from 'the list' may 12th 2005

colditz
people like diagrams
4/5

available as a free download from colditz's label sites or
his own page (www.colditzmusic.com), all he asks is that
recipients return the favour with any of the items on his
wish list. Like book tokens, a hand blender, a plane ticket
to new zealand.
for those fed up with waiting for boards of canada to return
and seeking a replacement mellow electronicist of choice,
they could do a lot worse check out the mysterious mr.
colditz. he doesn't so much write songs as collate swathes
of found sounds, gorgeous electronic drones and occasional
session music into gorgeous, blissed out nocturnal
soundtracks like 'the galaxy' and 'how to stop counting'.
It's understated yet rather lovely, so how much are those
plane tickets?
(dave pollock)




from 'www.whitenoise02.co.uk' 2005

A lazy reviewer might be tempted to get away with just listing all the music People Like Diagrams appears to resemble or be influenced by. But to do that would miss the point of Glasgow sound artist Colditz(aka James Chapman)Õs exquisitely crafted set of miniatures.

Chapman utilises sparing instrumentation and simple techniques (looped samples, repeated motifs) carefully interlocked and layered, like the movement of a watch, to build complex, engaging pieces. ThereÕs a sense of both automation and independent life about these works that makes them compelling and quite addictive.

There are stuttering, mechanical repetitions and wheezing, organic melodies. Repeated figures are built up with layers of drones, accompanied by lead instruments; harmonium, cello, trumpet. Sad tunes, reminiscent of old sea shanties, float to the surface through pulsing systems music. Samples loop and repeat on themselves recursively while layers of shimmering guitars echo into the distance.

Pieces like The Galaxy, with its shuffling brushes and delicate piano figure, are like entire worlds rendered in miniature, others sound like the product of improvisation. Untitled uses just accordion pulses and rhythmic guitar picking. Like an exercise to see where you get just by pressing strings and keys.

People Like Diagrams most obvious predecessors are the Meccano robots of Pierre BastienÕs Mecanoid. Both discs capture a peculiar melancholy, as if the automata of a long gone fairground have started up and play by themselves, for no audience.

Where Bastien plays in real time with his automata, Colditz adopts samples and multi-tracking to achieve his ends. This has some interesting results on Psycopation where sampled electronic hum is punctuated by the repeated carriage return ring of a manual typewriter. A muted trumpet plays a melancholy theme before giving way to a tapestry of quiet, percussive samples and a delicate piano motif.

But sounding like automata is not the only trick in ColditzÕs book. On the title track, the samples and effects are underpinned by spacious live drumming which lends it the sort of spacey, Ôpost rockÕ feel of bands like Do Make Say Think. The disc finishes with 3 Up Left, a crafty collage of field recordings in the spirit of CageÕs 4.33 (it also happens to be 4.39). First impressions are that this is a straight live recording however, repetitions start to creep in; a distant car horn; birdsong; the ambience of what sounds like a rainforest. It soon becomes clear that this is just as sophisticated a piece of music as anything else on the album.

People Like Diagrams manages to be experimental and accessible in equal measure. It is minimalist music with heart and soul, crafted with wit and imagination. Colditz creates beautiful worlds out of tiny sounds.

(scott)




'that was.....colditz' - verity sharp, radio 3



'a musical revelation' - mixing it




metro march 5 2003

welcome to the kerrazy world of minimalist music oblique. you'll
find it just behind the fridge, glowing gently, emitting strange fractal
mutterings that bear only the most tenuous resemblance to music
as your mother knows it. don't be afraid to pick it up.
an amorphous clutter of ambient tinklings and abstract jots, 'we
are animals', the debut creeping bent release from lancashire born,
glasgow based sound gypsy colditz, is often irritatingly intangible
yet periodically rather lovely.
superficially redolent of fourtet and bill wells's more esoteric work,
it makes absolutely no concession towards general accessibility,
which is just the way colditz likes it. 'i just got really tired of what i
was hearing, so i decided to make the sounds i wanted to hear'
explains the affable daniel kitson-alike. but his music isn't as random
as you might imagine - apparently. 'the most important thing to me is
the composition. basically i take a shape i find interesting and fill it in
with sounds. the sounds are the texture filling out the shape. about half is
improvised. sometimes i record the drums first and use that as a stencil
and then see what happens. i don't want to get tied down to one way of
working.'
not for all tastes, certainly but all the better for it.

paul whitelaw




eclectica
colditz
we are animals
4/5

already a radio 3 favourite, the curiously named colditz burble and gurgle
through the undergrowth like nursery rhyme impressionists floating on
quicksand. school assembly piano punctuated by junkyard horns and
'tom and jerry' cello, all smothered by marshmallow, create a slo-mo
skew-whiff folk music as 11 deleriously opaque little sketches of malicious
innocence leave enough wide-open spaces between tinkles to breath deep
on.
meanwhile, future pilot aka's sushil k dade wafts over to deconstruct a
pavement song. imagine a soundtrack to the mechanics of what goes on
inside ivor cutler's head and the most charmingly hypnotic experience is
guaranteed.

neil cooper - the list




4/5.....'a strangely comforting, altogether organic, cottonwool cloud burst
of a record' - the herald