And a really nice new one by Marconi Union called Departures (bandcamp link). A change from their recent sound, darker and more brooding but gently so.
"Celebrating 20 years in the game, the much-admired instrumental, experimental rock band Guapo are celebrating by releasing ‘Obscure Knowledge’, their explosive new album and tenth release!
The group started their life as a heavy bass/drums duo playing post-hardcore, noisy rock, but in the two decades since, they have expanded their instrumentation and their stylistic references to become one of Europe's most highly respected 'muscular and modern' experimental/progressive rock bands.
Centered around founding member and extraordinary drummer David J. Smith, the group on the album also features three additional heavy-weights of British experimental rock:
Kavus Torabi-guitar (also of Knifeworld, Cardiacs, Gong) Emmett Elvin-keyboards (also of Chrome Hoof, Knifeworld) James Sedwards-bass (also of Thurston Moore Baand, Chrome Hoof)
The album's 43 minute long track is a dynamic, fluid beast that takes the listener on a scenic journey through loud New York minimalism, celestial drones, avant rock, kosmiche-noise, rockin' riffs and way beyond.
Smith, who is also a sculptor as well as drummer, looks after the aesthetic considerations of Guapo and is keen to provide a backstory for their albums. Smith explains: "The title of the piece of music and album is derived from the psychoactive rituals of various Native American people who are said to 'tap into obscure knowledge' when performing certain rituals and rites of passage."
- "Guapo is a British trio that plays an intense music that straddles the boundaries of progressive, noise, minimalism and avant-rock. Their sound has been compared to such artists as Magma, Boredoms, King Crimson, Univers Zero, This Heat, Ruins, Sun Ra and Terry Riley. As Sound Projector put it, "Guapo come on like all the hellhounds of Magma, Eskaton and Ruins were after them...on a par with Magma’s Kohntarkosz or Univers Zero’s Ceux Du Dehors".
The group started their life as a heavy bass/drums duo playing post-hardcore, noisy rock, but in the two decades since, they have expanded their instrumentation and their stylistic references to become one of Europe's most highly respected 'muscular and modern' experimental/progressive rock bands."
- "Issa is the debut release from Bristol based musician and composer Kit Wilmans Fegradoe. The magic in Issa comes from Fegradoe's powerful exploration of emotion and sensitivity, which leads to a deeply personal and revealing listen. The work evokes the scale of Michael Stearns compositions for film, whilst eliciting a minimalist undercurrent throughout. The album is sculpted from guided improvisation sessions in the studio with fellow musicians, traversing around the narrative of Issa, a young transient Jesus Christ.
(RIYL: Arvo Part, Steve Reich, John Adams, Gavin Bryars, Phill Niblock, Duane Pitre, James Blackshaw )
Issa follows the Eastern version of the lost years of Jesus Christ. Known as Issa in the East, it's believed that at the age of 13 he travelled away from his home, in search of understanding different cultures. Studying various religions and philosophies, he gained insight beyond that which he had been taught and would teach those around him as he lived and travelled nomadically."
The albums narrative was built upon a wide variety of literature on the subject, whilst maintaining the hypothetical nature of the story. The intent here was to explore the unknown narrative, one barely touched by scholars or musicians, to understand a different version of a person who has become a beacon of hope for many, and a vehicle of religious hypocrisy for others."
- "Kit Wilmans Fegradoe has been playing and composing music of all kinds from a very early age. Brought up with an open musical ear, he learnt to play a few instruments before moving into electronic production. After releasing free material and experimenting with narratives and electronics, he went to study Sound Art & Design at Degree level in London. Years of investigating and experimenting with various spiritual ideas and religions finally melded with his music when he decided to make the album Issa. He currently resides in Bristol, UK and is 23 years of age."
- "I invited musicians into the studio and they improvised around the narrative, often guiding them as they went. I took these recordings home and reformed them to create compositions. I spent a year alongside the recording and composition process visiting Churches and Buddhist Temples, reading Buddhist and Hindu philosophy and experimenting with Eastern instruments.
I hope for people to feel things that he might of felt during his journey. To approach a version of his story without prejudice and to experience a musical interpretation of the founding years of a person so iconic yet so mysterious."
organ (n.) fusion of late Old English organe, and Old French orgene (12c.), both meaning "musical instrument," both from Latin organa, plural of organum "a musical instrument," from Greek organon "implement, tool for making or doing; musical instrument; organ of sense, organ of the body," literally "that with which one works," from PIE *werg-ano-, from root *werg- "to do" (cognates: Greek ergon "work," orgia "religious performances;" Armenian gorc "work;" Avestan vareza "work, activity;" Gothic waurkjan, Old English wyrcan "to work," Old English weorc "deed, action, something done;" Old Norse yrka "work, take effect").
Applied vaguely in late Old English to musical instruments; sense narrowed by late 14c. to the musical instrument now known by that name (involving pipes supplied with wind by a bellows and worked by means of keys), though Augustine (c.400) knew this as a specific sense of Latin organa. The meaning "body part adapted to a certain function" is attested from late 14c., from a Medieval Latin sense of Latin organum. Organist is first recorded 1590s; organ-grinder is attested from 1806.
synthesis (n.) 1610s, "deductive reasoning," from Latin synthesis "collection, set, suit of clothes, composition (of a medication)," from Greek synthesis "composition, a putting together," from syntithenai "put together, combine," from syn- "together" (see syn-) + tithenai "put, place" (see theme). From 1733 as "a combination of parts into a whole." Earlier borrowed in Middle English as sintecis (mid-15c.). Plural syntheses."
Soprano sax, soundscapes and electronics: Stanislao Lesnoj Drums, objects and electronics: SmZ Guitar and electronics: Christian Fennesz
"AirEffect", the collaboration between renowned electronic musician and guitarist Christian Fennesz and Turin based duo OZmotic, is a highly imaginative flow of electronic and instrumental music mixed with sounds collected from urban and natural sources to explore a speculative post-anthropocene scenario. The album will be released on 12 June 2015 on theFolk Wisdom / Interbang label. DISK Agency provides PR for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
AirEfect | The Concept
The discovery of a "black box" lost in the Anthropocene era brings back to life extinct sounds, images of places in the middle of nowhere, voices of daily life, and excerpts of conversations. The experience of an observer, who from an indeterminate future finds evidence of a multimedia human kind, develops along the trails which it leaves behind itself through multiple different supports and codes. The postmodern human kind is laid bare by apparently disconnected flashbacks which reveal the inappropriateness of a technologically advanced human species, yet one unable to live with itself and with the world hosting it. Primordial instincts and feelings seem to be the only possible support to avoid decadency. Intellect, technology and complex socio-economic structures, unsuitable to integrate with nature, are unable to carry out the task of maintaining the balance of the planet.
AirEffect | The Disc
AirEffect is a real and highly imaginative flow of sounds made up of tone research and electronic background, where musicians bring the audience to unexpected and usual places. It develops in structured scenes, each of which is part of a descriptive process evolving without interruptions. The artistic journey by the musicians is brought to life through AirEffect where jazz is assimilated into pure experimental music and typical electronic sounds. Everything is blended into an artistic mixture which goes beyond common beauty standards and the predetermined characterizations, recalling, at the same time, ancient rhythmic traditions and hypnotic themes typical of contemporary electronic music.
AirEffect | Soundscapes
Environmental sounds used within AirEffect have been collected in the province of Turin as part of a project called Paesaggi Sonori. They include both sounds of urban origin, such as the tram passing in the city captured from the deep waters of the river Po, the voices of the Porta Palazzo market or the noises inside Turin’s underground, and sounds of nature, such as grape must fermenting or great summers storms. AirEffect inserts those sounds and noises inside the creative flow generating lunar landscapes of sound, paradoxes, and contrasts.
Christian Fennesz
AirEffect’s dreamlike world is enhanced thanks to the collaboration with one of the icons of electronic music: Christian Fennesz. The sparks of sound with which Fennesz colors the flow of this multifaceted project expand the musical environment in which players can move. Its minimalist vision shapes the frenetic or greatly dilated paces of AirEffect and weaves the net that allows one to lay concrete sounds on a soft, deep background. → www.fennesz.com
OZmotic
OZmotic is an instrumental and electronic music duo based in Turin (Italy). Composed by Stanislao Lesnoj (saxophone, electronics) and SmZ (percussion, electronics, sound design), the duo is inspired by contemporary classical and ambient music, mixing soundscapes and concrete music with glitch, IDM, noise and jazz, to create a sonority characterized by a deep variety of timbres and refined rhythmic research. → www.ozmotic.it
In 2011 Lawrence English released The Peregrine on vinyl only, 500 copies, and there were some very positive reviews and good placings on year-end lists of folk who follow ambient music. In fact I remember uncharitably wondering if any of those reviews were praising it more highly in the smug knowledge that other folk would not be able to get a copy. Well it has been re-released on MP3 by Room40 and is at emusic for $3.43.
- "Bérangère Maximin makes spacious colorful music. A sonic sculptress of exception, she started out in an academic environment with an electroacoustic training, and has gradually incorporated the contribution of post-punk, dub and sound art experiments to develop a hyper-personal style, producing sensual, hypnotic, sultry pieces with immediate impact. BM moved from her native Reunion Island to France when she was fifteen, and studied with the musique concrète composer Denis Dufour (a member of the famous GRM and a pupil of Pierre Schaeffer). Her first album came out on John Zorn’s label Tzadik.
Bérangère naturally drew inspiration from composers such as François Bayle, Luc Ferrari, Eliane Radigue and has also listened to a lot of early electronica and glitch music. She went on to develop her own approach, both to studio recording and to live performance, taking in the experiences gathered in the course of her collaborations with the likes of Fennesz, Rhys Chatham, Richard Pinhas and Fred Frith (with whom she played several duet concerts).
Dangerous Orbits is Bérangère Maximin’s fourth album, and her first for Crammed Discs’ Made To Measure series."
- "We’re proud to present brand new work from Chicago-based sound artist Olivia Block in the form of “Aberration of Light.” An accomplished composer of electro-acoustic music, Block has premiered her work all over the globe in the form of both solo and collaborative live performances, sound installations at highly-regarded art institutions, and lectures at academic establishments. This conceptually inspired work was originally conceived in 2011 as a four-speaker soundtrack for a collaboration with two expanded cinema artists using manipulated light from film-less 35mm projectors. For NNA’s 82nd release, the artist offers us a 31-minute reworked version of this material for the cassette format. In essence, this piece is as much about the absence of sound as much as the presence of it. Slowly materializing from total silence, Block utilizes acoustic sounds blended with a palette of electronics to create intricately assembled fields of sonic depth. The result is richly ominous without being overtly aggressive, as the compositional arc of the piece follows a swelling, almost respiratory motion of expanding and contracting. The dynamic nature of Aberration of Light is enhanced by Block’s delicate use of white noise as a textural guide, calling attention to the acoustic sounds at its valleys, and overwhelming the listener with ferocity and harshness at its peaks. As the piece progresses, harmonic tonalities begin to emerge, reinforced by the use of clarinet and bass clarinet from fellow Chicagoan musicians James Falzone and Jason Stein, respectively, seamlessly integrating themselves into the mass of electronics. The quieter moments of the piece command deeper listening, to the point where the sounds of one’s own listening environment become indistinguishable from the recording, calling to mind Cage’s ideas on the impossibility of true silence. Block claims to bring an emotional element to her work which can be both heard and felt through the delicate and dynamic nature of the recording, further deepened by a brilliant use of control, precision, power, and patience."
- "The Misery Book is the debut album by DADAISM 999 featuring Edward Ka-Spel (THE LEGENDARY PINK DOTS) with several guest musicians (Tony Wakeford / Sol Invictus, Stefano Rossello / Bahntier, Elena Fossi / Kirlian Camera, Albin Julius / Der Blutharsch) together with the bands official members (Dave Weels and Aster Color). The album is a mix of electronics and dark-psychedelic sounds, in a very strange collage of different styles, a melodic and fresh album with abstract lyrics that totally represents the absolutely original form of art for Dadaism 999."
Promoting a brilliant EP and at the same time exercising my patriotism:
- "A musical journey through electronic music history, Downwards is an EP which nods to its musical heritage but builds something new. On Nills’ debut EP, dreamy synth lines reminiscent of the 1980s sit alongside deep, dubby baselines and crisp clean drums."
About Nills:
Starting out as a jungle and drum ‘n’ bass dj in Copenhagen during the late 90’s, Nills spent the subsequent years following the trails and clues left here and there between the complex drum patterns and heavy basslines of the records he was playing.
- "Digging ever deeper in to the origins of the many bass heavy genres growing out of London, Detroit, Berlin and Kingston he has developed his own mix of ingredients he’d picked up along the way. His music is a mixture where dubby drums collide with 303’s, BPMs move from 50 to 180, and melodic synth-memories of an eighties childhood leaves something for both the headphones and the club."
"One year ago, eilean rec. came to Dauw to propose to them if they would be interested in a collaboration between our two labels. after some exchanges of ideas and talkings, we found the guidelines of the project : propose between a selection of the Dauw & Eilean Rec. music artists to choose 2 music artists from the other label and works with them on a piece of sounds.
here is the result of this project : 14 tracks, 15 music artists, 85 minutes of sounds spread on the two labels. "
Artists involved :
Aaron Martin, Danny Clay, David Andree, Dudal, Leigh Toro, Masaya Ozaki, Miguel Isaza, Monolyth & Cobalt, Ruhe, Sokkyo (Heine Christensen + Ciro Berenguer), Stijn Hüwels, The Humble Bee, Twincities, Wil Bolton.
Releases September 14. If the rest of the album is like the sample track, this might be one of those I was hankering for to add to my year end list.
'Inscriptions' is an album inspired by the melancholy romance of autumn, the reflection of leaves in the rippling surface of a lake, crumbling architectural facades, and faded ink scripts on parchment. The album began with a collection of environmental sounds I recorded in Tallinn, Estonia back in the autumn of 2011, during a residency at the Estonian Artists' Association. These field recordings focus in on the quiet, everyday sounds of streets, parks, a lake and a town square. I lived with these sounds for some time, before working on the album. In spring 2013, I began to record the instrumental sounds. I started working with loops I lifted from the quietest sections of old dusty charity shop records - the sounds of piano, strings and harp, half-buried in hiss and crackle. I re-pitched, stretched, edited and processed these loops with guitar pedals and laptop effects. Then over this bed of loops, I recorded layers of digitally treated instrumental parts, played on acoustic guitar, piano and analogue and digital synths. I finished mixing the tracks in autumn 2013.
- "September 2015 will see the release of Thighpaulsandra's 7th full length album "The Golden Communion", his first since 2006's "The Lepore Extrusion". Well over a decade in the making, this is his debut for Editions Mego. It comprises 10 new songs, running well over two hours with individual pieces clocking in between 4 and 28 minutes. Featured musicians on the album include regular collaborators Martin Schellard and Sion Orgon, plus the odd guest/ghost from bands Thighpaulsandra has worked with in the past. If you have heard any of Thighpaulsandra's previous albums, you will know that you'd best approach this record with no fixed set of expectations, because once again he changes genres and defies easy classification, sometimes more than once within one song. Drawing on his long-time background as a key member in such diverse groups as Coil, Spiritualized and Julian Cope's band (in each case arguably at the height of their creative prowess) and his work as producer and sound engineer for an even larger variety of customers, you'll find classical passages next to hard rock riffing, krauty experimental work-outs turning into super catchy, almost radio-friendly songs and more. Many adjectives have been used to describe Thighpaulsandra’s work: epic, challenging, timeless, idiosyncratic, but certainly never predictable or boring. Possibly his most rewarding album yet and a welcome and unusual entry, in the Mego catalogue, which will entertain and astonish listeners who are fond of having their mind severely altered by sound."
- "Thighpaulsandra (Tim Lewis) is a Welsh experimental musician and multi-instrumentalist known mostly for performing on synthesizers and keyboards. As Tim Lewis, he began his career working with Julian Cope. A collaboration with Cope in 1993 followed, as the experimental duo Queen Elizabeth. This project completed just the two albums, Queen Elizabeth (ESP Records 1994) and Elizabeth Vagina (Head Heritage 1997), each containing extremely long spacey tracks of between 20–47 minutes in duration. In 1997, former Cope guitarist Mike Mooney invited Lewis to fill for the departing Kate Radley on a Spiritualized tour, where he remained until early 2008. In 1999 he also became a member of the experimental band Coil. He has subsequently released several solo albums."
- "Beginning his career in the early 1980s with the hair metal band Temper Temper, Lewis next became the house engineer and studio manager at Loco Studios near Newport. Living in S. Wales, Lewis was at first unable to capitalise on his real influences, such as krautrock and improvised electronic music. Eventually, his work with Julian Cope provided the right atmosphere, and Lewis was invited to contribute synthesizers to Cope's Def American albums Autogeddon and 20 Mothers. As Thighpaulsandra, Lewis has also produced and appeared on other records, such as 'Zero Beats Per Minute' by Anal (on Cope's KAK label 1995), RocketGoldStar, and 'Love Peace & Fuck' by Brain Donor (Impresario 2001)
In 1997, Thighpaulsandra joined the band Spiritualized for a US tour and survived the cuts to the band made shortly thereafter, his band mate Mike Mooney quitting to form Lupine Howl with bassist Sean Cook and drummer Damon Reece. Thighpaulsandra can be heard on the records Live at the Albert Hall, Let It Come Down, Amazing Grace and Songs in A&E. He also joined Coil the next year and performed on such albums as Astral Disaster, Musick to Play in the Dark Vol. 1 and Musick to Play in the Dark Vol. 2.
During the same period, Thighpaulsandra also worked on The Waterboys' album A Rock in the Weary Land. The artwork for his Double Vulgar album caused some controversy with several printers not willing to reproduce the controversial imagery. Double Vulgar II was delayed, possibly for the same reason, along with the passing of friend and colleague John Balance.
His first three solo releases came out via the Coil label, Eskaton. John Balance provided vocals for Thighpaulsandra's first release Some Head EP, and Peter Christopherson designed the artwork for the I, Thighpaulsandra double album and for the following "Double Vulgar" albums. London based Austrian photographer Ruth Bayer took the front cover image for "I, Thighpaulsandra". Bayer was the official photographer for many of the first London Coil shows.
Since leaving Spiritualized in 2008 Thighpaulsandra has been working with Elizabeth Fraser on her forthcoming solo album and was part of her group for a series of live shows at the Royal Festival Hall in 2012 as part of the Meltdown Festival. In September 2013 he joined Wire on their UK and European tours playing keyboards."
Rez Abbasi, Nels Cline, Liberty Ellman, David Gilmore, Miles Okazaki, Marvin Sewell, Damon Banks, Marco Capelli, Jerome Harris, Joel Harrison, Kenny Wessel
- "On the Winter Solstice of 2014 – the Northern Hemisphere’s longest night of the year – composer, bandleader & percussionist Adam Rudolph convened 11 of New York City’s finest and most adventurous guitarists in a New Jersey studio for a most auspicious event: the debut of Go: Organic Guitar Orchestra, his all-guitar orchestra. In attendance were guitarists Rez Abbasi, Nels Cline, Liberty Ellman, David Gilmore, Miles Okazaki, and Marvin Sewell, all on electric guitars and effects; Damon Banks on bass guitar; Marco Capelli on acoustic guitar, effects; Jerome Harris on electric guitar, electric bass guitar, and lap steel guitar; Joel Harrison on electric guitar and national steel guitar; and Kenny Wessel on electric guitar and banjo. With Rudolph at the helm, conducting musical charts and creative improvisational energy, the orchestra began to play. The result is this extraordinary release, Turning Towards the Light."
- "Rudolph grew up and began playing music on the South Side of Chicago, performing with artists like Fred Anderson. By 1978 he was touring Europe with Don Cherry. Hailed by the New York Times as “a pioneer in world music”, in 1977 Rudolph began his collaborations with kora player Foday Musa Suso, followed by his work with the Gnawa musician Hassan Hakmoun, L. Shankar and other musicians from around the globe. His longest and most significant collaboration was with the great Yusef Lateef; from 1988 until Yusef’s death in 2013 they performed as a duet and collaborated as composers on many large ensemble projects. He has also taken influences from contemporary composers such as Pierre Schafer, Olivier Messian, Bela Bartok & Toru Takemitsu.
Rudolph has integrated and transformed all of these influences into a highly personalized language, a language whose rhythmic component, which he calls “Cyclic Verticalism,” combines polyrhythms (from African music) and rhythm cycles (from Indian music).
Turning Towards the Light is the 10th release in Rudolph’s series of recordings for Go: Organic Orchestra. His previous recordings for Go: Organic Orchestra featured an array of instrumentation to bring to life his rhythmically unique creative music. But for Turning Towards the Light, Rudolph envisioned a new kind of orchestral sound conveyed by a single instrument: guitars, whose strings, coaxed by the right hands, are capable of unleashing an orchestra of different musical sounds. He says: “I try to do something new with each performance and recording. This time I wanted to experiment with a new kind of orchestration. I felt that with their range of sound and rhythm, these 11 electric guitars could generate a sonic palate that had never been heard before. I was looking for a new kind of “Future Orchestra” – and I think we found it."
- "The first Carpe Sonum outing by Jacob Newman and Devin Underwood also has the distinction of being the first US-centric release on the label. Recorded in Colorado and Massachusetts and mastered in Colorado by Jason Corder (aka offthesky, himself a prolific experimental ambient artist), this new recording finds the pair on near equal footing with any number of their esteemed colleagues working a combined mojo of ambient drift and atmospheric toggle.
The comparisons that acutely come to mind when discussing a work such as Sending the Past might well be obvious; not only does Pete Namlook's 'new environmental music' explorations come to mind but also the taut-stretched horizons of Steve Roach, Eno's delicate pastoralisms, the ambience (though not the strict instrumentation) of Russell Mills and Harold Budd, even the sacred space musics of practitioners as disparate as Ariel Kalma and Laraaji. What unites this slew of aesthetes together, Newman and Underwood included, is their love of landscape, place, total recall, and mental moving pictures. Over the course of a mere four minutes, "The Elusive" distills such phenomena in lucid, specfic detail, as a series of deliciously coaxed sonic entrails spiral out like gossamer webs, unidentifiable noises phosphoresce, and alien raindrops speckle across far-flung tundra. It's a beguiling track that, like the finer moments on Eno's On Land or Roach's Structures from Silence, beckons you in to its womb-like formations and demands a suspension of time and space.
Newman and Underwood's modus operandi seems to mimic most other purveyors of contemporary ambient-space ritual, noting that like their brethren they "love to explore drones and tones, textures and spaces, as well as subtle melody." That such nuance pervades Sending the Past is no surprise; they feel that this new recording differentiates itself somewhat from their established 'template', "proceeding in new directions as we continue to explore musical ideas and processing techniques", but it's their preternatural gift for intriguing sound design that sets the duo apart from the pack. In their case, Past makes perfect."
"This is the first full length collaboration between Porya Hatami and Darren McClure. Both artists have shared a mutual respect for each other's work over the years, and in the Spring of 2014 they began a project together that slowly and organically unfolded between Iran and Japan resulting in this album.
Rough edges collide with smooth surfaces creating tactile layers of ambience, through which sparse piano and synths rise to the fore. Field recordings and drones have been woven with melodies and harmonic tones. From these elements, five tracks explore the intersection between opposing textures, the interplay between different shades and the hidden moments of in-between spaces.Limited edition of 150 copies."
- "New York radical innovators White Out and transplanted Los Angeles legend Nels Cline share a long musical history, having played together for over a 15-year period. Anyone lucky enough to have caught these guys in live performance can attest to their special chemistry. They play a kind of improvised chamber music. Their tightly cohesive interplay the sonic consequence of years spent developing their highly personal electro-acoustic language. Any attempt to assign a label to their collective sound falls short. Reductionist classifications like Free Jazz, Prog, and Experimental, although all applicable, fail to convey the full depths of their jams. The music they make together is as eclectic as the venues they have performed in are diverse: A jazz dungeon in Paris, an artist squat in Geneva, the All Tomorrow Parties Festival in the UK, an improvisers’ compound in Marseilles, or indie rock enclaves in Los Angeles, London, and New York. Accidental Sky represents their first official release, and their first attempt at recording in a studio together. The album does not disappoint.
Accidental Sky runs the full gamut of artistic expression. Some of the more tempestuous tracks like the album’s epoch opener “Imperative,” the laconic “Ragged Mist of Stalled Horizons,” or the jagged “Sirius Is Missing,” range in dynamic structure from deliberate calm to unbridled fury. While other selections are more abstruse, such as the mysterious “Exaltation By Proxy” and the noirish “Under A Void Moon,” which feature haunting themes, sinuous flute lines, and otherworldly vocals. “Winter Light” stands as a kind of sparse tone poem, driven by long reverberating bell sounds. There is even a euphonious ballad in the form of the album’s closer “Soft, Nameless, Absolute.”
Accidental Sky casts White Out in a different light than any of their other previous releases, which feature the likes of Thurston Moore, Jim O’Rourke, and William Winant. As with all their musical pairings, they are able to entirely transform their sound to accommodate their guest collaborator while simultaneously retaining their own strong creative identity.
This album is a long time coming, and the documentation of these artists recording together is cause for celebration. With the release of Accidental Sky, the world at large can finally join White Out and Nels Cline on their eternal quest to explore the infinite possibilities of sound, rhythm, and space."
A journey through time, perhaps, for a daydreamer floating in a small boat amidst the radiant hues of a midnight sun. That daydreamer in this instance is the Icelandic artist Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson, best known for his electro-surrealism in Stilluppsteypa. He has long been an artist of extremes and absurdities -- mania fueled performances, wildly scribbled drawings, and Haflerian audio shock-therapy, on one side; and on the other, a profound meditation on austere shape, form, and mood cast through similar media. Sigmarsson will intermingle these sentiments in slippery juxtaposition and assemblage, with beguiling, haunting, and / or charming results. So Long aligns itself firmly within that latter aesthetic of crypto-minimalism which began to germinate some 20 years ago. At that time, Stilluppsteypa was a trio who had recently eschewed their art-punk trappings, drunkenly scheming to corner the market at Documenta with deconstructivist drone and 21th century circuitry. Sigmarsson would find himself in his own studio, crafting sympathetic works to Stilluppsteypa; but these were directed inward as wounded, naked, and vulnerable concoctions reflective of Sigmarsson getting lost in his own little world. So Long quietly simmered in his head over the years; and with the completion of this album, we now have a sublime gesture of polar impressionism flecked with hallucinatory ambience, Vaseline-smeared crackle, and hauntological displacement. This album had originally been planned for release through the impeccably curated Intransitive Recordings, but that publishing house shuddered its doors before this could see the light of day. Sigmarsson self-released a condensed version of the album on the artbook / cassette If You Have Any Questions, Let Me Ask. The Helen Scarsdale Agency is delighted, honored, and humbled to publish this dronescaping threnody in its full radiance and blur.
AMJ: sounds electronic, sounds imaginary, sounds found Ty Hodson: rock and roll music, electronics, analogue processing Peat Bog (Earthmonkey): guitar, atmospherics on MBD Randall Frazier (Orbit Service): atmospherics on MBD Soriah: vocals on RBΩ
Prajna: vocals on RBΩ
The emphasis is definitely on the “Journey” as mysterious drone-meets-psychedelia act Armchair Migraine Journey embarks on this new trip. Beginning with a medley of dark ambient drones, buzzes, fades and washes, MAGNETIC BLOOD DROWNING, the initial offering on the two-track Blood Coupling Magnet, lays on thick atmosphere before coalescing into a dark psych-rock jam backed by distortion-drenched drums. In the fashion of the best and most “out there” prog, it effortlessly skirts the line between noise and melody; just when you think things are turning into a morass of self-indulgent feedback, the guitar pulls back just enough to get your head nodding again to the moody Krautrock-inspired rhythm. The second composition, REBIRTH BLOOD OM, shifts even more drastically, traveling further out into the sonic and philosophical void. Industrial rock drums and heavy overdriven guitar chords straight out of some early Pigface demo open things before suddenly giving way to the gentlest ambient, delicately drawn out chiming tones over a quiet heartbeat punctuated by heavy breaths. Soon, the otherworldly growling trance-drone of Tuvan throat-singing—courtesy of Soriah's Enrique Ugalde—brings the ethereal down to earth. A Buddhist mantra, sung by Prajna, forms the backbone to the song's latter half, as the throat-singing takes turns with a fuzzed out, effects-drenched tanpura to follow the melody of the chant, drifting in and out of harmony with Prajna's voice. Cosmic, earthy, ominous, uplifting and even spiritual, Blood Coupling Magnet is sonically fascinating, but more than that, it's emotionally affecting. Plenty of experimental music can manage to do interesting things with your head (especially if you're that breed of music nerd that likes to spend time thinking about experimental music) but Blood Coupling Magnet works its way into your gut, too.”
- "Back in the day, it wasn’t all that difficult to put together an album entirely out of samples—well, from a legal perspective, at least. And for every thinkpiece about how we’ll never get another Paul’s Boutique or Since I Left You, there’s a found beat built in to Den Sorte Skole’s ballistically weird 2013 LP, Lektion III.
Today, the Danish duo announced the release of Lektion III‘s followup, Indians & Cowboys. The album is comprised of over 10,000 samples from 350 records that were released in seventy-five countries, and they include Iranian horns, Sufi chanting from Senegal, Italian throat-singing, and about 9,997 more. Like the best of Lektion III, lead single “Heli Yosa” expertly brings these elements together into a cohesive whole, a kind of global hodgepodge that serves as a polyglottal call to dance.
Lektion III managed to skirt the copyright police by not being released through the major digital channels, and it appears that Indians & Cowboys will be employing the same legal strategy; the album is exclusively available through their label, the cheekily named Finders Keepers.
In addition to composing Indians & Cowboys, Den Sorte Skole have been busy serving as composers in residence with the National Danish Chamber Orchestra, which the duo says has increased the depth of their compositional ambitions. Additionally, they’ve compiled a thirty-page book mapping the origin of every single snippet of sound found on Indians & Cowboys."
- From 2012 and re released by Imprec in july 2015:
- "Guest contributions include David Sylvian, Daniel O'Sullivan (Miracle and Ulver), Duke Garwood and many others with the two creators, Daniel Lea and Matthew Waters, both taking a directorial role. The album was sculpted in Reykjavik by Ben Frost, enhanced by his signature aural physicality and visceral sub bass. The album is a vast collision of sound, from free brass and woodwind to "geometric" bowed cymbals and metallic percussion.
But more than simply music, the multidisciplinary L A N D draw on and evoke a wide range of art forms. They describe this work as, "approaching an apocalyptic noir narrative," and Night Within, despite its slate visual appeal which recalls the grey paintings of Gerhard Richter, thematically points towards a world occupied by the early postmodern detective stories of Paul Auster and the urban neon dislocation of Taxi Driver with its existential protagonist roaming the city alone late at night."
"This is easily one of the most intriguing and enigmatic debuts to surface this year, as two musicians that I am completely unfamiliar with have managed to assemble a killer noir jazz ensemble and enlist collaborators as impressive as Ben Frost and David Sylvian."
Ork Records: New York, New York, new from our friends at Numero. Cheaply available at 7digital US, but that 2CD/Book set would be a nice thing to have. Label page
Comments
Obscure Knowledge
The group started their life as a heavy bass/drums duo playing post-hardcore, noisy rock, but in the two decades since, they have expanded their instrumentation and their stylistic references to become one of Europe's most highly respected 'muscular and modern' experimental/progressive rock bands.
Centered around founding member and extraordinary drummer David J. Smith, the group on the album also features three additional heavy-weights of British experimental rock:
Kavus Torabi-guitar (also of Knifeworld, Cardiacs, Gong)
Emmett Elvin-keyboards (also of Chrome Hoof, Knifeworld)
James Sedwards-bass (also of Thurston Moore Baand, Chrome Hoof)
The album's 43 minute long track is a dynamic, fluid beast that takes the listener on a scenic journey through loud New York minimalism, celestial drones, avant rock, kosmiche-noise, rockin' riffs and way beyond.
Smith, who is also a sculptor as well as drummer, looks after the aesthetic considerations of Guapo and is keen to provide a backstory for their albums. Smith explains: "The title of the piece of music and album is derived from the psychoactive rituals of various Native American people who are said to 'tap into obscure knowledge' when performing certain rituals and rites of passage."
The group started their life as a heavy bass/drums duo playing post-hardcore, noisy rock, but in the two decades since, they have expanded their instrumentation and their stylistic references to become one of Europe's most highly respected 'muscular and modern' experimental/progressive rock bands."
- "Issa is the debut release from Bristol based musician and composer Kit Wilmans Fegradoe. The magic in Issa comes from Fegradoe's powerful exploration of emotion and sensitivity, which leads to a deeply personal and revealing listen. The work evokes the scale of Michael Stearns compositions for film, whilst eliciting a minimalist undercurrent throughout. The album is sculpted from guided improvisation sessions in the studio with fellow musicians, traversing around the narrative of Issa, a young transient Jesus Christ.
(RIYL: Arvo Part, Steve Reich, John Adams, Gavin Bryars, Phill Niblock, Duane Pitre, James Blackshaw )
Issa follows the Eastern version of the lost years of Jesus Christ. Known as Issa in the East, it's believed that at the age of 13 he travelled away from his home, in search of understanding different cultures. Studying various religions and philosophies, he gained insight beyond that which he had been taught and would teach those around him as he lived and travelled nomadically."
The albums narrative was built upon a wide variety of literature on the subject, whilst maintaining the hypothetical nature of the story. The intent here was to explore the unknown narrative, one barely touched by scholars or musicians, to understand a different version of a person who has become a beacon of hope for many, and a vehicle of religious hypocrisy for others."
- "Kit Wilmans Fegradoe has been playing and composing music of all kinds from a very early age. Brought up with an open musical ear, he learnt to play a few instruments before moving into electronic production. After releasing free material and experimenting with narratives and electronics, he went to study Sound Art & Design at Degree level in London. Years of investigating and experimenting with various spiritual ideas and religions finally melded with his music when he decided to make the album Issa. He currently resides in Bristol, UK and is 23 years of age."
- "I invited musicians into the studio and they improvised around the narrative, often guiding them as they went. I took these recordings home and reformed them to create compositions. I spent a year alongside the recording and composition process visiting Churches and Buddhist Temples, reading Buddhist and Hindu philosophy and experimenting with Eastern instruments.
I hope for people to feel things that he might of felt during his journey. To approach a version of his story without prejudice and to experience a musical interpretation of the founding years of a person so iconic yet so mysterious."
- Kit Wilmans Fegradoe
Important Records - https://soundcloud.com/kitwilmansfegradoe - https://kitmusic.bandcamp.com/
organ (n.)
fusion of late Old English organe, and Old French orgene (12c.), both meaning "musical instrument," both from Latin organa, plural of organum "a musical instrument," from Greek organon "implement, tool for making or doing; musical instrument; organ of sense, organ of the body," literally "that with which one works," from PIE *werg-ano-, from root *werg- "to do" (cognates: Greek ergon "work," orgia "religious performances;" Armenian gorc "work;" Avestan vareza "work, activity;" Gothic waurkjan, Old English wyrcan "to work," Old English weorc "deed, action, something done;" Old Norse yrka "work, take effect").
Applied vaguely in late Old English to musical instruments; sense narrowed by late 14c. to the musical instrument now known by that name (involving pipes supplied with wind by a bellows and worked by means of keys), though Augustine (c.400) knew this as a specific sense of Latin organa. The meaning "body part adapted to a certain function" is attested from late 14c., from a Medieval Latin sense of Latin organum. Organist is first recorded 1590s; organ-grinder is attested from 1806.
synthesis (n.)
1610s, "deductive reasoning," from Latin synthesis "collection, set, suit of clothes, composition (of a medication)," from Greek synthesis "composition, a putting together," from syntithenai "put together, combine," from syn- "together" (see syn-) + tithenai "put, place" (see theme). From 1733 as "a combination of parts into a whole." Earlier borrowed in Middle English as sintecis (mid-15c.). Plural syntheses."
Drums, objects and electronics: SmZ
Guitar and electronics: Christian Fennesz
"AirEffect", the collaboration between renowned electronic musician and guitarist Christian Fennesz and Turin based duo OZmotic, is a highly imaginative flow of electronic and instrumental music mixed with sounds collected from urban and natural sources to explore a speculative post-anthropocene scenario. The album will be released on 12 June 2015 on theFolk Wisdom / Interbang label. DISK Agency provides PR for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
AirEfect | The Concept
The discovery of a "black box" lost in the Anthropocene era brings back to life extinct sounds, images of places in the middle of nowhere, voices of daily life, and excerpts of conversations. The experience of an observer, who from an indeterminate future finds evidence of a multimedia human kind, develops along the trails which it leaves behind itself through multiple different supports and codes. The postmodern human kind is laid bare by apparently disconnected flashbacks which reveal the inappropriateness of a technologically advanced human species, yet one unable to live with itself and with the world hosting it. Primordial instincts and feelings seem to be the only possible support to avoid decadency. Intellect, technology and complex socio-economic structures, unsuitable to integrate with nature, are unable to carry out the task of maintaining the balance of the planet.
AirEffect | The Disc
AirEffect is a real and highly imaginative flow of sounds made up of tone research and electronic background, where musicians bring the audience to unexpected and usual places. It develops in structured scenes, each of which is part of a descriptive process evolving without interruptions. The artistic journey by the musicians is brought to life through AirEffect where jazz is assimilated into pure experimental music and typical electronic sounds. Everything is blended into an artistic mixture which goes beyond common beauty standards and the predetermined characterizations, recalling, at the same time, ancient rhythmic traditions and hypnotic themes typical of contemporary electronic music.
AirEffect | Soundscapes
Environmental sounds used within AirEffect have been collected in the province of Turin as part of a project called Paesaggi Sonori. They include both sounds of urban origin, such as the tram passing in the city captured from the deep waters of the river Po, the voices of the Porta Palazzo market or the noises inside Turin’s underground, and sounds of nature, such as grape must fermenting or great summers storms. AirEffect inserts those sounds and noises inside the creative flow generating lunar landscapes of sound, paradoxes, and contrasts.
Christian Fennesz
AirEffect’s dreamlike world is enhanced thanks to the collaboration with one of the icons of electronic music: Christian Fennesz. The sparks of sound with which Fennesz colors the flow of this multifaceted project expand the musical environment in which players can move. Its minimalist vision shapes the frenetic or greatly dilated paces of AirEffect and weaves the net that allows one to lay concrete sounds on a soft, deep background.
→ www.fennesz.com
OZmotic
OZmotic is an instrumental and electronic music duo based in Turin (Italy). Composed by Stanislao Lesnoj (saxophone, electronics) and SmZ (percussion, electronics, sound design), the duo is inspired by contemporary classical and ambient music, mixing soundscapes and concrete music with glitch, IDM, noise and jazz, to create a sonority characterized by a deep variety of timbres and refined rhythmic research.
→ www.ozmotic.it
Disk Agency - Emusic
https://soundcloud.com/ozmotic-1
Bérangère naturally drew inspiration from composers such as François Bayle, Luc Ferrari, Eliane Radigue and has also listened to a lot of early electronica and glitch music. She went on to develop her own approach, both to studio recording and to live performance, taking in the experiences gathered in the course of her collaborations with the likes of Fennesz, Rhys Chatham, Richard Pinhas and Fred Frith (with whom she played several duet concerts).
Dangerous Orbits is Bérangère Maximin’s fourth album, and her first for Crammed Discs’ Made To Measure series."
Olivia Block - Aberration Of Light
- "A musical journey through electronic music history, Downwards is an EP which nods to its musical heritage but builds something new. On Nills’ debut EP, dreamy synth lines reminiscent of the 1980s sit alongside deep, dubby baselines and crisp clean drums."
About Nills:
Starting out as a jungle and drum ‘n’ bass dj in Copenhagen during the late 90’s, Nills spent the subsequent years following the trails and clues left here and there between the complex drum patterns and heavy basslines of the records he was playing.
- "Digging ever deeper in to the origins of the many bass heavy genres growing out of London, Detroit, Berlin and Kingston he has developed his own mix of ingredients he’d picked up along the way. His music is a mixture where dubby drums collide with 303’s, BPMs move from 50 to 180, and melodic synth-memories of an eighties childhood leaves something for both the headphones and the club."
Sign Records
- Oh ! By the way, Did I mention that it is free ?
:-)
14 tracks, 15 music artists, 85 minutes of sounds spread on the two labels. "
Aaron Martin, Danny Clay, David Andree, Dudal, Leigh Toro, Masaya Ozaki, Miguel Isaza, Monolyth & Cobalt, Ruhe, Sokkyo (Heine Christensen + Ciro Berenguer), Stijn Hüwels, The Humble Bee, Twincities, Wil Bolton.
The album began with a collection of environmental sounds I recorded in Tallinn, Estonia back in the autumn of 2011, during a residency at the Estonian Artists' Association. These field recordings focus in on the quiet, everyday sounds of streets, parks, a lake and a town square.
I lived with these sounds for some time, before working on the album. In spring 2013, I began to record the instrumental sounds. I started working with loops I lifted from the quietest sections of old dusty charity shop records - the sounds of piano, strings and harp, half-buried in hiss and crackle. I re-pitched, stretched, edited and processed these loops with guitar pedals and laptop effects. Then over this bed of loops, I recorded layers of digitally treated instrumental parts, played on acoustic guitar, piano and analogue and digital synths. I finished mixing the tracks in autumn 2013.
If you have heard any of Thighpaulsandra's previous albums, you will know that you'd best approach this record with no fixed set of expectations, because once again he changes genres and defies easy classification, sometimes more than once within one song. Drawing on his long-time background as a key member in such diverse groups as Coil, Spiritualized and Julian Cope's band (in each case arguably at the height of their creative prowess) and his work as producer and sound engineer for an even larger variety of customers, you'll find classical passages next to hard rock riffing, krauty experimental work-outs turning into super catchy, almost radio-friendly songs and more.
Many adjectives have been used to describe Thighpaulsandra’s work: epic, challenging, timeless, idiosyncratic, but certainly never predictable or boring.
Possibly his most rewarding album yet and a welcome and unusual entry, in the Mego catalogue, which will entertain and astonish listeners who are fond of having their mind severely altered by sound."
- "Thighpaulsandra (Tim Lewis) is a Welsh experimental musician and multi-instrumentalist known mostly for performing on synthesizers and keyboards. As Tim Lewis, he began his career working with Julian Cope. A collaboration with Cope in 1993 followed, as the experimental duo Queen Elizabeth. This project completed just the two albums, Queen Elizabeth (ESP Records 1994) and Elizabeth Vagina (Head Heritage 1997), each containing extremely long spacey tracks of between 20–47 minutes in duration. In 1997, former Cope guitarist Mike Mooney invited Lewis to fill for the departing Kate Radley on a Spiritualized tour, where he remained until early 2008. In 1999 he also became a member of the experimental band Coil. He has subsequently released several solo albums."
- "Beginning his career in the early 1980s with the hair metal band Temper Temper, Lewis next became the house engineer and studio manager at Loco Studios near Newport. Living in S. Wales, Lewis was at first unable to capitalise on his real influences, such as krautrock and improvised electronic music. Eventually, his work with Julian Cope provided the right atmosphere, and Lewis was invited to contribute synthesizers to Cope's Def American albums Autogeddon and 20 Mothers. As Thighpaulsandra, Lewis has also produced and appeared on other records, such as 'Zero Beats Per Minute' by Anal (on Cope's KAK label 1995), RocketGoldStar, and 'Love Peace & Fuck' by Brain Donor (Impresario 2001)
In 1997, Thighpaulsandra joined the band Spiritualized for a US tour and survived the cuts to the band made shortly thereafter, his band mate Mike Mooney quitting to form Lupine Howl with bassist Sean Cook and drummer Damon Reece. Thighpaulsandra can be heard on the records Live at the Albert Hall, Let It Come Down, Amazing Grace and Songs in A&E. He also joined Coil the next year and performed on such albums as Astral Disaster, Musick to Play in the Dark Vol. 1 and Musick to Play in the Dark Vol. 2.
During the same period, Thighpaulsandra also worked on The Waterboys' album A Rock in the Weary Land. The artwork for his Double Vulgar album caused some controversy with several printers not willing to reproduce the controversial imagery. Double Vulgar II was delayed, possibly for the same reason, along with the passing of friend and colleague John Balance.
His first three solo releases came out via the Coil label, Eskaton. John Balance provided vocals for Thighpaulsandra's first release Some Head EP, and Peter Christopherson designed the artwork for the I, Thighpaulsandra double album and for the following "Double Vulgar" albums. London based Austrian photographer Ruth Bayer took the front cover image for "I, Thighpaulsandra". Bayer was the official photographer for many of the first London Coil shows.
Since leaving Spiritualized in 2008 Thighpaulsandra has been working with Elizabeth Fraser on her forthcoming solo album and was part of her group for a series of live shows at the Royal Festival Hall in 2012 as part of the Meltdown Festival. In September 2013 he joined Wire on their UK and European tours playing keyboards."
- Wiki.
Rudolph has integrated and transformed all of these influences into a highly personalized language, a language whose rhythmic component, which he calls “Cyclic Verticalism,” combines polyrhythms (from African music) and rhythm cycles (from Indian music).
Turning Towards the Light is the 10th release in Rudolph’s series of recordings for Go: Organic Orchestra. His previous recordings for Go: Organic Orchestra featured an array of instrumentation to bring to life his rhythmically unique creative music. But for Turning Towards the Light, Rudolph envisioned a new kind of orchestral sound conveyed by a single instrument: guitars, whose strings, coaxed by the right hands, are capable of unleashing an orchestra of different musical sounds. He says: “I try to do something new with each performance and recording. This time I wanted to experiment with a new kind of orchestration. I felt that with their range of sound and rhythm, these 11 electric guitars could generate a sonic palate that had never been heard before. I was looking for a new kind of “Future Orchestra” – and I think we found it."
The comparisons that acutely come to mind when discussing a work such as Sending the Past might well be obvious; not only does Pete Namlook's 'new environmental music' explorations come to mind but also the taut-stretched horizons of Steve Roach, Eno's delicate pastoralisms, the ambience (though not the strict instrumentation) of Russell Mills and Harold Budd, even the sacred space musics of practitioners as disparate as Ariel Kalma and Laraaji. What unites this slew of aesthetes together, Newman and Underwood included, is their love of landscape, place, total recall, and mental moving pictures. Over the course of a mere four minutes, "The Elusive" distills such phenomena in lucid, specfic detail, as a series of deliciously coaxed sonic entrails spiral out like gossamer webs, unidentifiable noises phosphoresce, and alien raindrops speckle across far-flung tundra. It's a beguiling track that, like the finer moments on Eno's On Land or Roach's Structures from Silence, beckons you in to its womb-like formations and demands a suspension of time and space.
Newman and Underwood's modus operandi seems to mimic most other purveyors of contemporary ambient-space ritual, noting that like their brethren they "love to explore drones and tones, textures and spaces, as well as subtle melody." That such nuance pervades Sending the Past is no surprise; they feel that this new recording differentiates itself somewhat from their established 'template', "proceeding in new directions as we continue to explore musical ideas and processing techniques", but it's their preternatural gift for intriguing sound design that sets the duo apart from the pack. In their case, Past makes perfect."
Accidental Sky runs the full gamut of artistic expression. Some of the more tempestuous tracks like the album’s epoch opener “Imperative,” the laconic “Ragged Mist of Stalled Horizons,” or the jagged “Sirius Is Missing,” range in dynamic structure from deliberate calm to unbridled fury. While other selections are more abstruse, such as the mysterious “Exaltation By Proxy” and the noirish “Under A Void Moon,” which feature haunting themes, sinuous flute lines, and otherworldly vocals. “Winter Light” stands as a kind of sparse tone poem, driven by long reverberating bell sounds. There is even a euphonious ballad in the form of the album’s closer “Soft, Nameless, Absolute.”
Accidental Sky casts White Out in a different light than any of their other previous releases, which feature the likes of Thurston Moore, Jim O’Rourke, and William Winant. As with all their musical pairings, they are able to entirely transform their sound to accommodate their guest collaborator while simultaneously retaining their own strong creative identity.
This album is a long time coming, and the documentation of these artists recording together is cause for celebration. With the release of Accidental Sky, the world at large can finally join White Out and Nels Cline on their eternal quest to explore the infinite possibilities of sound, rhythm, and space."
Northern Spy Records - Emusic
Armchair Migraine Journey - Blood Coupling Magnet
Ty Hodson: rock and roll music, electronics, analogue processing
Peat Bog (Earthmonkey): guitar, atmospherics on MBD
Randall Frazier (Orbit Service): atmospherics on MBD
Soriah: vocals on RBΩ
- "Back in the day, it wasn’t all that difficult to put together an album entirely out of samples—well, from a legal perspective, at least. And for every thinkpiece about how we’ll never get another Paul’s Boutique or Since I Left You, there’s a found beat built in to Den Sorte Skole’s ballistically weird 2013 LP, Lektion III.
Today, the Danish duo announced the release of Lektion III‘s followup, Indians & Cowboys. The album is comprised of over 10,000 samples from 350 records that were released in seventy-five countries, and they include Iranian horns, Sufi chanting from Senegal, Italian throat-singing, and about 9,997 more. Like the best of Lektion III, lead single “Heli Yosa” expertly brings these elements together into a cohesive whole, a kind of global hodgepodge that serves as a polyglottal call to dance.
Lektion III managed to skirt the copyright police by not being released through the major digital channels, and it appears that Indians & Cowboys will be employing the same legal strategy; the album is exclusively available through their label, the cheekily named Finders Keepers.
In addition to composing Indians & Cowboys, Den Sorte Skole have been busy serving as composers in residence with the National Danish Chamber Orchestra, which the duo says has increased the depth of their compositional ambitions. Additionally, they’ve compiled a thirty-page book mapping the origin of every single snippet of sound found on Indians & Cowboys."
- "Guest contributions include David Sylvian, Daniel O'Sullivan (Miracle and Ulver), Duke Garwood and many others with the two creators, Daniel Lea and Matthew Waters, both taking a directorial role. The album was sculpted in Reykjavik by Ben Frost, enhanced by his signature aural physicality and visceral sub bass. The album is a vast collision of sound, from free brass and woodwind to "geometric" bowed cymbals and metallic percussion.
But more than simply music, the multidisciplinary L A N D draw on and evoke a wide range of art forms. They describe this work as, "approaching an apocalyptic noir narrative," and Night Within, despite its slate visual appeal which recalls the grey paintings of Gerhard Richter, thematically points towards a world occupied by the early postmodern detective stories of Paul Auster and the urban neon dislocation of Taxi Driver with its existential protagonist roaming the city alone late at night."
- Important Records
"This is easily one of the most intriguing and enigmatic debuts to surface this year, as two musicians that I am completely unfamiliar with have managed to assemble a killer noir jazz ensemble and enlist collaborators as impressive as Ben Frost and David Sylvian."
- Brainwashed
- There's a brand new album on the way very soon . . .