[choice pick] Terry Fox - Culvert

UbuWeb posted a link earlier this week of what is (presumably) the C side of a 2LP of 2008, John Cage/Terry Fox - HighFidelity. I had the pleasure of finishing the gatefold sleeves of the to 1000 copies limited remastered recordings of some rather experimental recording sessions in the middle of a lake. The album contained one vinyl of John Cage material and one with Terry Fox material, entitled Mureau. Copies were hard to come by so the link hunting continues for the rest of the release. Some outtakes from the gatefold can be found here.

The recordings and catalogue were released in conjunction with the exhibition HIGH FIDELITY Artists' Records in the Marzona Collection.

Mureau was originally released as a cassette on Edition S Press (S Press Tape No. 14). It was recorded at the S-Press studio in Hattingen, Germany, on October 3, 1972.
Culvert was a 24 hour performance, with Bootz Hubbard and Bill Gilbert participating the 1st two hours. It was recorded at Clark Fork River, Missoula, Montana, USA, 1977. -discogs

Direct link Culvert (via UbuWeb).

The Mars Volta @ Rock Werchter 2009

Apparently Lady Linn is more important than The Mars Volta, which I find rather disturbing, so it's only the first half hour of their set. But it's in a decent quality so here it is... The Mars Volta @ Werchter '09.



download

It May Never End - Such is Life

4/10

It May Never End is the one-man project of a former DJ/Producer with an interest for dance and club music. After his adventures on the UK scene, he was struck by the post-rock genre - realizing the startling potential of this niche. An old love for the guitar was rekindled, and Such is Life is the result of that new found creative outlet.

The seven-track debut is obviously inspired by the usual suspects - This Will Destroy Mono in the Sky would be a band name suggestion that captures It May Never End's sonic pallette perfectly. With a plethora of similar bands aiming for their place in the spotlight of this crowded, global scene, the criteria for success come down to the finer details of the release. The performance, production, originality and creativity - even packaging - all make an album stand out from the pack. All of the pieces need to fit perfectly before an album or band can rise up to the level of greatness where it can be worthy of a score that leads the curve rather than following it.

It May Never End's debut material tells us that most of the basics are covered; the combination of the downright ambient with post-rock structures and climaxes is well spread over the album. There is a notable potential in the music as such, but the manner in which it is presented is one that recalls a recording in a rehearsal room with one microphone and a tapedeck. This can have a certain charm or romantic flair to it, but for a full length album, it doesn't work.

This is where the album offers plenty of room for improvement. As if somehow the mid-range sonic spectrum wasn't fully present on the release, most of the aural space is made up out of low and high frequencies. As a result, most of the bass and deeper background form a mismatched whole with the abundance of high range of frequencies. The middle range, and thus most of the guitar and rhythm, is lost in the poor mastering.

It's a shame that this artist doesn't get the chance to offer the complete picture of his music on this album. Most of the post-rock touch gets lost through the absence of it's frequencies, but when the ambient work takes center stage, the mixing issues tend to fade away. This can only spark a hope that IMNE's next effort will address this concern and push itself to the other side of the scoring curve. Who knows, perhaps the skill formed by working in electronica can make this project a leader in its niche. If you're the kind of person that likes the promise of what could be (in the form of a free download!), this is one to spend your bandwith on.


written for and published by The Silent Ballet
It May Never End Myspace
download Such Is Life

"11 songs to drown to" - a múm mixtape

As surprising of a listen it initially is, as it turns weird and creepy towards the middle. Some nice hidden gems and great closing for not just your average mixtape.



"11 songs to drown to" - a múm mixtape by seaninsound

I usually make mixtapes to go running or if I am driving somewhere or if I want people to dance, but none of this sounds really romantic enough for a feature such as this. So I am going all in. A tape for those who are about to drown, is quite dramatic and will suit this occasion fine.


Elvis Presley - Blue Moon - Without a hope in my heart, without a love of my own. Along with Wicked Game, this was the single most inspiring song for our new album. I once played it 19 times straight in a row.

Slowblow - Brothers in arms - The most beautiful cover of Dire Straits you will ever find. It's as slow as a tape recorder made out of lava

S & E - Les Fleurs Sont Des Bonnes Auditrices - Looped ghosts voices from Finland.

múm - the Last shapes of never - I have no choice to put this song on the mix tape, since it is pretty much about drowning in a lake.

Johnny Poo - Tunglið (and reversed) This icelandic child-star/prodigy decided to release this song backwards for some reason. This is the song I use for my alarm clock so I wake up to it every morning. But since it is backwards, I decided to have it twice on the mixtape once backwards and once forwards. It's eery both ways. The title means "the Moon."

Lost in Hildurness - Aether - A beautiful track of our very own Hildurs, or Lost in Hildurness' solo album called Without Sinking. Intense beautiness and her father is even playing clarinet on this track.

Moondog - All is Loneliness - The loneliest song of all time, it's like suddenly going blind and deaf.

Yma Sumac - Magenta Mountain - A majestic vocal landscape-drama by the peruvian princess.

Delia Derbyshire & Barry Bermange - Dreams part 4: Sea - This mixtape is has already been going quite creepy on top of being dramatic, so why not go all the way. Delia Derbyshare scored this collage of people describing their dreams of the sea and being underwater, collected and put together by Barry Bermage for the BBC in 1964. What raises my hairs is that for some reason most of these dreams seem to be about drowning.

Perry Como - Sunrise Sunset - Why not? Perry Como?

Suicide - Dream baby dream - Well, this is probably the best ending song for any mixtape and will hopefully be the last song I will ever hear.

A Picture For The Anger

Returning a favor to Tomas Halberstad for sending me his album The Anger illustrated with 1/6 of a painting. Each country to mail him for it get's one copy, each containing a piece of a painting. The album itself was a breezy piece of energy pumping electronica and vocals that make for a solid combination that went perfect with the heat these days. It grabbed me and got me moving again.

Get it here if you're country isn't claimed yet.


TomasHalberstad.com/


Thanks to Ralph for taking the actual photo after I had set-up the shot.

Photek - 1997 essential mix BBC 1

One of my first vinyl purchases back in the day included the 12" single of Photek's Modus Operandi, one heck of a killer record that marked a time in the drum'n'bass scene. For me, the mid and late '90s where the best in the scene, dark introspectives of minimal yet powerful experiments in drum'n'bass breaks - soaking in intelligent ambient and soundscapes. A sound that defined the pre-2K madness where we wondered through our adolescence, trying to feed our craving for something new - now the grunge had died and post-rock was,'t even a genre yet.

Underground parties in basements of bars where only the local old folk hung by night, getting beer in the night-shop around the corner because stock was limited, trading obscure mixtapes we got of our shitty tapedecks... it had a romantic appeal to it that got lost in the abundance of todays digital offers.

Great was my joy when @ninjamixdump dropped a 2h mix-session of Photek, recorded in 1997 for the BBC's Radio 1 Essential Mix series. The first hour contains a bulk-load of classics from that time and then drops back to Goldie's epic lengthed 'Mother' topped of with some of Photek's close to flawless mix-in's.

This comes highly recommended!
Download Photek 1997 Essential Mix
Photek Myspace
Photek Productions website
Ninjamixdump @ Twitter
Ninjamixdump @ Tumblr


Title track of the Photek album Modus Operandi

Nihiling - M[e]iosis

7.5/10

In the past year, some big names of the current post-rock scene have been touring throughout Europe, most of them bringing local acts to open. And whenever the likes of Mono, 65daysofstatic, Caspian, and other respected names in the community appeared in Germany, chances are great the German outfit Nihiling warmed up the welcoming crowd. It is an ideal situation for a young band to promote their new full length album to an audience they'd most likely be part of if they hadn't been in the sextet.

M[e]iosis brings together elements of slightly psychedelic downtempo (ambient if you will) intermezzos with what the kids these days regard as progressive rock, offering a mixture of blissful and edgy soundscapes. Although their essential song structure of intro-chorus-instrumental bridge-climax-outro recalls Oceansize and other Porcupine Tree flavored acts - especially taking into account the solid production - is not groundbreaking, it claims the listener's attention with its engaging, upbeat passages and holds it during their darkest moments of shredding guitars.

Unlike some of their competition in the field of the aforementioned bands, Nihiling easily steps out of their shade. The strength of the band is to be found in the profound balance between its metronome-like engine found in the nod-inducing drum work, the engaging lead and rhythm guitar, and well-placed layers of subtle sonic palette changes and production rendering. The added bonus of more classical instrumentation like piano and a string section every now and then, along with a female bass player who is responsible for weaving in some delightful hoarse and unabashed vocals strengthens the album's core, preventing the onset of boredom. In contrast with the majority of the release, the vocals stylishly scream out all of the tension built up over the past fifty minutes, reaching for the listener's spine and gently stroking it throughout the climax of this astonishing blend of pseudo-screamo and floating ambient post-rock.

Considering their relatively young age, it astonishing to hear such maturity and commitment to an album. With the support of a broad local base of listeners, it's only a matter of time and perseverance before the rest of the world will fall in love with Nihiling's brand of open(minded) post-rock.


written for and published by The Silent Ballet
Nihiling myspace
Abandon Records

Album art TSB Volume XII: Het Machinaal Geweld Dreunde Onversaagbaar Verder...

Compilation 12 of The Silent Ballet featured my album art design and a bulk-load of interesting ambient and drone goodies. Check this link for a free download of the album and drop by The Silent Ballet of the Lost Children netlabel for more goodies.




Stream the compilation

Unidentified Sound Object - Inharmonicity

5.5/10

Silence and electro-acoustic noise are the main components in the three suites of experimental music by the Italian Unidentified Sound Object (aka U.S.O. Project). Packed in artwork depicting the charcoal remains of a post-apocalyptic city lies a one hour and one minute audio tour by Matteo Milani and Federico Placidi. Their shared passion in the collaborative strength of audio and video inspired them to paint a soundtrack on Selfish's cinematic compositions. The lateral working method reminds of the premise applied in the Qatsi Trilogy, only with the difference that the U.S.O. Project's effort lean more toward John Cage's infamous 4:33 approach.

Silence is the dominating presence in the opening suite of the release, and although there is a distinct absence of sound at times, inspiration was drawn from the avant-garde technique of worldizing - recording and re-recording samples in various surroundings while tweaking the setting of speakers and microphones - which results in a complex, three-dimensional canvas. The latent presence of silence stretches out as a vast plain, evolving to the blunted ambient that haunts the transition of the opening compositions. Draped over the audible nothingness are layers of sound-constructions sketching the warped outlines of the gradually developing narrative and its accompanying sonic scenery.

Once the audio tour enters the suburbs of Inharmonicity via the tones of "Invisible Words", the noise component's parameter starts to display spastic shifts in its pattern. Screeching feedback and strokes of distorted noise break through cracks of the eroding city walls, battering the listener's ears. The rampaging assault of crushed magnetic pulses will try to force you to shorten your visit in this crumbling city. Near the closing of the main suite, an escape route from the sonic violence is found. In a maze of reverb-filled chambers, the omnipresent battering noise is muffled and offers a well-deserved breather while the audio tour steadily eases into its closing movement.

As the trip through Inharmonicity comes to an end, the distinct presence of glitching noise suddenly forces itself to the forefront, like a noise-accumulating whirlwind on a clear sky, until nothing remains besides a massive, pulsating wall of sound. The bone-crushing, distorted layers filled with shapeshifting samples disappear as suddenly as they arose. All that remains are the aftershocks in the form of distant, resonating soundscapes.

The release offers a high contrast between types of minimal explorations - featuring both the smallest of glitches and ear-battering droning noise, challenging the listener. The narrative properties of Inharmonicity each have their appropriate position in an enjoyable, complex electro-acoustic massage. The only problem is that due to the accent on the contrast, most of the release is difficult to listen to at a consistent volume level. So before buying the album have a sneak peak at what the full DVD has to offer, and see if you find it worth a few bucks more.

Girl Running, teaser from the dvd 'InharmoniCity'.






written for and published by The Silent Ballet
Unidentified Sound Object website
stream Inharmonicity on Last.fm

Semiosis - Pictural

blurping on the Release of the Month: March 2009 article at The Silent Ballet... which was a strange month.

The divine Edgar Allen Poe once stated that when one is confronted with a vast amount of impressions screaming for our attention – like signboards with adverts – one tends to block out those that are (too) obvious. The mind sometimes works in mysterious ways, and in a month filled with great releases, mine kept wandering back to this Romanian collision of ambient post-rock and math rock. Semiosis is the combined effort of breakcore artist Candlestickmaker and Serban Ilicevici. On their maiden release, Pictural, they offer seven enjoyable tracks ranging from soothing ambient pieces to adrenaline pumping post-metal. Razor-sharp IDM and occasional bombastic drum samples lift the dreamy instrumental rock to epic sonic climaxes in this solid and sometimes surprising production. (Could the theremin be the new glockenspiel?) An ideal album to erase the memory of a gloomy winter and to make way for the uplifting melancholy of a spring dawn.

src

The album is available for free download here by the good people of Asiluum.com as well as a physical copy, but you can find out about artsy attached strings at the download page.


Written for and published by The Silent Ballet.
Semiosis myspace
Asiluum
Candlestickmaker myspace

The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble - 'Patra'

An advised piece of slowcore meets doom jazz by The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble.

Shock... there's some vocal goodness.
Make sure to check the bio._presspdf.pdf file in the zip-pack for a few links to tracks from their Mutations EP (check here for a review), which is also adviced and has some tasteful coverart by Seldon Hunt... it's all good.







TKDE vs Saint Vitus.
Roadburn and TKDE are giving away the cover version of the Vitus track 'Patra' as a tribute to the Saint Vitus reunion show at the Roadburn Festival on April 24th.

Download the track for free by clicking here. - tkde.net

Dreamsploitation - The Soft Focus Sound of Today

In the past 15 years, this reviewers ears have had the pleasure of being introduced to some of the most ingeniously sample-based albums -milestones if you will- such as DJ Shadow's Endtroducing and Amon Tobin's Bricolage and Permutation. The impact of this novice way to create albums proved to be immense although at the time their effort was mostly recognized only by critics and connoisseurs of the scene they where active in. Today, I have the pleasure to discus Dreamsploitation's sample-driven debut release The Soft Focus Sound of Today. Cunningly forming his moniker with a hint to the exploitation cinema genre, this brainchild of Canadian Chuck Blazevic got the name just right to describe his 'cut & paste' re-interpretation of orchestral melodic sounds of the 60s.

This 23 year old multi-instrumentalist, dj, composer, producer, record collector and guitarist of The Heavy Blinkers hailing from Nova Scotia didn't leave a rock unturned in his quest for the ideal soundbites for this album. Tapping into a wide range of audiosources such as film scores and foley recordings, obscure and forgotten vinyl releases as well as self recorded material and re-arranging, tweaking and most importantly using them in another context proves Dreamsploitation's intuition for the construction of a coherent composition. Build with more then merely a drumloop, a repetitive sample and a vocal line, The Soft Focus Sound of Today is a pleasant headrush of tiny samples constructed so that they form a blanket of Technicolour tints to crawl under and keep you warm. Like child playing with cutely bears under it's blanket, the unpredictability of this album is as surprising as it is coherent, no exuberant scratches but minimal shifts of creative playfulness.

Although scratch terms as scrible, flare and crab are slightly out of place when discussing The Soft Focus Sound of Today, this album contains quite some relish for the dj-skill junk. Samples looping in different measurements, cut up drumloops re-arranged on each passing keep a tempo in this album that will get to your sense of direction every now and then. The contrast of the Technicolour blanket of string and vocal samples and the unleashed drums don't allow much breathing space on the album, once the headspinning intro of the album is accompanied by it's groove, it's a one way ticket towards the end. Although there are several drumless and downtempo pieces, there's always the confronting, psychotic edge of Dreamsploitation's signature sound of. A sound filled with micro-samples, flowing yet always slightly abrupt.

And this is the greatest achievement -and perhaps in a way, flaw- of the album. Dreamsploitation lures you in his own sound universe right from the intro towards the end, and it's a brilliantly designed sound spectrum you'll discover. But in the end you're most likely not to be able to point out what catches your attention the most, what the thrills of the album where... The Soft Focus Sound of Today is much like a dream, an experience of memories viewed upon in a different, somewhat surreal way, something you want to remember in the morning when you wake up but most likely just end up wondering whole day what exactly happened... Dreamsploitation is not the new DJ Shadow or Amon Tobin, it's the third option; the new kid on the block that will amaze you and keep you wondering what will be next to come out of his absinthe fuelled sampler.




Website Dreamsploitation
Listen to The Soft Focus Sound of Today @ Last.fm
Dreamsploitation MySpace
Written for & published by The Silent Ballet webzine

Transit

Transit are four Belgian post-rocking ornithologists, Jeroen (guitar), Toon (bass), Koen (drums) and Nick (guitar), with a passion for nature, emotions and all kinds of music. This is more or less the essence of Transit; more words about them would just be tiresome; so they just hope you enjoy their music as much as they enjoy playing it!

I've seen this band play now three times and each time their music will fill up the room and suck you into their cinematic, slow coresque post-rock as if you've known them for years. I've rounded up some goodies of the band... enjoy.


Footage:

+30 min live set at the Ancienne Belgique, November 1st, 2007 during the 2nd Now_Series with 65DaysOfStatic, Apse, Creature With The Atom Brain, Liars, & Youthmovies


Downloads:

Transit - Harmattan
[LostChildren013] (August 1, 2006)
















Transit - Broadleaves vs Conifers
[LostChildren017] (December 1, 2006)





















Transit MySpace
Transit website
Lost Children Net Label

Sphericube - Jugda

Post-rock, once a term brought to live to label bands who where re-inventing the rock scene in a strange age -dominated by Generation X, the nineties. A first generation of post-rock bands took rock to an almost lost form of crafting music, free of sales figures, board room imposed attitudes and hipness. They inspired a whole new generation that was in need of guidance...
A second generation of bands charted the genre and spread the word about it's novice, this train is unstoppable! As time passed, the second generation drawed out the details of this new uncharted continent and provided a sturdy homebase for new explorers to follow in their predecessors footsteps. nowadays, a third generation of
post-rock explorers is surfacing and aim to amaze us with their crucible of influences that are no longer subjected to genres as we knew them. Sphericube is one of those third generation bands, their self-released debut Jugda is the map of their Slovenian settlement.



Most of the times when I listened to Jugda a slight cold shiver ran over my spine before the first minute was over. Plucked violin strings and delightfully reverbed guitars paving the way for a few raising hairs, hooks that sound more like faint bends made some intriguing, yet minimal, shifts that promised me that I was in for some skilled compositions. The drum suggested that I should tighten my laces, I would be in for a serious round of foot tapping. Then the minute was over... the singer wailed himself into Emergency Lane like a siren that rubbed more Thom Yorke in my face then Radiohead is capable of. Now, for the record Thom Yorke has some brilliant vocal chords, Radiohead has some beautiful tracks, but I've had it with their knock-off sound ever since OK Computer. This is the main issue I have with Jugda, every once in a while the shiver down my spine was provoked by my loathing of repetition. Despite my issues, I noticed my foot found his groove back and I decided to indulge myself in the extraordinary blend of wailing vocals and, what sounds like, a borrowed drum computer of Björk on a canvas of post-rocking melancholy with strokes of jazz.



read the full review
Sphericube Website
Sphericube Myspace
Download Jugda

Stellardrive - Omega Point

Guided by a narrative voice counting down for a space shuttle launch, Omega Point takes of with the smartly titled "Departure." At first I thought this was just too obvious and uninspired for an intro of an album, but I dare you to find another album like it. It's a simple concept - so simple that it actually becomes quite ingenious. A countdown is something we've all seen and heard before, and Stellardrive utilizes that collective memory to create a bond with its listeners. The dramatic tension dwelling in the background only emphasises this feeling of a certain subconscious connection to Stellardrive's sound.

Omega Point is not spectacularly innovative or something you're likely to put on if you want to brag about your latest purchase. However, it is a good, solid album ranging from post-rock and metal over math rock with some interesting approaches to the genre. The previously digitally-released material has a low threshold, suited for a broad audience even though the genre might not be your cup of tea. The artwork is, as ever, the ideal visual background for the music and surely the fans of Stellardrive don't want to miss out an this beauty.

read the full review
Stellardrive myspace
Stellardrive website

Downliners Sekt - The Saltire Wave

The Saltire Wave is a vessel ripping through trip-hop static, unveiling the unexplored universe of what the sound of Downliners Sekt has grown into in the past few years. By drowning almost every possible piece of recording in a wide variety of effects, the listener will never be completely sure of what he's listening to. Something that gives the impression of being a guitar could just as easily be an ingeniously tweaked sample of a scuba diver. Noises, glitch and ambience intertwine the many subtle nuances created by the expert use of (practically) unheard instruments like didgeridoos. All of this is strengthened by sometimes acoustic, sometimes fuzz-spitting amplified guitars, making the crushed downbeat fit right in. The untamed bass and fearless drums form the solid engine leading to the most sublime "Point Omega", a track that leaves the listener in awe, covered in sound-bites. Downliners Sekt makes us wonder what a movie like Powaqqatsi in a contemporary feel would look and sound like.

read the full review
download the album
Downliners Sekt website