Another gorgeous selection of albums for September…
Solo Andata – Solo Andata
12k presents Australian duo Solo Andata
along with their second album, self-titled. Translated literally from
the Italian as “one way”, Solo Andata portrays the theme of a one-way
journey that moves from (and represents a thread between) water and
land, fluid/stasis, cold/hot.
Following
Solo Andata’s debut album Fyris Swan (Hefty, 2006) and their 12k
inception on Live in Melbourne, Solo Andata presents us with an ambient
affair, with dark drones coupled with ethereal sonic environments.
It could be said that Solo Andata is
carefully sequenced to a narrative structure: beginning on boat in the
cold, arctic night of “Ablation,” and then ending on foot in the hot
wilderness of “Woods, Flesh, Bone.” However, concepts and narratives
that seem clear to the artists are often left oblique to the listeners.
This is perhaps why Solo Andata represented this narrative in a strict
sense by recording what the titles literally refer to. For example,
“Woods Flesh, Bone” presents us with sweltering woodlands, the sound of
a fresh carcass being torn apart and the clattering of bones. The same
can be said of “Hydraulic Fluctuations,” “Canal Rocks,” “Ablation” and
“In the Light Storming.” These organic sources, then, help tie music
and concept together.
Solo Andata utilizes very little, if
any, electronic instruments. Acoustic guitar, piano, cello and the
natural resonances of organic materials (usually by way of a violin
bow, pluck, or home-made contraption) become their main instruments,
and as their live shows often attest to, Solo Andata can turn almost
any object into an instrument capable of producing beautiful,
other-worldly music.
Solo Andata is being released
simultaneously with Look For Me Here (12k2014), a limited edition
CD-Single that contains the album mix of “Look For Me Here” as well as
remixes from legendary Japanese musician Ryuichi Sakamoto and 12k’s
visionary Giuseppe Ielasi.
Solo Andata was created between Perth, Western Australia, Melbourne, Victoria and New York City.
Mixed by Taylor Deupree.
Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi.
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Relmic Statute – Sitting Under The Lantern’s Glow
Following last month’s release by the
Tape loop Orchestra, Relmic Statute is the latest addition to the
Cotton Goods label, and as ever, the standards of hand-made packaging
continue to be raised by the label.
This
time around you have to negotiate your way through a card folder
embossed with the label’s logo before reaching a thicK cardboard casing
which holds the now customary hand-numbered ID card and a cut-out page,
snipped from some long-forgotten text. Once you’re finally in, you
discover that this latest edition (limited to 100 copies for the world)
comes from Leeds-based artist David Horner, who records under the
moniker Remic Statute, assembling lulling, grainy soundscapes based on
the splicing of field recordings collected from cassettes and old
1/4-inch tape.
The likes of ‘Cupboard Music’ take on a
scrapbook-like, collaged approach to sound-sculpting, taking muffled
tones, mini-torrents of hiss and lo-fi cracklings as a means of
establishing an atmosphere of cosy, domestic calm. Although this sort
of material tends to be evocative of a very homely, cocoon-like
quality, elsewhere Horner ventures so far as his window, documenting
the seemingly endless, trickling downpour of ‘A Change In The
Atmosphere’ and ‘The Leaves Of The Pel Thraine Cemetery’. On this
latter recording the weather joins with a variety of more musical and
manmade sounds; it serves as a great example of how Horner merges his
own instrumental dabblings with incidental sounds, where both synthetic
and natural timbres seem to mimic one another.
In a slightly different strand of his
work, Horner draws William Basinski-inspired worn-out loops from
‘Flor-Ewue1932′, droning in a suitably enigmatic, decaying fashion,
going on to demonstrate another facet of his talent by the time he
reaches pieces such as ‘Small Song’ and ‘Tapeloop2′ – both of which dig
out clear-cut melodies, all channelled through the deteriorating,
crumbled tape that adds so much rich character to these compositions.
All we can say is, Hurry. – Boomkat Review
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Aaron Martin – Grass Wounds
A brand new, highly limited release
from Under The Spire, this time boasting a new EP’s worth of material
from Aaron Martin, whose previously made great contributions to the
catalogues of Type and Preservation with his solo works and
collaborations with artists like Machinefabriek and Part Timer.
As
a multi-instrumentalist Martin is formidable, and on these compositions
he sounds more like an ensemble than a lone musician: while ‘Terrace’
showcases an onslaught of strings – from gloriously wild and unkempt
harmonised cello to meandering plucked melodies. By ‘Shot Tower’ he’s
already moved on to an expanded palette, working with what sounds like
ukulele, harmonica and organ swells, and ‘Breath Of Embers’ shows an
even greater departure, embracing vocals, high-pitched bells and shrill
string drones. It actually sounds a bit like Christmas. Arguably best
of the lot is the windswept ‘Gravel Scar’, whose reverberant, quivering
sustains are right up there with similar work by A Broken Consort,
which is high praise indeed. Essential Purchase. – Boomkat Review
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Balmorhea - All is Wild, All is Silent Remixes
Received this little beauty a few weeks
back and feel it is well worth another post as it just gets better and
better with every play…
Balmorhea’s All is Wild, All is Silent
has received praise from critics, fans, and most importantly from the
band’s close friends. Many of their friends are not surprisingly
musicians themselves.
The
idea to release the All is Wild, All is Silent Remixes evolved
organically as the band asked a few of their closest friends if they’d
like to remix a track. To their surprise 11 of their friends jumped at
the opportunity to create remixes of these wordless narratives that
have become so meaningful to them.
The resulting album is distinctly more
experimental than the original album, but no less joyous and haunting.
Many of the tracks retain Balmorhea’s uniquely American optimism,
though some hardly leave a trace of the original’s simplicity and
restraint. Eluvium’s 17 minute remix of “Settler” opens the album,
evolving from swirls of vocals and upright bass into swells of blissful
drones. In contrast, The Fun Years’ remix of “Coahuila” brings the
drums to the forefront, almost morphing the track into something akin
to a pop/rock song. Yet another appThe acoustic fingerpicking of
“Elegy” is turned inside-out with Bexar Bexar’s chaotic and metallic
wall-of-noise remix. Peter Broderick’s unique remix of “November 1,
1832″ begins as a spoken letter to Rob and Michael of Balmorhea. As the
track develops, multiple layers of Peter’s intense vocals build,
resonating the song’s unforgettable feeling of longing.
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Peter Broderick – Home (2cd special edition)
One to watch out for in September from Mr Broderick…
‘Home’ is a record of quietly
breathtaking beauty, a gentle and subtle record which reveals its magic
gradually over the course of many listens. Those who spend time with
this gorgeous album will come to view it like an old friend…reassuring,
consoling, dependable.
Tracklisting
Disc One
1. Games
2. And It’s Alright
3. With The Notes In My Ears
4. Esbern Snares Gade 11, 2tv
5. Below It
6. Sickness, Bury
7. Not At Home
8. There And Here
9. Maps
10. Games Again
Disc Two
1. The Piano Race
2. Begin
3. Not At Home
4. Sickness, Bury
5. Moment
6. The Lingering Procession
7. Pop’s Song
8. With The Notes In My Ears
9. For Bella Union
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Demdike Stare Part 1
First of two strictly limited LP’s from
this Incredible new project fusing elements of everything from
fragmented dub to Turkish, Iranian and West Indian library records,
through to Scandinavian drone and Chicago House, carefully brought to
life by Berlin’s Dubplates and Mastering and limited to 300 copies for
the world.
Demdike
Stare is a long-in-the-making hookup between two shady characters
operating at the fringes of Manchester’s fragmented music scene: Miles
Whittaker and Sean Canty. Miles has been a longtime affiliate of Modern
Love as one half of Pendle Coven and under his own MLZ alias, while
Canty is one of the city’s most recognisable vinyl collectors, carrying
an obsession with everything from obscure Nordic Doom records to
Anatolyan funk albums, fuelled by his involvement with the Finders
Keepers label.
The project is named after Pendle’s
most famous witch: Elizabeth Southerns, aka Demdike. The tracks draw on
elements from Turkish, Indian, Iranian, African and West Indian film
soundtracks alongside Finnish drone records, classic House templates,
punctured dub, modified techno and the arctic noise perfected by Mika
Vainio. Original sources and dense analogue experiments weave around
eachother with little care for convention or stylistic expectation,
instead throwing the pair’s extensive musical knowledge into a set of
tracks that, quite brilliantly, defy categorisation. ‘Suspicious
Drone’, is a dense 6 minute pulse that chugs a long like a
malfunctioning mechanical beast, honing in on Lancashire’s dark
industrial landscape before moving onto more exotic, balmy territory.
‘Haxan Dub’ (named after the film
narrated by william burroughs about witchcraft) deploys fragmented dub
echoes infused with displaced horns and African signatures, taking its
time with one of the jerkiest rhythms you’ll have the pleasure of
hearing, while ‘Jannisary’ tangles in and out of an Iranian hook and a
squashed Congolese rhythm that creates an asymmetric, geniusly
constructed dancefloor killer. “All Hallows Eve”, meanwhile, features
the considerable talents of Danny Norbury, weaving dense bass plucks
around the albums most unhinged 5 minute stretch. Act fast. – Boomkat
Review
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Solo Andata – Fyris Swan
Just discovered this gorgeous release which had somehow slipped under my radar…
A very welcome contribution to Hefty’s
catalogue from this Australian duo, Fyris Swan is a distinctly
cinematic affair. The pair conjure the most delicate and wistful of
acoustic-electronic landscapes.
At times there’s only the most spartan
of sonic elements at work and the whole album seems to be held together
by the slightest of gestures and the lightest of touches, but all this
understatement makes for an incredibly atmospheric, memorable album.
‘Coastal Road Thoughts’ is an especially blissful drift through gentle
drones, incidental chimes and buried voices, whilst ‘A Ballet Of Hands’
is reminiscent in feel to the unearthly haze of Arve Henriksen’s
Chiaroscuro album. Recommended. – Boomkat Review
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Voice Of The Seven Woods – The Journey
Another classy psych excursion from
Rick Tomlinson, a man fast becoming the UK’s answer to Ben Chasny. As
with Six Organs Of Admittance, Voice Of The Seven Woods recordings
demonstrate a real fluency on the guitar, but it’s always within the
context of the song, never spiralling off into some improvised flight
of fancy.
This EP for Kning Disk is another
all-instrumental affair, largely focussed on Tomlinson’s fingerpicked
acoustic skills, but also toying with more atmospheric electric
figures, coloured by a steady tremolo effect, slowly strobing through
‘Solitary Breathing’ and ‘3am, Home’, which sounds somewhere between
Dave Pajo and Loren Connors, carving beautiful, stately melodies using
the sparest of components.
Elsewhere, ‘Breaking Moonlight’ is a
clever open-tuned piece that makes extensive use of natural harmonics,
while title track ‘The Journey’ is probably the most stark,
conventional recording, documenting an expertly played one-man guitar
piece that despite being a fairly technical performance retains a sense
of economy and simplicity. Highly recommended. – Boomkat Review
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XVI Reflections on Classical MusicFeaturing Takeo Toyama, Sylvain , Alva
Noto, Gas, Final Fantasy, Francesco Tristano, Philip Glass, Murcof, Max
Richter, Akira Rabelais, Ryan Teague, Greg Haines, Gavin Bryars. With
exclusive tracks by Lawrence, Hauschka und Slowcream.
XVI
Reflections on Classical Music turns the spotlight on a young musical
genre. A genre that has slowly evolved over the past number of years,
not the kind of revolution that music used to create, but a silent one
that has happened in different parts of the (music) world.
There isn’t even a name for it, but the
growing connections between classical and unconventional, often
electronic music cannot be denied. They occur in many different shades
and colours, consciously and unconsciously. The artists aren’t part of
a movement as such, but there are some direct connections between them
and their artistic visions. This collection aims to assemble some of
the most interesting artists of this genre together on a CD for the
first time.
Compiler Me Raabenstein – head of the
label nonine – has selected his 16 favourite examples on a CD which
will be released on Point Music in September 2009. It is not an attempt
to put together a ‘best of”, but rather the subjective point of view of
an individual with a passion for music. The result, however, gives a
very good overview of this burgeoning musical genre.
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Peter Broderick – 4 Track Songs
Listen up, there are 150 copies only of
this for sale in the UK, 400 for the world. They ain’t gonna last… In
his earliest days as a recording artist, Peter Broderick assembled two
CD-Rs based on sketched recordings committed to tape with old, worn-in
microphones.
The discs were labelled “4 Track Songs”
and got bundled off to Type Records’ headquarters. This was a first
taster of the work that was just around the corner for Broderick, and
the music gathered together for these two volumes encompassed all areas
of Peter’s work; you can hear the building blocks of both the Float and
Home albums in these sketches, accounting for the full breadth of the
young polymath’s creative endeavours – as a composer, pianist,
guitarist, violinist and singer/songwriter.
One of the first things to strike you
about this record is that so many of the roughly documented
instrumental pieces here are downright incredible: look beyond the
functional labelling that denotes ‘More Of A Composition’ and you’ll
hear a shatteringly beautiful soundtrack-in-miniature, setting dusted
piano figures against a swelling string accompaniment. The fact that
such an elegant and complete sounding neo-classical piece is laid down
as a humble home fourtrack recording is somehow quite ridiculous, yet
it only underlines what this Portlander is capable of – even when he’s
laying down homespun DIY recordings.
Straying beyond the main thread of the
album you encounter slightly more experimental, off-topic compositions
like the tape collage hip-hop of ‘Walking/Thinking’ or the grainy
electric drone of ‘A Low End Rumble’, but perhaps the most revelatory
content here comes in the more overtly song-based material. During his
fingerpicked acoustic numbers there’s a rawness that goes beyond the
kind of multi-layered polish of his work on ‘Home’, and there’s musical
common ground established with the tone of The Creek Drank The
Cradle-era Iron & Wine (particularly on the upbeat twang of ‘For
Dave’) or the songs that featured on Elliott Smith’s posthumous New
Moon album.
One of the very best pieces here is
‘(Untitled #2)’ – which in a funny sort of way is a very Elliott Smith
thing to call a song (’No Name #2′ perhaps?) – there’s a ramshackle
backbeat and a chord sequence that sounds uncannily like the late
Heatmiser frontman’s work, and for all its unkempt presentation it’s a
well executed and worthy tribute. The issuing of 4 Track Songs as a
proper, finished album gives a valuable insight into Broderick’s
talent, revealing his music in all its accomplishment and diversity
within a context of unvarnished immediacy that only serves to bring the
listener closer to the moment of conception, effectively letting you in
on Broderick’s writing process at its most elemental level. Plus,
somehow, the crackle of warm analogue vinyl imbues these recordings
with an incomprehensible glow, a fragile loveliness that we just can’t
get enough of. Massive Recommendation. – Boomkat Review