Personally, I’ve always enjoyed reading articles that dig into the making of certain records, how they were recorded, the equipment that was used, and the inspiration behind the music. This little piece will explore the making of Contrary Motion with Nurse with Wound, which was recently released.
A little Nurse with Wound History
For those who aren’t so familiar with Nurse with Wound, there’s quite a tale to tell, and perhaps here isn’t the place to tell the full meaty tale. At heart, British musician and producer Steven Stapleton is best known as the founder and sole constant member of Nurse with Wound, who have remained an influential experimental music project active since 1978.
His work blends surrealism, avant-garde composition, industrial soundscapes, and dadaist aesthetics, often incorporating tape manipulation, found sounds, and free improvisation.
Beyond music, Stapleton is a visual artist, designing album covers and artwork that reflect his eccentric and esoteric style. He also runs the label United Dairies, which has released numerous groundbreaking experimental recordings.
We met many years ago in Germany, when we played a show together and have remained friends ever since. We frequently have extended and very playful conversations about music, about art and life in general, like most good friendships. So, I was thrilled when a couple of years ago that Steven suggested the idea of recording together.
I certainly wanted to impose such an idea, given how busy a schedule he seems to lead, though I suppose in many ways I’m not exactly a lazy fellow. So, naturally, I keenly agreed and so the project began.
How to Begin…
Where to begin is arguably the toughest decisions, but this time it was simple. Steven shared with me an hour long recording which I would be free to do with I wished with.
I set to working this almost immediately. I actually created the basic structure of the album in about a week, dividing the recording up into several sections. I drew upon my large archive of recordings, with voices, radio frequencies, and found sounds that could complement Steven’s recordings, and mixed this into and through the Nurse with Wound recording.
For the second track, Conium Maculatum, I introduced this simple hypnotic rhythm, adding melodic and bass parts, so it follows a form of psychedelic motorik pulse to pull the listener in. This was entirely recorded on my modular synth set up, with Mutable Instruments Elements acting as a key ingredient in the creation.
The Ellitone Farm Detective Ultrarollz
I’m fortunate to have built up a collection of rather weird and wonderful instruments over the years, often attracted by the design and physicality of the tools themselves. A good example of this are the instruments I used on Cocculus. You hear a regular beeping, almost like a ringtone on a telephone, but in fact it’s the rather uniquely titled Ellitone Farm Detective Ultrarollz that is creating this beeping pulse. It suggests an image to me of a lighthouse as if seen from the deck of a boat, far out to sea.
Perhaps it’s worth quoting from the text describing the Ellitone synth, to give you a better idea of how magical such things can be.
The UltraRollz Farm-Detective is an all Analog Modular Synthesiser. This Instrument consists of 3 modules: a dual UltraSound Filter in the center with a Rollz Plate on either side. The Rollz plates each offer 4 independent Rollz Oscillators that are meant to be “woven” together by patching. This process of “creating a thinking brain” induces strange interactions and ultra sonic bursts between the Rollz. The UltraSound filters in the center use a technique called heterodyning to give a bizarre audible representation of the ultra-sonic content
So, that should be clear now, I think 😃 I should add I bought it second hand for £60, so definitely a good deal I think, as it makes several appearances on the album itself, as well as other releases of mine.
The SqrtSigil exFriend & EQ
Cicuta Virosa makes use of the SqrtSigil exFriend synth and their SqrtSigil exfriend EQ, producing this alien like organ sound, that opens and closes, almost randomly at times.
Almost everything was recorded live to the Nurse with Wound material, rarely quantised and tidied up, as I always like to maintain the sensibility of playing live, even if we were not in the same room this time.
I even used recordings of things such as rolling stones on the ground in Tartaricum, slowing them down to a glacial pace, so they crackle and grind in a very curious way.
Contrary Motion closes with Mezereum, which essentially devours the original Nurse with Wound recordings, splintering them, and offering up this deeply spacious closure. It brings a deep sense of narrative and atmosphere to a end.
The album is most definitely a study in contrast—structured yet fluid, harmonic yet dissonant, familiar yet alien. It unfolds in waves, inviting listeners to navigate a labyrinth of sonic abstraction, where ghostly echoes, mechanical pulses, and spectral drones weave together in hypnotic formations.
How the Fade Outs Proved to be most Challenging
Interestingly, at the end of the process the most challenging part was working on the correct length each of the tracks should fade for, before the next track should begin.
Steven was very keen to suggest to the listener that the music was fading away, only to return again a few seconds later. So, it remained a singular story, divided into parts. And this actually took about 9-10 different mixes to get the balance right, and given that Steven doesn’t use email or the internet, it was more of a challenge. Yes, the CD-R still rules supreme in the Nurse with Wound HQ!
The titles were all taken from names of homeopathic medicines, as both of our partners are keenly interested in complementary or alternative medicine, and the names in themselves are so poetic and suggestive.
Steven painted the artwork some time before the recording was finished and shared it with me, and it was at that point in time we agreed how fun it would be to offer up two different variations on the sleeve design. His version of the album would be released on his label United Dairies, and mine on my own label, Alltagsmusik. Each contains identical music, but different artwork, and can be bought from each of us independently.
A forthcoming vinyl edition will appear on a double vinyl set, with a special etched side, but more on that once that day comes!
And for the truly obsessive Nurse with Wound admirers, and I know there are quite a few, our album Contrary Motion has absolutely nothing to do with a very limited edition handmade CD-R edition, with an identical title, that was sold in 2014 at a show in Adelaide in Australia. Steven always liked the title, but curiously the audio we used for OUR Contrary Motion was recorded at this very Adelaide show itself.
Given the success of Contrary Motion, Steven and I are already in conversation towards a follow-up, so stay tuned for that!
Buy Contrary Motion Scanner edition here
Buy Contrary Motion Nurse with Wound edition here
