Alasehir - Torment Of The Metals Lp

Genre: Psychedelic, Drone, Experimental Rock
Label: Important Records

Buy

Alasehir's 4th release, following a CD apiece for the Important, aRCHIVE and Siltbreeze labels, Torment of The Metals "continues their sonic exploration of dense, languorous, free expansion. Billowing and exploding like a cluster of hashish stars, they produce a cosmic energy akin to a quasar in the heavens far left of Coltrane's OM and just right of the galaxy known as Dead C's Harsh '70s Reality

One of four Bardo Pond-related LPs to be released this week, Alasehir's Torment Of The Metals is the product of Michael and John Gibbons from the aforementioned stoner rock icons. This LP is at the more brain-frazzled end of the psych/sludge scale, featuring huge, furious guitar riffs, passages of extreme fuzz and some killer free-rock drumming from Jason Kourkounis. The band get through three tracks in forty minutes, which isn't as sluggish as it sounds - sure, they grind to a thoroughly tuned-out pace for much of 'Wheel Of Anguish', but this LP is heavy and intense in all the right ways. And just check out the righteous sleeve...

Limited edition of 500 copies pressed on virgin vinyl. Guitar out-crunch hailing from the Bardo Axis. Alasehir is grounded stoner heavy-zen and the second in our four part Bardo Pond related vinyl set.

Alexander Turnquist - As the Twilight Crane Dreams in Color

Genre: Folk, Americana, Psychedelic
Label: VHF

My Space

Buy

Second full length from NY based guitarist Turnquist, who defies expectations with a set of hypnotic epics that owe more to classic minimalism than current notions of solo guitar. Forgoing most of the extended techniques of his debut, Turnquist concentrates on laying down a thick blanket of 12 string that sets up persistent loop-like patterns in the music. Simple and lovely strings, piano, and percussion accompaniment provide the melody, carrying most of the movement in the pieces. The palette of sounds and styles here is used with extraordinary control and restraint - the orchestrations are as reductionist as possible, with no cringe-inducing "string drama" or unnecessary virtuosity. The almost monomaniacal tremolo thrum of the guitar dominates the album, but there is a lengthy ambient breakdown that occurs midway through the 18 minute "The REM Cycle - Dream Phase" that is a thing of elliptical and drifting beauty. "As The Twilight Crane" is a bold statement even in the context of the frequent micro-parsing of styles in the sub-underground - there's really not much else out there like it.

Blues Control - Local Flavor

Genre: Experimental, Psychedelic, Noise, Drone
Label: Stiltbreeze

My Space

Buy

A few years back, former Quiet Sun / Roxy Music / 801 behind-thescenesmastermind Gill Manzanera—no relation to guitarist Phil Manzanera(whose real name is Philip Targett-Adams)—offered up a beguilingreminiscence of those heady days to the Swiss fanzine Sombre Reptiles:“What we were trying to do, you see, was harness the future into thepresent. However, we were severely at odds with technology, a ring modulator on a Fender Rhodes and a bit of funny business through an analogsynth being about as far as one could go then. The work with Quiet Sunwas the foundation, then later Phil and Eno built upon that within Roxyand if only Ferry had acquiesced to Brian having a go at ‘Bogus Man,’I think the results would have been stunning (as well as longer-lasting).But alas, so then for 801, the decision was to incorporate the progressiveand avant garde through a chamber of fusion (so to speak), the results ofwhich are undeniable. Mind you, this was all during the burgeoning punkera, so it took a bit of time for some to settle in with what was happening.But isn’t that the future, really; someone has to be the first out the door toknow if the rest of us will need a jumper or not. It was all quite brilliantin that way, absolutely so, I should think.”Hmm, well, that all sounds… quite English. Oddly enough, that sliverof quinine-sotted nostalgia could be used as a swab of historical DNApap to describe the fantastic newest shimmer from Blues Control. Whilepast releases have been beauteous extrapolations into the miasmic coreof psychedelia and billowing fog of ambient space, Local Flavor is theone where all the chickens have come home to roost.The opening track “Good Morning” is practically a sideways step intoboogie rock (horn accompaniment provided by none other than JesseTrbovich and Kurt Vile); with the proper seismic shift, it could almostbe heard as an alternate reality take on “Re-make/Re-model.” It’s easilythe band’s longest stomp in the forest of rock since their debut cassette,and, man, them boots leave a bruise! The remaining three tracks morph and ebb harmoniously—in trueBlues Control fashion—the timbre occasionally elegiac, yet more oftenriffing on a plane that has yet to be transcribed. Local Flavor is 801 plusan extra one (8101, if you will), providing an unimaginable future thatwill take your breath away. So make sure you’ve paid your oxygen bill,because there are no free rides in the 82nd Century. Features guest musicians JesseTrbovich and Kurt Vile.

Danny Norbury - Light In August

Link Removed By Request

Genre: Neo Classical, Piano, Ambient
Label: Lacies Records

My Space
Buy

Cellist Danny Norbury has contributed to music by Library Tapes, The Boats, Nancy Elizabeth and Rafael Anton Irisarri of The Sight Below. This incredible full-length, Light In August, finds Norbury assuming the role of a one-man ensemble, spinning a collection of understated string and piano elegies harnessing an incredibly intimate cinematic quality.

Norbury’s music taps into the neo-classicisms of Rachel’s or Hildur Gudnadottir, with gentle, harmonised cello figures and minimal keystrokes leading the way. A maudlin grasp on romanticism takes hold of pieces like ‘The Morning Star’ and ‘Small Field’, setting the tone for what’s to come: a set that wrings every drop of emotion from Norbury’s instrumental palette. Fans of Peter Broderick’s Float album, or the aforementioned Hildur Gu?nadottir’s Without Sinking will fall in love at first listen, but Norbury manages to map out his very own niche within the current crop of modern classical musicians on outstanding entries such as the quietly devastating ‘This Night Is For You And For Me’ and final track ‘The Evening Star’, whose extreme cello glissandos mimic pedal steel tones, arcing across the horizon in the most heart-rending of fashions. (Boomkat)

Stephan Mathieu + Taylor Deupree - Transcriptions

Genre: Ambient
Label: Spekk

Buy

Spekk really is one of those labels that you can rely on every single time. Having loved and enjoyed the entire catalogue right the way back to the first release from Taylor it’s pleasing to finally have another full albums worth of material from the man himself. However, this is a collaborative work with another artist of the highest calibre, Stephan Mathieu. Between them they’ve conjured up an utterly engrossing selection of thematically focused music that’s as beautiful as you’d hope. With Mathieu providing sound sources that range from 78rpm records, wax cylinders and pianos and Deupree crafting his wares with guitars, synths and processing I imagine you’ll have a fairly good idea of where this is headed. Sculpted, entrancing, light and airy organic works with such a lovely human touch, that’s expertly tempered by a more electronic feel. At times this is out and out melodic and at others it delves into deeper, darker territory. They’re both really at home with the way the tracks flow and, even though I’d really hesitate to announce this as being drone, I have to acknowledge that there’s definitely an influence in there. But this is less static and almost, in a bizarre contemporary kind of way, poppy – that is to say you can hear the songs in there but they’re always completely tangible… it’s more of a feeling and an atmosphere than anything else. Spekk delivers once again and shows that it’s still up there when releasing contemporary electronic music. For fans of either artist or the label you’ll be unsurprised to hear that I’m considering this a totally essential release.

Greg Davis – Mutually Arising

Link Removed By Request of Greg Davis

Genre: Drone, Ambient
Label: Kranky

My Space

Buy

Davis is a student of music having studied at DePaul and worked on several collaborations with Keith Fullerton Whitman. His interest in drone is prominent on this release, “Mutually Arising,” and thoughtfully builds swirling masses of sound using Korg mono/poly and Crumar Stratus analog synthesizers, treated with various effects pedals and computer processing.

The disc features two long cuts, “Cosmic Mudra,” and “Hall of Pure Bliss.” Both tracks live up to their titular promise. Though our niche world is rife with drones, some even saying that it’s a form which is, for the time being, finished, it’s anathema to those of us who consider it an eternal music—one which has no beginning nor end, but is merely a snapshot of an ongoing eternal universal sigh. The calm, persistent mounting of harmonies and quivering timbres represented on this recording are just this sort of music. Crawling and dreamy, Davis’ sounds build monumental structures which blissfully reveal overtones which at times rival some of drone’s more recognized names. Gentle harmonies compete with more aggressive atonalities and produce lasting moments of tension which melt away, swaying breathily back into sparkling meditations on the most elemental forms of music. (Review by Dan of Fluid Radio)

Pocahaunted - Live From The New Age Cs

Not the original cover

Genre: Psych, Folk, Drone, Experimental
Label: Not Not Fun

My Space

Bethany and Amanda comprise Pocahaunted. Most of Pocahaunted’s music has been in the murkier, ambient sort of school of primitive experimentalism, but Island Diamonds is all druggy tribal rhythms and hypnotic dub jams, drenched in a grimey sort of reverb that smacks of the desert in a major Alejandro Jodorowsky kind of way. They’re El Topo on the streets of California, but they’re hard to pin down, extremely prolific, and always trying something new. They’ve now got several releases out on the likes of Not Not Fun (which Amanda co-runs), Ecstatic Piece, Arbor, Night People, and several more. (From Tinymixtapes.com)