RELEASE INFORMATION ▼
Band: Expo '70
Title: Tarot Reading
Format: 7"
Packaging: Heavy sleeve
Duration: Variable speed
Release Date: 17 May 2010
Availability: Sold out

DESCRIPTION ▼
'Tarot Reading' is a mind-blowing heavily spaced out excursion that bears all the key characteristics of Expo '70 at his peak with a cluttering of treated guitar and keyboard drones that stir up a sea of texture slowly evolving the track into all consuming mass of ambient resonant fudge.
Then flip over to side B for 'Solar Drifting' which starts with some nervous pulsating electronic glitches before skittering guitar meanderings are introduced gradually building a paranoid energy into an expansive whacked out star-gazing tangle of melody and sound.
Breathless genius.

TRACK LISTING ▼
Tarot Reading
Solar Drifting

SUPPORT ▼
Boomkat ▼
Expo Seventy is the recording handle of Justin Wright, a prolific drone/psyche improviser with some thirty or more releases to his name. Appearing on the very promising Eat.Sleep.Repeat label, he contributes two dramatically elemental sides. On the A-side 'Tarot Reading' taps into an ancient vein of howling feedback and primordial bass surges to provoke nightmares and unsettle inexperienced psychonauts. On the flip 'Solar Drifting' cuts the anchor cord and intrepidly pushes off into a starry forest of folk drone guitars and stray Moog signals like Fursaxa meets Earth in a log cabin on the flipside of the moon.
Norman 4/5 ▼
I had my tarot cards read once. They were quite kind to me but they also told me that one shining day, I would have to listen to ambient/drone tomfoolery... Well lookee here sir. Expo 70's latest slice of vinyl is a blissed-out floaty affair. It wouldnt sound out of place on a film soundtrack. It's well cosmic.The flipside has a blazing guitar solo that was in danger of taking me into space. Luckily I am carrying what you might call "holiday weight" so my bulk stopped me... Phew..
OMG Vinyl ▼
Kansas City's own Expo 70 lets loose, low and slow on the 7" vinyl format. If you can only handle your drone a few minutes at a time, this is for you. You can even play it at 33 or 45 rpm since it is a "variable speed" recording. This can be purchased for $7 at exposeventy.com but you might as well add every other piece of vinyl in the store to your order as well, because it is all amazing. If you're across the ocean from the OMGV HQ, pick it up for £5.79 at normanrecords.com.

RELEASE INFORMATION ▼
Band: Eric Chenaux
Title: Warm Weather/Le Vieux Favori 4
Format: 7"
Packaging: Heavy sleeve
Duration: 10:20
Release Date: 22 February 2010
Availability: Sold out

DESCRIPTION ▼
The idea with this record was to not have a side A or side B per se, not to have a front or back cover but just two sides, resisting the history of 7"s being that the B side is the more esoteric complement to the A side.
'Warm Weather' and 'Le Vieux Favori 4' stand alone without one being considered more important than the other.
The acoustic lounge-tinged 'Warm Weather' trundles ahead with a warm feeling as multiple channels of nylon-string guitar twang scuttle along just before Eric's shingly vocals come in adding another beautifully reflective layer to the mix.
'Le Vieux Favori 4' blends electric guitar, melodica and spinning speakers creating a classical cinematic sound that slowly draws you in while unravelling a soft yet unnerving tension throughout.
Both tracks were recorded and mixed in January 2009 by Radwan Moumneh at the Hotel2Tango studio situated in Montreal before being sent off to Harris Newman for mastering.
A quite sublime 7".

TRACK LISTING ▼
Warm Weather
Le Vieux Favori 4

SUPPORT ▼
Boomkat ▼
A wonderfully subtle piece of acoustic songwriting from regular Constellation artist, Eric Chenaux. On 'Warm Weather', Chenaux's soft, husky vocal is a thing of extreme loveliness, finding accompaniment from gently, jazzy acoustic guitar phrasings. It's definitely a cut above the general singer-songwriter standard, but when you hear the B-side it's all the more impressive: 'La Vieux Favori 4' is a violin-led drone piece reminiscent of C. Spencer Yeh's output, showing an admirable range of this man's talents.
EARLabs 8.5/10 ▼
2 sides on a 7", 2 sides from a musician with a diverse range of styles. A warm and tender love song and a piece full of dissonant melodies.
A second release from the prestigious label Eat, Sleep, Repeat. Again a two track 7" releases is presented. After the first release by Machinefabriek the goal was set high. With that one in mind I started listening to Warm Weather/Le Vieux Favori 4 by Canadian musician Eric Chenaux who is closely related to Constellation Records.
As we could expect from Chenaux the two pieces on the 7" release are both from a complete different order.
Warm Weather is a song in a traditional folk style. Comforting guitar sounds with soft vocals. I guess it is a love song, longing for the good times that used to be. There is a sad tone to this piece but that makes it a beauty. At first you might have to get used to the vocals of this singer. It sounds broken, down, soft, slightly falsetto (but don't expect the bee gees).
It is a lovely song.
The other side of the 7" brings us Le Vieux Favori 4 which is build up from dissonant electric guitar and melodica sounds. The music spins round your head trying to grab your attention, and it does. In the music you can hear references to folk music from the Middle Ages and begin Renaissance. Soft drones in the background as if a hurdy gurdy is being played, with other bowed instruments. The music is slightly in the same tonal setting, only in this case used for dissonance. It is an interesting piece that is hard to get into, but when you listen more careful you hear it has some great things in it. The 7" by Eric Chenaux is again a lovely piece released on Eat, Sleep, Repeat and if they can keep this up they promise to become one label to keep an eye open for.
Fluid Radio ▼
I have been really excited by the arrival of new label Eat, Sleep, Repeat: The Machinefabriek release sold out just on Pre-Orders alone so I suggest that you are wise and pre-order the new Eric Chenaux title before they are gone as well...
It's a tuff call to try and sum up this gorgeous little ep to be honest as we have two tracks that flow with so much beauty and yet at the same time are completely opposite in style.
If you want to experience a quirky little folk type selection on one side and a Richard Skelton meets Nordic string arrangements on the other then I say grab this ep 'quick time'! Highly highly highly recommended!
Losing Today ▼
Not strictly out for a month or so but all the same deserving of a heads up this release features two suites by the highly regarded Eric Chenaux, part of the much admired Constellation set Chenaux is something of a workaholic with a recording CV stretching back some two decades, having cut his teeth on the post rock underground with Phleg Camp - recent years have seen him expanding his sonic repertoire to incorporate lounge jazz and fried improv (think I'm right in saying that both nightjars and the reveries have been mentioned in some form or other in previous despatches), often compared with the late Derek Bailey in terms of his improvisation prowess, it'd be more true to true to say that Chenaux is a purist of the bruised ballad with the emphasis on melody being given centre of attention - his compositions creak with a strangely off set passion, spectral and seemingly threadbare they are endowed by an archaic alchemy that's both lilting and haunting. We suggest you head without further delay to his my space page at www.myspace.com/ericchenaux and partake in the delight that is 'rest your delights' a kind of Palace Brothers meets Radiohead re-sculptured by Three Mile Pilot. Best described as heart hurting archaic spiritualist folk montages Chenaux offers up two distinctly polar portrayals of his artistry on this ultra limited seven inch outing, 'Le Vieux Favori 4' suffuses guitar and melodica in a most rewarding way, like some celebratory Celtic fanfare streaming through the fog bound wilderness, this mind expanding reverie weaves and woos with a strange detached fascination that should appeal in equal parts to fans of both Ivor Cutler and Flying Saucer Attack. Flip the disc for the near gemlike 'Warm Weather' - shyly romantic and frosted with a twinkling soft centre, the deftly fingered skeletal rustic fretwork is found beautifully woven upon a fragile and frail framework that's blessed with a beguiled albeit bitterly sweet introspective glow to which you can do nothing but be arrested by in the company of.
Record Collector ▼
Here's an impressive sophomore effort from the Eat, Sleep, Repeat imprint. First off the blocks, Warm Weather's nylon-string balladry fuses delicate silken spun webs, enmeshing Chenaux's wistful half-whispered musings within a snare of tenderly-woven melancholy. On the flip, Le Vieux Favori 4 ferments oscillating spirals of glutinous ooze from a blend of electric guitar and melodica. The resultant infection is filtered through the trembling strings of Alistair Galbraith's violin before being bounced around the hallowed halls of Ira Cohen's Thunderbalt Pagoda.
Textura ▼
Chenaux's perhaps best known for his output on the Montreal-based Constellation label, 2006's Dull Lights and 2008's Sloppy Ground. Despite being creations of same artist, the two tracks on this seven-inch vinyl single (both recorded and mixed in January 2009 at the Hotel2Tango studio) are about as contrasting as could be imagined, and thereby offer a snapshot of the man's many talents.
The opener "Warm Weather" is a wistful and subtly romantic ballad that's truly lovely. In this laid-back folk setting, Chenaux couples a hushed, fragile vocal filled with wry reminiscences ("We can dance to ballads out on your porch / People dance that way everyday / Someone once told me that's how love is made / And I see warm weather rollin' in") with acoustic guitar finger-picking that gives the tune the feel of an old Mexican song. The acompanying instrumental, "Le Vieux Favori 4," smudges electric guitar and melodica elements into what could pass for a decades-old exhumation of Celtic psychedelia, the off-kilter piece woozily wheezing in the light breeze as it dazedly intones semi-ecstatic melodies like a decrepit hurdy gurdy. Needless to say, it's worlds removed from the opening song yet in some bizarre manner feels like a natural partner to it.
Vital Weekly ▼
Strictly speaking there is no A or B side to this record. Which of course seems to me the right thing to do. None of these two tracks is more important than the other. On 'Warm Weather', Chenaux plays a nylon guitar and sings. Multiple channels of guitar playing, although I don't think more than two or three. I must admit I am not a connoisseur of this kind of singer song writing, but it seems to me damn close to Nick Drake, this piece. Intimate, up close, and very personal. On 'Le Vieux Favori 4' we have electric guitar, melodica and 'spinning speakers creating a classical cinematic sound' and no vocals. There is a nice drone layered element to this piece of music, with an odd rotating sound, like multiple violins (which I guess there aren't any) shimmering away. An entirely different piece, but it has a similar not too outspoken quality to it. Nicely private music.

RELEASE INFORMATION ▼
Band: Machinefabriek
Title: Slovensko
Format: 7"
Packaging: Heavy sleeve
Duration: 14:02
Release Date: 25 January 2010
Availability: Sold out

DESCRIPTION ▼
Machinefabriek is Dutchman Rutger Zuydervelt who spends his time creating music that's epic and unwavering, restless and intense.
The source material for 'Slovensko' was recorded during Rutger's trip to Slovakia in September 2009.
It was not his original intention to go away and make a record, but just as he's used to taking his camera with him when visiting a foreign country, he has also gotten used to taking a small digital recorder.
Throughout the period of his stay Rutger captured a variety of indigenous sounds, unusual samples and field recordings using them as the primary framework for the pieces included on this release.
He then returned home and began the process of cutting, mixing, editing and remixing the field recordings to more abstracted pieces.
The focus was firmly set on highlighting the most interesting elements and merging them together, using only the source material and his laptop to work with.
The pieces included on 'Slovensko' lumber along slowly evolving into an intricately enthralling climax of sound that'll leave you feeling drained and in a trance like state of mind.
The results are minimal yet riveting, fragile yet gloriously brutal.
Essential listening.

TRACK LISTING ▼
Part 1
Part 2

SUPPORT ▼
Boomkat ▼
Very limited copies of Slovensko now available on vinyl... Arguably the most interesting of this week's Machinefabriek releases is based upon field recordings gathered on an excursion to Slovenia. The sounds harvested from this trip were then heavily treated and assembled in an impressively musical fashion for this release. Think of this as auditory photography: Slovensko documents the soundscape of various locations and happenings within them, treating the outcome to draw out the sonic depth. You'll hear the usual instances of wildlife and people coming and going, but arguably the less populated moments yield the most noteworthy results. When you hear strands of feedback sculpted from what sounds like creaking gates or massively amplified vibrations creating a potent scrapyard drone you feel Zuydervelt might be going about some of his most effective and experimental work to date.
EARLabs 8/10 ▼
Field recordings from Slovenia got a treatment by Dutch boy wonder of electronic music. Abstract, though organic sounding music.
After quite some time yesterday I finally had the pleasure again of seeing Machinefabriek (Rutger Zuydervelt) live again. Live his music always seems to be based on his guitar and small objects he rubs and beats upon his guitar. A whole other story is the 7" release Slovensko that he recorded for Eat, Sleep, Repeat which is based around field recordings taken during a trip through Slovakia in September 2009. Completely unlike his recordings from Israel which got released as Tapes of the day here he searched for unusual sounds, opposed to street recordings.
Not only the source material is different, but also the way they are presented. With the recordings Rutger Zuydervelt; where on tapes of the day the sounds are presented as they are here things get cut up, mixed, processed and god knows what more Zuydervelt did to them. With this he tried to highlight the more peculiar sounds, which, I think, he succeeded well at.
While the music contains this natural feeling, things also sound really abstract and rough. At one moment you can be hearing some birds twitter, while at others a gigantic loud noise is shredding your ears. Because of the computer magic used on the sounds things get much more interesting than with the clean recordings you got to hear on Tapes of the day. And because only the field recordings were used the outcome is also very different from Zuydervelts other work. For this one you don't have to expect drone soundscapes or post-rock influenced ambient pieces. With this you can easily say we hear yet another side of the Machinefabriek, one we didn't hear before. Slovensko isn't really a release for the people who are into the more popular side of Zuydervelts music, but those who are willing to take a step deeper into the experimental side of electronic music can easily take this one as a good starting point. Hopefully Zuydervelt will go more in the direction of this kind of music. It's a whole new world to explore.
Losing Today ▼
A few weeks ago we received a mysterious red and white calling card - upon it our address and contact details on one side and over on the flip an email address simply stated as www.depteh.com - I must admit to being all at once concerned, puzzled and curious. We typed in said address only to receive an error message.
That's strange we thought. A further clue was revealed by way of an email contact.
Again only this time with a growing sense of concern, puzzlement and curiosity we despatched an enquiring email.
And waited.
A reply was eagerly received had we signed up inadvertently to some anti-establishment forum the kind usually tempered and propagated by the likes of Messrs Drummond and Orridge.
Instead we were directed to a further web site.
The puzzle was unfolding and the chase continued merrily.
eatsleeprepeat.com/disinformation.html was the name of the linking web page, with graphics looking not unlike those utilised by those nice people over at both Expanding and Trensmat - Eat, Sleep, Repeat is a new label promising - well we'll let them take that up in their own words - 'Welcome to eatsleeprepeat.com, a new label created simply to serve the uncompromising expressions of alternative, drone, electronic, experimental jazz, krautrock, minimalist and post-rock movements.
The site is a little bare at the moment while we sort out some things but plenty more disinformation will be added in the near future.'
The label promises future outings from Expo '70, Black to Comm and Eric Chenaux - first up though for their debuting release a limited 7 inch from Dutch aural alchemist MachineFabriek or as he's better known to the underground cognoscenti Rutger Zuydervelt.
Clocking in at around 14 minutes in total this tastily tailored seven inch features two glimpses into Machinefabriek's intricate sound craft.
The base framework for 'Slovensko' (Parts 1 and 2) was inspired by field recordings collected on a digital recorder during a visit to Slovakia in September 2009.
By way of some applied sonic manipulation via a laptop and some carefully cultured editing, cutting and pasting of the gathered sound files, Machinefabriek concocts a curiously sparsely soothing albeit desolate melodic landscape, a glitch drone collage blending and freewheeling between moments of earthiness and elements of tensely coiled foreboding, though as some wit once said the devil is in the detail, the detail here being the subterranean undercurrents continually ebbing and flowing, evolving, mutating to turn and twist and shape shift with a fluid fascination - references to 70 Gwen Party would not appear out of place though it's the more spectral speaker spooking periods of unsettling disquiet found of the work of Muslim Gauze that may well strike a relevant chord.
File under epically minimalist.
Flip over for 'Cast 2' - a little more forthright in design than its predecessor and in some ways structured seemingly to reflect a reverse mirror image in so far as the impacting sun burst scalding noise quotient arrives face on from the start and then dissipates to a calming lull though happily that finds itself tempered by a degree of decidedly unhinged to be viewed with lights on from behind the sofa glassy globes of spine tingling eeriness.
Goes without saying that you need this instantly in your life.
Norman Records ▼
Machinefabriek has a rather swish looking 7" out on new label Eat, Sleep, Repeat. 'Slovensko' sounds like our man Rutger is walking across town during a trip to Slovakia with a recording device picking up all sorts of sounds around him, you can hear traffic, at one point it sounds like he's passing a construction site, possibly some train sounds etc. It has a very urban/industrial field recording feel which I enjoy as a contrast to the more tropical/natural world sort of stuff. Once the sounds get some processing things get even more interesting, abstract and unidentifiable. The second side 'Cast 2' sounds great with a huge climax of noise before being reduced to more minimal and sparse unidentifiable sounds. Limited edition.
Phonica Records ▼
The saga of Machinefabriek is a long and arduous one. 'Prolific' is probably an understatement for the talented Dutch artist - he's amassed a discography of somewhere around 100 releases. His latest outing on vinyl (most of them are on weirdly shaped CDs) is a ambient / drone collage of processed field-recordings from Slovenia-hence the title.
Tokafi ▼
It can thus convincingly be argued, that the most recent machinefabriek-pieces are, in fact, even more ambitious and even less commercial (if that words makes any sense here at all) than his earliest material. Delectably presented 7inch "Slovensko" was even built entirely from field recordings collected while on vacation. Akin to the work of late genre-master Luc Ferrari, these two side-spanning tracks can be understood as "musique anecdotique" - as collages assembled from a variety of different takes, which nonetheless constitute a new, seamless reality in the listener's mind. At all times, the contrast between near-chaotic semblances and mindbogglingly proficient sonic artifacts is at the heart of this music: On the A-side, a near-chaotic multimorph of anything from peaceful beach scenes, heavily reverbed hammering and dark-ambient-strings flows into a sequence of pitched noises culled from painfully tightening metallic wires. The flipside is more dramatic, nervously jumping between starkly contrasting moods, before culminating in a finale of cloudy drones. The complete opposite of aural photography, this is very much music in the radio-play-tradition, with the audience being invited to make up their own plot. Even though nothing here is fundamentally revolutionary per se, "Slovensko" is rendered unique by the way in which pure field recordings and pitched material overlap and intersect. The world is sound – it may seem like a cliche on paper, but it never does on this delicious little treasure of a record.
Vital Weekly ▼
Despite a plethora of releases, Rutger Zuydervelt never ceases to surprise. Not always I must admit, as there is a distinct style of his own, but sometimes he does something out of the ordinary. 'Slovensko' is such a thing. In September 2009 he went on holiday to Slovakia, armed with his camera (he is a designer after all) and these days also with a digital recorder. He collected a bunch of field recordings which he, back home, edited into the two parts of 'Slovensko'. No guitars this time here, but pure field recordings, edited, cut, mixed together into two lovely collages of sound. Motor sounds, dogs, voices, fences and metal gates and some more obscured sounds are put together in quite a cinematic manner. Not just a continuing ambient sound but a wonderful play of various sounds. This may very well be the first time that Zuydervelt worked so solely with field recordings. And with some fine result.

RELEASE INFORMATION ▼
Band: Telekaster
Title: The Silent Anagram
Format: 180gLP
Packaging: Heavy 3mm spined sleeve
Duration: 36:57
Release Date: 19 June 2009
Availability: £13.99 inc Worldwide P&P

DESCRIPTION ▼
'The Silent Anagram' is a beautifully architected record that clicks and whirs into life building intelligently on itself into a vast and expansive work fizzing with ambience.
There is a constant interplay of sound and a clever juxtaposition of more caustic eclectic noise with crystalline moments of pinpoint melody.
Emotionally intense, the landscape of the music and their structures draw on your memory brushing the innocence of childhood with the gravity of adulthood.
It's a delicate mix of broken piano chords and effervescent guitars that combine to create achingly beautiful crushing warmth.
Quite simply it has a ghostly melodic grandeur that involves you in every second and leaves you wanting to press play again and again; a classic record.

TRACK LISTING ▼
01. A Shift In Shapes
02. We Are All Balloons
03. Pyramids
04. A World Full Of Ordinary Things
05. All That Is Solid Melts Into Noise
06. Where Diving Bells Are Ringing
07. Your Fireworks Brighten My Sky
08. No Moving Parts Contained

PERSONNEL ▼
Matthias Grübel: Various instruments, sounds and manipulation

GUESTS ▼
Sabine Hanstein: Violin
Mikhail Karikis: Voice, orchestra arrangements and other recordings
Keung: Electric guitars

RECORDING INFORMATION ▼
Composed, performed, recorded and mixed by Matthias Grübel in Berlin from March to October 2008.
Mastered by Harris Newman at Grey Market, Montreal, Canada in November 2008.

EXTRA INFORMATION ▼
Artwork and sleeve design created by Sebastian Haslauer from Shake Your Tree.
A video series is being produced by Stefan Bünnig who also provides visuals for Telekaster's live events.

SUPPORT ▼
Norman Records ▼
The heat, the motherfucking heat.. It's like a giant sweaty crotch covered with indie posters from the 90s in here. 'The Silent Anagram' is the first review thing my dehydrated brain has to come to terms with this week - it's by Telekaster and released on the fine Panic Arrest label (holders of two previous Album of the Week Gold Plated Statuettes from their nascent catalogue). Immediately (and probably lazily) this record strikes me as kind of a middle ground between the minimal Minus Pilots album and the more varied, layered sound of the Cut Iowa Network LP (minus the drums), it definitely fits right in with the feel of the label thus far so if you enjoyed those previous releases you'll be in safe hands here. To add a little more comparative colour I'll add that there are shades of Constellation-style post-rock, early Colleen, the twinklier moments of bands like Fridge and many an organic-sounding bedroom ambient electronica project from the past few years. All done to a super classy standard!
Groove Magazine ▼
'The Silent Anagram', the debut album by Telekaster: circling loopbuildings, slowly finding their direction and creating a subtly shimmering sound.
Melodies and chords come and go.
Simply beautiful.
Textura ▼
After issuing two albums on Sub Rosa as Phon°noir, Berlin-based musician Matthias Grübel introduces a debut collection under the Telekaster name, which he recorded solo except for contributions to a couple of tracks from Mandelbrot Set guitarist Keung, violinist Sabine Hanstein, and arranger Mikhail Karikis. Grübel shapes 'The Silent Anagram's material into eight meditations which are beatless but not static; an organic, instrument-driven flow animates each densely-layered piece, but the flow never feels tied to or constrained by a specific time signature. He builds the tracks into dense arrangements where acoustic and electronic sounds intermingle, and where at times a single instrument or sound briefly extricates itself from the whole before just as quickly disappearing back into it. With the four tracks on each side presented in a continuous, suite-like manner, the album's material is best experienced in the vinyl format.
The aptly-titled "A Shift in Shapes" brings the A-side to life with a percussive phalanx of rattles, clicks, and whirrs that's promptly augmented by a repeating piano figure. The materials draw together to form a wheezing and rumbling mass, with the creak of a violin motif added as sonic spice. A gamelan cloud of bell tones and chimes then threads itself through "We Are All Balloons," after which a blanket of fuzz and piano chords initiates the see-sawing meditation "Pyramids," setting the stage for shimmering flourishes and the melancholy sigh of Hanstein's violin part. While that piece is dirge-like in character, "A World Full of Ordinary Things" feels more uplifting, with electric guitar melodies and strums penetrating the haze and bringing with them a hint of exuberance. Side B opens with "All That is Solid Melts Into Noise," a ponderous and spacey meditation distinguished by glissandi string effects and the expansive sweep of an orchestral arrangement by Karikis (whose ecstatic voice is also heard), followed by "Where Diving Bells Are Ringing," a tranquil meditation with a heavy guitar emphasis, and "No Moving Parts Contained," which closes the album in a daze of mallet percussion tinklings, violin sawing, and electric guitar figures. One of the tracks is titled "Your Fireworks Brighten My Sky" and it's an apt sentiment that one could apply to the album as a whole when Telekaster's settings so often blossom into immense, reverberant swirls of electro-acoustic design.
The Silent Ballet ▼
This is one of the more difficult reviews I've had to write, and definitely the most I've had to listen to an album to form any sort of opinion on it. Even still, after innumerable listens, something about 'The Silent Anagram' still eludes me: it is ambient music that somehow sits on the fence between astoundingly simple and overly complex, and I can't quite pick out where it's leaning.
Take the opener, "A Shift in Shapes", for instance. Tape hiss and other (un?)intentional recording artifacts envelope a simple piano riff that, swimming in delay, ping-pongs between the left and right speaker; at the same time, subtle violin lines vie for attention with electronic buzzes and clips. But when repeated over the five-and-a-half minute runtime, the complexity gives way to dreamy ambience: the broken music box follow-up, "We Are All Balloons", cements the album as highly complicated in micro-sense, but as a whole, the parts coalesce into a barely-there dreamscape.
Like most ambient albums, however, fully appreciating 'The Silent Anagram' relies just as much on your current setting (physically and emotionally) as it does on the one the sounds are trying to create. This is not music for the morning commute, unless you happen to join the rat race in a half-speed submarine; this is music for empty highways at dawn, for empty bedrooms at midnight. So however masterful the music contained herein, its appeal is inherently limited - this is definitely "mood music."
What Telekaster does differently, and this is how 'The Silent Anagram' is pushed above "most ambient albums," is composition. While there are numerous ambient musicians content to lean onto their synthesizers, run a few loops and call it a day, the pieces here are all distinct. The foreboding piano chords that introduce "Pyramids" transition gently and yet noticeably into the springy synth-work of "A World Full of Ordinary Things"; they are clearly separate tracks, as are all eight on the album, but while many ambient albums require checking the stereo display to notice a new track, Telekaster gracefully introduces new ideas while keeping the feel established throughout the record. A truly shining example of what being an ambient album should mean: similarity, not sameness. Reusing feelings, not ideas.
In this sense, 'The Silent Anagram' is entirely successful. When given the proper conditions, Telekaster has crafted music to bring you there, to whatever hazy, reverb-laden place that is; just grab a decent pair of headphones, turn down the lights, and take the trip.
Vital Weekly ▼
The debut album by Matthias Grübel, who plays 'various instruments, sounds and manipulation', with the help of some others on violin, electric guitar, voice and 'orchestra arrangements and other recordings'. Grübel has released before under the guise of Phon Noir on Sub Rosa, but for some reason changed to Telekaster. Its not easy to describe the album. Its all highly atmospheric music, that's for sure. Not just in a drone sense of the word, because melodies play an important role here. The various instruments seem to me mainly guitars and a piano (perhaps a midi one), with an extensive use of sound effects to create a rich, thick sound, that is orchestral in 'All That Is Solid Melts Into Noise', drifting into a more introspective tune of 'Where Diving Bells Are Ringing'. Post rock is perhaps a term to fits this, but its all without drums and its definitely not static. This music is in constant flux, always on the move. A great record actually. Very melodic, without becoming a pop record. More modern classical, I'd say. A very pleasant and varied album. Highlight of the week. (FdW)
Beat Magazine ▼
Mit The Silent Anagram hat Matthias Grübels Projekt Telekaster eines der Überraschungsalben des Jahres gelandet. Tief und wie ein unwirkliches, stummes Theaterstück entfaltet sich die Platte
Lichter ▼
The Silent Anagram ist ein Gebilde aus Klangräumen, das beruhigender in seiner Unruhe kaum sein könnte. ‚All is sound'. Und so verliert sich auch die Stille im Klang und lässt das, was zwischen Kopf und Herz ist, im Gleichklang aus dem Takt schlagen.
Es ist Nacht. Ich greife meine Kopfhörer, lege die Platte vorsichtig auf den Plattenspieler, warte bis die Nadel sich senkt und höre. Der erste Raum öffnet sich. Es fängt an zu Klackern, zu Rasseln. Ein Klavier schleicht sich dazu und beginnt ein niemals enden wollendes Intervall. Immer wieder finden sich dazu neue Klänge, Geräusche. Eine Melodica spielt eine scheinbare Melodie, die doch keine ist. Rauschen, Klappern, es regnet, drückende Störgeräusche, Instrumente. Sie spielen, stehen nebeneinander und bilden darin ein verlässliches Gefüge, das in seiner Monotonie beruhigend klingt (A Shift Full Of Shapes). Dann plötzlich der nächste Raum. Noch im Nachhall des vorigen wird es sphärischer, dröhnender. Dann Klangspiele. Tief und voll wie Kirchenglocken, hoch und metallisch hallend wie kleine Glöckchen. Es klingelt ruhig aber scheinbar willkürlich aus allen Richtungen. Doch auch hier findet sich ein Gerüst, das verhindert ins Haltlose zu fallen und das mit der Zeit unterschiedliche Assoziationen und Erinnerungen wachrufen kann (We Are All Balloons).
Im dritten Raum (Pyramids) ist es ruhiger. Er steht für sich, umgrenzt von den anderen. Wieder ein Klavier. Ein neues ewiges Intervall. Der Fall ist tiefer, die Geräusche dazu wieder rauschig und elektronisch, aber angepasster. Warm und wohlig. Entspannung. Zurücklehnen. Und wirken lassen. Das Klavier pendelt wie eine Lebensader ruhig vor und zurück. Immer weiter, wie tiefe Atemzüge. Ich sitze da, schließe die Augen und werde aufgesogen. Das Rauschen und Flirren nimmt zu und übertönt fast das Klavier, aber es findet zurück zur einfachen Melodie einer Geige. Der Raum ist erfüllt und es gelingt nur schwer in den nächsten einzutauchen.
In diesen werde ich hineingeworfen. Tauche wieder auf und höre den Lebensklang vom Klavier zuvor auf elektronischen Saiten. Es hat sich umgekehrt. Klingt fordernder. Dann gebrochene Gitarrenakkorde, wieder keine wirkliche Melodie. Aber auch hier das Gefühl bleiben zu wollen. Doch der Raum zieht sich plötzlich in sich zusammen und verschwindet (A World Full Of Ordinary Things). Die Nadel hebt sich und ich sitze da und höre die Stille. Sie rauscht.
Auf der zweiten Seite tauchen neue Räume auf. Sie kommen mir bekannt vor und sind doch neu. Stille Anagramme. Manches verdichtet sich noch mehr, anderes löst sich. Es wird orchestral und kurz hallt eine Stimme fern zwischen all dem Klang, wie ein Klagelied. (All That Is Solid Melts Into Noise). Dann wieder Knistern und Flirren. Ein Raum mit schönen Klängen und Störgeräuschen die an entfernte Presslufthammer erinnern (Where Driving Bells Are Ringing). Dann, nach einem Dröhnen im Kopf, wieder das ambientartige elektronisch Schwebende. (Your Fireworks Brighten My Sky). Zum Schluss der letzte Raum. Man betritt ihn nach einem sanften Übergang und wird dann durch diesen Klang überrascht. Etwas das so vertraut klingt und doch nicht einordbar ist. Ein bisschen wie knirschende Frösche an einem Sommerabend. Aber eben auch nicht wirklich. Es ist anders und mehr. Afrikanische Insekten sind es in Wirklichkeit. Ein unglaublicher Klang. In dem Raum wirkt alles schneller und lebendiger als vorher. Wie ein Aufbruch und ein Finale. Die Ruhe darin geht trotzdem nicht verloren. Klangspiele, die Frösche, gezupfte Saiten, Klingeln, die ewigen Wiederholungen. Nach vier Minuten reduziert sich langsam alles und zurück bleibt die Konzentration auf dieses Geräusch, bis sich die Nadel erneut hebt (No Moving Parts Contained). Die Stille rauscht immer noch. Aber sie ist sehr bewusst.
Eine unruhig beruhigende Platte. Sie bewegt sich zwischen geerdet warm und elektronisch kühl, ist schön und beschleichend, rauschig störend, melodiös ohne Melodie, tonal und atonal. „Monotony is intensity" – die Intensität der Monotonie. Je genauer man hinhört, desto mehr wird es. Je weiter man sich entfernt, desto einheitlicher wirkt es. Und manchmal ist es auch umgekehrt. Immer wieder neue Geräusche, neue Klänge. Sie bilden Räume ohne feste Wände und letztlich immer auch Gefühl. Denn es gibt keinen Text, keine konkreten Melodien an denen man sich festhalten kann. Es gibt nur das, was die Musik mit einem macht. Es ist Musik für die Nacht, denn die Dunkelheit schluckt alles was ablenken könnte. Und so kann zwischen dem Störenden und Rauschenden in der Musik das gefunden werden, was sich durch alle Klangräume durchzieht. Etwas universell Lebendiges und gleichzeitig Verwurzeltes. Ein Klang für sich alleine. Teilbar, aber allein vielleicht doch am schönsten.
Telekaster ist ein Projekt von Matthias Grübel. Als phon°noir hat er bereits zwei Platten veröffentlicht, arbeitet an verschiedenen Theaterprojekten mit und geht mit seinem neuen Soloprojekt Telekaster einen weiteren eigenwilligen Weg. Unterstützt wird er dabei von dem Videokünstler Stefan Bünnig, der auch bei Liveauftritten die Musik visuell untermalt. Das Album The Silent Anagram ist ausschließlich als Vinyl auf dem britischen Label Panic Arrest erschienen.
Das naheliegendste und vielleicht auch schönste Anagramm von silent ist übrigens listen. So listen. Silently...
Indieophile ▼
The Silent Anagram features broken piano chords, swirling ambience and warm guitars. A hug made of music. Quiet, contemplative and somewhat impressionistic."
Tokafi ▼
It is anything but easy to write something about Matthias Grübel's Telekaster-project while his debut "The Silent Anagram" is running in the background. Not because it's too loud, hectic, aggressive or disturbing. Quite on the contrary, its tender sounds, blissed-out moods and slow-motion shifts of textures and colours are so utterly dreamy and consoling that the warmth and peace it radiates will make you forget all about whatever it is you're doing and make you want to immerse yourself in this world of melancholia and metaphors for the rest of the day - nay, week. For Grübel, releasing "The Silent Anagram" has not only been a two-year task but also an important change of direction after several years of publishing under the phon°noir.moniker. Almost in sync with his friend and colleague Rene Margraff aka Pillowdiver, he burned all bridges and started anew from scratch, discarding vocals and pop structures, turning towards floating structures and discovering the Guitar as his main sound source instead. Supported by a few fruitful collaborations, his quest has been more than successful: The new Telekaster style, somewhere between clicks & crackle and intricately layered electronic sweetness, has turned out instantly recognisable and offers plenty of potential for future explorations. Asked about when one can expect these future explorations, Grübel can only hope for a more speedy process this time. But even if things do take longer than expected, that only means there's more time to drown in the soft waves of "The Silent Anagram".
Mouvement ▼
Petit bijou de musique baladeuse, en prise directe avec l'imaginaire, The Silent Anagram, premier album de Telekaster, nouveau projet du Berlinois Matthias Grübel, est sorti en juillet (au format LP) chez Panic Arrest. Examen circonstancié de l'objet à l'occasion de deux concerts en France, le 13 octobre à Paris et le 14 octobre à Limoges.
Telekaster est le nouveau projet du jeune musicien berlinois Matthias Grübel, qui s'est précédemment fait connaître sous le nom de Phon°Noir (deux albums portant cette signature, et déployant une folktronica délicatement ouvragée en une série de pop-songs portées par une voix tout aussi mélancolique, ont paru chez Quatermass, sous-division de Sub Rosa). Avec Telekaster, Matthias Grübel entend clairement se positionner en paysagiste sonore et explorer la part la plus atmosphérique (et donc instrumentale) de sa musique. Comme il est de règle avec ce que l'on nomme l'ambient, cette musique tend à se fondre dans un contexte d'écoute plus large, partant du principe que tout son constitue potentiellement de la musique et que notre environnement offre un réservoir inépuisable de sons. Si, par son appréhension très subtile de la matière sonore, Telekaster se rattache à l'ambient et à la musique concrète, il s'attache en parallèle à garder le contact avec la pop par le biais de graciles fils mélodiques. Nappes éthérées de synthés et entrelacs de guitares, cristallines ou bourdonnantes, forment le fonds sonore des huit morceaux, tous instrumentaux, que contient The Silent Anagram – la batterie étant, quant à elle, tout à fait absente. L'album, dont seule une écoute au casque peut restituer tous les reliefs et les détails, témoigne d'une extrême finesse de composition et d'un appréciable souci d'élégance. Cette élégance toute en nuances se perçoit également sur la splendide pochette du disque et se retrouve encore sur le site Internet de Telekaster, d'une conception très originale (et très minimale). S'inscrivant dans le sillage d'esthètes sonores tels que Labradford, Sylvain Chauveau ou Fennesz, Telekaster effectue avec The Silent Anagram une remarquable entrée en piste et donne terriblement envie d'écouter la suite.
Storia Della Musica ▼
Telekaster è Matthias Grübel che con chitarra ed elettronica disegna come un architetto paesaggi distesi e sognanti di una città utopica immersa nelle nuvole. L'anagramma silente del pensiero di Telekaster è spiegato dai suoni, sentimenti rccolti in un album di fotografie sonore delicato ed intimista, glitch music dove la chitarra dilatata dagli effetti spunta in mezzo all'elettronica. Si parte con A Shift In Shapes umbratile e segnata da un piano ostinato che si ripete tra i campioni mandati in loop e poi manipolati, il pezzo si muove tra piccoli cambiamenti che si dilatano e si sfilacciano dentro un silenzioso finale che sfuma nella successiva We Are All Balloons dove ci sono tante campanelle a segnare la strada, un pezzo poetico che richiama Lau Nau e certo avant folk finnico. Pyramids ci riporta in territori più mitteleuropei con piano e violino lenti e scuri, la scelta dei suoni che fanno da sfondo all'ipnotica ripetizione delle note di piano e poi di violino non riesce a coinvolgere ed è poco ispirata, il pezzo fatica a colpire. A World of Ordinary Things si muove in territori ambient dove corde dilatate dipingono nebbiosi paesaggi sonori. All That Is Solid Melts Into Noise è la traccia meno convincente del lotto, irrisolta nella direzione da prendere e nella scelta dei campioni, veramente fuori fuoco con l'atmosfera del brano, accordi di chitarra dilatati e lenti ed elettronica veloce e piena. Si ritorna all'ambient con Where Diving Bells Are Ringing loop di chitarra e tastiere a disegnare l'attesa di qualcosa che potrebbe essere introdotto dalle voci di sottofondo che arrivano nel finale, mentre in sottofondo turbina una spirale di rumore. L'andamento dei suoni è circolare ed ipnotico, fino ai mari di drones e delay da dove poi emergono delle voci. Your Fireworks Brighten My Sky inizia noise e poi si dilata sempre più verso uno shoegazing elettronico. Cluster di suoni che si incastrano e si fondono in un muro delicato. Si chiude con No Moving Parts Contained carillon scricchiolante di commiato che riassume la dolcezza di un album che potrebbe essere un difficile anagramma per un orecchio distratto. E' un album dall'andamento discontinuo, a pezzi molto belli ed intensi si intermezzano alcuni pezzi fuori fuoco. Vale assolutamente la pena scoprilo e lasciarsi trasportare nelle vette raggiunte dai brani migliori e farsi una propria playlist dell'album. Sarebbe un sei e mezzo, ma si merita un sette sulla fiducia.

RELEASE INFORMATION ▼
Band: Rocketnumbernine
Title: You Reflect Me
Format: CD
Packaging: Heavy vinyl style sleeve
Duration: 42:04
Release Date: 19 June 2009
Availability: £7.99 inc Worldwide P&P

DESCRIPTION ▼
'You Reflect Me' marks the first recorded stage of Ben and Tom Page's musical journey together as Rocketnumbernine.
With scintillating rhythm and percussion, the album combines exhausting analogue synthesizers with remnants of fuzz and overdrive, masses of feeding back effects processors and a meditative wall of static culminating in a record that sounds only like itself delving below into the unconscious.
It captures the duo's improvised sonic adventures, with each brother responding and reacting to the music of the other.
Their journeys range from melancholic, almost ambient soundscapes, through to the heaviest and most relentless epics of noise and release.
A successful attempt at creating a mysterious musical world for the listener, You Reflect Me beautifully reveals the band's profound desire to combine their experimental, electronic and jazz influences from the roots and mirrors all of the emotional intensity that brotherhood can bring sounding refreshingly contemporary and gloriously extreme.
Highly recommended...

TRACK LISTING ▼
01. Cretin
02. The Bow And The Arrow
03. Doodlebug
04. Rene (Fogive Me)
05. Pages
06. You Reflect Me
07. Short One
08. Burn Up

PERSONNEL ▼
Ben Page: Synths, electronics and percussion
Tom Page: Drums, percussion and electronics

RECORDING INFORMATION ▼
Music performed, recorded and mixed by Ben and Tom Page.
Recorded in 2007-2008 at Pulse Studios, Walthamstow and at home.

EXTRA INFORMATION ▼
Artwork and drawings by Stephen Davids.
Special thanks to all our friends and family for all of their support - we love you all.

SUPPORT ▼
The Silent Ballet 8/10 ▼
Take a basketful of biscuits made of the grains of jazz and feed them to a flock of rabid printing presses. Grab a bunch of empty oil drums, a vintage synth and a high-hat, wait for it to rain and use them to summon a glacier-sized caterpillar, ensuring your tribe's salvation. Ok, we can't really do that, but those are some of the things Rocketnumbernine sound like they're doing. From start to finish, 'You Reflect Me' is a most refreshing listen, generating gobs of momentum while permutating in tide pools of experimentalism.
Rocketnumbernine don't really sound like jazz, nor do they sound entirely electronic, but clearly these are the two worlds brothers Tom and Ben Page draw from here. They've stretched those influences out into something that is at once much more abstract and so very raw. Imagine Sun Ra swallowed a Tortoise, and within his belly the animal removed its own shell to drum kraut-beats on while electrified juices slowly digested its brain. Then the occasional breath.
The plethora of percussion contained throughout is very loose, giving the feeling that the players used whatever they could get their hands on. The term "drumkit" for these guys includes every garage in the neighborhood. The sound of the sizzling cymbals is delicious and immediate, a defining feature throughout the album. Even the analogue synthesizers are used to add percussive sounds to the fray, making 'You Reflect Me' the perfect album to wash dishes to. If that growing pile of pots and pans just won't do themselves, put this album on and let the haphazard metal-on-metal strikes of a banal chore seamlessly integrate into Rocketnumbernine's sonic patina.
Something must be said about the compositions on this record, because they are quite good. Rocketnumbernine live sets are all improvised, but it's not all bang this, hit that, press this button. The Page brothers have been jamming in this vein for over eight years, having played in a few bands including Rothko. Their experience shows on a track like "Doodlebug" where they stretch things out into a slow-burning riser, the warm ambient grind and kraut-jam sounding something like Autechre being possessed by Can. There is patience and a level of maturity that translates into many engaging sonic environments, as 'You Reflect Me' really runs the gamut on ideas. "Rene (Please Forgive Me)" is totally different as no beat is to be found, and instead we have a nocturnal peek at a secret pond where all of the animals are made out of metal. Iron bullfrogs do a mating call, occasional golden owls and nightingales chime in and slink back into the darkness, all while a mermaid whimsically plonks on her glockenspiel. You go places with this music.
Headphones give the impression that Rocketnumbernine are playing inside a room in the back of your skull. The music sounds very close, with the room noise keeping things intimate and raw. Even the tape hiss is played with at times, lifting veils in the process. Many of the songs feel very warm, even though there isn't a load of melody to speak of. The drummer is a supreme talent, giving all the science a strong foundation. If you like experimental music and you like good drumming, I don't think you're going to find too many records that satisfy like this one. It brings to mind the richness of last year's succulent debut from Comatone & Foley, albeit less android in feeling, and if these two records are any indication, the outlook for more greatness inside the electro-drummer duo scene is looking pretty plump with possibilities.
Foxy Digitalis 7/10 ▼
This is the first recorded document of the brothers Page, Ben and Tom, and shows much promise and potential. This isn't to say that the music isn't wholly satisfying it itsel; it is. With shades of Sun Ra's "Atlantis" peeking in at times, I find the driving but subdued Rasheed Ali-influenced drums the central element which maintains the force of the recording. But to minimize it to such a one-sided influence would be unfair. Frankly, there are hints of Miles, Coltrane...even John McLaughlin throughout Ben Page's use of electronics. However, to simply refer to this as some sort of derivative jazz document is underwhelming. The title track, "'You Reflect Me'" explores latter-day similarities between early electronic industrial when paired with more conventional jazz idioms. Those "conventional" idioms arise from the expert drumming, but shouldn't be mistaken for mere mimicry. The fluidity and economy are to be commended-and the electronics introduce new drone sensibilities to a music which has been in dire need of a shot of beatific honey...dripping, sliding, sometimes stinging, but nearly always injecting their free-flowing groove with just enough howl, just the right amount of natural imagery to keep the brain engaged and wondering what will happen next. "'You Reflect Me'" is quite a promising inauguration.
Norman Records ▼
Philthy just slung a CD at my face and said 'Oi you! Factor this into your days work innit!!' before cackling like an evil retarded child & jumping out of the window a la several episodes of Father Ted. It's by Rocketnumbernine who get points deducted for stapling ALL the syllables into one big search engine stuffing/ career sabotaging modge. I kind of missed 'You Reflect Me's track uno because I was thinking about jam. And rabbits. But track two is fucking jazz man, it be free & funky, rhythmic & groovy yah. The production is well boss and I feel like i'm in some spacious cellar off my head on 'erbal ciggies & vibes man. That hard, blunted echo-ey drum sound is served even better on 'Doodlebug' by the addition of some monged vintage synth action and a thrumming low-end drone that makes me giggle involuntarily. They also like to piss around with mad sounds & a child's xylophone which is totally OK with me. It makes for a nice interval before the onslaught of more ace sounding tribal drums and tape hiss concealing a malevolent force beneath. You can totally tell they proper love old analogue equipment & recording techniques, there's some cracking atmospherics on this album. There's some paralells to be drawn with these guys and Manchester's A Middle Sex who are soooo worth checking out too! Just don't call them Nu-tribal whatever you do, it's just jammin' man....Good stuff!
The 405 ▼
When a band is described as being experimental, it sometimes means that they have forgotten to pack the tunes, so you can imagine my trepidation when first listening to this CD.
The duo consists of the brothers Ben and Tom Page, who between them play synthesisers, electronics, drums and percussion. I believe they have more players on stage for life shows, where they perform in front of the visuals of Justin Badhand, and are making themselves a good name for their live shows.
Stripped of a visual counterpoint, the music is not as I feared. It is highly rhythmic, and although unlikely to appeal much to people who think Ronan Keating is a musical adventurer, there is much to like and admire here.
From the opener Cretin with its insidious throbbing keyboard sounds, to Doodlebug, which at times sound like a private conversation between a drum kit and a Mobile Phone, to the xylophone sounds that decorate Rene (Forgive me) or the seeming drum duet of Pages, there is something for people who like their Jazz to be brooding, or their brooding music to be Jazz.
Textura ▼
'You Reflect Me' delivers pretty much what you'd expect from an improvised set by a synth-and-electronics player and drummer: forty-two minutes of heavy gunslinging with brothers Ben and Tom Page crafting mood-shifting soundscapes that breathe uncompromising experimental fire. Though the duo ranges across the stylistic field, with a few quieter moments (e.g., "Rene (Forgive Me)," a meandering moodscape for glockenspiel, bells, and electronics) emerging amidst the noisier, it's in the more aggressive zone where you'll find the siblings most commonly habitating. That they took the Rocketnumbernine name from a Sun Ra song offers some hint of the space-tripping vibe they project in the material, and we're talking live drums here, folks, so the music broils with oft-uncontained energy. "The Bow and the Arrow" has moments that roar with as much energy as a warm-up studio session musicians undertake while waiting for Miles to show. A tom-toms emphasis gives "Pages" a tribal effect, while "Burn Up" writhes before moving into a bass-driven, neo-dub episode. The two longer tracks, "Doodlebug" and "'You Reflect Me'", allow the group to stretch out, with the former using the opportunity to grumble and growl combustibly while the howling latter stokes the album's most raucous fire. Being improvised, 'You Reflect Me' includes some small degree of noodling as the Pages try to figure out where the music's taking them, and electronics are used more to build texture than as a lead soloing instrument, with the brothers typically barreling along in tandem.

RELEASE INFORMATION ▼
Band: Cut Iowa Network
Title: Projector Gunship Held {Ø}
Format: 2x180gLP
Packaging: Heavy 5mm spined sleeve
Duration: 66:10
Release Date: 2 March 2009
Availability: £14.99 inc Worldwide P&P

DESCRIPTION ▼
'Projector Gunship Held {Ø}' is the first release in an expansive trilogy that combines earth shattering drums with guitars, bass and effects to produce a sprawling series of instrumental atmospheres.
The album arcs through different interpretations of drone-rock from the heavily blissed out haze of 'The Sun Was Gone But Our Faces Shone' through the shimering loops and sonics of 'Super Futures Axis Neo Tokyo' to the destructive dirge of 'Kill Command (Arc Light Operations)' taking in kraut-rock, drone, electronica and avant-garde influences on the way to produce a jaw dropping cinematic explosion of sound.
Simply awesome.

TRACK LISTING ▼
01. The Sun Was Gone But Our Faces Shone
02. The Signals From Your Radar Are Closing In On Me
03. Blacking Out Through Chinese Walls
04. Super Futures Axis Neo Tokyo
05. Kill Command (Arc Light Operations)

PERSONNEL ▼
Tim Evans: Guitars, effects, loops and tapes
Steve d'Enton: Drums and percussion
Adam Barringer: Basses, low end frequencies and loops

RECORDING INFORMATION ▼
Recorded by Cut Iowa Network at the Team Built Remote September 2008 - November 2008.
Mastered by Harris Newman at Grey Market, Montreal, Quebec, Canada November 2008.

EXTRA INFORMATION ▼
Artwork and sleeve design by Department EH.

SUPPORT ▼
Norman Records album of the week ▼
Now for a treat...who loved that Minus Pilots LP? Well...the label Panic Arrest have their second experimental odyssey available through us. It's by Cut Iowa Network and this double 180gm treat has been christened 'Projector Gunship Held'. Beginning its climb with gracefully melancholic bowed strings and cheeky smatterings of free percussion, taking in some juddering electronic pulses and spellbinding atmospherics, this is a fine exercise in drama & intention. Then the drum kit kicks into action, slowly rolling syncopated beats and a lulling Tortoise style bassline, all imbued with this widescreen aura of space & time. The second track takes the hypnotic krautrock flavour further, a sharp, funky beat and strange one-note chimes & echo-ey whirrs, pulsing away, feeding your head, whilst the bass frequencies hover & lurk around like ominous waves of subconscious sound. Truly brilliant stuff. Track 3 is like a continuation of the theme into slightly harder, wilder pastures, a little bit more improvised & slightly psychedelic. The second disc opens with 'Super Futures Axis Neo Tokyo', Beginning with drifting atmospherics & looped sound, it builds into another tight, percussive workout, definetely in debt to old masters Can but sounding incredibly taut & minty fresh. There is something very warm yet clinically executed about this record, glowing with an organic feel yet very precise and metronomic. As is usual with my reviews, i'll leave the final track to your perusal! I've been bored silly with post rock of late but this opus combines the best of mid-late 90's Chicago instrumental rock with exciting & modern drone/experimental textures whilst flexing its Herculean Krautrock backbone. All finely mastered by Harris Newman, a member of that Godspeed clan! Bloody marvellous, in deluxe packaging. This is without a doubt shaping up to be a very special label!
Tokafi ▼
What is it about Krautrock? What invisible force makes musicians pick up their instruments to try and follow in the footsteps of bands which were obviously deeply rooted in era-specific philosphies and sometimes hardly knew what they were doing? One thing's for sure: Even though love, peace and politics are no longer part of the program, artistic parallels between the golden yesteryears of the German music scene and recent developments in the most diverse corners of the experimental community are certainly becoming more and more obvious with each day. From Drone and Doom to Stoner Rock and improvised Soundscapes, the combined shadows of bands like Can, early Tangerine Dream, Ashra, Faust and Neu! are looming large. While a backwards-oriented copycat mentality appears to be the norm amidst the stagflating pool of retro-worshippers, a select group of artists have used the inspiration from long ago to come up with highly personal statements.
One of them are Cut Iowa Network. Starting with the title of their current full-length "Projector Gunship Held 1", the freewheeling pace of their release schedule (these more than sixty minutes of music arrive a mere two months after their "Junkyard Transmissions" debut) and the format it has been released on (Double Vinyl) to its inclusion into an ambitious tryptich, everything about this album points in the direction of the 70s. There's a maximum of two epic tracks per side, with most pieces consisting of hazy grooves slowly peeling themselves off woozy trance-textures and then drifting gracefully along the horizon, ultimately dissolving into the distant darkness with a silent implosion. An unobtrusive minimalism dominates the development of the music, with intermittantly appearing tones or inverse melodic fields, undulating melancholically before finally fading out, acting as druggy Leitmotifs.
One of the appealing aspects about Cut Iowa Network is how openly they're allowing their audience to perceive and appreciate the individual contributions by their respective members: Tim Evans is responsible for the dense atmospherics of the group, using repetitive Rhodes melodies, psychedelic Guitar lines, surreal tape loops and displaced sound effects to build up a tight web of outwardly unconnected but, as closer inspection and full immersion reveal, seminally interrelated elements, while Adam Barringer's Bass provides an organic rhythmical metronome as well as a warm, peaceful and almost textural low-end vibration. It is Drummer Steve d'Enton, however, who consitutes the gravitational heart of the band. It is as if his partners were playing both with and against him: d'Enton's ultra-reduced, postrocking Jazz-propulsion constitutes a concrete lens through which his trio-partners' cosmic allusions are spectrally broken into humanly visible colours. Space, it emerges, is not a barren vacuume for Cut Iowa Network, but a starry-eyed wonderland: Had Douglas Adams lived longer, he would surely have included this band in the next volume of his "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".
Musique Machine 4/5 ▼
On two 180 grams slabs of vinyl, in a limited edition of 250, comes the first part of a trilogy. The bandname doesn't give away much about the sound of this British threepiece. With the album's title your thoughts tend to go in the direction of something sci-fi.
Not entirely off the mark, as the rhythm-oriented kraut-rock does have ties with the outer space obsessions of long ago, especially in the seventies and perhaps the Star Wars ideas from Reaganite times. That said, it's not necessarily all that fixed. Although tapping from the more repetitive aspects of Kraut-rock the sound can't be described as being 'retro'. Most pieces build on a single rhythm, with only very minor other events to dress it up. Even though this may seem a bit uninteresting in text or even on first listen, after a couple of spins pieces grow on you. The subtle drones and loops that are often underneath the steady drums set an interesting mood in which you it's easy drift away in as a listener. Within the pieces there's little activity, sometimes shifting or building up so slow you'd hardly notice.
Between the several sides (except for side two all sides hold one piece of music) there's quite a bit of variation. The Sun Was Gone But Our Faces Shone is slow and moody, while the flipside with The Signals Of Your Radar Are Closing In On Me has a beat that reminds of Clyde Stubblefield's infamous Funky Drummer made famous by James Brown. Blacking Out Your Chinese Walls has a shifting layer of a backwards guitar, looping against the 3/4 rhythm. These polyrhythmic shifts are also found in the driving Super Futures Axis Neo Tokyo. The final side/track is Kill Commmand (Arc Light Operations) which is also the most aggressive track, both in playing as well as the distorted sounds.
Generally you could compare it to Circle, but with less testosterone, aiming for a more cinematic sound. This being the start of a trilogy, 'Projector Gunship Held {Ø}' makes you curious to hear where this is going to lead to, but for now there's an interesting start.
Textura ▼
Panic Arrest follows its superb Minus Pilots release, 'Superior Proof Of Cinema', with a solid double-album set by Cut Iowa Network, a forward-thinking trio comprised of Tim Evans (guitars, effects, loops and tapes), Adam Barringer (basses, low-end frequencies and loops), and Steve d'Enton (drums and percussion). Recorded in late 2008 and the first chapter in a planned trilogy, 'Projector Gunship Held {Ø}' spreads sixty-six minutes of freewheeling "instrumental drone-rock" across four 180g-vinyl sides. Cut Iowa Network plays in a live and loose jam-like style that's anything but off-putting, though the trio does have a tendency to fixate on a particular riff a little too long (see side two).
Side one's "The Sun Was Gone But Our Faces Shone" initiates the journey sleepily with opening minutes dedicated to hazy guitar textures and cymbal shimmer. The mood is languorous as razor-sharp guitar lines drift across subtle percussive punctuations. At the seven-minute mark, the full drum kit kicks in, rousing the music from slumber and setting it on its way. With Barringer's bass joining in soon after, the music slowly gathers steam, becoming a dusty trudge before fading. The tempo picks up on side two with "The Signals From Your Radar Are Closing In On Me" leaping from the gate with a stabbing guitar motif repeating over a punchy drum pulse, and "Blacking Out Through Chinese Walls" perpetuating that steady increase in intensity.
Repeating figures in "Super Futures Axis Neo Tokyo" boost the third side's psychedelic character, as does the krautrock-like attack stoked by the band. Midway through, a brief breakdown paves the way for some dive-bombing guitar lines (a subtle nod to No Pussyfooting perhaps?) before the band starts up again, even more aggressively this time, before decompressing in haze at track's end. The band's experimental side moves to the forefront during side four's culminating "Kill Command (Arc Light Operations)" where strangulated swells roar and churn noisily overtop throbbing and occasionally eruptive rhythms (d'Enton's spirited playing the focal point in this case). Though the vinyl format obviously splits it into four sides, 'Projector Gunship Held {Ø}' needs to be heard in its entirety for the music's progression and incremental build to be appreciated.
Bearded ▼
This three-piece produce ambient electronica as strangely intriguing as their name, mixing Boards of Canada, Krautrock, prog and drone. The tracks are long, each in excess of ten minutes, and feature expanses of sounds built up from languid loops, chittering electronic landscapes and simple guitar and drum patterns. Not much happens but it often happens rather beautifully - like walking across a Scottish moor haunted by Krautrock spectres.
The danger, of course, is if basic ideas aren't interesting enough you get mediocre noodling, and CIN do fall into that trap with the irritating guitar twangs of 'The Signals From Your Radar Are Closing In On Me'. Thankfully, the percussive contributions are top-notch on the three great tracks that highlight this record. 'Super Futures Axis Neo Tokyo' is a masterful 15 minutes bookended by the distant chirps and calls of a remote moor, 'The sun Was gone But Our Faces Shone' deploys a mix of soulful accordion-like drones offset by nervy little chirrups that ebb and flow like the tides, and 'Blacking Out Through Chinese Walls' is beautiful mid-tempo electronica with beautiful drums skitters.
The Silent Ballet 6.5/10 ▼
Leaving this world might be easy for some, and too difficult for others. Physically, for most it would require the dreams of a sci-fi writer come true (if you're an astronaut, please take me!). Mentally, though, it's just a matter of consuming the right amount of the right substance at the right time. "But what about music, what about books, or videogames?" you say. Well, you just need to look up or open your eyes to realize you're still here with the rest of us, breathing the fractal routine of everyday existence. Escaping from it is certainly a common practice which we possibly will never master, but a special kind of relief comes from those moments when, out of control, we leave this world.
You're in an indeterminate time in the future. A megalopolis surrounds you, its angular, titanic shapes constantly reminding you of gothic architecture; where people of old knelt in awe to worship a god beyond any understanding, people of now walk by and smile, knowing that it is they who are worthy of worship after building the world out of matter insignificant. A weirdly organic-looking rocket stands before you, and a steel person bids you enter. As you sit down inside, you notice the countless buttons, the thousands of parts and their process of assembly, other passengers who speak words you know – everything reveals itself as mechanical, a system constructed upon repetition, particular drones reflecting the nature of the universe in which events are but sparks flying in the infinite void of time. The rocket takes off, and soon enough you feel your machine rip apart the atmosphere, hammer the skies like a siege ram; you look out the window and find yourself "Blacking Out Through Chinese Walls" – the one wall you can look at from the earth while in the heavens, has been broken. Your thoughts come up in the same, constant electronic hums as the rocket fills your ears with the deceivingly free-style drumming of its engines in a seemingly endless jam that mimics the rigorous, expansive insistence of the outer-space landscape.
The stars fill you with relative peace, but you know this time and place is one of suffering and destruction, much like any other - except that now, there's a mathematical precision to the flow of the apocalypse. The "Kill Command (Arc Light Operations)" bursts through the rocket's vintage speakers. A looping morse-code message makes its intermittent, analog content clear until noisy static takes over and repeats itself in contrast to the drumming, creating an uneasy polyrhythm over the ambient-like hum of space itself, an open bassline: the command has been issued. The rocket slightly changes course and as you look out and see the gray cover of Earth you first breached through, you notice the millions of tiny explosions, the beautiful mini-novas calmly erasing everything and everyone you ever knew. After ten minutes of unyielding annihilation, all that remains is the electronic manipulation of a dead radio transmission as it slowly turns into an echo adrift and at peace in the vast realm of darkness.
You wake up, and find yourself in another megalopolis. The rocket has landed and is now empty – you walk out and see the "Super Futures Axis Neo Tokyo": you can still hear the hum of space within you, now added to the spectral electronic voice of a fascist city born from order, from the coincidence of enhanced temporal projections droning on and on. A tribal quality drives this psychedelic explosion of metallic colors and a sky painted in ochre tones: monotony turned into a ritual, mindless machines live and die in the name of the city; this moaning, roaring manifestation of the pinnacle of progress consumes its inhabitants as they throw their arms up, roll their eyes back, and offer their lives in worship. Their souls, just like the radio transmission, slowly creep down into the sewage, the heart of all cities, and turn into electronic blips that echo away into an abyss that rivals even the one beyond the skies.
As you walk through the colossal structures, you hear a signal that is similar to a frog's croak – an electronically simulated noise that recalls times so ancient there were still other living things around. Someone is looking for you. "The Signals From Your Radar Are Closing In On Me", you think. This threat from a mysterious hunter beats incisively like a hip-hop piece in which urban desolation is an object of kitsch and de-centered parody: the loose, spacey bass drawing the support of the piece turns the feeling into ambience, revealing this terrible parade as something which is always there, and which is deep enough as to 'reward' every level of attention put to it. As you run and jump and teleport out of the radar's range, the final explosion occurs – fire and speed turn the world into a swirling mass of force and steel; within seconds turned into decades turned into centuries, "The Sun Was Gone But Our Faces Shone". Only burnt ruins remain; an alien, desert electronic sound fills the air with slowness a la Earth. Passing through the tranquil wasteland, it brings to our (now ghostly) attention the spurts of vegetation delicately crushing the aluminum decay in gentle drumbeats: an organic, naturalistic feminine revenge upon the skyward, masculine altars of technology, a return to the horizontal, a return to the world before it was recreated by our presence.
Our trip out of this world ends with the progressive disappearance of sounds, and the relief of escape will probably soon turn into something that will put you on your nerves. Why? Because just like most science fiction, to weave a vision of the future is in the end a reflection upon life in the here and now. Make out of it what you will, but this musical escape is not fruitless, and even though at times it can seem too long for its own good, too uneventful for its own development (krautrock electronics and ambience make for a bit of a difficult pair), it will be rewarding if you keep your imagination constantly in tune and at work – an escape that asks of you to not escape, in a sense. In any case, get in that rocket and have a good journey through this first part of a trilogy about the future, transmitted directly from the Cut Iowa Network. Travel safely!

RELEASE INFORMATION ▼
Band: Minus Pilots
Title: Superior Proof Of Cinema
Format: 180gLP
Packaging: Heavy gatefold
Duration: 45:15
Release Date: 24 November 2008
Availability: £13.99 inc Worldwide P&P

DESCRIPTION ▼
'Superior Proof Of Cinema' blends degraded electronics, electric bass and ageing cassette tape recorders into a sensitive yet menacing whole.
The album has a full span of emotion, perfectly paced with subtle and deep textures offering an engaging journey across the borders into minimalist, drone, static and circuit breaking electronics.

TRACK LISTING ▼
01. Twin Screens Fail
02. Cluster & Arc
03. These Frontiers Can Kill
04. Dusk Carries Control
05. This Distance Was Never Close
06. V Sun Might

RECORDING INFORMATION ▼
Created at the Team Built Remote between September 2007 and January 2008.
Mastered by Harris Newman at Grey Market, Montreal, Canada in July 2008.

EXTRA INFORMATION ▼
Crash Landing and Send Him Home paintings by Parskid.
Sleeve design by Department EH.

SUPPORT ▼
Norman Records album of the week ▼
I think the record that's taken me most this week is the outstanding LP by Minus Pilots on the Panic Arrest label. This is a new UK label which seems to have some good stuff on the horizon. They just release albums on 180 gram vinyl so I'm taken from the off. The sleeve did it for me 'n all what with it's weird little forest monsters which aren't a million miles away from the art in Princess Mononoke (top film!). The music itself it just bass guitar, tape recorders and some electronics. I'm totally moved by this record It's absolutely gorgeous!! Think some of the lighter moments of Rothko crossed with William Basinski and the earlier more weird Loren Mazzacane Connors. There's loads of vinyl crackles all over the record which give it that warmth. It's just a whole album chocka full of warm meandering atmospherics. Just listening to it then I got stuck in some sort of weird trance and forgot what I was doing. Man, this record takes you somewhere else and spits you out as an exhausted mess in a different dimension. Stick with it though as it's not a particular obvious on first listen but I've been obsessively playing this all week and can't leave it alone. 'Superior Proof Of Cinema' is LP only and is completely fucking sexy!
Smallfish ▼
I'm really chuffed to have grabbed some copies of this debut release from Panic Arrest. I like the label for 2 reasons. One, it's a good label, naturally. And two, it's a vinyl only label and that shows a good degree of faith in the generally uncaring world of music. 'Superior Proof Of Cinema' is a delicious piece of work that showcases the sound of organic electronic music in fine, fine style. Simply using guitars and effects Minus Pilots have conjured up a low-key, magical sounding set of works that will gently woo you with their melodic, melancholy feel. There's a power here, although not in the traditional in-your-face kind of way. It's more the subtlety that does it to you and you'll find yourself turning the record over again and again and each listen will bring you another micro-facet of this very emotive, very beautiful album. You may well have guessed that I'm somewhat enamoured with it. I am. And I'm sure you will be too. Wonderful.
Textura ▼
Minus Pilots inaugurates the England-based imprint Panic Arrest with a strong, forty-five-minute album of evocative electro-acoustic sound sculpting. The group (personnel details aren't provided) constructs 'Superior Proof Of Cinema's trance-inducing moodscapes using electric basses, looping devices, decrepit cassette tape recorders, and various analogue, vintage, digital, and custom effects pedals. Though there are pauses between the six identified tracks, each side of the 180 gram vinyl slab feels like a singular piece of meditative, bass guitar-based drift. Minus Pilots' restrained and sensitive style draws the listener into its web, leaving one to contentedly surrender to the music's steady and ponderous flow. Though the static-laden and bass guitar-heavy material strays little from its preferred mood of reverie, 'Superior Proof Of Cinema' avoids sounding one-dimensional but instead satisfyingly uniform. Mention also must be made of the fabulous gatefold and the cover artwork created by Seattle artist Parskid.
Incidentally, Panic Arrest's resident mastering engineer is Harris Newman whose credits include releases by Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Do Make Say Think, Silver Mt. Zion, Fly Pan Am, and other Constellation-associated acts. In keeping with its affection for the tactile pleasures that come from experiencing music using the turntable-based medium, Panic Arrest was established to release limited vinyl editions of alternative, experimental, minimalist, and drone recordings. Long may it run.
Musique Machine 4/5 ▼
When I put the needle into the groove I wondered what happened the lp. There was an amount of static that made you wonder if this album was second hand instead of being a brandnew limited edition release of the equally brandnew Panic Arrest imprint.
On first listen I must say it came off as rather random guitar noodlings through an echopedal, to put it a bit crude. On repeated listenings I'm happy to admit this was much too crude and I changed my mind. Not that these aren't (bass) guitarnoodlings echoing on forever to weave a mellow texture, but it's far from boring if you allow yourself to be sucked into the soundworld of the anonymous Brits operating under the name Minus Pilots. It's moody, mellow and ultimatly very pleasing on the ear. Strings are melancholically plucked to get lost in a labyrinth of corroded electronics and ageing cassette tape recorders. The static I mentioned in the intro crackles you into a nice nostalgic haze while the echoes ponder into space.
Panic Arrest releases 180 grams vinyl in small, limited pressings exclusively, so don't wait too long. Minus Pilots are the first to deliver an artifact that's just fun to get. Fuck downloading! I'm not a vinyl buff, but this just is so much more fun to spend money on than on a bunch of impersonal bits and bytes called mp3's. There's the pretty artwork by Parskid, but also the manufacturing of this gatefold is just gorgeous. People into the music of Caretaker and William Basinski are advised to check this out, as they might like what's on offer in the crackly grooves of 'Superior Proof Of Cinema'.
Tokafi ▼
Just when you'd resigned yourself to the sad but seemingly inescapable fact that even contemporary experimental music needs to make a momentuous first impression or risk being berried on the impenetrable fields of musical history's vast and ever-growing graveyard, an album like "'Superior Proof Of Cinema'" comes along and offers an enticing alternative. Essentially using nothing but effect-laden electric Bass and old tape recorders for instrumentation, it is hard to imagine a record trying harder to fall below the perceptional radar of most listeners than this one. And yet, after the needle has returned to its starting position, you're glowing from the inside, feeling warm, cozy and sensuous and ready to flip the disc and give it a second spin.
It would, on the other hand, be wrong to conclude that Minus Pilots' first official full-length were one of these typical albums which initially leave you cold only to then sneak up on you when you least epect it and gradually grow on you over time. Instead, American visual artist Parskid's artwork, which makes full use of the cover's heavy cardboard Gatefold dimensions, instantly grabs you the very moment you unwrap it from its protective plastic foil: An air of mystery and romance pervades a dark, nocturnal forrest inhabited by red-caped mouthless homunculi, referencing the band's goal of creating music "designed for listening through headphones while gazing at the stars". The 180g Vinyl, meanwhile, seems to represent more than just a high-quality format to protect the integrity of the fragile sounds carved upon it. Rather, while playing, it increasingly takes on the appearance of a rotating disc-world, the turntable's needle inquisitively scanning its surface for beauty.
If "'Superior Proof Of Cinema'" indeed fails to immediately stun its audience, then it is mainly because of its radical minimalism. All six pieces display an obsesive fascination for feeding organically resonating, comforting Bass sounds through a delay unit. In terms of composition, there are no secrets to unravel: Pieces either represent improvisations over a continuous loop, rhythmical variations of barely two or three note short melodic motives, melodic variations of a gently shifting rhythmical pattern or freely floating soundscapes feeling their way forward from tone to tone. Each theme invariably creates a silent slipstream of echoes and as tracks progress, these reverberations start interacting with each other and forming scintillating harmonic fields. Attention can therefore always either be focussed on the original source material, on the undulating sheets of sound following in their wake or on both at the same time, allowing for various, highly divergent experiences of one and the same piece.
One could of course claim that this technique is simplistic and, stretched over the course of three quarters of an hour, formulaic. Admittedly, anyone working in the field of Ambient and Sound Art will have played around and messed about with delay at one point or the other, as this particular effect allows for rich and rewarding textures with a minum of technological expertise, overlapping frequencies reinforcing or subdueing each other to create breathing atmospheres almost without external input. Still, the challenge of creating enticing and non-cliched music remains as hard as ever. As Minus Pilots prove on this occasion, it is not just about playing the right notes, but about which to leave out as well. Ythere's a sense of whispered excitement preceeding each semblance and a sense of great expectation and curiosity on how it will influence the overall sonic image, resulting in pacified pieces filled with a natural sense of tension and release.
To take the right decisions in such a stripped-down environment, you have to start thinking in echoes. Your mind needs to become an ocean, sending waves of aural images towards your hands to set the strings of your instrument in motion and listeners into a world of pure fluctuation. As you first accept and then adapt to the fact that everything softly repeats itself before dying down completely, the music wins you over because of its unfaltering reliance on a spartanic pool of methods. It is this extreme nakedness, this absolute will to never deviate from a single mood, which makes "'Superior Proof Of Cinema'" such an insistent experience.
This, too, is another remarkable fact about the album: Just when you'd resigned yourself to the sad but seemingly inescapable fact that even contemporary experimental music needs to draw from as many influences as possible to prove how eclectic and open-minded its creators really are, the alluring monochromatic depth of this record offers an enticing alternative.
Collective ▼
Minus Pilot's first full length, 'Superior Proof Of Cinema', consists of blissful ambient soundscapes littered with guitar sounds that clang effortlessly in the fore. The record's crackly production complements the ethereal world that the artwork so wonderfully depicts. The album's opener, 'Twin Screens Fail', throbs until the guitars become submerged in a blanket of warm, hypnotic drones. The record ends in a similar fashion, with the guitars wavering gently until they become wholly enmeshed in the ambient fuzz. Although not quite as poignant as William Basinski or as entrancing as Tim Hecker, Minus Pilots have proved their ability to captivate. Definitely one to watch.
Temporary Fault ▼
Quietly spellbinding cascades of superimposed arpeggios whose harmonic auras tend to a natural stratification accompany us with lulling delicateness, diffusing their old-fashioned perfume across the room (and making my wife fall asleep in the meantime). The melancholic remembrances typical of a unenthusiastic Sunday afternoon come out little by little, the caressing simplicity of the music perfect for a few minutes of intense reflection about what the upcoming week is going to bring. It's all here, the tracks succeeding similarly one after another, the infinite repeats immersed in a blur of low fidelity. And we love it as it is. Great stuff.