The aural collusions of Weatherall, Walsh and an old accomplice and sparring partner in Legrand (11/11/65 – 22/11/11), “Qualia” is a quandary, a question mark and maybe, just maybe, his finest release in years. It’s also a record best defined in the words of Mr Weatherall himself:

“Mr Brackstone, my psychic shepherd, when confronted by the facts would probably say it was cosmic synchronicity but then again he would because he’s Jung at heart. Others may cite mere coincidence. These are the facts. I’ll leave the metaphysical debate for another time…

It’s all about the black notebooks as memorial device and “The Black Notebook” and “This Is Memorial Device”. At the same time as reading Mr Modiano and Mr Keenan I was ensconced in the Woodleigh Research Facility investigating a method of composition sparked by a random event too prosaic for the telling; unless of course we go back to “The Red Book” and see the hand of Jah [the D.M.T molecule that steers human existence] at work.

After all it was him/her/non-binary that sent me the “shave your beard off” message. And the “don’t buy any more drugs” one.

Whatever your leanings the music on “Qualia” is the result of images, feelings

and thought processes stirred up by Monsieur Modiano and Mister Keenan channeled through the medium of a sonic noteboook – in itself the memoir of somebody else’s life/fiction.

My own black notebooks, like Jean’s [Modiano’s protagonist] stir the silt of

memory and birth as many mysteries as memories. They also provided the track titles.”

Andrew Weatherall. The Woodleigh Research Facility, July 2017.