вторник, 31 мая 2011 г.

Sacred Harp - Apparitions at the Kenmore Plantation - Hands in the dark 2011

Sacred Harp - Apparitions at the Kenmore Plantation CD


So what is this, mates? This is a great folk/abstract play from Daniel Bachman aka Sacred Harp. 6 tracks are given to you as a sacrifice. This music is the music that makes people take a stand. This is a music of heroic decisions, killing deserts and eremitic jests. It smells with history... Pulverized ,mature and sometimes statuesque sounds of acoustic guitar commingle with ancient drone fresco. Slight domesticated indian motives bring the whole thing down to dusts but, honestly I do not give a shit. This music does not have wings. It gives them to you.
Buy this record from Hands in the dark

Beartown records Cassettes 1

Just received a goodie bag with five amazing noise gems from Beartown records, located in London.

SLUMP - MALPAS WAY Cassette 

This awesome tape opens with croaky and stertorous noise lines falling over the sound horizon. Mild and a bit awry synth curves appear a second later and create a constant crystalliform excrescence which makes the first track somehow endless and meditative. Side B starts with massive lacerated vociferance. However its yielding structure succumbs to the more persistent and voiceless machine kinks.
Great stuff!

BLOOD STEREO - PALATINE ARCHES Cassette 

Kids are running through the fields of hop and wheat. Kinds are running. Kids are running through the fields fast...
What we can hear on this tape seems to be a rabid short wave, though there is a kind of trueness in all those elastic voices and rare rattletrap steel percussion. We stumble across more noise efforts on another side. One quenches the fire and pulls little naked people out of the cinder. They shimmer and cry creating phantasmagorical sound scheme. 
Absolutely freak and very inspiring work.

Petals - Kodiak Gold - Slump Cassette 

Here we have a mail collaboration between three noise masters.
24 minute of nervous vibrations, crimp drones and merciless dry electronics mantle a listener with a consistent veil of billowy and heart-pounding darkness. Pale hands and pale faces detonate in that darkness as pink discordant fountains slowly gravitating on auricular nerves. 24 minute of unrest and flurrying waiting.
Firm, lo-fi and quite abstract noise drama.

Buy all these fantastic tapes directly from Beartown Records

понедельник, 23 мая 2011 г.

DDb Interview Series (1007) - Sangoplasmo records

Here's a nice chat with Lubomir, a nice guy running awesome tape-label Sangoplasmo records.
Please visit label's site for more information about releases.


1.
So how did you come to the idea of Sangoplasmo?

Since 2007 I’ve been a netlabel By?em Kobieta records where I release very different stuff, but the most important theme in our releases is randan, which means fun and play. Albums mostly explore varied forms of playing with conventions, often easy-listening nice and shibby music or well-done pop hits but some oft hem are also almost pure conceptual soundworks, a few of them were also released as CD-R’s. Some time ago I was thinking intensively about releasing my friend’s band, a great post-disco polo/hypnagogic pop band Damiano CZ on a tape. I gave up that idea but still wanted to release some tapes.

2.
What do you feel about independent scene in Poland? How are thing going there?

That’s not an easy question. I’m pretty sure we’ve got lots of great harshnoise and related projects here. We also had a few really great labels like OBUH Records or Mik.Musik.!. but they no longer exist.

3.
Tell a bit about Aranos’ release. How did it happen?

It was 2007, the fifth edition of Wroclaw Industrial Festival. I had just seen his show for the first time and I was totally in love with his performance. He was playing for about 2,5 hours, walking on hands and doing amazing things with his violin. Then I met him in Prague last year and decided to write an email a few months later.

4.
It’s a fact that cassette culture becomes more and more popular in experimental music world. However, though vinyl definitely can compete with digital formats,cassette is a completely different story. So, why tapes?

Cassettes sound and look exceptional, everybody knows that. And they are much cheaper than vinyls.

5.
You have two upcoming tapes. Tell about these projects.

In fact they’ve been out for a few days. First one is a tape by FOLJA, a great guy fromWarsaw. His tape was planned to be the first release in Sangoplasmo records but he needed more time. So we’ve just released his EP on bandcamp.com. It’s a long story but then he was leaving his CD-rs in strange places for some time and made a series of films about it. And now, finally we’ve released Pompa Funebris album, incredible sounds of ritual electronica. The second tape is a split by Norwegian duo Bjerga/Iversen and a Polish artist Yellow Belly. The first track is a great ambient/drone recording, the second one is more like a harsh noise wall. Both contain great field-recordings which are mostly bird voices. Now I’m preparing to release two or even three new tapes soon. 



6.
Next question I will propose to every person in DDb interview series.
What has changed in independent music world with the developing and spreading of theWeb?
Any positive improvements? Any negative repercussions?


There are plenty of positive improvements. Like uploading rare albums, quick contact witheveryone, easy promotion, or music blogs, just like yours. The only downside is that I’m addicted now, damn.

7.
Can you name some artist you admire most? Maybe those who you’d have wished to see in Sangoplasmo catalogue?

I’m a really big fan of Nurse With Wound and related guys like Andrew Liles or Matthew Waldron. And yes, I definitely wish to see them in Sangoplasmo catalogue someday.

8.
How does the label’s name reflect its motto/ideology? How did you think it out?

Sangoplasmo is the esperanto’s name for blood plasma. Our logotype is the upside down sign invented by Wilhelm Reich and related to his orgone theory.

9.
You have just started Sangoplasmo. What about demos? Do you receive lots of material?

I receive about one demo a week but most of them don’t feel really close to my idea of the label. I mean they’re often great stuff but just don’t fit with Sangoplasmo. To be honest, I really enjoy searching through the internet and finding artists by myself.

10.
Any long-term plans for the future? Can you foresee what will be going on with thelabel in the future?

I hope it will be possible for Sangoplasmo to start releasing also some vinyls in thefuture.

четверг, 19 мая 2011 г.

DDb Interview Series (1006) - Datashock

I want to thank Pascal and all guys from Datashock for making this interview happen.
Please visit band's web-site here - meudiademorte and check out their recent 2LP on Dekorder.

1.
Let’s handle with boring question first:
What have changed in independent music world with the developing and spreading of the Web? Any positive improvements? Any negative repercussions?


Wow! That’s a very difficult question to start with! When we started listening to music it was more difficult to come from one band to the next one. We had to find out ways and strategies to learn about music. Finding fanzines, reading mailorder-lists and “thank you”- lists on covers, etc. All that stuff opened new worlds. It was slow, and maybe work…
Today you get everything with one click, and that’s pretty cool, isn’t it? It’s really nice to see, that younger ones know more or can get information much faster, than we did at the same age. On the other hand it’s getting too fast?! People are listening to tons of music on one day. It’s kind of a hyper-active way to handle with music. Is a release a special thing anymore? We don’t know.
What we canenjoy it’s the knowledge that we can listen to all the music we are interestedin, or people recommend…We don’t have to wait, we can satisfy our curiositydirectly…
On the other hand sometimes the quantity and availability can be overwhelming. Being confronted with your lack of knowledge can be very disappointing too. There is a lot of homework to do, haha. Be always hard at work! So are we really ambitious?

In case of so called “music-business” issues, what can we say? You can get every meudiademorte release for free. Of course we hope that some people will buy our record, but at the same time we don’t make really money out of it. We don’tknow anyone who can make a living out of playing music. But maybe that isn’t the goal anymore. What we can is changing our stuff, working together, getting in touch, becoming friends, whatever. Getting in contact with people all over the world, that’s probably the best thing about the web.

2.
Tell about the history of Datashock project.

We grew up together. The most of us know each other for more than 15 years. Pascal founded Datashock in 2003, he is maybe the biological mother of that baby. More and more friends joined in and at least since the first tour we did, it became more or less a modern “patchwork” family. Everyone feels responsible for our little bastard. 






3.
Does the cadre working on the record always vary? Do you have a fixed group of people engaged in Datashock?

At the moment there’s a core of six people (Jan, Sebastian, Christian, Ruth, Pascal and Ronnie). We really enjoy playing in this combination. It feels very good. But it’s still an open union. We don’t really think about getting more people involved. It just grows and shrinks without a master plan. Besides the six, Ulf Schütte and Marcel Türkowsky are still quite close, but they didn’t play on the pyramiden jams.

4.
What about the recent 2LP on Dekorder? How did it appear? How many people have worked on it? When and where did you record it?

We know Mark (the founder of Dekorder) for a couple of years.
After we did a collaboration with him in 2007, he asked us to release something on Dekorder. When you have a look at his releases, it feels quite natural that we can release something on his label. In your opinion we have some interests and ideas in common.

First of all we recorded around 8 hours of “drone-music” together with ulf and marcel in 2008. But max (the guy who recorded the sessions) had barely time to mix that stuff. So in the end it got banned on a hard disc (where it still is)...

Between the years 2009 / 2010 we recorded the “pyramiden” in an old and beautiful villa in Darmstadt as an 8 piece band. The place is called “Oetinger Villa” and it’s used as an independent youth centre, concert-place and as our second home etc.
We played there some shows before, and Jan Kolter (he also played bass on a few songs), who is organizing shows there, became a close friend within the last years. He has a studio in the villa, and we talked a couple of times about doing a record session with his help and in that amazing space. Finally it did happen and it was such a relaxed atmosphere, without any trouble…
Finally we asked Ulf to record an Intro & Outro for the record. So the answer how many people played on the record is 9 ;)

So now the boring part: Ronnie and Jan mixed it for months, haha. After that Pete Swanson did the mastering. Besides the music, the record also includes an exclusive cut-up made by the stunning author  Jürgen Ploog. With Jeffrey Meyer we found the perfect artist for providing the cover and Johannes Schebler brought the layout in shape!

5.
You guys are often called as hippie-style experimentalists. What is that that links you to such a portrayal?
What can we say? We are not responsible for terms of expressions anyone uses to talk about us. The view from the outside will stay strange to us. But everyone can hear aesthetical influences. Psychedelic, krautrock, bands the wire circumscribed as “new weird America”,…all of that means a lot to us! Maybe the connection between all that stuff is, that they represent a kind of an utopian spirit. That’s totally a hippie thing. And we love it!
And we already said it before: Datashock is all about our friendship! Hanging out together, jamming, drinking too much beer and having fun. So if you wanna call us hippies you are maybe right.
And our largest problem is:
MOST OF US ALSO LOOK LIKE HIPPIES! 





6.
Your workings are very much based on improvisation. What about the compositional part? How do you write your songs?

We don’t write any note or part. We are just jamming. That’s the reason why we can play very bad as well, haha. Jam by jam we just try to let it flow, to concentrate on each other, to find a common mood, to find a way to make it sound organic…that works sometimes, and sometimes it can be just awful. It depends on situations, atmosphere, audience, nervousness, self-confidence, personal temper, drunkenness… you can see we are quite the opposite of professional musicians.

7.
What pushes you forward? Tell about some inspirations for your music.

FLEETWOODMAC! Most played band in our tourvan or on our partys! Besides of that:
What pushes us forward to play music at all? Hanging around with best friends and trying to do something beautiful and meaningful besides all day pressure and bleakness. All of us are collecting instruments. We just love to play, to find out new things, sounds… Making music is an important thing in our lives. It’s necessary. Besides that: Getting in touch with lovely creative people, having the chance to enjoy hospitality, etc. are also reasons to keep it going. We are just trying to find a bolt-hole. And to have the feeling that there is an opportunity to make something you can say I’m 100% responsible and proud of it, its just amazing.

8.
Where are you based right now? What can you tell about the local scene?

At the moment we are spread all over germany. 4 of us in the southwest of germany where we grew up (Pascal still lives in Saarlouis, Sebastian, Jan and Christianlive a few km away in Saarbrücken), Ronnie lives in Cologne, Ruth in Berlin and Ulf in Hamburg.
So it’shard to talk about local scenes. In Germany it seems that there aren’t so manypeople interested in experimental music. Or maybe it’s just our personalexperience. Good stuff regularly happens in Stuttgart, Bremen, Darmstadt,Mainz, Krefeld and Berlin of course. There are people who take care! As a band wesee us more as a part of the european / international scene. Because of touringwe got friends everywhere from mülheim, germany to paris, france over brighton.uk.

9.
Whatabout current state of affairs on Meudiademorte? Any forthcoming projects?

Puh, at themoment the status of Meudiademorte is “holiday”. Pascal doesn't have the timeto run a label like he did a few years ago. So at the moment he only releases Datashock or Datashock Side projects as tour or concert editions. But you never now…maybe it will change at one point.

10.
Share your thoughts/plans for future Datashock releases/tours.

Would be cool to tour this year, we don't care where…
so if you wanna do a tour or show or just wanna hang out with us and if you can handle the bill for our drinks:
drop us a line...

thank you very much for the interview!

среда, 18 мая 2011 г.

Derek Rogers, Wild Safari Cassettes - Bathetic Records 2011

Two new cassettes on Bathetic!
Many thanks to Jon for sending previews.

Derek Rogers - Relative Quiet Cassette 


Here's a new 6-track work from well-known sound-maker Derek Rogers.
That's what Bathetic says:
'With Relative Quiet, Derek Rogers offers us 6 tracks of shimmering ambiance. Tremulous tones flirt with the sensitive areas of your psyche while the bass coos you into slumber. This cassette drifts into areas not too removed from the likes of Tim Hecker, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, or Grasslung. '

Wild Safari - We Laid Our Heads In Their Laps Cassette



Wild Safari is a collaborative project between Bathetic's owner Jon Hency and William Cody Watson (ex-Pink Prist). The sound is tender and minimal. Hazy drones airily confuse nonchalant souls.
Wild Safari 'lay down sonic tumblers that drift in and out of nostalgic, schoolyard sidewalks into lush forests' (Bathetic).

Buy both cassettes from Bathetic

Expo '70 - Inaudible Bicoastal Trajectory LP, Aguirre records 2011

Expo '70 - Inaudible Bicoastal Trajectory LP 



Have you seen Laloux's Fantastic Planet? The thing is that the track on the side A is a recorded live performance that was accompanied by the images from that film. Yeah, a good choice! Expo's are absolutely up their alley, it's their cup of tea (flower tea with flowers from Fantastic planet), etc. Whipping up, slow and menacing drum machine dexterously shill unembodied and flaccid guitar vibes into the world of insanity. That insanity is total and irretrievable. Side B is also a live performance at KJFC. This time sound is based on ski-fi synth waves constantly spurred by stabbing and spacey electric guitar. Music that forces you to get out, sit in the car and drive with no proper intention.
Buy the record from amazing Aguirre Records

Age Wave - Telephone Dreams 7'', Bathetic Records 2011

Age Wave - Telephone Dreams Cassette


First of all I wanna tell you that that's one of the best cover arts I've ever seen in my life. Absolutely amazing work, isn't it?! I remember myself two years ago walking along snowy Moscow streets with pure meditative noise by God Willing in the headphones. That was my stepping stone to a big long love for a well-designed thoughtful noise composition.
This time Ren Schofield delivers some different approach and different fit to the unstable, delicate sound crafting. Very modern and industrial structures sound strangely amiably and even cordially. It seems that Ren has found something extremely vital in the trenchant globalized architecture and turned the drown working-outs into sound drafts. Now we can easily build a home for our dreams which used to be non-starters...
Buy this great 7'' from Bathetic Records

воскресенье, 15 мая 2011 г.

Godseye - no more cake here, Notice Recordings 2011

Here's one of the recent tapes from great Chicago-based label Notice Recordings:
Godseye - no more cake here Cassette 

This tape consists of four tracks and each of them deals with pretty much the same environment/materials. Roughly, it's an avant-garde work. Dispersed sound layers try to create strange inherently shapeless mosaic that blows up the very next moment creating new layers and so on... The plot is developing on a non-noise noisy-fieldy canvas and is accompanied by echoed recitations.
Very interesting work from Brad Rose, Eden Hemming Rose and Nathan Young.
Buy the cassette from Notice Recordings

When Day Chokes The Night - Matière Noire cdr, Et pourtant ça avait bien commencé - 2011

God, I dig this record!
When Day Chokes The Night - Matière Noire cdr 


Five airy, warm falls with some steel sound granules are masterfully etched on devout synth background. Crap, the name of the 2 and 3 tracks can tell everything about them. I mean it. They're truly warm, truly safe and truly still. Total infallibility of the slightly ambient sound. Track four is something different. It starts with more melodic/organic vibes which end up in a storm noise fury; while the last track uses absolutely abstract approach colliding quiet drones with delayed and a bit dissonant vocals.
Highly recommended.
When Day Chokes The Night is a duo from France.
But the CDr from Et pourtant ça avait bien commencé.   

пятница, 13 мая 2011 г.

DDb Interview Series (1005) - Luca Massolin

Here's one more great chat.This time with Luca Massolin. Luca plays mezmerizing electrinocs and electro mandolin as Golden Cup and runs fascinating 8mm records.
Many thanks to Luca for his time and very open questions.

1.
First of all, thanksfor showing up in Moscow.
How was it? Tell aboutyour impressions, about places, about the audience.
Will you come back?
Moscow (together with Saransk) was the besttime I had in years of touring: fantastic venues and amazing audiences. I really wanna come back to Russia as soon as possible. Our first day there was kind of insane actually. Me and Gemma (Woodpecker Wooliams) arrived at Moscow station after a crazy bus ride from Helsinki – St Petersburg, to a nice dinner with Sergej (Bedroom Bear) and the first of a series of fantastic rides into sleepover trains. So beautiful and inspiring my time there. I will never thank enough Ivan and Anya from Love Cult for the great job they did organizing this tour and the fantastic group of people that are the band Arabian Horses including their girlfriends and friends. They gave us such a great hospitality in Moscow, picking us up at the station at 6am, hosting us, feeding us, showing us great sights and finally taking us to this soviet restaurant where I got an amazing borsht. I realized that Russian food can be delicious, which for an Italian is a big deal to admit, believe me.

2.
8mm is not the strangest name for the label but still it’s a bit strange. What does it mean?
When I started the label, back in 2003, I wanted a name that could be easy to remember, not necessary to translate it, applicable to any genre of music. That’s probably the first reason why I picked it: 8mm was supposed to last forever, so I wanted a name that could grow old with me without sounding obsolete or limiting in the future.
The other reason is related to the visual aspect. At the time I was really into underground movies. Studying Cinematography at the University, I got introduced to the work of Jack Smith, Stan Brakhage, Maya Deren, Ira Cohen, Kenneth Anger…I realized that a lot of underground and experimental directors were using 8mm films, I was totally inspired by those analog rough and visionary artifacts… I thought it could have been interesting to create a link between that attitude towards visuals and the sounds I was going to release through my label.

3.
Tell about your music background. What did you listen to in your childhood?
Did you study music onacademic level?
The First record I ever owned was The Police’s ‘GreatestHits’, on LP when I was8.  Then I got the Cure’s ‘Whish’, bought after hearing thesong ‘Friday I am in love’ on a Tv show. I was pretty disappointed when I discovered that all the other songs from the album were in the opposite mood,super sad… I was lucky enough that my father was into good music, especially folk singers from the 60s-70s, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and this great Italian guy called Fabrizio de Andrè. But the album that really changed my life was acopy of Deep Purple’s ‘In Rock’ that my father used to keep hidden in the bottom of a pile of LPs. That was something truly revolutionary for a 10 yearsold kid! When I listen to ‘Child in Time’ I still have shivers down my spine!At the time I was already studying classical guitar, My first concert was thelast day of school before the summer holiday in June 1993 or 1994… I played some concerts also at the local church during the Sunday celebration, that was great. I studied classical guitar for 5 years, but the seed of rock was already planted and I decided to study with another teacher, who introduced me to Blues and Jazz music, taught me a lot of scales and tabs that I still use when I play guitar today!

4.
How did you decide to launch the label? And what is the difference between 8mm of the time of thefirst release and 8mm now?
When I first started, the main idea was todocument the work of local bands and artists, through releasing records and organizing small concerts and festivals. I come from a tiny village in the north east of Italy there was definitely not much going on there, so after the first three releases I started contacting artists I liked from all over theworld. When I started touring and travelling with my bands more intensively, it became natural to release some of those recordings I was actively involved in as a musician. Now I feel like I am entering in a new phase: I realized that I like the idea of having other labels to take care of Golden Cup’s music, while I am trying to keep the spectrum of the 8mm releases the widest as possible. Right now I am working on 2 series of records. The ‘standard LP series, limited to runs of 300 copies with pro printed album covers and then a more limited one-sided LP series of 100 or so copies with handmade numbered artworks, mostly focused on rare improvised live sets, which is supposed to be an open laboratory for new musical languages.

5.
Next question I will ask to every person in DDb interview series.
What have changed in independent music world with the developing and spreadingof the Web? Any positive improvements? Anynegative repercussions?

Well, I couldn’timagine doing 8mm without the web, it’s hard to figure a more efficient (and cheaper) way of getting in touch with people from all over the world. I can only see this as a benefit for the underground community. That said, I have nothing against the download thing as long as it’s free, in fact I am happy even when people download my releases, or they upload them into music blogs when they go sold out. I think it’s a great thing to be able to share your music with people that are genuinely interested or just curious to check it out.
The only thing I don’t really get is the idea of paying for downloading music, what’s the point in spending money for mp3s files, when you can get them for free (and hopefully save your money to buy the Long Playing format which is more personal and with a better sound quality)? I guess that is what they call the ‘compulsive’ aspect of the internet buying: having things immediately (no matter what they are) just with the click of a mouse. That stresses me out. I think 8mm operates in the exact opposite direction: the friends who support the label are normally patient people beside passionate music lovers, who are willing to wait even a few weeks for their limited edition LPs to show up (this happens when I am on tour, not always of course!)

6.
When did you start Golden Cup project? How did it appear?
Golden Cup startedin summer of 2006. I was about to leave for a tour in Europe with one of my previous bands, but my friends bailed last minute so I found myself alone with these upcoming gigs already set up… I decided to put some tape loops, a radio,a harmonica and a keyboard in a suitcase, and then I flew to Spain to play the firstshow of the tour. That was the beginning of Golden Cup.


7.
What music do you prefer to listen to when traveling?
I normally download digital versions of the LPs from my collection and I put them in the i-pod theday before leaving, in order to recreate the feeling of being at home listening to my favorite tunes…Pretty nerdy, I know. On heavy rotation now I have a lot of old Finnish stuff: Esa Kotilainen, The Sperm, Edward Vesala, Pekka Airaksinen…Perfect for travelling through the forest! And of course I don’t go anywhere without a good selection of jazz albums. I don’t even start making a list because it could be endless…

8.
Tell about the independent scene in Portugal? Is it fertile in terms ofexperimental artists, labels, clubs, fests? Can you advise anything/anyone for checking out?
There is definitely a nice scene in Portugal, especially if you consider that it’s such a small country. Definitely not many musicians and labels, but those who are active are well consolidated, and most important, there is a lot of respect among the music community. My favorite place in Porto is called Culturgest, it’s a cultural center, financed by the government. There is always some great exhibition going on there, and great shows once or twice a month. Lisbon is very active culturally as well, and even smaller cities like Leiria are kept alive through the work of great associations like a9))). Speaking of music from Portugal, this year I fell in love with the work of this amazing musician, Carlos Paredes, master of the Portuguese guitar. I recommend everyone to check his LPs and the great documentary about him called ‘Guitarra cum Genio’.


9.
What are your plans about 8mm and Golden Cup?
8mm is coming up with a new update later this month, with two new albums by Japan’s Suishou noFune (Anya from Love Cult did a great artwork for this), and a new liverecording from my friends France, who already released a tape on 8mm in 2010 and enchanted everyone at last Kraak festival in Belgium.
Speaking of Golden Cup, following the release of ‘Sogno Elettrico’ on Blackest Rainbow this year, there will be two more releases coming out soon. Each record is in fact part of a trilogy, the second one is basically ready, it is a fourtet recording featuring myself, Maurizio Abate, Jeremie Sauvage and Mathieu Tilly. That was recorded last December, it is very different from the first album, but still you can find a certain continuity. The third chapter has been in the works for a year now and is just myself, it is about the future. I hope to have it finished before next fall, because lately it has been a serious strain to my mental stability.

10.
If you had a choice togo to one of the planets in solar system which one would you choose?
I would definitely choose Saturn.

11.
What is the best placefor playing Golden Cup music?
Saturn, that’s why I wanna move there.

12.
What is that thing thelost of which will make the gig impossible? I mean: technical equipment,amulet, cloth, anything.
Nothing honestly. After I forgot my old electric mandolin on a train to Tilburg last year in the middle of a European tour...I think now I can do a Golden Cup set in every kind of situation. Especially lately when I play in trio with Mathieu and Jeremie, we are trying to focus a lot on acoustic instruments in order to be flexible to every kind of situation, even to open air jams!

13.
What country is the leader in ordering stuff from 8mm?
It used to be the United States, right now I think most of the copies splits equally between UK/US/EU distributors….

14.
What do you enjoy most in releasing process and in playing/recording music?
I think the thing that fascinates me the most about creating something is that sense of mystery and that feeling of total uncertainty that invades your brain from the beginning of the process. You know (sometimes) where you are starting from, but you never know where you are going to finish. I love being lost and disoriented, it’s something I would recommend for everyone to experience in life. You go through so many emotions: excitement, anger, joy, and frustration before finding a way that sounds right…

вторник, 10 мая 2011 г.

Cankun - Ethiopian Dreams, Hands in the dark, 2011

Many thanks to M. and O.

Cankun - Ethiopian Dreams CD



















Here we've got sounds bundled up with tropical guitar conatus and lo-fi vocals which make one flee the couch and run and jump chaotically with closed eyes. Electronic beats prodigiously appease blithely sharpened synth cues . Plump bass drops and a bit off-key guitar overtones attack the static drum structure precipitating unpredictable mutations. Few noisy tracks make the whole thing more atavistic and field while drony and melodic pieces give some positive freshness to the record.
Very diverse and somehow stylish thing.
Cankun is the new project led by Vincent Caylet (Archers by the Sea).
Get it immediately from Hands in the dark records.  

понедельник, 9 мая 2011 г.

Expo' 70 - Sonic Messenger 2LP, Beta lactam Ring records, 2010

Just received this a few days ago.
Great stuff:

Expo' 70 - Sonic Messenger 2LP

Curiosity. The powerful leashes of those who leave. 9 architectural ballads reflected images and echoic time movements. Untended guitar improvisations and recurrent nostalgic signals walk bodkin with elegant synth and forbearing acoustic drums. There's no compositional structure here. The sound operates rather on the level of naturalness of corneal reflexes. A listener moves to the point where one should by one's will discard all external spangle and find the ONLY thing that matters. Nine very spacey, sometimes kraut, sometimes synth sound scouts.
Highly recommended. 
Buy from Beta lactam Ring or distributors.

воскресенье, 8 мая 2011 г.

DATASHOCK Pyramiden Von Gießen 2LP, Dekorder 2011

Many thanks to P. for sending material.

DATASHOCK - Pyramiden Von Gießen 2LP


Here we have 10 tracks of krautish magmatic crinckling. The sound does not expand but seemingly strikes into itself. Glancing electronics and twiggy faded guitar plunks create some kind of hardpan for the whole record. Each track possesses a fissile and progressive organic system appearing a nice bait for unhep and a bit lo-fi drums. Who's a fucking king here, ha? Give me the name! Dotty-botchy criminal tunes are here to fill up the gap wich's sucking the world into a small wood box where everything becomes a part of the clown's costume. This amazing record balances between some criticalness of philosophical approaches (which are always subliminal in sound art) and easiness of fresh and dancy meditation.
I give up tho. Dance smart, folks!
Datashock is a collective of experimentalists from Germany.
Buy the record from great Dekorder.

четверг, 5 мая 2011 г.

bjerga/iversen + yellow belly, folja - sangoplasmo 2011

Thanks to Lubomir for providing these great cassettes.

bjerga/iversen + yellow belly Split Cassette

Here is the split from bjerga/iversen and polish artist yellow belly.
Norwegian duo on the side A delivers a very aerial and wispish drone story. Light sound flakes fit into unique, consistent canvas. The whole thing looks more like a sketchy vignette rather than a thoughtful finished track which adds some field aesthetic to the work. Lunar and obtuse vibes stream through the space filling up cosmic interstices. Side B opens with some field sounds and inexorably turns into a severe noise shower which seems not harsh but rather hispid and heart-searching.
Excellent work.

Folja - Pompa Funebris Cassette

This is absolutely amazing! Honestly, this 9-track gem simply blew my mind. Beautiful, mesmerizing electronics with some dub allusions and abstract experimental sounds open for you the door into a really special world. Psychedelic and heavy beats absorb one's thoughts leaving an absolutely blank space where melodic tones plant magical seeds and joyfully poussette around shoots and burgeons. Each track is extremely sincere, truly experimental and irrevocably splendid.
The best tape of this year up to date, with no doubts.
Folja is a sound/visual artist based in Poland.

Buy these cassettes directly from Sangoplasmo.
 

вторник, 3 мая 2011 г.

Wether - Walking Through Black Prisms Cassette, No Kings 2011

Thanks to Lee for sharing this.

Wether - Walking Through Black Prisms Cassette


Here we have two tracks. The first one is more pushy and assertive. Using quite gruff and rectilinear noise schemes, the sound manages to achieve a panoptic meaning an value. The collision does not happen. One's just rattling thro the air masses trying to catch and snatch away disappearing objects.
Second track is more remote. Intense and melodic drones suffuse the environment with strange warm light. The sound structure reminds me slightly honed but still a bit hackly stone. This stone levitates. At the end of the track it slowly reaches the surface and cleaves asunder revealing mellow and vital juice.
Very interesting tape from amazing Mike Haley who also runs 905 Tapes label.
Buy this cassette from No Kings

DDb Interview Series (1004) - Cloudland Ballroom

One more great interview's on!
Many many thanks to James for his time and thoughtful positive answers.

1. Tell about your musical background. What music you were brought up on?
Country & Western, Mantovani and other easy listening was the music my parents played when I was growing up. I’m not sure how much of a subliminal influence that had on me...I didn’t start discovering my own sonic tastes until my early teens; I remember a music teacher at school playing a recording of Penderecki’s “Threnody For The Victims Of Hiroshima” which blew my young mind. I’m so thankful to him for that. Soon after I discovered an LP of “Ricochet” by Tangerine Dream in a local library and intrigued by the photograph of the Moog and the list of strangely named instruments on the back of the sleeve promptly took it out on loan. My mind was blown for a second time. This was around the mid-late 1980’s. Hearing those things was like finding the start of a trail of musical breadcrumbs which I began following and which I’m still following today.

2. Currently you have cassette-only releases and If I’m not mistaken the forthcoming stuff will be put out in tape format as well. Is it a coincidence or your preference?
Not a preference, more of a coincidence related to the type of music I’m making as Cloudland Ballroom. Certain sounds just lend themselves to the analog format, the medium suits the message. It’s all about creating a particular feel. When cassette releases are done well they are beautiful and there are some labels currently creating works of art within the format. My personal preference would be vinyl, I grew up listening to music on it and nothing beats the feeling of putting an LP on the turntable whilst fondling a beautifully designed 12” sleeve, it’s all about the total experience, which you just don’t get with an MP3 download.
  
3. I am in love with your project name. What does it tell about your music?
 
The name came from an album by Anthony Moore, “Pieces From the Cloudland Ballroom”. It’s just such an evocative name, it stuck in my head. The Ballroom was actually a real place, in Brisbane, Australia, an entertainment venue, which opened in the 1940’s. It was demolished sometime in the 1980s.
But I think my Cloudland Ballroom exists in some alternative dimension, or it’s like the haunted ballroom of the Overlook Hotel in Kubrick’s film of The Shining, except the one in my mind is populated by the ghosts of a future which never came to pass…

4. Do you have any prejudices in terms of music styles or maybe cover art? What will definitely put you off in a record store?
I have a very broad taste in music though naturally there are some things I’m just not very interested in. But I’d rather focus on the type of music and art that I am passionate about. Generally people spend too much time and energy being vocal about what they dislike and I don’t find that very interesting or constructive.

5. Tell about the future releases. Will the sound change somehow?
The sound is always changing. For me it has to, that’s just the way it is. I’ve never understood the type of artist who continues to plough the same furrow over and over again. I have a need to  be constantly experimenting with sounds and ideas, when I get drawn in a different direction I have to follow. Currently I’m interested in mixing more organic sounds with the electronics, and that could be anything from guitar and piano to wind instruments or percussion. Also, I’ve been experimenting with very short, abstract pieces. There is a high chance that Cloudland Ballroom is going to mutate into a much different project in the not too distant future…

6.What equipment do you use in your music?
A very basic set-up; Korg synth, an old GEM organ/drum machine, a few FX , loops and cassette multitrack. That’s it. I don’t really use a computer much, mostly just for mastering the finished tracks.

7. What about touring? Any plans? Will you consider Russia and/or Ukraine as a place to come to play your stuff?
I’ve been asked to play live on a few occasions and I’ve so far refused. Hopefully this will change in the future when I can figure out how to technically present my music in a live setting. Currently working on it. If I do start playing live I’d certainly consider coming to Russia/Ukraine or anywhere else where someone would be willing to help me with the costs, feed me and provide a reasonably comfortable sofa to sleep on at the end of the night.

8. What inspires you most and what makes you feel cranky about music?
Again, I rather focus on the positives. There is too much good music which inspires me. I’m still following that breadcrumb trail from years ago and every so often, just when I think it’s reached an end I’ll stumble across something which takes me down another path and causes me to re-evaluate my ideas about music, what it is and where it can take me. I’m just thankful that after many years of listening to music I can still find these little glowing moments of epiphany. Long may they continue…



9. What about the process of writing and recording music? How do you make tunes?

I wouldn’t call it “writing”, more a process of discovery. My ideas come from experimentation and improvisation. I try and create each sound from scratch, playing around until something clicks, record, then find something complementary to that initial sound and so on. Recording is all done on cassette multitrack, which often forces me to accept mistakes and accidents as part of the working process. It’s just too much bother to go back and correct things on tape. Some of my favorite tracks have come from these happy accidents (or is it subconscious intent?).

10. Next question I will ask to every person in DDb interview series.
What have changed in independent music world with the developing and spreading of the Web? Any positive improvements? Any negative repercussions?

I’d split it 95% positive and 5% negative. The obvious thing is how it has allowed independent musicians like myself to get the music out there. The internet has fully delivered on the DIY promise of punk and the independent record labels from the late 1970’s on an epic scale. The means of production are now well and truly in the hands of the musician and I wouldn’t shed a tear over the slow and painful death of the “Music Industry”.
But, leading on from that, sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the endless stream of music that can be tapped into these days. The whole history of recorded music, only a click away. There is just too much available from the combination of online records stores/distros and labels, MP3 blogs, file sharing etc. I have hard drives full of MP3s and shelves full of CDs, tapes and records. Far more than I could ever hope to give my full attention to. Sometimes I feel a yearning for the days when I owned only a few albums and knew and loved each of them intimately. Even the feeling of anticipation, the thrill of trying to track down an album, spending months or even years attempting to hear something, that’s all gone now, replaced by instant gratification. I’m probably showing my age here!

11. Do you prefer to live in present time or you’re rather a long-term thinker?

I’ve always been and will continue to be an unrepentant daydreamer.

12. What are you dreaming about thinking about future?

I don’t think the future is going to be a very pleasant place to inhabit for many reasons. That’s a fear which possibly influences the kind of music I make as Cloudland Ballroom; but it doesn’t filter through as a dystopian sound, more so as a sound tinged with sad longing for a certain vision of the blissful utopian future we have been denied…

13. You also compose and release music under another moniker - Black Mountain Transmitter. How this project differs from Cloudland Ballroom aesthetic?

After years of being a reclusive bedroom musician, Black Mountain Transmitter was my first public project, born back in 2007. It’s a different beast to Cloudland Ballroom, darker, more abstract; a result of my years long diet of classic horror films, a love of the unknown and supernatural, fiction by H P Lovecraft and other Weird writers, the seeds sewn by that youthful acquaintance with the likes of Penderecki, soundtracks from old VHS “video nasties” and subsequent discovery of early Industrial and noise music.
I sometimes imagine the two different projects like Yin and Yang, opposing yet complementary. Dark and light, both those sound-worlds are part of me and I don’t believe in indulging one at the expense of the other.
BMT has been lurking in the background this past year whilst I’ve been working on Cloudland Ballroom material, but the stars are in alignment and I’ve been feeling the call again…I’m currently working on an album release for later this year, provisionally titled “Playing With Dead Things”. There are other ideas in the works too…

14. You run a small label Lysergic Earwax. How the things are going on the label?
What do you expect from it in the future?

My label was originally started as a way for me to put out releases by Black Mountain Transmitter, starting with “redShift” in 2008. I wasn’t in touch with any other labels at the time and just wanted to have a go at doing it myself. So far I’ve done five limited edition BMT releases on Lysergic Earwax (all sold out) and managed everything myself from the handmade packaging to getting the stuff out in the post. Hard work and rewarding at the same time. Two of the  albums were subsequently picked up for reissue by other labels; “Black Goat of the Woods” is now an official CD release on Aurora Borealis and “Theory & Practice” is coming out as a blue vinyl LP edition on Static Noise Audio sometime this year. I’m looking forward to that.
Currently Lysergic Earwax is on a bit of a hiatus while I’m working on stuff for other labels, but the website is still operational as a blog and shop. Someday I’d like to put out releases by other artists, but that is something I just don’t have the time or finances to do at the moment.