Tag Results
496 posts tagged xs
Stellar Om Source
Joy One Mile
RVNG International
The solo project of Christelle Gualdi, Stellar OM Source is one of the myriad outfits that grew out of the OPN/Emeralds/Ferraro axis, the “zeitgeist of artists trending away from their noisy roots via polyphonic escapism,” as the press release tells us. “Joy One Mile” is Gualdi’s first album for RVNG and orients itself around the recognizable bass synthesis of the famous Roland TB-303. “Polarity” opens the album and pulls no punches, with arpeggiations and sprightly drums orbiting TB-303 rhythms. Later, “Trackers” unfurls itself from of a web of cycling digital synth tones, reaching a frenetic, dancefloor-ready pitch. Ultimately, “Joy One Mile” does not surprise or innovate, but rather offers up a cohesive and well-crafted set of songs that will appeal to fans of the aforementioned artists as well as devotees of RVNG’s diverse yet coherent catalog. - Alex Cobb, Experimedia
Cristal
Homegoing
Hand Held Recordings
Apt timing for this reissue originally from 2010, Cristal warps the despondent frequencies of The Haxan Cloack and the grit and humanity of Barn Owl into a threatening and all-consuming axis of sound. Lead by former Labradford and Aix Em Klemm member R. Donne, Cristal utilizes the same emotional impact of his previous outfits, but in a much more abstract and noisy patina, often shrouding instruments in destructive distortion and blackened reverb. ”Dead Bird,” the album’s unquestioned epic at nearly 11 minutes, is pure textural delight, freely accumulating gleaming tones, cymbal frequencies, and whizzing electronic loops into a lumbering composition. It has the reach of post-rock, but the instrumentation of a laptop ensemble perpetually reconfiguring and processing unknown sources. Illuminating an album that deserves many more listeners, “Homegoing” is truly a deserving reissue. – Ryan Potts, Experimedia
Deceh / Total Life
Split
Important
Total Life is at it again on this Important Records split: sawtooth synths and tremolo waves rise, crash, and recede in the time frame of about one second, over and over again. It feels like you’re listening to a beam of light perpetually reaching for an infinite horizon. It doesn’t differ greatly from his early 2013 release “Bender/Drifter” or his forthcoming “Radiator,” but it doesn’t need to. Deceh, in three movements, contributes a track that is thinner, but more varied than the flip side. ”Thrive Outside Economy” uses shruti box, Hammond organ, upright double bass, and modular synthesizer to form tight, harmonic drones that are content to drift and pulse in a manipulated timbre. Both projects are luxuriant and built for ceaseless durations. – Ryan Potts, Experimedia
FROM THE ARCHIVES// Caribou remains a common name in the indie rock world, but the album that appeared under Dan Snaith’s former moniker – Manitoba – remains a hallmark pop album of any stripe from the last ten years. ”Up In Flames” condensed the imagination and timelessness of some of the best leftfield songwriters in recorded music, from Brian Wilson and Can to My Bloody Valentine and The Flaming Lips, while synthesizing them in a convincing 21st century fashion. Snaith defied expectations with “Up In Flames” upon its release and the album continues to enchant ears to this day with its swirling pop mastery of psychedelic touches, swelling instrumentation, and clear-eyed pop melodies that could win listeners over in any era. To my ears, not much comes close to the bell-laden majesty of “Crayon,” the blissful dream-pop of “Jacknuggeted,” and the winding, jazz-inflected rave ups of “Bijoux.” – Ryan Potts, Experimedia
Terminal Sound System
A Sun Spinning Backwards
Denovali
For a musician who was once backed by Relapse Records, Skye Klein fits a remarkable amount of non-doom material into his Terminal Sound System project – languid string drones, vocoder-drenched vocals, bright piano plucks, and twitching arpeggios among them. Overall “A Sun Spinning Backwards” holds a tense space-rock feel, but interestingly the songs are often built on robust percussive patterns and not dreamy guitar lines. This creates a tense atmosphere while allowing Klein to play with irregular structures and non-linear build ups, often taking unexpected turns to reach thrilling conclusions. ”Oceans” illuminates this approach perfectly with a simmering, drum-led energy crashing to a halt before an unlikely coda erupts with Black Sabbath-worthy guitar figures. – Ryan Potts, Experimedia
This weeks shop update of new arrivals and restocks.
Various Artists
The Black Ideal
Unknown Precept
The inaugural release from the Unknown Precept label, this France-based entity has done an admirable job of assembling like-minded artists that imaginatively criss cross between techno, drone, and analog experimentation. Ancient Methods begins the extensive four sides of vinyl with a noise-encrusted synth drift, adequately laying the darkened foundation for an album entitled “The Black Ideal” that the subsequent seven artists will build upon. Many variations on the same theme appear: choral ambience atop a 4/4 pulse (Saaad), a seething current of drone (Shifted), and shuddering layers of violent beats (Violetshaped). Cohesive without being redundant, all the involved musicians subscribe and fulfill “The Black Ideal.” - Ryan Potts, Experimedia
Yet again, “Xenon District” is a vehicle for Panabrite (Norm Chambers) to show off his unique and rarefied take on sci-fi tendencies that manages to tap into the collective imagination of other worlds in far away places without a hint of cliche. It’s a talent that has led him to create a string of finely honed albums on a number of reputable labels – Digitalis, Preservation, Aguirre, etc – with an approach that swirls and contorts synthesizer figures toward the infinite. It’s not pure astral ambience, however, as bulk of the material on “Xenon District” is pinned to IDM-like beats and analog arpeggios, allowing the music to be palatable even as it seems to drift through an unknown universe. Throughout the C42 cassette Panabrite is also able to harness pure melody just as much as gleaming drones, making “Xenon District” multi-faceted in a way that synth-based albums rarely are. – Ryan Potts, Experimedia
CO LA// “MAKE IT SLAY” (SOFTWARE)
Crisp, downtempo electronic pop. From the album “Moody Coup.” Video by Andrew Strasser. Available now.
Various Artists
Vernacular
Whereabouts
One word was given to the 15 artists who appear on Whereabout’s new compilation: “Vernacular,” the title of the release. ”Originally, music existed in each region’s inherent culture, in accordance with the character of the location,” writes Yui Onodera, who produced the compilation, and it was his goal to have each musician transcribe in sound their unique relationship with their home country. It’s hard to say, for example, if you can hear Argentina in Federico Durand’s looping guitar cuts or Itay in Tu M”s piano manipulations, but most tracks do place wisps and ephemera of field recordings into the mix. This gives an implicit evocation of place, one that hints at it in obscured gestures, challenging you to listen harder and longer. More than anything, though, the incredible reach of experimental music is on display with “Vernacular,” attaining memorable heights with the diaphanous curls of droning electronics by Dale Lloyd, raw and modern musique concrete by Yves De Mey, and glassy piano motifs by Kenneth Kirschner. – Ryan Potts, Experimedia
Wrekmeister Harmonies
You’ve Always Meant So Much To Me
Thrill Jockey
Despite the ironic name, the Thrill Jockey debut from Wrekmeister Harmonies is a deadly serious affair that drags the intensity of metal closer to the textural richness of an orchestra. JR Robinson’s project is unquestionably not the first to aim at such an intersection, but it is one of the most convincing, accomplishing the feat with confidence, dexterity, and profound vision. ”You’ve Always Meant So Much to Me” is a single 38 minute track that splits itself into two sides of vinyl and is built from an ensemble of Chicago-based experimental and metal musicians that contribute cello, harmonium, electronics, and harp. To be sure, not the most “metal” of instrumentation, but all that will change. The first half of “You’ve Always Meant So Much to Me” is decidedly drone-oriented, beginning with minimalist ribbons of electronics and saxophone accompaniment before blossoming into a luminous tone cloud that is thick, dense, and jaw droppingly beautiful. At 23 minutes in, though, the whole thing seamlessly and unexpectedly tears itself to shreds with cavernous vocal shrieks and guttural blasts of doom-laden distortion. It returns to a somber ensemble drone at the album’s close, but everything is different, including yourself, after just listening to a thoroughly remarkable and devastating album. – Ryan Potts, Experimedia
Hey Colossus
Cuckoo Live Life Like a Cuckoo
MIE
The blackened anguish and intensity of the first Swans releases can’t be matched by many, but London/Somerset 8-piece Hey Colossus manage just that. With throat-shredding vocals and guitars spewing massive, sludgy distortion, “Cuckoo Live Life Like a Cuckoo” hits on a primal level like few metal-inclined releases can. Yet, there’s almost always something unexpected and atypical around the corner. Hey Colossus frequently smear their overdriven songs in drifting, dreamy electronics that orbit around the scuzz and stoner rock distortion like an apprehensive satellite. Most surprising, however, is the 10 minute epic “How To Tell Time With Jesus.” The track is like an abstract take on post-rock, with tendrils of clean guitar and an unpredictable structure that finally implodes in the final minute. Overall, “Cuckoo Live Life Like a Cuckoo” is an impressive statement that hits on a number of rock, noise, experimental, and metal trademarks with aplomb. – Ryan Potts, Experimedia
Nicholas Szczepanik
Entre los Árboles
Self Released
Sound artist Nicholas Szczepanik himself admonishes the idea that “Entre los Árboles” is a new full-length work, instead labeling it as a “long-form drone in minimalist fashion.” Still, at 47 minutes, it is a statement by a musician who finds himself in a contemplative, streamlined mode. Instrumentation is all but indefinable – it could be digital time-stretching or a synth set to hypnosis. But it hardly even matters as the drone hovers in the air, refracts light, and seemingly changes the angles of the room to be smooth and gliding contours. It’s a slowly modulating stream of sound that never climaxes or decays. On the contrary, it spread towards infinity like some horizon that will never be reached or even properly defined. – Ryan Potts, Experimedia
Keith Fullerton Whitman
Antithesis
Kranky
FROM THE ARCHIVES// Finally brought back to life, “Antithesis” contains some of the earliest work we have under Keith Fullerton Whitman’s own name. Originally issued in 2004, some of the pieces were recorded a full decade before that and the album is very much a precedent for what was to follow: glowing guitar drones, erratic field recordings, and delay experiments. Of course, computers and electronics are conspicuously absent with most of the recordings being organic in origin, steeped in amplifier hiss, tape bounces, and microphone placements. ”Antithesis” is not just rewarding for archival purposes and it contains some awe-inspiring music, particularly the highlight “Twin Guitar Rhodes Viola Drone (For La Monte Young).” The dedication speaks to Whitman’s impetus on the track, but it’s not nearly as static as it might imply, with positively radiant viola lines underpinning patient Rhodes melodies. Guitars feed back, harmonies lie between consonance and dissonance, and the whole thing spins into an impressively thick textural delight. – Ryan Potts, Experimedia
When Digitalis issued Discoverer’s “Tunnels” in late 2012, I championed it for turning the cosmic soundscapes of Tangerine Dream into something that was palatable and pop-minded – seemingly going against the grain of most contemporary synth musicians. However, “Mind Deco,” Brandon Knocke’s newest cassette for his Discoverer moniker, does away with songcraft almost entirely, fully embracing wobbly, skyward-gazing synthesizer instrumentals. Grooves and bubbling rhythms still pop up and exert themselves, but “Mind Deco” is content to drone and drift through neon-clad atmospherics and new age tropes with a confidence not many have. – Ryan Potts, Experimedia
