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We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

The Central Office of Information

by The Central Office Of Information

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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      £7 GBP

     

  • The Central Office Of Information CD
    Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    The Central Office of Information is presented as a sublime package. A misplaced communiqué from a shadowy department, the packaging playfully acknowledges the mystery inherent within the concept.

    With an incredibly strong logo and artwork from the hugely in demand Nick Taylor at Spectral Studio, the hand numbered CD is housed in an extravagant printed manilla string and washer envelope with concomitant faux-photocopied sheets, puzzling hand-stamped inserts and lost/recovered ephemera - all playing to idea that this is a glimpse of something fallen between the cracks that you shouldn’t have access to. No two copies are the same.

    It’s hugely effective and provides the ideal setting for Alex’s fantastically dry and knowing soundtrack.

    The package also includes a sticker, badge and download card.

    Includes unlimited streaming of The Central Office of Information via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • #RSDFillTheGap CD Bundle
    Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    A heavily discounted bundle of CDs for #RSDFillTheGap
    20 copies available.
    An Evening With The Home Current.
    The Central Office Of Information.
    LoFive - Geography Of The Abyss.
    Bargain.

    Includes unlimited streaming of The Central Office of Information via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

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Chemtrails 03:20
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about

Castles in Space presents a unique new album by Kent based artist, Alex Cargill who records as ‘The Central Office Of Information’.

Alex has been obsessed with electronic music since 1985, when he received a Casio PT-80 keyboard for his 10th birthday. A quick learner, he rapidly became an accomplished keyboard and guitar player and hugely inspired by eIectro and hip hop, he started to produce dancefloor-orientated techno, house, breakbeat, acid, drum n' bass, electronica, glitch, trip hop and dubstep, as well as some forays into ambient and dub - all initially on a Playstation - in 1999. This early material was produced under pseudonyms such as ‘Sonik Science' and 'Phatcamp' and was heavily influenced by the house music and rave culture that he’d grown up with. Receiving airplay on BBC Radio One from Rob Da Bank and JK & Joel between 2005 and 2007, he made regular DJ appearances at DiscoWhip events in Wiltshire, warming up the turntables for house DJ Brandon Block on several occasions. Around this time he also produced a piece of telephone 'hold' music for the green energy supplier, Good Energy.

Alex says, “Around 2005 / 2006 I started to become fascinated with woozy, experimental, psychedelic and dark ambient sounds. I decided to begin The Central Office Of Information as a separate project, focusing solely on making inventive shapes of witch house and hauntology.

The Central Office Of Information started to receive airplay on BBC Music Introducing on BBC Tees in 2018 - thanks to DJ / journalist and author Bob Fischer - and is still receiving regular airplay on his Saturday night show. He has also received regular airplay on the wonderful Kites And Pylons Radio Show, creating idents for the show and due to be hosting his own mix for them later in the year. He’s also just finished remixing a track for sensational Glasgow-based band Tomorrow Syndicate from their recent Citizen Input LP (Polytechnic Youth).

The name ‘The Central Office of Information’ is of course taken from the now-defunct government marketing and communications agency of the same name, which ran from 1946 - 2011 and was responsible for the infamous Public Information Films that ran from the 1960s until the 80s.

Using a combination of analog synths, analog drum machine, theremin, digital hardware, electric and acoustic guitar and a multitude of FX pedals and digital processing, Alex’s take on the whole “Hauntology” genre has developed into something slyly mischievous and is laced with a subtle irony. Alex again; “I love being able to lose myself for hours sculpting new and interesting sounds and textures or twisting and warping existing sounds into something fresh.”

And fresh it is. We are landed into a trance-like world where nothing is as it seems. Pockets of gas permeate the ether. Distant flying objects leak hallucinatory dream-chemicals into the microwaves as subversion and witchery bloom blood-red behind the patina of a broken normality.

Surface noise, radar blips and bad-headed science abound. Black propaganda from The Central Office of Information fogs our ability to navigate the confusion.

The Central Office Of Information is the culmination of years of work from Alex Cargill and it stands as a truly moderne entry into the field of warped British electronica. As they used to say in the seventies, "Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that they're not coming to get you".

credits

released September 27, 2019

Music by Alex Cargill
Mastered by Jez Butler at Boum, Bristol. boum.co.uk
Artwork by Nick Taylor at spectral-studio.co.uk

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The Central Office Of Information Sidcup, UK

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