Throwing Snow draws inspiration from Jackson Pollock on circular new album Embers

Double LP cut to be mixed seamlessly on two turntables.

Throwing Snow’s new album for Houndstooth Embers revels in repeating patterns. Inspired by a fractal view of the natural world and the circular reality of life and death, Ross Tones has created a record that at every stage attempts to fit into this cycle.

“Art is often an attempt to capture, solidify, use or derive meaning from nature,” he explains. “Different artists draw influence from natural patterns in a variety of ways. Jackson Pollack, for instance, used paint and splatter techniques to allude to the natural chaos of life, yet holding on to its structure.”

But where the father of abstract expressionism and one of the defining heavyweight artists of the 20th century harnessed the energy inherent in his own body to create his drip paintings, Tones created artwork for the LP from the movement inherent in the music itself. “The artwork is an interpretive score of the tracks, using art to describe the cycles of life and death of the tracks within the album,” he says. “The ‘score’ is a circle because is shows how the start and the end form an ever repeating loop.”

It’s a loop anyone with a pair of turntables can recreate at home too, with the record cut in such a way as to allow you to mix the whole suite seamlessly. A record that ends as it begins, Tones’ concept is complete – from ashes to ashes, dust to dust, “from the embers of death can be born life afresh.”

Embers is out now via Houndstooth, order your copy and check out a few pics of the vinyl edition below.