Bianca Scout – Pattern Damage album, track-by-track
The blistering new album, in her own words
The Newcastle-born, South London-based dancer, musician and performer Bianca Scout – notable for her collaborations with Space Afrika, Klein, Coby Sey, Mica Levi, Ben Vince and Elena Isolini – has released a spellbinding new album, weaving a patchwork of narcotic vocals, blunted after-hours ambience and “chopped-n-screwed” sacred music.
“The name Pattern Damage flipped in my brain when I was thinking about people’s trauma and their patterns of behaviour,” Scout says. “It has a double meaning. It’s not just the pattern of damage that’s happened to you, the cycle of abuse; pattern damage can also mean the damage that you do to a cycle, to break the pattern.”
Here, she talks us through the album in her own words, track-by-track…
INTRO
This to me is the only track on the album that actually ‘sounds’ like ‘pattern damage’, heart machinery breaking down, the ether vibrating, the inner and outside selfs all conversing/breaking/pounding.
Its a section taken from a piece that was made for a installation, inspired by a scene in a ballet called ‘the entrance of the shades’ depicting a king after smoking some opium and all the ghosts of the woman he has killed come back to haunt him in a dream like mirage…
So to me this also resembles a kind of pattern damage.
FOREST SPIRIT
This track came about during a typical Bianca Scout procrastination evening ( when I often make alot of my music ) I played ocarina over some old ass beat from 2013…. some of the sounds were sourced from princess mononoke) which is one of my favorite films. this track was dormant for may years until Malik heard it and composed his lyrics to the song….its amazing now… his voice with the violin and the heart strings all together…. Listen to the lyrics and you will be able to get a sense of what this song is about ….
MIDNIGHT
I first got in touch with Mun Sing after hearing about Giant Swan from mutual friends . There was a humorous rapport between us when we met and soon after ended up collaborating.
It was a beautiful evening in 2018.. I was living in a strange room painted green ( I was in a new found spiritual era ) … working as a teaching assistant in a special education School; (We made 5 songs that evening, two are repurposed in”our hearts’ with Elena Isolini… I picked up a random book lying next to me which inspired some of the lyrical themes in the song… a book of poems by Penelope shuttle ….opening random pages; the words of which seemed to perfectly correspond to the overall feeling of the evening…what we ended with was this lullaby style folk song….seeing a producer renowned for more electronic based music playing guitar so beautifully was an unexpected treat.. and the song midnight was birthed out of this ambience that had accumulated between us.
As with a lot of my work; the meaning and imagery reveals itself after its creation.
Someone asked me what Midnight was about… to them it seemed to capture the recognition, appreciation and acknowledgment of a singular moment in a garden of meeting thoughts, feelings and ideas…Yes…and yet how long does midnight last? Its an idea , rather than an event, the voice is of a spirit… non human, ushering a sentiment, and offering, a gift. To spend time with someone, and investment into darkness…
INTERLUDE
Not much to say here, these are just the wished washed sound scape vocal wave debris of ableton sessions… that finally made its way to completion after a august in Scotland by the loch ness… the first vocals however where birthed because of a new vocal pedal I got in 2019… “behind,,,, my only …. To look up… to look inwards… oh my child … to look inwards’ a calling rhythm of me trying to understand something … to get out of oneself.. a bad habit… to comfort yourself out of self hatred, like you would a child.. to grow… allot more wise. “
CHANCES
I started making a ‘new’ album… it was 2019 I just moved to a new place in catofrd.
Its was 5am and I couldn’t sleep… that same 2019 autotune vocal message from interlude was still in my system… and on the spot I came up with the lyrics and melody to the song you hear as chances…
im kinda just doing a Britney.. and talking about the random heart pull of love. And how , sometimes being what u think of as in love is dangerous… and unhealthy… I think this makes some people uncomfortable.
At certain point I was dissatisfied with the direction the track was going as I felt that perhaps the initial essence of what I was trying to convey was being diluted and I think being confident in returning to that initial impetus to create and believing in your overall vision is what PATTERN DAMAGE really represents:
Unhealthy attachments.. needing to please, being untruthful to yourself and the rest …
DESERT
So this is quite funny that this song is on this record, as it was originally written and recorded by me and Martyn Reid for our duo Marina Zispin back in 2018. It was one of the very early tracks we made together in my dads attic during the inception of the group.
I was working at the arcades in Whitley bay at the time and was hanging out with Martyn a lot that summer…. we weren’t just sharing music , we were sharing ideas… and allot of our getting to know each other and forming the band marina zispin comes from this way of being with each other..
It made sense then that one day I showed him this peculiar dream I had… ( he was one of the few people at that time I felt comfortable enough to really show that inner world while I was still working it out ( and still am now )
I dont think I had ever heard Martyn sing before…. And I loved the way he pulled certain words and sentences from a very long and descriptive dream I had written and turned into a song built around a sparse beat while I twinkled on the keyboard playing this melody that works as a recurring riff that floats around.
LEAD US
Lead us was made with the intention of creating a score for the ballet that had been in the making during 2018-2020 just before lockdown.
The strings are sampled from Shostakovich’s piano concerto No 2, a piece of music that already holds so much in it. Theres a longing in the sound, ..the way it opens feels like we have walked into the aftermath of something…the actual emotional weight takes over your body, until the piano joins the strings and it turns into a comforting lullaby.
This is why I named the track Lead Us, like there is some invisible force, that is our guide. In terms of choreography, I would play with what that image is… the repetition of the movement being key, some sort of gesture of the arm, then falling back, then one step next and then another, working out with each step that you can and will move forward.
MY HEART IS LONELY (MONKS ORCHARD)
I remember watching The Sound Of Music so much when I was growing up… the songs really are part of my inner main frame… It never occurred to me until till just recently how much I resonate with the story arc of Maria, who leaves a nunnery and yet doesn’t give up her faith…she must be free to roam the hills, and laugh and dance and well you must know the rest. … So loneliness is not something to avoid… maybe I didn’t really want to admit that some part of me is lonely. Anyway, In 2019 , I was house sitting for a friend who lived on a street called Monks Orchard ….it was a beautiful lonesome escape, the freedom to make music at any point night or day. The sounds you hear in the second half of th4 song are all made from my loop pedal, building the voice… something spooky happened during the making of that song, I don’t think id ever be able to re create it, its just one of those happy accidents while looping your voice… and it doesn’t sound like a voice, sounds like a ancient piece of wind that was trapped in a shell. I added a little bit of guitar on it a week later and its this mix of creepy and sweet little song.
I feel like this is the most sound collage imagery, I see the river in catford, the grass but its not clear its all meshy, like when you zoom in super close in a camera.
PASSAGE
This was originally composed for the anchoress ballet. It samples Miserere Mei a medieval catholic hymn . I wanted to subvert the melodrama of self-hatred and shame contained in the words …this harmful idea of being born from sin and into sin. It was actually made on the same day as Lead Us and Anon’s song, these pieces share that same sense of high drama and emotional weight while still maintaining a sense of joy that comes from the act of creation. Unfettered creative expression itself can be an act of resistance to self denial.
This track was then remixed by NWAKKE further emphasising this idea of reapproriatiion and renewal that is central to the album.
ALMOST NOTHING
Again, originally composed for the anchoress ballet… I repurposed some old sounds I had on my harddrive… and looped a pitched down a sample from Magnificat by Claudio Monteverdi. Theres a theme of repetition that runs throughout the songs that were created from these sessions… a striving that arises out of something archaic. I think that’s the message in this album, looking at the pattern… changing the pattern. The damage of that pattern into a new damage to the pattern. This was piece that also served as another opportunity for Darkmarik to make an appearance on the album. We were creating some music for his movemennt piece “we happy but we broken” and this is what birthed out of that.
I PUT YOU DOWN TO SLEEP
Made around the same time as Desert in the same attic room in Whitley Bay but this time alone… one of the early songs I actually ‘wrote’ first, kinda like a folk song, all stemming from the words: I put you down to sleep… id given up on needing… … not wanting to sleep for fear of being haunted by someone in your dreams.
The keys are made on a old synth i used to play when the kids i was babysitting had gone to bed.
I like singing this song live because its not about anyone specific, and in a way I think of it as was my own contribution to the pantheon of love stories and songs with the classic theme of heartbreak.
ANONS SONG
The final forte on the album and the sound thst represents departure. It uses just one melody line from again Shostakovich’s piano concerto No 2,, that is used to make lead us,. Anon is the anonymous, leaving the courtroom … silently and unseen.. where she is headed is only known to her… her sister has gone missing, she knows there is deep corruption, and so will not feel bad to exit… as it would be even worse if she were to stay.