Hands In The Dark announce the final album by experimental duo Tomaga after the passing of band member Tom Relleen
Intimate Immensity is the sixth album by Tomaga, the London based duo comprised of percussionist Valentina Magaletti and multi-instrumentalist Tom Relleen, who died at the age of 42 in August 2020. The album was completed and mastered before Relleen's death, and recorded mostly at his home.
The record features contributions from vocalists Martin Tomlinson and Cathy Lucas as well as strings by Agathe Max and cites Gaston Bachelard's book The Poetics Of Space as an influence. A quote from Relleen in the album's sleeve notes describes Tomaga's kinship to the ideas expressed in the book: “...Chapters on ‘house as universe’, nests, shells, ‘intimate immensity’, ‘the phenomenology of roundness’... I think it ties in with our feelings about bunkers and the urge to partition the universe to create our own spaces, vs cleansing or colonising the everyday to make it empty of anyone else's taste. I think Tomaga tracks with their individual micro worlds are a bit like that…"
This video, directed by Noriko Okaku, accompanies the album's title track and includes text from Derek Jarman's film Blue, made visible by stones from Relleen's collection. Intimate Immensity is released by Hands In The Dark on 26 March.
Listen to a mix put together by Tomaga in 2017 via The Wire's online audio section.
