Name: absent origin
Brand: Mira Calix

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

WARPLP341

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Colour

Black

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: Yes

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

With Printed Inners and Printed Insert.

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Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2021-11-05

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

PIAS

Tax rate GB

Standard:20

UPC / Barcode

0801061034115

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Total Cap

2 / Extended format: No / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No / black

WARPCD341

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Download code: No

4pp Digipak with 8 Page Booklet

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0801061034122

{"blocks": [{"data": {"text": "0801061034122"}, "type": "paragraph"}]}

1 / CD / Extended format: No / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

Artist

Mira Calix

Genre GB

Electronic

Label GB

Warp

Mira Calix (born October 28, 1969, Durban, South Africa – died March 25, 2022, Bedford, England) was an electronic musician and sound artist. Born and raised in South Africa, she moved to London in 1991. She promoted the Telepathic Fish parties and was a publicist at Warp Records from 1994 to 1997.

Calix had several releases on Warp Records and collaborated with various artists. She also created music for installations, sound sculptures, and worked with opera and theatre companies such as Opera North and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Throughout her career, *Mira Calix* made significant contributions to the electronic music scene. Her unique style drew inspiration from genres like IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) while pushing boundaries with experimental sounds. With a diverse body of work spanning across different mediums, *Calix* left an indelible mark on the art world.

Warp is a British electronic label founded by Steve Beckett, Rob Mitchell (RIP 2001), and Robert Gordon. It is one of the world's most respected and influential electronic/experimental dance labels. Originally based in Sheffield, UK, Warp later moved to London. They are known for their pioneering digital music sales site Bleep.com, which offered high-quality MP3s for sale along with exclusive tracks and rarities. Warp has several related labels including Warp Records Limited, Warp Music Publishing, Lex Records, Arcola, LuckyMe, and Night Slugs. The label's history is documented in the book "Warp" by Rob Young.

In terms of releases, there are some gaps and unreleased albums/singles within the cat#s. For example, WARP 13/WARP 99/WARP 113 have no releases; WARP 93 is an unreleased album by Priest; WARP 109 is an unreleased album by Squarepusher; WARP 118 is an unreleased album by Chris Morris. There are also some interesting facts about certain singles such as WAP 13 being supposedly unreleased but some copies of WARP LP 1 were pressed with this cat#. Additionally, WAP 85 was intended for Jimi Tenor's "[m=43418]" but ended up being released by Rough Trade Germany without a Warp cat#. 

It's worth noting that many Warp releases were licensed to

absent origin is the latest album by multi-disciplinary artist Mira Calix via Warp Records. After periods when many things break down, new things need to be made from fragments. absent origin uses the process of collage to make sense of such fragments. Burrowed deep in rolling hills of books and magazines of her source material, Mira Calix’s studio took shape of a Scandi-Noir detectives office but in place of suspect is Calix herself cut and pasted into the artworks that circle this album. Immersing herself into the history of collage, she researched the various processes applied by artists, as well as the medium's history in relation to the 20th century and political upheaval. Every song on the album was created by applying a different collage process relating to a different visual artist, spanning the history of collage to contemporaries of the practice.

The sonic materials are subjected to a myriad of processes; layered, synthesised, constructed and assembled into electronic melodies, textures and complex, frisky dance rhythms that are constantly shifting in surprising ways. absent origin employs collage to make sense of the current moment of displaced voices, disjunction and political unrest. On mark of resistance the collage works of Hannah Wilke have been used as inspiration; Wilke’s work is known for exploring feminist issues and aesthetics which is a fitting source of power and solidarity for the first female signee to Warp. The shredding and recreating continues on silence is silver where Matisse’s later works are referenced and on Gargle (command V) Hannah Höch’s pioneering collage form techniques can be heard as Calix draws our attention back to the present chaos of politics and media. Syncopated and manipulated voices of rap, poetry and found sound jitter through like Jenga, fractions fractured factions and Gargle. 

Although an album of sonic splinters, the consistent form is a stance on changing society for the better through art - an ethos she shares with her muses. Calix’s recording sessions are from all over the world are the many fragments we hear across the record; from India to Tasmania, Jordan to Belgium, China to Uganda, her former home of South Africa, to her current home in Britain. Slicing into these are further recordings of vocalists, percussionists, choirs, orchestras, quartets and soloists, never appearing in the form in which they were originally intended. The record is a polyphony of predominantly diverse female voices held together by pulsating baselines, haunting electronic sounds and orchestrated melodies and with them, we travel. As we travel, we glimpse artifacts, as if from the train window; a familiar voice, an image we once knew, but by the time we are able to focus it is long gone. The album fizzes with a political energy and the interconnectedness of everything. At this moment in time, there is an impossibility of separating one thing from another; the effect is strange and not exactly reassuring. Collage suggests infinite possibilities and each track here is a singularly unique compositional combine, a dizzying hall of mirrors with its own unlikely harmony, it’s own distinctive rhythm. On absent origin, collage becomes the tool to make sense of a present that is often anything but.