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You Cannot Cheat the Muse

by Kuma

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  • Cassette + Digital Album

    Limited edition high quality cassette version of 'You Cannot Cheat the Muse' with 'cassingle’ O-card cover printed in full colour on smooth matt card material, and cassettes in recycled clear frosted shell case. Initial run of 20 copies.

    Includes unlimited streaming of You Cannot Cheat the Muse via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    edition of 20  7 remaining

      €9 EUR or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      €7 EUR  or more

     

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about

See Blue Audio: ambient / electronic / beatless / cinematic / downtempo / eclectic / introspective… Shade rather than light...

'You Cannot Cheat the Muse' – Kuma (SBA #040)

Travellers through the alternative electronic music scene with surely be acquainted with the name Kuma. For the fortieth release on See Blue Audio, the label's exploration of the outer reaches of ambience continues with 'You Cannot Cheat the Muse', an album from Kuma that draws on his myriad musical influences as he celebrates the mystical, the ceremonial and, at times, the transcendental power of the world that surrounds us all. This is a space where the zen and the cosmic collide and harmonise, and where new tools for living are created.

Bristol-born and Vancouver-based, Kuma has been destroying old worlds and building new ones for over two decades, stamping his curatorial fingerprint on the Canadian dance scene as a DJ, promoter, label owner and radio presenter. The long-running and respected weekly Art of Beatz show co-hosted with Motomasa on Vancouver’s Co-op Radio is the city’s home for electronic music of all shapes, sizes and speeds, everything from gentle ambience to tearin’ drum & bass and all points in-between.

Kuma has also established his credentials as a producer and remixer, and his most recent releases include albums on labels like Waxing Crescent Records, Fallen Moon Recordings, and Thomas Ragsdale’s Frosti and Soundtracking the Void imprints. Now it’s the turn of See Blue Audio, and his first release for the label is arguably his fullest statement of intent to date; this is Kuma sounding the only way he knows how.

"Cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to shortchange the Muse. It cannot be done. You can’t fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal." It was this quote from William S. Burroughs that led to the creation of 'You Cannot Cheat the Muse'. As a student of the Japanese tea ceremony, Kuma took up the act whilst living in Japan because it made art out of something everyday like the making and serving of tea. Now with this 11-track album, he's created a series of sonic overtures that rise and fall with everything we do.

Recorded at the Little Black Rain Cloud studio in Vancouver, the sound palette on 'You Cannot Cheat the Muse' is forever shifting. A series of improvised recordings based around his own vocal looping system were then chopped up and turned inside out. Tapes, synths, field recordings and the human voice are all intertwined into a series of rolling waves buffeted by orchestral overtones. Beatless soundscapes are underpinned by dub-infused pulses, and the influences of early alternative electronica can be heard trickling through. The curious and the eerie merge with the physical, the spiritual and the sometimes supernatural with the end result an ever-morphing array of musical structures designed for all things and all times.

It’s impossible to single out individual tracks on ‘You Cannot Cheat the Muse’; instead, this album demands to be listened to as a whole. It's a collection of music for making magic out of the mundane and making ritual out of anything you please. Put it on in the background and let the detail seep in ever so gently, or turn up the volume and transcend time. Whatever works for you.

'You Cannot Cheat the Muse' is also available in a limited edition cassette version.

Artwork and photography: Kuma.

credits

released November 18, 2022

All tracks written, produced and mixed by Kuma.

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all rights reserved

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about

Kuma Vancouver

Where to begin? A veteran bass slinger of over twenty years, Kuma has brought sounds across the dub-based spectrum to ear and asses from Sapporo to San Francisco. Recognized by the likes of BBC Radio 1's The Breezeblock and their infamous "Dubstep Warz" show and able to turn heads both on the dancefloor and in the sound-art field, his is not your average sound. ... more

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