Facture: May Edition by Dan Crossley

FACTURE MAY 2 0 1 1

KANSHIN

VARIOUS ARTISTS KANSHIN

As the sensationalist media broadcasters find other things to talk about in the news, a huge recovery operation is still ongoing in Japan as we speak. Many people have lost everything. So we decided to put together Kanshin so that via Ian Hawgood, 100% of profit from compilation sales will go directly towards the Japan recovery and on-going relief eﬀorts

Kanshin is a two CD compilation album that presents a collection of sound design work from some of the scene’s finest artists from across the globe. It has been put together to raise money for the current recovery in Japan following March’s earthquake. As the sensationalist media broadcasters find other things to talk about in the news, a huge recovery operation is still on-going as we speak. Many people have lost everything. So we decided to put together Kanshin so that via Ian Hawgood, 100% of profit from compilation sales will go directly towards the Japan recovery and on-going relief eﬀorts. Ian lives in Japan and his wife is currently working with both the Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support organisation (JEARS) in Sendai and surrounding areas, as well as the Direct Help for Victims and Animals Rejected from Shelters in Japan group who are going up to areas which are not receiving government support for food, water, basic supplies, as well as rebuilding and cleaning up. By this means they are able to transport food, clothing and aid directly almost every other weekend and during holidays to areas which are not getting enough or any support. Ian’s wife has also arranged a house as a base in Sendai for volunteers and a temporary home for found animals who are then moved on through JEARS either to foster homes or animal centres. We felt that any funds we can send this way would probably have more of an immediate impact than donating via one of the larger UK charities. Ian himself has contributed to the compilation in a collaboration with Peter Jørgensen and through 3 hours and some 30 tracks, the line up that comprises this album is surely as exciting as it gets... Kanshin is curated by Daniel Crossley (Fluid Radio/Fluid Audio/Facture) and Jonathan Lees (Hibernate/Rural Colours), with invaluable assistance from Ian Hazeldine (Cover art), Wil Bolton (Mastering) and Damian Valles (Digital distribution). This release is made possible by the generosity of all of the artists involved

Pre Orders are available now Ships June 10th 01. Clem Leek: Light Passage II (Grief) 02. Hummingbird: Dancing Shadows 03. Relmic Statute: Lopery 04. Scissors and Sellotape: Heal 05. P Jørgensen & Ian Hawgood: Isles 06. Wil Bolton: Lost In Transit 07. Field Rotation: A Pondering Silence 08. Caught In The Wake Forever: LiaFail (At Dawn) 09. Damian Valles: Clime 10. Library Tapes: May (Variation) 11. Yellow6: Repeat 12. Maps & Diagrams with Yvat: Again 13. Felicia Atkinson: Chaleur Vacante 14. Hessien: Flightless And Nocturnal 15. Yann Novak: 3 Surfaces Excerpt 16. Ohesky With Ten And Tracer: Therapy Refuge 17. Orla Wren With Katie English: Swallowtail Yellow 18. The Moving Dawn Orchestra: We’re Here 19. Spheruleus: Residue 20. The Silence Set: So Will Everything We Love 21. Aaron Martin & Machinefabriek: Utsutsu 22. Szymon Kaliski: And Longing 23. Jeremy Bible & Jason Henry: Grainslip 24. Bengalfuel: Gorgon 25. David Newlyn: Landscape (III) 26. Tom White: Bright Rooms 27. Listening Mirror: The Cause Of It All 28. Talvihorros: Perigree 29. Alex Durlak: Bellows 30. Antonymes: Kiotsuketene 31. Kyle Bobby Dunn: Britannia Into Morning

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TAYLOR DEUPREE JOURNAL

For Taylor Deupree, it seems that the items tucked away represent “missed opportunities” or memories explored but not fully realised; the charred remains of what-might-have-been sitting in a dank corner gathering dust

There are places of hidden treasure where we store things with the intention of coming back to again... The two tracks on Taylor Deupree’s new 7" release are named “Journal” and “Attic”, places we think to put things of importance, value, and oentimes, of a highly personal nature, but which remain hidden and elusive to remembrance. When I was younger, I would oen sneak up to the attic of my house. We had an attic door that dropped down from the ceiling, giving way to a rickety stairwell with a string attached to it allowing you to tug at the light switch. Going up there over the summer, I distinctly remember the oppressive heat and humid-ity I encountered upon getting to the final step of the staircase. What did I hope to discover in such a place? I recall there being an air of uncertainty of what awaited me. Most of the things that were up there were remnants of my parents’ past, books and trinkets that were discarded. With my imagination running rampant, I think I hoped to discover something about my parents, who they were in their past lives before they had my sister and me. I wondered whether the things that were up there were meant to be forgotten, or at some point, to be remembered. Were they meant to creep back into our consciousness and remind us of their existence? The attic could be the last stop before we are ultimately ready to move on from a belonging, to forget it, or file away the memory. The finality of parting with something is too much.

For Taylor Deupree, it seems that the items tucked away represent “missed opportunities” or memories explored but not fully realised; the charred remains of what-mighthave-been sitting in a dank corner gathering dust. “Attic” emphasizes the rough outline of memory as if an old super 8 film has been glued back together, certain frames overexposed, the gelatin coating worn away, and a recurring hiss plagues the film’s sound as it’s projected. The nostalgic eﬀect is completely immersive; I found myself revisiting a tattered photograph that I used to keep in my dresser drawer but somehow found itself amongst a pile of forgotten photos in the attic. The memory lingers, but the image has strayed. The colors are all washed away in my mind and one day I’m sure I’ll steal away to the attic to find an everlasting moment, not tucked away.

journal finds its way up to the attic at some point, waiting to be found again. On this 7”, “Journal” features a persistent coo of an organ, the sustain reaching into the soul. A faraway voice finds its way through the sounds closing in on the listener. It seems to know its destination and although the words get muﬄed along the way, the sentiment does not. Sadly, this 7" release was limited to 100 copies. Many, including myself, missed out on an artifact that will not be pushed aside and forgotten about. The pieces here resonate thoroughly to the bone and there is no way I’ll be able to file them away in the hopes that one day I’ll happen upon them again. Instead, they will be close at hand to remind me of what was lost and might never be found. ▶ Michael Vitrano

In a similar way, a journal holds our thoughts, dreams, and feelings in a secure place so that one day we may return to them. But do people ever really read through their journal? Or is the purpose of keeping one the actual process of writing down our thoughts and feelings? Years later, the idea of reading through an old journal may sound appeal- ing to get a sense of the person we once were writing about; the person we’d like to become. Would we regain that sense of wonder? Would the dramatic monologues inspire us to care deeply again about someone we lost? A first love, perhaps? I imagine a

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ELEANOORA ROSENHOLM HYVAILE MINUA PIMEA THATI

Originally the brainchild of Noora Tommila, Pasi Salmi and Circle’s Mika Rättö, the Eleanoora Rosenholm project has since grown into a seven-piece band, encompassing a wide range of influences to create something like art-discosoundtracks. Hyväile Minuä Pimeä Tähti (Caress Me, Dark Star) is the third instalment of the group’s twist- ed tales that revolve around Rosenholm’s fictional suburban housewife turned serial killer; the character being meticulously developed over the course of past releases and through the group’s own website. Marking a maturity of writing and with elements of anything from pop to electronica to Gregorian chant, the septet certainly inhabits a unique space. The delicate yet emotionally powerful vocal of Noora Tommila, who plays the role of Eleanoora, demonstrates an impressive range from the joyous excitement of tracks such as ‘Hakemus’ to the painful fragility of ‘Valo

Kaasumeren Hämärässä’. Powerful opening track ‘Kolo’ contrasts Tommila’s fragile vocals against a thunderous male chorus to startling eﬀect. This is a theme that recurs throughout the album with Tommila cutting a lonely figure, constantly pursued by these numerous un- flinching voices. With numerous sections taking in everything from prog-like guitar screeches to abstract polyrhythms, ‘Puoli Päivää Firenzestä Itään’ is not for the faint of heart. Aer a jaunty introduction and a rather dreamlike crescendo that borders on kitsch levels of epic comes a superb, intense rhythmic passage of layered vocals and rolling drums. A driving rhythm works against out of phase electronics and muﬄed speech before a pastoral interlude leads into the reappearance of previous themes, finally coming to a close with a sombre chant motif. It’s an astonishing

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piece of song writing and certainly one that has grown on me. Due to the dark nature of the story being told here, there is a foreboding element throughout the work. Even during more optimistic songs there is still an underlying tension that seems inescapable. Providing an unsettling close to the album is ‘Köysitehdas’, featuring Rättö’s solo falsetto interspersed with Tommila’s vocal and fragmented percussion, piano and electronics. A driing piano and Theremin melody gently gives way to a brief reprise of the minimalist motif of ‘Pimeä Tähti’. A fascinating listen; as a group or as a homicidal housewife, Eleanoora Rolsenholm is weird. In the best possible way. ▶ Katie English

MYRMYR FIRE STAR

Surely tipped to widespread recognition in the coming months, Myrmyr have improved from their already excellent debut to produce a stirring work of frailty and beauty

Myrmyr is an Oakland, California based two piece headed by Marielle Jakobsons and Agnes Szelag, who met while studying music in college. Following their highly praised debut The Amber Sea, released on Digitalis in 2009, the pair have built a strong following with their own perspective on engaging ambient/experimental music... Fire Star was recorded at Shasta Mountain in the Spring of last year and the album’s six tracks contain elements which hint at Jakobsons’ and Szelag’s shared Baltic ancestry, while still retaining a firmly West Coast flavour. The album articulates many moods, oen within one particular piece and the exploration found in opening three tracks Hot Snow 1, 2 and 3 continues throughout the latter half of Fire Star, mixing ambience, subtle synths and acoustic instruments. At turns melancholic, playful, complex and for

some brief moments even almost childishly simple, Jakobsons and Szelag’s songwriting strengths seem to bounce oﬀ each other, driving the album onward as each artist provides a counterpoint to the other, giving the necessary spark to inspire music of a rare calibre. Granted, eclectic may be a word overused to cliche, but it does indeed define Myrmyr better than any other. The fine musicianship of Jakobsons and Szelag is apparent throughout Fire Star, both in what they play and what they do not; At no point does the album lose cohesion, nor does it repeat itself and the pair show a keen talent for arrangement, such as on Fire Serpent’s Tail – the piece beginning with plaintive strings, slow and deliberate, with an accompanying silence. Rather than fill in this silence however, Myrmyr turn the void into an instrument of its own and as the track builds to a moving

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climax, its inherent frailty is that much more pronounced. Surely tipped to widespread recognition in the coming months, Myrmyr have improved from their already excellent debut to produce a stirring work of frailty and beauty in Fire Star and one would be well advised to procure a copy before word gets out just how good this album is. Fire Star is released by Under The Spire in limited CD and 12” vinyl + included CD editions. ▶ Adam Williams

DAKOTA SUITE THE HEARTS OF EMPTY

‘The Hearts of Empty’ feels slightly lighter in tone. Whether it is because of the calming drums which are delicately brushed through most songs that one may believe this is debatable, but they certainly provide an easier backdrop compared to the oen uncompromising waves of emotion that have flooded the groups previous work. That is not to say this album is short of feeling

Over the course of their musical career, Dakota Suite, have developed a reputation as being a group with a penchant for sadness. Whether they choose to produce lyrical songs filled with melancholic verses or, as they have done recently, veer into the realms of extraordinarily emotive modern classical sounds, there can be no denying that Dakota Suite are musicians built with a somber foundation.

easily lumber the album into a jazz category, however I feel that this album is somehow a hybrid of those traditional jazz sounds. It is in fact, rather like this current strong wave of electronic composers who have chosen to inject their work with traditional classical instruments, an album perhaps inspired by the historical paths of jazz music but now firmly rooted in the present.

The group also has found a large amount of their popularity stem from nations outside of their native Britain. So it was fortunate that I was able to witness them play a Lon- don show back in 2009, around the time they had just released ‘The End of Trying’ and its supporting remix album ‘The Night Just Keeps Coming In.’ Aer that show, front man Chris Hooson and I spoke briefly about the albums’ where he joked that one contributing artist had felt Dakota Suite to be too forlorn a band to continue working with!

While previous Dakota Suite albums have exuded a sense of tragedy, ‘The Hearts of Empty’ feels slightly lighter in tone. Whether it is because of the calming drums which are delicately brushed through most songs that one may believe this is debatable, but they certainly provide an easier backdrop compared to the oen uncompromising waves of emotion that have flooded the groups previous work. That is not to say this album is short of feeling. There is an overriding sense of loneliness to this record that is apparent through each song. The album emanates feelings of reflection and isolation but is told through carefully constructed scores that can be enjoyed at times of comfort as well as despair.

It’s appropriate therefore that we introduce this latest work by the group. In keeping with the now established theme of dejection the band’s newest release is the aptly titled ‘The Hearts of Empty.’ In spite of this, we should be quick to highlight that while the album’s name does indeed have unsettling connotations, it is a record that contains a diﬀerent set of sounds from those we have come to expect from the group. Although a 2011 release, ‘The Hearts of Empty’ was actually conceived at the same time as ‘The End of Trying’ and was originally planned to release with it. While that album was a masterful showcase of Dakota Suite’s ear for contemporary classical construction, ‘The Hearts of Empty’ is a little harder to define. With a combination of piano, double bass and brushed percussion, one could

Listeners are introduced to this, lonely, smoky sound world on opening track ‘The Basin.’ Suggestive of an underground setting, the song is led by a double bass that is pulled around the swirling drums that will become a signature of this album. An eerie set of processed noise also circulates the bass, adding further dimension to the track. This style of composition is consistent on other tracks where double bass takes the lead. Songs like ‘Cataluña’ and ‘Easy Steps’ are other such examples. On songs like ‘The Black Pyramid’ we learn of another staple to the record: the melodic piano. Again, this motif is supported by a whirlpool of brushed drums that recalls

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Badalementi’s use of percussion on the Twin Peaks soundtrack. Other songs that fall into this category are title track ‘The Hearts of Empty’ whose piano paints a solitary figure amongst the dizzying lights of an urban sky- line as conveyed through the swirling drum taps. Similarly, ‘Underpowered,’ represents perhaps the most emotive of melodies on the record, while closing song ‘Vermont Canyon’ expands on this style with the addition of synthesized strings. There is also a third style adopted by Dakota Suite on this record that is perhaps the finest example of the contemporary fusion of sounds that were referenced earlier. Songs like ‘M-Theory’ and ‘The Ladder’ oﬀer a futuristic interpretation of the album’s other two forms with electronic instruments taing centre stage. On ‘The Hearts of Empty,’ Dakota Suite have continued their tradition of producing expertly craed songs that draw inspiration from downbeat sentiments. This album does however feel like their most accessible to date. It is perhaps their foray into the jazz inspired realms that allows them to balance the unmistakably lonely undertones of their music with the calming resonance that jazz instrumentation provides. In addition, this album may go on to inspire a new wave of contemporary jazz-like sounds from artists outside of the discipline, much like what has been occurring with modern day classical music. As such, ‘The Hearts of Empty’ should be considered as an essential album, and one only hopes it will be consumed by many despite its composer’s fascination with solitude. ▶ Josh Atkin

ALEXANDER TUCKER DORWYTCH

Dorwytch is a beautiful collection of songs, which show Alexander Tucker at the height of his creative talents. He is capable of creating immense sounds on such a grand scale that it is astounding to realize that it is (mostly) all the work of just one man

Psychedelic spotlights? Metamorphic murmur? Acoustic apologue? Kentish kundalini? Take your pick or invent a term that suits you once you’ve sauntered along these cryptic clatter channels. Dorwytch is best described as a latent, quiescent imaginable force in the human animal. It is one of the elements of an arcane account of man’s ‘delicate physique’, which consists of force frequencies, cognitive clusters, elusive energy, and dewdrops of spirit. Alexander Tucker delivers serpentine songs of coiled majestic transcendence for true followers of folkish fluidity. Subjective experience is chosen over objective achievement every time. ▶ Dean Rocker ............................................................................

emotions was followed by Furrowed Brow (2006) and Portal (2008), where the songs and melodies became more pronounced, whilst infecting the tracks with underlying drone currents, traditional fingerpicking, doom riﬀs and David Crosby inspired harmonies. Three years in the making Dorwytch finds Tucker refining his song cra and introducing minimalist string movements that build into dense spiraling riﬀs around his distinct vocals. With varied sounds and grandiose ideas, the album marries the abstract with more traditional song structures, using layering techniques to create the illusion of an ensemble. This album is the first time Tucker has used drums, collaborating with free improv drummer Paul May to create rhythmic improvised beats. Other guests include brooding blues songwriter Duke Garwood (Fire Records), singer-songwriter Jess Bryant and multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer Daniel O’Sullivan (Guapo, Aethanor, Miracles, Ulver).

Release Info.... British experimental musician Alexander Tucker releases his Thrill Jockey debut Dorwytch in April 2011. This record breaks new ground for Tucker by combining minimalist string arrangements with electronic manipulations and drones to produce doom chamber-pop songs and psychedelic music-concrete collages. Tucker’s sound has developed over the years since his first self-titled solo album, which featured acoustic finger-picking, experimental electronics and was released on Jackie O Motherfucker’s U-Sound Archives label. He went on to combine compositional song structures, drones, layered vocals and improvisations on his 2005 album Old Fog released on ATP Recordings. This collection of spectral moods, eerie landscapes and fragile

The album’s themes run the gamut from abstract tales of the everyday, to the super natural, to other worldly experiences. Influenced heavily by the work of Alan Moore, songs such as “Matter” reference this directly with themes of metaphysical human/ plant matter transcendence inspired by the comic Swamp Thing. Tucker is also fascinated by strange creatures conjured up in tracks such as “Half Vast” where he loops synth pulses to create blissed sonic atmospheres where organic spaceships give birth to plasmatic babies. Or pieces like “Skelator Blues” with chiming guitars and haunted vocals giving birth to skeletal beings who stalk the earth. There are some more mundane themes at work in songs such as “Mildew Stars” (the only one with traditional tunings) about childhood coastal holidays and his dad’s

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collections of musty old books, prints and found precious things. In addition to being a solo artist Tucker continues to collaborate with Daniel Beban in their tape loop project Imbogodom (also on Thrill Jockey). Other bands include Grumbling Fur with members of Guapo and Circle. Past collaborative projects include duets with Stephen O’Malley on his Ginnun- gagap side project. Tucker is also a visual artist, creating artwork for all of his album covers and side projects, including ongoing paintings drawings, and comic artwork. Dorwytch is a beautiful collection of songs, which show Alexander Tucker at the height of his creative talents. He is capable of creating immense sounds on such a grand scale that it is astounding to realize that it is (mostly) all the work of just one man. This album will beguile and entice the listener, placing Tucker at the forefront of the experimental pop landscape.

ARBOREA RED PLANET

Arborea is husband-and-wife team Buck and Shanti Curran, from Maine. In a recent interview, Buck tells of the project beginnings in the summer of 2005, when he bought Shanti a banjo for her birthday. This brief, unadorned statement is the perfect complement to Arborea and its music: innocent, plain-talking, and vibrant

Easy musical comparisons fail. The tendency towards whisper, the mostly bare canvas, the sparse guitar, banjo. The breathy, unstained vocals. Think instead of a rare and fragile gi: a glass figurine, maybe fine jewelry... Arborea is husband-and-wife team Buck and Shanti Curran, from Maine. In a recent interview, reprinted here, Buck tells of the project beginnings in the summer of 2005, when he bought Shanti a banjo for her birthday. This brief, unadorned statement is the perfect complement to Arborea and its music: innocent, plain-talking, and vibrant. Their subsequent level of output has been brisk: three albums and two appearances on compilations, with critical acclaim from NPR, BBC, and The Wire. Not half-bad for a wistful voice, a sometimes imperceptible guitar, and a banjo. The inclinations toward one-take recordings, the focus on improvisation. There are no drums here, no 11-piece live ensemble. April 26 saw the release of their latest release, titled Red Planet; don’t mistake the title for any sort of reference to space or space rock: this is as earthy as anything you will hear in 2011. The final stages of album production were funded in part by a Kick- starter.com campaign, which is a fascinating read in its own right. (We learn for example that Buck and Shanti’s two children are home-schooled, even while on

tour: another testament to their alt-folk method.) The Kickstarter message tenders “Careless Love,” which is an excellent introduction to the delicateness and precision of the ten tracks that make up Red Planet. A single, dancing folk guitar line accompanies Shan- ti’s reflective, erotic, and near-murmured vocals: “Couldn’t keep you from my door/ when I wore my apron low.” Careless love, indeed. Later in the track she notices: “Now I wear my apron high/scarce I see you passing by.” The song is brief, weighing in at under three minutes, but carries a terrific force. “Spain” begins with a mournful and chiming guitar line, and Shanti’s vocals are bolder here, perhaps a bit warmer in mix: “Catch a boat to Spain/the mountains there will call your name.” Helena Espvall (Espers) contributes an aching cello performance, introduced aer the first, slow verse. Espvall also performs on “Arms and Horses,” a frontier-tinted composition of banjo, electric guitar, and ethereal vocals: probably the strongest track on the album. Four minutes of canter break into an uptempo gold rush of cascading cello, reverberant guitar, and hypnotic banjo. Arborea nod to a key influence with “Phantasmagoria in Two,” a stripped-bare refurbishing of Tim Buckley’s piercing, timeless, and psychedelic classic. What the Arborea cover gives away in

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momentum, in regains in texture: raw banjo harmonics, the bar- room guitar wizardry. The original is scarcely recognizable here: Buck and Shanti have delivered a true remake. The title song “Red Planet” serves a brief and heated drone prologue to the nine-minute hushed epic “Wolves,” which begins as a stark hammered dulcimer and voice performance. Moments of strings and hints of vocal harmonies are scattered throughout the first six minutes, until Buck’s distorted guitar joins in for a restrained coda. If anything, Red Planet moves Arborea’s catalog more toward silence than away from it. This is an album of moods, stories, and cautions, not of hooks and volume. CD and MP3 formats are available now from Strange Attractors. LP release date is May 17. ▶ Fred Nolan

THE TAPE LOOP SERIES: PART ONE - DEEP MAGIC The Preservation label presents Lucid Thought, the second full-length album from California’s Deep Magic...

sending him Deep Magic jams & other things I’m working on, and we’d been planning a Deep Magic CD since 2010....

Deep Magic is the solo project of Alex Gray, who currently plays in tropical-psych jam team Sun Araw and has also contributed to works by Pocahaunted and Black Eagle Child. Since releasing his debut album Solar Meditations for cult label Not Not Fun, Alex has since gone on to record a number of longform pieces, mainly on small cassette releases including for his own Deep Tapes label, in his exploration of mind state and sound.

I understand most of your previous releases were tapes? What is your attraction to that format?

The panoramic, lyrical atmospheres on Lucid Thought are way more widescreen than ambience played out with cosmic inflections. Evocative and sunbleached instrumentation of fingerpicked guitar, synth, percussion, various keyboards and vocal tones li Lucid Thought into a euphoric state glowing with microtonal melodies, continually shiing states with shimmering waves of psychedelia. This is bliss in delerium, ecstatically executed with true focus and clarity of purpose. Also presented with a strong emphasis on the upli, and an engaging and wistful positivity. Those wishing to shelter from the emotionally oppressive weight of dark drone and ambient could consider sheltering here in the warmth for a while. As part of Fluid’s Tape Loop Series, Alex discussed his plans for Deep Tapes, the therapeutic nature of “Lucid Thought” and the magnetically coated plastic running between the spools, faintly hissing.

I’m open to all formats, but I like to match the music with its proper format. I’ve just felt in the past that the extended bliss of Deep Magic was best on tape. What can you tell us about Deep Tapes? Deep Tapes is my imprint to release my & my friends’ music & art. I started releasing hand-made cassettes in early ’08 with my friends Alexa and Rob, for our group Dreamcolour. As I met more folks doing amazing music/ art: Rob Magill, Maura Sullivan (Moonwatcher), Derek Rogers, Alejandro Archuleta (Psychic Handbook), Marlene Parra (Hoy.Joy), etc, I felt the need to release theirs and others’ creations. I also love doing diﬀerent projects that explore diﬀerent concepts (Deep Magic, Olympus Mons, Earthsurfers, Heat Wave), so it feels good to have an outlet for those vibes. It’s handmade tapes, CDs, vinyls, art books, storytelling... Lee Noble/Hobo Cubes/Derek Rogers/ Rambutan split 2xcs, Kellen Shipley “Fluid Motion” cs, Dementia and Hope Trails ‘I am still shaking because of you’ cs, Heat Wave ‘Stasis’ cs + many more releases are planned next..

How did the release on Preservation come about?

What was involved in the recording of “Lucid Thought”?

I think it all goes back to Paul Gough (Pimmon), who played a song of mine on his radio show ‘Quiet Space’, on ABC Radio National in Australia, and Andrew Khedoori is a friend of his. Andrew contacted me in ’10 when I was living in Oakland, and we talked about working on a project together. Sent me some preservation releases to check out, and I was blown away. Loved the whole presentation. Andrew was working with Michael Jantz on a CD for his project, Black Eagle Child. Mike had worked with some other good friends of mine at roll over rover, so we had ‘crossed paths’ a few times in our musical journeys... we all agreed that I should add some hypnotic percussive elements on the “Lobelia” CD. We worked together on that project, meanwhile me and Andrew have chatted via internet quite a bit, so I’ve been

In a sense, what was involved was a cooldown period from an emotional time, so there’s definitely some therapy happening. Field recording manipulation and bliss explorations, simply put. How long did the recording take to complete? About 3 days to record it, and about 2 days or so for my friend Sean Mccann to master it. Do you have to master diﬀerently for tapes? Is there anything that changes the sound in aiming for that format rather than another? I think there’s a certain adventurous quality to tapes, especially in this day and age, and extended warm, blissful sounds fit really well into that sphere. The sonic uncer-

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tainty of the format can be more inspiring to go a little more ‘out’ (or ‘in’ for that matter) with the sound, try new experimental things and see how tape reacts to it... perfection doesn’t seem to be an issue, its all about character... personality... Do you hand-duplicate the tapes yourself, or do production facilities do it? I’ve done both in the past. I’ve moved more towards the professional production end of things these days because of time and money constraints, but I still plan on doing shorter runs that are hand dubbed/hand decorated. Where would you like to see Deep Tapes go? Well, I’d really like to see Deep Tapes launch the artistic careers of my good friends around the world, and gain a reputation for showcasing unique, inspiring music/art and packaging. Vinyl LPs & books/publications are going to be the next big developments, but it’s still a little ways oﬀ... Has there been a reaction to a release on the label that really surprised you? I’ve been blown away by the amount of support and love the label has gotten through its progression. Everyone has been so patient and understanding, and really has made every release better and better. The only thing I’ll add is that I want to say, thank you to all my amazing friends and to my family. They help me out so much and make it possible for me to be able to keep doing what makes me happy. I do feel that there’s some real validity to the artifacts we’re all producing together, so there’s some real, positive energy surrounding the whole endeavor. Lucid Thought is the third work in a new limited edition CD series from Preservation called Circa. Only 300 copies of each release in the series will be available and will feature a design by Mark Gowing. Each design for 2011 will be realised using a specially created abstract alphabet of shapes, determined by artist, title and catalogue number for something both fixed and random. ▶ Alex Gibson

NOMADIC KIDS REPUBLIC THE FIRST ARMY

As part of our ongoing eﬀorts to present to you the vast amount of excellent new material released recently, Fluid are proud to present this showcase of the Nomadic Kids Republic, a culmination of four years worth of work between various artists – designers and musicians like Hitoshi Ishihara, Davi Liu, Jonathan Jindra, Leif Folkvord, Ben Jones, Mike Smallfish, Brock Van Wey, Jeremy Bible, Jonny Dillon, Craig Tattersall, Andrew Hargreaves, Danny Norbury, Jason Corder, Jonathan Canupp, Boris Snauwaert, and many more. The label is primarily run by ‘The Poncho Wearing Nomad’ Ian Hawgood and ‘The Visual Kid’ Christian Roth, boasting an impressive roster of acts – “The Audio Republic” – bvdub, Hawgood, Lefolk, ohesky, Haruki, Ten and Tracer, Naoto Taguchi, Maps and Diagrams, The Green Kingdom, Juxta Phona, Polar M, Taishi Kamiya and Konntinent. Sound impressive? It certainly is. “Nomadic Kids Republic is a small label based primarily in Japan. We love mulch- ing, glitching, bleeping, droning, toning and sleeping. We also like milky tea but that‘s another matter. We release various editions with a focus on simplicity and minimalism in design; organic, electronic or just plain weird, in sound...” – NKR “All profits from the bvdub & Ian Hawgood release will go to relief funds in Japan, directly used by Ian’s wife who is currently working with both the Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support organisation (JEARS) in Sendai and surrounding areas, as well as the Direct Help for Victims and Animals Rejected from Shelters in Japan group who are going up to areas which are not receiving government support for food, water, basic supplies, as well as rebuilding and cleaning up.” – NKR All the releases reviewed here are available for pre-order from the Nomadic Kids web site, accessible via Nomadic Kids Republic website. All releases are moderately price pointed, and are all well worth the low cost of admission. With a staggering roster and an incredibly impressive inaugural set of releases, NKR appears to be set to take listeners by storm.

BVDUB & IAN HAWGOOD

LEFOLK

THE TRUTH HURTS

INTERMITTER

“Brock and Ian were introduced to each other through Mike, who ran a small but perfectly formed record label and shop called Smallfish Records. Mike had this crazy idea that Brock and Ian were like two musical peas in a pod and that they should work together. Mike wasn’t wrong, and the first musical product of this ‘poddom’ was Brock’s own bvdub release ‘Tribes at the Temple of Silence ‘ on Ian’s label – Home Normal. The second is a musical collaboration between the two titled ‘The Truth Hurts.”- NKR

“Lefolk is audio/video artist Leif Folkvord of Grand Rapids, Michigan USA. Sven Swi (12rec) told me years ago to check his work out – at the time Leif had been doing some fabulously designed and unique sounding work which instantly caught me oﬀ-guard as it seemed to sit in a very diﬀerent place to a lot of the scenes at the time.” – NKR

This heavyweight collaboration opens with the strongly titled ‘Nothing You Want Will Ever Come True’ and is everything you could expect of the pairing of the two like minds; the crystalline electronic textures, deep field of sound, evocative sound design and oceanic waves of drone, punctuated by delayed vocals that sweep across the coastal night like a blinding lighthouse beam. This twelve minute epic pairs choral upli with aﬀecting looping, creating what may be the opening track of the year. ‘Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Pretender’ follows, another labyrinthine ten-minute plus exploration of tone and space. Hidden layered vocals and chiming guitar pierce the same night’s landscape like bright stars and moon through cloud. ‘Lie In Lone’ starts in a more modest fashion, before swirling synth tones li from each side of the horizon. A massive, sprawling twenty-minute exploration of loneliness, separation and emptiness may sound like rough listening, but it is thankfully as exhilarating as it is bleak. Closer ‘Your Grand Finale (A Theater Of One)’ is just that, a complete narrative in twenty-four minutes of stellar and evocative entirety.

“Intermitter” is an impressive construction of glitch, faint static and drone; well described by NKR as unconventional; there are staples of various genres recognizable in faint form, but all with subtle kinks and distinctive diﬀerentiations. Tasteful pulsing beat work permeates tracks like ‘Varia’, ‘Develop’, ‘Shrap’ and ‘Downpour’, whilst other pieces distinguish themselves with an intelligent and melodic electronic mood.

OFFTHESKY

HARUKI

TEN AND TRACER

SUBTLE TREES

FALLING

FRIENDLESS NOW

“As a sort of pantheist, or at least an artist who finds great stories hiding in the vast visual subtleties of nature –“ Subtle Trees” is a classical music collage as much as it is an homage to classical music. Its core is created through sounds gathered in the owl hours by sampling ancient instruments whose cores were derived from the trees of nature.” – NKR

“Haruki is the pseudonym of composer/ sonic artist Boris Snauwaert from Ghent, Belgium, who creates sonic environments through the precise, meditated amalgamation of a diverse variety of sounds, both musical and non-musical. In any given track Haruki combines any or all sound sources; field recordings, acoustic instruments, acoustic noises, found samples, sampled instruments and so on. Lots a bass instruments are used such as tuba, double bass, and the ilk, alongside some circuit bent keyboards, piano, stomp boxes, field recordings, among other things. This gives it a wonderfully organic feel and development, and unlike a lot of laptop-based music, its much more live sounding, perhaps an appropriate background being a seedy Brussels bar” – NKR

“Jonathan Canupp is a name you should know but probably don’t, but then again might. He records under Ten and Tracer and I’ve been into his records for ages and ages now. Back when I was checking out early net label releases, Jonathan came up as one of two people whose work in their entirety I just fell in love with. He makes wonderful IDM music and in fact I may have asked him years ago now to make us a ‘meaty beaty’ record. And along he comes with the very cheek of making some sublimely evolved, subtly woven record using violin, tape ma- chines, guitars, maybe some keyboards and other stuﬀ too.” – NKR

“Suble Trees” oﬀers up more organic fare, engaging a broad range of field textures, instrumental tones, electronic layering, and percussive motifs, with a crisp static and clatter in amongst these elements. There’s a strong dynamic variation in this release, with distinct colours visible from one track to the next. Standout track ‘Tight Phase of Pollen Inertia’ seems to best embody the ethos of the record, with wooden chimes swaying through the forest-like spectrum, placing you centrally in a Japanese wood at night. ‘Slow Pulse of Epocal Light’ places you in the same wood, closer to the dawn.

Whilst Haruki may occupy the same general musical territory as ohesky, there are a few distinctive points of separation, as the guttural bottom end of opening track ‘Shrinking Cities’ makes abundantly clear. The strident and visceral ‘When To Stumble and When To Fall’ also moves into a much more cinematic and (in places) noirish sphere. The hum- ming bass tones give this release a weighty punch, and any of the four pieces could sit alongside releases of any exponent of restrained dark ambient with dignity. “So, Now We’re Even’, despite its vindictive name, is a more emotionally even piece – less oppressive than some that precede it, doing a good job of clearing the sound palette before rumbling closer ‘Tall As Tails’.

Wonderfully evolved is right – there are some lovely funereal horn stabs amongst the lilting static and texture in opening track ‘Homeans Distraction’. This slides nicely into second track ‘Glas Conducts’, which match the textural field of the first. The record reminds in some places of a very stripped back version of the first album mentioned in this article “The Truth Hurts”, albeit with a more comatose sound. Having not heard of Canupp before, I was immediately struck with the strong grasp he has of the concept of the “album”; all songs flow into each other with obvious thought and precision, and considerable thought appears to have been given to the track- ing. Pieces don’t overstay their welcome, and appear to have been designed to cra the mood of the album overall, as opposed to being a random collection of songs as- sorted in whatever order seems to fit. ▶ Alex Gibson

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FIELD ROTATION AND TOMORROW I WILL SLEEP

Christoph Berg adds an essential piece to the sleep-exploring music genre. And tomorrow I will sleep is a work of remarkable beauty and profoundness – highly recommended.

In recent years, ambient and drone music pieces exploring the idea of sleep have come to the fore and brought fascinating new insights in the form of poetic and abstract evocations. The excellent Slaapwel label, specialising in music to fall asleep to, has become a cornerstone of the genre and deserves to be thoroughly explored to appreciate how this very theme can generate so many beautiful and varied interpretations. Another noteworthy example being Halfslaap, a wonderful EP by Machinefabriek, built from a simple lullaby-like melody, and examining the liminality of the act of falling asleep, with its idiosyncratic distortion of time and consciousness. Christoph Berg aka Field Rotation is not new to the genre and started his nocturnal explorations last year with Why Things Are Diﬀerent, a dense and floating collection of drones conjuring both the sublime and menacing side of the theme. Released on the impeccable Hibernate label, his new album, And tomorrow I will sleep, continues in this direction but sees Berg digging further and deeper into the

very fabric of sleep. Whereas sustained tones and heavy textures, prominent in the aforementioned EP, created a somehow self-contained and confined atmosphere, Berg’s vision has now evolved towards a space more open, allowing hazy i n s t r u m e n t a t i o n t o e b b a n d fl o w majestically, as demonstrated throughout the title track. Dreams are not explicitly narrated but more alluded as if reduced to their shadow. A shadow warm and enveloping in Slumber or sometimes displaying a more sombre side, as in A dimly haze (Asleep pt 2). Droning synths are still present but hidden in the background, supporting diﬀused strings that conjure themes ranging from inner peace in And tomorrow I will sleep, to mild distress in Shoreline (Adri, Dreaming). In a sense, Berg’s work is not a thorough study on dreams and their interpretations – nor should it be – but a more poetic evocation of the act of dreaming. The sleeper him/herself is metaphorically suggested by a peaceful aura, akin to the

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slowed-down breathing characteristic of sleepingness, and embodied by each of the six pieces presented. Throughout the album, sleeper turns into dreamer and vice- versa, a movement thoroughly explored in closing number Swayed by the wind (Awakening). In this splendid EPlength track, something profoundly human is oneirically revealed, confronting the sleeper/listener with their own inescapable fragility, and suggesting an awakening both literal and metaphorical – a superb ending to a labyrinthine journey into otherworldliness. Christoph Berg adds an essential piece to the sleep-exploring music genre. And tomorrow I will sleep is a work of remarkable beauty and profoundness – highly recommended. ▶ Pascal Savy

MARCUS FJELLSTROM LIBRARY MUSIC I

This album documents Fjellström’s nod to “the classic old music libraries used for TV and low budget movie productions in the 1960’s and 1970’s, as well as the curious early electronic experiments of Raymond Scott and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop”

In his first release under the Kaa Garden label, Marcus Fjellström has released one of the most diverse albums of the year so far... Those who have been lucky enough to listen to last year’s marvelous “Schattenspieler” would know what to expect from the man: The immaculate attention to detail, the seamless flow from track to track, the quality of production and the veritable emotional impact of each song. In “Library Music I”, all these elements are there and the production is a bit tighter and the sounds that much crisper. The mood, however, is totally diﬀerent. “Schattenspieler” was dark grey, moving along morbid paths filled with tension and a constant anticipation of the worst. Optimism had no business being there and the whole album was crushing. Library Music I, on the other hand, is an infinite array of colors, where each emotion has a place, the range of moods is wider, the songs are more to the point and the sonic palette maximised. The album’s name also provides a bountiful amount of food for thought; a name that infers many things that could be musically interpreted and presented in a pretty large variety of ways. Libraries, in their most traditional definition, infer quietude. A forced sense of calm that is kept in place by the goers and keepers of the place, a sanctuary for a multitude of people aiming to escape the loudness of the world and add value to their knowledge of souls by delving into and embracing whatever it is they fancy. This element of variety, of having a world of options comes through throughout the

album; the definition of a library itself, however, isn’t the most conventional one.

farewell to this tumultuous trip with the beautiful piano of LM-118.

To many of you reading this, the prevailing thought might be that the album is disjointed, lacking coherence and might not hold interest for a long period of time. That would mean you have given one (and a half) out of three right. The album is disjointed and is so by design. It lacks coherence in the conventional sense of having no straight theme, mood or consistency in choices of instrumentation, but it would be extremely hard to imagine that someone might listen to this and not know that all 18 songs were done by the same person for the same album. Fjellström’s ability to add tension to anything he touches (case in point would be that latest installment of the series Salad Finger’s which he created the soundtrack for and which can be viewed here) is prevalent throughout and it is what gels the tracks together. When it comes to holding interest, that goes without question as the abundance of ideas and execution is rivet- ing from start to finish.

LM-101 kicks off the album in a manner that doesn’t deviate much from the man’s previous works. The creepiness is still there, the unrest, the tension all seem to be walking hand in hand as the track progresses with vinyl crackles in the background and slowness prevailing. LM-102 then moves into the cheesy thriller movie soundtrack territory, with piano chords crashing and percussion and strings running in the background. Cheesy might be a turn off, but the way it is done here, sounding so purposeful and in no way a sincere attempt to get the pulses racing, makes it endearing to the listener. It makes Fjellstöm’s fun side come to the surface; a side anyone who’d listened to his previous works could’ve hardly known existed. The album’s experiments in various sounds, with constant ups and downs continue leaving the listener at a total loss at what to expect with every passing miniature. The circus themed LM-105 follows the rising drones of LM-104 and the waves of dark synths of LM-110 rain heavily on LM-109 child dream’s parade. You lie down and take a heavy breath aer LM-116’s panning violin swirls and get off your feet to dance with LM-117 only to say

This is hopefully the first in a series of albums following the same suit and one can’t help but see what else Fjellström will conjure out of his pocket. In the span of less than a year, he has established himself as one of the prime examples of ambitious artists that could definitely make a diﬀerence in the way other musician’s and listener’s perceive music. The best thing, however, is how much his love of music comes through within this album, and that love is transferred to the listener, which makes the whole experience one to cherish. ▶ Mohammed Ashraf

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MATHIEU / TSU / NILSEN LIVE AT CAFE OTO

On Sunday, May 8th, Cafe Oto welcomed Stephan Mathieu for the penultimate concert of his UK tour, an event organised by Room40 and hosted by John Chantler. Mathieu shared the bill with TSU and BJNilsen for an intimate performance... The duo of Jörg-Maria Zeger and Robert Curgenven, TSU, opened the evening in a majestic manner. Zeger, sitting in front of a dozen or so eﬀect pedals, almost imperceptibly moved his fingers on his guitar’s neck to slowly create a foreboding drone, soon joined by, delicate at first, hiss, static and feedback generated by Curgenven through the manipulation vinyl crackles, turtables, mixer, eﬀects and mic’ed up ventilators. As Zeger’s hands became more animated, the droning textures took a more harmonic and melodic turn, conjuring a dark atmosphere

that filled the small venue with thick sonic flares. Zeger was fascinating to watch, barely moving on his chair, deeply inhabiting the layers of delayed and distorted guitar he was creating. On the other hand, Curgenven had a more physical presence that complemented the quietude of his partner. In charge at times of the high end of the sonic spectrum, an onslaught of thick feedback tones and white noise were coming and going – Curgenven listening and respond- ing to the burried harmonic progression of the guitar drones. This raw and menacing performance, full of details and nuances, reaching a powerful and physical apex at the half-way mark and then slowly receding until the final silence, was a tormented yet magnificent opener to the evening.

Next on stage was BJNilsen, who hid behind his laptop, his face mesmerised by the computer’s screen, and his hands occasionally manipulating an eﬀect box. Despite a certain lack of physicality, his performance was extremely powerful and very much appreciated with eyes closed, in a meditative state. Aer a few minutes of interwoven sine waves modulating each other and creating rich interference patterns, what appear to be the spectral shadow of bag-pipe instruments came slowly to the fore until bass layers were unleashed to create a troubled and nearly schizophrenic atmosphere – a superb start that stopped abruptly aer 10 min to leave place to a second section of more acousmatic nature.

The last part of his performance saw Nilsen playing and manipulating material form his latest Touch release Vinyl. A superb ending for an artist at the top of his game. Stephan Mathieu, somehow reconciled the two preceding performances by using both instruments and computer, his shortwave radio set and columbia phonoharp feeding a convolution custom soware. Emerging from a nearly religious silence, the miniature horizontal harp slowly filled the room with subtle harmonic layers, Mathieu laying one by one his ebows over the strings of the period instrument, with extreme precision. The delicate drone hence created, became more abrasive when the shortwave receiver, tuned and detuned by Mathieu throughout the performance, fed his

acoustic/digital hybrid system. Music then turned into sound: thick and tridimensional layers washing over the audience, remnants of radio signals muﬄed underneath rich beds of beating harmonic patterns, giant swells of spectral strings coming in and out of focus. Mathieu positioning and repositioning his e-bows on the phonoharp, as if he was looking to unlock a secret buried centuries ago. In the past, his music has been compared to the paintings of Mark Rothko, and it is easy to see how so edges, saturated colours and shapes floating above each other exist in both sets of work. But what was striking during Mathieu’s performance was the sheer physicality of the sound amplified at loud volume and how it enveloped the audience completely, in a similar manner to the way Rothko paintings, with their

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oversized canvas, absorb the viewer into colours and place them into the experience. While watching Mathieu surrounded by his instruments, creating an otherworldly sonic ecosystem, one couldn’t help thinking that a post-modern alchemist was at work in front of us, transmuting electromagnetic airwaves, acoustic vibrations, silicon computations and past/present technologies into something completely new, almost alien and yet close to the essence of music. Stephan Mathieu finished his set on a beautiful note, the long droning decay of strings interwoven with far-away spectral calls even seems to amaze him – a magical experience. ▶ Pascal Savy

THE LIVE PROCESS A BRIEF DISCUSSION WITH STEPHAN MATHIEU

With the recent coverage of Stephan Mathieu’s superb performance at Cafe Oto in the bag, Pascal Savy managed to catch up with the artist to discuss the intricate process of playing live... Can you talk about the instruments you’re using for this UK-tour? I’m going to play a vintage zither, a Columbia Phonoharp from the late 1800‘s and a shortwave radio. I send both through my computer, by interaction with the soware I’m using the two instruments modulate each other. This setup is very much an autonomous organism, I don’t have too much impact on it apart from controlling several parameters while trying to keep things interesting. What is the origin of this project? A couple of years ago, I performed a concept called Radioland which is very close to this one, but since I’ve added the Phonoharp, which I’m playing with E-bows, the sound gained more harmonic and melodic qualities. I was looking for this specific zither because I’m a collector of 78rpm records, especially very early gospel from the 1920’s. It is the same instrument that Washington Phillips, one of my favourite gospel preachers used to play, the project is a dedication to his music. How does this setup relate to your latest release ‘A Static Place’? I recorded ‘A Static Place’ with the same setup that I’m using here. It’s the same soware, a patch performing real-time convolution and spectral analysis. Instead of the mechanical gramophones I used for ‘A Static Place’ I’m processing the Phonoharp and radio to have them melt with each other. What is your compositional process and how does this impact on the listener? For my computer-based pieces I usually record a lot of material first, give it some rest and then select the interesting takes aer a while. I keep those recordings 95% unedited since I like the autopoietic qualities of the material. Also I don’t use eﬀects like delays, artificial reverbs or the likes, so what you hear is the sum of the spaces

from within the source material, be it 78rpm records, the acoustic sound of the zither or signals captured by the radio. In ‘A Static Place’ or ‘Radioland’, there is no multitrack- ing involved, everything is realtime processed stereo files. A crucial part is the com- posing of the final sequence for the CD with the final selection of material. How does your music function in the listening space? Ideally I like to have the pieces played back at a high volume, so they become rather absorbing. For me, my stuﬀ doesn’t work too well in the background. The process of my pieces becomes only finished in the listener’s space, so it’s rather an active kind of listening I’m hoping for. I like the idea of sound traveling, traveling and traveling through various spaces while each space has its own impact. When you play live, how do you relate to the audience? While I’m playing it’s very much me and the instruments, I’m focused on that. How does the space in which you play influence your music? The venues I’ve played so far during this tour were all very much traditional concert venues. I actually prefer to play in historical, unusual environments, spaces that are rich acoustically as well as historically. In regular, rather neutral concert places you’re mostly facing problems concerning the PA system, while spaces that have their own, sometimes diﬃcult sound characteristics, can make you forget about that and ideally help creating quite a special experience. To me, in an ideal scenario I’m using a multichannel loudspeaker system and people can move freely during a performance instead of being seated. My music comes more alive when listeners can change position. How do you use the computer when you play live?

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Actually I didn’t play computers live for almost 3 years now, but focused on electro/ mechanical-acoustic projects instead. I only used the computer in the studio as a recording device. It’s only since a few months ago, that I started using computers in a live context again, I was very much fed up with it as a instrument. Also from the visual aspect, as a listener I still find it hard to focus on music when I see a musician playing a computer – I’m always find myself wondering: “What is he doing there?” instead of listening in a focused way. Since I found a way to integrate the Phonoharp in a computer based live setup I feel more comfortable playing for an audience. I feel people can relate to my sound in a better way when there’s a visual reference. You’re a keen gardener. Do you see a relationship between your music and your garden? I used to live in a house which had quite a large outdoor space, a beautiful piece of real wilderness and while taking care of it, I found this work is very much connected to my music in a way. What I did to turn it into a garden usable for kids is very similar to what I do with my music: leaving things untouched, or at least not turning them upside-down, rather giving them a certain direction, smoothing them out, while having them evolve by themselves. ▶ Pascal Savy

WHITE HILLS H-P1

Much is made in White Hill’s press for their disdain for modern consumerist culture, and the monolithic seventies jams like ‘No Other Way’ are an epic display of contempt for the inherent flaws of capitalism

“H-p1” is a demented slab of deliberately under produced agit-rock, with character to burn (your eyebrows oﬀ)... White Hills continue to put forth their gems into the world through Thrill Jockey, this being a fitting and frenetic addition to the catalogue. The energy in the record is palpable, and the fact that the participants have something worthwhile to rail against makes the exercise rewarding rather than tedious. Much is made in White Hill’s press for their disdain for modern consumerist culture, and the monolithic seventies jams like ‘No Other Way’ are an epic display of contempt for the inherent flaws of capitalism – “We can barely pay our rent each month but we are willing to pull out our credit cards and go into debt each time a new iPhone promises a better connection. The joke is on us. Our greater connectivity has caused us to disconnect from our humanity. We have been sold the religion of consumerism to feed the corporate machine. We have been tricked into believing that wanting our tax dollars to pay for our own health care is treacherous to the ideals of a democratic society. H-p1 is symbolic of the simplification of complex ideas to keep the masses from questioning the system”.

Whilst a lot of this sort of sentiment expressed by other artists sometimes rings false, the gist of this statement sounds like common sense to many, I’m sure. With the splintering of media platforms in recent years, increasingly people are having their own viewpoints and prejudices reflected back at them, rather than factual information, by media outlets chasing advertising revenue that relies on an ever dwindling number of eyes. Dumbing down everything is certainly the flavour of the day, and it’s a pleasant change to spend some time inside a space that acknowledges it openly. Recorded at the Ocropolis in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in September of 2010, the album makes virtue of its non-compressed mix – distortion boxes were used to enhance the natural dynamics of the songs. This commitment to authenticity is consistent with previous releases – “Stolen Stars Le for No One”, their release from October last year, was recorded live with no overdubs and their continuing penchant for vinyl is well-known. The lack of compression is actually quite noticeable, even in the digital preview I received – the mastering is respectful of this decision, and the mix doesn’t try and blast down your ear canal with aggressive loudness; rather, it’s a PH fat wall of sound that recalls older and warmer analogue days.

- Ego Sensation, Bass /Vocals / Synth

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“The recordings captured a natural ebb and flow of the instruments within each song. For this reason I did not ride the faders while mixing the record to bring out certain instruments over others. It is the way it happened when it was recorded.” - Dave W, Guitar /Vocals /Synth The styles covered are many, and the unconventional soundscaping in places is eyebrow-raising. The smoky hues in the riﬃng will be familiar to those that are fond of seventies guitar, in a good way. Whilst it may be something of a departure of what is usually covered in this neck of the woods, the sheer verve of this release makes it worth investigating further. Released 21 June, the CD version comes in a 4-panel mini-LP style gatefold package with 4 page booklet. The deluxe 2xLP version comes in a gatefold jacket with artworked inner sleeves and free download coupon. The first 500 copies are pressed on coloured vinyl (clear with orange streaks), and the Thrill Jockey website mentions preferences for vinyl colour are available. ▶ Alex Gibson

LOSCIL COAST / RANGE / ARC

It’s always interesting to hear a musician refine their approach. It’s even more interesting when that musician strips away many of the resources that oen define their work

‘Coast/Range/Arc’ is the latest album by Loscil, a.k.a. Canadian Scott Morgan. By now the man has a few die-hard fans in his corner and deservedly so; his work with Kranky alone has produced some of the most solid electronic albums of the last decade, and, equally important, some of the best for that consistently strong label. Loscil’s ‘Coast/ Range/Arc’ is, according to the one-sheet, “centered around the c o a s t a l m o u n t a i n s o f t h e P a c i fi c Northwest, studded with glaciers, lakes, waterfalls, canyons and epic views...They are constantly changing, yet represent such a seemingly stoic fixture in our relatively short lives”. But you don’t need the one-sheet to sense any of that; it’s all there in the music. As for the approach: Loscil strips away all beats/glitches and gives a synth-based drone album that is sure to both surprise and please fans. ‘Coast/Range/Arc’ opens things up with “Black Tusk”, a long drone piece with seemingly little movement. The song sounds like it was built around an organ played from behind a thick wall, and it’s amazing how emotive the track is from note one. It immediately takes the listener to a specific place, both melancholic and mysterious. Like most of the pieces on the album it has an almost glacial quality to it: thick, icy, ever-changing. That idea of mountains slowly changing in ways that are imperceptible is reflected very clearly in the music.

“Fromme” begins with the sound of water running in a stream. And while many artists use the sound of water in songs, this stream sounds hurried, almost violent. Again, it’s a fairly straightforward piece made up of field recordings and one or two primary synth- lines. The spare arrangement of the song is reflective of the approach used throughout the album. This song also introduces another common thread to the album: a synth-line taking the place of the absent beat, using an almost death-knell rhythm. This rhythm fills the void of missing beats but also adds to the sense of tension that fits so nicely with the idea of nature changing in epic but unknowable ways. By the beginning of “n_v” the tone of the music has become much more threatening. The song fades into a thick layer of menacing drone, almost like waking up in an undercurrent. The source sounds used to create the song have an almost metallic and cold feel to them. The whole song feels barren and unrelenting. Again, the recurring approach to Morgan’s theme seems to be one of mystery and aweinspiring beauty. No small feat for a musician to achieve, but even more amazing considering how Morgan has limited himself in the tools at his disposal to accomplish this. “Brohm Ridge” and “Goat Mountain”, two thick drone pieces clocking in at more than 10 minutes apiece, finish things oﬀ. Both songs

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continue this path of menacing drones, as if the album has slowly evolved into something darker. By the album’s end the listener feels surrounded by this world of ice and mountains. It’s always interesting to hear a musician refine their approach. It’s even more interesting when that musician strips away many of the resources that oen define their work. Most of these songs consist of one to three diﬀerent layers of instrumentation, most of which are nakedly audible. There is no trickery to the album, and yet it retains a sense of mystery through its narrative tone. ‘Range/coast/ Arc’ is an important entry into the Loscil canon if for no other reason than the fact that it gives the listener insight into the fundamentals of what makes the man’s song writing work. Glitchy rhythms or not, Loscil still has the goods to reach his listener in very aﬀecting ways. ▶ Brendan Moore

MICHAEL TANNER & SHARON KRAUS IN THE RHEIDOL VALLEY

This is a mysterious musical phenomenon that forms a bridge between reality and the imagination and it exists independently of either of the musician’s perceptions or experiences

The Rheidol Valley is situated near the Cambrian Mountains in northern Ceredigion, Wales. The river Rheidol rises in the headwaters of the Nant y Moch reservoir, which was created in 1964 by flooding a part of the valley of the River Rheidol and its headwaters derives its name from a stream, the Nant-y-moch, which formerly flowed into the River Rheidol at this spot. The construction of the dam and subsequent flooding of the valley south of it signalled the end for the hamlet of Nant-y-moch. The contents of the graveyard which was to be submerged were relocated to the chapel in the village of Ponterwyd. A number of cairns, prehistoric piles of stones, set on the hills and mountains to mark a spot for memorials to somebody who died there were painstakingly moved. Archaeologists estimated that some of these were over 3000 years old, which dates them as far back as the Iron Age. The album opens with a short field recording called Lambs. Here we can imagine the purple moorland grasses that grow on the deep deposits of peat. We can hear the wind as it whistles through the branches of dense and ancient oak forests, which are carpeted with rich understoreys of ferns, mosses and lichens. It is the beginning of

spring and we can hear the new born lambs that herald the approach of fine weather in Wales. Wales is a country of small farms and sheep rearing is an age old tradition. Down in the valley floor, glacial and alluvial deposits have been worked by man into a relatively low intensive agriculture. Tanner and Kraus ambled aimlessly along the length and breadth of the valley with their instruments in tow and made field recordings, songs and improvisations as they went along, rather like the wandering minstrels of yesteryear. A minstrel was a medieval European bard who performed songs whose lyrics told stories about distant places or about real or imaginary historical events, and this can’t have escaped the musician’s minds as they sought inspiration for their landscape lamentation. The rest of the albums song titles are just simple references to geographical features; valleys or waterfalls. Humble and sombre works of slow heartfelt strings, vocalised ancestral spirits, elusive percussion elementals and genuine field based recordings are coalesced to create a new acoustic topography that attempts to reinterpret this ancient terrain.

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This could so easily have been a misguided attempt to create Welsh folk music by people who’ve have never even seen a dafad in a cwm before. Thankfully these musicians are artists of honesty, integrity and above all authenticity. Getting beyond their egos they have allowed the ‘sense of place’ to inhabit and roam freely through every last acre of these sentient sound mappings. These acoustic folk tales understand, respect and eulogise about the characteristics that make The Rheidol such a special or unique place. The soness and sincerity of their instruments and voices foster a sense of authentic human attachment and belonging, there is a genuine feel of why locals and visitors hold such a special meaning to the place. This is a mysterious musical phenomenon that forms a bridge between reality and the imagination and it exists independently of either of the musician’s perceptions or experiences, yet is dependent on human engagement for its existence. A charming cultural codification that seems to protect, preserve and enhance this place of beauty and value. ▶ Dean Rocker

MAPS AND DIAGRAMS GET LOST

Maps and Diagrams’ Tim Martin has created a beautiful and kaleidoscopic world to dwell into – a labyrinthic exploration that reveals its hidden beauty each time you take on the audio exploration

In January 2010, the BBC broadcasted a fascinating documentary about Brian Eno who, amongst many other subjects, talks about what he’s looking for when making music: “I love discovering a place where, I feel, nobody’s been before. A piece of music becomes real for me when it seems to become a place, when I can sort of feel what the temperature would be, what the light that would go with it would be and what colours...” Get Lost, the new album by UK- based sound artist Tim Martin aka Maps and Diagrams certainly embodies this statement to perfection. Over the course of nearly an hour, Martin explores strange and beautiful worlds, in a vein not dissimilar to On Land by Eno himself – worlds all unique in their own way, familiar and yet profoundly alien . There is a feeling of journeying over vast seas and meditative fields, each track mapping oblique coordinates towards the discoveries of new territories. Maybe the maritime-themed field recordings used throughout the album, create this impression of sailing across imaginary oceans, like in Timelines where clanking noises inhabit an aquatic darkness, full of far-

away calls from underwater creatures. Or perhaps, it is the sense of space and vastness that Martin has carefully craed for each piece, that conjures those new places to discover: the wonderful Angle Of Acceptance feels like being surrounded by iridescent surfaces that reflect light in an ever changing way. In A Man From Atlantis, where a reverb-laden piano floats above richly textured synths, time seems to have stopped, leaving the listener in a state of weightlessness, as if he/she had been transported to a new reality, where the law of physics had suddenly changed. The album progresses by quantum leaps, exploring one place then jumping to a new one, each time related and yet completely diﬀerent. Middle and also longest track The Strait of Malacca occupies an interesting space with its shimmering piano looping asynchronously atop reverberated field recordings and synth layers. It feels quite diﬀerent in its structure from preceding numbers and seems to indicate a symbolic pause in this journey, as if the places visited where about to evolve and mutate.

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There is a change of scale and pace coming with following track These Blank Pages, a subdued and miniature evocation of the world watched in slow-motion, that con- tracts the space around the listener to become more intimate and tactile. In Honeycomb Archipelago, the warm tones of ever enveloping synths create a sort of thick velvet blanket that conjure hazy but reassuring memories; an idea echoed by neighbouring track Circles in the Fire where sine waves come delicately piercing a beautiful droning background, alluding to more personal preoccupations and shiing the territories explored towards a journey of self-discovery. Certainly every one of the fourteen tracks in Get Lost have their own temperature, light and colours. Maps and Diagrams’ Tim Martin has created a beautiful and kaleidoscopic world to dwell into – a labyrinthic exploration that reveals its hidden beauty each time you take on the audio exploration. ▶ Pascal Savy

AN ISLAND THE COMPLETE PACKAGE

In what is both a brilliant film and also a fine exhibition of musical talent ‘An Island’ successfully captures the artists’ intentions to create something unconventional and abstract. This however does not interfere with the films accessibility

Since premiering on January 31st, Eerklang’s collaborative film with Vincent Moon, An Island, has taken on a life of its own, exceeding even the creator’s own modest expectations. Distributed during the first two months using the unique method of Private-Public Screenings devised by the band and director, members of the public were invited to host their own public free- entry screenings of the film in their homes, oﬃces, schools). Overall, more than 1,200 screenings of An Island took place during February and March. The Google map on An Island’s website about and the many group photos from screenings across the globe collected here on Flickr shows the scope of this gigantic collective happening. The momentum continued aer the screenings concluded as Pitchfork TV gave An Is- land its online premiere, airing the film on its site in full for one week.

instant access to the Digital Download of An Island. As part of the deluxe DVD package a new Eerklang EP ‘Live at Roskilde Festival 2010’ will also be included (digitally). The EP will only be made available this way. The Private-Public Screenings concept is developed by Eerklang and Vincent Moon and the rules are very simple. A Private- Public Screening needs to hold minimum 5 people and it needs to be free. The hosts sign up on www.anisland.cc and once the screening is approved other people can ask to be invited to the screenings in peoples homes, schools, work oﬃces and so on. Vincent Moon has recently adopted the Private-Public Screenings concept for his new project Petites Planetes. An Island and all of Vincent Moon’s work is under Creative Commons licenses.

Eerklang and Vincent Moon have now made An Island available for download and revealed details about the deluxe DVD release of the film. Via the film’s website you can either choose your own price for the Digital Download or you can pre-order the deluxe DVD package.

An Island in the Press: The Guardian / 5 stars!: “The film An Island is a heartwarmingly soulful portrait of the band in their natural habitat on the small Baltic island of Als” Stool Pigeon 4/5 stars!: “Eerklang’s album-length film gives you more of a sense of the band than any interview could man- age.” The Line of Best Fit: “By turns dizzying, stirring and just plain inspirational, it’s a beautiful, soul-warming film that goes way beyond its remit” The Star: “An Island is more than just a band documentary; it’s a love letter to family, roots, small-town life and the social/ communal power of music to unify people ... a mesmerizing 50 minutes ... it’s universal and great viewing even if you’ve never heard of Eerklang” Art Idiot: “An Island is essentially about freedom, space and community. The isolation and feeling of time, interacting with one another and spontaneous creativity.” Fluid-Radio: “In what is both a brilliant film and also a fine exhibition of musical talent ‘An Island’ successfully captures the artists’ intentions to create something unconventional and abstract. This however does not interfere with the films accessibility”

The deluxe package is limited to 5,000 custom-made, eco-friendly, numbered, letter- press printed deluxe covers with a DVD disc full of bonus material. When ordering this package you will receive

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RASTER NOTON AT THE ROUND HOUSE

Stark black and white circles, interlocking squares and pulses created varying textures; at times frenetic, at others calm and still, only interrupted by the visualisation of gentle piano chords or the occasional electronic flicker.

To celebrate their 15th birthday, the ever in- novate Raster-Noton label took over Cam- den’s Roundhouse as part of their annual Short Circuit Festival... Upon entering I was immediately struck by several musical goings on including the weekend-long ‘Sound Halo’ installation put together by artists from both Raster Noton and Mute who are hosting two further days of the festival. As well as this there were several work stations at the entrance for the audience to interact with. The evening began with the world premiere of Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto’s latest collaborative work Summvs. From abstract figures to more melodic and beat driven work, the duo captured the audience with their trademark combination of Sakamoto’s minimal yet evocative piano against the clinical nature of Alva Noto’s oscillators and sampled electronics and through clever use of a wide frequency range, from deep sub bass to almost inaudibly high whistling tones, the duo managed to remain engaging within a relatively limited sound palette. Given that so much of the variation in texture of these pieces relies on the minutae contained within the electronics and the piano’s overtones, one could wonder quite how well this would work in a live setting.

However, the astonishing acoustics of the Roundhouse allowed every subtle tone and click to be heard with absolute clarity. Accompanying the music were various visual eﬀects, clearly somehow linked up to the instruments to trigger coinciding imagery. Stark black and white circles, interlocking squares and pulses created varying textures; at times frenetic, at others calm and still, only interrupted by the visualisation of gentle piano chords or the occasional electronic flicker. At one point a pianola like score wove its way across a flickering line of controlled static in sync with Sakamoto’s playing, creating a beautifully glitchy visual texture. Although of course the music stands alone, in a live setting the visuals became as much a part of the composition as the sonics, having clearly been meticulously prepared. Along with the sound of the prepared piano, which formed layered loops of percussive textures, came a burst of colour, bringing with it a new dimension to the work. The colours intensified and faded away, interspersed with the purity of the unadorned piano and its fragmented white lines. Spread over two spaces, the rest of the evening took on performances from several artists on the Raster-Noton roster.

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From the propulsive beats of Atom TM to Byetone’s intense audio-visuals, the main space took on a club atmosphere following the serenity of the opening performance. The studio stage took on a more varied bill featuring the vocal work of Anne-James Chaton, whose collection of ‘poor literature’ was looped and sampled live to create dense textures, whilst Robert Lippock flitted between ethereal drones and intense rhythmic work. I was pleased to have discovered Grischa Lichtenberger’s glitch-fuelled soundscapes, again the subtlety at work captured the audience. All in all a superb evening and a perfect way to celebrate 15 years of one of the best electronica labels out there. The highlight of the evening was of course a consummate performance from Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto that simply showed two masters of their art, managing to combine two seemingly opposing ideas into a stunning whole. ▶ Katie English

JOZEF VAN WISSEM THE JOY THAT NEVER ENDS

Without any conscious eﬀort these orderly and expressive musical mechanisms transport the hearer into a circumstance of attentive concentration.

In a 16th century fin-de-siècle comedy, Much Ado About Nothing; a funny fable about two pairs of lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, and Claudio and Hero: William Shakespeare alludes to the peculiar power of the lute. ‘Now divine aire, now is his soule ravisht, is it not strange that sheepes guts should hale soules out of men’s bodies?’ In common with other writers of the period, the great bard credits the lute with an ability to convey the listener into a state of ecstasy. Although hard to imagine now, the lute’s enchanting tone once made it the most venerated and fashionable of all musical instruments for a period of some 400 years until its eventual fall from grace in the late 17th century. The renown of prominent performers extended athwart the continent, giving these anachronistic ‘axe he- roes’, easy access to the great

royal courts and palaces of the time. Perhaps ‘have lute, will travel’ in modern day parlance. With the release of The Joy That Never Ends, Jozef van Wissem graciously aﬀords humanity a not to be overlooked opportunity to advance an appreciation of this tear dropped Arabic soundboard, and what a sublime opportunity it is too. Wissem, Lutenist par excellence, has devoted his professional life of some twenty years to, in his own words, ‘the liberation of the lute’. Folkish freedom fighter extraordinaire, his enthralling lute alignments encompass a vigorous amalgam of marginal, orthodox, inventive, and theoretical tactics.

contemplative melodicism and abstruse acoustics form self-disciplined spaces of emotive aptitude. There is no attempt to provide an aural apogee or to construct a conventional undeviating advancement; passion here resides in authentic equivalence. Without any conscious eﬀort these orderly and expressive musical mechanisms transport the hearer into a circumstance of attentive concentration. These instinctively demonstrative and mesmeric meanderings are here to delight and inform the musical world that the almighty lute is back aer 400 years in the wilderness. I wonder whatever happened to the lyre........ ▶ Dean Rocker

What follows are unbroken reprises of serene simplicity that deliver a narrative of blissful absorption. Profound phrases,

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STROM NOIR

LOGREYBEAM

DNI STRATILI SVOJU FARBU

PERHAPS

Imagine taking a long walk through the city, an unknown, foreign city, or perhaps one you know well. Sometimes you find yourself on busy main streets, carried along by the crush of hurrying pedestrians, the sounds of voices and traﬃc, attention darting from one brief flicker to the next. Sometimes you turn a corner and suddenly the road and pavements empty, the noise fades, the buildings look a little shorter, but closer perhaps.

“I could’ve been Serge Gainsbourg,” the old man sighs, staring into his glass of brandy. He has been drinking at this same secluded café for twenty years, ever since his wife le him and took their daughter with her. At a table across the room, a young couple are talking quietly, their relationship already unravelling, though neither one has realised it yet. As they get up to leave, the old man glances in their direction; for a split second his eyes meet those of the young woman, and there is a brief flash of recognition. Could this be his long-lost daughter?

Imagine looking down a familiar street and seeing a row of houses you’ve never noticed before, who knows how you missed them. Or standing at the roadside of a new town, and seeing a bench or a tree you know from somewhere else, you just can’t remember where... Some streets are shimmering radiance, glimmers in bright windows. Others are opaque, tinted glass, reflecting the sky. Some need the day to make their features plainly visible; others only make sense at night. Imagine strangeness as a kind of dissonance. Mona Hatoum’s Suspended is a room full of red and black swings, densely packed at odd angles, hanging from the ceiling on metal chains. On the seat of each swing is engraved a map of a randomly chosen capital city. All of the swings are rocking gently. Nearly hitting each other, but not quite. Imagine this art work as music. Imagine the city as an event, as a performance. Imagine the city as a map, the lines of which disappear as soon as they are drawn. Imagine a city that doesn’t exist until you walk it, and each time you discover a new route. Strom Noir’s “Dni stratili svoju farbu” is this city – streets worth exploring, worth getting lost in.

This is how the film Perhaps begins. The rest has everything you would expect: the old man’s search for the young woman, the couple’s argument and separation, the party scene, the chase scene, the final confrontation. Lots of lingering shots of the Seine. Cigarette smoke. And all in black and white, naturally. In a sense this film doesn’t really exist, but in another sense it is projected in widescreen by the mournful notes of the saxophone and clarinet, by the lolloping beats of the accordion waltz, all throughout the new release from Californian musician Logreybeam (which also happens to be called “Perhaps”). This music isn’t the soundtrack, it is the set, the actors, the dialogue, the narrative – if you want to see it, just close your eyes and listen. Is the old man reunited with his daughter, and do the couple decide to give it one more shot? Perhaps. I won’t spoil the ending for you, but rest assured that it’s a beautiful one. ▶ Nathan Thomas

▶ Nathan Thomas

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ALLYSEN CALLERY

LOST HARBOURS

WINTER ISLAND

THE BIRDS EP

Intimate, and with a pure voice, delicate guitar picking. Every breath and plucked note by Allysen Callery on these songs is present and in focus... In fact intimate doesn’t go far enough to describe this music. It sounds as if it’s being played and sung just for you the listener. It is up close, personal and delicate. This is not bland or derivative music, it doesn’t borrow heavily from any current trend or fad, “Winter Island” is an ep with a timeless quality. It contains skillfully craed narratives, each word carefully placed and phonetically seductive.

Legend has it that the first known bird protection laws came about by order of Saint Cuthbert, an Anglo-Saxon monk and bishop, with the aim of protecting the eider ducks and other seabirds that nested on the Farne Islands where he had his hermitage. It is with reference to this legend that several northeastern dialects continue to refer to eider ducks as “cuddy ducks”.

“Winter Island” is the title track and the perfect opener for this collection of songs. Don’t be fooled by the title for although this album tells of winter and animals made of snow it also welcomes in the other seasons with a mixture of temperate and intemperate emotions. These seven songs will take you into a world observed, remembered, imagined and recorded by Allysen, these are songs of love, obsession, murder and desire. This is not traditional folk music but you could easily be forgiven for calling it such. In time maybe it will, or at least should truly become folk music. These are special songs that deserve to be passed from one generation to the next, to be taken to heart and never forgotten.

These three points of reference – monasticism, birds, and the sea – are brought together across the three tracks of Lost Harbours’ short EP “The Birds”. The sung melodies of “Streams” evoke the modalities of mediaeval monastic chants, with a sense of strangeness and foreboding underlined with treated string sounds. “The Wind through This” blends the sounds of lapping waves with sparse acoustic guitar and meandering flute, while electric guitar and subtle delay form the basis of “Feed the birds”. A combination of field recordings and handmade birdcallers provide a passerine accompaniment to all three tracks.

“Winter Island” is available in an edition of 100 copies from Woodland Recordings.

Ok, so the whole monastic chant / acoustic instruments combination has been done before. But what I like a lot about “The Birds EP” is the restraint, the simplicity of its melodies and arrangements contrasted with the constant chatter of the birds. The music puts me in the position of a certain ascetic saint, steeped in silent solitude, bird-watching from the window of his cell on a remote Northumbrian island.

▶ Matt Shaw

▶ Nathan Thomas

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THE TAPE LOOP SERIES: PART TWO - QUIET EVENINGS

The Preservation label presents Transcending Spheres, the debut fulllength album from Georgia’s Quiet Evenings... In a little over two years, the duo that comprise Quiet Evenings – Grant and Rachel Evans – have become two of the most prolific and active artists in the American underground. Each also has solo projects: Grant’s Nova Scotian Arms and Rachel’s Motion Sickness of Time Travel. Between those as well as Quiet Evenings, they’ve amassed well over 50 releases for various labels in various editions. They also co-run the Hooker Vision label, clocking up a similar amount of releases for other kindred spirits. With minimal instrumentation of guitars and synthesizers as well as voice, the pieces on Transcending Spheres curl out to seize a moment, then carry it forward with beauty and grace. Far from the realm of pure ambient dri, subtle forces build within their disarm- ing restraint to give the album a vital pulse and provide a stunning balance between light and shade. Quiet Evenings inhabit a ghostly space of unique elegance, and as this highly spirited work’s title suggests, this is a duo that can carry their cra well beyond standard shapes. As part of our Tape Loop Series, we were lucky to be able to be able to discuss the release with Grant and Rachel in a little detail; their approach to recording music, their distinct lean towards analogue and their plans for the label. What can you tell us about Hooker Vision? Grant: Hooker Vision is a vehicle for the sounds we think are interesting. Our friends’ sounds as well as our own. We focus on obsolete formats such as cassette tapes, VHS tapes, CDs, and soon, vinyl. There’s not really a “Hooker Vision sound” but we’re mostly interested in stuﬀ that’s outside the range of general public acceptance. Basically noise, whether it’s tranquil or harsh or whatever, is what we’re into.

Rachel: It’s also just a huge creative outlet for us; we need something like Hooker Vision to let out those natural instincts we both have to continue creating and disseminating the things we love, like art and music.

our music and asking what we had planned for Quiet Evenings as far as upcoming releases. We didn’t have anything on our plate for QE, so it was perfect timing! And that’s when Andrew told us all about the Circa Series on Preservation...

How did the label start? Rachel: Grant was the one who started the label. I didn’t become involved until pretty recently... about a year ago or so. Grant: It was mostly just something to write on CD-Rs that we were burning... We’ve gone through a couple of major phases. The internet has been incredibly crucial to the success of the label. Obviously there is zero market for this kind of music where we live. We’ve been really fortunate to connect with so many likeminded individuals from around the world and we owe that all to the internet. Was there a release on the label or by the band that had a reaction that surprised you? Are there any favorites out of all the work that you’ve done? Grant: There’s been so many great releases that we’ve put out... Brian Lavelle’s ‘Two Ostensions’ tape from last year was a really important piece of music for me. It’s got such refinement. There’s definitely some other amazing standouts too. Rachel: Yeah, I’d say another outstanding release for me was the Aerlife/Thoughts on Air split. It’s simply incredible music, well- executed. What prompted the release on Preservation? Rachel: We had been in touch with Brad Rose and Digitalis for a while. He first mentioned Preservation Records to me last summer. However I didn’t get in touch with Andrew at Preservation myself until sometime around this past Christmas. Andrew sent me a message one day and introduced himself just saying he enjoyed

Grant: We basically recorded the whole thing in one weekend. One of the tracks was recorded a few days earlier than the bulk of the work. But we basically just sat down with a few ideas in mind and the songs just happened. How did you go about arranging the cover art for the release? Grant: Mark Gowing does the cover art for all of the Preservation releases, as far as I know. I really respect his aesthetic and approach to the design aspect. His style really lends itself perfectly to the type of music that Andrew tends to spotlight. He’s made some incredibly striking covers and it’s definitely an honor to have him design ours. Rachel: Mark’s designs for the Circa Series of CDs are all realized using a specially created abstract alphabet of shapes which is determined by the artist name, title and catalogue number of each release, making each cover both fixed and random. What musical roles do you both have within the band? Grant: I play guitar and synthesizer. I also record all of the field recordings we use in our music, although there are none on the Transcending Spheres release. Rachel: I play my synthesizers and occasionally I’ll use eﬀected voice. With Quiet Evenings, I hold down the more atmospheric zones and let Grant lead with his guitar, but every so oen I’ll bring in minimal repeating melodies.

Why the focus on old/obsolete analogue formats?

Brad Rose that we’re in touch with the company we use today.

Grant: I guess it’s partly due to nostalgia; they’re the formats I grew up with. But for me, things like vinyl and cassettes have such a presence that you really don’t get from a digital file. They’re physical objects that really hold up well over time and continue to resonate with music lovers even though most people think of them as obsolete.

Grant: We had just been buying blank tapes and dubbing them ourselves. The color options for the shells were pretty limited and we wanted to snazz things up a little with more color. We got a few hundred blank but colorful tapes and home-dubbed all of them; while slowly getting more stuﬀ pro-dubbed. Our very last home-dub was from the last batch of tapes. Hopefully we’ll be able to cover the costs of pro-dubbing for the remainder of our time on this planet. I know my tape deck will be grateful.

Rachel: My parents always had vinyl around when I was growing up, and cassettes even more so. You get such a warmth from those formats that doesn’t come with others. The same for VHS. For me, the VHS has more of a nostalgic quality than any other format because that’s all I watched as a child. I feel like these formats really hold a special place for everyone in our generation and generations past. What’s it like, dealing with production houses for cassettes? Is there a lot of freighting involved? Rachel: Not really a lot of freighting. Since cassettes are so small, its usually pretty inexpensive to ship them. The production houses have some disadvantages... sometimes you run into bumps that you can’t foresee since its in their hands. But overall, I’d say the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. A little more hassle here and there, but the quality of the product is so much better that it ends up being worth it. There’s certainly a lot more design options open to us that way. Grant: We send them everything they need (audio files and art files) and they send us the tapes in a few weeks. It’s usually as simple as that. Is it a struggle to find good production houses now? Is there still an existing commercial market for them, or is it a niche? Rachel: I wouldn’t say its a niche, but there aren’t a ton of them either. It’s thanks to

How long have you been making music together? Rachel: Long before Quiet Evenings, and even before we were married, we made videos together before we made music together. It started out by me scoring one of his short films. The first time we made music together I believe was Grant adding guitar tracks to one of my earliest songs... long before I recorded as Motion Sickness of Time Travel... actually I remember it very clearly: it was at the music studio at the college later one night, I was in the mixing room and he in the sound room. It sounded so amazing. The recording was done but he was still playing, so I went in the sound room and found him lying on the floor passed out. Some- thing I’ll never forget! We got a great recording out of it though. Grant: Yeah... Good times. We started the Quiet Evenings project in 2009. At first, it was our way of coping with loud neighbors and life outside of nature. Now we live in a fairly isolated location, beside a lake, and life is always quiet. The music is a reflection of our immediate surroundings. Is completing a release in one weekend unusual, or do you tend to work quickly? Grant: We both tend to work rather quickly... A good bit of our releases have been recorded in just one day or so.

They’re like snap- shots. We really like to capture a particular moment in time. How we’re feeling that day or weekend is always evident in the sound document. Plus most of our music is improvised so that tends to be complimentary to the documentary recording approach. Rachel: Yeah, we both work really fast actually... we each seem to do things in spurts. We’ll go forever without recording anything, and then in a couple of days we’ll record a few solo albums or a QE album. It’s just the way we work I guess. Improvisation and our mood definitely play a huge part in that. When you say there’s no market for your music where you live, where are you based? You mention an isolated environment, how far out of town are you? Rachel: Well we live in the western part of Georgia. We’re just outside the city limits of LaGrange, GA by a few miles, but we both work and Grant goes to school in LaGrange. The actual town of LaGrange itself is very small... I guess it’s not as small as it could be, but it certainly doesn’t have anything to oﬀer socially, musically and very rarely artistically. The only big store in town is Walmart, and beside the tiny overpriced restaurants theres’s just fast-food. Even the college at the center of town is tiny compared to most... Just under 1,000 students altogether. There’s very, very little culture. We try to stay away from all of that most of the time. We used to live in the very center of town, but enjoy our new location a thou- sand times more. Our house is surrounded by trees outside of town just oﬀ of West Point Lake. Grant: LaGrange is about an hour south of Atlanta. But there’s just not much appreciation for weird music in the south in general. I can remember maybe two tapes that we’ve sold to fellow Georgians.

You mention the music being a documentation your surroundings – is it personal expression or does it represent a comment on modernity? Did you move to get away from it all? Grant: I’m not saying we’re like these Walden types, traipsing around in the woods or anything like that. Although that does happen on occasion. We’re just not very keen on living around other people. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, our move across town is inconsequential. LaGrange is isolated no matter if you live in town or in the woods. Rachel: We really love where we live now. It’s much more peaceful. We’ve always relied on ourselves to keep us occupied, but it really helps when you can free yourself from those unwanted distractions. When we lived in town, even when we were in the mood to record it sometimes was impossible due to the noise coming from traﬃc and neighbors, etc. Outside of town we can really focus on our cra. We’ve been much more prolific with our recordings, all projects included, since we moved outside of town. It’s all about atmosphere. You seem to have been pretty prolific with a number of releases on a number of labels – is this a by-product of being productive? Grant: Yeah... The way I work is in spurts. I’m very “bipolar” in that way. I generally feel a need to create something, whether it be music or art or whatever. Rachel: It’s definitely a by-product of being productive... but only by default. I think if we had more to do in real life, and more friends in real life we might be a little less productive. There’s really just nothing to do here so we have to create things. Sometimes that’s the only way to pass the time. What releases due you have coming up for yourselves, and the label? Rachel: On the label’s upcoming batch we have a Hobo Cubes VHS. I’m really looking forward to this one as Frank has been in close contact with both Grant and I for some time now. We all share a love for visual music, so we’re really excited to be the imprint for this release. We’re also looking forward to a Pierrot Lunaire cassette tape, featuring some amazing saxophone bliss jams, as well as tapes from DJ Ecto Cooler and Indian Weapons... Grant can tell you a little more about those...

Grant: DJ Ecto Cooler is the alter ego of Water Lilly Jaguar mastermind, Ian Najdzionek. In Ecto mode he creates these intensely layered sound collages out of various samples from all over the spectrum of popular music. It’s basically the mashup gone terribly wrong. And Indian Weapons (Nathan Young and Brad Rose) should be a fairly familiar name for fans of underground music. The duo has also recorded together as Ajilvsga and with Eden Rose as Godseye. Rachel: Solo-wise, Motion Sickness of Time Travel has a tape release coming up on Hobo Cult Records, a 3" mini CD-r coming from Kim Dawn Recordings, and a LP/CD from Digitalis in the near future. I’m also currently recording music for an LP on Spectrum Spools due out early next year. Grant: I’ve got a split tape with a new Scott Johnson (Thoughts on Air) project, Permanent Bedhead, coming soon on Sacred Phrases. Rachel and I have a split LP coming out soon on the Belgian record label, Aguirre. Both of our solo projects are contributing to a four cassette box set on Cloud Valley that will also include Sundrips, Hobo Cubes, and a new Carter Mullin-related project. The debut Quiet Evenings LP, Intrepid Trips, is coming soon on Hooker Vision and a few split tapes are in the works. And finally, my project with Adam of Dry Valleys/Sacred Phrases, Peyote Crystal, has a tape coming soon on Housecra. Does the label support itself, or is it a labour of love? Grant: It definitely started as a labour of love... We started out by burning CD-Rs and home-dubbing old recycled tapes from thri stores and stuﬀ. We played a show and managed to sell a good bit of those tapes, which helped fund the first 100 new tapes. We still home-dubbed everything up until a few months ago. Now the label is doing fairly well and we can aﬀord to have the tapes pro-dubbed, which improves the sound quality enormously, in my opinion. It certainly beats doing it all myself... Rachel: Yeah since the label’s been doing a little better recently we’ve been able to break even the last few times we’ve released a batch which is all going to bettering the product. We started out printing our covers for free at the library or at home and had to cut every single cover out ourselves. Now we’re able to get our covers printed professionally, which of course beats the quality of black & white

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printing and keeps me from having to cut and trim 100 or more tape covers by hand. What is the dream with the label? Where would you like to see it go? Grant: I guess the dream would be to have the label eventually become more of a “proper” label. I would love nothing more than to keep doing this forever and to continue to work with incredible musicians. The cassette tape underground is a very warm and nurturing community. We’ve been able to grow and develop without the regular bullshit that larger labels have to deal with. I think the momentum we’ve achieved so far will allow the label to continue to operate and continue to grow. Rachel: Yes, we definitely want to keep going with the label for as long as we can. The labels first LP release (coming really soon) is a dream come true by itself. We never imagined when the label first started up that we’d ever be able to aﬀord and sell vinyl records! We’ve already got a second LP planned for later this year. I’d love to see the label release more and more vinyl, but we’ll never stop releasing cassette tapes. When you mention the cassette tape underground, is there an established network? How did you make your way in it? Grant: I guess there’s a loose network that makes up the underground. We’ve all kind of crossed paths in one way or another thanks to the amount of other rad labels releasing similar stuﬀ. It’s thanks to the internet that we ourselves have anything to do with any kind of established network. Rachel: Yeah, the internet definitely opened up the doors. Where we live certainly doesn’t lend itself to being able to sell music in person to anyone... online is where it’s at. “Transcending Spheres” is the fourth work in a new limited edition CD series from Preservation called Circa. Only 300 copies of each release in the series will be available and will feature a design by Mark Gowing. Each design for 2011 will be realised using a specially created abstract alphabet of shapes, determined by artist, title and catalogue number for something both fixed and random. ▶ Alex Gibson

LOOKING BACK CIRCLE BROTHERS - HAVEN

A circular, dripping-faucet guitar and tinfoil hat synthesizer open the show, and this serotonin mood never lis (appropriately enough, the track is titled “No Turning Back”). This is where Lecluyse is at his best, eschewing pace for atmosphere, framework for texture.

At first glance, Haven seems like a strange title for this brief, rather nebulous release...

collaboration, and several compilation appearances.

The word is saddled with connotations, insinuating safety from violence, or a dock for a boat. It hides us away from storms, both natural and man-made. It denotes certainty, even like-mindedness. The album is anything but certain. Feedback and thick layers of echo crowd out the meter, melodies and consonance. Unsettling murmurs and whistling lend the album a vaguely nightmarish feel. Tracks with titles such as “No Turning Back” and “Unlikely” further belie any guarantee of comfort, while an early composition “Sure” does a pretty convincing impression of blown-out speakers.

Most of his catalog consists of largely improvised work, issued in limited releases which are long sold out, although Morc maintains an artist page with MP3 samples and the occasional lead on outof-print material. Possibly the finest track featured on that page is “In Memory,” from the 2004 Karina ESP collaboration. The track is nearly stagnant in pace, almost lowercase in volume, truly minimal, although it conducts mood terrifically: brooding, angst, even recovery. As for the rest of Lecluyse’s catalog (e.g. “This Time,” from the Zent one split LP), the listener would be forgiven for asking if, before now, he has taken the cra as seriously as he has taken the handling of other artists. That much is not clear from these few, minimal recordings.

But as a word in itself, “haven” is an etymological mess, related to both “heavy” and “heaven,” as well as “hawks,” “behoove” and “behoof.” The word also carries a certain geopolitical burden, and is both old and imprecise. We say “storm shelter” when mean to escape the wind, and “asylum” when we mean to escape political persecution. So here is our thesis, if indeed we have one: the title fits the album quite well. Circle Bros is Wim Lecluyse, who distributes under the Belgian label Morc Records. Morc is responsible for such recent releases as the museum-minimal In The Rheidol Valley by Michael Tanner and Sharron Kraus, as well as the high-time, low-key On The Beach, by Edgar Wappenhalter. Far from the album, tour, album, tour, rehab, tour archetype, Lecluyse has released four tapes and EPs since 1997, as well as a split, a

Although the tools are the same — guitar, organ, found sounds, and tape noise — the work seems reinvigorated on Haven. A circular, dripping-faucet guitar and tinfoil hat synthesizer open the show, and this serotonin mood never lis (appropriately enough, the track is titled “No Turning Back”). This is where Lecluyse is at his best, eschewing pace for atmosphere, framework for texture. He continues this slow exploration of the theme with chimes, maracas, feedback and whispers, all echoed into perpetuity, yet mixed expertly into a single quilt. This eight-minute trance leads to the first three tracks Lecluyse wrote for Haven: the two-part “Sure” and the oddly-named “Your Sound.” “Sure” coats an organ

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drone with a downy, low-register feedback and horror-flick voice echoes. As is the case with the opening song, the only beats here are those implied by the delay frequency. “Sure 2" strips the noise away from the organ, adding very subdued guitar tinkering, briefly eastern in its lowrent flavor. Lecluyse equips the second half of the track with a muﬄed, somewhat eerie vocal line, and godspeed to any reader intent on deciphering it. “Your Sound” serves as an intermission between these two halves, and splits their attributes as well, embracing the blanket of noise and non-rhythm of the former, and the heard-through-walls vocals of the latter. None of these tracks clock in near the eight-minute length of the opening song, which is likely the most realised work on the album, and for that reason: Lecluyse has mapped its terrains with the most detail. In comparison to the surrounding material, “Unlikely” is downright conventional. First-semester guitar strumming and nearly-discernible vocals lend the track a demo feel, at least until the title characters show up as feedback dervishes, loops, and tape noise. So now we know that Haven is a new kind of shelter. So new, in fact, that we do not recognise it that way. At least not yet. This album is available in 12" vinyl format, through Stashed Goods. ▶ Fred Nolan

HIGH AURA’D / ANDRE FOISY SPLIT TAPE C30

A-side: Aer a period of intense meditation up high in the mountain peaks, his holiness High Aura’D, descends back down to the lowlands in order to present ‘Dusk Latitudes’, 22 minutes of wide and intensive exposure to the radiation eﬀects associated with subtle and luminous guitar glory.

The work moves into the realm “beyond good and evil” in the sense of leaving behind the traditional musicality which High Aura’D subjects to a destructive critique in favour of what he regards as an aﬃrmative approach that fearlessly confronts the perspectival nature of knowledge and the perilous condition of the modern individual.

A post-apocalyptic soundscape, in which a suﬀocation of frenzied feedback, cataclysmic synth keys and demonic drone is juxtaposed with short and subtle moments in a life aﬃrming peace garden, one where enduring acoustic edifices, vocalised verandas, timbral terraces and pitch paths compliment the carefully raked sonic stones.

B-side: A dark and mysterious lone figure briefly ascends from a deep dungeon of torment and suﬀering, André Foisy has returned to condemn humanity with ‘Untitled’, 21 minutes of sinister stringed sorcery that comes directly from the yawning void of Chaos, home of damned souls.

This is a direct challenge dystopia or tendency of perceive and understand being divided into two categories.

Although doom laden from the start, the eventual extent to which this begrimed guitar grief, immoral synth moods, debauched drone and victimised vocals sink to is enough to deter even the darkest of

to the dualist humanity to the world as overarching

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musical matter to enter the acoustic abyss. This is a glimpse of harmonic hell, the place where sounds are judged aer they decay. This noisy notion seems to ponder the concept of salvation in Western religion, a reference to the adjudication of God in determining Heaven or Hell for each and all human beings. However, there are some creeds that claim that salvation can be attained by using only inner human resources such as meditation, accumulation of wisdom, asceticism, rituals, or good deeds. Perhaps listening to this music repeatedly over time will result in an impersonal merging with the Absolute, one expects that Foisy already knows the answer to this occult conundrum. ▶ Dean Rocker

RICHARD A. INGRAM HAPPY HOUR

‘Happy Hour’ is Richard A Ingram’s second full length release, following on from last year’s debut album ‘Consolamentum’. This album is made up of long-form compositions – bleak drone designs, mastered by Taylor Deupree, and released in a limited edition digipack CD by White Box. Four tracks make up the release – opener ‘Agile Drone’ runs at a shade over thirteen minutes, and is a restrained and in places foreboding piece, counterpointed by some occasional hidden chatter and windy hiss. The sound design is strong, if a little minimal, and the strong mastering shines through in the excellent stereo separation and bottom end punch when the track comes up out of the depths midway through. The first few minutes lull you, and then there’s a burst of electronic activity to wake you right up. The instrumentation is described as degraded tape and filtered piano; hard to make out what’s what, but the intent is certainly clear enough.

‘Truncheon Tree’ follows a similar pattern – close to ten minute run time, quiet start, before building up a head of steam as it progresses. The degraded piano loop has some intriguing tonal qualities and floats at a good pace before being slowly enveloped by hissy drone aer the six-minute mark. The sound here is a blast, a roaring analogue wind becoming a cyclone. Well interesting. The unexpected retreat works a charm, and contextualizes the roar. ‘Chaos Fortifier’ is lovely hiss and crackle to start, fairly leaping out of the speakers. Speaking of wind, there’s a sense that this track is the sound of a cave, deep within a snow-covered mountain. ‘Retro Morph’ retains the glacial hiss and crackle, but also imbues it with a clean electronic aspect that hums and booms across the bottom end. The track is in places reminiscent of Erik K Skodvin, as

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are some elements of the preceding tracks. As a whole, the album balances minimalist dark ambient with occasional bursts of electronic activity well, breaking its own mould and defining itself by being itself. Ingram is playing shows in support of the album’s release in May, on the 7th at Manchester’s Kraak Gallery (for the Mie Music/ Hibernate all dayer) and on May 13th at Foundation B.a.d (Aether: Tones and Talks), in Rotterdam. The CD itself is released by White Box on the 30th of May. Copies will be available from the Stashed Goods store very soon. – Recommended! ▶ Alex Gibson

DAVID NEWLYN TO LATE IN THE WRONG RAIN

In Soyeon Lee’s recording for piano of Domenico Scarlatti’s ‘Sonata in Bminor (K87)’, the notes become swirls of snowflakes blown about by the wind... Baroque music devotees criticised the series of Scarlatti recordings from which Lee’s interpretation is taken for choosing to use the more Romantic piano rather than the harpsichord, the instrument for which the sonatas would have originally been written. I never really understood the complaint until I visited Madrid, where Scarlatti wrote most of the sonatas under the patronage of Queen Maria Bárbara. There I understood pretty quickly that this was harpsichord country: there was something about the light and the tones of the landscape that matched the instrument’s bright, ringing sound. The piano, I decided, was a northern instrument, more suited to greyer climes, to rain and snow. Perhaps this is one reason why the history of piano music is

dominated by the Germans, the Russians, and the French.

A piano in Spain. But it rains there too, so I’m told.

The piano plays a key role in David Newlyn’s “Too Late In The Wrong Rain”. But why this word “wrong”, with its connotations of being in the wrong place, of being out-of- place, of dis/ misplacement? How can rain be the “wrong rain”? Is Newlyn’s piano in the “wrong” place, its three delicate sonatas scattered throughout a short album of ambient/electroacoustic soundscapes and field recordings? Is the piano sonata an anachronism, no longer at home in an age of the guitar and electronics? Even the sonatas’ individual notes oen seem scattered, like leaves in a gale (or like swirls of snowflakes). The sense of presence created by the soundscapes (most eﬀective in the album’s longest track Hospitals in Winter) is disrupted and unsettled by wandering ivory figurations that are always pointing somewhere else.

Personally, I’m glad of the disruption: the use of piano marks Newlyn out from much of the rest of the ambient/electroacoustic crowd, and the inventiveness and skill with which it is used is a notch or two above the hummable little ditties found gracing film and TV soundtracks. Who would have thought that the piano, that most familiar Western living room instrument, could be turned into a cipher of strangeness, of else-whereness? Newlyn manages it here, and the results are oddly moving.

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▶ Nathan Thomas

POLLEN TRIO PEAKS

Pollen Trio’s ‘Peaks’ CDR successfully collides sophisticated and subtle elements of electronica, classical, avant-garde jazz and hip-hop aesthetics. The music is built on skittering and displaced rhythms, shiing momentums and repetitive, slowly morphing motifs...

copies and comes with beautiful original artwork by Elena Papanikolakis.

record a free download at the HellosQuare Bandcamp also.

‘Peaks’ was recorded and mixed in Sydney by cult producer Richard Belkner (Pivot, Triosk, Dawn of MIDI) and mastered by Taylor Dupree at 12k Mastering, New York.

Also worth collecting from HellosQuare is the first piece from pianist Austin Buckett’s forthcoming album “Stuttershine”, available for free download. More to follow...

This limited edition CDR is a small release that documents and showcases Pollen Trio’s new line up, with Australian Jazz icon Miroslav Bukovsky added to the fray and Chris Pound absent for the moment. The release acts as a precursor to a full-length album due out in the near future.

And if the 12-minute taster to the album is any indication, it will be articulate, abrasive and engaging in equal measure. It’s a varied journey, covering a lot of ground – swooping through jazz, rock, deconstructed percussion; but still anchored in melodic experimentation.

Continuing on from the direction established in their last mini album “230509”, ‘Peaks’ sees Pollen Trio creating an ever changing landscape of sound within which textural improvisation and a desire to mask and manipulate the sounds of their instruments are key. The CDR is limited to 100

‘Peaks’ is available through Pollen’s Bandcamp and through mail order at the Pollen website. Also, in good news for Fluid readers, Pollen have sold out of the physical copies of last album “230509” and have made the

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Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200. ▶ Alex Gibson

ABSENT WITHOUT LEAVE

PONTIAK

‘NEATH THE TUMBLING STARS

COMECRUDOS

Absent Without Leave is the solo project of Greece-based experimental musician George Mastrokostas. Mastrokostas’s impressive output has seen his work released on Sound In Silence, Distant Noise, Unlabel and Symbolic Interaction, to name just a few. The artist has received favourable comparisons to Yellow6, Stars Of The Lid and Labradford.

Whilst driving through the desert, Pontiak have summoned (or evoked) something beyond normal experience that has carried them onto a new recording known as Comecrudos...

‘neath The Tumbling stars opens with a title track which recalls bands such as Bedhead and their successor The New Year. A simple chord progression repeats at length without backing beat and this is joined by clean lead guitar. The artist’s decision to create an eleven minute track with such a repetitive refrain could have easily led to a strained listen but the patient ear will enjoy Mastrokostas’ excellent musicianship and unabating rhythm on a recording (the EP is mastered by 12k’s Taylor Deupree) which is both crystal clear and atmospheric. Following number As The Leaves Fall From Trees steps away from the slowcore influences and toward a more unique melding of postrock, ambient and elements of the artist’s own, to oﬀer a melodic guitar piece. Mastrokostas uses simple melodies which are intricately arranged to form an airtight and harmony-rich framework. Saving the best until last, ‘neath The Tumbling Stars then closes with Calm Of The Sea, a piece which transcends its strong predecessors and produces another instrumental number, quite moving in its beauty. ‘neath The Tumbling Stars is an EP which promises much and happily delivers. From a good opening, Mastrokostas improves with each minute and when fully on form, he produces work of exceptional musicianship and rare quality.

Apparently the brothers; Van, Lain, and Jennings camped in an old volcano crater under a full moon which formed part of the inspiration for the ep. As I listen to Comecrudos for the first time at an advised LOUD volume I see a Volcano on the news in the background thunder into life once again. It forms a fitting movie for this soundtrack. It’s as if the band members were let into some kind of dark secret that night in the desert, maybe they were, only they know, whatever happened to them I’ll bet their dreams were interesting. Perhaps they saw, thought, wished and then forgot something that has since grown within them, the unconscious thought in the symbolism of a landscape made real in these instruments, this voice. So a drive as a moving sigil, Comecrudos as a map of three minds forever travelling though a dark Route 385, they are there now, they always will be. The four parts of Comecrudos form the perfect introduction to the world according to Pontiak. Word is they are planning a tour for the summer, so there is the possibility of hearing these songs live, loud and raw, and with a full length album proposed early next year, there’s a lot to look forward to. Until then let this music infuse and flow through you, let them take you on a trip, this is music to travel to, whether physically or otherwise. Highly useful. ▶ Matt Shaw

▶ Adam Williams

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DAVID ANDREE

SZYMON KALISKI

IN STREAMS

FOR ISOLATED RECOLLECTIONS

Like so many artists working today, David Andree’s practice finds expression in various forms: painting, installation, video and sound. For his first tape release, on Florida’s Sunshine Ltd., he has produced 45 minutes of warm ambient sounds and tape manipulations, recorded in real time without overdubs.

Following the excellent full-length Out Of Forgetting, released on Audiomoves last year, Polish composer Szymon Kaliski returns with what may be his most fully realised work to date...

The result is like seeing sunlight hit the surface of water from underneath. Like moving underwater, each track is fluid and graceful, without implying a lack of energy or direction. Brightly coloured sounds dart about, singly or in shoals, before fading back into the murk. The lack of overdubs means that arrangements are kept simple, but Andree uses this simplicity to his benefit, creating open, transparent textures. It’s true that the warmth and character attributed to analogue media do not necessarily guarantee good music, but in this case Andree’s choice of working methods and format clearly pay oﬀ. I found “In Streams” to be a rich and immersive release, with enough delicate shis in tone and timbre to keep me listening again and again. If you’re a fan of ambient music, and you don’t own a tape deck, this album is reason enough to get one. ▶ Nathan Thomas

In the time spent since Out Of Forgetting was released to favourable reviews, Kaliski seems to have matured further with a sound more his own, more nuanced and intelligent. For Isolated Recollections consists of four delicate piano led pieces which are peppered with glitches, static and found sounds. Opening with Without Breaking, Kaliski delivers beautiful and measured piano notes, repetitive but not overly so. This is complemented by a recording of what sounds like the composer taking a meandering walk through rural countryside. The track is spartan even for those used to the genre and Kaliski seems to take joy in studying the beauty in each individual sound; the results speak for themselves. Following number When Facing North continues exploring this path and one hardly notices the artist has moved on to a new track. Rather, the entirety of For Isolated Recollections seems like an organic evolving performance of a set of key moments, ideas and refrains. Kaliski achieves this by returning to sounds again and again, subtly showing hints of what made their predecessors so beautiful. It’s a strong display from Kaliski and his arranging skills make listening a delight. The latter two tracks of For Isolated Recollections depart just slightly from their predecessors. As Or Gently comes to halfway point, the artist fills up the silence with a noisy static drone and then experiments further on closing number With Grace. This 3"CD release on Hibernate Recordings Postcard series is an excellent work and once again reiterates the young composers natural talent. Released 20th May on Hibernate Recordings in a run of 100 3"CD attached to hand numbered postcard and digital download. ▶ Adam Williams

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SIMON SCOTT / JOHN CHANTLER / MOUNTAINS LIVE AT CAFE OTO

Opening their mini UK tour, Chicagobased Mountains played a superb set at Cafe Oto on Wednesday, May 25th, alongside Simon Scott and John Chantler for a small and dedicated audience... For the first performance of the evening, Simon Scott opened his set with a pastoral guitar solo slowly dissolving into sparse recordings of aquatic ponds and maritime surroundings. Using only a handful of pedals and some laptop processing, Scott took the time necessary to transform his, innocent at first, watery explorations into menacing and abysmal sound worlds, full of abrasive drones, crackles and cry-like sonic remnants. Mov- ing from one scene to another, and using his guitar sparingly to either generate thick and saturated layers or add melodic colours, Scott developed its narrative arcs in an unassuming yet powerful manner. His performance felt extremely organic, growing and contracting as an autonomous entity and exploring contrasted corners of a space both vast and self-contained – beautiful start to a very promising evening. “What I like doing is making systems which produce music. I control the inputs to the system [...] and then I let it explore the permutations for me, so I then watch the experiment carry itself out” said Brian Eno in a recent interview. In a way, this statement embodied quite well John

Chantler’s intentions. Before starting his set, he addressed the audience to explain how he would try not to interfere too much with his modular synthesizer which was set to produce what he called “automatic music” – a complex network of sound modules linked together by a heavily interwoven mesh of patch cables, and designed to evolve by themselves. There is something compelling to watch such an experiment being unfolded in real time, something completely unlike a laptop performance, that conjure raw and menacing forces – man and machine playing together, forming a perfectly balanced eco-system. Chantler’s performance ranged form sparse and minimal to visceral and abrasive. Despite the apparent randomness of the process, his set was extremely focussed and involved – Chantler making occasional changes to the synaptic connections of his system, and slowly setting the conditions for his modular networks to unfurl its hidden bestiality. The initial blips and isolated frequency sweeps condense incrementally to form a distorted plasma of sonic flares that mutate into what resembled to the cry of a wounded primal beast – a dark and eviscerated performance, sublime to say the least.

Museum’. For more than 45 minutes Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp (co-founders of Apestaartje Records) manipulated an impressive collection of blinking effect and looping pedals, analog synthesizers and semi-acoustic guitars. Opening their performance with long modulated organ swells, gated synth pads and loops made of strummed and ebowed guitars, Anderegg and Holtkamp patiently constructed an immense and luminous wall of sound. A wall so translucent it reflected and diffused the light to create beautiful harmonic and rhythmic patterns driing in and out of focus. Loops coming to the fore and slowly receding into the dense bed of harmonics. Large sonic brushstrokes, pointillist melodic phrases and saturated analog colours were painted on a oversized canvas gloriously echoing themes of expansive landscapes and vast areas of undiscovered territories – Mountains adding layers upon layers in a sort of tridimensional moiré effect, conjuring an abstract and colourful world to dwell into. Contrasting with the preceding intensity, the beautiful guitar ending, both fragile and affected, invited the audience to slowly emerge from its hypnogogic state and listened to the unfolding silence. ▶ Pascal Savy

Mountains closed the evening in magnificent manner, alluding to sounds explored on their recent studio album ‘Air

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THE TAPE LOOP SERIES: PART THREE - CHEMICAL TAPES

Tapes have a particular resonance with those old enough to remember their heyday, in anything other than a hazy flashback... Tapes were the poor cousin to vinyls, with their immense artwork and booming tone, but they still had their own subtle and appreciable charms. Portable, if you were lucky enough to own a Walkman. Duplicable, an easy and aﬀordable way to get music to and from. Replaceable, if they were to go astray, break or wear out. They also have a tangible nostalgic association with the tech of the day; gaming systems, 8 bit, the same he as a cartridge, able to collect dust, yet still harbingers of a distant digital future. Looking back on them now you can still see the ethereal and transportative glint, re- minding you in some way of a possible vast horizon beyond the back fence, the defined boundaries of your childhood. Rob Gibson, the public face of Chemical Tapes, seems to get this dimensional allusion in a very central and undiluted way. In fact, he appears to be totally tapped into it, seemingly mainlining this conceptual element in a way that few others can. The independent UK/Spain based label was established in March 2011, and has already dropped releases by Machinefabriek, Maps And Diagrams and Indian Weapons. The label specialises in limited edition experimental audio from

both established and new artists, themed around psychoactive phenethylamine chemical derivatives, notably those that act as psychedelics and/or empathogenentactogens. Are you keeping up so far? How many fingers am I holding up? Can you feel anything yet? All three cassettes thus far have their own synthetic characteristics. Gibson took some time out to discuss the aer eﬀects, the highs and the lows of Chemical Tapes. Why tapes? What drove you to focus solely on that format?

with our choice of aesthetic, the label name became an easy choice and here we are. Is it harder to find duplication services for tape? Gibson: We thought this may be an issue initially and was half expecting to have to get them done in the US at NAC and shipped over. I then got a few recommendations for a UK based company called Tapeline who oﬀer produbbing facilities. They have been great, always friendly and helpful, I recently moved and I found out they are literally 30mins down the road from my new place which was a result! How did you attract your contributors?

Gibson: We wanted to launch a label, we knew the kind of music we loved and would love to release and we had an aesthetic that we thought would work. The next choice was the medium. Every man and his dog can burn oﬀ CDr’s, xerox some covers and start getting some releases out. On the flipside of that we could have delved straight in with vinyl which seemed much more costly and risky for our first dip into the label game, although it’s something we would definitely like to do in the future. I had found personally that I was buying more and more music from tape labels, especially from the US, it’s a great tactile physical product and we thought cassettes would also work nicely

Gibson: Free chemicals as per their catalogue numbers! No, I have to say Tim (Maps And Diagrams) has been great for us, I had known him a while and he was the first guy onboard and because so much of this was new to us his advice has been invaluable. A lot of the guys I approached were really into the aesthetic and design ideas and having Tim onboard also probably helped to settle their initial fears. Also I like to think that our website stands out a bit from the usual blogs with Paypal buttons, as we oﬀer secure credit card options, digital sales direct from site etc..

Who is involved in the label other than yourself? Are there dedicated roles for you both/ all? Gibson: We are a two-man operation. I am the man on the ground, dealing with artists, orders, promotion, stock etc.. The other guy is the design whizz who built the site, designs the covers and keeps the more techy aspect ticking along. He is actually based out in Spain where as I am here in the UK. So it’s a kind of internet collaboration. How did Machinefabriek and Indian Weapons come to line up their releases? Gibson: I had been talking to Rutger (Machinefabriek) about releasing something with us for a while, he finally settled on the piece he recorded live and edited for the Paul Clipson film entitled Livemaze. Paul also provided the imagery for us to use for the cover. Brad was great, I really wanted to him onboard but was expecting him to either be to busy or not be interested in an as yet unproven new label! It turned out that he had an Indian Weapons session called Labyrinth, the first time as a trio with Eden Hemming Rose. He oﬀered it to us, it sounded amazing and was perfect fit for a c30. What other batches are to come in the immediate future?

Gibson: Next up we have Mohave Triangles, another guys who’s music blows me away, he is perhaps more familiar to people who follow the american labels having released on Digitalis and Sacred Phrases. It will be a c30 of psychedelic synth journeys entitled ‘Smoked Mystics’. Following that we have another artist who’s work I have admired for a long time and incredibly excited to release something by him, Drekka. It will be a document of his European tour across Italy and Slovenia which was then assembled and mastered back at Bluesanct HQ. Entitled (funnily enough) ‘Live In Europe 2010’. Expect a c46 of ambient experimental folk magic. Then we have Flotel, another guy who has been in the electronic music game for a long time and needs no introduction, he has been pretty quiet as of late so we very excited to be releasing all new material from him. It will be a c60 entitled ‘Valence’. I have the master and it sounding amazing, a really multi-textured ambient electronic collection. What are the plans? What are you going to aim for with the label? Gibson: We couldn’t have asked for a better start, with releases from established names from the USA, UK and Europe. We

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hope to continue like this and also introduce possibly lesser know artists whose material will feel deserves a wider audience. Soon we will also oﬀer mixtapes from the artists with downloadable j-card artwork so you can create your own tapes, keep an eye out for some limited edition tshirts, hopefully some vinyl a little way down the road and of course plenty more doses of experimental audio on tapes! ▶ Alex Gibson

JASPER TX THE BLACK SUN TRANSMISSIONS

It has been two years since we were last treated to a full-length release from Jasper TX and Sweden’s Dag Rosenqvist’s return is marked by a sound evolved and matured into something yet more complex and challenging than before... ‘The Black Sun Transmissions’ opens with Signals Through Wood & Dust and the piece features a collection of sounds which are sculpted into feedback-laden ambience. The result is menacing and imbued with a sense of foreboding, serving to set the scene before ultimately closing with morse code and radio static, conjuring images of a post-apocalyptic survivor searching for hope in a world ruined. This apocalyptic aesthetic carries on into following track Weight of Days, which sees Rosenqvist ratchet the songwriting up a notch to deliver a stunning composed

number defined by beautifully measured strings and refrains. All I Could Never Be begins slowly and Rosenqvist chooses to highlight a melancholic aspect to his art. A fascinating counterpoint to his searing noise, it shows the artists’ varied tonal palette. The album’s finest moment however comes with the closing number White Birds. Aer the powerful melancholia and despair experienced on The Black Sun Transmissions thus far, the beauty of the piece seems accentuated and the listener drinks in the plaintive frailty as a thirsty traveller falls upon an oasis, a fine ending to this accomplished work and leaving the listener wanting more. Rosenqvist has previously expressed frustration with the state of the current

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music business and the length of time taken for this album to come out, but perhaps he will garner some small comfort with oﬀering a work as strong as ‘The Black Sun Transmissions’ into the world. Though in no way meant to belittle Rosenqvist’s already impressive and varied back catalogue, this release seems to suggest that the artist has grown even more accomplished and inspired as of late and, rather than finding a niche to fit into, has created his own. ▶ Adam Williams

CAROUSELL BLACK SWALLOW AND OTHER SONGS

Richard Skelton has released under a number of guises on his Sustain Release label; originally issued in a low run of 100 copies, “Black Swallow & Other Songs” was put out under the Carousell moniker in 2009. The record has been reissued recently in a larger run of 700 vinyl copies, and a quick Google indicates that allocations to many outlets have already been exhausted. “Black Swallow & Other Songs” opens with ‘Artery’ – church bells, rustic guitar and loping strings; very much the territory Skelton has occupied on other releases. The familiar maudlin tone is ever-present, but is counterpointed by occasional blues flourishes from a resonator-like guitar. The release that accompanies the album makes mention of its textural qualities, and that note rings true; occasional chiming percussion, flickering guitar and field hiss fade in and out through the persistent string work, and all tracks on the album have distant hidden corners to shine light into and explore over repeated visits.

‘Gathering’ makes a bed of distant bird noise, articulate guitar work nestles it down. Clean, crisp and consistent with the compositional ethos of the album, obviously well craed pieces creating moods that are hard to escape. There is a definite character to the tone, one that his no doubt many listeners will recognise. Title track ‘Black Swallow’ evokes its avian namesake – not hard to imagine a landscape of falling leaves, grey clouds, winter chill and setting sun; and also not hard to be drawn in and enveloped in what is such an obviously sure hand. The string arrangements dart and coalesce, and when they fall into place there is such a sharp emotional jab that it distracts you totally from the outside world. Track four, ‘And the Orchard’ returns to the bells, a persistent and layered piano accompaniment that leads to the second half of the one piece, ‘Which is the Blood’. Elegant strings sweep across both highpitched scrapes and the vast, booming tidal expanse. Curiously, the migration from CD to vinyl appears to have split

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these two components of the same piece in half. Having only previewed it digitally, I cannot say for certain, but the track listings on the internet have the two split between sides. ‘Of Old Enchantments’ is a mood shiing clatter of percussive guitar texture, fading into familiar piano and string interplay. The closing suite begins with ‘Owl Lanterns’, easily the most outright melodic piece. Initially presenting as segue, it broadens into a centerpiece and centrally grips your attention, as do all other tracks. Playing into “The Listener’, two halves sequentially aligned this time, it introduces the only vocal on the album by Skelton collaborator Autumn Grieve. No small undertaking, “Black Swallow & Other Songs” is weighty fare, and demands as much as it returns. Stashed Goods is lucky enough to hold some small remaining stock of this elegant Digitalis rerelease. ▶ Alex Gibson

ANTONYMES LIKE RUMORS OF HUSHED THUNDER

Hot on the heels of April’s full-length release “The Licence to Interpret Dreams” comes this short limited-edition EP from Ian Hazeldine, aka Antonymes. The seven tracks were recorded, one per day, over the Christmas holiday period, and will be released as an exquisitely packaged 3” CD-R on Time Released Sound. In contrast to the occasionally grandiose “Licence”, the EP is a simple, stripped-down aﬀair, focusing almost exclusively on the piano, with very subtle electronics and violin scattered here and there. The philosopher and music critic Theodor W. Adorno once suggested that the music of his friend and mentor Alban Berg was “intent on falling silent”, a characteristic shared by several of the short pieces on “Like Rumours”. Oen, the spaces in between the sparse, ringing piano notes seem to be foregrounded over and above the notes themselves; oen there is

hesitation, as if Hazeldine was reluctant to leave the empty space, to turn it from a space ‘aer’ into a space ‘before’. The piano is always leaving. And transgressing, too – breaking the sacred quiet, the vow of silence. Stating clearly what had previously only been a rumour. In their brief, underdeveloped form, the pieces bear a relation to another kind of note: the footnote, the note in the margin, and also to the artist’s sketch. In artists’ sketches, we can see more clearly certain aspects of their working methods, their sources of inspiration, the elements of their style. In this instance, Hazeldine’s love of the piano and deep respect for silence become apparent. But sketches also raise the question of ‘completeness’. Is a sketch complete in itself, or is it only a preparation for the full-scale painted or sculpted masterpiece? Where falls the line between a sketch and a complete work?

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What about sketches that are never developed further, preparatory drawings for paintings never painted? Are they le hanging open, unfinished, waiting in vain for the day when their potential will be exploited on canvas? Is their value in what they are, or what they herald? Are they like a promise, a rumour? Are they a kind of ellipse...? Sometimes sketches find their place in an artist’s work precisely because of their unfinished nature, which allows them to point to things that remain hidden in large-scale works – an ability that the seven sketches on “Like Rumours” clearly demonstrate. Throw in a letter ‘A’ hand-craed out of recycled piano keys and some very fine packaging, and you have the perfect belated Christmas gi. ▶ Nathan Thomas

M. OSTERMEIER THE RULES OF ANOTHER SMALL WORLD

Aside from his work with shoegaze infused band Should, M. Ostermeier weaves stunningly sparse works for piano and electronics. Following on from a spate of fantastic releases last year comes the composer’s latest release , released by relative newcomers Tench. Oﬀering something new to a path well trod, Ostermeier’s use of flickering, static clicks and pops combined with the gentle tones of the piano provides the listener with a series of short, study like pieces. A sparse yet sonorous depth is achieved through a delicate simplicity, free from needlessly complicated motifs or rhythms, allowing the music to breathe and dri of its own accord. Part of the ‘rules’ implied in the title was a limitation Ostermeier imposed upon himself to only use certain themes in structure and texture within

each piece; although the album consists of numerous pieces produced within these confines, it feels complete as a whole with tonal continuity tying the work together without ever becoming repetitive. Many of the tracks convey a sense of place or mood; the fragile recurring motif of ‘I Took Out Your Picture’, the piano surrounded by driing chords and gently disjointed, percussion like sounds sending the listener on a nostalgic trip to a time long gone. Almost seamlessly, a fragmented version of the piano’s delicate motif carries us through to the empty room of ‘Floorboards, Well Worn’. Others are joyful explorations of the minutiae of sounds, such as the layered field recordings of ‘Underwater Driing’ and ‘Trickel Down’.

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There is a mesmeric quality to tracks such as ‘Suspicions’; its intermittent bass swooping in amongst the immersive tones while a fragmented piano line and flickering percussive sounds appear at irregular intervals to momentarily fill the sparse surroundings. ‘Ngth’ peacefully carries us oﬀ on a wave of dense layers and jittery static, gently bringing the album to a close. All in all this is a stunning collection of pieces exploring the intricacies of found sounds and electronics and the beauty of the piano in its natural state, well worth investigating. ▶ Katie English

MAPS AND DIAGRAMS THE VOICES OF TIME

The reputation garnered by a slew of excellent releases on labels such as Static Caravan, Fluid Audio, Smallfish, Moamoo and Symbolic Interaction has made each Maps and Diagrams release an event within itself, inspiring a mixture of anticipation and excitement. Once again, this latest album from UK based Tim Martin exceeds expectations and delivers an excursion through the artist’s vast imagination, this time made available by Handstitched.

Deupree, Marcus Fischer and Ohesky, all artists who work in an unusual and unique way with audio, but nonetheless create music which has some cohesion when taken as a whole. One feels that there should be almost another term coined to describe this genre within a genre which comprises found sounds and broken melodies to make music which is less about the destination reached and more focused on the journey taken.

The Voices of Time opens with Your Weakness and Martin signals his intentions by weaving together various sound sources with meticulous care, guitar usually holding centre stage. The organic lo-fi beauty of Your Weakness and indeed, on each of the tracks which follow, bring to mind recent output from musicians such as Taylor

On an album of innumerable highlights, title track The Voices of Time is as fine a moment as any to note as possible apex, with gentle piano notes rolling atop a shiing foundation of guitar, synth and drones, peppered with static throughout – though in truth any such track could be chosen at random with similar results, such as the gentle floating ambience of

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Letraset Addiction or the abstract experimentalism of Three Blows To The Mind. The Voices Of Time is an album without fault and is a joy to experience. This is not an album to be thrown on while jogging or doing the dishes, or at least to do so would be missing the point. Rather, The Voices of Time should be enjoyed as a whole in one sitting, enabling one to lose track of time and become immersed in the sonic memories which the artist so generously shares with us here. The Voices of Time comes packaged in case-bound CD covers, stencilled with a Japanese Plum Blossom stencil and individually hand-stamped. ▶ Adam Williams

HALLOCK HILL THE UNION

Spread across nine songs, ‘The Union’ provides the listener with a sound world that is hugely evocative

It is around halfway through the ten minute opus known as ‘Pencil Spin’ that a giant bolt of auditory thunder erupts through the track. The distortion it provides is surprising because it arrives some thirty minutes into an album that is largely constructed through calming waves of looped electronic guitar. It also serves as a poignant reminder of how its creator, Hallock Hill, has built an album that successfully captures the essence of America in terms of its natural and constructed environment. The album is ‘The Union.’ Spread across nine songs, ‘The Union’ provides the listener with a sound world that is hugely evocative. Despite this, the sound construction here is relatively simple. Comprised largely of looped guitar, musician Tom Lecky, the man behind Hallock Hill, uses his instrument in varied forms to create these imaginative compositions.

On some songs, Lecky will employ up to five acoustic guitars each looping around one another. The immediate effect of this is an image of an interchanging landscape: one that could be viewed from a car as it races through a lonely highway. Tracks like ‘Grow’ which has a central pattern of strumming, with different varieties and tonalities provided by the multiple guitars present images of the rural landscape. The occasional taps of the guitars’ wooden frames offer thoughts of tricking water, perhaps a stream to support the vast expanse of the passing plains. Elsewhere, the lonely yet delicate playing on songs like ‘Ausable’ and ‘Marked’ offer thoughts on solitude. Through melancholic tone, these less layered songs conjure a sense of isolation, with the gaping expanse of the American backdrop magnifying the loneliness of an individual. In additional to the acoustic numbers, Hallock Hill also includes electronic pieces in-

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cluding the aforementioned ‘Pencil Spin.’ While that song held connotations with weather, other songs like the hazy ‘On Sun- days When I Wake Up’ move the sound world into the urban realm. Here the processed reverbs sound like the flowing traﬃc of a city coming to life. Tom Lecky’s album is one that is clearly inspired by his own movements. Hallock Hill refers to the rural backdrop of his upbringing in New York State, and it’s also interesting to learn of Lecky’s own movements from countryside to city. ‘The Union,’ an album filled with imagery and emotion, loneliness and reminiscence is Lecky’s personal world on record and one that we’re lucky to have shared with us. ▶ Josh Atkin

MATT CHRISTENSEN A CRADLE IN THE BOWERY

It’s raining outside. The faint noise of the rain in the trees perfectly couches the moment I start listening to this album in melancholic anticipation...

whose bass wavers and vibrates which introduces a song that seems so familiar as to be an old friend or a traditional tune known to the listener since childhood.

The album, since you’re asking, is A Cradle In The Bowery, the first solo record from Chicago’s own, the brilliant, Zelienople; going under his given name, Matt Christensen.

‘Simple Lives Mean Nothing’ is a brooding piece that is reminiscent of Radio- head, if not for its sonic or timbral qualities but for the chord sequence therein. Follow- ing this is a song called “Daddy” in which Matt’s vocals are almost starved of the reverb that surrounds them in other songs giving a very intimate quality to the way he delivers this song. The picked guitar seems to conjure memories of early Arab Strap. The second half of the album opens with a song titled ‘Already Found’ and the little touches of echo and reverberation throughout make this track the touching piece that it is, that and the pseudorandom nature of use of the guitar at the end of course.

From the oﬀ, Matt provides exactly what you would hope he might with a gorgeous collection of songs akin to bathing in a pool of distilled reverb. The opener, ‘Someday I Won’t Matter’ is more tense and claustrophobic in tone than songs that follow but it’s quite a beginning and the tension created in the swelling strings as the track comes to a close is something well constructed indeed. ‘Drugged’ follows and it is a hazy mix of guitar and an organ

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The track that follows is the stand-out track on the album, ‘Now You Have Won / I’m The One’. Again, soaked in reverb (spotting a theme here?) there is a gorgeous slide guitar and some subtle tambourine placed very low in the mix. Now You Have Won segues into what is assumably known as I’m The One; a beautiful layered soundscape and by a long way the most experimental and exciting part of the record complete with found sounds and crackles. Finally, the album ends with ‘Lazy Angel’, an epic, almost 8 minutes long, track entirely suitable to bring the work to a close. The rain is still falling outside but my mood, previously melancholic, has improved somewhat. ▶ Lionel Mint

VARIOUS ARTISTS 31 SONGS FOR JAPAN

Here are over two hours of music, from some well-established names and some newcomers. The material is finespun, at times altogether conventional, and — on at least one occasion — convincingly jazzy.

On Friday, March 11, 2011, the east coast of Japan suﬀered a massive earthquake. The slip amplitude (that is, the amount the Pacific plate moved in relation to the North American plate) is estimated to have been as high as 40 meters. The 9.0 temblor was 500 times as powerful as the Haiti earthquake last year, literally shortening the length of the day by shiing the earth 10cm from its rotational axis. The related tsunami flooded roads, airports, entire towns, killing refugees at designated earthquake evacuation sites, and causing power failure at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. In some cases, anecdotes are all that remain, those both heartbreakingly small and incomprehensibly large. We read of the woman who vainly clung to her daughter’s hand as they were swept out to sea, battered by saltwater and debris. And we followed the deterioration at Fukushima Daiichi on Twitter, 140 agonizing characters at a time.

Tokyo-based flau records (which carries releases by Colophon and Part Timer, to name only two) has produced an exceptional compilation of 31 artists, the proceeds of which will benefit the Japanese Red Cross Society directly. Founded in 1877, the Japanese Red Cross is a member of the IFRC, and boasts nearly 12 million members. Within five hours of the Honshu earthquake, JRCS had set up an operational center and dispatched over a dozen medical teams. As of May 23, it had mobilised over 600 more medical teams, who have treated over 63,000 patients. JRCS has distributed 10,000 appliance packages to displaced families, and disbursed JPY 70 billion in donations. These are the relief eﬀorts that 31 Songs For Japan will help to fund.

The data are staggering: 15,000 dead, 9,000 missing, and 500,000 displaced. More than 4.4 million homes were le without electricity, and 1.5 million without water. Yet charitable giving to Japan lags behind our responses to similar disasters, if indeed there is such a thing as a similar disaster. Surely those who have already given money, time, blood and food can relate nevertheless: Japan is an economic, technological, and cultural heavyweight, leading the world in such diverse metrics as installed solar power capacity and automotive production. And life expectancy.

The compilation would be big news irrespective of any charitable intent: 31 artists, 144 minutes of music, including names like Christoph Berg, Sylvain Chauveau and F.S. Blumm. Most of the material is previously unreleased, and a few cuts seem to have been composed specifically for this project. Curator Yasuhiko Fukuzono describes flau records as a “community of artists with a particular aﬀection for fragile arrangements and microscopic songwriting,” and this is a fitting introduction to the collection. Tracks such as “Nubes e insectos reflejados en un estanque” (Federico Durand), “Lux Aeterna” (Sons Of Magdalene) and the “Kentmere” demo (The Declining Winter) are delicate, breakable, respectfully hushed.

Japan will survive, but it should not have to merely survive. Those aﬀected by the disaster need financial help, and the relief workers need resources. This is where we come in.

Other tracks tend more toward pioneering, for example Kira Kira’s “Leave A Light On,” the liner notes for which are more descriptive than any well-placed adjective or two: “Recorded in Ulappa, Hladan, in Pekka

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Kuusisto’s living room, at Nils Frahm’s place, in Heikki Nikula’s studio and in Trelleborg.” Those seeking the bolder, more innovative works might also try the 10 minutes of semi-industrial stillness “Heceta Final,” by Pimmon. Other contributions are downright ravishing (“Moving Slow” by Hauschka and “Lament,” by Danny Norbury), but two seem to most agree with the themes of recovery, rebuilding, and hope. The first of these is “Semuin-Themes,” by Taunus, a pastel exploration of piano and processing, with intermittent acoustic guitar research. Try also “Dewey Raindrops,” a brief and optimistic guitar composition, textured with AM radio hues and — as instrumental works go — remarkably literal. Those familiar with Christoph Berg’s work as Field Rotation will note a clean departure from Acoustic Tales: his contribution “Notturno” is simple and bittersweet, seasoned with restraint. If nocturnes are meant to evoke the night, this threeminute piece certainly evokes the prolonged, unwanted darkness that has fallen on Japan. Here are over two hours of music, from some well-established names and some newcomers. The material is finespun, at times altogether conventional, and — on at least one occasion — convincingly jazzy. The artists have done all of the work. Here is all you need to do to help: continue as you were. Just buy, and listen. ▶ Fred Nolan

GUY GELEM TIDES

Guy Gelem’s “Tides” is the latest for the Quiet Design label. Gelem’s work is primarily a blend of guitar and cello with gentle electronics interspersed. And while his work has its roots in post-rock in many ways, it also relies on a combination of slow evolutions and a seeming repetitiveness more oen associated with drone. “Tides” has to win the award for most apropos album title so far this year as the album relies on a wave-like rising and falling of musical movements. Comprised of five songs, fittingly titled simply as “First Tide” through “Fih Tide”, the album has a devotion to a singular idea/approach that Gelem realises dely. You feel this album before you hear it: Gelem opens things with a low bass throb that begins as a low hum in your inner ear. Then gentle guitar harmonics join in, followed by cello. Throughout the album, instruments join in by twos or threes and then one or two will drop out momentarily only to return a few bars later. Individual instruments are oen playing very repetitive lines or phrases; so any sense of motion in the songs is the result of the way the instruments are layered and stripped away.

The music genuinely feels like it is coming at you in waves: at first gentle, then building momentum, receding, and then repeating the whole process again. This is how Gelem creates the audio equivalent of tides. But this approach also frees up the artist to suddenly introduce a new melody over the top of an existing one, sometimes creating a moody, almost ominous, sense to some of the pieces. This ability to suddenly shi tone lends a palpable tension to the music in places. “Third Tide” opens with some lovely guitar work. This tone, at once both bright and dry, is used throughout the album. No doubt a strategic choice for this particular album, that guitar tone is emblematic of the sensation of stillness within movement that permeates throughout the album. No matter the instrument, musical phrases never linger or ring out, creating the feeling that each phrase is a kind of closed loop. As far as the arrangements go, individual instruments will oen stand apart from one another and then a new element is introduced and suddenly it all blends seamlessly. It creates that rising and falling sensation that emulates the movement of a wave. Again, the title of “Tides” is most fitting: it takes a series of low tides pushing

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concurrently to create a high tide. So, each instrument is like the low tide pushing forward, and these moments of synergy in the album are sort of like a resulting cumulative force that happens every so oen. “Fih Tide” relies on that hyper fast yet slow due to use of delay and reverb style of guitar playing that post rock musicians oen use to create a sort of spacey quality in their music. Gelem pairs this oﬀ with muted but aggressive cello strikes. The cello almost serves as a threatening undercurrent. It’s a fitting end, as if the listener is being eased out of the album. “Tides” is a pleasant surprise. Gelem came up with an approach for these songs and managed to create an engaging and focused album. At times the project does come across as a little austere because of its devotion to craing this singular approach. Regardless, Guy Gelem has delivered a finely craed album of such depth and focus that any qualms are minor. Quiet Design has been on a roll of late, and Gelem has most certainly kept the ball rolling. ▶ Brendan Moore

MARSEN JULES NOSTALGIA

Each track is an excerpt from the endless showreel of history, relentless images of marching soldiers and seething, throbbing crowds, slow-motion footage stuck on repeat.

Marsen Jules’ 2005 release “Herbstlaub” for prestigious label City Centre Oﬃces is regarded by many to be a defining moment in the fledgling field of ‘neoclassical’ music. Aer performing and recording as the Marsen Jules Trio with Anwar and Jan-Phillip Alam on violin and piano, Jules returns with a new release for his own label Oktaf, entitled “Nostalgia”. The opening drone of the album recalls the deep, solid boom of a colossal pipe organ, thundering through some dark Gothic cathedral. I use the word “recalls”, first because it is actually a low string sound, and second because no pipe organ in the world could ever sound like that. But isn’t that precisely what nostalgia is — the yearn- ing for the return of a lost original that never really existed? Ripples without a pebble, if you will.

At the end of his short novel Amulet, Roberto Bolaño describes literature as the endless march of youth into the abyss. By doing so, he defines it as both a work of memory and as the repetition of an event for which there is no original. So it is with our organ blast, echoing throughout the centuries. A sound that never really happened, but continues to haunt nonetheless. Not a placid, melancholy ghost, but a strident, defiant one, capable of shaking ancient walls to their foundations. Bolaño’s marching youth burn with rebellion.

words, the tools of repetition - that summons this ghost so eﬀectively in tracks such as Through Blood and Fire and Endless Whisper of The Old Brigade. The delicate, flickering harp of Kundera’s Dream creates the more intimate, personal world of a recurring dream, one that comes back to confound again and again without ever giving up its puzzle. The gentle relief of album closer Sleep My Brother, Sleep pierces the darkness like a sha of sunlight through a stained glass window, a moment of peace at the end of a sometimes harrowing liturgical cycle.

Jules’ music too is haunted and shaken by this ghost. Each track is an excerpt from the endless showreel of history, relentless images of marching soldiers and seething, throbbing crowds, slow-motion footage stuck on repeat. It is Jules’ extensive use of drone, delay and reverberation - in other

The album will be available in stores worldwide as of 06/06/2011 on CD as well as a digital download on selected platforms. Recommended!

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▶ Nathan Thomas

RYAN TEAGUE CAUSEWAY

Immediate post-script: neo-classical outlet, pushing a neo-centric record. Sonic Pieces, its “7 Pieces” series flowing, now place Type’s Ryan Teague in their CD jigsaw, and it’s every bit as key to rebuilding your 2010 as fresh Spring rain. Rewind to 1989. Julia Watson interviews Colin Thubron, travel writer, of his tales outside a Welsh cottage retreat. A nice quote: “It’s the things that have gone wrong that you return to, like a dog to a bone.” “Six Preludes”, Ryan’s second Type LP, lacked sketch; slightly holy. Certainly, young blood can be baptism of fire. Or at extremity, tearing enthusiasm, a Judas-eChariot Channel 5. So, Sonic Pieces 011, your time. Leafcutter John, quite stylistic of Ryan’s “Causeway”. Plenty loops, subdued synopsis. That mandolinish, precision guitar. Bottled mandarin flavour, sweetly tangy. There’s positive message – unity is achievable. Monique’s first proper guitar oﬀering;

Ryan’s most consistent LP to date; a sign of the times; as well as time-lapsed religious acousmatic. 2006’s “Coins And Crosses”, knots “Undone”. So coos on that tune, Teague’s sleepy strum, sound for infant upbringings. While “Loopholes” tougher to penetrate reminiscent of Rick Wakeman’s mate Gordon Giltrap. Rick blew minds at Rochester Cathedral, Kent not long ago. While Gordon cheekily mused of his travels at Alvescot Village Hall, Oxon. As I penned for Fluid last November, Teague (accompanied by G. Davis on sax) had “surprisingly eﬀective” results in Cambridge’s church setting. Not long aer, a great blog by The Wire’s Tony Herrington, part reluctant on the format. “...moving contemporary music into churches (...) an admittance to failure”, he said. Or, in another sentence: “... that the old guard have surrendered, so we may as well move right in alongside it.”

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Noble propositions, but what for Sonic Pieces newbies? Duplicity, and many implications. First, we could think ‘classical’ is overpopulated – “let’s strip the slate to bare essentials”. Monique Recknagel’s cat – mightily minimal – Greg Haines, Nils Frahm and Erik K Skodvin best known. And then, all could perceive: “the water’s contaminated, best drink from other streams.” My swi duality is: don’t do either. No “Singular” route for quiet men, as Thubron inferred, who trekked alone across the globe, Ryan later talking politely at the Unitarian in November. “Causeway” is still under 50 minutes, but, as with Haines, Frahm and ‘Pieces’ to come, it seems we’d been, or could, listen all decades ahead. ▶ Mick Buckingham

THE BEAUTY OF DOUBTING YOURSELF TIME WITH DANIEL THOMAS FREEMAN Spencer Grady interviews fellow Rameses III musician Daniel Thomas Freeman about his forthcoming solo album on Home Normal... Your debut solo album is extremely personal in content. Can you tell me about the motivations and story behind it? I think all of the music I have made or have been involved with cannot help but be personal. For example, the Rameses III tracks “For Elsie” and “Parsimonia” both relate to the death of my grandma, with the field recording of St James Park in the latter captured the day she died. Within Rameses III the personal nature of the content has not been made so obvious but with my own work I have been able to be more specific about my thoughts and experiences. This album was written during the biggest change in my life to date. It chronologically and sequentially spans from when my first marriage started to fail, through divorce and my subsequent alcohol-fuelled depression and talk of suicide to my eventual conversion to Christianity and the happiness of marrying my wonderful and beautiful wife Val. Without being literally specific I wanted to communicate how I have been taken from such bleakness to such peace and to acknowledge the intensity of both states in the hope that it may help a few others who are struggling to find meaning in this harsh and greedy world. But I would also be very happy for people to find their own meanings and uses for this music and for it to have a life of its own. What influences – musical or otherwise – informed the making of the album? A particular reference for this album was Kevin Drumm’s “Sheer Hellish Miasma”. I know it doesn’t really sound like it but the two “Staring ...” tracks were actually started as my attempt to do a noise piece in the same vein and, true to form, I got it utterly and completely wrong! However, I really loved the two performance drones that I ended up with so then it was a case of slowly layering and editing over many months until the sister tracks emerged in their current form. John Luther Adams’ “In The White Silence” was a big influence on the more tonal tracks – although again I think there’s a lot to be said for being a bad copyist because you end up with something much more individual as a result. In a strange way Chris Watson’s “Weather Report” was also an influence. I read about that album and knew that I wanted to use layered weather recordings in a similar way on at least one track but I purposefully did not actually listen to that album until I fin-

ished my own. My work with Rameses III also played its part. “Beauty” is denser and darker than typical Rameses material but I definitely took a lot from the last ten years’ experience with yourself and Steve. Do you worry that the deeply personal content of The Beauty Of Doubting Yourself will alienate its listeners? What are you trying to convey to your potential audience? Well for a start I think that all art has a message – even if that message is just implied by the personalities involved – and that we don’t necessarily need to identify with the message in order to appreciate and understand it. For instance, three of my favourite releases are Coil’s “Gold Is The Metal”, “Hellraiser” and “Stolen And Contaminated Songs” where the music is written from a hedonistic, homosexual and occult view- point and yet it still speaks to me on a very deep level, particularly tracks like “Cardinal Points” and “Box Theme”.

ultimately I see the music as a gi for people to use in whatever way helps them. If the subject matter speaks to them then of course I would be delighted but I am also curious to discover what other aspects are inherent within. It’s a lovely title for a record – how did you come up with it? Thanks very much. It’s actually part of a bigger phrase: the beauty of doubting yourself is that you have to rely on someone else. I had thought I had carefully structured my life in such a way that I could make myself happy but it was only aer things went so drastically wrong despite my best eﬀorts that I realised that – for me personally – only letting Jesus in was going to give my life purpose and meaning. Are there any plans for a follow-up record or live performances? Definitely both...

However I do understand that the image of the Christian church is very much blemished in many Western eyes, as it was in my own until five years ago. I have tried to be sensitive to this by, for instance, only including one specific and very brief spoken word reference on the album. As a Christian I want to take on a little of the responsibility of the mistakes the church has made in the past by speaking positively about grace, acceptance, love and humility rather than the heavy-handed, moralistic and judge- mental barracking that the church has been unfortunately rather more well known for in its relatively recent past.

Aer some experimenting last year I’ve purposefully held back from making any new solo music for about six months as I’ve wanted to get a clear sense of direction and there was quite a bit of research and meditation I wanted to do in order to achieve this. In the last couple of weeks I’ve been able to firm up a lot of my plans and so I’m just starting the initial sketches. I don’t really want to talk too much about this at the moment because there is still a lot of work to be done but I can say I know where I’m headed for the next three years with the next album hopefully being completed in the next twelve months and with at least one other in the can by 2013.

My hope for “Beauty” is that it helps listeners in some small way in times of darkness, even if only for an hour or two. There are very few pieces of music which I can listen to when life seems very hard and void music like Thomas Köner’s “Nuuk” has been incredibly useful to me in those times. As I get older I have realised that the music I have always most strongly responded to is that with a very intense, melancholic and slow centre and, for me personally, there is something of the divine in those glacial frequencies, something very alien yet very intimate, something far greater than worldly concerns.

I have also started to think about how I can translate this highly-layered album into the live environment so I expect I’ll be performing some time in the next six months, almost certainly by the end of the year with performances of new material planned reasonably soon aer.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of conveying a personal message within a purely instrumental setting such as the one you’ve employed?

Anything else you would like to add?

I suppose the biggest disadvantage is that the message will get misunderstood or will pass unseen ... and yet I’m not really worried about that. I made the music with a very definite purpose in mind and I think it is a stronger piece of work for it but

Of course I should also mention that there will probably be another Rameses III album in the next two to three years although we have no set date for completion as yet, particularly as Steve now has two children and as we don’t live as close to each other as we used to.

Just thanks for the interview and, to anyone reading, thanks for your time and attention and I hope you get to hear the music sometime. “The Beauty Of Doubting Yourself” is out as CD and download on Home Normal in June 2011. Thanks to Ian Hawgood for allowing the interview to be posted on Fluid Radio