Saturday, July 24, 2010, 20:29 CET:

DANIEL HIGGS "Say God":

SAY GOD is a body of Gospel songs, interlaced, cross-pollinating, offered to the Listenership at this late date, by Daniel Higgs, as recorded in the Summer of 2009 by David Andrew Sitek. The songs are sung in praise, thanks, and wonder, sacrificed to the all-pervading Mystery, evidence of which abounds as realities-within-realities, in this, our world, as we find it. The songs attract and repulse, beckon and banish, twist and shout, recklessly spinning in the remote (nearby) wildernesses of the heart-mind. Listen and find.

www.thrilljockey.com

Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 13:10 CET:

RANGERS "Suburban Tours" LP:

Another unfathomably great transmission from the mighty Olde English Spelling Bee - compressing a world of hazy 1980's pop edits and television broadcasts on one dense, oddly unsettling LP - so good. Rangers aka Joe Knight sits us in the passenger seat for another incredible cruise around the grey interzone of 1980's suburbia on this, his excellent debut LP release. 'Suburban Tours' was inspired by his move from the outskirts of his native Dallas, Texas, to a rainy San Francisco, where his loneliness grew into eleven tracks of pop-inspired, avant-smudged melancholia. The obvious comparison point is James Ferraro or Ariel Pink and their expressions of white American solitary poplife, but the tape editing processes and drained 80s funk of these tracks gives 'Suburban Tours' it's own autistic aura. Knight draws on the foggy memory of records by Steely Dan, Weather Report and Prefab Sprout, assembling a degraded sheen of 80s funk that's generally not found among many of his fellow Hypnagogic explorers. The uncomforting factor comes to light when his edits bunch into looped cul-de-sacs, like we're exploring the landscaped terrain of some gated community and the road/tape inexplicably folds into itself, we feel like we should be moving forward, wanting to get out of there, but we're were not getting anywhere. Perhaps this is his take on the stultifying nature of American middle-class suburban life? Or English, for that matter. Either way, the effect is oddly moving, blending the neon evening glow of an inner-city night drive with tones of a greyer, and more insipid suburban landscape. Limited copies - not to be missed.

www.myspace.com/rangerzz

LP available from: http://oesbee-shoppe.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, June 16, 2010, 20:46 CET:

NADJA "Autopergamene":

Autopergamene – a spell or charm wherein you write in blood, on a fragment of skin, what you wish to happen – finds NADJA at the peak of their sonic language of slow-blooming, heavily nuanced ambient guitar constructions and slow motion, lush, epic heaviness.

Divided in three colossal movements, the album starts with the blissful, paced and almost orchestral – much aided by three guest members on strings and Aidan’s trombone, flute and piano – “You Write Your Name in My Skin”, travels through the straight up, super distorted and fuzzed out rumbling sludge riffages of “You Write Your Name in My Head” and its semi-growling processed vocals to finally unfold the nearly half-hour long “You Write My Name in Your Blood” that gracefully starts with delicate, lush acoustic guitars glacially giving birth to an enormous, shimmering and heavily layered symphonic wall to then submerge and bring in a hazy, sparkling and almost passionate, yet twisted, duetto of Aidan-Leah’s male-female voices. Breathtaking.

Lavishly assembled in a custom 6-panel digisleeve packaging housing a 6 cards set with beautiful watercolor paintings and artwork by the gifted Portuguese artist L Filipe dos Santos. Superb mastering via James Plotkin.

Boxset edition, limited to 149 hand-numbered copies sold out.

Samples:
http://www.essence-music.com/sounds/nadja-skin.mp3
http://www.essence-music.com/sounds/nadja-head.mp3
http://www.essence-music.com/sounds/nadja-blood.mp3

Label: www.essence-music.com

Sunday, May 23, 2010, 11:18 CET:

Ecstatic Music of the Jemaa El Fna LP:

For centuries, the Jemaa El Fna (Rendezvous of the Dead) has remained the stage for one of the most spectacular social forums on the planet. By day, this central square in the city of Marrakesh, one of Morocco's great imperial cities, fosters a kaleidoscope of entertainment for its local inhabitants; storytellers, acrobats, magicians and snake charmers all create intriguing displays of bewitching spectacle. As the sun sets, the evening grows frantic with the pulse of the crowd; it is then that the night musicians set up. Free from the restrictions and expectations of light entertainment for a tourist crowd, these musicians manifest ecstatic performances that animate the audience and players alike. The groups represented on this album; Troupe Majidi, Amal Saha, and Mustapha Mahjoub, are working and carrying the torch of their musical heroes nightly in the square. These songs come from the repertoire of Morocco's greatest musical exports: Nass El Ghiwane, Lemchaheb, Jil Jilala, Larssad and many others from the Chaabi (Moroccan popular music) canon and are given a raw, emotional and fiery interpretation. Instruments are powered by car batteries and blown out through megaphone speakers. These recordings represent a rare opportunity to hear this music at such close proximity taking in all the power and passion of the performances. The raw fidelity captures an unflinching immersion of what is simply some of the greatest street music on earth.

Recorded by Hisham Mayet in 2005, a few of these performances were featured in his film Musical Brotherhoods from the Trans-Saharan Highway (Sublime Frequencies DVD SF041).

This collection also contains tracks not present in the film for a more potent snapshot of the ecstatic Jemaa El Fna. Limited edition LP comes in a beautiful full color gatefold Jacket with photos of the musicians and liner notes by Hisham Mayet.

www.sublimefrequencies.com

Tuesday, May 18, 2010, 14:43 CET:

GRAILS "Black Tar Prophecies IV":

With Black Tar Prophecies IV, Grails re-awaken the series that initially began the run of records that mapped their rise to the forefront of modern instrumental music. While recording their full-length records with an eye towards cohesion and epic production, the Black Tar series affords Grails a backdoor to a black lodge where they can explore total head music. With a more lawless atmosphere and an overtly dark aesthetic, Black Tar's relentless re-mixing and sonic juxtapositions return the listening experience to a more innocent position, where expectations can be exploded and insidious sentiments come dressed in gently poisonous forms. In this volume Grails combine backmasked Satanic tape collage with old Emmanuelle soundtracks, pushing them further in the direction of a classical Italian melodrama soundtracked by Nurse with Wound.
The Black Tar material is conceived slowly, in between tours and full-length albums, giving Black Tar its own experimental space and keeping its final sum unknown even to its practitioners. As before, the series' format will consist of 2 vinyl EPs and an eventual CD version featuring both EPs and any extra tracks completed in the meantime.
Like the slab of black slate in the opening of Kubrick's 2001, Black Tar is an attempt to bring the ritual act of music back to it's original mysterious genesis, where the listener and artist both stare into a nebula's electric cloud before it takes it's inevitable shape as a planet.

www.importantrecords.com

Tuesday, May 11, 2010, 18:21 CET:

OMAR SOULEYMAN "Jazeera Nights":

This retrospective features live recordings spanning 15 years of Omar's tireless repertoire, and is rife with frenzied Syrian Dabke (a regional folkloric dance and party music), Iraqi Choubi and a host of Arabic, Kurdish and Turkish styles, among others - an amalgamation that exemplifies the musical essence of Northeastern Syria. Culled from cassettes recorded between 1995 and 2009, this collection offers a further rare glimpse into Syrian street-level Dabke folk-pop – a phenomena seldom heard in the West, not previously deemed serious enough for export by the Syrians and rarely, if ever, included on the import agenda of worldwide academic musical committees. Over the years, Souleyman's popularity has risen steadily and the group tirelessly performs concerts throughout Syria and has accepted invitations to perform abroad in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon. In 2006, Sublime Frequencies partnered with Omar to release "Highway to Hassake", the first compilation of his works to be issued in the West. The success of this release and the video for the song "Leh Jani" helped see Souleyman and his group invited for their first Western tour in 2009 alongside label-mates Group Doueh from the Western Sahara. This successful tour quickly elevated Souleyman to the status of an international legend – and deservedly so.

This release coincides with the beginning of Omar’s 2010 international tour in May which will take him to the UK, the European mainland, and hopefully the US and Canada. CD features a full color 8-page booklet with great photos, a general overview of the lyrics translated into English and liner notes by compiler Mark Gergis.

www.sublimefrequencies.com
www.myspace.com/omarsouleyman

Thursday, May 06, 2010, 16:10 CET:

EMERALDS "Does It Look Like I'm Here?":

‘Does It Look Like I’m Here?’ is the third official album by Emeralds (after "Solar Bridge" on Hanson, and the self-titled LP on their own Wagon and Gneiss Things imprints, as well as countless small edition tapes and CDRs on a host of labels) and once again it presents another radical new direction for this Cleveland trio.
It sees the group moving from playing single oscillator analog synthesizers to really complex analog and analog/digital hybrid as well a great deal of guitar synthesizers, not to mention fine tuning their skills as brilliant tunesmiths. Simply put, the results are outstanding.
Comprising of a number of tracks from their recent ultra limited 7” vinyl series on Wagon, as well new compositions exclusive to this release. This fine selection of tunes surpass anything they have achieved in their 5 year career. Perfect melodies intertwined with ripping sequences and a guitar sound that floats perfectly throughout. Although most tracks cover new ground in that they follow a shortened ‘pop format’, more long form cuts such as the towering ‘Genetic’ and the title track will give fans of their earlier work something to grab onto, or totally let themselves go depending on the state of mind.
Having spent all their lives in the relative isolation of Cleveland means their music has developed into a vital, stunning unique hybrid that may have not been able to blossom in more active urban centres.
‘Does It Look Like I’m Here?’ heralds a turning point for all those involved and is perfect vivid soundtrack to emerge out of the recent harsh grey winter. Fresh, shiny and totally essential.

www.editionsmego.com

Friday, April 02, 2010, 17:06 CET:

GROWING "Pumps!"

Nice one:



The new decade is off to a great start for us as we are pleased to announce the signing of Brooklyn-based trio Growing, whose upcoming album PUMPS will be released on April 6th. The announcement of their new album is joined by a free download of the track "Hormone" available now. Growing's latest offering is another top-shelf freakout of glitch, fuzz and drone. Growing has given birth to a magical creation with PUMPS - it's the audio equivalent of coming out of an anesthetic haze with a squirming pile of joy wrapped safely in your eardrums.

http://www.myspace.com/growingsoundnyc

Sunday, March 28, 2010, 13:05 CET:

SYLVESTER ANFANG II "Commune Cassetten" LP:

"A new slab of wax of tranced out psychotic psychedelic-ness from the occult loving Belgium based clan. This new incarnation being SYLVESTER ANFANG II (as opposed to Silvester Anfang) reached a new level of sheer awesomeness last year with the incredible double LP on Aurora Borealis, on Commume Cassetten they continue their bizarre trip into the darker - but somehow super psychedelic - realm of the occult obsessed mind. There's a real fucked up krautrock boogie vibe throughout but retaining some of the doomed funeral folk qualities of the original Anfang guise, as well as some loose as hell, total stoned out ritualistic baked grooves. The LP comes housed in a techni-colour collaged artwork with a black and white image of a lady, which we can presume is a witch, with a dagger and chalice... a sleeve that really sums up the music enclosed. The sleeves are pro-printed and wrap around the deep black wax which has some sweet full colour labels. This is one hell of a 40 minute trip..."

www.blackest-rainbow.moonfruit.com

European Tour:
03/04: Paris, France
04/04: Le BPM, Nantes, France
05/04: TBC Clermont-Ferrand, France
06/04: Ground Zerro, Lyon, France
07/04: Cave12, Geneve, Suisse
08/04: Nürnberg, Germany
09/04: TBC Jena, Germany of Vienna, Austria of Oelsnitz, Germany
10/04: Chapeau Rouge - Prague, Czech Republic
11/04: Leipzig, Germany
12/04: Madame Claude, Berlin, Germany (with Sheldon Siegel)
13/04: RTB, Göteborg, Sweden
14/04: TBC Malmö, Sweden
15/04: Kristiania, Copenhagen, Denmark
16/04: TAC, Eindhoven, Nederland
17/04: Moritz, Stuttgart, Germany

Sunday, February 28, 2010, 10:41 CET:

Kyle Bobby Dunn "A Young Person's Guide To":

Spread across two cds with a total running time of nearly two hours, ‘A Young Person’s Guide To…’ is a stunning collection of recordings from New York based minimalist composer and sound artist Kyle Bobby Dunn.

Four tracks on the first disc originally appeared as the download only album ‘Fervency’, released by the Moodgadget label in 2009. Impressed by Dunn’s sensitive and world-wise compositions, it was felt that the music deserved to be released on a physical format and expanded upon with a second disc containing an additional 60 minutes of music gathered from the same period as the ‘Fervency’ recordings.

Utilising an instrumental palette of guitar, strings and brass, often played by classically trained musicians drafted in on the spur of the moment, the sounds of these sessions were recorded as Dunn dictated and then reworked via computer processing into spine-tingling soundscapes.

Dunn's compositions here are fully rich in timbre, painterly, hopelessly romantic and haunting; balanced between a wash of pure sound and an ornate yet subtle dance of classical instrumentation. Occupying a truly cinematic scope, these pieces can transport the listener from the deepest and most forgotten landscapes to the furthest recesses of time.

www.low-point.com
www.myspace.com/kbdunn

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