Sneak peak from my upcoming full-length CD due out later this year on the stellar Slow Flow Records label out of Japan. Photo by Dani Long.
“Clear Air” appears on ryonkt’s Past Memory and Image full length, due out later this month in an edition of 150. Ordering info will be posted in the next week or so.
I thought I’d give you guys a sneak peak at the artwork for the “Within Mirrors” DVD, which is presently being authored by Spencer Yeh, slated for release sometime in March if all goes according to plan. We still have a few of the special editions (which includes a bonus 3″ of music by Jefre) available; contact me if you’re interested. For those who might have missed it, clips of some of the films may be found here. Thanks again to all the pre-orderers!
En is a relatively new duo comprised of San Francisco musicians Maxwell August Croy (Root Strata) and James Devane (Bremsstrahlung). The pair have been hard at work for some time now crafting their debut album, due out on Root Strata later this year. “Mother of Thousands” offers a peak into the duo’s sound, in which all manner of bowed strings are run through various custom processing systems and filters to yield a surging, resplendent ur-drone that is rife with brilliant detail. Be sure to also check out James’ superb debut solo offering, available for free download via the Bremsstrahlung site linked above.
Some of you may have noticed that SOD splash page now redirects you here. In short, due to a recent computer crash and losing much software (and music), I’ll be operating the label from here now, in conjunction with the blog. There will be individual pages for each release and such added in the next few days. Hopefully this will mean a more frequently updated site and a better all around interface.
In label news, Asuna + Opitope’s “Sunroom” is due back from the plant any day now, pre-orderers will get copies first, then I’ll be making it available to purchase again here. Due out at the same time is a new ryonkt full-length disc entitled “Past Memory and Image.” It is, in my mind, the best of his recent offerings, a mix of crystalline drones and pulses, also featuring a wondrous Celer remix. The Cantu/Clipson “Within Mirrors” DVD will be going into production within the month, with a targeted release date of late March. Thanks to pre-orderers for your support of the release; it will be well worth the wait!
UK folks, check out Emily Porsch’s stunning “Birchwood Series” exhibit. Emily is a wonderful photographer (and sound artist), concerned principally with natural decay and the way it can be made to interact with both visual and aural works. Some of the images from this series will be featured as album art for the upcoming Taiga Remains retrospective CD on Phaserprone. More info about Emily’s work here.
“Fountain” is the debut solo album by San Francisco multi-instrumentalist and Tarentel member Danny Grody, and is a splendid initial public offering indeed. Grody’s compositions are primarily guitar based, with languid finger-picked melodies rippling over one another, occasionally imbued with sounds from other sources, such as keyboards, bowed strings, location recordings and melodica.
The record begins with “Dawn,” a short piece in which reverent acoustic guitar chords are afforded the space to ring out and decay before fading into what is perhaps my favorite track, the beautiful, pastoral “Four Years.” Grody’s playing here is particularly exquisite, as he develops an evocative, joyous theme which remains adrift in my ears long after the piece’s final note is plucked. “Well Wisher” is similar in construction but considerably more plaintive, as slow clusters of picked notes flicker and fade, augmented by a subtle, ghostly chiming.
On “Hungry/Haunted,” Grody situates the listener in front of a window on a rainy morning, as field recordings cast a veritable patina of nostalgia onto the devotional guitar melodies which accompany them. The album’s longest track, “Eve,” finds Grody merging mantra-like guitar figures with coiling, droning wisps of sound. It feels like the record’s apex, synthesizing in one long piece the various melodic and textural elements which cohere so well throughout the album’s duration. It is a peak that is buttressed by beautiful, sparse acoustic guitar pieces, the eponymous track and “Night Blooms.”
“Fountain” feels like an album that’s been long in coming. Grody’s playing is assured, focused and completely engrossing. I’d be remiss also if I didn’t mention the simply superb mastering job done by Greg Davis. This is wonderful, life affirming stuff, and an early entry in my barely nascent best of 2010 list (my god, this already?). Out January 15 (ish) on the always impeccable Root Strata. Clips and such available here.
I’m sure I’m missing a handful, but here are some records that stood out for me in 2009.
Heather Woods Broderick: “From the Ground” (Preservation)
Mountains: “Etching” (Thrill Jockey)
Celer: “Close Proximity and the Unhindered Care-all” (SRA)
Andrew Chalk: “The Cable House” (Faraway Press)
Richard Skelton: “Landings” (Type)
Solo Andata: “Solo Andata” (12k)
Jim O’Rourke: “The Visitor” (Drag City)
Bryter Layter: “Imprinted Season” (Arbor)
Rameses III: “I Could Not Love You More” (Type)
Barn Owl: “The Conjurer” (Root Strata)
Woods: “Songs of Shame” (Woodsist)
Monolake: “Silence” (Imbalance Computer Music)
Grizzly Bear: “Veckatimest” (Warp)
Peter Wright: “An Angel Fell Where the Kestrels Hover” (Spekk)
Billy Gomberg: “Comme” (mOAR)
Gareth Dickson: “Collected Recordings” (Drifting Falling)
Pillowdiver: “Sleeping Pills” (12k)
Alva Noto: “Xerrox Vol. 2″ (Raster-Noton)
Concern: “Truth and Distance” (Digitalis)
Black to Comm: “Alphabet 1968″ (Type)
Washed Out: “High Times” (Mirror Universe Tapes)
Chihei Hatakeyama: “August” (Under the Spire)
Aquarelle: “Slow Circles” (rest + noise)
Richard Youngs: “Under Stellar Stream” (Jagjaguwar)
Le Lendamain: “Fires” (Home Normal)
Tiny Vipers: “Life on Earth” (Sub Pop)
Yui Onodera and the Beautiful Schizophonic:”Radiance” (Basses Frequencies)
Corey Fuller: “Seas Between” (Dragon’s Eye Recordings)
Chubby Wolf: “L’Histoire” (Gears of Sand)
Meso Meso: “Spoon” (Yacca)
Darwinsbitch: “Ore” (Digitalis)
Aquarelle is Minnesota’s Ryan Potts and “Slow Circles” is his debut full-length CD, published on the rest + noise imprint, of which he is co-proprietor. Potts spent several years sculpting the album’s five tracks, and his diligence and commitment to the recordings shows. Sonically, the album is a mix of heavily processed guitars/keyboards and electronically treated field recordings, a description which, at this point, hardly serves to distinguish the sounds contained therein from a myriad of other offerings which surface in the drone/ambient/sound art sphere every month. That being said, “Slow Circles” is, in my mind, one of 2009’s finest albums.
“Brill” opens the record, a filtered acoustic guitar strum ringing out for several moments before opening up into some melodic phrasings that are buffered by and, ultimately, submerged in a haze of sifting, chiming drones. There is a wonderful rhythmic sensibility to Potts’s compositions that is found throughout the record, even in its densest spots, such as in the sublime “Everything Changes Into Itself.” “In Days of Rust,” the album’s final track, is perhaps my favorite. Beginning as a humming, fluttering bed of ethereal tones, Potts’s deft hand crafts an intricate web of tonal activity in which huge, fuzzy washes of sound heave and surge before falling away in cinematic denouement.
I’d be remiss if I failed to mention the wonderful packaging which Potts/rest + noise put together for the release. The disc is housed with several photo prints (a make-your-own cover job, if you will) in an opaque envelope that is sealed with wax. Lovely. Don’t miss this one, it’s available here.
Aquarelle: “Everything Changes Into Itself”
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