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Inspired by a German audiobook of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, the tracks on this album suitably evoke contact with distant landscapes that may or may not be inhabited. An eerie otherness pervades these songs, as if anxiously awaiting the arrival of alien emissaries.
Although at first it may seem as if the drone-heavy songs on this album are fairly static, closer listening reveals turbulent nuances unfolding beneath the surface. In "Valles Marineris," it's as if some scientific reconnaissance device is transmitting data streams in the background, providing statistical information to complement the mixture of awe and unease. "Olympus Mons" contributes some light mechanical rhythms and a brief, repeating harmony before the ambient soundscape converges once again. The atmosphere builds throughout this track like a dense, aural fog in which shapes dart in the mist, just beyond reach.
A rhythmic pulse also infiltrates "Way in the Middle of the Air," but rhythm finally dominates in "Cydonia" with a loop that could have been created with battered rocks. As a counterpart, two alternating tones emerge to form a semblance of melody. The last track, "Chryse Planitia," is the most exhausting at nearly 20 minutes in length, but it also has the most rewarding complexity. Starting with a sort of sticky static, the familiar overtones appear but this time they're accompanied by a delicate mirage of shimmering microtones. A commanding machine-like swath overpowers the others, pulling the song toward a conclusion. There's quite a bit seething underneath the main sounds here that, as is the case with the other tracks, benefit by a bit of volume.
There's no such thing as static motion on this disc. Like the best ambient music, each track here constantly evolves, transporting us as far off-planet as they're willing to go.
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Robert Horton weaves together drones, field recordings, improvisations on homemade instruments, and digital manipulations in the creation of this excellent, otherworldly recording. His explorations go in such a variety of directions and altered states that it is hard not to be a little awestruck in their wake.
The album opens with the incantation "Magus." Joining its harrowing drones are metallic strings and a horn, though the true source of the latter elements are little difficult to discern considering how frequently he creates his own instruments. After that attention-grabbing opening track, he takes it a step further with the trance-inducing "Long Period Event," a quasi-mystical devotional that inhabits its own reality altogether.
One of the things that Horton does well is the way he makes music from non-musical objects. He creates "Fire" from running a contact microphone over a wood stove while on "Musclefish" he plays with raw, uncooked noodles. Some of these tracks benefit from some digital manipulation afterwards, but the editing is so subtle that it leaves no obvious fingerprints. His own four-stringed invention, the boot, shows up on the harmonic-obsessed "What Is Left Unsaid," and the album's title track reveals his admiration for the slide guitar. Closing the disc is "Tuning Emperor Norton" in which Horton adds a khaen to the time-stretched drone of the orchestra tuning up for Gino Robair's opera about San Francisco's Emperor Norton.
This meditative piece is a fitting finale to a cycle of songs that continually venture into cathartic regions. Horton covers a lot of territory with this album, hazing it all with a gauze of glory and wonder.
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The latest installment to spill from Andrew Liles' ambitious and generous Vortex Vault series casts Liles as the ringleader of a black magic vaudeville act. Theatrical and playfully whimsical, this multilingual, dialogue-laden album is a striking release that shifts modes effortlessly, revealing new finds from Liles' unlimited bag of tricks at every turn.
The human voice, both speaking and singing, forms an integral part of this album. The unpredictable way it's interspersed with music and the different languages that appear and vanish gives the impression that there’s some bizarre stage performance in progress, even if I'm at a loss to explain what it's about. The vocals range from the spoken word to the operatic, and the effect is jarring only when it’s intentional.
Musically, there are plenty of fascinating objects to behold in this cabinet of curiosities. "Bengali Bergman" has dirge-like strings and a beguiling Eastern accompaniment. Hand drums make up a large part of "Quicksand Mudslide" as some feline entity patrols the border. This piece is interrupted by startling electrical zaps as if some modern alchemical wizard is channeling the secret energy of the universe. It‘s one of the most arresting moments on the disc. Also surprising, albeit in a different sense altogether, is the song "God Doesn’t Fuck About," a percussive jazz funk so convincing that I momentarily forgot what album I was listening to until the airplane rush of an ending reminded me.
Although a few recurring titles appear sporadically throughout the album, they are not simply multiple versions of the same song. Instead, they are different enough from each other to suggest they are somehow parts of a related story or theme, even though the instrumentation and mood are often dissimilar. Yet it's a tactic that works in the service of the unexpected.
The breadth of this album and its beautiful presentation really make it an impressive package. Even the devilishly genial hand-puppet shadow grinning on the cover reflects the fun to be found within. Liles and Beta-lactam Ring are raising the bar ever higher with this series, and they both deserve a lot of credit for making these incredible recordings available.
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Lower Lip Interface is pretty much an album of straight up goth-club dance music. It is heavy on the distorted synths, full of zombie and horror movie samples, and even the song titles are tongue in cheek occult refferences ("Caballa Smells Funny," "A Caine in the Brain"). Architect has a tight formula and he does it well, but as formulas go he just holds to it a little too much. He heavily uses the same two-step break, which gets pretty old after a while, especially at the slower tempo he predominantly uses.
Out of the 13 tracks on here, about five are great. "Stairway" is two of them, one being the exciting original and the other being Nebulo's remix that he thoroughly makes his own. The rest is pretty much filler. Not to say that anything on this album is bad, but it feels like there's a little too much music for too little original material. Despite a few contemporary flashes, this album could have come out ten years ago.
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The second installment in a proposed David Jackman trilogy (preceded by Sanctus, and to be completed with Omega) lives up to its name with a spiritual recording of Hammond organ, tower bell, gong, and processed voices.
David Jackman began Organum in the early '80s as an outlet for noisy experimentation consistent with the early industrial pioneers like Einstürzende Neubauten and SPK. Characterized by scrapes and grinds and other unpleasant sounds generated by raw metal, it has since been refined and developed into a more diverse body of work. Organum has been extremely prolific ever since its inception in 1983. Even after all of these years Organum continues to release new material and reissue out of print works, of which Amen is the former.
Consisting of two tracks both clocking in at 22 minutes, there is a notable spiritual sound resonating throughout the recordings that is not blatantly religious, though musically it could be linked to what is usually attributed to Christian church instrumentation. It is an overall feeling of enormity and reverence akin to Albert Ayler's work, which also conveyed this sense of the holy and majestic without being overt or denominational. The two tracks are based upon long passages of sustained organ drone that covers both the higher and lower registers without a single break, interspersed by brief processed vocal snippets and bells. These motifs repeat through both tracks, which resemble a single piece broken up by an intermission as opposed to two separate works.
As a work, Amen is rather simple and repetitious, but it is within a context where repetition is an asset rather than a liability. The fact that the sound repeats consistently has a calming and hypnotic effect, transcending the notions of time. Amen is the sound of eternity and infinity, characterized by the only text in the minimalist digipak other than the artist and title, "Unto the Aeon of Aeons."
Jackman himself has described this as being part of a "holy"/historical trilogy, which is very appropriate. He has refused to elaborate on the “holy” part of this description on the official Organum website, which is also fitting. I mentioned that it has more of a spiritual sound than a religious one previously, because though the instrumentation is more consistent with what westerners would perceive as Christian church based, but the overall ascetic approach to instrumentation and structure has a notable Buddhist and Zen feel as well. The sound transcends religion into pure spiritualism: Amen is a work that is simultaneously relaxing and utterly compelling.
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Von Suedenfed successfully leads Mouse on Mars and Mark E. Smith in new and unexpected directions where they've never gone as separate entities. Tromatic Reflexxions, has the energy of "a hybrid band -- a futuristic band playing grime or ska or soca like a pirate radio station" with electro, dubstep and disco thrown into the mix. It combines the genre-smashing attack of early-millenia club music with Mark E. Smith's free-associating visionary wordplay.
Tracklisting is as follows:
1. Fledermaus Can't Get Enough
2. The Rhinohead
3. Flooded
4. Family Feud
5. Serious Brainskin
6. Speech Contamination/German Fear Of Osterreich
7. The Young The Faceless And The Codes
8. Duckrog
9. Chicken Yiamas
10. That Sound Wiped
11. Jbak Lois Lane
12. Dearest Friends
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Artist: SLEEP RESEARCH FACILITY
Title: Deep Frieze
Catalogue No: CSR72CD
Barcode: 8 2356602372 2
Format: CD in jewelcase with foldout map / booklet
Genre: Dark Ambient
Shipping: 12th April 2007
Ultra deep, glacial Dark Ambient, based around Antarctic co-ordinates.
The polar regions are awe-inspiring environments of inhospitable minimalism, and at the same time there's a beautiful serenity to be found in their uncharted bleakness. There's a powerful purity and a timelessness to be found there; snow which has lain un-trampled for millennia and ice which formed eons ago; mountain ranges and deserts and rivers to be found if you look.
'Deep Frieze' is SRF's second album for Cold Spring and here deep, resonant, abyss-like drones shine forth from icy chasms below.
MP3 Sample: "79ºS 83ºW "�
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Artist: INANNA
Title: Day Ov Torment
Catalogue No: CSR71CD
Barcode: 8 2356604302 7
Format: CD in jewelcase
Genre: Death Industrial
Shipping: 12th April 2007
Reissue of the massive Death Industrial album from this Archon Satani side-project, originally issued by Staalplaat in 1993.
Inanna were at the forefront of a new force in Doom Ambiance way back in the early '90s. This stunningly remastered and repackaged album brings alive one of the classic scene albums - a milestone in ultra grim and crushing death sonics, that paved the way for many Drone and Ritual Industrial bands around today. Mixed by J Havukainen (In Slaughter Natives).
MP3 Sample: "Ancient Flesh "�
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Artist: SHINJUKU THIEF
Title: The Scribbler
Catalogue No: CSR62CD
Barcode: 8 2356602422 4
Format: CD in jewelcase
Genre: Dark Orchestral / Neoclassical
Shipping: 12th April 2007
Reissue of the 1992 classic by this Australian genius, originally released in an edition of 500 copies. Occasional bursts of factory noise, industrial rumblings and disembodied German voices form the backdrop to a minimalist reworking of Kafka's "The Trial." An album of dense filmic atmospheres and orchestral instrumentation.
'The Scribbler' has been digitally remastered and is enhanced with a series of video clips constructed by Richard Grant (I+T=R), incorporating both new material together with the original images prepared for "The Scribbler" live show.
MP3 Sample: "A Promise And A Lecture"�
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artist: OCEAN/CONIFER
title: split
catalog #: IMPREC144
upc: 793447513621
release date: APRIL 24, 2007
format: LP
This split 12” release is limited to 1000 copies and pressed on rust and grey color vinyl. It is packaged in a screen printed mylar jacket with a screen printed mylar insert and a screen printed paper insert. Cover artwork is of a 19th century statue located at the center of Portland Maine, the dramatic coastal home of both groups. This is the sound of a musical brotherhood entirely unique to Ocean & Conifer.
Over the years Ocean and Conifer have shared vans, stages, members, practice spaces, apartments, beers, a city and a kindred musical spirit. In a lot of ways it's a shock that that split hasn't happened already but perhaps it was so obvious that nobody noticed that it needed to happen. Sometimes the truth is right beneath your nose.
With their original drummer back in the line-up, since Eric Brackett left to focus his energy on Ocean, Conifer has re-enlisted their original drummer Nate Nadeau. With Nate back in the group they're heavier, tighter and more united than ever before. They've toured and player with Mono, Black Dice, High On Fire, Asva, Mouth Of The Architect and many more. Summer of 2006 saw them embark on an ambitious 26 city tour.
Ocean's 20 minute epic was recorded in the same sessions that birthed their next album, currently untitled, for Important. Containing all of the epic minimalist intensity and robust heaviness that has gained them international attention, The Undoing is a whole new level.
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artist: ASA IRONS & SWAAN MILLER
title: Asa Irons & Swaan Miller
catalog #: IMPREC143
upc: 793447514321
release date: April 24, 2007
format: CD
This record is forever. After listending to it you'll realise that it doesn't matter that Asa Irons plays in Witch with J Mascis as well as the acclaimed folk outfit Feathers. This record needs no associations and it's songs are so timeless that they feel as if they've been passed around for generations and hardly need any recording medium at all. This is the first release from Asa Irons and Swann Miller but it sounds like they've lived within each others voices for a million years. Asa's deep-breath-voice lays down a mossy hill for Swann's beautiful voice to tread upon. His guitar work is simply intricate and his fingerpicking perfectly suits the way their voices combine to become one. This record always has been and always will be. This record is forever.
“After spending years in New Hampshire and often Nova Scotia, I began writing songs about my Northeastern window through which I view the world. Most of the pieces represent strong fundamentals in my life such as living without comfort resources like electricity and running water, the building trends of carpentry and masonry with which I make my living, and the slow paced rural life in which I grew up. The land of Northeastern North America is very important to me and compelled me to describe it in the form of music. Many people in my life were musicians - my father, cousins, friends - so I had plenty of good examples to pull from and think about. My style of song writing, I believe, comes from the influence of these loved ones combined with certain deep-rooted melodies or images from books that have stuck with me. (Such as sound tracks of old cinema and authors like Tolstoy and Carolyn
Chute.)
My older sister's art work has also had a tremendous effect on the way I see the world. Many of her primary subjects revolve around various representations of our own home place and the people who inhabited this and
the other woods houses in which we grew up. One of the people connected to me through music and lifestyle is Swann Miller. She is the daughter of a man who was a good friend of my father's. Through the '70's our fathers built houses together around N.H. and also played a lot of music. So, I have known Swann my whole life and perhaps it was inevitable that we made music together. When I reached her house in the winter of 2003, I had just had my notebook of songs stolen along with other things. I decided to try to catalogue all I could remember by practicing them. Swann practiced with me. On a whim, her boyfriend - who works as a sound engineer - recorded the two of us singing in an abandoned yellow women's bathroom in the basement of the building where they lived. It all took about an hour and a half including set up of mics, recording, and
breaking down. I borrowed a twenty year old Guild guitar from a friend of a friend which was very similar to my father's guitar that I grew up with. I am so happy to have had the opportunity to help capture Swann's beautiful voice and continue the music of our families.
The album is a quick glimpse of a world view from Southern New Hampshire through the voices of two old friends whose fathers were friends before them.” Asa Irons
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