We have finally cleared out the backlog of great music and present some new episodes.
Episode 711 features music from The Jesus and Mary Chain, Zola Jesus, Duster, Sangre Nueva, Dialect, The Bug, Cleared, Mount Eerie, Mulatu Astatke & Hoodna Orchestra, Hayden Pedigo, Bistro Boy, and Ibukun Sunday.
Episode 712 has tunes by Mazza Vision, Waveskania, Black Pus, Sam Gendel, Benny Bock, and Hans Kjorstad, Katharina Grosse, Carina Khorkhordina, Tintin Patrone, Billy Roisz, and Stefan Schneider, His Name Is Alive, artificial memory trace, mclusky, Justin Walter, mastroKristo, Başak Günak, and William Basinski.
Episode 713 brings you sounds from Mouse On Mars, Leavs, Lawrence English, Mo Dotti, Wendy Eisenberg, Envy, Ben Lukas Boysen, Cindytalk, Mercury Rev, White Poppy, Anadol & Marie Klock, and Galaxie 500.
Skolavordustigur Street in Reykjavík photo by Jon (your Podcast DJ).
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Explaining why one Celer album is significantly better than another is no simple task, as Will Long is generally an extremely consistent artist who has released a huge volume of warmly lovely, loop-based ambient drone albums. Consequently, it is dangerously easy to take his artistry for granted, as a casual listener would not be crazy for finding a lot of Celer's oeuvre relatively interchangeable. From my perspective, however, Celer can be viewed as Long's tireless and Romantic quest to conjure up fragments of melody so achingly sublime that they can be looped into infinity. In that regard, Long has rarely come closer to realizing that dream than he does on Future Predictions. These four lengthy compositions capture Long at the absolute peak of his powers, resulting in the rarest of achievements: a 2+ hour album that leaves me wanting more and regularly inspires me to start it all over again as soon as it ends.
One aspect of Will Long's artistry that I have always appreciated is his ability to evoke the sense that there is a deep undercurrent of emotion, mystery, and meaning lurking within his work, which is a trick that very few other ambient artists are able to pull off.It certainly does not hurt that Long is also a fitfully brilliant minimalist composer, but there is definitely something larger and more compelling than that happening with this project: Long has amassed a vast body of work that feels like a bittersweetly beautiful, impressionistic, and ever-expanding palace of memories.As befits a release as ambitious as a 4-CD boxed set, Future Predictions is an especially poignant and enigmatic example of that unusually intimate and diaristic approach to art, as Long accompanies the music with a small booklet of poetic writings, travel photos, and some enticingly cryptic other images of elusive meaning (a black and white photo of a forest fire at night, a picture from an early 20th century Antarctic expedition, a grainy image of the Dead Sea).The song titles deepen the mystery still further, as they make reference to cities in Sumatra and Lebanon.Presumably, all have some ties to Long's own travels and personal memories, but that is not made explicit nor should it be considered a given: Long is certainly welcome to craft any poetic fictions he wants while straining to express the ineffable.In fact, all of the accompanying texts and images might be a fiction, as Long describes Future Predictions as "a meditation on future events" and a sort of inversion of 2018's backwards-looking Memory Repetitions retrospective.Still, I would be very surprised if Future Predictions was not largely inspired by real past loves and snatches of beautiful memories.This is a Celer album after all.
Notably, there are allegedly some field recordings buried throughout the album, but they are far too well concealed to provide any further illumination (though I would be very impressed if they were field recordings from the future).In fact, just about all of the source sounds have been blurred and processed into floating, billowing unrecognizability on Future Predictions, as Long's layers of loops mostly resemble an orchestral recording that has been dissolved and stretched into abstraction.For what it's worth, my favorite pieces are the two bookends, though the gulf between them and the other pieces is not a large one.Moreover, all four pieces are unified by their similar structure and tone.Long made a conscious decision to avoid any overt "long-term structural development" within these pieces, so all of them begin and end with the same rich tapestry of collaged motifs in place.The result of that approach is that each piece feels like a sustained dream state that lazily churns with deep drones and swooning, sensuously intertwining, soft-focus melodies.Like a lot of Celer albums, these pieces evoke a mass of thick, slow-moving clouds broken by vibrant streaks of light, but the majestic ascending melodies of a piece like "Merita" suggest the beginnings of a brilliant sunrise as well.In fact, only the more simmering and brooding "No Sleep in Medan" lingers in melancholy, as the remaining three pieces transcend wistful meditation to take a brighter, more hopeful tone.In the wrong hands, such a tone would likely lead in a saccharine direction, but Long has the lightness of touch and intuitive grasp of dynamics and contrast needed to make it work.The closing "Qaraoun" is an especially lovely example of that mastery, as its gorgeous ascending melody has a hallucinatory, shimmering texture that feels like it is echoing around a vast cathedral leaving a trail of quivering, ghostly afterimages in its wake.
The only arguable caveat with Future Predictions is that it is essentially just four elegantly crafted and layered loops allowed to unfold in floating stasis for roughly half an hour each.That will likely drive some people mad, as there truly is no noticeable development within each piece.I have a hard time relating to such a grievance though, as I would be just as happy if this album were just one of those four repeating motifs extended for two hours.Long's brilliance as a composer lies in the juxtapositions and in the details, so I see no reason for any further transformation to occur when the initial theme is already gorgeous, immersive, and hypnotically meditative.I only find myself wishing something new would happen when I do not find the central motif fully absorbing on its own, which is why I was so fond of the prominent field recordings on Xièxie: they made good songs more rich, more textured, and more interesting.A piece like "Qaraoun," on the other hand, is simple, perfect, and fully realized right from the start so no further embellishment is needed or desired.In fact, that statement applies to just about everything here.I cannot pretend to have a comprehensive recall of Celer's entire catalog, but I cannot think of any other albums that are this consistently strong from start to finish.As I have said about William Basinski in the past, it might seem deceptively easy or lazy to compose a piece from just a few endlessly repeating notes, but achieving the balance of rhythm, small-scale dynamics, and shifting harmonies necessary to cast a sustained and beautiful spell requires an enormous amount of skill and patience.As with Basinski's best work, Future Predictions makes that process seem effortless and organic, but that is precisely because Long is a master illusionist able to produce a distillation so lovely that no traces of the intricate, meticulously shaped scaffolding remain.
Compared to his last release on the SIGE label, the three CD Sleeper, Melting Gravity is a much tighter affair: a single LP with two side-long pieces. Unsurprisingly then, Menche stays more stylistically focused, and surprisingly creates some of the most musical sounding work yet. Most definitely not a full on noise work, but also more varied and dynamic than his more ambient works, it is yet another unique work from one of the most unique artists currently active.
For the most part, Daniel Menche avoids standard noise and distortion altogether for this record.Sure, there are moments in which passages build a bit in intensity, but never to overwhelm, and overall there is much more in the way of tone and timbre here as opposed to just texture.The first side opens with a repeating, almost dubby bass pattern that continues throughout, with chiming bells and electronic pulses layered upon one another slowly, but deliberately.Never does the piece become too overpowering or bogged down, but Daniel is definitely juggling a lot of different sounds at once.
There is a meditative, monastic quality to the sound, like something that could be heard at a Buddhist temple during prayer.However, there’s an odd edge to things.He worked heavily with FM synthesis on this record, so many of the bell or instrument sounds that appear have a deliberately unnatural quality to them.That distinctive metallic clang appears consistently on this record.Because of that, what sounds like ancient, sacred music has an alien, almost digital simulation quality to it.
Eventually, Daniel Menche pulls back some of the layers, allowing the sun to shine through clearly as the bass line rumbles away.Flare-ups of what sounds like over-driven distortion do appear at times, but with a pleasant shimmer to them, making for something pleasant as opposed to abrasive.When the mix is at its most sparse, there is a beautiful ambient quality to the work and, even as things take a turn darker near the side’s conclusion, the more lush elements never go away.
The other side features mostly the same sounds used by Menche, with heavy emphasis on the rhythmic bass passages and metallic, chiming bits.Comparatively though he keeps the sound more spacious.Layers appear and retreat, and it remains a dynamic piece from beginning to end, but there is a bit less movement overall when compared to the first half.Expanding, processed sounds from stringed instruments make a tonal, drone-heavy sounding work here, with lots of room for the elongated tones to take the focus.
One of the aspects of Melting Gravity that grabbed me was the way that, in its own oblique way, it sounds a lot like the early days of Robert Hampson’s Main.The way that, propelled by a dubby bass loop, Menche integrates conventional instrument sounds with unconventional processing was very reminiscent of works such as Motion Pool.Both have the same juxtaposition of organic and unnatural, resulting in music that is as familiar as it is alien.Daniel Menche has been a favorite artist of mine for a while now, but I think this may now sit at the top of the metaphorical pile.
I was starting to get a little worried about Big Blood, as they went almost all of 2019 without releasing any new music. Thankfully, however, they were just quietly amassing material for not one but TWO new albums to be released in rapid succession. The first of the pair is this one, a self-released duo recording that surfaced digitally at the end of December. Obviously, they chose to give the more rocking family affair Do You Want to Have A Skeleton Dream? the more high-profile release, but that does not necessarily mean that that album got all the best songs. In fact, there are a couple of absolutely beautiful pieces on this more modest, stripped-down and fitfully ballad-centered release. Consequently, I have no doubt that there will someday be a deluxe reissue in Deep Maine's future, as it certainly deserves it. Until then, however, "A Message Sent" is an instant classic no matter which format it appears in.
I first came to Big Blood after falling in love with Fire on Fire, as the line separating the two projects was initially quite a blurry one: the ragged, psych-damaged folk aesthetic and principle songwriters were the same (Caleb Mulkerin and Colleen Kinsella), but Fire on Fire featured an expanded ensemble of talented collaborators.Naturally, having Micah Blue Smaldone and some former Cerberus Shoal bandmates along for the ride yielded some great results, yet the primary appeal of both bands has always been the songwriting.While Mulkerin and Kinsella's talents in that regard have certainly not dimmed over the last decade or so, this project has evolved into quite an idiosyncratic, unpredictable, and stylistically fluid endeavor in recent years that can be quite a different animal than either Fire on Fire or early Big Blood.I am certainly happy to follow Kinsella and Mulkerin wherever their mercurial muse leads them, but the diverging paths that their albums have taken is a significant one: some albums are thematically focused conceptual or aesthetic statements and some are just straightforward collections of good songs that harken back to their earlier strain of outsider Americana.Deep Maine is mostly an album that falls in the latter category, albeit one with some occasional detours and eccentricities.The opening "Hail the Happy Hourlings" is an especially strong example of the skewed vision that the duo brings to traditional folk/country fare, as Kinsella's lovely, lilting vocals and the simple, bittersweet piano melody are embellished with a persistently mooing cow and a woozy flute motif.It has all the hooks and melody I would expect from a classic country song, but it feels like that song is bleeding into a considerably weirder dream or hallucination without sacrificing any of its poignancy or soul.
That countrified heartache gives way to more rousing fare with the following "Baby Eyes," as Kinsella and Mulkerin's harmonized vocals lead an amiably rolling and anthemic sing-along.It is a bit too breezy to rank among my favorite Big Blood songs, but it is illustrative of some of the details that make the duo such a delightful and unique creative force.Beyond the pair's obvious talent for crafting strong hooks, "Baby Eyes" strikes a perfect balance of playful experimentation and rough, homespun charm that can only come from years of comfortably recording together.Mulkerin and Kinsella have a real genius for making their music feel wonderfully loose, unpretentious, and effortless: "Baby Eyes" is packed with cool melodic interplay, inventive arrangement flourishes, and endearing eccentricities (the wonderfully warbling backing vocals), yet it has the casual spontaneity of a song that was bashed out in a single take with no overdubs.As much as I appreciate all of those details, however, the songs themselves always remain the essence of Big Blood's greatness (though the duo's unerring instinct for not smothering those songs in overproduction or perfectionism is crucial too).In keeping with that sentiment, my favorite piece on the album is probably the most direct and minimal one of all, as "A Message Sent" is essentially just a vocal melody and a few simple piano chords.While those two elements are all Mulkerin and Kinsella need to conjure up an achingly beautiful reverie, the piece is elevated by some wonderful vocal harmonies as well as some great psychedelic flourishes in the periphery (backwards guitars, orchestral swells).Given the conspicuous absence of any country or folk influence, it almost sounds like a Flaming Lips song, but more like a highly sought-after demo version of a beloved classic than something that would wind up on a polished formal album.
The album's second half, on the other hand, is a considerably more eclectic and abstract affair.The strongest (and most endearingly weird) piece is the Kinsella-sung "The Queen and Her Court II," which features a sing-song melody that recalls a sea shanty or early English folk song.Aside from a subdued, winding organ melody, however, every other aspect of the piece is warped and hallucinatory: the vocals are distorted, the percussion is hollow and echoing, and a current of gurgling and smeared noises roils in the periphery.Elsewhere, the hypnotic repetition and mass vocals of "Serpent Skies" resemble a communal jam that some '70s hippie cult might have recorded.That piece segues nicely into the lovely and meditative closer: a reverent cover of Lloyd Cheechoo's bass-driven "James Bay" that transforms it into something approaching a hymn (Light In the Attic fans will likely recall the original from 2014's Native North America).
To some degree, the small number of songs (seven) and the stylistic variety of Deep Maine give it the feeling of an odds-and-ends collection, but that actually works in its favor, as there is not much here that sounds like business-as-usual for Big Blood (except for perhaps "Time is Coming").Also, Big Blood's orphaned songs, digressions, and covers historically tend to be every bit as likable as their formal albums (sometimes more so).Consequently, Deep Maine is quite an enjoyable batch of songs that both explores some unfamiliar stylistic threads and sneaks in a few fresh classics in the process.
A Typical Night in the Pit is a collection of new music by Los Angeles' Nick Malkin. It is an album that finds the artist absorbed in the density and chaos of the urban complex. It is unquestionably an "LA album," but not the LA of hi-fi listening bars and twinkling, Instagram-ready New Age. Rather, Malkin navigates something more akin to the LA found in the films of Robert Altman or Alan Rudolph— overheated, tense, hazy, frayed— with blue-lit, nocturnal compositions that at times recall Mark Isham's noirish scores for those subversive (anti-)Hollywood pictures. Enlisting a revolving cast of LA experimentalists, Malkin has assembled a record that is as chameleonic as it is cohesive, offering up vignettes ranging from the skewed MIDI-jazz of "Sixth Street Conversation" to the skulking menace of "Estacionamiento Privado," before giving way to the wide-eyed, cloudy closer "View From Two Perspectives."
As Midwife, Denver based multi-instrumentalist Madeline Johnston plays what she describes as "Heaven Metal," or emotive music about devastation. Johnston began developing the experimental pop project in 2015 while a resident of beloved Denver DIY space Rhinoceropolis. The venue/co-op started in the early aughts and nurtured local artists until 2016, when its doors were shuttered due to high tensions surrounding the safety of DIY spaces (not coincidentally following the horrific Ghost Ship fire in Oakland). Residents were displaced around Denver and artists like Midwife were forced to start over.
However, it was at Rhinoceropolis that Madeline became close with Colin Ward, an artistic confidant and friend to whom her new album, Forever, is dedicated. Madeline comments, "He was my roommate and was the embodiment of that place [Rhinoceropolis] in a lot of ways. We became really close friends there. I was always learning so much from him, about life and being an artist. He was an amazing teacher and friend to me." When Ward passed away unexpectedly in 2018, she turned towards sound to express the indescribable feelings that partnered with her grief.
These mournful sounds ultimately developed into her new album, Forever. The 6-song LP is a latticework of soft-focus guitars and precise melodies– anthems of light piercing through gray clouds of drone. On the track "C.R.F.W.," we hear Colin Ward reading a poem that speaks of a leaf falling from a tree in autumn: "imagine the way a breeze feels against your leaf body while you finally don't have to hold on anymore." Johnston responds with slowly radiating tones, branches stretching out to hold the leaf one last time. "I wanted to write him a letter. I wanted to make something for him in his memory," Madeline says of Forever.
On Forever, Midwife combines ambient and dream pop into nuanced, reverb-soaked music that is equally haunting and moving.
Matt Jencik is back on Hands in the Dark with his new album, Dream Character, the follow up to his first solo record Weird Times back in 2017.
Whilst all the songs on his debut album were created using the same sampling method on the same instrument, this time the Chicago artist's approach is slightly different. Using a combination of 4-track cassette, digital recording & sampling, he added live improvisations and a wider selection of instruments including guitar, bass, organ and string synth to his work.
What Matt Jencik achieves on Dream Character this time is, like a powerful dose of psychedelic drugs, not to be taken lightly. There are layers, and if you're prepared to dig you will find yourself drawn into a maze of pathways that can take you in multiple directions, via feelings of escape and release alongside suffocating claustrophobia, or soaring, triumphant beauty paired with cold, lonely despair. These eight titles can both tuck you in and make you feel like you’ve got to fight your way out. Either way there is great value in the experience. There is a purity and a clarity to Jencik's sound, but one that can only truly be accessed by listening with your own intention.
Sound In Silence is happy to announce the return of Test Card, presenting his new album Music For The Towers.
This is his second release on the label after the highly acclaimed, and already sold out, album Rediffusion back in 2017.
Test Card is the solo project of Lee Nicholson, based in Vancouver, Canada. Nicholson was a member of Preston’s Formula One in late 1990s and Brighton’s Domestic4 in early 2000s, having released albums and EPs on many independent labels such as Kooky, Fierce Panda, Liquefaction Empire and others. Later, he moved to Vancouver and from 2012 to 2015 he released two albums and two EPs under the alias of Electrohome and an album in 2015 as one half of the folktronica duo Future Peasants.
Music For The Towers is Test Card’s third full-length album, following his debut album on Symbolic Interaction in 2016, his second album on Sound In Silence in 2017 and an EP on The Slow Music Movement Label in 2018. Made up of eight captivating tracks with a total duration of about 45 minutes, Music For The Towers is a dreamy blend of gentle ambient, hazy electronica and minimal post rock, full of delicate guitars, hypnotic bass, warm synthesizers, glitchy electronics and field recordings. Beautifully mastered by George Mastrokostas (aka Absent Without Leave), Music For The Towers is a wonderful album, highly recommended for devotees of Fripp & Eno, Labradford, and 1 Mile North.
Sound In Silence is happy to announce the addition of worriedaboutsatan to its roster of artists, presenting his new album Crystalline.
worriedaboutsatan is the electronica/post-rock project of Gavin Miller, based in Bradford, UK. Formed in 2005 in Leeds as a side project for Gavin Miller, while he was member of the post-rock band Johnny Poindexter, worriedaboutsatan turned into a duo when Thomas Ragsdale, also member of the same band, joined the project and became their main focus after their previous band split up in 2006. As a duo, and until 2010, they released an album on Gizeh Records, a self-released remix album and a series of singles and EPs, either self-released or on labels such as Denovali Records, on which they also released a vinyl version of their debut album, and You Are Not Stealing Records. In 2011, the duo launched a new electronic project, Ghosting Season, and put worriedaboutsatan on hold. Ghosting Season released two albums and some more singles and EPs on labels such as DJ Sasha’s Last Night On Earth, Max Cooper’s Fields and their own This Is It Forever. In 2014 the duo abandoned the Ghosting Season project and returned to worriedaboutsatan full time. From 2014 to 2019 they released four more albums and several singles and EPs on their own label and others such as Wolves And Vibrancy Records and Burning Witches Records. In June 2019 Thomas Ragsdale left the band to focus on his solo career and since then worriedaboutsatan is comprised solely of Gavin Miller.
Crystalline is worriedaboutsatan’s sixth full-length album, featuring eight new compositions with a total duration of something more than 35 minutes. Crystalline’s dreamy soundscapes take the listener on an immersive journey, showcasing the brilliant trademark sound of the very first worriedaboutsatan releases. worriedaboutsatan skillfully blends together haunting guitar melodies, warm pads, deep bass lines, hypnotic beats, minimal electronic elements and distant indistinct vocals, provided by Sophie Green of Her Name Is Calla, resulting in an emotive album that balances between post-rock, ambient and electronica. Crystalline is an impressive album, highly recommended for devotees of Port-Royal, Yellow6 and Lights Out Asia.
Filmed and created by the wonderful Tony Reyes, WHO IS DAVID TIBET? documents the installation of my work, and the preview OpeningNight itself, at my ArtShow INVOCATION OF ALMOST, lovingly and perfectly installed and curated by that inspired couple Jacqueline Bunge and Shaun Richards at the Begovich Gallery on March 5, 2019. It includes interviews with David, Jacqueline, Shaun, and many other friends and felines.
Date : 28.12.17 Map point : eilean 100 Color : white / grey Season : winter Edition : limited to 175 copies _________________________________________________
This is the final Eilean rec. release which closes both the map and the project with all the artists involved since the beginning, during these last 5 years.
109 artists / 82 tracks / 6 hours of sounds. 61 unreleased and new tracks / 21 tracks from back catalogs (16 from Eilean rec. + 6 from some other labels)
Welcome to the second album we’ve done with string maestro, Joseph Allred. Unlike O Meadowlark (FTR 451), this one features a smattering of Joseph's vocals, although his main thrust is still glistening instrumentals.
The title song is a goddamn sad one, sung with reedy elegance, dealing with a kidnapped dog that serves as a stand-in for all earthly beings, full of both frailty and resilience. Another vocal track, "The Crown" (which inspired the cover art), stems from a long conversation Joseph had with Max Ochs. It squeezes the inherently surreal aspects of dream-walking into semi-conventional blues tautology, and the fit is just right. The third and last vocal, "O Columbia," is a particular favorite, based as it is upon the some of the same melodies Fahey swiped for "In Christ There Is No East or West," although Allred takes things in all new directions. I had been a tad leery when I heard Joseph would be singing on this new session — being so enamored of his unadorned instrumental technique — but these tunes won me over in the course of a few plays. Maybe there'll be more verbal-content in his future? We would not say "no."
But the meat of this album remains Joseph’s splendid inventions for guitar and banjo. His piece for Glenn Jones, "The Giant Who Shrank Himself," is a beautiful suite, worthy of its concept (that Jones is a behemoth who has to shrink himself in order to deal with us normals). It flows like the sweetest stream of wine you, I or anyone might imagine. "Single Me a Stranger" is another literal killer, with sliding chords evoking the 1872 lynching and curse-fulfillment of an unlucky newcomer in the small Tennessee town where Allred grew up. It's spell-binding. As is "Mark’s Overture," a banjo piece inspired by by a homeless music critic in Cambridge, Mass.
Another top-notch album by this great player. If you don’t know Allred already, you will soon.