Alexander Tucker & Keith Collins - Fifth Continent

Alexander Tucker has announced details of a new album, Fifth Continent, a posthumous collaboration with Keith Collins (1966-2018).
The album, which pays homage to Keith Collins, his partner and collaborator Derek Jarman (1942-1994), and the Kentish headland, Dungeness – will be released on Subtext Recordings on February 24th, 2023.

An accompanying anthology, Fifth Quarter, will be published on the same day. The book will collate new and archive work by artists, photographers and writers reflecting on Collins, Jarman, one of England’s most unique landscapes, Dungeness and Prospect Cottage, their former home and sanctuary.

The first single 'In Smiling In Slow Motion' directly confronts Collins' reflections on Jarman and his work. Collins' voice is subtly mutated by Tucker's delicate granular processes, taking centre stage in front of environmental recordings and a poignant ticking clock, recorded in Prospect Cottage.

The album’s genesis came from a chance meeting in Dungeness. Tucker was visiting his parents, who moved there in 1997, and while out beachcombing he met Collins and the two became friends. Tucker was already a fan of the work of the British artist, activist and filmmaker Derek Jarman, having been alerted to him by an art teacher at school, and Collins would invite Tucker to Prospect Cottage. Over time casual chats between Collins and Tucker developed into bigger ideas. In 2014, the two collaborated on ‘Between The Ears: More Than A Desert’ for the BBC, splicing guitar improvisations Tucker recorded on the beach in Dungeness with Collins' readings from Jarman's ‘Modern Nature’, and Collins and Tucker talked about collaborating further at a later date.

Sadly in 2018 Collins was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour. Whilst in hospital he asked Tucker to look after his vast music collection kept in Prospect Cottage, tasking him with cleaning up and pruning the many CDs. After Collins passed away Tucker would travel down to Dungeness, helping Collins’ husband Garry Clayton with the Cottage. Tucker mentioned to Clayton his idea for making a homage to Collins, and he suggested Tucker bring down recording equipment. A few weeks later Tucker set up a modular system, cello, microphones and electronics in Jarman’s old writing room, the Spring room.

Clayton also lent a digital recorder to Tucker belonging to Collins, containing spoken word pieces and fielding recordings. "It was strange collaborating with someone who wasn't there anymore," he admits. “But I had this idea of knitting Keith’s recordings into the track, not just to play alongside them but to integrate him into the fabric of the music”. Tucker had the idea to attempt a whole record using only extended and concrète techniques, with Collins' recordings as the springboard for a more wide-ranging set of experiments, some featuring the improvised trumpet drones and pulsing electronics of the artist and musician Kenichi Iwasa (Exotic Sin, Maxwell Sterling).

Complex emotions are tied into the recordings, the words and sounds Collins recorded to his portable field recorder, and the instrumental improvisations Tucker made in Prospect Cottage. Each sound on the record leads towards its deeply moving finale, where we hear a ticking clock once more, and Collins talks about coming to terms with Jarman's death. Accompanied by Tucker's restrained instrumental flourishes, it's a piece of sound that's unabashedly moving, and one that will stick in your mind long after it's come to a close.

Fifth Continent is accompanied by a new anthology, Fifth Quarter: Derek Jarman, Keith Collins and Dungeness, edited and complied by Tucker and published by Subtext. This book brings together Jarman and Collins’ collaborators, friends, contemporary artists, writers, musicians and curators. Focusing not only on Jarman’s legacy but drawing influence from the layers of history and inspiration from the Dungeness and Romney Marsh landscape. Fifth Quarter seeks to merge the past with the present, using archive photography and film stills, alongside newly commissioned artworks and writing, encompassing Jarman’s collaborations with Collins and his circle of friends and colleagues, with collaboration being central theme to Jarman’s polymathic work and life.

Contributors (in alphabetical order):
Barry Adamson, Jennifer Lucy Allan, Sarah Badr, Derek Brown, Keith Collins, Garry Clayton, Peter Fillingham, William Fowler, Dan Fox, Elise Lammer, Matthew R Lewis, James Mackay, Frances Morgan, Garrett Nelson, Stephen O’Malley, Paul Purgas, Damien Roach, Howard Sooley, Mark Titchner, Alexander Tucker, Peter Tucker, Luke Turner, Simon Fisher Turner, and Cosey Fanni Tutti.