300 Square Miles of Upwards – Chris Dooks (Vinyl LP)

300 Square Miles of Upwards is released in a stunning package (designed by Rutger ‘Machinefabriek’ Zuydervelt): a bright blue vinyl 12″ album that also comes with an (extended) digital download version including a video version of the opener track ‘Gardening As Astonomy’.

The brightly coloured trilogy is not only interesting artistically and musically. It is is also the result of Dook’s personal battle against his chronic fatigue syndrome:

“Wherever medicine has abandoned its caring role, or simply has no available cure, sufferers of incurable chronic illnesses frequently turn to experimental and experiential strategies. Such strategies can seem an outlandish or surreal response to illness; for example, working closely with an abandoned and decrepit harmonium in the Scottish borders or forging Twitter-length statements about the universe may not be on the medical map, but to artists, these processes are a way of life."