Rural is the first release in the Continuous Tone series of sound works by visual artists. Each project is issued as a one-off heavy pressing 12-inch vinyl record with carefully designed packaging and specially commissioned sleeve notes inserted as an 10-page illustrated information booklet.

David Blamey's work encompasses several activities that overlap to form a multidimensional practice that eludes conventional categorisation. To this end, his projects are positioned consciously within a range of public situations, both inside and beyond the art gallery. For over 30 years he has travelled and carried out research in India. In 2017 his film 'Rice' was selected for the Mumbai International Film Festival before being screened worldwide at venues including: the Whitechapel Gallery, London (2019), the Workers Unite Film Festival, NYC (2019) and the Rome Agri Culture film Festival, where it was awarded best world film (2019). In recent years he has been drawn to the intangible materiality of sound. He established the Continuous Tone online platform for artists working with sound in 2019. The Wire described his 'O.K.' cassette release for My Dance the Skull’s Voice Studies series as ‘something quite strange, creepy and good’.

Side A: Charcoal Bell – As a visual artist, David Blamey has a knack for finding patterns of formalism in everyday life that, when augmented through acts of repetition or prolonged attention, break down and unravel in interesting ways. This piece combines two simple elements: the sound of charcoal burning and bells. As the material splinters and pops under flame the sound created resembles the ring of tiny bells. The tracks overlaid comprise a cowbell, a sheep bell and a child’s toy bell, all found in the locality and played by Blamey.

Side B: Nothing Happens – This piece is a composition of environmental sounds recorded in a garden between dawn and darkness on a single day: the chatter of starlings; a zinc gutter expanding in the sun’s rays; toads signaling to each another; the drone of bees; modulating cicada song; and the fanfare of an un-oiled garden gate. Listening deeply to these kinds of background noises and waiting for them coalesce into a readymade form of music draws near to what Spalding Grey referred to as encountering ‘perfect moments’, or what Eastern philosophy describes as great power existing in small things.