cavanagh. 

The other 4 songs are loosely focused on Arctic exploration, in particular the Orkney-born explorer John Rae who discovered the fate of Lord Franklin and inadvertently the North West Passage. Alan Davidson of the Kitchen Cynics plays some magnificent psych guitar on 'I Am John Rae'. 
It wouldn't be a Pefkin album without birds, and 'Tulungusaq', a dreamy slice of psych pop, is based on an Inuit creation myth about the crow. 

Finally, both sides close out located firmly in frozen far north. 'Numenius Borealis' is the scientific name for Eskimo Curlew which made the Arctic tundra its summer home and was hunted into (probable) extinction. The only photograph taken of this beautiful species of wader was in 1962 in Galveston. 
​
Gayle met Stromness-based metalworker Fiona Sanderson on Papay, who lent her Aeolian Chimes, a sculpture created from a handthrown copper bowl and grandfather clock chimes. This beautiful creation features throughout the album, most prominently on 'Aurora Borealis'.