For more information on the artists and tracks in "For The Night Owls", see my relay of posts below:
Elegi - Varde
boomkat Wrote:Varde is a magnificent piece of work, transcending the conventions of the death ambient genre thanks to an extremely refined compositional approach - as haunting Nordic gloom goes this is right up there with the best output of Miasmah boss Svarte Greiner. Very highly recommended.
Purchase: Mp3 release
Elegi: MySpace
MIASMAH: Website
Muttley Wrote:Eight followers already!
Statto Wrote:Muttley Wrote:Eight followers already!
Make that nine. Cheers oplin!
Helios - Unomia
boomkat Wrote:âCullin Hillâ is the first of these moments on the album â tinkling piano sketches echoing in the distance, while âWest Orangeâ is a simply breathtaking display of classical composition dragged into stranger climes. As such âUnomiaâ has a split personality â veering from accomplished but ultimately safe electronic terrain to a wildly daring understatement of skill and heart-stopping musical ability. In other words â half this album is OK, the other half incredibly good. Buy now and start counting the days until the release of Keithâs mind-boggling, awesome piano-led, non-electronic album for the Type imprint towards the tail-end of this year. Lovely.
Purchase: CD
Helios:: MySpace
Helios unreleased: Purchase
Tear Ceremony - Emulsion
spiderbytes.com Wrote:Awash in liquid sound, "The Rain Still Falls On Christine Street"... which is paved with rough textures and layered with dense, shapeless air pockets, dissipating to reveal mysterious clatter.
"Emulsion" acts as a sonic will-o'-the-wisp, luring listeners into an unordinarily magical, and possibly somewhat ominous, environment of almost recognizable audioforms, then leaving them trapped within... which in this case, is not a bad thing. Enjoy your 45-minute stay in Tear Ceremony's phantastic soundworld; I did, to the tune of an 9.1.
Visit the Simulacra website where you may hear samples of these and other fine slices of experimental sonic beauty, and/or see our Sept. 1998 interview with Todd Gautreau.
Spiderbytes.com: full review
Ambience for the masses: Samples
Tear Ceremony: wikipedia
registered yesterday
now i have to think of something to blog about
Jon Hassell - Last Night The Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes In The Street
"For The Night Owls" was partly inspired by Low Light's "Shadows At Midnight", which includes cuts by Jon Hassell.
Purchase: CD
Jon Hassell: MySpace
ECM Records: Website
Piano Magic - The Troubled Sleep Of Piano Magic
Andy Kellman Wrote:After the Son de Mar score and the hapless Writers Without Homes, Piano Magic and 4AD split, much like a romantic relationship that probably made too much sense to truly benefit either party. Thankfully, Glen Johnson's group bounced right back -- it landed on Spain's Green UFOs label and quietly released this, its seventh album in as many years. One of the benefits of being a group with an ever-shifting lineup of semi-regular contributors and one-off collaborators is that it can take on a number of shapes and sizes; in this case, it takes on the version of the band that picks up right where Artists' Rifles left off. On Writers Without Homes, the songs seemed so labored over to a torturous extent that the feelings within them often came across as forced, even put on at times. One way or another, the sentiments here -- the familiar Piano Magic circuit of obsession, heartbreak, detachment, death -- strike sharply. One important factor is the return of Klima's Angele David-Guillou (see 2001's "I Came to Your Party Dressed as a Shadow"), who is the most expressive, complementary vocalist (neither twee nor overly dramatic) the group has counted as a member. The three songs featuring her on lead vocals are all central to the album, and they're also the most spare, whether the backdrops involve dexterously tangled acoustic guitars or heavily echoed throbs. She doesn't steal the whole show, however. Opener "Saint Marie" is one of several songs where Johnson takes the lead; beginning desolately, with nothing more than a voice, a sparingly plucked guitar, and the presence of open space, it winds itself up into a duel between spirals of fragile, Durutti Column-like guitar and a stuttering drum machine, which carries throughout the remainder of the song. If this should become the group's final album, as it has been intimated, Piano Magic went out in fine style. Come to think of it, this might be their best overall. Miserablism lives.
Download: Piano Magic on eMusic
Piano Magic: Website
Piano Magic: MySpace
how do I post to it?
Statto Wrote:
Sorry for not seeing this earlier; I was away
You will have mail very soon
ah right, no worries
Statto Wrote:ah right, no worries
Replied, and Stop 5 posted!
http://www.subvertcentral.blogspot.com
LAsymbolism Wrote:awesome!
Much thanks for your input
Stop 6 posted!
http://www.subvertcentral.blogspot.com
i can set up software here for you to do the blog from a subvertcentral.com domain
make it look more in tune with the forum theme too.
dig the logo btw
Mountains - Choral
thrilljockey.com Wrote:A love of sculpting sound in front of an audience is at the heart of Mountains. The group’s third album, Choral, (their first self-titled release and second album Sewn were both on Apestaartje), is the culmination of their work to date and a balanced mix of the first two efforts. Mountains is often compared to artists such as Brian Eno and Fennesz citing their extended melodies and their unique broad guitar work. Mountains seamlessly blend pastoral electronic sounds with both field recordings and a plethora of acoustic instruments. The resulting soundscapes are broad in scope and rich in detail. The effect is incredibly sublime and hypnotic as the sounds slowly wrap themselves around each other and alter themselves in the mind of the listener. Choral is a uniquely soothing and addicting listening experience and an aural crazy quilt: warm and inviting with many details to discover and explore.
Recorded by the duo entirely in the winter and spring of 2008 at home in Brooklyn, Choral is largely live and performed in real time, with only a few overdubs to create a more “choral” effect. The opening title-track carries the weight of a full orchestra gradually drawing their bows across a field of strings. The subtle undulations produce a warm blank canvas and create an impending sense of what’s to come. As the percolating electronic melodies creep into the track, they’re soon joined by field recordings, organ, electric piano, synthesizer, accordion and then later by the gentle strum of a guitar. This densely layered and textured song contains over 30 tracks of material. On the quiet and more guitar oriented “Map Table”, the band ‘play’ ice water and books by recording the sounds of them flipping through the pages. The calming “Telescope” actually features the sound of an intense thunderstorm recorded in the desert in Arizona. Guiding us through sonic peaks and valleys, the band takes us on a journey through their realm of experimentation, occasionally crossing over into psychedelic and kosmiche (Harmonia, Cluster, Popol Vuh) territory. Choral is the sound of an adventuresome duo, who is equally invested in melody and discovery.
Download: Mountains on eMusic
Purchase: CDs, MP3 and vinyl
Mountains: MySpace
posted
Goldfrapp - Felt Mountain
amazon.co.uk Wrote:You might expect the debut album from a woman who has collaborated extensively with Tricky and Orbital to be both wondrous and strange--and you'd be right to. What you might not expect is quite the depth of Alison Goldfrapp's beguiling, distracting 21st-Century noir visions on Felt Mountain. She and her fellow composer Will Gregory can mix in Brechtian cabaret, classical instrumentation, left-of-field electronics, decadent Gainsbourg-style French pop and the odd piece of whistling on just one track ("Felt Mountain"). "Oompa Radar" almost reaches Tom Waits heights of infamy, the way familiar instruments come together in such a simultaneously comforting and alienating style. The baroque "Paper Bag", meanwhile, uncannily recalls Joe Meek's toytown visions of 1960's grandeur. All this, and a seductive vocal to die for. --Everett True
Pilots: Video
Purchase: CD
Goldfrapp: MySpace
Quosp - Soundscapes 2
Muttley Wrote:Where we are stressed or upset, ambience can help us re-think what's causing our distress, perhaps to respond better or simply to put things in perspective. When I experienced my own problems with psychosis, "Soundscapes 1", by Colin Kay, aka Quosp was a CD companion of much gratitude. From the very outset, "Soundscapes 2" is transparent to all the right measurements. It's Quosp's second CD excursion, it contains twelve soundscapes, but to be contrary for the sake of clarity, this disc isn't his second best; it's right on par with the first.
The titles of Quosp's tracks touch on a wide range of subject matter, the common link being an object or shade in effect. "Ground" sounds like salt sprinkled over a tranquil lake, whereas "Pine" moves slowly like branches whistling in the wind. Throughout, there's a touchstone of nature becoming not just part of the package, but an undercurrent to warrant respect when listening. Much of this is the case with opener "Submerged", a seven minute exploration into dim-lighted synth oscillations, with an atmosphere like that of looking through an aquarium window in search of lifeforms in their prime, calmed of malevolence and the ill-fated hardships of natural selection.
This work is as spiritual as it is transportative. Transcending a triangle of drone, dub and techno rhythms, "Long Walk" asserts kindly to the notion that drone-orientated tracks spell a language that can take aeons to decrypt. If left too long, their cascading evocations can be hectoring on one's consciousness, taking us out of a comfort zone and resorting to pastiche over cosmic verse, bridge, and unspoken chorus; depersonalised cogs in a pressure cooker of societies' collective noise. Take "Ocean", with its shimmering harmonies and muffled choral stylings. Joined next to "Pi", which bends back and forth like a squat thrust on a trampoline, it's all tension and release turned into idyllic repetition - surely one reason why U-Cover signed this talented 19 year old in the first instance.
Much of the later work on the disc reverts to a continuity of sound / appreciation / love, like peeling an orange and relishing the juicy deposits all over again. Counterintuitively, I often listen to ambient music as a means of quiet meditation - the music is wholly liberated from a rigid structure, and lets the mind wander. Re-released from "Grassland Melodies", a split with Milieu on Rope Swing Cities, "Geihns" is without doubt the most structured thing he's ever done, generating a subtle flow of ideas and moving through arpeggiated aqua-funk with faster motion than before, activating contentment, not tainted solitude. In fact this could be lifted from an early 90s Aphex Twin CD-R - it's that good.
I may not have a knack for prophecy, but to my ears "Soundscapes 2" is a logical consequence of more hard graft from the Quosp household. It's living, high quality and vivid, and sometimes that's all you need. Roll on "Soundscapes 3".
Purchase: CD release
Quosp: MySpace
U-Cover: online store
you posted that already :P
Statto Wrote:you posted that already :P
Amended. :P
PJ Harvey & John Parish - A Woman A Man Walked By
Muttley Wrote:How do we cope with the days after a death, empty days, nothing left - not even a funeral? So asks Polly Jean Harvey at Oxford Brookes Union. By the time she takes to the stage, the venue is packed like a fever pitch football ground. Her songs career over thirteen years tonight. Accompanied by producer-cum guitarist John Parish, Harvey hits her stride early with "Black Hearted Love", their first track of her tour's most prominent merchandise, "A Woman A Man Walked By" collaboration LP, on Island Records. A squall of guitar feedback is met with lyrics of frozen redemption: "I'd like to take you, I'd like to take you to a place I know, my black hearted".
Three tracks in she drops pace for the cold-as-ice-floe "Rope Bridge Crossing", released in 1996. Soon after, "The Soldier" touches on contemporary chaos with considerable aplomb, allowing the audience to lose themselves in the performance with vigour. By "April", she's covering her nostrils to articulate voice, fashioning a package deal of a wise woman asking for her dues: "April, I see you leaving. I don't know what silence means. It could mean anything. Won't you answer me?" Manning the shakers and tambourine later in the show, she's ebullient and charmingly brash on "Pig Will Not", repeating the phrase "I will not" like a high school student on detention. On "Cracks In The Canvas" she's addictively melancholy, telling a tale of deserted love in a nursery-rhyme-catchy manner.
I'm sure "cracks in the canvas look like roads that never end" is a suitable metaphor to describe how Harvey's spirit has been limitless over the course of her fifteen years in the music industry. Sucking up seeds from punk, blues, jazz, folk and grunge, there's a raw, elastic energy to proceedings as she plants her gaze in different directions, rocking left to right as the backing band bubble like an egg timer on boil. It's the peppermint freshness of her delivery that sends the crowd skyrocketing in approval, a fine mixture of chuntering rhythm sections and velvety vocals putting up shop in the intimate Brookes. Harvey manages to all her credit, through a varied, intelligent and appreciative showcase of new album and 1996's "Dance Hall At Louse Point", to validate the fact that death is not the opposite of life, but part of it. Raising to the encore, her last words on closing piece "Freedom Fire" are a great sign that humility is there when we need it most: "This track I asked John to play because I like it very much". Equally as enigmatic on the couch as it was live, "A Man A Woman Walked By" comes highly recommended by this reviewer.
PJ Harvey: Official website
Purchase: CD
PJ Harvey: MySpace
Kosheen - Kokopelli
amazon.co.uk Wrote:Kokopelli is a curious choice as the follow-up to Kosheen's debut album (Resist). Where, on Resist, they made plain their Bristol heritage with their emotive take on dance, here they let slip a previously unexpected affection for goth rock. Gone are the urgent breakbeats and surging choruses; replaced by metallic guitars, desolate melodies and smothering melancholy of the kind that Evanescence or Skin rejoice at. And while the leap from brooding dance to brooding metal isn't the biggest, in the process they've lost one of their greatest assets: the ability to make emotionally wrought songs out of drum & bass. Thankfully then, their other key feature, singer Sian Evans' haunting, folk-hued vocals, remain just as potent and affecting. More than equipped with the drama and longing needed to pull off their transformation, she brings alive "Wasting My Time"'s tech-metal, adds substance to the FM-radio thrust of single "All in Head" and breathes an air of malevolence into "Avalanche" and "Wish"'s murky Depeche Mode synths. So even if Kosheen aren't quite the unique entity they once were, they're still easy to pick out of the crowd. --Dan Gennoe
Purchase: CD
Kosheen: Official website
Kosheen: MySpace
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