Wednesday 12 June 2013

Early Solstice Top Ten

Top Ten LP's of the Year so far... Been listening to all manner of stuff this year (mainly noise cassette's). These are my top 10 so far in correct order ;-)

 1. 'Tomorrow's Harvest': Boards of Canada (Warp).
 2. 'Rooms': Encounters (Popnihil)
3. 'MBV': My Bloody Valentine (MBV Records).
4. 'Exai': Autechre (Warp).
5. 'Liesma': Seaes (Cataclyst).
6. 'Berberian Sound Studio': Broadcast (Warp).
  7. 'No Answer-Lower Floors': Wolf Eyes (De Stijl).
8. 'There I Saw the Grey Wolf Gaping': Sky Burial (Small Doses).
9. 'Faint Hearted': Miles Whittaker (Modern Love).
10. 'The One Who Infests Ships': The Subtraction (Land of Decay).

 Looking for to the next half of the year! ;-)

Saturday 1 June 2013

Encounters...

1/6/13


 Well, this is my first post and the inspiration comes from a 'musical' collaboration called Encounters.

 This duo hail from the U.S. and individually have been creating sounds that mine a darker vein than most. The bastard ofspring of Todd Watson of Husere Grav and NRIII's Ryan Reno, Encounters operate in the 'spaces between'what can be classified as music.

 Here we have a CDr and a cassette. Both limited to 50 copies each. Both worth their weight in gold.

 The CDr (Houses) is beautifully packaged in a black clasp envelope with a red poster included. The cassette (Rooms) comes in either red or blue (25 of each). Both release's offer 5 tracks of dense, darkened bleakness that reward on repeated listening. It is like listening to a singular sound only to realise it's composed of many. Just like nature in fact. The atmospheres are dark and brooding but offer up many rewards with astute listening.

The subtleties, especially on the CDr are what coagulates the mass of reverb and delay rich sounds from breaking apart into dullness. Likewise on the cassette the balanced is kept by the unexpected sonic elements. Both could be considered to be part of the U.S. noise genre but these sounds rely more on 'vibe' and creepiness than volume and this makes the listening far more fascinating.

Noise needs not neccesserely be in yer face to succeed. This is a newer direction for the genre, one that emphasises emptiness and it's being rather than trying desperately to fill it. Wonderful and subtle stuff. More please.