News & Events
Hundreds of releases and countless live performances littered the path that lead to 2012's Modern Jester, artist Aaron Dilloway's last major artistic statement as a solo artist and one his most well received documents since leaving Wolf Eyes, the prolific noise troupe that Dilloway co-founded in the late '90s with musician Nate Young. Within these pieces, we find a surreal treasure hunt that helps guide us through Dilloway’s obsessions, neurosis and influences while also developing a splintered maturity of someone with great complexity stumbling through a well thought-out, yet totally unplanned "long game" of an artistic career. Since then, Dilloway has been busy collaborating with the likes of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and Jason Lescalleet, releasing various short form sketches and running his retail outpost, Hanson Records, while slowly working on his next major album, The Gag File.
Introducing itself with the cover image of a posed dummy ready for his yearbook portraiture, The Gag File pick up right where Modern Jester left off; its identity is directly tied to an absurdly uncomfortable head shot that stays permanently fixed in the listener’s mind whenever the album is summoned. The opening track, "Ghost," sets the heartbeat for the record. A rogue pulse that becomes lost in a disjointed, trapdoor loop but becomes even more unorthodox as Dilloway introduces himself through parable of jumbled, confused vocals and phrasing. Past this point, nothing in this record is typical or expected.
Sudden, crude cuts from one piece to another and psychotic jumps in fidelity make one rethink the ideas of confusion and desperation as something more abstract rather than visceral. "Karaoke with Cal" and "It's Not Alright" have an intoxicated sense of depression, taking in the world’s problems and regurgitating them back in hopes of finding some enjoyment. That enjoyment seems to be found in the non-music aspect of side B’s long form party field recording, that loops in on itself making sure you never really know when the party begins or ends, regardless of one partygoers claim.
Nods to Dilloway's recent live performances have been unusually captured as the song "Inhuman Form Reflected" doubles as a sound portrait of the artist’s internal struggle with hysteria, but suddenly breaks away from a recorded song into an accidental segue way of someone on the edge. Most hallmarks of Dilloway's signature are seemingly here but not firmly imprinted into the recording. Instead, Dilloway used his methods of vocal manipulation and frenzied reference to tell a completely foreign narrative, one that subjects himself to naked uncertainty, audible anxiety and discourse.
More information can be found here.
Patterns Of Consciousness is the powerful second full length album from analog synth composer Caterina Barbieri. Gorgeous high resolution analog textures and algorithmic melodies unfold under Barbieri's careful control, exploring the basic nature of sound and consciousness. These pieces are minimal in arrangement but maximal in presence asserting Barbieri as a unique voice in contemporary electronic music composition. Highly recommended to fans of Alessandro Cortini and Eleh.
Much more information can be found here.
And Right Lines Limit and Close All Bodies is Richard Skelton's third full album as The Inward Circles, following 2015's Belated Movements and 2013's. And Right Lines continues his exploration of the materiality of sound and the natural processes of weathering, attrition and decay. The source material for these recordings remains largely the same as his Sustain-Release albums of a decade ago - small stringed instruments, found objects, field recordings - but the compositional process itself couldn't be more different. Whereas the recordings under his own name, or as A Broken Consort, were largely concerned with preserving the clarity of acoustic sound, his work as The Inward Circles is devoted to burial, obfuscation and mythologisation. There is a desire to obliterate, to destroy, and to discover anew. Each sonic artefact is subject to repeated distortions of pitch and timbre, and, as a result, is transformed beyond recognition. Any traces of acoustic sound that remain are little more than ghosts, as the whole recording is suffused with electricity, a kind of telluric current, an overwhelming chthonic energy.
Out in April 2017 on Corbel Stone Press.
Editions Mego is pleased to welcome Danish Loke Rahbek (Damien Dubrovnik, Croatian Amor and Posh Isolation) to the fold. Known for countless creative and commercial endeavours, Loke presents his first solo full length under his own name. As with all of Loke’s output City of Woman harnesses the radical with the aesthetic in a manner of extreme pleasure for all who encounter. Harnessing his thorough knowledge and experience in extreme electronics, melodic encounters and sultry showmanship Loke ties together disparate threads of various underground movements to create a singular and deeply personal journey through industrial temptation, noise refraction and melodic seduction. This is 21st Century pop music. One which dismantles previous held borders of sound to present a wide palate of sound, song, abstraction and intense emotion.
Out May 19th on Editions Mego.
In Silhouette is unmistakably the product of Brian Pyle, who once again returns as Ensemble Economique. Well over a decade ago, Pyle and his merry band of Starving Weirdos popped onto the scene from out of nowhere. Truth be told, that ‘nowhere’ is Humboldt County, California whose grand mythologies about its marijuana industry dwarfs all others. The Weirdos, not averse to method acting through Humboldt’s prized chemistry, stood an unusual chimera in the world of out-rock and avant-garde practitioners. Electronic-Improv, fuck-all auto-didacticism, and monotone psychedelia. Too feral to be AMM, too electronic to be NNCK, too discordant to be :zoviet*france:. As the Weirdos slowed to halt, Pyle’s restless energy insisted that he go on. Hence Ensemble Economique. Over an impressive catalogue of albums, he steadfastly continues down this rabbithole, polishing and refining his craft into a signature polyglot of expressionist collage.
Pyle’s latest opus dials up the cinematic flourishes that have graced many of his earlier recordings, through his sinewed synth-tone undulations, polyphonous ostinato, Wolfgang Voigt pulses, and fractalized cascades of generative serialism. All of this glides through the patterned electronic chiaroscuro atmospheres that are at once ethereal and haunted, dotted with male and female vocals whispering unknowable secrets. This tech-gnosticism flickers with light and shadow through Pyle’s rich production and beckons for the big screen, as Pyle’s work is grandiose in scale, psychologically nuanced, and deeply affecting. In Silhouette is the twelfth Ensemble Economique album.
Out March 31st on Denovali.
All the Way is a collection of radical re-workings of traditional and jazz standards such as “All the Way,” “You Don't Know What Love Is,” and “The Thrill Is Gone” (made famous by Chet Baker). It also includes a solo piano interpretation of Thelonious Monk's “Round Midnight,” and live voice and piano interpretations of the American traditional “O Death” and the country song, “Pardon Me I've Got Someone to Kill.” The album includes both electric live performances (recorded in Paris, Copenhagen, and East Sussex) and studio recordings made in San Diego, CA.
Live at St. Thomas the Apostle documents Galás’ volcanic May 2016 performance at St. Thomas the Apostle church in Harlem NY, described by the New York Times as "guttural and operatic, baleful and inconsolable, spiritual and earthy, polyglot and wordless, nuanced and unhinged." The concert, produced by Intravenal Sound Operations and Red Bull Music Academy, was composed exclusively of what Galás calls “death songs.”
More information can be found here.
NYC-based artist Evan Caminiti breathes life into the Dust Editions imprint with the release of Toxic City Music. Caminiti has explored electro-acoustic music since the mid 2000's, the latest transmission being 2015's Meridian. While that album was Caminiti’s first to omit electric guitar, he has now returned to the instrument. Here it is buried it in an electronic mist and melted down, its sonic fabric reshaped.
Toxic City Music was inspired by the psychic and physical toxicity of life in late capitalism. Conceived throughout 2015 and 2016, Caminiti captured the sounds of NYC’s machinery and voices before weaving them into his studio experiments. This collection of song mutations unravels in hazy plumes and serrated edges; concrète sounds mesh with disembodied strings and corrosive electronics on "Joaquin", drones ripple under stuttering rhythms and crude synth detritus throughout "NYC Ego." On "Toxic Tape (Love Canal)," layers of digital degradation smear guitar clusters, dissolving into a dubby devotional-ambient space.
More information can be found here.
Disorder marks a few milestones for the band Growing; it is their ninth full length release, in the fifteenth year of their band as well as their first record in almost six years. Though this is their first record in quite some time, this by no means a reunion record. When asked, Joe DeNardo stated "We never 'stopped' doing Growing, it's just that it was tough living on two different coasts. We work kinda slow so I think it just took us a while to adjust to how to make it work with the distances. As Kevin kind of built up his home studio in Olympia over the years, it got to a place where we couldn't NOT use it for Growing - it's such a great isolated spot to hunker down and chisel out some tunes. "
With an entire country between them, Kevin Doria has been focusing his energy on his Total Life project, releasing a handful of releases and touring with Fuck Buttons, GodSpeed You Black Emperor and a host of others. DeNardo has spent the last few years making various music-themed films and performing under the Ornament moniker.
At first listen one may be tempted to refer to this as "return to form" for the band: sonically heavy side-long pastoral excursions being a hallmark of their earlier recordings. But Disorder stands more as a refinement of Growing's evolving sonic palette, employing dissonance as liberally as harmony, delivering the listener's ear to a rather unsettling 'comfort zone'. The effect could be stated as one of submersion. "Kevin's TOTAL LIFE records and live set really inspired me to take a look at a much simpler setup." DeNardo went on to suggest: "I don't think I succeeded necessarily, but the way he maximizes his sound sources really blew me away. And I think it affected what I was recording for Ornament, and so when we got to jamming for the record, it sort of evolved from that. We recorded to 4 track reel-to-reel, it was a pretty minimal setup. It seems like a heavy record to me, these slow, subtle shifts that feel like a bad trip sometimes."
Disorder is neither revival nor bookend for Growing. Over their fifteen year career they've issued records on Kranky, Troubleman Unlimited, The Social Registry and Vice Records; they've touring with the likes of Sunn O)))), Hot Chip, Fuck Buttons, Animal Collective & Gang Gang Dance and have played on five of the seven continents. Disorder is another mile marker on the long open road, both figuratively and literally, Growing have been traversing for years.
Out March 10, 2017 on Important Records.
Future music duo Second Woman's sophomore full-length for Spectrum Spools further hones their distinctive fusion of shapeshifting software sculpture and tessellated footwork. Shivering digital textures oscillate with and against algorithmically mapped percussion samples; smeared synthetic chords levitate in the distance; stabs of digital noise punctuate the mix in twitchy, time-distorting patterns. Their anamorphosis verges on ascetic: stark, splintered waveforms rendered into unique fiber optic hieroglyphs.
Multi-instrumentalists Josh Eustis and Turk Dietrich share a deep history going back to their days in the New Orleans ambient electronic community, as part of Telefon Tel Aviv and Belong, respectively. Even so, S/W pushes beyond their combined discographies to date, flexing impossibilities, building rhythms from arrhythmia, teasing veiled emotion from bold iterations of cold code.
More information can be found here.
Editions Mego is proud to present the latest opus from legendary British composer, actor, sound designer and all round fine human Simon Fisher Turner. Giraffe is a new major work which blurs the lines between sound design and song, machine severity and narrative sentimentality. Subtitled "living in sounds and music" Giraffe take the listener through a vast journey where an abstract clacking of unknown origin rubs up against a melancholic electronic sequence. "Life sounds" were captured with a portable hard disc recorder and i-phone and appear alongside contemporar sound design. Emma Smith provides the narrative on "Slight Smile," whilst electronic machines grind amongst background industrial klang in "Mud Larks." "Save As" revolves around a beautiful simple piano motif which soon folds into an unnerving field recording and drone combination.
Giraffe is a document of interior and exterior duality. A living space where machines and the surrounding world collide, a sonic landscape where musical and nonmusical elements are placed on an level hierarchy. The alchemy of these constituent parts results in the magic of Giraffe, one where the symbiotic sequence of events highlights a unique approach to sound as rapturous matter in whatever form it takes.
More information can be found here.
