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For this third release on Dais, Drew McDowall reaches into concept, ritual, and immersion, in an exercise of unravelling the DNA of hallucination. The Third Helix is McDowall’s product of deconstructive exploration, twisting the fibers of being into new structure, shape, pattern, and pulse, without reconstituting its inscribed template.
The result is a true "third act," in McDowall’s career, that has seen him peregrinate from the late-’70s art-punk of the trio Poems to his work with Psychic TV and Coil throughout the '80s and '90s, into his current home of New York City, where he has composed with CSD, Compound Eye, as well his solo work. That triangulation is central to The Third Helix, as it begins with his dive into the existence of a sensory toolkit unique to McDowall before twisting faculties and reconfiguring consciousness by honoring inherent power, cognizant of memory yet agnostic of context.
With the tenet that journey is rarely linear, but rather an omnipresent oscillation of matter, sound is stripped to salient and primal, propelled by McDowall’s boring into the core of memory and impulse, suturing together the silent awareness of excogitating experience.
Featuring eight new tracks of McDowall’s dark, experimental electronics, including the opener "Rhizome," The Third Helix is a churning descent into emotion, provoking thought and reflection while carving out haunting space only to fill it with baffling and wondrous structures of layered sound. McDowall solidifies himself as an architect who transforms otherworldly materials into something fascinating and challenging in the process.
Unnerving, trancelike anthems for nervous meditation and anxious relaxation. Fans of Coil will immediately connect and immerse, while the complex compositions are a welcome listen for drone and ambient enthusiasts.
The Third Helix is released September 21, 2018 on digital and standard black vinyl LP, as well as limited edition clear vinyl (100 copies), translucent red vinyl (400 copies) and translucent amber (500 copies). Packaged within a thick sturdy matte sleeve jacket featuring artwork/design by artist J.S. Aurelius (Ascetic House/Marshstepper).
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Every couple years or so, a new Glenn Jones album modestly enters the world, unveiling a fresh batch of warm and lovely American Primitive-inspired guitar works. Appropriately, The Giant Who Ate Himself is a reference to Jones' longtime friend and mentor John Fahey, who certainly casts a formidable shadow over much of the more compelling acoustic guitar music in his wake. More than anyone else, however, Jones seems like the underappreciated (yet considerably less hostile) spiritual heir to Fahey’s throne, though Jones is far more of A Comparatively Well-Adjusted Artist Who Reliably Releases Good Albums. Of course, the American Primitive aesthetic quickly became much larger than Fahey himself and it is all too easy to fall into the trap of legend worship–there is a much larger tradition of great and visionary American acoustic guitarists that continues to thrive and it would be more accurate to simply state that Jones is one of its unbending pillars. Trends come and trends go, but Glenn Jones remains a timeless, distinctive, and consistently delightful presence through it all.
I have always found it incredibly difficult to articulate what separates a great acoustic guitar composer from a merely technically gifted one, particularly when their aesthetic is an extremely traditionalist one.For the most part, The Giant Who Ate Himself falls into that category, as there is little that Jones does that someone could not have done sixty years ago if they had ingested a healthy enough diet of country blues.The difference between great and good in that milieu largely lies entirely in abstract concepts like soulfulness and a host of small intuitive decisions that cumulatively amount to something truly significant.On a great acoustic guitar album, songs do not overstay their welcome, the pacing never feels sluggish, the melodies are strong and lyrical, there is depth beyond the central melody, there is a lightness of touch, and a song's essence is never muddied or obscured by clutter or needless flourishes of virtuosity.Jones' work eternally ticks all of those boxes for me, but he also manages to occasionally evoke a poignant scene or memory.Characteristically, a number of these pieces have actual stories behind them: "From Frederick to Fredericksburg," for example, was inspired by a road trip with Jack Rose, while "A Different Kind of Christmas Carol" has an amusing backstory involving a young audience member who did NOT share Jones' curmudgeonly opinion of the holiday.
Such tales certainly provide some wonderful added depth and color to Jones’ live performances, but he also achieves the deeper and more impressive feat of making these pieces *feel* like impressionistic stories whether I know what inspired them or not.Conceptual art aside, a relatively sensitive and intelligent listener should not have to read the liner notes or a press release to understand what makes a piece of music intriguing.For example, I have absolutely no idea what Jones was thinking about when he composed "The Was and The Is" (the merciless passing of time?), but its winding and bittersweetly lovely melody is probably evocative and vivid enough to conjure different images for anyone listening.Aside from that piece, however, there is a curious divide in which the less structured and more spontaneous-sounding pieces feel like the most soulful ones, such as the slow-moving "Even The Snout And The Tail" and the brief and mysterious sound-collage "River in the Sky."Those are not necessarily the best pieces on the album, yet they are the ones that resonate most strongly with me.The other highlights, such as the title piece and "The Last Passenger Pigeon," are a different kind of delight, as their sprightly pace, clear melodies, and tight structures converge to make them feel like fresh classics of the genre destined to become standards.I certainly like those pieces as well, but there is an interesting push-and-pull between pieces that feel like guitar music for other guitarists and pieces that feel like Jones is straining to transcend the perceived limitations of solo acoustic guitar music.
In the context of Jones' existing body of work, there is nothing particularly revelatory that makes The Giant Who Ate Himself tower above any of his other albums as an especially essential release, but that is not something he seems to have any interest in striving for and I genuinely appreciate that unwavering constancy: each new album merely feels like old and familiar friend dropping by to share the latest chapter in the story of his life.There is a deep warmth, humanity, and sensitivity to Jones' best work that is very hard to come by in instrumental music.While I suppose a consistently enjoyable artist releasing another consistently enjoyable album is not exactly headline news, I nevertheless find Jones' passion and unwavering devotion to his anachronistic craft to be quietly heroic.I very much appreciate that he is keeping the torch of the American Primitive and steel-string traditions burning bright.More significantly, however, Jones is clearly striving to build and expand that canon with each new release.It is a slow, steady, and unsexy life's work, yet he has never stopped moving forward and The Giant Who Ate Himself adds another handful of gems to Jones’ steadily growing pile.
 
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Charalambides founders Tom & Christina Carter follow a vision of iconoclastic music as transformative force. Touching on the outer limits of acid folk, psych rock, and improvisation, their sound remains uniquely personal & consistent. Since 1991, Charalambides has released many recordings on labels like Siltbreeze, Kranky & Wholly Other.
Despite Tom and Christina Carter's prolific solo careers and numerous other projects, Charalambides has existed in an unbroken trajectory for over two-and-a-half decades, outlasting the genres that critics and other yardstick-makers have tried to cram them into. Their recent performances and recordings retain the directness and delicate menace that mark their early releases, even as they explore an interlocking musical telepathy honed by years of artistic collaboration.
Aptly tilted Charalambides: Tom and Christina Carter, the newest album from Charalambides furthers the duo's deep psychic understanding of music. Laid down in two sessions with no overdubs, the album entwines their best known approaches into a raw, fragile, wordless and hypnotic whole. It's definitely the duo at their most exquisite.
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UNIVERSAL EYES is the culmination of UNIVERSAL INDIANS and WOLF EYES. UNIVERSAL INDIANS started in Lansing Michigan in the early shadows of the '90s, with Gretchen Gonzales (now Gonzales Davidson), Bryan Ramirez, & Johnny “Inzane” Olson. The trio started as a Jesse Harper cover band and managed to play every single basement that had a power outlet in the tri-county area. After moving to the Detroit area in the late 90’s, Rammer was replaced by Aaron Dilloway, who along with Nathan Young were already in the throes of primitive electronic global domination that is WOLF EYES. The collective quartet played every art space, record store, and club in the Detroit area and together coined the Michigan Progressive Underground audio sprawl. Around the dawn of the 2000’s, Gretchen went full time with the moody & cold stylings of SLUMBER PARTY and after a wild Bowling Green Ohio gig, Olson joined WOLF EYES full time. After some drama that would make even Fleetwood Mac disappear into the shadows of suburbia and toss their EQ into a lonely fire, UNIVERSAL INDIANS appeared to have fate / faded into the packed history book pages of Michigan musical lore.
As age and time seem to dust over wounds while magically healing them, the quartet met again in the northern suburbs of Detroit on a brisk spring Sunday in 2018. They hauled modern and ancient instruments into a home studio and just like that: the dream / nightmare had hot blood pumping thru its’ duct-taped sound body once again, as if the missing years were nothing but a minute hurdle. The kings and queen of noise were reunited.
Four Variations On 'Artificial Society' is the nearly exact document of this unholy reunion captured in full detail by Warren Defever (HIS NAME IS ALIVE). The two record set will be on coke bottle clear and white vinyl presented by Trip Metal Limited label in partnership with Lower Floor, with record speeds to be determined by the listener. UNIVERSAL EYES has been born/reborn in proof that free spirits can always move forward and still be intoxicated by the horrid liquid that is ROCK & FRY. JOIN US.
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Editions Mego is proud to present the first outing from the legendary English musician, songwriter, composer and producer Simon Fisher Turner alongside the highly acclaimed emerging Swedish sound artist Klara Lewis.
Care is a unique outing rife with delicious dichotomy. The opening track positions the aggressive directly against more fragile moments. On the subsequent track, medieval melodies sprout from a dense rhythmic hiss. Witness a Middle Eastern song appearing amongst a haunted rattling reverb in the epic "Tank" whilst a beautiful force of hope can be found within the sound world of the the closing track "Mend."
The wide scope of references and constant pull of forces make this debut offering a timeless patchwork of sonic spaces. Care is an album which sways in such a salubrious manner one can’t help but delight in its unique form of location/disorientation.
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Newly reissued on Sacred Bones, The Voice of Love (1993) was Cruise's second and final album with the singular songwriting team of David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti. I suspect it did not sell particularly well upon its release, as I found my copy in a cut-out bin and it was Cruise's final album for Warner Brothers, but it has since rightly attained the cult stature it deserves. It is admittedly a bit uneven compared with its more illustrious predecessor (1989's Floating Into The Night), uncannily mirroring Lynch's own changing fortunes, as Night featured music from Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks while Voice features pieces from Wild at Heart, Fire Walk With Me, and Industrial Symphony No. 1. Still, a significant amount of that initial magic lingered and continued to blossom, as The Voice of Love fitfully captures some of the finest work of Cruise's "ghostly chanteuse" phase. It may be an imperfect classic album, but it is a classic album nonetheless.
Without question, Julee Cruise has had one of the more strange and improbable careers in pop music, as she was the daughter of an Iowa dentist who studied French horn and performed in children's theater productions in Minnesota before she met Angelo Badalamenti (the two met after Cruise moved to NYC to pursue a career in musical theater).Around the same time, Lynch was unsuccessfully attempting to secure the rights for This Mortal Coil's "Song to the Siren" cover, leading to his suggestion that Badalamenti try to compose a similarly rapturous and dreamlike replacement.Badalamenti tagged in Cruise as a possible vocalist and she took to the role like a duck to water, launching a brief yet iconic career as a recurring and surreal presence in David Lynch's work.A malleable, Midwestern muse, if you will.That background is crucial in understanding both this album and the rest of Cruise's career, as The Voice of Love was not exactly Julee Cruise's vision–Lynch and Badalamenti were the primary architects and she was the actress talented and versatile enough to bring their shared vision believably to life.The wounded, somnambulant songbird of Cruise's Lynch albums is not the real Cruise.The real Julee Cruise is the one who made Latin-tinged trip-hop albums, sang showtunes, and was a touring member of the B-52s.That is not meant to disparage her role in her own career, but to explain that Floating Into The Night and The Voice of Love are essentially David Lynch's hallucinatory vision of a pop diva made flesh and turned loose in the real world.As such, the weaker moments on Voice, such as the Enya-esque "Friends for Life," fall squarely on Lynch's shoulders, as Cruise was implored to "sing like an angel" over toothless, sleepy dream pop and she did exactly that.
The trio are at their best when they stick to the familiar territory of vaguely nightmarish and noir torch songs or hypnagogic re-imaginings of ‘60s girl-group pop innocence.In the latter realm, both the smoky, slow-motion reggae of "This Is Our Night" and the lushly sensual "Movin' In On You" stand as two of the album's most blearily gorgeous pieces."Up In Flames" is another gem, as its walking bass line, sickly synths, and blurred siren wails approximate a sultry and seductive cabaret of the damned.More than any other song on the album, "Up In Flames" nails the haunted, twilit unreality of Lynch's best work.The rest of the album is often quite good as well, but it is an extremely precarious balancing act that lives or dies on the strength of Badalamenti's compositions.That is a fundamental peril with the trio's distinctive dream pop aesthetic: most of the heavy lifting is done by the underlying music, as Cruise is eternally relegated to being a floating and spectral presence.In the right context, her cooing vocals are sensuous and dreamily vaporous, but they can feel weightlessly pretty or just playfully kooky ("Kool Kat Walk") when she is not given substantial enough material to work with.Badalamenti tries to overcome that hurdle in some interesting ways over the course of the album, such as adding quasi-industrial percussion to "Until The End of The World" or twanging guitars and a smoky saxophone solo in "Space For Love."He finds the most success when he just subtly curdles his languorous, soft-focus idyll with passing dissonance, however, as he does with the murky synths and smeared, lingering decays in "She Would Die For Love."
Although it is not my favorite song on the album, "She Would Die For Love" is an especially illustrative example of Badalamenti and Lynch's otherworldly alchemical genius, as it uses the most non-threatening tools imaginable (jazzy piano chords, lyrical sax solos, and fretless bass noodling) to weave something improbably pregnant with simmering menace.Obviously, there are some excellent songs on both this album and Floating Into The Night, but the appeal of both albums arguably lies even more in the sustained atmosphere that the three artists create when their disparate yet complementary aesthetics combine.The Voice of Love is fascinating and distinctive precisely because it is such weird and singular juxtaposition that seems like it should not work: David Lynch's unabashed love of classic pop music collides with broodingly cinematic synths, noirish jazz, and a vocalist who elusively floats through it all like a sleepy ghost.Somehow, however, everything is necessary and it all fits together beautifully.Given their accomplished careers, it is deceptively easy to credit Lynch and Badalamenti as the driving forces behind Cruise's two great albums, as hazy, reverb-swathed female vocalists are hardly unique, but I sincerely doubt any other vocalist could have played her role so seamlessly and hauntingly.On The Voice of Love, Cruise shows herself to be a master stylist, elegantly and enigmatically blurring the lines between angel, lovesick diva, and seductive Siren.
 
 
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Released on Projekt back in 1993, Lovesliescrushing’s debut remains one of the great underappreciated shoegaze albums of all time, as Scott Cortez and Melissa Arpin took the deliciously warped guitars of My Bloody Valentine and stripped away all the rock elements to leave only a churning ocean of fuzzed-out bliss. With their later albums, the duo smoothed out their rough edges a bit and became a bit more focused on crafting more structured songs, but the more frayed and experimental nature of Bloweyelashwish has made it an enduring favorite of mine. In a perfect and just world, Scott Cortez would be a fixture in any conversation about the most inventive and compelling guitar stylists of the last two decades and this album would be held up as the irrefutable evidence of that.
The sequencing of Bloweyelashwish is quite unusual, thoughtful, and effective, as the album's more substantial pieces are interspersed with brief music box-like vignettes of chiming harmonics.Those gorgeous interludes, such as "Butterfly" and "Teardrop," tend to last barely a minute each and occur roughly every other song.Within that loose format, however, the interludes can be quite varied and unpredictable, both in length and aesthetic.For example, "Fur" twists that formula into something that resembles strangled and warbling feedback, as if Cortez took one of his fragile and pretty motifs and fed it into a ring modulator to transform it into a gnarled and shrill grotesquerie of itself.Elsewhere, the gauzy shimmer of "Plume" unexpectedly erupts into a roiling reverie of languorous, breathy vocals and sizzling guitar noise.Despite being one of the shorter pieces, "Plume" has much more in common with the album’s more fully formed pieces, as they similarly tend to feel like a dam just burst to unleash a hallucinatory and churning torrent of lushly layered and beautiful noise.Curiously, both the long and short pieces are equally likely feature the duo’s finest work, as I get the sense that Cortez had been building up a vast backlog of four-track experiments for years and only had time to turn some of them into real songs.Rather than save all those great ideas for the next album, he poured them all into this one to weave a beguiling and kaleidoscopic dreamscape of glimmering, snarling, and shivering bliss.As such, Bloweyelashwish is a dazzling cascade of highlights with the only real caveat being that some of them end far too soon for my liking.
That said, I do have a handful of favorites, some of which hit me the first time I ever heard the album and some which slowly crept up on me over the years.My current favorite, "Darkglassdolleyes," falls into the latter category.In many ways, it is a relatively characteristic piece, as Arpin’s swooning, reverb-swathed vocal melody floats over a slow-moving progression of quavering, hissing, and roiling chords, but it unexpectedly transforms into something far more messy and blown-out sounding around the halfway point.As the song sputters and rumbles along in that newly ravaged state, an insistently repeating feedback motif appears that sounds like a haunted amplifier desperately trying to communicate with the physical world.It is quite a striking and otherworldly bit of guitar sorcery.The closing "Halo" achieves a similar feat, as a churning bed of drones births a heavenly nimbus of seesawing feedback warble.Elsewhere, "Charm" is an absolute stunner, as a deep, warm fog of heavenly vocals and glistening guitars is repeatedly torn apart by grinding squalls of noise.On a more modest scale, the simple and brief "Glimmer" is a gorgeously dreamlike haze of pulsing, seesawing guitars and floating, angelic vocals.There are also a few songs that feel like would-be singles, such as the droningly lovely and vocal-centered "Youreyesimmaculate" and the opening "Babysbreath," which gushes from the speakers like a choir of angels awash in a warm sea of swirling and sputtering hiss and distortion.Unusually for the album, "Babysbreath" even has a hook of sorts, as an odd, descending synth-like melody repeatedly bursts through its hymn-like haze.
The only arguable misstep on the album occurs when Cortez takes over the vocal duties on "Iwantyou," a piece that is also unique for being kind of a fitfully rumbling and rhythmic assault rather than a densely immersive fog of warmth and beauty.Both the (subdued) violence of the guitars and the plaintive edge of Cortez’s voice feel out of place, unintentionally illustrating the crucial role that Arpin plays in the duo's aesthetic.It is all too easy to take her contributions for granted, as her vocals are basically blurred and processed to the point where they almost feel like just another layer of instrumentation, yet they provide both an essential counterbalance and a foundation for Cortez's guitar wizardry.There is probably something wise and insightful that could be said about Lovesliescrushing's seamlessly blending of male and female energies, but it is just as accurate to say that Arpin's simple and pure melodies are the unbroken thread that holds the album together and gives it its tenderness and human warmth.The obvious metaphor is that of a Siren luring me through a deep fog, but that does not quite fit, as it is clear that there is no malevolent undercurrent in Arpin's lovely, floating vocals.Instead, it would be far more apt to say that she is akin to an angelic voice guiding me towards the white light as a hallucinatory landscape erupts, crumbles, and transforms all around me.In short, Bloweyelashwish is an absolutely beautiful album.That was not necessarily what drew me into it in the first place, as I could listen to gnarled guitar experimentation all day, but the elegant arc, deep beauty, and enveloping vision of the album certainly makes it one that only grows more compelling with repeated listens.
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