Position Normal’s albums collage unidentified English 20th-century broadcast voices into uneasy reverie.

Evidence

A Position Normal album comes off like an anglo-Fantasia scavenged out of charity shops, all the detritus of the English 20th century made to sing. For the most part, you are left to guess the sources of all the funny voices. Who are they, this cheery gang – children’s radio presenters, comedians, character actors, light entertainers, newsreel announcers, jazz trumpeters (mutes always at the ready), ragpickers, costermongers, chancers, idlers, thespians gone to seed, frothy coffee café proprietors…? And where have they come from – scratchy old shellac, unmarked tapes, soundtrack LPs? The tracks bleed into one another, and so do the albums, like failing memories. — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 343

Categorization

• SEED: Fisher’s rogues-gallery catalogue of ‘funny voices’ (ragpickers, frothy coffee café proprietors) is a method for evoking an archive’s texture — usable as an essay technique for describing collage-based art.