The Squid's Ear Magazine


Hawkins, Chester: Apsis (Intangible Arts)

Recorded while on tour in Arizona, Denmark, and Sweden, experimental composer Chester Hawkins transforms keyboards, live loops, field recordings, synths, lapsteel, and music box into immersive and hallucinatory soundscapes, weaving tense, meditative, and otherworldly excursions that trace the shifting orbits of inner and outer space in vivid, exploratory detail.
 

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Chester Hawkins-AzzamBells MP019, keyboards, live loops & field recording treatments, synths, lapsteel guitar, drummer emulation programming, music box


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Cover and interior art: Intervention #3 (plate glass, acetate, gelatin, sky) by Hawkins 2024. Audio mastering by Vitória Régia Studios

Label: Intangible Arts
Catalog ID: IA032
Squidco Product Code: 36653

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2025
Country: USA
Packaging: Digipack - 3 panel

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Highlights of a recent tour recorded in Arizona, Denmark, and Sweden. Here, excerpts can be heard from performances recorded at Tucson's "Golden Saguaro" venue, Geiger's Aprilfest in Gothenburg, the artspace Amok in Aarhus, and the gloriously crypt-like UnderWerket in Copenhagen. These gigs were immersive, tense, meditative, and hallucinatory excursions into deepest inner-space. APSIS may be the final release under the Hawkins name, as a new project is bubbling up from .. somewhere .."-Intangible Arts



"Chester Hawkins is an American graphic designer and art director. Apsis is 6 tracks: 3 called "Perihelion" and 3 called "Aphelion". An Apsis is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. Perihelion is the point where a planet is closest to the Sun, while Aphelion is the point where it is farthest from the Sun. These tracks are highlights of a recent tour recorded in Arizona, Denmark, and Sweden. These tracks are immersive, tense, meditative, and hallucinatory excursions into deepest inner-space, or maybe it's outer space. AArbor"-KFJC


Cover and interior art: Intervention #3 (plate glass, acetate, gelatin, sky) by Hawkins 2024. Audio mastering by Vitória Régia Studios

Artist Biographies

"Chester Hawkins (Washington DC) has performed a wide range of experimental music since 1985. His most well-known project was BLUE SAUSAGE INFANT, being an exercise in musique concrète and loop-collage, which later expanded to embrace drone, krautrock, psychedelia, noise, and sonically intense live performances. After 28 years, the BSI project was retired and new works continue under his own name, crafting dynamic adventures in sound with a more focused and wholly electronic approach.

Hawkins has released music under the imprints Alrealon Musique, Zeromoon, and his own Intangible Arts. Past collaborators include Insect Factory, Violet, Tag Cloud, Haunted Toilet, Changes to Blind, New Carrollton, Lida Husik, and Stolen Government Binder Clip."

-Chester Hawkins 8/20/2025

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Track Listing:



1. Aphelion.1 9:30

2. Perihelion.1 5:01

3. Perihelion.2 5:49

4. Perihelion.3 7:30

5. Aphelion.2 11:53

6. Aphelion.3 5:29

Related Categories of Interest:


Electro-Acoustic
Organized Sound and Sample Based Music
Electronic Forms
Electronica
Piano & Keyboards
Solo Artist Recordings
Staff Picks & Recommended Items
New in Experimental & Electronic Music
Recent Releases and Best Sellers

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