This week's series of episodes features images from Asheville, NC, which was devastated by Hurricane Helene this past week.
Please consider donating to the various organizations in and around the area.
Episode 714 features music by Pan•American, Maria Somerville, Patrick Cowley, The Gaslamp Killer and Jason Wool, Der Stil, Astrid Sonne, Reymour, Carlos Haayen Y Su Piano Candeloso, Harry Beckett, Tarwater, Mermaid Chunky, and Three Quarter Skies.
Episode 715 has Liquid Liquid, Kim Deal, Severed Heads, Los Agentes Secretos, mHz, Troller, Mark Templeton, Onkonomiyaki Labs, Deadly Headley, Windy and Carl, Sunroof, and claire rousay.
Episode 716 includes Actors, MJ Guider, The Advisory Circle, The Bug, Alessandro Cortini, The Legendary Pink Dots, Chihei Hatakeyama and Shun Ishiwaka, Arborra, Ceremony, Ueno Takashi, Organi, and Saagara.
Following 2018's acclaimed collaboration with Simon Fisher Turner, Care, Swedish sound artist Klara Lewis returns with "Ingrid", her third solo release for Editions Mego.
Ingrid is a departure from Lewis's previous solo outings, drifting from the eerie rhythmic variations of Too and Ett and moving assuredly into long-form experimentation. The piece retains those records' pulsing core and builds on a single cello loop that is steadily enveloped by a surge of distortion. It's almost like a voice or chant, shifting pointedly from a whisper into a scream before singing peacefully into the light.
At times, Ingrid reminds of William Basinski's looping melancholy or Steve Reich's controlled and innovative phase experiments, while at others, it recalls the chaotic Scandinavian physicality of black metal. Yet the entire composition is anchored in Klara Lewis's distinct emotional world. By dissolving familiar and beautiful strings in baths of noise, Lewis allows something violent but tender to grow in its place. In a society struck through by cynicism, Ingrid is a cathartic listening experience and a beacon of hope.
**The eighth installment in Geographic North's long-running Sketch for Winter series, which highlights compositions intentionally crafted for the colder season.**
Unsung heroes of the ambient underground, Aria Rostami and Daniel Blomquist have quietly created some of the most aurally alluring sounds released in the past five years. And although that time has solidified the duo's prowess of production and tenacity of texture, it has also shown its share of disruption and disorder. Having met and recorded all of their past works together in San Francisco, Sketch for Winter VIII:Floating Tone marks the first release made by the pair apart, with Rostami’s recent move to Brooklyn. But rather losing touch or stalling collaboration, the duo’s bond only grew stronger. Rather than perform live improvisations in the same room, Rostami and Blomquist repeatedly passed material back and forth to be altered over time - sometimes involving extensive alterations, and others barely none. The result brings an astoundingly varied mix of melody, texture, and movement.
"The Sloping Tower" seeps into focus in a haze of pristine clatter, celestial chords, and synthetic detritus. Distant disembodied voices appear through rippling waves of melody, leaving only a tapestry of tattered sound. "The Sleeping Floor" meanders with a nocturnal melody that lulls and placates with a deft, delicate touch. A-side closer "The Guessing Hand" cultivates a seething but subtle soirée of nonchalant noir, suggesting some solemn and forgotten subterranean piano bar.
"The Running Glass" wafts in a cloud of blissful warmth, backlit with dimmed glee and neon vibrancy. "The Sinking Tone" turns the focus back to our piano, heaving in a lush and all-consuming storm of shimmering texture and noise. "The Floating Table" closes things out with utter resolve, reflecting on the receding action and dabbling in some amorphous beauty. It's a powerful new chapter in Rostami and Blomquist's journey that solidifies their past and suggests endless opportunities ahead.
**The seventh installment in Geographic North’s long-running Sketch for Winter series, which highlights compositions intentionally crafted for the colder season.**
Louise Bock is the nom de guerre of Taralie Peterson, a venerable veteran of the American avant-garde. Whether solo or together with Ka Baird as Spires that in the Sunset Rise, Peterson has spent nearly two decades exploring the outermost limits of ecstatic, free jazz-influenced improvisation. The sonic range of Peterson's opulent oeuvre is matched only by the variety of instruments she employed, including but not limited to voice, saxophone, clarinet, guitar, banjo, lap harps, mbira, spike fiddle, and so on. Now, under the sobriquet Louise Bock and focusing solely on the cello, Peterson returns with Abyss: For Cello, a profound work of considered minimalism composed during and intended for the dead of winter.
Deciding to focus entirely on the cello, Peterson rid herself of any other self-imposed rules, analysis, and judgment that ultimately unlocked unforeseen revelations. Opener "Horologic" offers a sustained seethe of heaving, serrated textures. "Jute" offers a dynamic run of striated tones that slowly dissolve into a pool of peaceful resolve. "Actinic Ray" brings a kaleidoscopic blur that offsets heaving lurches of chordal sound with almost acrobatic flecks of melody. "Oolite," featuring Kendra Amalie on guitar, is an engrossingly unsettling piece of auditory hysteria, balancing a fascinating and fine line between allure and aversion. Closing track "Prithee" prolongs a potent interplay of deep, dense resonance and exquisitely elegant static.
Through these ruminations, Peterson's cello exposes immense beauty, sorrow, and joy that is altogether deeply hypnotic and discreetly haunting.
As a longtime NWW fan, the prospect of an ambitious, long-gestating triple LP release entitled Trippin’ Musik naturally filled me with glee and anticipation, as I envisioned another Soliloquy For Lilith-level classic. That enthusiasm remained undampened by the jabbering and splattering loop lunacy of Experimente II: Son of Trippin’ Music, as it seemed like that was intended as more of an outtake collection than a teasing glimpse of what was to come. As it turns out, however, it was very much the latter, as Trippin' Musik is often an obsessively loop-driven affair that basically expands upon Experimente II rather than transcending it. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but Trippin’ Musik is occasionally surprising in both its extremity and single-mindedness. This is a bizarre and challenging album even by Nurse With Wound standards.
A strong case could be made that the vinyl version of Trippin’ Musik is the logical culmination of several conceptual threads that have always driven Steven Stapleton's work, as it combines a lavish visual presentation with a playfully twisted and enigmatic "hall of mirrors" approach to the actual music.It is both an art object and a kind of surrealist game of chance: some songs are weirdly beautiful and immersive, while others are grinding, one-dimensional endurance tests.None of the songs or records are numbered or identified, so the album's sequence is dictated entirely by the choices of the listener (and those choices will unavoidably be blind ones at first).The newly issued CD version, on the other hand, offers a significantly altered and enhanced version of the Trippin’ Musik experience, as there are actual song titles and an ostensible sequence.I definitely appreciate the former and I also quite like the digital format, as using the "shuffle" feature enables probability to dictate the sequence rather than my own vague memories of which colored record I liked the most.I also like the clarity of the digital version, as some of the nuance and detail is definitely lost in the omnipresent crackle and hiss of my record player.The differences between the two formats go much deeper than that, however, as the CD version throws in roughly 35 minutes of new material and excises almost half of the material from the pink record (basically 15 minutes of rhythmic metallic scraping that I definitely do not miss).Consequently, the CD version is considerably more melodic and listenable than its harsher predecessor.
Notably, one of the new pieces (the 20-minute "Or") now opens the album, which dramatically transforms its overall feel and trajectory."Or" does contain some elements of the now-deleted piece from the pink record though, as it eventually locks into a similarly heaving and metallic pulse.However, it is considerably more compelling in other ways, as it undergoes significant transformation over the course of its journey, slowly building from simmering tension and hallucinatory feedback drift into a massive, churning mindfuck.It is followed by the brief and delightful "The" (plucked from the pink record), which unfolds as warm and bubbling reverie of shivering and shimmering synth-like loops.In classic Stapleton fashion, however, that pleasant interlude ends abruptly to make way for the album's most relentlessly and obsessively sanity-destroying piece ("Fall"), which mercilessly jabbers in a locked-groove style loop for almost 20 punishing minutes.It basically sounds like a room full of shuddering and puttering old engines, but with an uneasy "squirming" element thrown into the cacophony as well.Naturally, that piece ends in jarring and abrupt fashion as well, but it unexpectedly gives way to the surprisingly understated and composed-sounding "Of," which kind of resembles a German Expressionist Horror twist on jazz. It is a truly inspired and disturbing piece, as it feels like it was once something quite melodic but has since been slowed and stretched into a curdled and reverberant abstraction.It calls to mind an imaginary film noir in which the requisite seductive chanteuse is performing in a smoky nightclub, except that everyone and everything is slowly rotting and melting and all the sounds are smearing queasily together.
The second disk also opens with an entirely new piece ("The") and it is another interesting one, as it feels like a considerably less disturbing extension of the previous "Of."Instead of distending and smearing into a phantasmagoric hellscape, however, its foundation of lurching and stammering slow-motion percussion gradually blossoms into a meditative haze of buzzing string drones and gently pulsing, rippling guitar chords.At times, it almost sounds too sun-dappled and benignly psychedelic to be a Nurse With Wound piece, but it also sometimes sounds like a rehearsal tape of Barn Owl/Calexico-style desert rock being played at the wrong speed.The following "Eye" then makes a triumphant return to the "nightmare jazz" aesthetic of "Of," which is the aesthetic niche where Trippin’ Musik truly shines.In fact, "Eye" is easily one of the strongest pieces on the album, unfolding as a spacious and heady swirl of flickering, time-stretched female voices and flanged metallic swells.It evokes the sensation of being lured into a hallucinatory forest of swaying metal trees by some kind of half-malevolent/half-seductive forest nymph, which is a stylistic niche that certainly warrants further exploration.
The remaining two songs seem to the ones from the green vinyl, albeit in remixed and altered form.Both are among the finest pieces on the album, though they take very different directions.For example, "OF" essentially unfolds like a complex and multilayered 20-minute loop, but it is a remarkably hypnotic and absorbing one, as snatches of vocals warble and flutter inside a mechanized, churning pulse that is slightly out of phase.The closing "Sound," on the other hand, actually sounds like the work of a tight, focused, and unexpectedly melodic band.It is quite a lovely piece and is all the more striking for how nuanced, deftly arranged, and purposeful it feels, as it has an actual groove and a lazily burbling and shifting melodic figure.More importantly, it is allowed to run its entire course without being pulled apart, mangled, and dragged into darker, uglier territory.
I would be curious to know what led Stapleton to make the vinyl and CD versions of this album so different, as it genuinely seems like the latter is a punched-up and improved release rather than just the same album with added material thrown in.When I first listened to the vinyl edition, I actually found myself somewhat mystified that this album had taken so long to make, as the pink record just seemed like two abrasive loops stretched out for 20 minutes each. Given Andrew Liles' extreme work ethic, that seems like something that could have been knocked off in a single afternoon.Now that the whole album has been rearranged, enhanced, and re-edited, however, Trippin’ Musik feels like a considerably more coherent and focused statement.In fact, I think it could have been one of NWW's stronger albums if it had been edited even more aggressively than it was, though I imagine the allure of releasing an attention-grabbing triple LP epic was impossible to resist.I certainly was not immune to the appeal of that approach myself and can find plenty to like about both versions of the album.However, Trippin’ Musik could have easily been an album that I absolutely loved if it had been paired down to just "Of," "Eye," and "OF" (with "Sound" possibly throw in as a chaser).That said, I am about forty years too late if I want to convince Steven Stapleton of the (financially ruinous) merits of being much more selective in what he releases.Embracing imperfection and indulgence is inherently part of being a life-long Nurse With Wound fan, as the occasional rewards are usually worth it.They certainly are in this case, as Trippin’ Musik fitfully shows that Steven Stapleton and his collaborators are just as capable as ever at conjuring up distinctive and radical sound art unlike that of anyone else.
Originally composed by Maggi Payne between 1984-1987 for the performance group Technological Feets. Formed by video artist Ed Tennenbaum in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1981, the group combines dance, live video processing and music.
Ahh-Ahh was first released in 2012 on Root Strata. Composed on an Apple II computer & various early sampling devices, Payne's compositions are a vibrant response to the call from the moving body. Populated with buoyant pulses, graceful analogue swells, dense fog-like drones and cascading rhythms that shift in space, Ahh-Ahh is a vital document of not only these early collaborations, but of computer based music as well. She studied with many greats in the field, including Gordon Mumma, Robert Ashley & David Berhman.
Fully immersive electronic music by US composer Maggi Payne, inspired by the arctic winds. Maggi Payne's sound worlds invite the listeners to enter the sound and be carried with it, experiencing it from the inside out in intimate detail. The sounds are almost tactile and visible.
The music is based on location recordings, with each sound carefully selected for its potential—its slow unfolding revealing delicate intricacies—and its inherent spatialization architecting and sculpting the aural space where multiple perspectives and trajectories coexist. With good speakers, some space in your schedule, and a mind-body continuum willing to resonate with Payne’s electroacoustic journey, but then it will take you to places that other music can’t reach.
From the sounds of dry ice, space transmissions, BART trains, and poor plumbing she immerses the listener in a world strangely unfamiliar. Maggi Payne is a composer, video artist, recording engineer, photographer, and flutist and is Co-Director of the Center for Contemporary Music and a faculty member at Mills College, in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Laurin Huber is a prolific figure in the Swiss underground for experimental music and arts. He has been active as a musician and producer in a slew of projects like Wavering Hands, Frederik or legendary Swiss institution Krankenzimmer 204. Having just released his first solo release under the R.E.R. moniker on the label Edipo Re, co-founded by Huber and frequent collaborator Rolf Laureijs in 2016, he now presents his first album under his given name.
Thematically, Juncture is perfectly in line with Huber’s approach of thinking globally and acting locally. Highlighting the singularity of specific musical concepts while embedding them firmly in a collaborative network has been the crucial guiding principle in his work for Edipo. The four tracks on Juncture aim to work with "superimpositions, interactions, interferences and modes of co-existence," as Huber explains. "I'm generally interested in thought that tries to look at the world beyond dualisms," says the artist. "Contemporary feminist theory and philosophies of difference, the critique of dualities such as nature/nurture, body/mind, object/subject or anorganic/organic are therefore important reference points."
On a musical level, this means working with overlaps and interfering layers, field recordings as well as synthesizers and the experienced drummer's knack for intricate rhythms. Over the course of more than half an hour, the producer brings together dreamlike synthesizer pieces with stripped down mid-tempo techno pieces, feverish echoes of industrial music and swelling sounds that are juxtaposed with subtle rhythmic counterpoints. In a world in which dualities reign and polarization increases both socially and culturally, Junction serves as an invitation to deconstruct binary thinking by affirming the coexistence of allegedly opposed elements. It does so with striking emotional ambiguity, sometimes lulling in its audience with soothing sounds and in the next challenging them with an ominous atmosphere.
Ellen Fullman began developing The Long String Instrument in her St. Paul, Minnesota studio in 1980 and moved to Brooklyn the following year. Inspired by composer and instrument builder Harry Partch, Fullman's large-scale work creates droning, organ-like overtones that are as unique in the world of sound as her vision of the instrument itself.
Along with her 1985 debut album – appropriately titled The Long String Instrument – Fullman's only output in the 1980s would be two self-released cassettes, In The Sea and Work For Four Players And 90 Strings, recorded in 1987 at an unfinished office tower in Austin, Texas. This double LP collection features music from both cassettes as well as a previously unreleased piece from 1988 at De Fabriek in Den Bosch, Holland.
Ethereal and exquisitely paced, these rare recordings capture minimalism's quiet radiance. Within a musical landscape that has seen the rise of contemporary drone practitioners like Ellen Arkbro and Kali Malone, Fullman is sure to find a legion of fans.
Superior Viaduct is honored to present this long overdue archival release that marks a particularly vibrant period of Fullman's pioneering and timeless work.
Diamanda Galás' debut album The Litanies of Satan, originally released on Y Records in 1982, is reissued on the artist's own Intravenal Sound Operations label in LP, CD and digital formats. The album has been meticulously remastered from the original Y Records analogue tapes by Diamanda and engineer Heba Kadry and features the original classic artwork of that release. Vinyl includes poster.
This the first release in a new reissue campaign since Diamanda regained ownership and control of her entire catalogue in 2019.
-"The Litanies of Satan" (from the poem by Charles Baudelaire) Devotes itself to the emeraldine perversity of the life struggle in Hell.
-"Wild Women with Steak-Knives" (from the tragedy-grotesque by D. Galás "Eyes Without Blood") Is a cold examination of unrepentant monomania, the devoration instinct, for which the naive notion of filial mercy will only cock a vestigial grin.
If someone had told me twenty years ago that Cerberus Shoal would someday evolve into a '60s girl group-style family band, I probably would have thought that I had fallen asleep and was having an extremely weird and perplexing dream. Nevertheless, that improbable future has now come to pass with Do You Wanna Have a Skeleton Dream?, which is Colleen Kinsella and Caleb Mulkerin's first album to feature their daughter Quinnisa as a full member of the band. As befits such an auspicious occasion, Skeleton Dream is an especially fun and ambitious anomaly within the already unpredictable Big Blood discography. While I am hesitant to describe any release by this long-running Portland, Maine project as a "party album," such a classification would not be terribly wide of the mark here, as this release is comprised almost entirety of hooky, retro-minded pop songs. Characteristically, however, Skeleton Dream's appeal runs quite a bit deeper than a mere collection of entertaining classic pop pastiches, occasionally catching me off-guard with some wonderfully haunting and darkly hallucinatory moments.
One primary characteristic of the '60s "girl group" milieu has always been the conspicuous lack of men (aside from those lurking behind the scenes), so it is appropriate and fitting that Caleb Mulkerin relegates himself to more of a background role for this album.While the songs are all strong enough to ensure that his decreased role does not feel like a liability, it is quite significant, as Mulkerin's ragged yelp has always been one of Big Blood's most endearing and distinctive features.Consequently, the introduction of Quinnisa as a new lead vocalist makes for quite a striking shift in tone, steering the band in sweeter, more unabashedly "pop" direction on songs like the bouncy, piano-driven "Real World" and lilting, bittersweet "Insecure Kids."On the opening, "Sweet Talker," however, Quinnisa's trebly, distorted vocals sound somewhere between those of her mother and some Motown-era soul belter.Given that this is a Big Blood album, however, each member ultimately winds up filling a number of different roles, so Quinnisa also surfaces throughout the album as a drummer, trombonist, guitarist, and bassist.She does appear one more time as a lead vocalist on the album's most leftfield surprise though, as Do You Wanna Have a Skeleton Dream? ends with a surprisingly reverent and straightforward duet performance of "Ave Maria."Recording unexpected and eclectic cover songs has become something of a Big Blood tradition in recent years, but I was still a bit blindsided to see Franz Schubert joining the ranks of Silver Apples, Missy Elliot, Bob Seger, Lloyd Cheechoo, and The Cure. 
The best pieces on the album, however, tend to be those that do not stray quite so far from Big Blood's usual fried, psych-damaged twist on Americana.My favorite is "Heaven or South Portland," which surrounds its darkly melancholy pop center with a lush, hallucinatory swirl of harmonium drones, wailing backing vocals, and woozy trombone melodies.I am also quite fond of the album's other harmonium-driven piece ("Pox"), which inventively appropriates the "You are sleeping, you do not want to believe" sample from The Smiths' "Rubber Ring" as a chorus hook for something that resembles a hallucinatory sea-shanty sung by a Siren.That is weirdly appropriate, given the phrase's original source: a flexi-disc that accompanied a 1971 book on ghosts and electronic voice phenomena.While I tend to prefer the stranger fare in general, some of the album's "classic pop" concoctions are weighty enough to make an impact as well, as Colleen Kinsella is too much of a force of nature to ever fit comfortably into a hooky, straightforward pop song (no matter how melodically and structurally conventional the rest of the song might be).For example, the otherwise bouncy and upbeat "Providence" is beautifully eclipsed and elevated by the soulful, sharp-edged intensity of the vocals.The underlying music also features some cool twists at times, as the conventionally pretty "Sugar" is nicely enhanced by twanging, sliding guitars and killer backing vocals, resembling something that would be perfectly at home in the half-innocent/half-lurid universe of David Lynch.
Notably, the album takes its title from a recording of Quinnisa as a small child in which she proclaims that her favorite thing to do before bed is "have a skeleton dream."That recording fittingly opens the album and feels like a weirdly apt summation of the album's aesthetic: the whole thing feels kind of dreamlike and tinged with darkness, but it is ultimately quite a fun place to be.And if I wanted to go one step further with a labored metaphor, I could even say that Big Blood have conjured up an alternate reality in which the corpse of pre-rock n’ roll pop music has been reanimated in delightful and non-terrifying fashion.In any case, I certainly did not expect to like this album nearly as much as I do, as I am very much burned-out on '50s and '60s pop and generally averse to "genre tourism" indulgences, yet Big Blood have managed to strike the perfect balance between weirdness, homage, songcraft, and art.Even if I do not love every song, Do You Wanna Have a Skeleton Dream? is a remarkably coherent, effective, and listenable departure that never errs far enough in any direction to break the perfect spell.Moreover, Quinnisa's inclusion brings some additional light, joie de vivre, and playfulness to this project without sacrificing much in the way of gravitas.Admittedly, Big Blood were hardly hurting in that regard before, as Kinsella and Mulkerin's passion and humor has always been evident and this project has always been an obvious labor of love for their family.Still, heightening some of the most appealing aspects of the band can only be a good thing.I like this album quite a lot: it may not be a particularly representative album within Big Blood's wonderful oeuvre or feature an unusually high number of instant classics, but it is nevertheless one of their strongest, tightest, and most focused statements to date.
It would be misleading to describe the opening "Molocular Meditation" as "noise," but it would probably be even more misleading to describe it as anything resembling music in the conventional sense.Instead, it would be more apt to characterize it is a mechanized and lysergic maelstrom or like a complex public address system prone to frequent disruptions and malfunctions. In more practical terms, it feels like several disparate motifs were loosely stitched together and mingled with improvisational flourishes that embellish Smith's playfully hammy and disjointed pronouncements.The overall effect is quite an unusual one, as the piece repeatedly seems like it is poised to cohere into a structured melodic or rhythmic framework only to collapse again or get blasted with a torrent of harsh static.Throughout it all, it is difficult to tell exactly what St. Werner is attempting to do or whether or not he is succeeding, as the blurting, unpredictable electronics often feel more like an intrusion than an enhancement: the piece sounds just fine when Smith's voice is accompanied by only a quiet hum or no sound at all.
Naturally, Smith's own contributions are frequently entertaining and endearingly wrong-footing, as he unpredictably bounces between welcoming me to the installation, providing meticulously detailed breakdowns of his availability on Thursdays, and making cryptic pronouncements like "the disclaimer is always the first martyr" or "the word 'fantastic' is obscene."As a result, I cannot help but imagine a more effective piece in which St. Werner just stuck to expanding upon one of his more promising themes and devoted the rest of his efforts to layering and processing Smith's vocals. That said, this album was not the context that "Molocular Meditation" was created for, so maybe the piece's erratic, shifting nature was perfect for its original "light and sound environment."In any case, it is a deeply bizarre and difficult-to-grasp piece, but it does contain some weirdly beautiful and poetic moments.
The album's second half consists of two short pieces that feature Smith and one longer one ("On The Infinite Of Universe And Worlds") that does not.All are considerably more linear and conventionally structured than the title piece, but it would still be a stretch to describe them as proper songs.That said, I suppose "Back to Animals" has at least a distant kinship to Von Südenfed, as Smith delivers a monologue over a dense and semi-consistent rhythmic pulse featuring some spectral hints of a melodic hook and a chord progression.However, it also shares a good amount of the title piece's unpredictability and precariousness, as the skittering, clattering rhythm always seems like it is about to derail.Von Südenfed is more explicitly referenced with the closing "VS Cancelled," which is essentially just a morbidly entertained Smith reading an email from Domino about their decision to drop that project (albeit over a shifting bed of gurgling electronics and clanking metal). The Smith-free "On The Infinite Of Universe And Worlds," on the other hand, is a fairly focused and substantial piece.Clocking in around twelve minutes, it is curiously billed as an "electronic opera based on Giordano Bruno's Renaissance writings," though it lacks just about every characteristic that I normally associate with opera (singing, characters, plot, lengthy duration).It certainly is a likable piece, however, as it is built upon a semi-linear and consistent foundation of skipping pulses that is gradually disrupted and pulled apart en route to a crescendo of a man shouting in Italian (presumably not Bruno himself, given the notorious lack of high-end recording equipment in sixteenth century Europe).
For the most part, I genuinely enjoy most of this album even if I cannot pretend to understand what St. Werner was thinking when he made it.While I would not necessarily describe it as "a mixed bag," it is a weirdly fragmented release with a very hazy unifying aesthetic.For example, the title piece would make some sense to me if this was an unusually experimental Mark E. Smith album that brought in St. Werner as a collaborator.This is Jan St. Werner album though.It also does not seem like there is any ambitious concept driving this album, nor does it seem like much of St. Werner's top shelf, cutting-edge material made it into these songs.Again, that would sense if the music was intended as mere backdrop or frame for Smith’s entertaining monologues, but the music is loud and intense enough to compete for my focus.Thankfully, that is not a fatal flaw, as Smith was such an amusing and iconic presence that even disjointed snatches of his voice punctuated by eruptions of noise are absorbing enough to carry an album.Perhaps St. Werner intuitively understood that and decided to make Molocular Meditation interesting by mangling and disrupting something what could otherwise have been a predictable and straightforward delight.Which, of course, feels like a weirdly apt decision for a Mark E. Smith tribute: anything less than the caustic, the messy, and the inscrutable would an affront to everything that Smith stood for.
Longform Editions, the Sydney-based collective for deep listening begins 2020 with its 12th edition, once again featuring four diverse artists creating immersive experiences in sound composition attuned to ideas of deep listening. Now featuring 48 artists in total, Longform Editions has become a space for exploration: for the pure aesthetic of sound, reclamation of time and concentration. Longform Editions seeks to offer a way to navigate the overlap between physical experience and digital space.
We’re excited to present new work from Berlin-based Australian Jasmine Guffond, prior to her upcoming full-length on legendary label Editions Mego. Her heady, fascinating Current Harmonics mimics the motion of falling water using frequencies generated by the electricity powering a hydroelectric dam:
"Deep Listening for me is to focus uniquely on sound, and thereby on the moment. Akin to an alternate state of consciousness perhaps not unlike forms of meditation"
Feted by Pitchfork as "standard-bearers of globe-trotting ambient and psychedelic techno," long-running Belgian collective Pablo’s Eye contribute Tentative d'épuisement d'un lieu parisien, a trance-inducing meditation on urban observation through the work of writer Georges Perec's vision of Paris:
"The city with its social life can be perfect for a deep listening experience . . . the signs, symbols, and slogans littering everything; and the darkness that eventually absorbs it all"
Botany is the recording project for Austin-based producer Spencer Stephenson, refracting his sound collages through psychedelic folk, spiritual jazz, kosmische. His Fourteen 45 Tails records and loops the final downbeat of 14 thrift shop-bought singles into a mesmerizing tapestry that muses on our perceptions of time and finality through sound:
"Fourteen 45 Tails is made out of the final moments of fourteen records that once belonged to people who’ve long since lived - or from another perspective may still be living - their own final moments."
Finally, Florida's Josh Mason’s gorgeous, searching ‘Aumakua makes for a very personal reflection, amplified into universal themes of family and loss. With his trademark poise and nuance, Josh traces a spiritual line around the life and death of his grandparents, lifting their memory out of the cold reality the end of existence often signals. ‘Aumakua is the interrelation of sound and listening to foster profound connection:
"Extended and intimate time with sound, either internal or external, allows one to sidestep the juggernaut of frenetic activity in modern life. Immersive listening can broker trades of emptiness for enrichment; isolation for connection."