REVIEW: Nearone - Presents (Inner Island)

Nearone
PresentsInner Islands
BANDCAMP




Following the Wyld Wyzardz release is another new cassette from my current drone-crush label Inner Islands. Nearone is a possibly one-off project recorded live and straight to tape in New Zealand the duo of Sean "Gkfoes Vjgoaf" Conrad and Rosa.  Conrad usually haunts the woods of California but is currently out in the wilds of New Zealand soaking up the multitude of incredible landscapes they have out there and the difference is already informing his music.  An artist that has been distinctly influenced by his environment by design, this is an album of peaks, humid vegetation, slow streams and churning seas. These enormous influences are channelled across a peaceful meditative seven tracks of wildly differing lengths, allowing ideas to pop up like flashes of colour bursting from the undergrowth, or unfold and develop like tectonic activity. Some huge contemplative and ritualistic pieces such as Wood Be Rain and Gathering contrast with the fleeting visits of Bees and Behind The Cottage.

Lush and trancey and a must for all fans of folk-drone.

Sean Conrad has also recently given out an even more languorous and patiently meditative chime and drone one-track download by his new project named Ashan, titled Piece of Joy.

DOWNLOAD - Ashan - Piece of Joy
In his own words, Conrad says:

"Ashan is to be a place for healing, loving, and openness. the music of Ashan is to be given and received with an open heart. it is teaching from 'the gentle way', the way of Ashan. i would love to share these sounds with you anywhere: in the forest, on the beach, in a house, in the street, wherever feels right.."

UKBMW V: Wodensthrone

Wodensthrone are possibly even more heavily into their English heritage than Winterfylleth.  Their 2009 album Loss was recorded in Romania under the auspices of Negura Bunget's Huppogramus whose own band is deeply immersed in harnessing their environment and imbuing it with a sense of nationalism (controversial debatable controversy again).  The band members used to be known by their real names, but gave themselves Anglo-Saxon names in the band to reflect their deepening interest in ancient ideology, concepts and spirituality (Brunwulf, Wildeþrýð- who also plays guitar in Winterfylleth - , Rædwalh, Árfæst - of Axis of Perdition and Pulsefear - , Gerádwine, and Hréowsian).  There is as much Forefather to their influences as Wolves in the Throne Room; combining the antiquated, rural and classical with the modern hypersensitive ecological characteristic of this current heathen/pagan movement. That Cascadian sound is present, specifically in the drumming where they eschew the flat drilling of Scandanavian blast beats to employ the lighter, more elastic expanding and contracting style of the temperate forest bands of modern America. In addition, Wodensthrone have an almopst claustrophobically tight constriction of their lead guitar work, tightly coild and winding round each other like ivy round oaks, there's a rich gravitas to their way their songs proceed, a very weighty intensity that belies the complexity of the more post rock influenced arrangements; their sense of anticipatory repetition; recalls the subtle tweaking of riff forms across Krallice tracks, the way the melodic lines rise almost to the point of peak, the cycle round to the starting point that seems like it's shifted up a level, incrementally pushing the tracks forward until everything blurs in a kalaedescopic haze. 

Justifiably one of the key big three Heathen bands along with Winterfylleth and Fen

Those That Crush the Roots of Blood from the album Loss