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The third album from Canadian composer Christopher Bissonnette sees him expanding his palette by narrowing his sound sources to a self-built analog synthesizer. Eschewing the whiplash and/or everything including the kitchen sink style of assembly so common among current analog aficionados, Bissonnette instead applies his signature compositional style of using long held tones and sweeping drones that alternate between, and fuse, pure tonal transcendence and patient, sparkling melodies that slowly reveal themselves.
“Essays in Idleness was born from a desire for a more tactile approach to sound generation. With a limited number of sound sources, the process encouraged more focused examination of the available range of choices.
The album is a series of experiments subsequent to a period of deep reflection on my working process. This sequence of tracks is the culmination of two years of intense exploration with the intention of allowing the medium to have a more profound affect on the outcome, the methodology allowing chance, risk and error to play a greater role.
Some of the studies focus on a generative process, allowing the composition to build upon itself, while others are constructed from more complex textures and compositional fragments that shift and modulate organically." -Christopher Bissonnette
Out April 7th, 2014. More information is available here.
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Composed and recorded in Los Angeles and San Francisco, I is the debut full-length album by Maxwell August Croy and Sean McCann. Croy is best known for his work in Bay Area duo EN, wherein he processes koto, voice, and other instrumentation into ecstatic and nuanced drone-based recordings. McCann is a solo artist whose work continues to undergo seismic evolutions, manifested most recently on the justly lauded Music for Private Ensemble, an album of autodidactic modern composition that defies easy categorization.
Working as a duo, Croy and McCann have successfully synthesized compositional and aesthetic tropes from their respective discographies in order to produce something extraordinary. “Parting Light (Suite)” opens the album with a flurry of koto, cello, and violin lines masterfully woven together; a complex movement that dissembles to reveal a more spacious environment in which each gesture takes on a heightened significance. Croy’s koto lends the piece an Eastern aura that is complicated by McCann’s playing which is equal parts idiosyncratic and grandiose.
Elsewhere, “Alexandria” finds the duo operating at their most celestial, working their instruments into a harrowing, beautiful dirge comprised of clarion tones and wide-eyed string arrangements. Ultimately, the sensibility cultivated by Croy and McCann on I proves to be utterly unique, perhaps situated best somewhere among the soundworlds of Gavin Bryars, Taj Mahal Travellers and Richard Skelton.
The LP was mastered by Rashad Becker and the jacket features exclusive monotypes by Andrew Chalk.
More information is available here.
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Klara Lewis' debut release presents an electronically charged reconstruction of organic sound matter. 10 tracks featuring a wide variety of sonic material which is subjected to Lewis' unique approach to the sonic landscape. Field recordings, small sounds, samples, ambient pot holes, repetition, and giddy disorientation are all tactics deployed by Lewis. On entering these works we take a voyage through a series of audacious audio adventures, playful musical miniatures and choppy sonic seas. There is a human warmth to much of the material as Lewis expertly crafts musical matter from the living world. Ett is an exemplary investigation as Lewis’ reconfigures sounds of life itself, from the delirious to the tender. A bold vision from a bright new talent.
More information is available here.
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The last time Fennesz released an album on Austrian label Mego, it was 2001 and the name of that release was Endless Summer. Now, in 2014 Editions Mego is extremely proud to release the conceptual follow up that landmark of abstract pop. Bécs (pronounced 'baeetch') is Hungarian for Vienna and is the first full length Fennesz solo release since 2008's Black Sea.
Eschewing the more drone orientated works of Black Sea, Bécs returns to the more florid pop mechanisms as deployed on Endless Summer. "Static Kings" features the extra leverage of Werner Dafeldecker and Martin Brandlmayer who deploy a range of atmospheric abstract effects to shape a bewitching sound world. The 10-minute centerpiece "Liminality" (featuring Tony Buck on drums) is classic Fennesz: epic, evocative, beautiful, impossible. "Pallas Athene" creates a sanctuary of hovering beauty which leads into the title track. Emotional and assured, the track "Bécs" is an astonishing contribution to contemporary pop. "Sav" co-written by Cédric Stevens (aka Acid Kirk) inhabits a less structural terrain as one enters a forest of small sounds and oblique atmospheres, where the closing "Paroles", a gentle melody unravels amongst swirls of electronics and fried disruption. Bécs is not just an album or a series of songs, it's a world to inhabit, a landscape ripe with sounds, songs and that esteemed Fennesz signature.
A singular work by a singular artist.
More information is available here.
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My only defense for sleeping on this oft-dazzling album last summer is that nothing makes me wince quite like the word "Moog" these days, as I am sick to death of vintage synthesizer revivalism/fetishism.  That regrettably over-saturated realm is where Gengras shines, however, and several of the pieces on this compilation/retrospective are so great that they easily transcend both their genre and my subjective hostility towards it.  In particular, the 12-minute "Magical Writing" stands as an absolute masterpiece of warm, immersive, and gently hallucinatory drone that should not be missed.
As alluded to by its title, Collected Works is collection of songs that have previously appeared elsewhere, specifically on four cassette releases spanning a range of labels (Stunned, Ekhein, etc.).  Despite that, it still feels like a completely coherent and effectively sequenced whole, as if Gengras was secretly working on this album all along, but periodically issued dispatches from it as teasers.  In keeping with the unexpectedly well-crafted and satisfying arc of the whole, each of the six individual songs feel like meticulously perfected compositions in their own right, which is a true rarity in such an improv-heavy genre.  Gengras does not exactly avoid the tendency to ride a single theme for the entire duration of a song, but he fleshes out his compositions so skillfully and dynamically that it is not noticeable when he does extendedly linger on just one motif.
Right from the start, Collected Works is attention-grabbingly excellent, as the lush, slow-moving drifts of "10.17.2009" and "Resistor" are warmly, languorously mesmerizing.  The overall effect is like a sky blackened with thick, ominous clouds that never quite block out the sun completely.  The brilliance lies almost entirely in the execution, however, as Gengras is not doing anything particularly new, but he has found the ideal balance of warmth, gravitas, and light.  Also, Geddes is a bit more stylistically varied than most of his peers, as the two brief untitled pieces that follow take the album into more of a melancholy, retro-futurist sci-fi direction with similar success.
The album's centerpiece is the aforementioned epic "Magical Writing," a composition which actually surprised me: I genuinely did not know that something emanating from a Moog could possibly be so wonderful.  In a general sense, it shares a lot stylistic common ground with the warm, glacially moving soundscapes that opened the album, but that is merely the starting point.  The best part is probably the digitized bird sounds in the periphery, as that makes the piece sound like a prolonged, disquieting trip into a hallucinatory forest, but "Writing" is further enhanced and deepened by how gently (and deliciously) warped everything sounds.  Gengras was not just making synth-based ambient drone, he was establishing himself as the Kevin Shields of the Moog, albeit an artfully understated one.
The album winds down with one final piece, the comparatively brief "Inductor," which brings Collected Works to woozily beautiful and slightly sci-fi-damaged close.  It is not nearly as entrancing as the previous "Magical Writing," but that is to be expected, as that is an impossible act to follow.  In any case, "Inductor" makes for a fine coda to one of the most consistently strong and satisfying synth albums that I have ever heard.  The main attraction for Works is certainly "Magical Writing," which I deem to be absolutely essential listening, but it is very difficult to imagine anyone being disappointed by any of the other five pieces.  I hereby belatedly decree that this was one of the best albums of 2013.
 
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Hollywood Dream Trip, Would You Like to Know More?
It was a dark and starry night. Under Texas skies, Christoph Heemann and Will Long (Celer) met and exchanged the first loop that would form the bed for the swirling stream of Hollywood Dream Trip's first trip...
Limpe Fuchs/Christoph Heemann/Timo van Luijk, Macchia Forest
An organic audio forest of analogue electronics, electro-acoustic sounds, sound-sculpture instruments plus singing and piano, even (outrageous!).
"they discover how landscape changes, the forest thickens....new creatures, shapes and colours appear..."
More information can be found here.
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CD version of the 2009 Mississippi Records release. Highly recommended to followers of the Blackshaw/Wissem line of acoustic instrumental composition that runs through the Imprec catalog.
From the original notes:
"Portland guitar wizard Marisa Anderson's long awaited solo guitar record. Marisa has been a fixture on many a music scene for years & years playing w/ everyone from the Evolutionary Jass Band to Tara Jane O'Neil to The Dolly Ranchers. In any context, she can't escape her rag/blues/folk roots no matter how hard she tries. This LP featuring only guitar, no vocals, no overdubs, we are treated to a very intimate sounding home recording filled w/ delicate grace. Comparisons to John Fahey & his ilk are bound to occur, but won't be the last words"
CD version of the 2013 Mississippi Records LP.
From the original notes:
"Portland guitar virtuoso Marisa Anderson is back with a new set of home recorded instrumentals. This time around we find Marisa exploring structures more based on the Appalachian folk tradition. The bluesy cadences of Marisa's other previous release -The Golden Hour - are still there but more in an emotional sense than a structural. It's rare to find a record that has just one instrument with no vocals that can achieve real emotional communication - but here 'tis. Marisa thoughtfully composed & recorded this LP over the course of the last two years. It was worth the wait."
More information here.
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Developed over a four-year period, and entirely funded by a part-time job working as a SAT university entrance exam mathematics tutor, No2 was composed using synthesizers and a variety of unidentified samples that were manipulated beyond recognition.
Christina Vantzou then collaborated with Minna Choi of the San Francisco based Magik*Magik Orchestra. Vantzou and Choi worked on the notation and arrangements and recorded the compositions with a 15-piece ensemble at Tiny Telephone studios in San Francisco. The chamber layer on No2 follows a similar pattern as her first record with the addition of bassoon, oboe, and an enhanced string section.
Vantzou spent four months premixing the album before Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie (Stars of the Lid / A Winged Victory for the Sullen) engineered the final mixes, as well as added some of his signature sound texture, at his studio in Brussels, Belgium.
Perhaps a better title for the album would be "Symphony No2" as it was composed as a cohesive whole, much like her first album No1. Dense layers of strings are augmented by angelic voices, piano, woodwinds, & various synthesizers. Instrumental music, especially that which is scored with strings & horns, is invariably described as "filmic". This is even more likely when the composer is a filmmaker such as Christina Vantzou.
Welcome to the future, which luckily for us is filled by a woman's voice with a beautiful narrative. A recording that is a meeting of personalities is like the contact of chemical substances: if there is any reaction, all are transformed.
More information here.
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With 13 years having passed since its initial release, The Visitors is now available again on Phantomcode.
This double CD and LP edition comes with new artwork by Alex Rose and Fred Tomaselli, as well as a specially recorded piece by Cyclobe, "Son of Sons of Light."
"The poets of the sulphur baths in seven crystal tiers star shaped, with the laughter of ghosts in its water" Derek Jarman
More information available here.
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There are three ways of interpreting Volume X, the title of the new album by Trans Am. The first is obvious – it is the band’s tenth studio release, comprised of ten songs that display ten unique sides of Phil Manley, Nathan Means, and Sebastian Thomson. You can also imagine a volume knob being cranked all the way up, the amplification level for an ideal Trans Am listening session. But it can also be read as a representation of the band’s remarkable ability to express, and even embody, unknown capacities, adopting bold stylistic and aesthetic shifts as a defining tenet of their quarter-century long career. Trans Am refuse to rely on their legacy as innovators, opting instead to continue to break down established modes of songwriting, even if they established those modes themselves. Volume X continues in this gloriously contrarian tradition, presenting fans with strange and familiar sounds in new contexts, from kosmische rock to futuristic speed metal to robo-balladry to variants on classic rock that are so warped as to be rendered completely unrecognizable.
“Anthropocene” opens the album with 30 seconds of serene synthesizer ambience before obliterating the stillness with a massive, fuzzy riff anchored by Thomson’s relentless, pounding groove, recorded live in the studio for maximum impact. Volume X is full of these types of disarming moments. Halfway through the sweeping, Kraftwerkian “Night Shift” the song’s syncopated shuffle suddenly becomes a throbbing motorik pulse as two drum takes are overlaid. “Backlash” creeps in with a massive synthesized low-end drone before breaking into a Kill ‘Em All inspired thrash riff that is one of the most aggressive passages the band has laid to tape. And the band saves their most poignant melody for the stripped down slow jam “I’ll Never,” with a vocoded Nathan Means intoning, “Its true, I’ll never get over you.”
Volume X was recorded in spurts over three years, mostly at LCR Studios in San Francisco, where Phil Manley has recorded many other bands as a professional engineer. He also plays in Life Coach with Jon Theodore of Queens of the Stone Age, and Thomson spends his time away from Trans Am playing drums for Baroness. The band is continues to live in separate cities, although all three have settled within the continental US for now. Trans Am will be playing shows throughout North America in support of Volume X.
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Nao Sugimoto's Spekk label had been doing an excellent job of establishing itself as an excellent source of abstract hybrids of organic and synthetic sounds that were sometimes challenging, sometimes beautiful, but always captivating. Because of that, the label’s disappearance after 2011's Phoenix & Phaedra Holding Patterns album by Janek Schaefer was disheartening. When these two new releases appeared, I was hoping that they would be a return to form, and that they are.
Opitope, the duo of Chihei Hatakeyama and Tomoyoshi Date are responsible for the first of these two new releases, the beautifully organic Physis.Given the wide array of styles both artists work in individually, it was somewhat surprising that throughout the four long pieces the music retains a rather specific, singular focus in approach.While their backgrounds include work in hardcore metal and techno projects, calm organic soundscapes are the predominant theme here.
On "An White Drop of Morning Dew" Hatakeyama and Date do pair two differing styles to one another.Shimmering bits of digital noises trade off with piano and plucked string jazz melodies that, on their own, would be too close to easy listening for my tastes.Thankfully the synthetic sounds provide a strong counterpoint that contrasts, but does not clash with the conventional instrumentation.
The remaining songs use the traditional instrumentation more sparingly, such as the chimes and guitar that do not show up until the latter half of "Light Blue Mist and Ripple", following an expanse of fascinating, but indistinct organic sounds and gentle tones.While "Warmth of Winter Woods" first focuses on overt piano and what sounds like a slowly flowing river, the other layers and passages that appear build to an almost disorienting, complex mix of noises that differ nicely from the peaceful introduction.
samples:
The second release is from the increasingly less prolific Celer is the single piece Zigzag that has a different, developed approach to Will Long's penchant for ambient space.The most overt difference that is immediately noticeable is that rather than expansive drones, he instead works in the context of a rhythmic bounce dynamic, leading me to believe that the title could possibly be a reference to the waveform view of the piece or the amplification used in the final mix.
Beyond that, the other striking difference is a heavier use of layering and differing tones and textures throughout the 48 minute duration.The shifting tonal qualities and rhythmic feel adds to this, and even though the dynamics keep things pretty quiet, it never drifts off into the background like similarly sparse, minimalist recordings often do.
Even after its three-year hiatus, the Spekk label still impresses me, and hopefully heralds a return to a consistent release schedule.The only measurable difference is the change in packaging:the distinct, DVD case proportion die cut cardboard sleeves have been replaced with somewhat more conventional cardboard folders.Mildly disappointing, but the music retains the same quality as before, which is the most important part, even if it makes my CD shelves look a bit inconsistent.
samples:
 
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