<ul class="MessageList DataList Comments"><li class="Item Mine ItemComment" id="Comment_68384"><div class="Comment"><div class="Item-BodyWrap"><div class="Item-Body"><div class="Message">New on <a href="http://homenormal.com/elian" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Home Normal</a>:<br><a href="https://homenormal.bandcamp.com/album/harrowgate" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><img style="border: 0px currentColor; border-image: none;" alt="image" src="https://f1.bcbits.com/img/a1692921342_2.jpg"></a><br><span style="color: darkblue;">Elian - Harrowgate<br> All music by Michael Duane Ferrell. <br>Mastering by James Plotkin.[/align]<i>- "Five years on from his previous Home Normal release, Whispers, Then Silence, Michael Duane Ferrell returns with another bold foray into the Elian galaxy, this one a five-part, forty-five-minute plunge into deep space. Heavily synthetic and electronic in character, Harrowgate is many things: multi-dimensional, chilly, severe, mystical, and even, yes, harrowing. Waves of synthetic sounds ebb and flow whilst percussive noises of indeterminate origin punctuate the streaming flow with their alien presence. During Harrowgate 2 (the first of two ten-minute-plus tracks), scabrous textures ripple across a droning, organ-like base until the pulsations swell into convulsive throbs and an ominously threatening wail. Some form of supraterrestrial derangement sets in during Harrowgate 3, and the listener experiences an even greater degree of disorientation as he/she gets drawn ever more helplessly into the vortex. But perhaps the fullest plunge occurs within Harrowgate 5, which writhes, shudders, and screeches for sixteen unsettling minutes like some distant galaxy slowly dying out. I resist describing Harrowgate as an ideal imaginary soundtrack to Kubricks 2001: A Space Odyssey, simply because the films cited so often in such manner its become a tired cliche. Yet theres no denying Harrowgate would at times make a perfect match for the films deep space sequences, especially in those sequences when Elians music is at its most barren and inhuman.</i><br><a href="https://elianmusic.wordpress.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">https://elianmusic.wordpress.com/</a> - <a href="http://www.emusic.com/album/elian/harrowgate/15600373/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Emusi</a>c </span></div></div></div></div></li></ul>
</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Notwist - The Messier Objects</span>
- <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">When The Notwist returned with their acclaimed7th studio album 'Close To The Glass' (their debut for Sub Pop Records) in early 2014, many were enchanted by the epic instrumental 'Lineri'. It was the only instrumental track featured on the LP,but according to Notwist-singer Markus Acher, instrumental works have had an especially big impact on the album and its arrangements. Between 2008's 'The Devil, You & Me' and this year's 'Close To The Glass', The Notwist not only concentrated on various solo projects, but also worked for several theatre productions and radioplays. 'The Messier Objects' is a compilation of some of these works. The collection obviously brings to mind the ghosts of Library Music and 70s soundtracks, but can also be heard as a summary of the band's ever evolving musical cosmos: The seventeen featured pieces range from sample-based, electronic collages to the buoyant post-rock of 'Das Spiel ist aus'.
Whether the band is experimenting with modular synthesizers, analogue percussion, or even horn sections ('Object 11'), you will always find musicin a constant flow of gentle grooves that make this light-footed and open-minded collection more than just a counterpiece to 'Close To The Glass'</span> Piccadilly Records
- "Werner Cee began his artistic carreer by studying painting at the Frankfurt College of Fine Arts (Sta?del) in the 70s and worked as a free-lance visual artist up to the 80s. At the same time, he realized musical projects in the experimental rock music scene/ free scene. Works in the field of media arts, photography, sound and light installations followed, linking the visual and acoustic media, sound, architecture and music. Then, his focus shifted towards electroacoustic composition and ars acustica productions, mostly commissioned by German radio stations.
He teaches sound art at the College of Fine Arts Saarbru?cken and the Goethe Universita?t Frankfurt. He has been a lecturer for audiovisual art at the Bern High School HKB in 2008/09.
Many of his pieces have won international awards, among others Ars electronica, Linz 1993// Radio Nacional de Espan?a/CDMC Madrid 2000// Prix Ars Acustica Studio akustische Kunst WDR 2002//Computer music competition Pierre Schaeffer Pescara 2002// Computer Space, Sofia/Bulgaria 2002/2004// International Competition of Sonic Art. Bourges 2001/2005// German Sound Art Award 2006 // Prix Italia 2010" Full streaming @ Soundcloud
Such is life and such is the effect of Metalycée's newest effort, Expat Blues. "We loosely based the music on hip hop aesthetics" proclaims the band itself. "Gospel was also on our minds at the time."
This makes for an adventurous compound to say the least; an organisation of tones that refuses to adhere to the idea of a combo and the concept that the repetition of said tones has lead to the tiring out of once distinct ideas that have now found their sweet spot in the group's equitable sound.
"The topography of Metalycée's music is not decipherable by way of clichés" as the band circumscribes. Certain connecting factors between the individual band members were forged over a love of fine arts and their ongoing discourse that more often than not manages to eclipse their inner-musical conversations. "One thing we constantly discuss is the idea of how a tribal-type groove can be sustained throughout our sonic experiments." This prompted the band to not confine their recordings to a studio environment (a move that distinguishes the Expat Blues process from its predecessors Another White Album, It Is Not and Tell Me) but to separate the live tracking process from extensive sample work. The sessions were also the first without Armin Steiner and Matija Schellander, who left the band prior to that. A link to the past is provided by Nik Hummer's use of the Trautonium, a machine that Friedrich Trautwein (1888 – 1956) once intended and manufactured for Paul Hindemith. Oscar Sala was the Trautonium's sole operator for a long period of time until he moved to the United States where he refined Trautwein's invention and famously created the sound design for Hitchcock's "The Birds".
One of Metalycée's precursors was the analogue synth trio Thilges 3 who had been experimenting with their sound as well as the performative elements of their show since the beginning. Nik Hummer and Armin Steiner were soon joined by drummer Bernhard Breuer (Elektro Guzzi, Tumido, No Business for Dogs) and bassist Matija Schellander, who is currently a prominent figure in improvised music (RdeÄa Raketa, Low Frequency Orchestra). Melita Jurisic, an actress who is celebrated in her home country of Australia and is on the brink of deportation in Austria, joined the fold a little ways down the road. A social genre picture. "Melita plays all the classics on stage and stars in TV shows and movies like Mad Max 4. She commands Shakespeare with the same fluency as she would the dirtiest slang." Jurisic embodies a female image that refuses to keep with the market and strikes fear into the hearts of chauvinists. "She has proven herself to be a tough pill to swallow for men who choose to degrade and objectify women."
Upshot: Expat Blues engulfs the listener like an avalanche. "Certain people might think that it's too dark", the band adds for consideration. "But the whole thing is essentially about radically thinking about things in a different way than one is used to." This of course requires stability of the mind and character as well as the aspiration to consciously do things differently every time one is confronted with a corresponding scenario. Metalycée are willing to take that chance and perhaps gloriously fail at doing so, but do not intend to keep their mouths shut about it. Kudos Records
Thanks for the IBC info - it's been YEARS - and I still have that around here somewhere.
Interesting re-release label that I just discovered because I had to send the guy who runs it
some master tapes last summer of a James Fulkerson recording from 1980 that he's re-releasing this year.
After looking at the Superior Viaduct website,
I'd highly recommend the Gilbert/Lewis3R4 album as well.
---
Now playing: Yusef Lateef - Stella by Starlight
So, now I will try to make one of those posts with images, colours and links as i use to.
The title is translated to Fresh Fruit - The European Mirror Arc
I have never heard of FF before - I am happy that I did because this is sweet, wacky, experimental, gorgeous and very moving, all at the same time.
- I am prone to call this a masterpiece:
Frisk frugt - Den Europæiske Spejlbue
- "Anders Lauge Meldgaard’s previous album Burkina Faso i det himmelblå rum hvor solen bor, suite (2010) was a record that made his name as one of the Danish champions of experimental music.
Where the last album took listeners on a magical musical journey from the African country of its title and back to Denmark, Anders’s latest sonic adventure finds him travelling closer to home. Called Den Europæiske Spejlbue (English translation: The European Mirror-Arch), the new album consists of 12 orchestral collages, all revolving around the study of songs in Danish matched up with what you could call European world music.
The first track “Solhyldest 1. del” was released in October and gave a taste of the musical diversity of Anders Lauge Meldgaards new orchestral music.
The 59 minute-long Den Europæiske Spejlbue is a masterly achievement, one that Anders has been working on since 2011 … a modern and contemporary take on songwriting woven into orchestral collages. In order to realise his imaginary orchestra, Anders built some of the instruments you hear on the record himself: partly because he did not have a large live orchestra at hand, and partly because it was his ambition to create music in a fantasy world where new things were possible."
- Maybe I will get used to this, and maybe I will forever miss the good old days where typing the codes only took a couple of minutes with a post like this.
Neil Francis - Electronic Drum Chris Haslam - Bass Guitar, Guitar Michael Holland - Granular Sampler Aliyah Hussain - Graphic Sonics, Cover Art Kelly Jayne Jones - Flute Alex Macarte - Guitar, Bombo Drum Chris Manis - Bata Drums Jack McCarthy - Bata Drums David Mclean - Alto Sax John Powell - Jones - Graphic Sonics, Cover Art Marlene Ribeiro - Keyboards, Bass Guitar Paddy Shine - Keyboards, Bombo Drum, Ring modulated Hang Jefferson Temple - Guitar Chris Weaver - Soprano, Congas, Bata drum Dan Weaver - Guitar, Bass guitar, Spannerphone Sam Weaver - Analogue modular synth, Feedback tape delay Louise Woodcock - Vocal - And Charles Hayward - Drums, Vocal, Melodica, Keyboard - Featuring in the choir: Charles Hayward, Emma Thompson, Sam Weaver, Dan Weaver, Marlene Ribeiro, Verity Gardner, Paddy Shine, Bill Campbell, Maurice Carlin, Jefferson Temple, Chris Haslam, Lee Nutter, Jamie Robinson, Alex Macarte, Amy Horgan, Dan Bridgewood - Hill, MIchael Holland.
- "Veteran drummer Charles Hayward (of spiky post-punk group This Heat among other projects) presents Anonymous Bash, a collection of tracks borne out of a 2014 residency hosted at arts commune Islington Mill in Salford by the Samarbeta program. The month-long saw Hayward collaborate with members of the bands Gnod, Horrid, 2 Koi Karp, Locena among others, more than 20 musicians in total, and the fruit of their labour is a wildly experimental set of jams. With suitably abstract titles like 'Postcode Scam', 'Ambiguous Trash' and 'Unanimous Rush', Anonymous Bash is an other-worldly document of a thrilling moment in time."
- "is known as the pioneering drummer with This Heat and Camberwell Now, an ever growing list of solo concerts and CDs (latest solo release: “ONE BIG ATOM”, 2012), special collaborative performances, and is in Massacre with Bill Laswell and Fred Frith. Throughout the 90’s up to the present he has initiated a bewildering array of events and performances, including the widely acclaimed series Accidents + Emergencies at the Albany Theatre, Out of Body Orchestra (too much sound, not enough space, not enough time), music made from the sound of the new Laban dance centre being built which was choreographed for the official opening, music for a circus (part of the National Theatre’s ‘Art of Regeneration’ initiative), the full-on installation/performance Anti-Clockwise (with Ashleigh Marsh and David Aylward) for multiple strobes, maze structure of diverse textures, 2 drummers, synthesizers and your nervous system. Recent developements include the Continuity evenings as part of Camberwell Arts. Committed to song ‘but the shapes have to change,’ his current one-man show is an intoxicating mix of percussive attack, swirling electronics and lyrical fragment collage."
"Sardinian guitarist Paolo Angeli and American percussionist Hamid Drake first performed together in the early 21st century, releasing debut album Uotha (Nubop) in 2005. The duo's second release, Deghe, was recorded live at the 2013 Festival Isole che Parlano in Sardinia. The players each have a long-established reputation in improvisation and free jazz—previous collaborations include Drake's work with Ken Vandermar and Angeli's with Fred Frith. Together on this beautifully-recorded album the two men interact with energy and imagination.
Angeli plays the prepared Sardinian guitar, an instrument which in terms of appearance and playing position bears a closer resemblance to the cello than to the acoustic guitar. For the most part Angeli plucks the strings, playing chords or single note runs with equal skill—but he's also a master of arco playing. The complex arrangement of strings, hammers, pedals and variable speed e-bow-like devices gives this prepared guitar a range of sonic possibilities that extend well beyond those of the usual six-string instrument.
The combination of drums and guitar gives the duo an even wider tonal and emotional range. On "Transiti" and "Spargiani" Drake's hard-hitting kit drum gives an urgency and drive which Angeli responds to with equal power and vibrancy. On "Raffia" Angeli's complex mix of bass rhythms and swift, sure-fingered, melodic lines combine the sounds of rock, North African and Iberian musics over Drake's pile-driving percussion. Drake's drumming (which sounds as if he's playing with his hands, rather than sticks) immediately sets up the relaxed yet swinging mood on Angeli's "Primavera Araba"—his approach complementing the composer's own playing and plaintive, higher register, vocal.
"Joga," written by Björk, draws out Angeli's folk heritage, his melody lines mixing pizzicato and arco playing and sounding like a duet between guitar and viola. The track segues seamlessly into "Scampoli Di Corsica," whose shifting rhythms and tempos gradually give way to Angeli's whistling and singing, underpinned by Drake's spiky drumming. The album's centerpiece is Drake's "The Many Faces Of The Beloved." It's a strong, soulful, performance from Angeli and Drake, capturing a commitment and intensity of spirit that characterizes the music to be heard on Deghe."
Oren Ambarchi - Guitar, Drums etc. Jim O'Rourke (Sonic Youth, etc) - Synth, Piano etc
- "Behold is the second collaborative release from Oren Ambarchi and Jim O'Rourke following on from the 2011 release 'Indeed'. Seamlessly blending field recordings, electronics, guitar, drums and other acoustic instruments into a subtle combination of Krautrock, minimalism and classic free flowing electronics.
Side A takes the listener into the Fourth World adventures pioneered by Jon Hassell whilst the flip seems like an unlikely pairing of Krautrock aesthetics and the slow building repetitive structures of The Necks. This is sharp, focussed contemporary music, one where minimalist motifs meet maximalist tendencies. Behold is another landmark recording made by two of the most enthusiastic experimental explorers active today."
Brand new and great album from Jonas Munk (Manual, Causa Sui)
.
- "Second solo LP from Causa Sui guitar player/producer Jonas Munk. These three long pieces aren't defined by Munks signature guitar-approach, but is rather a musical vision of vintage synthesizers, organs, piano and analog electronics elegantly weaved together to create extensive formations of pure sound. The harmonic simplicity and unrestricted dedication to sonic balance and texture is something of a first in Munk's body of work. This is pattern music, characterized by slow builds and subtle, but refined, transformations, where gradual tectonic shifts and tiny harmonic gestures generate vivid emotional responses. Instead of imposing any direct intention or meaning, it's an album that can create a mental environment for the listener to expand and open up into.
Absorb, taking up the entire A-side, is a piece of meticulous balance, structured from techniques recalling the classical minimalists: soft-glowing analog synthesizer patterns in perpetual motion, creating new harmonic content as each bar progresses. Gradually, randomized modular effects are introduced as well as layers of white noise and detuned, heavily tube-overdriven guitar drones, slowly bathing the piece in warmly filtered fuzz.
The B-side opens with two identical organ lines played against each other. After a few minutes the organs lock into a an effortless flow, gently rolling towards a pastoral peak several minutes later, where piano and various layers of electronics enters the soundscape, recalling the blissed-out spiritualism of Alice Coltrane or Popol Vuh.
The album's last track, Cascade, opens peacefully but soon enough crosses into multi-textural self-oscillating psychedelia – related in spirit to Munk's previous solo album, Pan, released in 2012. Gradually the intertwined layers of sound rises to enormous billows of sonic saturation, where each drone harmonizes against layers of distorted pulses.
Music like this is perceived as incredibly simple and free flowing, but, as is the case with the biological world, reveals textural minutiae and interweaved intricacy once studied close-up. Every tiny detail serves the bigger picture. It's music that's practically vibrating with possibility.
File next to: Terry Riley, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Brian Eno, Popol Vuh."
- "is known as the pioneering drummer with This Heat and Camberwell Now, an ever growing list of solo concerts and CDs (latest solo release: “ONE BIG ATOM”, 2012), special collaborative performances, and is in Massacre with Bill Laswell and Fred Frith. Throughout the 90’s up to the present he has initiated a bewildering array of events and performances, including the widely acclaimed series Accidents + Emergencies at the Albany Theatre, Out of Body Orchestra (too much sound, not enough space, not enough time), music made from the sound of the new Laban dance centre being built which was choreographed for the official opening, music for a circus (part of the National Theatre’s ‘Art of Regeneration’ initiative), the full-on installation/performance Anti-Clockwise (with Ashleigh Marsh and David Aylward) for multiple strobes, maze structure of diverse textures, 2 drummers, synthesizers and your nervous system. Recent developements include the Continuity evenings as part of Camberwell Arts. Committed to song ‘but the shapes have to change,’ his current one-man show is an intoxicating mix of percussive attack, swirling electronics and lyrical fragment collage."
Denovali Records news with "seductive brooding jazz with an electronic twist."
- With recommendations to Jonah and likeminded. . . .
- "Fogh Depot is not just a collaboration between three musicians weaving a cozy melancholic cocoon in the midst of a looming, cold, unwelcoming metropolis of Moscow. It's a creativity lab where complex cryptoanarchic ideas rigidify in the viscously flowing Phrygian mode, while the simple and naive piano melodies sweep the listener right back to childhood.
Fogh Depot's debut album contains eight stories told by different people in different places. "Anticyclone" feels like a massive hedge-maze amidst towering sand dunes of apathetic lust. "Mining" is a slow descent into a narrow, murky mine, now and then suddenly illuminated by the guide's flaring torch. Does he even know where he's leading his patrons? Sorrowful and strange, "Nevalyashka" is a nostalgic waltz, bringing to mind an old wooden attic where forgotten toys are gathering dust, while the clear and springy bass in "Sagittarius" can only be the belligerent footsteps of a mythical centaur.
The simplest way to define Fogh Depot's music would be to call it seductive brooding jazz with an electronic twist. Fogh Depot conjoin the unconjoinable, combining distorted low resolution samples with pure, atmospheric piano chords, multilayered drones with bebop changes, four-to-the-floor beat with polyrhythm, simple, easy-to-remember tunes with sophisticated effects for woodwinds, springy bass grooves with timeless ambient soundscapes. Live performance targeted at acoustic perception binds this technological hodgepodge together, giving every listener a chance to find the right texture for a rainy evening and a glass of good scotch."
- Just to add some "body" to Rostasi's latest post:
Janek Schaefer's Foundsoundscape
Live radio collage of foundsound places to underscore your personal spaces
With 100 contributors such as:
Brian Eno, Phil Niblock, Richard Chartier, Mike Weis, Stephan Mathieu, Scanner (Robin Rimbaud), Taylor Deupree, Simon Fisher Turner, Philip Jeck and our very own Rostasi.
ETA: Image shows: "Acoustic listening devices developed for the Dutch army as part of air defense systems research between World Wars 1 and 2."
- and just in @ Bandcamp, a sequell to The Legendary Pink Dots' phenomenal latest album "Ten To the Power Of Nine":
Streamline's super mega group Mimir, featuring Christoph Heeman & Andreas Martin of H.N.A.S., Edward Kaspel, Silverman & Elke Skelter (The Legendary Pink Dots) and Jim O'Rourke. Recorded between 1993 and 1997, Completely reworked By Christoph Heeman in 2007.
Mimir conducts electricoacoustic-prog wonders and is wholeheardedly recommended.
- "Christoph Heemann spent a year re-interpreting the sessions that constituted the first Mimir album and the result could never be described as a mere 'remix'. In fact it sounds like a new album, and one hell of a new album to be precise. A beauty."
- "Confessions Time: As much as I loved the first Mimir album I always had trouble listening to the song with those massed vocals...I'd blush profusely when I could pick out my own voice overdoing it in what was essentially a project all about collective improvisation.So...imagine the joy when Christoph Heemann presented this complete re-working of that album in 2007. Imagine how excited I felt to hear that my issue (which I'd actually kept to myself!) had been addressed. Not a mere remaster, this is quite an overhaul and it is a delight."
- "Is a musical pseudonym used by Norwegian artist Helge Sten. Sten began creating music under this name starting in 1991, culminating with a box set of most of his recorded work being released in 2004. Simply titled Deathprod, the collection contains three albums along with a bonus disc of previously unreleased, rare, and deleted tracks.
On recordings, Sten is usually credited with "Audio Virus", a catchall term for "homemade electronics, old tape echo machines, ring modulators, filters, theremins, samplers and lots of electronic stuff."
Sten also did the mixing of the album "PB" by the Norwegian artist Per Bergersen.
Sten is a member of Supersilent and works as a producer on many releases on the Norwegian label Rune Grammofon. He has also produced Motorpsycho and has worked with Biosphere on an Arne Nordheim tribute album called Nordheim Transformed."
Biosphere
- "Is the main recording name of Geir Jenssen, a Norwegian musician who has released a notable catalogue of ambient electronic music.
He is well known for his "ambient techno" and "arctic ambient" styles, his use of music loops, and peculiar samples from sci-fi sources.
His track "Novelty Waves" was used for the 1995 campaign of Levi's. His 1997 album Substrata is generally seen as one of the all time classic ambient albums [1].
Biosphere regularly performs live during electronic music festivals and in clubs throughout Europe and various other locales around the world. Live performances usually consist of Jenssen performing improvisations or variations on newer tracks on a laptop while video art is projected behind him; for example, full-screen video art was projected in his Picturehouse cinema tour in April 2006. Although these performances are rarely tied specifically to a recent album release, the uptempo material from the Bleep and Microgravity/Patashnik era is rarely featured in Biosphere performances."
Brand new from the (almost) always brilliant Sub Rosa label:
Oiseaux-Tempête - Ütopiya?
"ÜTOPIYA? not only continues their first album, but it extends it. The travels move this time to Istanbul and Sicily providing the food for its urgent energy and indomitable drive. While the structures still hint at moments of post-rock, they go further now, almost into the area of free-jazz yet without loosing a directness rooted in punk (highlighted perhaps by the presence of G.V. Sok (from The Ex). In addition, the bass clarinet of Gareth Davis references both the roughest of experiments of Akosh Szelevényi and of The Stooges Fun House."
- "There are, so the story goes, sea birds that reveal themselves only at times of approaching storms. This story though, is a little more complicated. For some, the pipers riding the deluge, yet for the mariner the prophets in the lingering final moments of calm. Thus, ultimately, are they the creator or created if the existence of one requires the other? It is this Mediterranean Sea that OISEAUX-TEMPÊTE chose to roam. In 2013, on a trip to Greece, they returned with an account of the political upheaval and spread of discontent which is now so easy to follow two years later. An album of tension, cinematographic as it rides the storms which it documents. A disc positioned, ultimately, in the statement.
More or less anchored in Paris, OISEAUX-TEMPÊTE is the result of the meeting between Frédéric D. Oberland &Stéphane Pigneul (members of both Farewell Poetry and Le Réveil des Tropiques) and Ben McConnell (Beach House and Marissa Nadler). For ÜTOPIYA?, the group is expanded with the addition of bass clarinet virtuoso Gareth Davis."
"Following on from various self-released albums, Footfalls Echo is the latest offering from West Yorkshire born, Krakow based artist Hayden Berry, aka Visionary Hours. Always aiming to offer something different with each release, Visionary Hours uses a wide variety of acoustic instruments to create slowly evolving ambient/modern-classical pieces, full of space and gently revealed micro melodies.
Strings, guitar, vocals, flute and clarinet are all in check on Footfalls Echo. Together with Richard Formby (Spectrum, Mogwai, Dakota Suite, The Jazz Butcher), Berry combined these instruments with genuine tape delay created through a Revox B77 reel to reel tape recorder. Various other tape effects were also used to create warm swathes of sound to underpin melodic lines, with recordings of acoustic instruments being reversed or slowed down before a final mix on to high speed 4-track cassette. Analogue recording plays a very important part in the creation of this album, something that is reflected in the abstracted tape reels of the cover."
“Mirror neurons will do for psychology what DNA did for biology”
— Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, neuroscientist
Mirror neurons represent a distinctive class of cells that fire both when an animal executes an action and when it observes another individual performing the same action. Discovered by Italian neurophysiologist Giacomo Rizzolatti and his team at the University of Parma while doing a research on the neural representation of motor movements in monkeys, the precise function and influence of these neurons has become one of the most important topic in neuroscience. They have been linked to many behaviours and abilities, from empathy to learning by imitation and language acquisition, as well as implicated in conditions such as autism and other brain disorders. These findings suggest that the mirror neuron system plays a key role in our ability to experience empathy.
Initiated by sound artists France Jobin and Fabio Perletta, Mirror Neurons is a media-project investigating the notion of empathy and physical distance. The entire album is the result of extended sound files exchange between Montréal (Canada) and Roseto degli Abruzzi (Italy). Each of the pieces is based on rough sounds and their consequent re-working, listening and reaction, processing and imitation. The ongoing process helped the artists to draw inspiration in terms of stimuli for the act of composing itself in two very distant cities, different climate, time zones and languages.
Like much of Jobin and Perletta’s recent works, Mirror Neurons explores the artists’ interest in intersection between science and art, as well as the infinitely small and invisible. In order to further develop the concept of distance/connectivity, visual artists XX+XY from Rome have been involved in the process. They created a multi-dimensional, generative and ever-changing sound visualization through the use of quiet textures and subtle movements emphasizing the slowed sense of time of the work itself. Thought to be performed live in a big space, the video aims to create an immersive environment and a unique occasion to reflect about the behaviour of our emotions and the importance of human interaction.
France Jobin is a sound / installation / artist, composer and curator residing in Montreal, Canada. Her audio art can be qualified as “sound-sculpture”, revealing a minimalist approach to complex sound environments where analog and digital intersect. Her installations express a parallel path, incorporating both musical and visual elements inspired by the architecture of physical spaces. Her works can be “experienced” in varied music venues and new technology festivals across Canada, the United States, South America, South Africa, Europe and Japan.
Fabio Perletta (b. 1984) is a sound & multimedia artist living and working in Roseto degli Abruzzi, Italy. His works include electronic music, sound & light installations, live performances and graphic design. By using computer and custom softwares, Perletta’s sound research explores the intersection between different yet complementary areas such as physics, psychology and human perception.
Colin Stetson and Sarah Neufeld - Never Were The Way She Was
"Two of Constellation's acclaimed solo instrumental artists join forces on this tremendous new album of original compositions for horn and violin.
Colin Stetson has developed a unique and renowned voice as a performer and composer, chiefly on bass and tenor saxophones, where he rallies an array of technical strengths and innovations (circular breathing, contact micing of his own body and the body of his instrument, vocalizations through the reed) to make some of the most captivatingly organic, darkly soulful and otherworldly solo instrumental work of recent years. His brilliant trilogy of New History Warfare records (2007-2013) has been resoundingly celebrated by critics, fans and fellow musicians across many genres: avant/jazz, modern classical/minimalism, electronic/noise, industrial/dark ambient, black metal and indie rock.
The solo violin work of Sarah Neufeld has emerged more recently, and especially through 2011-2014, in the period between her primary band Arcade Fire's last two albums. While no stranger to modern/minimalist composition with her Bell Orchestre ensemble dating back to the early 2000s, Neufeld has lately forged a newly distinctive, deliberate and evocative solo violin practice combining rock, folk, ambient and modernist sensibilities, culminating with her debut solo album Hero Brother in 2013.
Stetson and Neufeld first began playing in duo formation while on tour together as soloists in 2012, joining each other on stage for one or two of their respective pieces. Stetson had also collaborated in the past with Bell Orchestre and Arcade Fire, and with Neufeld and Shahzad Ismaily in an improv trio dating back to 2010 (including the Blue Caprice soundtrack). Duo compositions for their debut album emerged throughout 2014, and were road-tested that spring with performances at the Festival de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (Canada) and Moers Festival (Germany). The album was recorded without overdubbing, looping, sampling, cutting or pasting at their farmhouse attic studio in rural Vermont by Hans Bernhard and mixed in Montreal by Mark Lawson (Arcade Fire).
Never were the way she was is guided by the metaphorical narrative of the life of a girl who ages slow as mountains; excited, exalted, and ultimately exiled in her search for a world that resembles her experience. The album's expansive sonic trajectory and multiplicity of structures and voicings belies the fundamental economy of two acoustic instruments combining in real time. The result is a musical chronicle that powerfully establishes its own spatial and temporal horizon, a soundtrack that requires no images but profoundly compels the imaginative. From the filigreed ostinato polyrhythms of “The sun roars into view” and “In the vespers” to the stately long tones of “And they still move”, the dark drone-inflected sea-saw waltz of “With the dark hug of time” to the growling, pulsing thrust of the album’s epic centerpiece “The rest of us”, Stetson and Neufeld offer up an incredible (and impressively diverse) integration of composition, performance, timbre and texture while holding their respective instruments in sparkling juxtaposition. Never were the way she was is a sum quite definitively and thrillingly greater than its parts."
Comments
they seem to be up again (if they are the same), but they are fake.
</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Notwist - The Messier Objects</span>
- <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">When The Notwist returned with their acclaimed7th studio album 'Close To The Glass' (their debut for Sub Pop Records) in early 2014, many were enchanted by the epic instrumental 'Lineri'. It was the only instrumental track featured on the LP,but according to Notwist-singer Markus Acher, instrumental works have had an especially big impact on the album and its arrangements. Between 2008's 'The Devil, You & Me' and this year's 'Close To The Glass', The Notwist not only concentrated on various solo projects, but also worked for several theatre productions and radioplays. 'The Messier Objects' is a compilation of some of these works. The collection obviously brings to mind the ghosts of Library Music and 70s soundtracks, but can also be heard as a summary of the band's ever evolving musical cosmos: The seventeen featured pieces range from sample-based, electronic collages to the buoyant post-rock of 'Das Spiel ist aus'.
Whether the band is experimenting with modular synthesizers, analogue percussion, or even horn sections ('Object 11'), you will always find musicin a constant flow of gentle grooves that make this light-footed and open-minded collection more than just a counterpiece to 'Close To The Glass'</span>
Piccadilly Records
Missy Mazzoli, Victoire, Glenn Kotche, Lorna Dune - Vespers for a New Dark Age. I enjoyed Song From the Uproar
by Missy Mazzoli, this should be worth a listen.
Freddie Wadling (vocals), Werner Cee (chin), Stian Westerhus (electric guitar), Michael Wertmuller (drums)
http://www.theanthropocene.de/the_performers.10.html#The Performers
- "Werner Cee began his artistic carreer by studying painting at the Frankfurt College of Fine Arts (Sta?del) in the 70s and worked as a free-lance visual artist up to the 80s. At the same time, he realized musical projects in the experimental rock music scene/ free scene. Works in the field of media arts, photography, sound and light installations followed, linking the visual and acoustic media, sound, architecture and music. Then, his focus shifted towards electroacoustic composition and ars acustica productions, mostly commissioned by German radio stations.
He teaches sound art at the College of Fine Arts Saarbru?cken and the Goethe Universita?t Frankfurt. He has been a lecturer for audiovisual art at the Bern High School HKB in 2008/09.
Many of his pieces have won international awards, among others Ars electronica, Linz 1993// Radio Nacional de Espan?a/CDMC Madrid 2000// Prix Ars Acustica Studio akustische Kunst WDR 2002//Computer music competition Pierre Schaeffer Pescara 2002// Computer Space, Sofia/Bulgaria 2002/2004// International Competition of Sonic Art. Bourges 2001/2005// German Sound Art Award 2006 // Prix Italia 2010"
Full streaming @ Soundcloud
- "Massive synthesizer sounds, unconditionally charging forward alongside untethered grooves and striking bass lines with vocals that blend spoken word with acerbic lyrics that ponder the perils of existence and the fragility of the biographies.
Such is life and such is the effect of Metalycée's newest effort, Expat Blues. "We loosely based the music on hip hop aesthetics" proclaims the band itself. "Gospel was also on our minds at the time."
This makes for an adventurous compound to say the least; an organisation of tones that refuses to adhere to the idea of a combo and the concept that the repetition of said tones has lead to the tiring out of once distinct ideas that have now found their sweet spot in the group's equitable sound.
"The topography of Metalycée's music is not decipherable by way of clichés" as the band circumscribes. Certain connecting factors between the individual band members were forged over a love of fine arts and their ongoing discourse that more often than not manages to eclipse their inner-musical conversations. "One thing we constantly discuss is the idea of how a tribal-type groove can be sustained throughout our sonic experiments." This prompted the band to not confine their recordings to a studio environment (a move that distinguishes the Expat Blues process from its predecessors Another White Album, It Is Not and Tell Me) but to separate the live tracking process from extensive sample work. The sessions were also the first without Armin Steiner and Matija Schellander, who left the band prior to that. A link to the past is provided by Nik Hummer's use of the Trautonium, a machine that Friedrich Trautwein (1888 – 1956) once intended and manufactured for Paul Hindemith. Oscar Sala was the Trautonium's sole operator for a long period of time until he moved to the United States where he refined Trautwein's invention and famously created the sound design for Hitchcock's "The Birds".
One of Metalycée's precursors was the analogue synth trio Thilges 3 who had been experimenting with their sound as well as the performative elements of their show since the beginning. Nik Hummer and Armin Steiner were soon joined by drummer Bernhard Breuer (Elektro Guzzi, Tumido, No Business for Dogs) and bassist Matija Schellander, who is currently a prominent figure in improvised music (RdeÄa Raketa, Low Frequency Orchestra). Melita Jurisic, an actress who is celebrated in her home country of Australia and is on the brink of deportation in Austria, joined the fold a little ways down the road. A social genre picture. "Melita plays all the classics on stage and stars in TV shows and movies like Mad Max 4. She commands Shakespeare with the same fluency as she would the dirtiest slang." Jurisic embodies a female image that refuses to keep with the market and strikes fear into the hearts of chauvinists. "She has proven herself to be a tough pill to swallow for men who choose to degrade and objectify women."
Upshot: Expat Blues engulfs the listener like an avalanche. "Certain people might think that it's too dark", the band adds for consideration. "But the whole thing is essentially about radically thinking about things in a different way than one is used to." This of course requires stability of the mind and character as well as the aspiration to consciously do things differently every time one is confronted with a corresponding scenario. Metalycée are willing to take that chance and perhaps gloriously fail at doing so, but do not intend to keep their mouths shut about it.
Kudos Records
(Fanpage)
Interesting re-release label that I just discovered because I had to send the guy who runs it
some master tapes last summer of a James Fulkerson recording from 1980 that he's re-releasing this year.
After looking at the Superior Viaduct website,
I'd highly recommend the Gilbert/Lewis 3R4 album as well.
---
Now playing: Yusef Lateef - Stella by Starlight
Where the last album took listeners on a magical musical journey from the African country of its title and back to Denmark, Anders’s latest sonic adventure finds him travelling closer to home. Called Den Europæiske Spejlbue (English translation: The European Mirror-Arch), the new album consists of 12 orchestral collages, all revolving around the study of songs in Danish matched up with what you could call European world music.
The first track “Solhyldest 1. del” was released in October and gave a taste of the musical diversity of Anders Lauge Meldgaards new orchestral music.
The 59 minute-long Den Europæiske Spejlbue is a masterly achievement, one that Anders has been working on since 2011 … a modern and contemporary take on songwriting woven into orchestral collages. In order to realise his imaginary orchestra, Anders built some of the instruments you hear on the record himself: partly because he did not have a large live orchestra at hand, and partly because it was his ambition to create music in a fantasy world where new things were possible."
Tambourhinoceros - €music
ETA: I did it ! but it wasn't easy
- Maybe I will get used to this, and maybe I will forever miss the good old days where typing the codes only took a couple of minutes with a post like this.
Chris Haslam - Bass Guitar, Guitar
Michael Holland - Granular Sampler
Aliyah Hussain - Graphic Sonics, Cover Art
Kelly Jayne Jones - Flute
Alex Macarte - Guitar, Bombo Drum
Chris Manis - Bata Drums
Jack McCarthy - Bata Drums
David Mclean - Alto Sax
John Powell - Jones - Graphic Sonics, Cover Art
Marlene Ribeiro - Keyboards, Bass Guitar
Paddy Shine - Keyboards, Bombo Drum, Ring modulated Hang
Jefferson Temple - Guitar
Chris Weaver - Soprano, Congas, Bata drum
Dan Weaver - Guitar, Bass guitar, Spannerphone
Sam Weaver - Analogue modular synth, Feedback tape delay
Louise Woodcock - Vocal
- And Charles Hayward - Drums, Vocal, Melodica, Keyboard
- Featuring in the choir: Charles Hayward, Emma Thompson, Sam Weaver, Dan Weaver, Marlene Ribeiro, Verity Gardner, Paddy Shine, Bill Campbell, Maurice Carlin, Jefferson Temple, Chris Haslam, Lee Nutter, Jamie Robinson, Alex Macarte, Amy Horgan, Dan Bridgewood - Hill, MIchael Holland.
Out on RER Megacorp:
"Sardinian guitarist Paolo Angeli and American percussionist Hamid Drake first performed together in the early 21st century, releasing debut album Uotha (Nubop) in 2005. The duo's second release, Deghe, was recorded live at the 2013 Festival Isole che Parlano in Sardinia. The players each have a long-established reputation in improvisation and free jazz—previous collaborations include Drake's work with Ken Vandermar and Angeli's with Fred Frith. Together on this beautifully-recorded album the two men interact with energy and imagination.
Angeli plays the prepared Sardinian guitar, an instrument which in terms of appearance and playing position bears a closer resemblance to the cello than to the acoustic guitar. For the most part Angeli plucks the strings, playing chords or single note runs with equal skill—but he's also a master of arco playing. The complex arrangement of strings, hammers, pedals and variable speed e-bow-like devices gives this prepared guitar a range of sonic possibilities that extend well beyond those of the usual six-string instrument.
The combination of drums and guitar gives the duo an even wider tonal and emotional range. On "Transiti" and "Spargiani" Drake's hard-hitting kit drum gives an urgency and drive which Angeli responds to with equal power and vibrancy. On "Raffia" Angeli's complex mix of bass rhythms and swift, sure-fingered, melodic lines combine the sounds of rock, North African and Iberian musics over Drake's pile-driving percussion. Drake's drumming (which sounds as if he's playing with his hands, rather than sticks) immediately sets up the relaxed yet swinging mood on Angeli's "Primavera Araba"—his approach complementing the composer's own playing and plaintive, higher register, vocal.
"Joga," written by Björk, draws out Angeli's folk heritage, his melody lines mixing pizzicato and arco playing and sounding like a duet between guitar and viola. The track segues seamlessly into "Scampoli Di Corsica," whose shifting rhythms and tempos gradually give way to Angeli's whistling and singing, underpinned by Drake's spiky drumming. The album's centerpiece is Drake's "The Many Faces Of The Beloved." It's a strong, soulful, performance from Angeli and Drake, capturing a commitment and intensity of spirit that characterizes the music to be heard on Deghe."
All About Jazz - Soundcloud
http://www.paoloangeli.com/en/
Oren Ambarchi & Jim O'Rourke - Behold
Jim O'Rourke (Sonic Youth, etc) - Synth, Piano etc
This is sharp, focussed contemporary music, one where minimalist motifs meet maximalist tendencies. Behold is another landmark recording made by two of the most enthusiastic experimental explorers active today."
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- "Second solo LP from Causa Sui guitar player/producer Jonas Munk. These three long pieces aren't defined by Munks signature guitar-approach, but is rather a musical vision of vintage synthesizers, organs, piano and analog electronics elegantly weaved together to create extensive formations of pure sound. The harmonic simplicity and unrestricted dedication to sonic balance and texture is something of a first in Munk's body of work. This is pattern music, characterized by slow builds and subtle, but refined, transformations, where gradual tectonic shifts and tiny harmonic gestures generate vivid emotional responses. Instead of imposing any direct intention or meaning, it's an album that can create a mental environment for the listener to expand and open up into.
Absorb, taking up the entire A-side, is a piece of meticulous balance, structured from techniques recalling the classical minimalists: soft-glowing analog synthesizer patterns in perpetual motion, creating new harmonic content as each bar progresses. Gradually, randomized modular effects are introduced as well as layers of white noise and detuned, heavily tube-overdriven guitar drones, slowly bathing the piece in warmly filtered fuzz.
The B-side opens with two identical organ lines played against each other. After a few minutes the organs lock into a an effortless flow, gently rolling towards a pastoral peak several minutes later, where piano and various layers of electronics enters the soundscape, recalling the blissed-out spiritualism of Alice Coltrane or Popol Vuh.
The album's last track, Cascade, opens peacefully but soon enough crosses into multi-textural self-oscillating psychedelia – related in spirit to Munk's previous solo album, Pan, released in 2012. Gradually the intertwined layers of sound rises to enormous billows of sonic saturation, where each drone harmonizes against layers of distorted pulses.
Music like this is perceived as incredibly simple and free flowing, but, as is the case with the biological world, reveals textural minutiae and interweaved intricacy once studied close-up. Every tiny detail serves the bigger picture. It's music that's practically vibrating with possibility.
File next to: Terry Riley, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Brian Eno, Popol Vuh."
El Paraiso Records - Soundcloud
This is exceptional - see the Bright Young Folk review in the Listening thread
Fogh Depot's debut album contains eight stories told by different people in different places. "Anticyclone" feels like a massive hedge-maze amidst towering sand dunes of apathetic lust. "Mining" is a slow descent into a narrow, murky mine, now and then suddenly illuminated by the guide's flaring torch. Does he even know where he's leading his patrons? Sorrowful and strange, "Nevalyashka" is a nostalgic waltz, bringing to mind an old wooden attic where forgotten toys are gathering dust, while the clear and springy bass in "Sagittarius" can only be the belligerent footsteps of a mythical centaur.
The simplest way to define Fogh Depot's music would be to call it seductive brooding jazz with an electronic twist. Fogh Depot conjoin the unconjoinable, combining distorted low resolution samples with pure, atmospheric piano chords, multilayered drones with bebop changes, four-to-the-floor beat with polyrhythm, simple, easy-to-remember tunes with sophisticated effects for woodwinds, springy bass grooves with timeless ambient soundscapes. Live performance targeted at acoustic perception binds this technological hodgepodge together, giving every listener a chance to find the right texture for a rainy evening and a glass of good scotch."
Janek Schaefer's Foundsoundscape
Edward Ka-Spel - 10 To The Power Of 9 - Chapter 3
href="https://legendarypinkdots1.bandcamp.com/album/mimir-revisited" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mimir Revisited
Deathprod
- "Is a musical pseudonym used by Norwegian artist Helge Sten. Sten began creating music under this name starting in 1991, culminating with a box set of most of his recorded work being released in 2004. Simply titled Deathprod, the collection contains three albums along with a bonus disc of previously unreleased, rare, and deleted tracks.
On recordings, Sten is usually credited with "Audio Virus", a catchall term for "homemade electronics, old tape echo machines, ring modulators, filters, theremins, samplers and lots of electronic stuff."
Sten also did the mixing of the album "PB" by the Norwegian artist Per Bergersen.
Sten is a member of Supersilent and works as a producer on many releases on the Norwegian label Rune Grammofon. He has also produced Motorpsycho and has worked with Biosphere on an Arne Nordheim tribute album called Nordheim Transformed."
Biosphere
- "Is the main recording name of Geir Jenssen, a Norwegian musician who has released a notable catalogue of ambient electronic music.
He is well known for his "ambient techno" and "arctic ambient" styles, his use of music loops, and peculiar samples from sci-fi sources.
His track "Novelty Waves" was used for the 1995 campaign of Levi's. His 1997 album Substrata is generally seen as one of the all time classic ambient albums [1].
Biosphere regularly performs live during electronic music festivals and in clubs throughout Europe and various other locales around the world. Live performances usually consist of Jenssen performing improvisations or variations on newer tracks on a laptop while video art is projected behind him; for example, full-screen video art was projected in his Picturehouse cinema tour in April 2006. Although these performances are rarely tied specifically to a recent album release, the uptempo material from the Bleep and Microgravity/Patashnik era is rarely featured in Biosphere performances."
- Touch Music
Aphex Twin - MARCHROMT30a Edit 2b 96
Oiseaux-Tempête - Ütopiya?
Stéphane Pigneul | bass VI, guitars, sampler, drum machine
Ben Mc Connell | drums, percussion
Gareth Davis | bass clarinet
G.W.Sok | guest vocals on "Ütopiya / On Living"
Karel Doing | 16mm projector sound on "Palindrome Series"
Footfalls Echo
by Visionary Hours
Strings, guitar, vocals, flute and clarinet are all in check on Footfalls Echo. Together with Richard Formby (Spectrum, Mogwai, Dakota Suite, The Jazz Butcher), Berry combined these instruments with genuine tape delay created through a Revox B77 reel to reel tape recorder. Various other tape effects were also used to create warm swathes of sound to underpin melodic lines, with recordings of acoustic instruments being reversed or slowed down before a final mix on to high speed 4-track cassette. Analogue recording plays a very important part in the creation of this album, something that is reflected in the abstracted tape reels of the cover."
Mirror neurons represent a distinctive class of cells that fire both when an animal executes an action and when it observes another individual performing the same action. Discovered by Italian neurophysiologist Giacomo Rizzolatti and his team at the University of Parma while doing a research on the neural representation of motor movements in monkeys, the precise function and influence of these neurons has become one of the most important topic in neuroscience. They have been linked to many behaviours and abilities, from empathy to learning by imitation and language acquisition, as well as implicated in conditions such as autism and other brain disorders. These findings suggest that the mirror neuron system plays a key role in our ability to experience empathy.
Initiated by sound artists France Jobin and Fabio Perletta, Mirror Neurons is a media-project investigating the notion of empathy and physical distance. The entire album is the result of extended sound files exchange between Montréal (Canada) and Roseto degli Abruzzi (Italy). Each of the pieces is based on rough sounds and their consequent re-working, listening and reaction, processing and imitation. The ongoing process helped the artists to draw inspiration in terms of stimuli for the act of composing itself in two very distant cities, different climate, time zones and languages.
Like much of Jobin and Perletta’s recent works, Mirror Neurons explores the artists’ interest in intersection between science and art, as well as the infinitely small and invisible. In order to further develop the concept of distance/connectivity, visual artists XX+XY from Rome have been involved in the process. They created a multi-dimensional, generative and ever-changing sound visualization through the use of quiet textures and subtle movements emphasizing the slowed sense of time of the work itself. Thought to be performed live in a big space, the video aims to create an immersive environment and a unique occasion to reflect about the behaviour of our emotions and the importance of human interaction.
France Jobin is a sound / installation / artist, composer and curator residing in Montreal, Canada. Her audio art can be qualified as “sound-sculpture”, revealing a minimalist approach to complex sound environments where analog and digital intersect. Her installations express a parallel path, incorporating both musical and visual elements inspired by the architecture of physical spaces. Her works can be “experienced” in varied music venues and new technology festivals across Canada, the United States, South America, South Africa, Europe and Japan.
Fabio Perletta (b. 1984) is a sound & multimedia artist living and working in Roseto degli Abruzzi, Italy. His works include electronic music, sound & light installations, live performances and graphic design. By using computer and custom softwares, Perletta’s sound research explores the intersection between different yet complementary areas such as physics, psychology and human perception.
Dragons Eye Recordings - Emusic
- More France Jobin @ Emusers
Colin Stetson and Sarah Neufeld - Never Were The Way She Was
Colin Stetson has developed a unique and renowned voice as a performer and composer, chiefly on bass and tenor saxophones, where he rallies an array of technical strengths and innovations (circular breathing, contact micing of his own body and the body of his instrument, vocalizations through the reed) to make some of the most captivatingly organic, darkly soulful and otherworldly solo instrumental work of recent years. His brilliant trilogy of New History Warfare records (2007-2013) has been resoundingly celebrated by critics, fans and fellow musicians across many genres: avant/jazz, modern classical/minimalism, electronic/noise, industrial/dark ambient, black metal and indie rock.
The solo violin work of Sarah Neufeld has emerged more recently, and especially through 2011-2014, in the period between her primary band Arcade Fire's last two albums. While no stranger to modern/minimalist composition with her Bell Orchestre ensemble dating back to the early 2000s, Neufeld has lately forged a newly distinctive, deliberate and evocative solo violin practice combining rock, folk, ambient and modernist sensibilities, culminating with her debut solo album Hero Brother in 2013.
Stetson and Neufeld first began playing in duo formation while on tour together as soloists in 2012, joining each other on stage for one or two of their respective pieces. Stetson had also collaborated in the past with Bell Orchestre and Arcade Fire, and with Neufeld and Shahzad Ismaily in an improv trio dating back to 2010 (including the Blue Caprice soundtrack). Duo compositions for their debut album emerged throughout 2014, and were road-tested that spring with performances at the Festival de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (Canada) and Moers Festival (Germany). The album was recorded without overdubbing, looping, sampling, cutting or pasting at their farmhouse attic studio in rural Vermont by Hans Bernhard and mixed in Montreal by Mark Lawson (Arcade Fire).
Never were the way she was is guided by the metaphorical narrative of the life of a girl who ages slow as mountains; excited, exalted, and ultimately exiled in her search for a world that resembles her experience. The album's expansive sonic trajectory and multiplicity of structures and voicings belies the fundamental economy of two acoustic instruments combining in real time. The result is a musical chronicle that powerfully establishes its own spatial and temporal horizon, a soundtrack that requires no images but profoundly compels the imaginative. From the filigreed ostinato polyrhythms of “The sun roars into view” and “In the vespers” to the stately long tones of “And they still move”, the dark drone-inflected sea-saw waltz of “With the dark hug of time” to the growling, pulsing thrust of the album’s epic centerpiece “The rest of us”, Stetson and Neufeld offer up an incredible (and impressively diverse) integration of composition, performance, timbre and texture while holding their respective instruments in sparkling juxtaposition. Never were the way she was is a sum quite definitively and thrillingly greater than its parts."