STREAM - A Death Cinematic - The New World

A Death Cinematic has been creating ominously intense guitar pieces for several years now and has released a few albums under his own A Simple Box Construction label/art project - so called because each release came housed in a wooden sleeve, though his remit extends further to include artworks with one release including a sombre urban landscape photograph booklet. Really nice attention to detail and all with the same aesthetic feel and tactile continuation of the earthy and naturalistic currents of his music. References and touchstones for his sound would be Evan Caminiti, Jon Porras and their associated bands - vast plains of landscaped tones. I would expect to see A Death Cinematic alongside Root Strata, Blackest Rainbow, Three Lobed kind of artists - I'm more surprised he hasn't had anything released through them already.

There are two pieces of news that have inspired me to finally post something about this artist - a new solo album, and a split with Brighton's Ekca Liena, whose Orb Night is one of the deepes most hypnotic pieces of drone to have floated through my speakers. The split is called Preturnatural and it is slated to be out soon on Small Doses. 7 tracks total with an hour worth of brand new music. The first 3 tracks are by Ekca Liena and the final 4 tracks are by A Death Cinematic. The artwork is being finalized and this should be out real soon.

The new solo album will be titled The New World, and will have a video produced for the track of the same name by director Freddie Lloyd - it's a piece that begins like a beatless Heavy Winged track, a violently sharp guitar tone howling and contorting as its bent out of shape. The title is taken from a spoken word vocal piece peformed by Matt Finney that forms part of the track which you can stream here.

Go to his Bandcamp for the full list of albums available digitally, or his Soundcloud for several tracks and sets, which you can subscribe to too.


Here are two tracks from The New World to stream in advance of the full album arriving.

STREAM: Heavy Winged - Sunspotted

Type Records have put up the two monlithic tracks that make up Heavy Winged's new 12" on their Soundcloud and you can stream them here. Heavy Winged are a sprawling North American trio made up of drummer Jed Bindeman, bassist Brady Sansone and guitarist Ryan Hebert, and easily one of my favourite ever bands - I've been hooked and a complete fan boy ever since I heard the first opening bars of Through The Shimmer, and I own ever single album they have ever released, which is about 30. A band to truly believe in.  This new record is like a full realisation of what they have been working towards, blurring the capabilities and definitions of bass and guitar, combinining that interaction with the punctuation and propulsion of the percussion creating a audible dialogue between the trio incorporating dynamic, momentum and sheer noise. So relentlessly intense it's psychedelic.


This, from Type:

Over the last few years the band have released a cacophonous splatter of cassettes, vinyl and cdrs for Not Not Fun, Blackest Rainbow, Aurora Borealis, Students of Decay, ThreeLobed and a handful of other esteemed imprints. Most of these have been mercilessly grimy signifiers of their buzzing free-rock style, and were recorded poorly to almost accentuate the harsh guitar tones and double-time blast beats. This latest jagged offering however is a rare beast in the Heavy Winged canon, offering a higher fidelity peek into their muddled world.

This time around the band escaped to a ‘real’ studio to record two slices of extended sludge rock, which come across as wider than ever thanks to some fresh recording techniques. Something like an unholy union between the sheet-noise of Yellow Swans and the blissful sub-harmonic transcendence of early Mogwai or Sonic Youth, Sunspotted is an album that takes tried and tested sounds and bends them beyond recognition. Sure plenty of bands have made distorted, blurred, guitar noise before, but rarely with the conviction and wit of Heavy Winged. With their early explorations into doom and metal we find the band on a high, framing their high-octane jitter into something that could almost be mistaken for beautiful. Just as the aforementioned Yellow Swans took their sound from the outer reaches of noise to something, dare I say it, pretty, Heavy Winged have focused their three individual powers to come up with an album that revels in its depth and shimmering beauty.

It might take a few listens to reveal its layers but Sunspotted is a challenging and rewarding listening experience. Standing at the top of the band’s already estimable catalogue of albums and EPs, this album finds them at a key moment, a moment where they have found a balance between fidelity and grit, harmony and discord. Step in, turn it up and let yourself descend.

Best Coast & Pocahaunted

One of our favourite bands just split up, divided into two mitotic super cells of West Coast sun saturated summer sensuality. Pocahaunted is no longer the duo of Amanda Brown and Bethany Cosentino. Amanda is taking Pocahaunted further out into the cosmic wilderness with a fuller band, essentially a supergroup of artists from the Not Not Fun records roster - Cameron Stallones (Sun Araw; organ), Diva Dompe (BlackBlack; bass/vocals), Ged Gengrass (Antique Brothers; drums), and husband/co-NNF label owener Britt Brown (Robedoor; guitar). Phew. Mega band.

NNF put out the final Bethany & Amanda Pocahaunted cassette before they split, 'Live From The New Age', which hints heavily towards this new sound with intensely heaving waves of drone lifting higher out of the vocal fog, hitting sharper peaks and rocking wider ripples as they splash back into the mix. Here's a video of the new incarnation playing eariler this monthon the European Tour at the Galeria Zé dos Bois in Lisbon, Portugal (04.07.2009)




Pocahuanted

New horizons in two directions. So where to now?


Bethany has sailed out onto a hazy washed-out technicolour sun-kissed beach front sound with Bob Bruno (Goliath Bird Eater; drums). Together they are the fantastic Best Coast. There's been a lot of positive vibrations buzzing around blogs heralding the Song of The Summer - The Sun Was High (So Was I). Suitably, beautifully justified hype that might well see this band get wider recognition that Pocahaunted - it's certainly a more populist sound with the modern lo-fi harmony buried in overdrive feel of bands from everyone beween My Bloody Valentine and Times New Viking - but this is far prettier, joyful, happier and above all more in thrall to the Beach Boys sense of of the psychedelic 60's West Coast.

Found this video on YouTube which is Sun Was High set to excerpts from Un Homme Et Une Femme by Claude Lelouche (1966). It kind of works really nicely, kind of doesn't but it's here for you anyways. I think it's probably better to jus thear it and conjour your own imagery.





In Bethany's words on her MySpace she says:

"allow me to reintroduce myself
so i am back in california, and i thought what could be more fitting than to record a bunch of songs about summer and the sun and the ocean and being a lazy creep? so this is what i'm doing.

originally this project was called "sun dried" but then i realized that reminded me too much of old ladies with bad sunburns so i changed it to best coast. meaningful for two reasons, one is that obviously the west coast is the best coast, and two, BC are my initials.

the songs that are up here are just "demo" versions of the songs i have been writing, but my bff bobb bruno has been crazy at work adding drums, beach boys bass lines, and other amazing things. we are insanly trying to get this shit recorded and once we have at least one song fully recorded, i will put that shit up. i'm really fucking excited about this and i hope that every11111 likes it and can make out to it on a beach blanket this summer.

PEACE,
bethany"




The debut Best Coast cassette Where The Boys Are is out now on Blackest Rainbow and a self-titled 7" featuring "Sun Was High (So Was I)", "So Gone" and "That's the Way Boys Are" will be out very soon on Art Fag Recordings.