
Implodes ::: Black Earth
Genre : Drone, Ambient, Experimental
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- Open the Door
- Marker
- White Window
- Screech Owl
- Oxblood
- Meadowlands
- Wendy
- Experiential Report
- Song for Fucking Damon II (Trap Door)
- Down Time
- Hands on the Rail
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Rather than stringing out drones from analogue synths, soft synths or field recordings, Concern’s Gordon Ashworth instead calls upon the services of various acoustic sound sources (clarinet, banjo, guitars, organs and more), all collaged together in an almost tangibly physical recording environment that seems a million miles away from the computer-dominated soundscapes this genre generally throws your way. It’s only the start of a very long journey (the album isn’t too far off maxing out the disc), but you might have trouble moving on from ‘Discrete Memorial’. It’s really quite wonderful; full of faults and dropouts, an introductory piano riff fires up in a stuttering loop, before languid woodwind tones join in. In theory this would all sound a bit derivative of William Basinski, but Ashworth ably asserts a very different voice on these pieces and certainly doesn’t adhere to any strictly repetitious loop-driven formula. Even on more conventionally drone-driven compositions like ‘Mending’ or ‘Leaving Gold’ there’s very evidently something special about those shimmering harmonics and endlessly sustaining strings; as much as the music itself, it’s to do with the production and the way the instruments dissolve into one another as Ashworth pieces the different elements together. Using both cassettes and quarter-inch tape, the album layers various crumbling stretches of acoustic sounds – perhaps never more adeptly than on the finely spliced ‘From Warmth And From Violence’ and its half-hour-plus follow-up ‘Immersed In Envy, Porous With Forgetfulness’, a formidable, slow-moving montage of ideas and sonic environments. Opening with ten minutes or so of dazzling metallic thrum, Ashworth goes on to pool sparse, untreated concrete sounds with overspilling harmonium chords to tremendous effect. Like Caesarian as a whole, it’s not easy to pinpoint precisely what it is about all this that distinguishes Concern as something special, but take a listen and it’ll soon become self-evident.
Ventricle is the latest album from Mike Cadoo's long dormant Dryft side-project. The album deviates from Cadoo's current main project Bitcrush just as previous Dryft efforts strayed from his previous group Gridlock. This time, however, it’s fair to describe Dryft as bearing more resemblance to Cadoo’s past than to any passing flirtation with fringe genres. Moreover, like a message in a bottle, it is as though all that Cadoo had failed to completely express through Gridlock had been stored away subconsciously and now, as Ventricle, that bottle has finally washed ashore. While Cadoo is the first to acknowledge the stylistic similarities between Ventricle and his contributions to Gridlock, he warns against making specific comparisons. This is new music. Caveats aside, the massive, enveloping drones and rusty clatter that anchored his former band are omnipresent. Powered by overdriven, symphonic walls of slowly evolving melodies matched with rhythms that recall the drum-n-bass of Cell (2000), the industrial battery of Gridlock and the jammed funk of his Mytotyc Exyt EP (2002), Ventricle is a true opus that offers revolution and retrospective in one. No matter the degree of hyperbole applied, the term “side-project” has never felt more out of place.
While Alien8 Recordings has had the pleasure of releasing three full-length albums by Aidan Baker’s ambient doom project Nadja, as well as his collaborative effort Fantasma Parastasie with Tim Hecker, this marks our first solo release with the artist.
Although we consider Liminoid/Lifeforms to be a solo effort, there are in fact no less than eight guest musicians helping out on the recording. These include Canadian noise legend Knurl (a.k.a. Alan Bloor) who has been released three times on Alien8 Recordings prior to this recording, as well as members of Arc, Picastro, Forest City Lovers and Whisper Room.
Liminoid is a composition for large ensemble exploring sonic immersion in drones and textures, rhythms and pulsations. Incorporating composed and improvised segments, the piece uses elongation of sound and layered polyphony in an attempt to create a liminal and/or numinous state. This recording of Liminoid is from its premier at The Music Gallery’s X-Avant Festival in Toronto, October 25, 2008. The piece features a powerful vocal performance with every member sharing the vocal duties. The lyrics have been adapted from 5th-8th century Coptic Christian texts and inspired by the book Ancient Christian Magic by by Marvin W. Meyer & Richard Smith.
The ensemble members for this performance were: Aidan Baker (guitar/voice), Clara Engel (guitar/voice), Nick Storring (cello/voice), Jakob Thiesen (drums/voice), Richard Baker (drums/voice), Tillman Lewis (cello/voice), Laura Bates (violin/voice) and Jonathan Demers (guitar/voice).
Lifeforms is a composition for strings, prepared/effected guitar, and amplified metal works. Likewise incorporating written and improvised material, the piece was originally commissioned and performed by The Penderecki Quartet in 2003. This recording was made in August 2008 at Commonwealth Studios in Toronto. The performers were: Aidan Baker (guitar), Nick Storring (cello), Mika Posen (violin) and Alan Bloor (metal works).
This recording has been both skillfully mixed from multiple recordings and mastered by James Plotkin.
Fabio Orsi has been steadily building his catalogue with releases on Students of Decay, Foxglove, Sentient Recognition Archive, A Silent Place, Students Of Decay, Low Point and Preservation. He makes his debut this week on Japan's Slow Flow Rec following excellent releases from Celer and Ian Hawgood. The audio comes in six parts and it's really doing the business for me. It's ultra soothing ambient/ drone of very high quality that just gets you in that zone. He composes using guitar, effects and old keyboards and creates a stirring and emotive sonic landscape. I think I've probably exhausted my vocabulary in terms of writing about this style so I'll spare the adjectives and give this a very high recommendation.
Another release?! Yes, my archive is filled to the brim with finished songs and projects: I might as well release some of them.
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