On - Your Naked Ghost Comes Back at Night

7.5/10

On is a peculiar collaboration between Chicago-based percussionist and electronic artist Steven Hess and the French minimalist experimental composer Sylvain Chauveau. This collaboration's trademark is one that you won't encounter much: it defines the entire sound of the album without any interference of these two artists. The material is processed, or produced if you will, by a third party. The improvised recordings (done in the Acme Studio in Chicago in 2003) for this album where handed over to the Norwegian Helge Sten, who made this his last effort as the legendary Deathprod. Several years after the initial 2004 CD release on the French DSA label, this hailed material finally found its way to a proper vinyl release on Type Records.




It's needless to say that an album as critically-acclaimed as Your Naked Ghost Comes Back At Night belongs in the catalog of a label that holds more treasures of this kind. Released in their signature cardboard sleeve with only a few impressions of birds illuminating its cover, the album marks the milestone of the fiftieth release of this excellent UK label. But it takes more than audiophile nerd-talk and vinyl fetishism to acquire a score that denotes a "great release." On earns this easily with seven exercises of hypnotic drones and reverbed crackle.

The opening tracks ease the listener into the one hour death ambient listen with a mid-range focused piece where little spikes of crackle and consistent vibrant rumblings search their way over and through Deathprod's layers. Slowly transforming recordings form into a haunting choir of feedback, chanting over the omnipresent layers. As the album blooms towards the middle, the focus shifts to a deeper and more disturbing, yet minimal, dark ambient. On each listen I imagined myself being lowered in a well that becomes sealed, like some cruel medieval punishment. The banging hammers on the surface, sealing me in, swirl down the old stones and hit the water before I hear them as a rumble of gated reverb. The fourth track, "Oh Run Slowly", focuses on the higher end of the audible spectrum, as if it was the celebration to my new found home, ringing in an eternity of drone. Like a soundtrack to my sonic epiphany, it lightens the heavy mood that manifests more and more as the albums evolves.

The closing half of Your Naked Ghost Comes Back At Night delves into the more hypnotic flavor of drone induced by the little rhythm of Deathprod's effects over the broader, slowly oscillating backdrop. This is where the true aficionados of this experimental niche will prevail over the easy listening, esoteric crowd that gets off on the plethora of introspective-sounding ambient releases. The nuances in the music become more subtle and are mostly found in the minor differences invoked by disturbances (or tweaks) in the resonating sound waves as they flow through an almost constant aural space. These minor fluctuations in audible shape are allowed to bloom by the less attention-grabbing opening half of the album, offering lengthened drones that will keep the attentive listener on the edge of his seat with every recurring swell. The seventeen minute closing track is an ideal soundtrack (or tribute even?) for gazing at Mark Rothko's work (or any seemingly objectless art for that matter).

If you were to give this album a listen without knowing its background, I'm sure you'd find that there is something about this release that makes it stand out from its competition. MGR's hypnotic mantra-feeling, mixed with Einstuerzende Neubauten's experiments - and my own excursions - in the catacombs of bridges aren't comparisons I'll easily be making with one of the many laptop ambient fiddlers that crowd the depths of MySpace, yet Your Naked Ghost Comes Back at Night earns it. Considering that this album finally found a decent home at Type, and a release on the best medium for music that mankind knows, makes it all that more precious.


written for and published by The Silent Ballet
On MySpace
Type Records
Buy

Prime Kut Sunday's IV - Musterd Gas and Roses edition

1. MGR - Nova Lux







2. MGR - Wavering on the Cresting Heft






3. Barge Recordings Split MGR/XELA - Shipping Gold/Calling For Vanished Faces

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

Russian Circles - Geneva

2 months to the new Russian Circles album Geneva. Which means it's time to get excited, mark it in your agenda and what else not.

The genre-bending instrumental trio known as Russian Circles will be releasing their third album, Geneva, on October 20th through Suicide Squeeze. Produced by Brandon Curtis of the Secret Machines, Geneva promises a slew of hypnotic shred epics, the tracklist for which is below. Catch them live this summer on July 18th at Dudefest in Indianapolis, IN, and keep a look out for more supporting tour dates.

1. Fathom
2. Geneva
3. Melee
4. Hexed All
5. Malko
6. When the Mountain Comes to Muhammad
7. Philos

TheTripWire



src

Senser - How To Do Battle

This should be good to send a few of them '90s crossover-metal shivers down your spine. Shame off the LQ video, but anyone familiar with Senser knows this is going to be ranking highly in his or her's end of the year top-list.

Senser are back with a new album 'How To Do Battle', due for release on October 19 through Imprint Music.

The album will be preceded by a single, entitled 'Resistance Now', due for release on September 14.

The sextet (fronted by co-vocalists Heitham Al-Sayed and Kerstin Haigh) have been a force in music since their 1995 album 'Stacked Up' became a platinum selling album. The new album was produced by Neil McLellan (The Prodigy), Jason Wilcock (The Ghost Of A Thousand, Reuben) and
New York hip hop producer Scott Harding (Wu Tang Clan, New Kingdom).

Rock Sound is proud to present the new video for single 'Resistance Now', check it out below:

rocksoundTV



Senser website
Senser Myspace

Yesterday's mail. (Sleep Whale, MGR, Isis)

Sleep Whale - Little Brite

A twenty-six minute electro-acoustic soundtrack to a summers-day is what this Texas outfit offers on their six track EP. Imagine laying on your back in a park, drifting away on the tones of a skilled fingerstyle guitarplayer sitting on a bench improvising on the downtempo electronica from some kid down the street checking out the latest hip Japanese cupboard idm. Add the organic flow of waves caressing - and subtly refracting - a production floating on warm strings and you end up with half an hour of breezy summer bliss. A successful exercise in a genre labeled as electro-acoustic from a band we hope to hear more from in the future.

myspace.com/sleepwhale



MGR (Mustard Gas and Roses) - Wavering on the Cresting Heft.

I love MGR; it's slow, it's dark, it's beautiful sadness on vinyl I want to be devoured by at massive volumes...

The sleeve note describes it rather well:

MGR is an emotionally charged amalgamation of sounds that, much to it's credit, refuses to fit neatly into any particular category. MGR's effectiveness stems from how fluidly Mark Gallagher - of renowned dirge architects Isis - is able to gradually add texture upon texture, building up the intensity of the tracks until they reach a tragic momentum. Imagine Isis with much of the bombast stripped away, leaving only dark, moody and melancholic soundscapes...

myspace.com/mgrsounds


Isis - Wavering Radiant


Read up on my findings of Wavering Radiant here. Both the Isis & MGR albums are released by Conspiracy Records with much love and eye for detail, as always.






There even is a print on the inside of the gatefold sleeve... wow.


ConspiracyRecords.com
myspace.com/isis

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

Ender - ender

5.5/10

Within the post-rock-encompassing skies of this four track EP, the listener finds herself confronted with the instrumental quintet Ender, who slaves over the most popular of instruments (guitar, bass and drum) to produce a self-titled audible calling-card. The album is made up of moody, yet powerful post-rock shrouded in a haze of gritty ambient. Imagine an cardboard egg-box branded "post-rock," filled with eleven battery-laid eggs and one odd-looking kiwi. Ender stands out just like that kiwi, with the familiar post-rock form, but without the clinical approach taken by so many others.

Like most of their Pacific colleagues, Ender knows how to manipulate the space and ambiance needed for their compositions to flourish and gradually evolve. The combined destructive weight of rhythm guitars and drums in the form of dragging riffs arch the elaborated structure that spans over the whole release. The introspective waves of evolving ambient and stacks of heavy hypnotic hooks are good for forty-two minutes of dark, enticing variations and a few spine-shivering moments, but never seem to deploy their full potential. Near the end of Ender, the band trades in their most heavy weight guitar sound for a piano, and tips the scale in favor of the conformist form.

Once the piano finds it's place in the closing composition, Ender brings it home with a less powerful but more subtle and emotional undertone. Without the drive - one that reminds the listener of European post-metal bands - of Ender's opening, the whole gives the impression that this is still not the best possible result. Their strength lies as much in esoteric explorations as in latent aggression, but I, for one, believe that the latter one - given some more attention - has a few interesting options to strengthen the whole.

Adding a few (distant) vocal accents would expose a more captivating, emotional side of their sound and thus engage the listener even more. At a certain point in "Track 2", the deep combined sound of the bass and guitar triggered a memory of a dirty-sounding Celtic Frost vocal line, fueling the dark tones of that dangerously fierce cloud-formation and accentuating the beauty of the redeeming matte light found in the ambiance. For obvious reasons, Tom Gabriel Fischer's vocals - or vocals in general - will not be the perfect solution to allow Ender to rise above the level of this EP, but if the outfit's drummer could batter their grayish blob of expressions with more depth and edge, they could have a decent shot at knocking me out of my socks. Perhaps then a reference to the hypnotic stoner doom slabs of Windmills By The Ocean is in order.



written and published for The Silent Ballet.
Ender myspace
stream Ender @ Last.fm

Isis - Wavering Radiant

Blurping on Isis' latest in the Release of the Month article at TSB.

After their 10 year jubilee and related vinyl box re-releases, a Seldon Hunt documentary and a whole lot of patience and speculation, Isis astonished fan and foe alike with an album that recapitulated and expanded upon their decade of unique post-metal. Unlike its predecessors, Wavering Radiant revisits the strong points of a strong career, from Celestial to In the Absence of Truth, rather than building on the work of a single album. A more notable place is reserved for haunting vocals, while sturdy bass and subtle, supportive soundscapes (containing Rhodes-like accents) carry the weight of the sometimes uplifting, sometimes destructive guitars. Isis’ eye for detail and the progressive nature of this album makes it their most complete and refined work to date: a standout album in their already impressive catalogue as well as in the progressive post-metal genre itself. full article

written for and published by The Silent Ballet

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

How To Make A Sleeps In Oysters CD Package

after re-listening this album I came across the making of the packaging, which I unfortunately don't own... the album does sound like the package looks. Excellent...


src


Sleeps in Oysters myspace
released by Seed Records but sold out :(
album review at The Silent Ballet

Dinner - And... Hearing Things

5.5/10

Accompanying Dinner's release of Disco Rock on the Japanese label Fantome Records is its predecessor, And... Hearing Things. Notable about the re-release of the 2007 album are the two closing tracks that have been "re-ordered" and offer some form of compensation to the seemingly DIY sound of the entire production of the initial release. DIY doesn't mean that it sounds like a recording with a tapedeck in a rehearsal room, but rather that the minimal effort during the recording and finishing of the album doesn't do much justice to the virtuosity that is to be discovered. And virtuosity is plentiful with Dinner.

The band's effort results in playful indie and post-rock with a rhythmic hint of funk and groove that make up an upbeat, almost psychedelic, instrumental rock variant. Soothingly opening the release is "#Zero", featuring laid-back acoustic guitar plucks and (what appears to be) a set of spoons. This leads the listener into the frenzied drumming and bass lines of "#", where subtle guitar chords struggle for their place in the "question and answer" structure, sometimes ending up with a few surprising hooks and bridges. After this swirling introduction of the album, the tracks take on a more flattened-out structure which tends to endanger the apex of the release. The strictly necessary room for essential breaks and fills is barely respected, and sometimes even seem to confuse the artists themselves at certain points, with the result that some of the staccato accents feel more like mellow speed bumps messing up the ride.

The strongest parts of And... Hearing Things are the down tempo, breezy tracks like "Six-Seven-8" that gradually evolve and climax, proving that skilled instrumental work and well-written structures are within Dinner's capabilities. Nevertheless, there is still some work in finding the less awkward sounding structures and the right sonic environment for every particular instrument. Every now and then, some spaced-out pads come into play to fill the background, something that I would've liked to hear more. By doing so, they could easily drop one of the leading rhythm guitars, providing some more depth in the general guitar sound, and strengthening the fragile backbone of Dinner's sound. In the end, the album is a debut by a young and obscure band, so hopefully they'll have the means to fine-tune their music as they go along.

The two closing (re-ordered) tracks of the album offer an audible insight in the produced direction Dinner should explore in my opinion. Unlike their ten two-dimensional cardboard predecessors, these closing tracks have a new-found depth and liveliness, unleashed through the simple application of some effects and mastering. The finishing touch is a bit rough around the edges, but a comparison to Rovo (minus strings) is not too far-fetched on this band filled to the rim with potential...


Written for and published by The Silent Ballet. (click for full review)
Dinner myspace
Fantome Records

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

Strotter Inst. - Minenhund

7/10

Ambient, avant-garde, soundscape, post-industrial: four labels that are perfectly applicable to Minenhund. But there is something more to this release than what you'd expect from an album that is bound to be categorized in these niches. A quick glance at Strotter Inst.'s gallery proves that we're not dealing with something that can be classified so easily under such a general musical denominator. Sure, the result of this remarkable Swiss-based sound architecture is an album, but the manner in which the audio is created reminds more of conceptual art. A dark audible mind trip lies ahead for those who do not fear taking a leap into a sonic universe made out of molested vinyl and rebuilt turntables.

My advised setting to take in this hour of charcoal soundbites is absolute darkness and a set of headphones with the volume set just beyond the point that is considered healthy for your hearing. Minenhund translates (freely) as a person who spends his days slaving in the depts of pitch dark mines, so if you have the chance to replicate these conditions in any way, please do so.

The most noticeable thing about Christoph Hess' latest effort as Strotter Inst. is the focus on the use of the turntable as sound creating device rather than as a sound reproducing one. Five Lenco turntables make up the main part of the instrumentation/installation; modified styluses, rubber bands, duct tape and whatnot are used to create the meditative bass and looping rhythms. The consistency of the cascading loops forms the stomping engine that guarantee the blood flowing in the maze of pseudo-industrial rhythm patterns. The novelty of this release is the actual use of a few samples in the form of French gibberish - sometimes awkwardly high-pitched like there was a helium leak in one of the underground chambers of the sonic mine. Some cuts from a marching vinyl (that seem to be slightly out of place in the big picture) serve as a welcome change in the confined sound spectrum that has an overall fatness to it provided by the analog warmth residing in the vintage parts of the installation.

Strotter Inst. managed to combine some noticeable features of fellow sound-explorer Philip Jeck and audible tale creators Xela on this release, and ended up with an epic journey from a dusty surface to mind numbing, almost claustrophobic, depths where one thing is sure - if the listener manages to make it to the end of this challenging ride, she'll be counting down to the next shift of crawling through the rumbling darkness of neo-turntablism.


written for and published by The Silent Ballet
Strotter Inst. website

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

Larvae - Loss Leader

6.5/10

Loss Leader consists of two parts with several years in between composing and recording, but the sound of Larvae is etched in a monolith - concrete and defined as mathematics, yet organic and intelligent, soothing and at the same time uplifting, with enticing dramatic builds. Upon listening to the music, the references that could be heard range from epic instrumental post-rock bands to sampling legends, and brought in a fashion that has very few criticisms in terms of sheer "listenability."

Opening the proceedings is Larvae's more contemporary work, offering four pieces of dark and moody ambient entwined with the warmth of a Fender Rhodes, an awkwardly obscured melodica, and a drummer that sounds like he could just be Josh Davis himself laying down some loops. Although having a breathtakingly shaded atmosphere and a lazy rolling vibe, there's a distinctly upbeat quality to this first half of the presented feature. The combination of the bass that seems to be playing a stoner's lullaby, the drummer who is exploring trip-hop drumlines from over a decade ago, mathematically challenged drum-computers, and vibrant ambience all work together on the Turning Around EP chapter of this release.

"Attention everyone, this is an emergency broadcast. The unpleasant noise you're about to hear coming from your radio is not a mistake, please do not turn off your radio but turn up the volume on your receiver is high as it can go. So you can make the sounds we broadcast as loud as possible"

Although this would be the logical (both sonic and chronological) choice of an opening, the second chapter of the album, the Monster Music 2 EP foursome, starts with this sampled instruction. I urge you to comply anyway. The closing half of the album takes the listener back (as this is in fact also the extension of the 2003 Monster Music EP) with breaks and bass lines hailing from an age where trip-hop was digging its grave and dubstep was safely guarded in the womb of drum and bass. The protagonists of the last four tracks include clear rhythm patterns and self-destructing, almost industrial-sounding, beats only guided by a submerging synth on the low end of its chords - but always with that spine-tingling new layer on the right moment. These organic IDM tracks remind of obscure, smoke-filled chill-out rooms where those who seek more than fast crowd-pleasing thrills roam around and lose themselves in the music until dawn.

It's a shame that the good people of the Ad Noiseam label and Larvae opted for an environmentally-friendly release by cramming two EPs on a single non-decomposing disc. Don't get me wrong, it's not my fantasy to see humanity drown in its own filth, but if that's the reason to molest two sufficiently-structured pieces of enjoyable post-rock meets electronica, you didn't think it through. A simple brainstorm session could've ended with a more creatively appealing solution without giving the impression that there's a label cleaning stock or a void in artist activity to be filled. Loss Leader is, nevertheless, one to have if you're for introspective post-rock with a dash of IDM or if pre-dubstep breaks with a hint of droning guitars sounds appealing. It would've been an added value if the concept had matched the music of the release, but it was not to be.


written for and published by The Silent Ballet
stream the album @ Last.fm
Larvae website

Prime Kut Sunday I

Sunday's, and especially the morning, is the ideal moment to spend some, ahum, quality time with the vinyl. Thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to mold my weekly picks in a list and who knows maybe you'll get introduced to something you've been missing out on, maybe you feel like recommending something... it's all good.

so, this morning's prime kuts...


artist - album SPECIFICS [remix/version] (kick-ass tracks)

1. B-52's - Love Shack SIN
2. Senser - Asylum LP (Weatherman!)
3. Senser - Age of Panic EP - A-side [Git-O-Rama mix]
4. Santana - Santana LP (Soul Sacrifice!)
5. Isis + Aereogramme - In The Fishtank 14 LP (Delial!)
6. Opeth - Orchid printdisc 2LP - D-side (The Apostel in Triumph + Into The Frost Of Winter!)

Bohren & der Club of Gore - interview

Not only responsible for bringing forth The Silent Ballet top album of 2008 -as voted by the staff- entitled Dolores, the German Bohren & der Club of Gore was also responsible for playing a most memorable gig in the Ancienne Belgique Club, Brussels.

It's there where things started to go wrong... and all of a sudden I found myself in the position where I was to drop this excellent, doom jazzin' fourpiece a bunch of questions.

"The first and main thing in the beginning of Bohren was to create music that we wanted to listen to. And because nobody else did, we had to do the job. It took several years to find and develop our own musical language and to work out this kind of slow and unhappy music, featuring a down-tuned bass and soft drums– powerful music but without distortion, music which is digging for simplicity and drilling for truth. And we still like it...amen!"

Written for and published by The Silent Ballet
myspace

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

Audrey @ Arenberg Schouwburg Antwerp, BE November 21st, 2008

Describing Audrey’s music is no easy task. If the group has succeeded in finding a central theme, it’s a balance in the melodies - shimmering, beautiful moments of pop meet dark sadness.
The harmonies (everyone in the group shares vocal efforts) shift quickly between keys and moods. Straightforward, conventional narrative is replaced by abstract meanings which strengthen the melodies. -Last.fm



Static captation of their set on November 21st, 2008 at the Arenberg Schouwburg in Antwerp, BE.





Opening that night, surprisingly, was Mrs. Hyde, playing an acoustic set. No captions of this because of some regretted, self-imposed 'no opening act policy' but make sure to check them out...



playlist @ youtube

Audrey website
Audrey myspace

Mrs. Hyde website
Mrs Hyde myspace