Posts

Hopeless - Downloads

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The Free Download Series from This Window A Quiet Archive of Four Decades of Experimentation For more than forty years, This Window has operated as one of the UK’s most quietly persistent experimental projects — less a traditional band than a shifting creative framework where sound, image and idea are treated as interchangeable materials. From the cassette‑culture underground of the early 1980s to today’s digital releases, the project has remained fiercely independent, guided by a DIY ethos and a refusal to settle into any single method or aesthetic. The Hopeless series on Bandcamp distils that long, unruly history into something generous: a set of free digital compilations designed as open doors for new listeners and reflective spaces for long‑time followers. Each five‑track volume gathers material recorded across several decades, mixing early tape‑based fragments with later digital constructions, recovered sessions, sketches and fully realised pieces. Explore the series and...

Fractured Messages and the Art of Interference

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Broken signals in horror and paranormal TV turns static into meaning—messages arrive warped and never whole, inviting viewers to finish the sentence.  Never finish the story - what is the narrative?  Every genre has its shortcuts to emotion. Horror films lean on shadows. Paranormal TV leans on suggestion. But one device cuts across all of them: the broken signal. A message that arrives damaged, incomplete, or warped — something that feels like communication but refuses to settle into certainty. On shows like Help! My House Is Haunted , the technology is half the theatre. Scanners sweep radio frequencies, software isolates static, and investigators listen for anything that might resemble intention. A clipped syllable becomes a warning. A hiss becomes a sigh. A burst of interference becomes a voice from the dead. The audience is invited to finish the sentence, to supply the missing pieces, to believe that meaning can be extracted from noise. The message is never whole. That’s th...

This Window and Microsoft

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Creating strategic alliances between companies or individuals enables shared goals to be achieved for mutual benefit. You don’t need to be a large organisation to gain from cooperation; sometimes big fish need smaller fish to help develop ideas and strategies. Get out there and find a partner. During the summer of 2009, Windows and ReverbNation formed a strategic alliance that enabled independent musicians and artists to give away their music for free while still being paid through sponsorship. This was a radical “win–win” business model: the sponsor, Windows , embedded advertising into the cover artwork of the downloadable MP3, and the artist received payment. Although the payment per download was lower than platforms such as iTunes or Amazon, the value in exposure and reaching a wider audience was generous compensation. Participating artists were later given the opportunity to allow their “Sponsored Song” to continue as a free download in a new arch...

Writing new material is harder (DAW)

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A little belief in superstition and myth can help create new music. Newspaper horoscopes are based on star signs and birth dates. They predict what will happen during the day, and those predictions rely on probability and randomness. If you read your horoscope in the morning, you might turn it into a self-fulfilling prophecy: you could go looking for the “tall, dark, handsome man,” or decide to take a “long journey.” Or, you might read it late in the evening and then interpret what happened that day through its mystical language—“Yes, I did meet someone important today.” The interesting part is this: you could meet that “tall, dark, handsome man,” take a “long journey,” and meet someone important—without ever reading your horoscope at all. So, did the horoscope really predict anything, or were those outcomes simply coincidence? Does this mean the day’s events were not predicted? I find it difficult to create new material because I’m constantly aware that I’...

From Postcard to Music

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Art Kitchen Exhibition — Tuscaloosa, Alabama (2012) In February 2012, a recycled mail‑art postcard by This Window was exhibited at The Alabama Art Kitchen , an artist‑run collective based at 2626 University Blvd., Tuscaloosa, Alabama . The piece originally served as promotional artwork for the 2009 digital release Cassette Culture , and features a photograph of Marni De Much , drummer on the limited‑edition Morgue Studio Demos CDR. The Alabama Art Kitchen operated throughout the early 2010s as a volunteer‑driven space offering studios, workshops, exhibitions, and community arts events. Although the physical venue is no longer active in its original form, many of the artists involved continue to contribute to Tuscaloosa’s independent creative scene through pop‑up shows and collaborative projects that grew out of the collective. Recycled Artwork and the Extractivism Series The postcard exhibited in Alabama was later reused as the visual anchor for the Extractivism series on Bandcamp —...

Still in a World Top 100 chart

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A Veteran of the Underground, Still Breaking Ground For decades, This Window has operated far from the mainstream — born in the cassette‑culture underground, shaped by DIY production, and defined by a stubborn refusal to conform. The project has cycled through eras of post‑industrial noise, minimal synth, darkwave atmospherics, and lo‑fi experimentation, always prioritising texture, mood, and emotional undercurrents over commercial polish. That history matters here. Because today’s chart success isn’t a fluke — it’s the culmination of years spent cultivating a sound that resists trends yet somehow outlasts them. This Is War by This Window Discover the world of This Window on Bandcamp — free, paid, or name‑your‑price. Dive into decades of experimental sound: from cassette‑culture fragments to sculpted digital pieces. Try the Hopeless compilations for free, explore singles like Lay Back , or support the project directly with albums such as This Is War . Start listening: https://thiswi...

Track inspired by Wistman's Wood

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This Killing Thing (Live) and the ecological context of Wistman’s Wood The lyrics for this track were inspired by a visit to Wistman’s Wood in the late 1970s. Even back then, its environmental and cultural importance was well recognised, as it’s one of the most significant remaining fragments of Britain’s Atlantic temperate rainforest . Although small in extent, the wood represents a rare continuity of pre‑Neolithic forest ecology and provides a useful framework for understanding the track’s atmosphere, instability, and sense of impending destruction. This track is in many ways about man's impact on the environment - 'This killing thing inside this machine' -   we are, in fact, the killing thing. Where pitted stone becomes knotted oak... This Killing Thing (Live) captures This Window at their most unfiltered: a moment where chaos isn’t just present, it’s the entire accidental aesthetic. The mix is still being wrangled, the sound engineer is fighting a losing battle...