featured releases
(Constellation) CD & 2LP
Their legacy might stem from folky ensembles & collective idealism but the remnants of Godspeed! still got some gusto; Thee Silver Mount Zion sound inspired here, at one moment tapping well worn post-rock grandiosity, the next, busting out punked-up Fugazi-esque post-hardcore. Impassioned tunes & great structuring keeps Kollaps Tradixionales from falling under the “another post rock record” category, with riffs alongside the poetic bleakness that TSMZ execute so well. Kollaps Tradixionales‘ emotional arcs mirror the arduous, challenging, yet rewarding path that the Constellation collective has endured over the last 15 years.
Thee Silver Mount Zion is also on MySpace
17 February 2010 by Jeremy Robinson
| Avant-Garde, Pop / Rock
CD & 3LP (Perlon)
As founder of the impressively out there Skull Disco label, Sam Shackleton has a rep as an uncompromising idealist – Three EPs sees Shack stick to his guns & the results are truly original sounding bass-experiments. Dark, swarming atmospheres are pelted with tribal percussion, tambourines & the odd clap. Most of these tracks build with a teeming paranoia or tension, with the catharsis usually broken by some heaving bass-drop that starts a strange, ghost-haunted train rolling. “Moon Over Joseph’s Burial” & “Asha In The Tabernacle” are menacing.
We’re happy to report that this lovely gentleman will be playing town, February 28 at Element. Details posted over here...
9 January 2010 by Jeremy Robinson
| Avant-Garde, Electronic
CD (Thrill Jockey)
John McEntire & co. have drifted into a weird realm of “near-forgotten legend” status, but few bands considered “indie” have the virtuosity & instrumental chops that these dudes wag around. In 2009, for anyone with the time & attention span to invest in something a little deeper (2 things waning in most modern music fans), few albums offered as rich a sound world as Beacons Of Ancestorship. From glitchy permutations on modern beatsmiths like Flying Lotus (“Monument Six One Thousand”) to the classic cinematic Morricone-esque jams that we’ve some to love (“The Fall Of Seven Diamonds Plus One”), Tortoise so obviously know what the fuck they are doing. Time signatures, modulating melodicism, emotional gravity, phenomenal drum work & some fierce riffage all congeal here to take a stand for serious musicianship as a vital, relevant & under-appreciated element of indie-music culture in 2009.
Absolute masters.
7 December 2009 by Jeremy Robinson
| Avant-Garde, Electronic, Pop / Rock
(Brassland) CD
Nico Muhly is a 27 year old contemporary composer based out of New York. There has been much stirring about his work over the last 12 months, due in part to the deft arrangements he contributed to Sam Amidon’s All Is Well earlier this year. He has worked alongside Phillip Glass, Antony, Björk & Will Oldham & has composed a litany of works (as well as scoring a few films along the way). Mothertongue is a nosedive into Muhly’s modern appropriation of compositional ideas & propositions. Opening with “Mothertongue: I. Archive”, clipped & cut vocal snippets swarm the sound field, augmented with a deep synthetic synth tone. The results are stirring, sometimes off-putting & pretty bloody interesting. Reich-ish rhythmic clatter & Muhly’s “chamber music + electronics“ approach litters Mothertongue, as do vocal contributions from Amidon, Helgi Hrafn Jónsson & Abby Fischer. With a few more producing gigs no doubt in the works, Mothertongue is a great document of this young outsider-music talent still new to the world of indie-recognition.
Listen here...
7 October 2008 by Chris Long
| Avant-Garde
(Kompakt) 4CD
Wolfgang Voigt is the mastermind behind one of minimal techno’s largest stables: Kompakt. But before his brand was dominating global dancefloors, Voigt was exploring the deep dark realms of his German psyche as Gas. Drawing from German schlager music & Wagnerian classical influences, plus ambient staples like Satie, Aphex Twin & Eno, Voigt conjured clouds of throbbing ambience & drone, ceaselessly propelled by submerged kick drums. Nah Und Fern compiles the entire Gas output — Gas, Zauberberg, Königsforst & Pop — there’s slight remastering, but nothing that detracts from the nimble balance of tension & levity within Voigt’s most revered project. A brilliant document of one of the most important canons within the ambient techno world.
Listen here...
28 August 2008 by Chris Long
| Avant-Garde, Electronic
(Warp) CD & 2LP
On Quaristice, Sean Booth & Rob Brown play with shorter song durations & self referential tonal terrain. Opener “Altibzz” alone bears more melody than the last two Ae albums combined, while “Simmm” plots a familiar trajectory from sinister chimes through jumbled machinery to loping ambient tones & rhythms. While still a stretch for even the most avid electronic music fan, it’s nice to see Ae acknowledge their own past & dig up some familiar, if not nostalgic, tones, rhythms & structures (see closer “Outh9X”).
Listen here...
4 March 2008 by Jeremy Robinson
| Avant-Garde, Electronic
(Southern Lord) CD, LP coming soon
Dylan Carlson returns with a beefed up line up… legendary guitarist Bill Frisell is present on half of the tracks. Earth take the barren western-styled soundscapes of Hex: Or Printing In The Infernal Method & sink deeper; rocking American gospel is charged with improvisatory spirit & thick guitar sounds. The instrumental Americana within is Earth’s most accessible music to date.
Listen here...
26 February 2008 by Jeremy Robinson
| Avant-Garde, Pop / Rock
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