Brambles - Charcoal

Published on A Closer Listen.

Mark Dawson’s debut as Brambles is packed with mystery and buoyed by austerity. It’s not common to hear an album whose source instruments can confound and comfort at the same time. The intellectual in us will sometimes have a hard time figuring out what instrument is what, but inevitably the reptile brain will rejoice without caring.

The opening pair of tracks sets a stage for sombre and wintery feelings. “Such Owls As You” utilizes a peaceful piano motif and the softest accents of saxophone this side of twilight. One can draw a lot of connecting points to the label’s flagship duo Nest who similarly can make anything one looks at rich with importance. Mysterious winds or sirens occasionally drift in and out of focus, sounding entirely organic and a bit haunting. Throughout we hear field recordings like the fluttering of wings coupled with dreamy interpretations of classical instruments.

“In The Androgynous Dark” delivers a chilling romanticism that is at the heart of the Brambles sound. It’s the first instance of any percussion, a hushed brushing echoing into the undergrowth, and it’s punctuated by a melody that sounds as if it’s being played on a piano made of ice. Clarinet, strings and guitar make for a rich and soft pillow of sound, one that you might rest your head upon when the bittersweet truths in life consume the mind.

Charcoal is just warming up, however. “Salt Photographs” is the album’s fulcrum at nearly seven minutes, effortlessly changing from a string quartet sounding one shade shy of paranoid to an optimistic Peter Broderick shuffle. There is a rich soundtrack quality to this album, but not in “it’s made for a movie” kind of way. This is a soundtrack that begs a movie to be made in your mind. Most artists do great things when they simply respond to their own life. It feels like a miracle to us, the folks who have no idea how someone can get to this place where art is manifesting so clearly, so wonderfully.

When I listen to Brambles I am hearing an artist who is pouring his life into his music. He obviously has spent hours crafting this work and probably doesn’t care deeply about being recognized for it. This is the hallmark of the Serein label. Through each of its major releases (this being the third) the artists’ music has been a creation of stark necessity. Each composition calls for certain instruments all the while having a clarity of expression. A fellow left to his own thoughts for hours hunched over a piano in a communal artist house for months could come up with such a performance, as Dawson did at the Painted Palace in Melbourne where most of this album was recorded. It has been said that this is a night time album, and it was the most fragile of hours when Brambles likely broke through and solidified his melodies and major compositional cornerstones. But I hear a poignant album that can grace our most quiet of times or punctuate a wild event with a knowing caress. This is delicate music which, like a flower, only lasts for so long but is built upon a foundation of a need to live well and live beautifully. Bravo. May you find your bee.

Dead Sea Apes - Lupus

Published on A Closer Listen

Hold the space. Light the candles. Stir the brew. The ritual is about to begin. The curiously named Lupus begins with a strike of a singing bowl: an invitation calling our reptile minds into action.

Confident and thick as a galaxy, this album gathers up a whole bunch of psych and prog influences and pours them out like black coffee. It’s the coffee you drink while in some Byzantine rite of passage (no you can’t have cream!). Each sip feels mystical and heavy, to be savored by the deepest of olfactory nerves. The pace is relaxed yet full of momentum, demonstrated to perfection on “Knowledge and Conversation”, a 16-minute piece that grows like mutant mycelium in an abandoned city. Repetitive guitar themes keep one foot on the earth as constantly shuffling drums and bass lines help pilot the ark of electronic weather and energy.

Based in Manchester, UK, Dead Sea Apes draw from a lot of influences. Their fondness for the kraut-masters Can comes across in the way they tailor their layers. As it goes, Lupus is a jam record by design, the one-off recordings later studied and enhanced with more layers, sounds, drama, and the like. “Something To Do With Death” pits a mechanically drowsy rhythm with a Simon Scott vibe, telecasters twinkling and stratocasters growling. Guitars perpetually bloom on top of others in loops for a good twelve minutes. “Blood Knot” sounds like some (un)happy accident, as an arachnid beat with tambourine joins up with a terrifying metal chord – for about a minute. The variation between moods and approaches on each track keeps this album highly engaging.

Lupus is psych rock meditation music, and the reason it doesn’t run out of steam is the band’s sense of dynamism and drama. Dead Sea Apes play slow, and thus more pockets of space open up to enhance what’s being played. Some folks are just savants at knowing when to ratchet up the tension at the right moment, or draw it out over a matter of minutes. Grails do this impeccably, and here Dead Sea Apes do it at a more glacial pace. But it’s a black glacier, and it trails fire behind it, spitting ash as it rampages through hillsides and villages in the Roman countryside (just you wait for the climax on “Wolf Of The Bees”, you’ll see it). I wasn’t aware this would be part of the ritual, but one doesn’t argue when the mirrors open doors.

Evan Caminiti - Dreamless Sleep

More Evan Caminiti! Does he ever sleep? First appeared on A Closer Listen.

It’s amazing what can happen to us in a year. Something we did twelve months ago can mean something entirely different or fail to resonate with us today. Such a gap in time is what allowed Evan Caminiti to take a leap in compositional scope for Dreamless Sleep. While this album still exists in an ambient realm its stylistic shift sounds a whole lot more like Tim Hecker, someone quite familiar with drastic mutations of original source material. Whatever side of consciousness you’re on, this album is welcoming, though it is oh so clear that Caminiti composes at night and for the night.

Between Barn Owl and Higuma, his myriad solo guises as well as touring the world and the many musicians wanting to collaborate, it is easy to understand how the Dreamless Sleep recordings were put on the back burner. After recording guitar and synthesizer to a 4-track in 2011, life happened, and it was not until a year later that Caminiti revisited these compositions. Compared to previous records, including this year’s earlier release Night Dust, this album plots a different course to arrive at a slightly more articulate dream-space, one whose details are more memorable upon waking.

Shades of  Caminiti’s psychedelic, western landscape can be heard through the sparkling drift, but Dreamless Sleep has cleaner edges to follow. The drone, both the subtle and the huge, are present, but rather than being left in the murk to one’s own devices, the listener is gently led by the hand into a rich narrative. “Symmetry” represents a defining moment in Caminiti’s emergence from static to clarity. It begins with tape hiss and soft cycles of fuzzy energies flurrying beneath the surface like an iridescent school of fish. A skyline opens up with a series of synthesizers and echoing tones before the staying voice of guitar appears. Only a few notes are used and sustained, but this guitar serves as a calming beacon, a calming thread to follow.

“Absteigend” uses hushed voice and breath to create shuttering percussion while guitars and synths create a nocturnal chorus. It’s easy to let Caminiti’s albums pass by without really noticing the details, but it is Caminiti’s clear voice on guitar that ensures that Dreamless Sleep does not solely exist in a hypnagogic state. “Veiled Prayers” has fading chords simmering through a hot amp to create a gentle brushing of sound. “Becoming Pure Light” grounds the album in Caminiti’s familiar sky-scraping guitar weather, and it’s the choral voices creating the blanket of stars that helps take the style to another level.

In all, this album is a healthy maturation. For many listeners, the guitar ends up being the familiar light to follow but with more time spent on each composition an entirely new world opens up. Fan are so often impatient for certain bands to just hurry up and release something already. Caminiti has been too prolific and active to even get to this release until now – much to our benefit! Once again it is clear that this man takes great care in expanding his craft.

Maninkari - Continuum Sonore

The French duo Maninkari crafts music with a haunted sensuality. Mythical and improvisational in spirit, the sounds are activated in solitude, at night. Imagine The Necks playing in a vampire opium den; it’s not exactly the soundtrack for reading my four year old to bed (although not impossible!). Much like Maninkari’s 2-disc debut album Le Diable Avec Ses Chevaux, mostly older instruments make up the duo’s sound. Old wood and strings contain rich resonance and, as Olivier and Frederic Charlot have said, unlimited sustain. Thus, when given a proper listen, it is delightfully easy to discover yourself at the edge of the world in the Asian Steppes, the desert full of distant red-eyed raiders, and minarets peaking out of canyons.

Curious is that after a number of albums and EPs, Continuum Sonore is the duo’s first drone record. “Part 1” grounds the proceedings with a slow crawl of bodhran and toms, but the tide of drone soon washes the percussion away for the rest of the album. The cymbalom (a Hungarian hammered dulcimer) is used for much of the ambiance; its strings glisten like the setting sun atop the ocean in “Part 1” and reverberate the way sparks bounce off of steel in “Part 6”. When cymbalom is present, it’s as if the hallway is lit with torches, and when other elements take the lead, the shadows move about, and the irrational mind must fill in the blanks.

The strength of Continuum Sonore is contained in its rich and mysterious variety. “Part 2” takes another ancient, ritualized sound – church bells – and sets it to drone, while “Part 3” is a brief Transylvanian synth mantra. The gem of the album is the meditative, 18-minute weatherscape in “Part 4.” Sporting zombified kinetics that grow slowly, this piece is truly something new for Maninkari. Shimmering effects are the breath while a lugubrious, distorted sine wave is the boat. An intensity increases like a rush of wind over a corpse on a giant sand dune. The duo has never shown this level of patience, a skill toddlers are inversely proportionate to. When I was able to get through this piece without interruption it truly was special.

There are folks that would label this music as “dark”. Granted I can only hear its power when the sun is down, my family asleep, but it’s no darker than the horrors locked away in our own emotional corridors. In fact amongst these sounds I find many footholds and textural branches to hold onto and climb. The truth in the music is shared by that in a coat of feathers or a bed of quartz. Its tone of pausal reflection meets me when I awake in the middle of the night and watch my children sleep, their wild, unstoppable bodies in stasis. I forget the beautiful trauma of the day, and think how wonderful. Maninkari has always been visually evocative (the group has even scored several films), and it is this album’s stylistic dynamics that makes it such a rich listen. Ensure you are not interrupted.

Originally published on A Closer Listen
Here's a link with sound samples.

Evan Caminiti ~ Night Dust

Originally published on A Closer Listen.

Fans of Evan Caminiti have to be rejoicing. Not only has this fellow been exponentially prolific with each passing year, but his music is always operating on a high level. This year alone sees him releasing no less than three solo albums (one as Painted Caves), and while the knock on prolific artists is a thinning of quality, I just don’t hear that problem with Caminiti at all. Night Dust has been a long time in the making and occasionally highlights a new compositional direction (one that can be heard even more on his forthcoming Dreamless Sleep LP).

Anyone familiar with the stellar West Winds album would probably say, ‘Yeah, I could go for some more of that.’ Night Dust is here to grant your wish, though instead of a strictly guitar EFX driven record Caminiti has been tooling a lot more with synthesizers and analog manipulation. Isn’t the mantra: Once you go 4-track you never go back? Once Caminiti started committing music to this dusty-sounding medium, he became enthralled with re-animating the resulting deteriorations. Tape hiss and static are unofficial members of his one man band on Night Dust, a perfect marriage with his overnight, psychedelic seance.

“Near Dark” sets the stage well with a processed tide of analog rivulets combined with Caminiti’s signature amplifier worship, grand in sound and humble in execution. The blending of the synths and atmospheric guitars is usually seamless, as all the sounds share a timbre or quality. When a clear voice is heard it’s always a guitar, and it is no clearer than on “Moon is the Hunter” where Caminiti waxes poetic with a simple sounding electric axe over top the echo-laden landscape. And Caminiti doesn’t leave behind his deluge of guitar weather systems and other organic textures that make his work so engaging. A series of harmonics on “Returning Spirits” evokes fireflies’ lights in a sepia toned past. “Last Blue Moments” is a thunderhead, and while a synth is the table cloth tossed across the plain, the guitars blister the sky with a delicious mass of clouds as majestic as a lion’s mane.

As the track titles suggest, Night Dust is an ode to happenings after dark. In linear fashion, once darkness falls we have the returning spirits and nods to the stars, the moon, a harvest moon, memory, and the eventual, slow fade back to light. This album truly comes alive when the sun is down. That ache we feel as the deep night seems to go on endlessly is captured in the album’s middle and end. “First Light I” completes this feeling with an agonizingly mournful passage, white hot with distortion, muted through the analog re-tooling. When at last “First Light II” arrives our submission is complete. Sounding a bit like the work of Aaron Martin here, Caminiti lets the tape hiss ride as his lonely guitar swims in the warm waters of dawn. As if hitting a moment of clarity, this track reveals both a lament for the night’s passing and an optimism for the coming day. Night Dust succeeds wonderfully in its deep study of textures as well as its symmetrical replay value. It’s a lovely document that makes a case for dusk to come as soon as dawn arrives.

Nest - Retold

This is one of my favorite ambient/neo-classical albums of all time. I was delighted to find that one could stream the whole thing online. It's so good, it's probably one of my ten favorite albums, maybe ever.

Mister Rogers Remix

This is the best thing going on the Internet these days. Whoever made this is dialed in.

Bersarin Quartett - II

Just some quick thoughts on this amazing album that I'd recommend as one of the year's best instrumentals.

It hurts to speak of this album. I'm supposed to be kind of good at describing and recommending music, but II is just one of those albums whose grace stays the fool’s hand. The album’s effortless wielding of energies is too lovely to screw up. How does Thomas Bücker blend everything together so magically? The German musician creates imaginary film soundtracks as Bersarin Quartett, and it would take an equally masterful eye to match the masterful ear displayed here. Bücker’s debut album of “chamber-tronics” is a timeless work of art, and where II changes things up is in its emotional direction. Unlike the exuberence of the debut, II feels much more baroque and personal, as if the story being told is about the glories and sunken dreams of one person. “Im Lichte des Anderen” uses but one string progression, yet so much emotion is wrung from it we can clearly see the character barely holding on to the shreds of a love that must be let go. All of the instruments are real, ensuring that the symphonics do not ring hollow. Bersarin Quartett’s music is so effective because in hitting all the right notes in all the right places for seventy minutes straight, so much of what is true about life as a human being is wrapped up in its DNA. Between every drum resonance is our frailty, between the clarinet and violin a buried hope. The piano lives and breathes a joy we won’t allow ourselves to feel. The tasteful electronics are the vehicle we try to ride on the road to freedom. The balance of growth and decay. The unobtainable expressed. Each listen will provide new secrets both in sound and in mind. This music captures a darkness that every human being shares in a quest for lightness of being. Bersarin Quartett strikes again.

Demdike Stare and The Sight Below, No UFOs at the Planetarium

Thanks (once again) to Twee Death another fascinating concert was happening in Vancouver. I don't think I can attend other concerts anymore unless they are put on by Twee Death and at planetariums. I've seen Barn Owl at the Anza Club thanks to them, a place where my animation studio often holds company functions, a place where I have been horribly drunk, pulling my future wife out of the basement dance floor for unprecedented innapropriateness, and many other adventures both awkward and triumphant. I never wrote anything about that Barn Owl show, but wow, that was one of the best I've seen in recent years. Those guys are in it to win it. No scrubs those two. With that show I identified a pattern: Twee Death care about music, and I cannot help but go to all their shows.

No UFOs

On this night we had Demdike Stare and The Sight Below and No UFOs playing in A PLANETARIUM. Or as the locals call it, H.R. Macmillan Space Center. I bought two tickets thinking I'd get a friend to come with me. I was alone at the last show I'd been to, and that really isn't my favorite thing. After dangling the carrot, I got my friend Shawn (who plays for Siskiyou among other things) to accept a free ticket. Why do I pay for other people? I dunno. I'm a dad. Habits die hard. Shawn, the fellows from Hierarchies, and some other chums biked it to the planetarium.  Old Nayt took the Subaru, alone. I had thought about biking, too, but the prospect of chugging up all those hills at 1am just isn't something I care to tackle anymore. There's grey in my beard.

Upon arriving I knew no one, as usual. I decided to get some money so I drove to an ATM. On my way to the car I ran into Samuel Macklin (who I had just seen play a show as Connect_icut a few weeks prior). I didn't realize who he was at first, which made our conversation about our respective children and personal origins all the more fun. Originally from the UK, he lives here now, and his dry and fatalistic sense of humor hadn't betrayed him. He jested (rather seriously) that he knew very little about music, but maintained it as a hobby. I then proceeded to totally ace a parallel parking job. He said he respected Loscil quite a bit, to which I agreed. I mentioned how he (Scott Morgan) also had kids and how between the three of us it was strange that we were amongst the night people. We were on similar wavelengths. It was an enjoyable, light hearted and random meeting. Money obtained, we returned to the venue.

Eventually my friends arrived (I have friends!) and I was introduced to some other people. I just realize more and more that many people bore me, so not meeting people is a defense mechanism against being annoyed by small talk. Who wants to chit chat at the Demdike Stare concert?

No UFOs

The show began with No UFOs. Having the stars slowly rotating while a giant screen projection floated through space really was epic. His music was a mixture of percussive obfuscation and annoying repetitions. The screen sometimes appeared to be three dimensional, as if we were following its journey through sub space. That was an awesome visual trick several of us agreed we were playing on ourselves. Sometimes the music hit a vein that really got me into it, but No UFOs seemed to continuously sabotage my interest. Then without warning the massive sound he had been conjuring cut out. Someone thought he heard him say "Something died." That was the end.

The Sight Below

There was barely time to breathe as Rafael Anton Irisarri prepared for his set. While wearing his classic oversized hood, he used the planetarium's settings to vivid effect. The lights went down, the stars came out bright as night and the sky ended up rotating rather quickly. As The Sight Below, Rafael often uses some dubby, nocturnal pulses, but on this night his set sounded a lot like his solo work and wow it was easily the highlight. When the shower of shooting stars started crossing the dome, it was truly magical. Everyone around me agreed that this was their favorite part of the show. I even went into a dreamlike state at one point. It was really great. Rafael did an amazing job. I have known him for a couple years now, but I didn't get to talk to him after his set. I did say hello, but I was still reeling from a somewhat out of body experience, and he seemed like he wanted to be alone. I might, too, after such an engaging set of ambience. Decompression is important.

The Sight Below

Not long after this the two fellows of Demdike Stare began their totally bizarro take on electronic/found sound performance, coupled with their trademark obscure footage collages broadcasted above their heads. The footage was definitely memorable. I was peeved at the over use of repetition as it took some of the magic away, but I'm still affected by seeing some of these fragments from B movies and art films. Whoever edits them has a psychotic sensibility, and these videos cause quite a bit of discomfort. They are DARK. Shades of the occult, nightmares, pungent smells, wild erotica, and subterranean morality. I could not name you one of the video sources.

Demdike Stare

I enjoyed their set in an intellectual way. I cannot say the Demdike Stare music really struck a chord in me. They take a really strange approach. Lots of tone pieces, accentuated by eerie found sounds, samples of spooky piano, chains and off kilter "rhythms" created sometimes by drums but more often by the interchanging of parts. After the show I asked Shawn "Why would you repeatedly create music like that?" So much dread! I am not sure I've seen a musical act full of more dread than this. Which is probably a good thing. Something to expand my horizons with in the future perhaps? Not sure, actually. I feel like they are going down a path I may have been interested in years ago. I don't believe humanity is inherently cursed or bad, a feeling which the videos seem to embrace. The whole thing was pretty pessimistic. If Demdike Stare wanted to change the way they make music or do the videos it would be met with much protest from fans. So they're kind of stuck there stylistically. As exercises in discomfort Demdike Stare songs take the prize.

Demdike Stare

All photos courtesy of Steve Louie's Flickr photostream. Dude's got tons of great Vancouver concert photos.

Moonwood ~ The Strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the Strength of the Wolf is the Pack

Originally posted on A Closer Listen. Jakob Rehlinger Face-friended me the day after this was published. Must have liked it okay. :) Or we both live in Canada and it's just a coincidence.

“The Law For The Wolves” is a poem from The Jungle Book that spells out how wolves are to conduct themselves, and a resounding line depicting the unyielding cycles of nature is where the Canadian duo Moonwood went for the lengthy title for their latest release. While the law of the jungle is dog eat dog, the Moonwood family seems to be much more interested in sharing avenues into consciouness expansion as their freaky psych-folk would indicate.

Given the number of releases over the last five years Moonwood strike an improvisational chord, and yet there is a deep level of intention pulsing here. TSotPisW,atSofWisP (even the abbreviation is too wild for capture!) is a lot like the group’s other albums, and yet absolutely different. The rumors are true: the band is influenced by Tibetan funeral music, krautrock, Balinese gamelan, classic psychedelic heavy rock bands, traditional Japanese and South Asian music, dub, free-jazz and avant-folk. It all appears on this album, stemming from a strong backbone of acoustic guitars, jangly percussion and a healthy dose of bamboo flutes.

The circuitous guitar style and eastern scales define much of how the rest of the music sounds, but what that might be changes from track to track. The playful early dawn of gamelan percussion, gongs, and hallowed vocal harmonies on “Invite Me To Stare Into The Darkness” is followed immediately a Cambodian psych jam in “Grafitti Blossoms”. The album jumps around quite a bit, and while a consistent theme of ritual and psychedelic encouragement is achieved, the strength of the record lies in the second half. It is as if the experimentalist menagerie of the first half were a warm up for the final charge into darkness unknown.

“It Takes A Child To Raze A Village” begins this journey with some bayou-styled guitar bendings reminiscent of Jack Rose and Evan Caminiti at the same time. From here a steady pace is established, the acoustic engine sparkling with additions of eastern violins, (perhaps) ekatantari, and opium-soaked tambourine. It’s a soundtrack worthy of your journey across a forlorn landscape or the River Styx, except with eyes still full of wonder and optimism. “And The Snake Shall Be Your Watchman” features what sounds like a bowed electric guitar and those familiar but haunting spirit harmonies, setting the stage for one cracker of a closing track.

Any grief taken with the style schizophrenia (shame on you) will be absolved by “Where The Flowers Blossom Red”, a monster psych folk track that begins somewhat unassumingly before launching into a vivid arrangement with the filters your mind puts up to keep you from the edge. This is the snake dance, and Moonwood is poised to coax your soul’s release in a Grails-esque bacchanalian purge. It is very enjoyable closure for an album that is as sonically fascinating as they come. All the talk on the Internet about these folks using a minimalist approach needs revision, as while one can imagine these instruments appearing around the campfire, the glut of styles and instruments from around the world amounts to much more than a simple bowl of granola. This is a sultan’s nocturnal feast for the ears.

Seaworthy - Bellows and Breath

 This was the last piece I ever wrote for the mighty Silent Ballet. Never got published, so Cam Webb, if you're listening, this was meant to be for you and your listeners.

Cameron Webb’s ambient music has always had the folksy charm of a hobby farm down a long country road. Seaworthy has collaborated in recent years with the likes of Matt Rösner and Fabio Orsi and the project used to be a band, but Webb is officially on his own on Bellows and Breath. Instead of focusing on his familiar guitar abstractions, this album revolves entirely around an instrument that is usually relegated to the occasional color accent in the indie and folk music world: harmonium. Given this organ’s breath-like quality, one might wonder why we don’t hear it more often in this massively expanding musical world of ambient and drone. It doesn’t need any effects or reverb; it’s a natural drone machine. The issue is probably that in most hands it sounds terrible! Not here. Webb has been practicing, and his keen awareness of the instrument’s strengths and hidden versatility make for a warm listen. “Bellows Whispered Breath” instantly plots the course with fuzzy layers of harmonium and melodica rich with overtones. As if this welcome fill of sound were the journey at sea, the track ends with the sound of birds. Land ho! From here Webb explores the beaches, abandoned docks, and coastal forest of a secluded island of sound, perfect for a relaxing summer afternoon. Field recordings are still a big part of Seaworthy’s sound, as washes of water and woodland din dapple the album’s sighing pages. Deeper into Bellows and Breath the acoustic guitar enriches the environment with some subtle meditations, before departing for the wheezy finale. Clearly hearing the fingers scraping the frets (“Rattled Rushes”) or the clank of a buoy (“Breathe Deep”) distinctly puts the listener in a clear place, and the harmonium’s steady presence creates the presence of wind and power that truly feels like a natural occurence. Webb has done an amazing job switching instrumental focus with such grace while maintaining his signature celebration of environmental rhythms and tangents. A lovely surprise.

Oneohtrix Point Never at W2

As a fan and critic of all this experimental music, I thought it was my duty to go see Oneohtrix Point Never. How many chances will a west coast Canadian bloke get? The most daunting aspect of this show was not Daniel Lopatin's off-the-cuff electronic theatrics or the altered state said music can unexpectedly help one arrive at. It was the doors opening at 9pm that scared me. OPN didn't come out to play until midnight - way past my bedtime. And the W2 club in Gastown, while intimate and somewhat secret feeling, doesn't have a ton of seating. My children have taken most of my life points, so it was going to be a challenge just to stay awake.

I expected to meet no one new, conduct zero conversations, and appear as one of the oldest people in attendance. Mission accomplished! I figured this plan of attack likely suited many in attendance, but to my surprise the crowd was quite lively, made up of a lot of students. It was boisterous. Plays:Four opened, and I recognized one of the (three) players from behind the counter of Red Cat Records. Their ambient toolery was quaint and cuddly. Not anything to riveting, but they set up their stage in the middle of the floor which was an enjoyable feature for anyone wondering what the F people are doing on stage with their toys.

Connect_icut

 The fellow who is Connect_icut was next, and he apparently knows nothing about music. He (Samuel) told me so weeks later when I inadvertently picked him up hitchhiking from a show at the Planetarium. So he's no Mozart, but his set was lush and fluid, putting me into a very relaxed state of mind. I find it hard to really relax at these basement city shows, no matter how ambient. I fortunately found a seat for this set. The visuals throughout the show were obtuse, frustrating and beyond post-modern. Samuel employed footage from a not-so-old TV show called Gilmore Girls which is apparently based in Connecticut (thus his project's name).

Oneohtrix Point Never

At last when Oneohtrix Point Never appeared, he set up and grabbed the mic. He said a quick thanks, got everyone pumped (i had a faint hope he was going to spit some rhymes) and set about mangling the airwaves with his trademark textural hooliganism. I am not sure how he came about it, but his live set was a smattering of sounds, completely unpredictable. The set had elements from tracks folks might have heard before, but this was a supreme curve ball where laughter could be used as beats and melodies were lethally tortured and reincarnated as lost souls bound for the dungeon of ambient errata.

Oneohtrix Point Never

I fell asleep during the (seldom) quiet parts, and then I would burst into being very awake upon Lopatin's drastic change into something unfathomably active and noisy. His music is definitely a workout for the mind and relentlessly captivating, provided you don't get exhausted. If you stay with it, it is oh so very interesting work with more questions than answers. I think that's why a lot of people like OPN, because the questions are more of the science variety rather than the WTF variety. How does he come up with this type of expression? How did he get from point X to point Q?  People really feel like he's pushing things into new terrain. It definitely sounds like an experiment on the rails, and not off. But man I was tired. When I got out of the show, I witnessed a fight between several drunk hockey fans. The Canucks game had gotten out an hour before, and after a demoralizing loss to the LA Kings, these guys consummated my need to get the hell out of there and get to bed.

Photos 1 and 3 were taken by Steve Louie, a fellow who seems to go to all Vancouver concerts and take nice photographs. Apparently we have similar taste in shows! I took photo 2. See the difference in quality? Yeah.

Fenn O'Berg - In Hell

These dudes are on another planet when they play. It must have been pretty invigorating or confusing for those in attendance of these live recordings. I was thoroughly impressed. But it's exhaustive to listen to this more than a few times (much less 12 or so, which is what I managed). The electronic and sampled landscapes are so diverse and rich and dizzying. Not for the noob, this one. I wrote a meatier review of this meaty thing, at The Silent Ballet.

The wealth of sounds and directions this trio comes up with in a live setting is on another level, but with repeated listens the lack of structure wears the veil down. Much like one can only watch the Sixth Sense once or twice before its magic dries up, In Hell’s improvisational performances feel masterful, yet wear thin after the first few engaging listens. It’s recommended to savour the very first listen, and tuck this beast away for another wormhole ride some time in your distant future. Your distant, dystopian, dark-metal- ambient listening future.

Olan Mill - Paths

My first review for A Closer Listen! And what a dandy.

Poignancy with brevity. That about sums up the ambient chamber duo Olan Mill, a pair from England who compose strictly in the winter time. “Bleu Polar” picks up right where their debut Pine left off with gorgeous etchings of violins and guitar (and some voice!) slowly drifting through the seams. It’s a lovely and sombre connection between the two albums, making way for some different approaches. “Springs” opens with sober and lush piano work and is the only track to feature this instrument. Pine featured a bit more piano, but the story goes that Paths is a product of two live performances that Alex Smalley and Svitlana Samoylenko recorded: one was with Peter Broderick, the other with Hauschka. Smalley admitted being intimidated by these two impeccable and talented pianists, so Olan Mill ended up dropping piano almost all together for the show. Perhaps the self-imposed limitation helped them step up their compositions a notch.

Smalley spent many years working as a music therapist in a maximum security mental institute, and the music he creates is more of a personal respite (in the summer he works on the euphoric drone project Pausal). In listening to Paths, one might detect a bit of the dread and madness that accompanies such a profession. “Amber Balanced” ratchets up the anxiety with a rough edged drone peppered with heart wrenching violin work. Field recordings and backward plucks and errata help grant the piece a sense of helplessness in the face of devastation. As the ending to side A, this track essentially razes the landscape and wipes the slate clean before having to turn the record over.

Each track on Paths delivers a decisively different feeling, and that is its greatest strength. The album can drift by as one song, but the details are full of lush stories to discover. “Eye’s Closed (for Rube)” is an ode to Smalley’s late grandmother, and is apparently the first Olan Mill song written in the summer time. It has much more of a Stars of the Lid vibe due to its multiple layers of vibrant violin melodies intermingling. It makes for dynamic listening to hear the confident swing from despair to optimism occur several times over the course of one album. There is no doubt that though Olan Mill’s overall sound is one of sobriety, pause, and deep emotional memory, it expresses a desire to connect, to break down barriers in the listener’s mind. Above all Paths is ridiculously gorgeous and cannot be missed by the lovers and poets of the listening world.

Mirroring - Foreign Body

Another artist dear to my heart is Grouper. Ever since Julia and I saw that show of hers in an old church I have never been the same. I believe I've hated standing at shows ever since this one. Trancing out in a pew is second to none as far as concert set and setting goes. And thus, I have enjoyed this album a bit, been confused some, got distracted a lot by crying children in the night. This album has come at a highly transitional time for my life as a young parent.

Fans of Grouper's Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill rejoice! Liz Harris's "breakout" album (for the indie masses, at least) was an experiment on her part to let her voice be more clearly heard above her signature drift-scapes and sonic storms. But like spotting a white dolphin in a muddy river, it was a one-time glimpse, as the Portland, OR resident next released Alien Observer/Dream Loss, which sank her voice back into the haunted murk. Enter Jesy Fortino, the Seattle-based song writer known as Tiny Vipers. Her melancholy folk guitar and near-Patti Smith voice make for a genuine complement and balancing weight to Harris's experimentalism (and a voice up in the mix). Thus we have Foreign Body, a collaboration where both women were responding to each other in person and one that truly behaves cohesively. The album warms up with the very Grouper-dominated "Fell Sound", and then Fortino's voice and guitar are the main draw on "Silent From Above." It is as if the artists each took a turn getting their feet wet, and so it is on the third track "Cliffs" that we hear the leap in the stylistic fusion. The acoustic guitar lingers in space as if taking a series of labored breaths before gaining the courage to press on. Once it develops its momentum the album's deepest journey begins, placing both women's voices amongst various landscapes and textures. "Drowning the Call" is also a must-listen, and is perhaps the best lullaby fans of drone and ambient may hear this year. Harris's voice has never been more comforting and reassuring, and as the vocal duet drifts in unison it's easy to feel at peace. "Mine" brings Fortino back to the fore, and as the album's most challenging piece it best expresses the idea of a "foreign body" with feelings of great distance and solitude. It would be a shame if these two didn't make another Mirroring album, because while varied and well-blended, Foreign Body feels like the first step to higher peaks. The two artists are a natural fit, and the contrast between the wash of sound paired with a pointed starkness is an intriguing world worth exploring deeply.

If These Trees Could Talk - Red Forest

If I'd chosen to pursue music as a lifestyle these days, I'd probably be in a band like this. Atmospheric, progressive post metal. There is a special place in my heart for If These Trees Could Talk. I've skyped them and I've listened to their music a lot (have some vinyl too, which is significant because I don't have a huge collection). It was really hard to review this record because it sounded a lot like the last one and I did not want to come down too hard on the guys. I tried to be constructive, point out the positives, but Red Forest just isn't exciting enough for me. I'm growing immensely as a person and I want my music to take leaps and bounds, too. My expectations are high! Oh, woe is fandom.
A snippet from my longer review: 

If trees could talk, they could send for grizzly bears wearing armor made from invasive oysters and thistles. They could appoint eagles to drop bombs of sulfur and geysers to erupt in city streets. If they could stop us from being so irresponsible, they would be so evil we can't even imagine it. That's what I want this band to sound like! It’s no mystery that ITTCT is a guitar-driven band (there are three of them, after all), but the end of this final song is where everything gets really exciting (is that a double bass kick? Yes!). Everything comes together. This is post-metal with true purpose, refraining from fatty filler, coalescing with a confident shout before disintegrating. If this band is moving in this direction, I highly anticipate what’s coming. For now it's status quo.

Listen to the album here:
If These Trees Could Talk - "Red Forest"

36 - Lithea

Back in the swing of review writing I am. Here's a tasty album that might not be for everyone, but who doesn't ever feel lonely? This album is all about feeling ALONE, but the hope and optimism peeks through many of the cracks. Read my full review, from which this is a portion:

Dennis Huddleston releases everything on his own label and creates all his artwork and content. He clearly has his bits together and is steadily improving with each of his releases. Lithea at times feels like a mixed bag, but it constantly sounds like there's a river nearby while orbiting a galaxy. This juxtaposition of elemental pieces gives the album a sense of supra-physical existence, like this is a real place but only in the mind. It's the kind of music that is gorgeous one minute, and the next it's forcing us to realize we're wearing meat suits; it seems to reek of mortality and fantasy at the same time. The striking reds, whites, and blacks of the cover image reflect the relative dynamism here compared to the bluer hues of the previous parts of the trilogy. Either that, or I am easily influenced by color, and Huddleston's design sense has me wooed. Nonetheless, a resounding simplicity guides 36, and with Lithea the artist continues to hit his groove by injecting more personality and heartache into his music.

Lilacs & Champagne - Lilacs & Champagne

I love me some Grails. And I love me some hip hop. Why hasn't anyone figured out they'd be an amazing combination? The guys in Grails  probably thought "We can't wait for everyone to catch up. We'll take care of that." And so we have Lilacs & Champagne.

Alex Hall and Emil Amos have been blending and transforming psych music from around the world for over a decade, and anyone familiar with the visual motifs of Grails knows that these fellows love Italian film music, British television soundtracks from the '70s, and other obscure cultural errata. The obtuse videos they've put together to promote their last few albums (including this one) are quite indicative of what this new Lilacs & Champagne project embraces. In fact, the video element has never been more integrated than it is here. Themes of decadence, violence, the occult, religion, and theater [techni] color the album's pages, and the overall play between humor and dread ensures an intriguing listen from start to finish, which sounds something like William S. Burroughs cutting up early John Carpenter films Grails collaborating with J Dilla.

(an exciting update (For me) from L&C's Facebook page. They posted a link to my review on The Silent Ballet, and even though I've been doing this for years, it's so gratifying to have the artist say a review of mine is "well written." Thanks guys.)

and a bonus song, one of my favorites from the album, "Sensations":

Everest's Top Five of 2011

1. The Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
Everest welcomed some albums with open arms last year. No album was more loved than The Suburbs by the Arcade Fire. It was the sound of our road trip to Arizona and back, and it never got old. Hell, it's one of my favorite albums from that year. Every song is picture perfect. There's some indie whining here and there, but Win Butler just seems to have his entire body on the pulse of what inspires the battle cry in the youth. The band's infectious energy gets Everest excited. He often could be heard singing the lyrics to "Rococo" while he was busy playing. My pride would swell any time we were in a store with the radio on and two-year old Everest would boldly blurt out, "Dad! It's Arcade Fire!"  Shop clerks took notice.

2. Daft Punk - TRON Original Soundtrack
"Lissen to Daff Punk again," Everest could be heard saying in the early half of 2011. This album got played so much in our car it started to make Julia and I sick. We had to hide the CD. Whenever I hear the synth rhythms and shuffling tech drums backing up Jeff Bridges' dialogue in the opening track, I always think of Everest's quiet concentration in the back seat. Eyes sad and focused, looking straight ahead. What was he thinking?! What was so compelling to him, I wonder? It is a good soundtrack, but wears thin after about 20 listens within a week. It's Disney-approved after all, and it's probably the only Disney soundtrack our family would be willing to put up with.

3. *shels - Plains Of The Purple Buffalo
As a music nerd, it gave me great pleasure to have my Purple Buffalo vinyl arrive and show it to my son, who was already a fan of the music. Everest and I had a moment listening to the first track on this album where the vocals are screamed. We were rocking out at the time, and much to my surprise Everest began mouthing the screaming with much zest. From this point forward E. has a taste for metal music (he is known for his famous "hammer fist" while dancing to Slipknot and System of a Down). Still, the *shels album was requested a lot, and the artwork is so iconic and lovely that it must have made a lasting impression. Again, much to my delight.

4. Tycho - Dive
This album came as a surprise. I was asked to preview it on SSG Music, and while I agreed, it wasn't good timing, so the album inherently irritated me. But then after listening to it, I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. Everest somehow requested it one day. I didn't even know he knew what it was., but he asked for the album with a stark image of a sun on the cover. Everest is much more careful when handling vinyl now, and we put this one on lots. It's highly attractive on all fronts, especially the downtempo boards of canada style tunes.

5. Fever Ray - Fever Ray
For the second year in a row, this album was a huge influence on E. Karin Andersson's voice is absolutely captivating. And the electronics are so poignant. The simplicity of this album left us with no choice but to actually purchase it. We ended up with the vinyl and a deluxe CD with all the videos and a live concert.  Sometimes when Everest is tired he requests to hear it. It's hard to say no, as it's such a well made, timeless and strange record.




6. Honorable mention goes to Bjork's video for "Crystalline", directed by Michel Gondry. Everest pronounced it: "Byoo - YORK." Fits of rage were had for a while when we said 'no' to repeated viewings of this video. Once a day!

Bjork, Crystalline from Peter Sluszka on Vimeo.