Atlum
Schema
Atlum Schema is the name given to the one-man project
written and produced by Andy Mort. The quest began in
June 2004 and the initial expedition took seven months
to complete. This was the production of the debut album,
The Final Scene, which was conceived and recorded in
its entirety, by Andy in solitude. The idea was to create
an album heavily influenced by sleep, dreaming and relentlessness,
with all three themes manifesting throughout the fourteen
songs over the fifty-five minutes. Also influenced by
‘that mish-mash of noise you get at bowling alleys’,
Andy set out to incorporate busy, mechanical drum loops
and sounds, to keep a haunting and industrious energy
threaded through the album as a way of presenting the
pre-sleep state of mind and thought you get during that
uber-conscious brain craze before unconsciousness takes
hold. The resultant sound is like that of someone trying
to get to sleep in a chalet, on the top of Mont Blanc,
with a bowling alley directly upstairs.
Atlum Schema is the latest in quite a substantial
number of musical projects that Andy has been involved
in. At times he fronts the band Aphron, he has collaborated
with Camp America and has played drums with and for
countless ventures ever since he was eight. Very much
a drummer at heart, one day Andy stood up and decided
that being on your feet is a better stance for performing.
He picked up a guitar, started writing and got involved
in his current band Aphron. After producing an EP
the band played a number of gigs around the Midlands
until they all started drifting to various ends of
the country, which made commitment to the cause fairly
unreliable. With this in mind, Andy started a solo
undertaking, just writing and recording a few tracks
that weren’t really suited to the band. He set
aside a year after school, when he was nineteen, to
concentrate on music, but with little idea of what
exactly concentrating on music actually meant. He
discovered what it meant when he realised in November
that he had almost created enough tracks to produce
an album. It was completed by January and he made
two hundred copies using a CD writer and a local printing
firm for as little sterling as possible. By August
the CDs had gone and so The Final Scene had to be
modified slightly and sent off to be manufactured
officially and is now available from http://cdbaby.com/atlumschema
for just $8/£5.
The first Atlum Schema live show was a support slot
with Exist and Leamington local heroes Post War Years
in June 2005 and is predominantly a one-man performance.
Vocal looping, beat boxing, guitar strumming and piano
bashing has been what you come to expect from a typical
Atlum Schema gig, as Andy relays the recorded material
in a very different and exciting way. He is hoping
to get a band together by the end of 2006 to play
some shows transmitting the full Atlum Schema Experience
to a wider audience.
Influences are from all over the shop and change
regularly, but Andy always finds Radiohead a reliable
place to return to when all else fails. Scandinavia
has been the origin of much of his recent musical
listening experience, with Sigur Ros, Mew and Royksopp
taking up a lot of aural attention. Bjork has evidently
been a growing influence throughout the progression
of Atlum Schema also, especially her haunting and
beautiful film, Dancer in The Dark. Martin Grech,
The Doors and The Postal Service all served as noted
inspirations for The Final Scene and Regina Spektor,
The Cinematic Underground and Thomas Newman have all
served as noted inspiration for life itself.
Website:
Myspace: www.myspace.com/theatlumschema
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