'The Allegory Of Vanity' (12 track double CD album) plus 'Nil Omne' (6 track CDEP) only.
Album artwork by Cédric Pin. Design by Maria Makripoulias.
IMPORTANT!
This item will be sent by Royal Mail regular shipping. If you'd like tracking, please email second-language@hotmail.com *before* placing your order to request a tracking price.
Second Language Music assumes no responsibility for items lost in the mail. Refunds will not be forthcoming for non-tracked orders.
Includes unlimited streaming of The Allegory Of Vanity
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 2 days
Purchasable with gift card
£12GBPor more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Cédric Pin and Glen Johnson's 'The Allegory Of Vanity' double CD album plus the bonus 6 track CDEP, 'Nil Omne' plus 'The Burning Skull' CD album.
'The Allegory Of Vanity' comes as a 6 panel, 12 track double CD album with lyric booklet plus 'Nil Omne' - 6 track CDEP in slipcase. ‘The Burning Skull’ comes as an 18 track CD in a debossed, gold foil blocked digipack.
Includes unlimited streaming of The Allegory Of Vanity
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 2 days
edition of 25
Purchasable with gift card
£20GBPor more
Streaming + Download
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
'The Allegory Of Vanity' (12 track double CD album) plus 'Nil Omne' (6 track CDEP) + 24K gold-plated. embossed, polished, commemorative coin designed by Cédric Pin (limited edition of 40 only; 40mm x 3 mm).
Album artwork by Cédric Pin. Design by Maria Makripoulias.
IMPORTANT!
1) Only one coin per person. Duplicate orders will be returned.
2) This item will be sent by Royal Mail Special Delivery with tracking - hence the slightly higher shipping cost. Second Language Music takes no responsibility for packages lost in the mail - very important that you bear this in mind before ordering! There are no replacement coins!
Includes unlimited streaming of The Allegory Of Vanity
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
There’s something of a Jekyll and Hyde paradox about the work of Cédric Pin and Glen Johnson. On the one hand, there’s their unashamedly ‘80’s electropop-referencing Future Conditional project, inspired by everything from Kraftwerk to Soft Cell. On the other, as testified by their 2020 album, ‘The Burning Skull,’ a darker fascination with unfashionable, oft-avoided themes, vanitas and memento mori.
The follow-up to that weighty, twenty track tome, is no less monolithic. Three years in the making, ‘The Allegory Of Vanity,’ reflects on the deception of time and how, particularly in the Internet Age, much of life is wasted on trivia and self-obsession.
Since 2020, Pin, recording in his sleepy home town of Alès, the capital of the Cévennes region of Southern France, swapped files with London-based, Johnson, each augmenting the other’s work with a variety of both electronic and acoustic instruments. Eventually, they met to mix the album with sound engineer, Jon Clayton, at OneCat recording studio in Crystal Palace, South London.
Peter Ulrich, former drummer/percussionist of Dead Can Dance, contributes ocarina and backing vocals to the opening track, ‘The Sands Of Time Prevail,’ as well as percussion to ‘Where One I Was, I Now Am Not (Pt.1).’ The Lewes-based, American artist, Josh Hight provides additional vocals to the EBM-inspired ‘Prick.’
Indeed Pin and Johnson’s inspiration for ‘The Allegory Of Vanity’ is mostly drawn from their obsessions with ‘80’s EBM, industrial music and Ivo Watts-Russell-era 4AD Records. Coil, Soisong (Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson’s project with Ivan Pavlov), Richard Chartier’s Pinkcourtesyphone and glacial music pioneer, Asmus Tietchens, have also found space on their collective pinboard.
‘The Allegory Of Vanity’ includes a bonus disc of solo work. Johnson’s ‘Impermanence’ first elaborates on the album’s original inspiration, a painting of the same name by the Spanish Baroque-era painter, Antonio de Pereda and via a labyrinth of dark ambient and industrial sounds, drops us off with Quentin Crisp’s sublimely optimistic take on death, “This is a message of hope. It will come to an end and we shall be free.”
Pin’s ‘Resolution,’ no less labyrinthic over the course of its twenty minutes or so, evokes nothing less than the end of everything, the absolute folding up of all we know until there is nothing (as it was at the beginning) but darkness.
Not yet exhausted by their three years of Sisyphian collaboration, a bonus, six track EP, ‘Nil Omne’ (lit. “All is trivial”) collects the no-less engaging deleted scenes from ‘The Allegory Of Vanity,’ including a more empyreal version of ‘Prick’ (as ‘Three Figures’) and the playful skeleton jig of ‘Danza Della Morte’ (lit. The Dance Of Death).
Both former members of the Anglo-French, “ghost-rock” band, Piano Magic, Pin and Johnson are already planning a third, continuation of the memento mori theme as well as a future Future Conditional album.
Both former members of the Anglo-French "ghostrock" group, Piano Magic, Cédric Pin and Glen Johnson have been collaborating
since 2005.
Their work invariably centres on their fascination with vanitas and memento mori.
Pin records in Alès, France whilst Johnson is London-based. They cite ‘80’s EBM, industrial music, Ivo Watts-Russell-era 4AD Records and Coil amongst their inspirations....more
supported by 97 fans who also own “The Allegory Of Vanity”
When Nobody Knows Who You Are hits me. It is vibefull and it is the core of Glen magicanship. Love from first noise to the last. Maybe not a lot of folks seeks you but those who do will respect you even when you will be "over the hill" Maciej Sochoń
supported by 83 fans who also own “The Allegory Of Vanity”
I am there since ages now, Way Glen writes created me as musican and a person.
Some may say that this music is simple - maybe. Yet there is not a lot of us who knows how hard it is to get to that point. I love every letter that man puts on the paper and locks in songs. Maciej Sochoń
Dark electrowave from Italy with ice-cold rhythms and synths as spooky as an underground dungeon in the dead of night. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 6, 2023
The solo project of Philip Quinn (Girls Names), this is dark-edged electronic work with a needle-sharp take on life in the U.K. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 10, 2019
supported by 58 fans who also own “The Allegory Of Vanity”
For me this is a longed for sister album to Piano Magic’s swansong ‘Closure’, often that album strayed a bit too far into straight up love lorn rock for my tastes, but this album steers Glen’s output back into the arcane haunted delights of earlier Piano Magic. No matter what the title of the band this showcases Glen’s unique musical approach and let’s hope he continues to create music whatever he decides to name its output. Richard Grant