Fold – 10 Past Midnight

A decade on from our debut album, this EP reflects on ten years of resistance in sound and fighting to remain unsilenced

10 Past Midnight is a meta-celebration of our first album’s 10th anniversary, reflecting on where we stood then compared to now. It is probably fair to say that if people were desperate for meaningful change in 2015 then they’re even more desperate for it today. We chose November 2 for the release date as it’ll be 10 years to the day after our debut LP came out.

The EP’s title references our debut LP’s closing track Two Past Midnight, which is itself a quote from Fannie Lou Hamer who was referencing the Doomsday Clock. She meant that it was then well beyond the point when we should have taken action to save ourselves. Rather than two minutes to midnight it was two minutes past midnight, as it felt then, and now to us it feels at least 8 minutes later, metaphorically speaking.

The title track assembles a narrative solely from vocals that appeared across our debut LP, including newly restored archival speech samples. Voices include John Lennon, Malcolm X, Bruce Lee, Mr Gee, Fannie Lou Hamer, Kurt Vonnegut and Jimmy Carter. The underlying music was largely composed in 1998 on a beige Macintosh G3 and reimagined here 27 years later. Full marks if you spot the one chopped up music sample from another group. Bonus points for spotting the music samples from our own debut album that are also woven in both here and throughout the EP.

Narrative Control consists of another repurposed, previously unreleased relic from 2002 that’s now been fused with the incisive words of behavioural analyst Thomas Karat. He unpicks how our consent is manufactured through narrative control as it defines modern propaganda. The music was written & produced in the aftermath of 9/11—I was in living New York at the time—and reflects much of my own feelings at the time. Today has a similar feeling to me so it seemed appropriate to finally deploy.

Track 4 is a brand new remix of She, the final single from our debut LP campaign in collaboration with Brooklyn’s long lost ‘6% poet.’ Just to be even more meta, the music itself is actually a remix of Picture Perfect from our 2017 Written In the Sky EP featuring a horn section headed by Leeds genius Emma Johnson and the great Kieran O’Malley on strings. Special thanks to the NYPD for at least having iconic sirens.

The opener is a short piece graced by Bertrand Russell, also sporting a newly restored voice, with emphasis on hopes for peace. The effect of the cutting edge restoration techniques used on all the vocals across the EP is to make voices of the past feel almost unnervingly present at times.

The EP will only be available on Bandcamp and Ampwall and will include 4 bonus tracks that are the remaining previously unreleased instrumentals from the debut album, all newly mixed and mastered. We are not releasing music on any streaming platforms for the foreseeable future because we’re fed up with the broken models and unethical investments these platforms engage in, particularly Spotify. We refuse to chase the unfairly diminishing returns of streaming royalties or indirectly support the military-industrial complex. In time we will remove all of our music from these platforms, pending certain legal & logistical solutions.

Songs written, arranged, produced, mixed and mastered by Seth Mowshowitz. Performed by Fold along with those listed below.

Fold are Sam Hutchison (guitar), Seth Mowshowitz (keyboards, controllers), Jack Burgess-Hunt (bass) and Jimmy Child (drums).

Track 4:
Drums – Kane Rattray | Bass – Ben Walsh
Saxophones – Emma Johnson | Trumpet & Flugelhorn – Neil Morley | Trombone – Ron Christlow
Horn Arrangements – Emma Johnson | Violins – Kieran O’Malley

Tracks 5, 6, 7 & 8:
Drums – Kane Rattray | Bass – Ben Walsh | Guitars — Josh Gardziel. Recorded, engineered & co-produced by Ed Heaton at Eiger Studios, Leeds.

Tracks 5 & 8:
Brass – performed by Emma Johnson (tenor & baritone saxophone), Edward Ody (trumpet & flugelhorn) & Tom Smith
Brass arrangements – Emma Johnson