Video: Black To Comm - Hotel Freund

I just want to thank my BFF Mr. Comm for making this video for me. It's truly one of the greatest birthday gifts I've ever received. I mean, I told him exactly what would make the greatest video ever so it's not like he can say it was his idea or anything. But still. It is the greatest video ever.

Also, he's playing Boston on Friday the 5th at the Goethe-Institut with Xela & Matt Christensen (of Zelienople) opening, and the always entertaining DJ Ning Nong.

MP3: Petrels - Silt

Petrels - Silt


William Walker was a pretty astonishing fellow. He single-handedly saved the sinking Winchester Cathedral by diving for 6 hours a day for 5 years, working in complete darkness, and using more than 25,000 bags of concrete, 115,000 concrete blocks, and 900,000 bricks. BY HIMSELF.

Petrels is making an album honoring this man. "Silt" is the first taste and it's a gorgeous bubbly drone with uplifting organs, shimmering & grand. It's the sound of an underwater hero. Can't wait to hear the full record, which is due out hopefully later this year.

Nick Hennies - Lungs (Full Spectrum, 2010)

Nick Hennies - Sympathy


I hope you remember Nick Hennies from his ode to his grandfather, Lineal, because that album was spot on beautiful. Apparently the dude is a drummer and his new disc on Full Spectrum is profoundly minimal ambient drum drone.

When I say minimal, I mean the first sound doesn't show up until about 20 seconds in. This is as sparse as it gets unless you're going the 4'33 route. Hennies has crafted an amazingly gorgeous drone record that is almost entirely ethereal. It's barely there and it never moves. And I'm pretty sure there's no processing either, meaning all of these sounds are coming straight from the drums. It's incredible.

The few sounds that do make up Lungs are found mostly on the two centerpiece tracks, "Lungs" and "Second Skin With Lungs," which are bookended by two short songs of exactly the same length & title that differ only slightly in content, "Sympathy." "Lungs" is made up of stretched out rubber bands of varying sizes vibrating at an insane rate, making a highly textured & tense drone, occasionally pulsing and throbbing with an industrial darkness. Then "Second Skin With Lungs" (super gross name, btw) comes along and you're not sure anything's even playing until a few minutes go by and an ominous doom rattle appears. It's 15 minutes of the sound of a silently massive black cloud hovering overhead as it waits to unleash a flood.

This is the anti-background music. The only way to listen to Lungs is with noise cancelling headphones in a coffin at the bottom of a mine. It's futile to try otherwise (as I sit writing & listening on this fucking train). Make sure when (not if) you pick this up, you give it your undivided attention. Otherwise you'll just be wasting your money.

Will Thomas Long - Sequoia (basic_sounds, 2010)

Will Thomas Long - Sequoia


As many already know, the incredible husband-wife drone duo Celer ceased making music once Danielle Baquet-Long died last year. However, Will Thomas Long, the other half, continues creating and just released a new EP through the new netlabel offshoot of my most favoritest sites ever, basic_sounds.

Sequoia is one 22 minute track dedicated to the memory of Will's late wife. It's a minimal mournful elegy of outstanding beauty. It sounds very much like Celer, slow moving and subtle. The few tones resonate through open snow fields, intertwining amidst barely shifting air currents. It's simultaneously restrained & expansive, dense & delicate.

I'm glad Will is still making music, and that it's just as fantastic as the work he did with Celer. I'm also glad basic_sounds is taking a step towards more formal curating through a netlabel. This release is kind of a no brainer, considering who's involved and I'm really fuckin psyched to see what else both of them have coming up in the near future.

Video: Kyle Bobby Dunn at First Presbyterian Church (Brooklyn)

Kyle Bobby Dunn playing live in a church with a string & brass ensemble 2 weeks ago. God fucking dammit why didn't we all go to this? Also, wait until the end... wtf is that all about?

Fennesz, Burning Star Core, Noveller at The Middle East

Noveller: SWF old age ambient guitar loops, dusty tumbleweeds skipping across baked clay, hazy mirages, droplets in a well, muted sea glass shard kaleidoscope

Burning Star Core: solo rumpled silk violin drone, empty checkered floor kitchen freakout, Zorn farm animal smash, Patton porpoise whirlpool, high speed alien cartoon sputtering nonsense, Jupiter wind, scratchy atonal Burning Disco Core

Fennesz: it was fucking Fennesz, live, shiver inducing LOUD guitar drone perfection, a walking masterpiece, not enough words for that kind of beauty

More/bigger photos on Flickr.


Noveller



Burning Star Core



Fennesz

Lawrence English, Taylor Deupree, Xela at Art@12

Xela: black lazer echos in rusty warehouse, harmonic ghosts haunt drippy caves, tectonic plate shift, mouth of hell opens wide, crumbling apocalypse

Taylor Deupree: yellow leaf drone, gauzy uphill water, muffled papers shuffle, forest heartbeat, distant birds, suspended dust in a sunset lit attic

Lawrence English: eye of the tornado, glass bottles & cellar doors bash your skull, visceral static bliss, squawking puffins, waves crash, fucking loud as fuck

Xela


Taylor Deupree


Lawrence English

Linda Aubry Bullock - Ray Of Dark (Sedimental, 2010)

Linda Aubry Bullock (with MTB) - Line's Dead


The name Bullock gets tossed around here a lot. Michael T is a pretty cool dude, quite prolific. But his multi-talented wife, Linda Aubry Bullock, is an equally wondrous music maker and she's got a brand new disc on Sedimental of outstanding solo and collaborative works.

Ray Of Dark is 6 tracks totaling almost 50 minutes with 2 solo pieces, 2 with her husband (together as Rise Set Twilight), 1 with Eric Hardiman (of Rambutan/Tape Drift), and 1 with Ray Hare (of Fossils From The Sun). All 4 occasionally get together to play as Twilight Of The Century, and the first 4 tracks on Ray Of Dark are a direct reaction from one of their performances in Albany of '08. But even though this album is peppered with guests, their sound is never strong enough to dilute what is still thoroughly a Linda Aubry Bullock record.

The opener is the title track, one of the solo pieces, a perfect intro to Bullock's gritty post industrial mind. Tons of echoing & reverb, like a more chilling/less cheesy Jason Voorhees theme. People mumbling, chanting, yelling, and singing, the sounds of walking through an Arabian midnight market with electronic squawks, distant air raid sirens, creaking aluminum floorboards, & rusty buzz saws. I don't want to say that Bullock shows all her cards right in the beginning, but "Ray Of Dark" is crazy good and easily one of the best on the album. If you can get through that 11 minutes of awkward anxiety, you're a fucking champ and you'll make it to the end. Promise.

The rest of Ray is just a clusterfuck of cautious ambient doom. In every nook & cranny there's hidden terror & vertigo, each moment is paused in hesitation, waiting to raise your hackles, paranoid & filled with unnerving nausea. Of course, you're all alone while listening to this. In the dark of night, waiting for somebody to come home, clutch your cup of coffee and pull your knees closer to your chest. Crank it up, beware of "The Story Of Mike" and let the grinding engines permeate your walls & your bones.

Update: Apparently there was a little bit of confusion about the origin of some of the songs when I read the statement on Sedimental's site. Here's the factual shit straight from Mr. Bullock:

"...tracks 2, 3, and 4 were not composed by Linda, but they are all (like the title track) based on a live recording of Twilight of the Century, and they were all commissioned by Linda for this collection. So in addition to composing some of the music on the CD herself, she curated the rest of the album."

Also re: the title track: "Apparently the guy singing in the background is singing some famous French pop tune from the 70s" LOOOLL

Haiku Review: Cheb Samdoun & The Iridescent Ensemble - Cheb Samdoun & The Iridescent Ensemble (Sunrise Acoustics, 2010)

Cheb Samdoun & The Iridescent Ensemble - Nobody Understands Music


Cheb Samdoun & The Iridescent Ensemble (download)
/air vibrates color/
/pluck & thrum drone expansion/
/suspended buzz, cheers/

Video: Oval - Ah!

Matthew Barney + Carnivàle + Black Swan + new Oval = legit awesomeness aka:

Chris Abrahams - Play Scar (Room40, 2010)

Chris Abrahams - Jelly Crown


Chris Abrahams is the pianist from The Necks. If you know The Necks, then you know how exciting a solo record from any of them is. And if you don't know The Necks then 1: get on that shit and 2: get into this shit. Play Scar is where it's at.

Abrahams' new solo outing is almost an hour's worth of gorgeous work that soars over the entire world of ambient textures. No two songs touch down in the same spot but it's all clearly rooted on one planet. The opener "There He Reclined" sets the mood with it's hazy organ & glitchy electronics, like a slow motion ocean of warmth. From there he explores the depths of minimal drone, reverbed guitar, long resonant tones, avant piano twinkling/smashing, delicate glitch, jangly bells, non-jazz, jet engine walls, static noise, echoing dub techno, fucking everything.

"Twig Blown" is the shortest track yet it's easily the most stunning. Up until that song, things have been semi-straightforward but then he drops this insane field recording glitch noise blowout with shuffling feet, squeaking balloons, and lonely piano, landing on a remote island of chaos. Of course the following track, "The Same Time," is an expansive pop-hymn-like organ piece with the curved FX pipes set to infinity. So so awesome.

The trick to listening to Play Scar is to chill the fuck out and be ready for anything. Nothing on here requires dancing or earplugs, just a healthy desire to be wowed by sounds. There is a master audio crafter at work, doing things I never would have imagined appropriate, and he makes it seem so goddamn cool. More Abrahams, please.

Metal Rouge, Sam Hamilton, Jane Austen, Rise Set Twilight at Starlab

Starlab: basement recording studio thing in the midst of Union Square junkyards, small, intimate, sweaty

Rise Set Twilight: husband/wife duo Michael T & Linda Aubry Bullock filling in for Animal Hospital at the last minute, homemade analog synth board + electric harp, underwater wind, ice cracking, mercury tones, FXed harp by way of distorted guitar

Jane Austen: blink and you missed it, elusive pop, quietest set in the history of live music, minimal plinking, electronics glitching, tape tweaking

Sam Hamilton: White Rainbow style beat drone sans third eye, deafening in comparison to previous Jane Austen set, guitar & electronics bloop & bliss, damn near danceable

Metal Rouge: wall of buzzing guitars stacked all the way up to heaven, rhythmic drums penetrated the walls, cultish chant moaning, as grandiose as that tiny room could handle, supreme drone psych euphoria

P.S. 4 out of 7 performers were female which is clearly some sort of record

More (and larger) photos on Flickr.

Rise Set Twilight




Jane Austen


Sam Hamilton



Metal Rouge

Kyle Bobby Dunn - Rural Route No. 2 (Standard Form, 2010)

Kyle Bobby Dunn - Dissonant Distances


Standard Form put out a limited edition 3" CD-R from the new master of minimal drone, Kyle Bobby Dunn. Only two songs, "Dissonant Distances" & "Senium III," but they're both around the 10 minute mark and are as gorgeous as can be. Of course "Dissonant Distances" has its moments of, well, dissonance, using a strange sort of muted industrial ambience. It's a bit more textured than his previous stuff, a little more static & crackle as opposed to smothered strings. Not what I was expecting and in a very awesome way.

The second track is the slow moving Stars Of The Lid style drone you've come to know & love. Soft, delicate, and smooth, anything but ambient background sounds. The layers of beauty suck you in & hypnotize you. Lovely tones emanating off the golden lakes in the clouds. Seriously special stuff.

I almost hope Dunn isn't going the route of Aidan Baker, putting out 30 releases every year because honestly, I can't do that with another artist who's this good. It's bound to either empty my wallet or put me in a deep funk knowing I can't have it all. Most likely the former.

Mike Bullock - Music For Cinema (YDLMIER, 2010)

Mike Bullock - Side A


Just for the record, this is the same contrabass hero Michael T. Bullock that I've written about before. This tape was released as "Mike Bullock" but I needed to make sure that you all knew this wasn't some new Mike who coincidentally had the same last name as another Mike I'm a fan of. Anyway, he's got a new tape out on YDLMIER and it's a little less sparse free jazz noise than usual and a bit heavier on the minimal drone. Which, of course, means I love the shit out of it.

Two side long pieces, the first a live track from Virginia in 2009. It starts out hushed and delicate, barely there high end lace drones fighting for air over the tape hiss. Very subtle, very beautiful. Slowly, an additional tone gets added here and there, creating a swirling shimmer effect that's still as quiet as can be. And then, just like that, the volume gets bumped up, and some distant muted deep engine rumbles perk up, eventually pushing the bliss out of the way, replacing it with a wash of gauzy static and stuttering machinery. Absolutely fantastic.

The B side is another beast entirely, sounding like it should actually be 3 different tracks. It opens with creaking & quaking, far away echos of heavy things being dragged across concrete floors, coupled with taps on the mic that makes me think it must be a field recording. Whistling wind and whispering moans fill the empty space for a bit until the organ comes in. God how I love organs. Bullock makes it somber & mournful, abrasive & gritty, at times the perfect foundation for a wall of harsh noise but never going that route, instead exploring its textures & letting it play with various bizarre companions.

Then something that can only be described as air scribbling comes in. I really have no idea what it is, how it's made, or even what to say about it. It just sounds fucking awesome.

The last few minutes are spent on a glitchy soundscape that I believe is crafted from "CD damage." Spacey static, scratching chaos, sonar blips, nothing I would ever expect to come from Bullock. But yet, here it is. Guy always catches me off guard. Like the closing moments with sounds of cicadas and an acoustic guitar loop. There's no WAY anyone saw that coming. And if you did, then go away because we can't be friends anymore.

Video: Noveller - Almost Alright

Noveller's (aka Sara Lipstate) new record Desert Fires is a sweet dusty dreamer filled with textured guitar drones made all by her lonesome. That kinda means I have to love it. But even so, it's objectively a damn fine record and the opening track, "Almost Alright," is a perfect example of the delicacies making up the album. The video is pretty low key, Lipstate playing in a dimly lit cave with an overlay of hand scratched & manipulated 16mm film.

She'll be stopping at It's A Gift in Union Square on September 4th with Animal Hospital and unFact, which is obviously going to be a killer fucking show. So make sure you go.

7 Hours, 53 Minutes Of Vacuum Cleaner Sounds

SO MANY QUESTIONS. Did someone actually record 7 hours and 53 minutes of vacuum cleaner sounds? Did they go deaf? Did they just set up a mic and walk away? How much money was wasted on electricity? Has anyone listened to the entire thing? If somebody made these sounds in a different way (not using vacuum cleaners) and set it up as a sound installation and maybe even released it on a fat slab-o-wax, would you respect it any more than you do now?

via Immanent Discursivity / Noise For Airports

MP3: Aboombong - Daymare

Aboombong - Daymare


The dude who runs the Pen & Mallet blog is also a music-maker as Aboombong, and a damn good one at that. He's got a few "name your price" albums up on Bandcamp, but "Daymare" is from my particular favorite, Asynchronic. It's a super lush muted free jazz/post rock workout, chaotic enough to blend everything together into a homogeneous blur of skittering drums & intense guitar noodling. Well worth your time, and I highly recommend checking out the rest of his stuff.

Sun Boxes At Important Records

This has been in the planning and almost-happening stages for months. Every time they would set a day, it would get rained out, and I would get cranky. This is something where rain is more than just a gross, wet nuisance. It actually makes the Sun Boxes not work.

Sun Boxes are a creation of Craig Colorusso, which he installed at Important Records HQ for a one day affair. Each box is a solar powered speaker with a chip that emits a single guitar tone played by Colorusso. Very straightforward. There are no batteries, so when the sun fades, so does the music. There were 20 Sun Boxes, each with a different guitar loop that, according to Craig, would take about 7 months for all of the boxes to reach point zero again. That means walking through the boxes yields a new aural experience every time, even if you trace your previous path.


There was something magical about the Sun Boxes in that it seemed damn near impossible to pinpoint which sound was coming from which box. I could be sitting in front of one box and still not be able to tell what sound it was making. All of the boxes seemed to be fusing together under the sun, creating a single organic harmony that incorporated the surrounding sounds of trees rustling, overhead jets, and the nearby golf course.


The simple serene fun of walking through a field of drone boxes is nearly indescribable. It's just something that needs to be participated in on your own. Colorusso lives in the Boston area, but the Sun Boxes can be deployed anywhere, at any time (as long as it's not raining). So keep an eye out and maybe you'll spot one in the wild some day.

I shot a shitty video that does nothing to convey the experience, which you can see below, and there are more photos of the event on Flickr.

Spermwhales - Time Warp EP (self released, 2009)

Spermwhales - Time Warp


Spermwhales, the dude who crafted that burlap cased Endless Sea Of Clouds, has offered up a free 20 minute EP and it's glorious. It's a textured drone love affair with lots of water squiggles & warble glitches thrown over some unhindered hypno-drone. It sounds like The Snorks partying in a champagne ocean, or The Jetsons buzzing along in their aerocars during a golden sunset. So, obviously, there's no reason not to grab this.

André Foisy - After The Prophecy (Land Of Decay, 2010)

André Foisy - The Great Disappointment


I'm gonna be honest. The last thing I expected a solo project from one of the dudes from Locrian to sound like is looped string drone. But that's exactly what André Foisy's After The Prophecy tape is and it's fucking great. There's a catch though. There's only 2 songs, repeated on both the A & B sides, and one of the songs was previously released on a Twilight Luggage comp. So is it worth it? Come on guys, this is a Land Of Decay release. Of course it's fucking worth it!

The first (previously released) track, "The Great Disappointment," is a swirling medley of mandolins, violins, and guitars. Very hypnotic. The electric guitar buzzes along with a layer of feedback, lots of plucking, lots of chords, it's just a royal mess of harmony. It's over wayyy too soon but it sounds fucking grand.

Then comes the real bread winner, the 21 minute "Call To Clarion: Flee That Flood." Starts out with a Ty Braxton style guitar loop foundation, some Dirty Three drones come in, and then the resonant feedback breaks through. It's a dense blend and the layers just keep getting piled higher & higher, more feedback, some percussion, until about 10 minutes in, it falls apart into a FX glitch squall. This is some dark shit, let me tell you. The Locrian influence shines its evil horns. Even when it's just the lone dusty guitar towards the end, it's still unmistakably the work of a Locrian dude.

Locrian bends genres in the most interesting & beautiful way possible, so it only makes sense that this doom/noise/psych/ambient tape is from the hands of someone who has an intimate relationship with Locrian. But this isn't Locrian. It's André Foisy, with his own style and take on the drone side of things. But After The Prophecy is every bit as awesome as anything Locrian has done. Only 250 copies. Hurry your ass up.