Barn Owl - Ancestral Star (Thrill Jockey, 2010)

Barn Owl - Light From The Mesa


Barn Owl is a name everyone probably knows. It's Evan Caminiti & Jon Porras, two dudes who have put out plenty of records all over the place, Root Strata, Digitalis, etc. Ancestral Star, however, is their Thrill Jockey debut, and it's a fucking knockout.

Most of this is pure guitar drone, with some extra piano, strings, harmonium, & bric-a-brac, and a little percussion or delicate plucking here & there. Just describing parts of a single animal, though. The drones are fucking HEAVY. Seriously. So so massive. Big enough to blast me into unconsciousness with three cups of coffee running through my veins. They're the hardened sun baked drones straight from rusty Californian deserts. Wide open dust caked steel, endlessly ringing through the black heart of daytime stars. Lonely, blissful, & dark, dreaming of a distant oasis with the weight of a dozen buffalo on your shoulders.

The real killer here is the 10 minute title track. It fucking burns, white hot feedback soaring through the empty sky, embarrassingly euphoric buzz & hum bleeding through the speakers, finishing with a wandering haunted cloud. Some of the best I've heard from Barn Owl.

Ancestral Star is unbelievably good. They're master crafts of the new American raga desert psych thing. Regardless if that's your style, this is meant for everybody. It's essential, it's fucking grand, and it'll simultaneously melt your heart & your face.

Video: Koen Holtkamp - Loosely Based On Bees (Excerpt)

Koen Holtkamp, half of the masterful field recording/drone duo Mountains, has a new solo record coming out on Thrill Jockey called Gravity/Bees. There'll be two side long tracks and this is a video of an excerpt for "Loosely Based On Bees," a blissful droney piece using the sounds of Philly bees. Honestly, I could use some more bee buzz on this song but who knows, it might show up somewhere else in the full track. This is shaping up to pack a hefty dose of awesome and if we're lucky, it might even be better than Holtkamp's last solo outing, Field Rituals. But at the very least it's getting the deluxe mini-LP treatment from TJ with a custom letter-pressed jacket and everything.

Video: Oval - Ah!

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

Oval - Oh (Thrill Jockey, 2010)

Oval - Hey removed by request
Oval - Ah! (label approved track from forthcoming full length, O)


Fuck, it's been long enough. Oh is Markus Popp's first new release as Oval in nearly 10 years, although it's not like I personally waited that long. As much as I'd like to say it, I wasn't so cool that I was listening to sweet glitch tunes in middle school. Sorry. But there are some who have waited that long. Let me assure you folks, your patience has been rewarded.

Thankfully, this is not the Oval you remember from 94 Diskont or Systemisch. This is 21st century Oval. The ever-innovating Oval. The Oval everyone loves.

Oh takes all of the laptop magic from previous Oval records and intensifies it, adds a generous helping of traditional instruments, and conjures an organic glitch unlike anything else out there. It's thrilling and brilliant and sounds pretty much exactly what you're hoping new Oval would sound like: eccentrically harmonious and pleasantly piercing. The textures are amazing. Seriously. There's so much going on it's infinitely re-listenable, much like Tortoise or old Oval (obv). This is something that is going to sound fucking killer on vinyl. And dropping just $10 on a limited 12" is a goddamn steal and a half.

However, I have one gripe.

Oh feels like a teaser, which I guess from a certain perspective it is. It's a 25 minute EP preceding a full length, so it's giving you a taste of what's to come. But it doesn't have the cohesion I was hoping for. There are 15 tracks, all but three of which are under the 2 minute mark. I get the feeling Popp was experimenting like a motherfucker, churned out some highly worthwhile tunes that sounded great, but maybe didn't fit the theme for the full length he had in mind. Don't get me wrong, it all sounds like Oval and it all sounds truly fucking great. But while it's an enjoyable listen, I feel like it's almost too much of a tease. I probably could've gone the extra 3 months without hearing anything from Oval just to experience the inevitable masterpiece of O that's to follow in September.

Haiku Review: Double Dagger - More (Thrill Jockey, 2009)

Double Dagger - The Lie/The Truth


Double Dagger
More
/daggers are awesome/
/double daggers, twice awesome/
/i want more daggers/