Biography
Apoplexy was a Christchurch-based experimental and ambient record label founded in 1998 by sound artist Peter Wright. The label’s first release was a 7" Lathe by Atonal Death in 1998, and over the following five years it released 18 experimental and ambient productions before Wright relocated to London in 2003.
Wright had begun playing music semi-seriously in Christchurch around 1990, recording untutored noise-pop on a four-track. Following several song-based solo projects, his music took a more abstract direction around 1996, gradually settling into a refined guitar-based drone sound that he would develop almost continuously from the late 1990s onwards. Before founding Apoplexy, Wright had been the single most important contributor to the kRkRkRk label — which he co-founded with J-Mz Robinson in 1992 — not only contributing recordings but also providing technical expertise that encouraged many of kRkRkRk’s artists to begin home recording.
In late 1997 Wright disengaged from kRkRkRk to pursue more specialised interests under his own Apoplexy imprint. Where kRkRkRk had a more industrial character, Apoplexy was focused on experimental and ambient work. The label’s first solo release under Wright’s own name, LP, was recorded at Otley Street, Christchurch in 1998 and issued the following year as a 12" lathe record in an edition of approximately 25 copies — the sort of limitation that became characteristic of Apoplexy’s production ethos — before being reissued on CDr with additional tracks. The album stripped Wright’s approach back to what he called “simple improvised guitar drones and feedback,” shedding the prefabricated structures of his earlier work.
The label’s most widely distributed release was Distant Bombs (2002, APOPLEXY15), recorded at a seaside villa at Marriner Street, Sumner, Christchurch, over 2001–2002. Using guitars, violin, bowed gas bottle, suspended bottles, electronics, and voices, the album was originally issued as a limited CDr through Apoplexy before being reissued in 2004 as Wright’s first commercially pressed CD, on US label Last Visible Dog. Of the title, Wright noted: “I’ve always liked the juxtaposition of words or phrases that describe something that should be horrid in a soft and comforting fashion.”
The label’s final release was Pariahs Sing Om (2003), described by Wright as “the last album to be issued on Apoplexy before I became too busy in the real world to operate a label with any sense of commitment.” Combining tracks recorded across three Christchurch locations between October 2001 and February 2003 with leftover Distant Bombs material, it was mixed in London in June 2003 as Wright prepared to leave New Zealand for a six-year stint in the UK. Last Visible Dog later reissued all three Peter Wright CDrs in the 3-disc set Pariahs Sing Om — Collected Drone Poems 2000–2003 (2006).
Ever-linked with the similarly-focused kRkRkRk label (who also released Wright’s material), Apoplexy maintained a less industrial focus, building a back-catalogue as varied as Atonal Death’s drone work, Antony Milton‘s A.M. project, Polio, and the orchestral experiments of Nick Hodgson’s CM Ensemble.
Peter Wright — Distant Bombs (2002, Apoplexy, APOPLEXY15)
The last album to be issued on Apoplexy before I became too busy in the real world to operate a label with any sense of commitment.
Peter Wright, on Pariahs Sing Om, Bandcamp
Key Releases
- LP Lathe Cut / CDr (1999, Apoplexy) — Peter Wright
- Distant Bombs CDr (2002, Apoplexy, APOPLEXY15) — Peter Wright
- Pariahs Sing Om CDr (2003, Apoplexy) — Peter Wright
Artist Roster
- A Companion As Glamorous As Sleeping On Wheels
- A.M.
- Atonal Death
- CM Acoustic Ensemble
- CM Ensemble
- David Khan
- Julian Bradley
- Peter Wright
- Polio
- Witcyst