lunes, 24 de agosto de 2009

Forest Swords - Miarche


Not the original cover art


Genre: Psychedelic Folk, Experimental, Drone
Label: Leftist Nautical Antiques

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Forest Swords is a one-man dub/drone outfit out of the UK. Simply one of the new best music you can find around. Listen, enjoy and buy.

Pausal - Pausal Ep

Pausal make micro-orchestral music for contemplative meditation - Absolutely lush pastoral drones and melodies weave and tangle, slowly ebbing and flowing, timelapse flowers growing in an english meadow with the sun setting just over the ridge, the sound of crickets in the night air.

Originally released in 2007 as a three track web EP, the EP has now been beautifully mastered and enhanced by Twerk, and sounds clear and luxuriant, basking in it's full grandeur, with the addition of new track 'Semi Submerged' recording during the same sessions, and some minor reconstructive surgery to the closing moments of 'Place (Revisited)' which the band always felt should be there.

domingo, 23 de agosto de 2009

Sparklehorse + Fennesz - In The Fishtank Vol.15

Genre: Experimental, Electronic, Ambient
Label: Konkurrent

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This meeting of minds must surely rank as the most enticing prospect in Konkurrent's ongoing In The Fishtank series: Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse teams up with Christian Fennesz once again, this time for a whole album together. Previously Fennesz had contributed to Sparlehorse's Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain, and the two had performed together, but this long-player represents a full and balanced collaboration. As with all the In The Fishtank releases, this was recorded in a mere two days, and yet there's nothing cobbled together or insubstantial about the project. 'Music Box Of Snakes' is a wonderful starting point, layering harmonised cello, piano, treated music box loops and a drove of electronic signals all making up an exquisitely melancholy soundscape. You might, understandably, have felt cheated were you to be presented with a Mark Linkous record that he's not providing some kind of 'song' content for. Fortunately he does just that on two of this record's finest moments: the laudanum-drone lullaby 'Goodnight Sweetheart' and the weightless, whispered chord-clouds of 'If My Heart'. Further fiery improv material arrives in the form of 'NC Bongo Buddy' (whose dense, noisy manoeuvrings at times tap into the free-roaming spirit of the Fenn O'Berg material), while two of the most surprising moments on the record arise from solo spots by each artist. As if participating in some sort of exchange programme, 'Mark's Guitar Piece' dabbles in machined, digital augmentations while 'Christian's Guitar Piece' is an unaccompanied, untreated six-string outing that's unprecedentedly stark and unguarded in the context of Fennesz's catalogue.

viernes, 21 de agosto de 2009

Meth Teeth - Everything Went Wrong Lp

Genre: Lo-Fi, Noise, Psychedelic
Label: Woodsist

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Meth Teeth reside in Portland OR. and in some ways embody the rainy day big country vibe of the city with its youth culture dreamers, old druggies, and rustic history. There is something that is really hard to pin down about Meth Teeth, the songs rely on simple ramshackle rhythms, upbeat shinny guitar interplay, and big fat chord churners, and a lot of tambourine banging away on the snare drum. Ultra catchy summertime rockers keep you sad and lonely, and upbeat and hopeful all at once

Chris Corsano - Another Dull Dawn LP

Genre: Experimental, Free Jazz, Psychedelic, Noise
Label: Ultra Eczema

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Corsano, the last drummer on earth, always remained calm and polite and made this full on incredible LP of absolute madness played on different drum sets, toy percussion, baritone sax mouthpiece on a 2 foot metal pipe, violin strings, banjo and violin bridges, contact mics, effect pedals, claw bell, metal strips from windshield wipers, toy comb, clarinet, toy gamelan, guitar cable, gongs, metals, triangle, nylon guitar strings, amps, melodica, pot lids etc. In every collab he played in (with Bill Nace, Thurston Moore, Spencer Yeh, John Olson, Eric Thielemans, Bjork, Byron Colley, Blood Stereo, Paul Flaherty, Greg Kelley, Idea Fire Company, etc.) he always changes things and never sounds the same.

miércoles, 12 de agosto de 2009

Darwinsbitch - Ore

Genre: Drone, Psychedelic
Label: Digitalis Industries

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Ore, Marielle Jakobsons' first darwinsbitch full-length, presents a remarkably assured exercise in electro-acoustic dronescaping. Using sine oscillators, violin, piano, bells, and other acoustic sounds, Jakobsons, who also plays in the duo Myrmyr (with Agnes Szelag) and Date Palms (with Gregg Kowalsky), stitches seven settings into an uninterrupted, forty-six-minute mass of malignant miasma. The opening piece “Iron Lake” emerges from glutinous fog, the track's stillness reinforced by a phalanx of humming electrical drones and the saw of a violin. It's the latter's presence that gives darwinsbitch's music a character that separates it from that of other sound sculptors. Deploying it judiciously, Jakobsons uses its moaning cry to humanize her desolate and gloom-ridden landscapes. In similar manner, a harmonium occupies the forefront of “Silver Sphere,” gently illuminating its mournful ambiance with crystalline tones before the album plunges into a darker, subterranean zone of nightmarish rumbling (“Flames in Blackened Sky”). Descending deeper, sine tones rub dissonantly against one another in “Raven's Dissipation” while the high-pitched whistle of the violin haunts the background. The exhausted sounds of industrial machinery, bells, and a broken piano dominate the thirteen-minute closer “Shadow Leaves” with the violin theme heard in “Iron Lake” re-appearing to bring the album full circle. Jakobsons shapes the blurry tendrils of the eleven-minute requiem “Iron Lake” and the album's other six pieces with an impressive degree of patience, control, skill, and delicacy. Though understated by design, Ore nevertheless impresses as a tour de force.

martes, 11 de agosto de 2009

Ducktails - Landscapes LP

Genre: Psychedelic, Drone, Experimental, Tropical Pop
Label: Olde English Spelling Bee

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"Major new LP from Ducktails and easily one of Matt Mondanile’s most beautiful, out of time creations. A perfect visioning of Hypnagogic Pop’s retro-futurist appeal, with instrumentals that are as naïve and as wide-eyed teenage perfect as anything on the Department Store Santas LP and an approach to the jam that is primitive in its execution but maximalist in its ambition and its time-phasing potential. Although the arrangements are fairly simple, they have all of the utopian neverland appeal of the lesser known ends of the Beach Boys catalogue. Landscapes includes some re-mastered tracks that originally appeared on the Parasails cassette. Genius liner notes by Skaters road-mangler Charles Berlitz which are worth quoting in full: “Dear Matt, It's confetti for memories! your buddy Charles and the Sunday afternoon gripfest staring, check this out: "Little Man Tate" and "Little Big Man", super funny, as well as a dusty tough to read flick called, you know i got carrots for brains, "Pipeline"! So, you know every trilogy needs the curveball, and well, "Pipeline" has got to be uncle charlie. I found these videos in the basement of chateau terrace antwerp, but it's super gritty kitty down there and i just grabbed three quickies. So I just put on your jams, and i am gunna watch Pipeline's surf visions and scope your memories and sunbake. but man, Pipeline's front flap video tape protection is busted, so i am gunna trade it with "You Got Mail's" front flap, at this point i have to duck into my roomates zone and grip his RCA to Mini jack, but he has a sign posted that reads "STAY OUT OF MY ROOM". super funny, but later I am gunna take the sign, cross out "ROOM" and insert "DREAMS", put the sign on my wall, let somebody specials red orange lipstick make out with it, so that the guy knows he's a cutie and chazzi's touched by freak. But so check it, i had to grip this RCA to Mini jack so that i can grip your memories and watch Pipeline. Hey man, for real though, member when we were on the beach in barcelona, before our car got towed, and we were cruising to beverly hills cop soundtrack, The Master and Carmen San Diego were in the back, we got to the beach jumped in the water drank beer ate coconuts and got massages while staring at boob people. at that moment, like when we snuck into the berlin film festival and danced Ocean's 11, wow, my roomate just came home, he's wearing a long party wig and telling chazzi that he shagged all night long in a squat called "Duel 3", no joke; but yeah, I cannot, for the parrot in me, forget those times, to each his own future, So wait, back to Pipeline,, no wait, i got to tell you about this party last full moon, my roomate throws one every month when the moon's light eclipses that of the rational minds hesitations, and well i had to dj, i wanted to, but i brought the parrot along, you met him right? he is always there when chazzy does the radio show or when monopoly needs vocals on a bamboo track, but neither of us invite this guy to the parties where those other dreams come true. its not cool, so i brought him along, you know his name right? Belafonte, so belafonte and i start dj-ing, you know that song from Police Academy called "I got to be somebody" by Jack Mack and a Hearttack? stars and ecstasy, for real, and jel doctor was getting me buckets of beer, cuz it was so hot and the air is full of short stuff, so i flip the records and repeatedly fend off requests for beat it and dirty diana, and all of a sudden Belafonte has drank all my beer and is smoking cigarettes, there are no tickets for free coldies, and i get pretty pissed, i kinda let Belafonte have it, you know, telling him that I cant take him anywhere, gnorm the gnome style, and he's like "alright, you go get some more beers", wow, your mirror jam just cruised in - memories... so, yeah, Belafonte is like "go, get some more beers and let me talk some of these girls into dancing with us and you will be calling me Most Valuable Vertabrae, birdtalk magazine style, so i get a bunch of coldies cuz tod god just came through with some bready poo, i come back to the dance floor, and well, i guess Belafonte burnt his head on his own cigarette, and this girl named Manon, but he understood as Emanuelle, like schnikies!! well his head is burnt and this black paint starts rubbing off his head, and i notice that there is paint on my neck, my face, and on her face, and her neck, and so on and so forth CSI style, and everybody kind of understands, the girls have taken this black paint and are marking it on their bodies like war paint initiation style, and they are petting Belafonte like he's the unattainable, i had no idea that this parrot was a model for Birdtalk Magazine back in its hey day, group therapy is affective... later i asked Manon for some affection, and she said "no, your feet are too dirty", on account of me wearing flippers to a dance party, and was like cool, its not even july 4th yet, but then, as i walked away she was like "Three O Clock, meet me at the Zoo!" no joke, Belafonte and me were like ah kuku ah kaka bamboo-for-two style... Stories are forever and i got to get back to PIPELINE, which is hitting the screen right now, and its definitely not about surfing and reminds charles of when Ebay and you stayed at the new york dante's microchip apartment and it was so hot and you guys passed out next to each other in your undies exclusively like siamese pipeline limbo style, if i had hoagie it would have been chazzi to chucky in like 4 doners and sixty seckies... Thanks for the memories Matt, i miss you man, i think Belafonte and I will get deported soon and i will meet you in Cali. Love, Charles Berlitz.”

martes, 4 de agosto de 2009

High Wolf - High Wolf Cdr

Genre: Psychedelic, Drone, Experimental
Label: Winged Sun Records

My Space

Primer trabajo editado por este combo francés, en el cual aparecen sus temas más antiguos. Una buena muestra de como se ha originado el sonido que desarrollan en otras grabaciones que han realizado para el sello Not Not Fun y también para Winged Sun (ambas en cassete). Una mezcla de drones psicodélicos y percusiones tribales que se muestran totalmente hipnóticos desde el primer momento, evolucionando en los tímpanos de manera totalmente insólita.