Weekly Weird: Composer William Carkeet releases organ meditations from an abandoned Primark
When you last went to Primark, can you remember what music was soundtracking your shopping spree? I’d hazard a guess that their tannoys were blasting inoffensive top 40 pop hits, accompanied by the occasional customer announcements.
What they don’t tend to broadcast are meditative solo organ compositions that evoke feelings of decay and solitude, probably because succumbing to your capitalist urges is already enough of a disorienting sensation to experience, but if you were to find yourself visiting their former store on Margate High Street, this is what you might find playing.
Between the dilapidated columns and under the imagined glow of the dysfunctional strip lighting sits composer William Carkeet, gently pressing down on the keys of his instrument to conjure up a soundscape befitting of the decrepit environment of his local abandoned retailer. His latest EP, prmrk, released via experimental label Spinny Nights, is a collection of five ambient mood pieces composed and recorded under the roof of what once stood as a giant of commerce, and now sits empty as a result of the demise of high street consumerism.
Best known as one half of the noir-pop duo Robbie & Mona, and recently having worked as an assistant to Jerskin Fendrix on the soundtrack for Yorgos Lanthimos’ upcoming film, Bugonia, Carkeet is no stranger to working with sound as a vehicle for creating abstract environments, but this release sees him tap into an area that feels remarkably separate from his previous ventures. Far from being a record that the creator wants you to listen to in the background, prmrk is an immersive experience that Carkeet wants you to be pulled into.
From a compositional point of view, these recordings are simplistic to the point of appearing off the cuff, as though someone was discovering the organ in this setting and simply toying with the sonics of the environment. This way, it became easier for Carkeet to then tinker with the recordings, placing deliberate audio artefacts over the top to symbolise the decay of his surroundings.
As these churning sounds begin to devolve and resonate more within the barren space, things take on an eerier tone, and the listener becomes more aware of how the thuds of footsteps, slamming of doors and clicking of keys and stops are emanating from a place that is completely devoid of life. No longer is the shop floor abuzz with fast fashion seekers; it’s been stripped of all the slivers of personality it once had, and we’re left to grieve over these funereal compositions for a dead chain store.
Alongside the five original compositions, simply titled ‘organ 1’ through ‘organ 5’, the CD version of prmrk comes with a DIY reverb plugin that enables users to digitally explore the same room that the EP was recorded in using a frequency sweep. When inserted into a digital audio workstation using the instructions printed on the front of the CD, this impulse response can recreate the same frequencies found in the derelict room.
Whether intentional or not, prmrk makes us consider the futility of our relationship with consumer culture, ringing out a death knell for a shop that was visited by many, yet celebrated by few. Primark is treated as something of a commodity on the high street, so no matter how many customers they get through the door, their practices have always made their existence unsustainable, and like Carkeet’s soundscapes, they end up crumbling away into nothingness.
