NEW TRACK: Light Asylum - Shallow Tears

Finally, a new release!  Shallow Tears is the lead 12" single from Light Asylum's long-awaited, highly anticipated self-titled debut album, due out in May on Mexican Summer.  The two-track single comes on suitably fetishistic limited edition white vinyl.

Dancing over the grave of the not-even-dead-yet Grace Jones, with a vocal comparisons all too apparent to avoid a reference, Shannon Funchess and Bruno Coviello return with another visceral tear-streaked symphony to emotion-haunted back alleys and dry-ice cloaked dancefloors. It starts with a peal of thunder,as dramatic an entrance as they could make, then the drums start pounding. This music is something else out there on its own. Even without Funchess' remarkable intonations there's enough resonant affect being squeezed out of the synths that each time she really opens up her lungs it reaches right into your chest and crushes your heart.  A less coked-up Cold Cave in introspective sensitive mode, Shallow Tears rolls forward in stately fashion, blowing up into alternating surges of drum crescendos and vocal multitracking that freezes time and blows out way before your ready for the affair to be over.

The B-side, Genesis, is far more restrained, with a creeping paranoid melody line picking its way over a jittery drum track that slowly slides into a silvery vocodered vocal climax. A little bit HTRK, but again, an entity all of itself.  It's the perfect foil to the grander A-side, a flawless 12" dropping a twin assault deep into your sensual perception, and the ultimate teaser to the10 track album, due out soon.

Order now from Mexican Summer.

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STREAM: Hind Ear - Space & Yellow Yellow

Two new tracks from from Brighton's dreamiest post-rock outfit; Hind Ear - another winner of my title of Best Brighton Band.  These are intended for a full album which will see a release as soon as someone agree to press them up for the band. Anyone with a keen ear and a label should be on that like a shot.

Previously named Revenge of Shinobi in homage to the release of birds in the ending sequence of the game, the music is introspective but expansive, whimsically evocative but never twee.  Subtly building clusters of looped instruments and vocals usher in incremental progressions of the kind Italo-Disco overwhelms the senses with, and Hind Ear have their own parallel universe glitterball to serenade. The organ stabs and bass thrust of Spaces complement its rolling atmosphere, reminiscent of Holy Other yet more Earthly than cosmic. Yellow Yellow is an airy, ethereal, soul influenced dancefloor number that builds in density and intensity as it progresses, sounding hauntingly similar to The Antlers with celebratory whoops in the place of crushing dread.

Space

  


Yellow Yellow:

  

DOWNLOAD: Gem Club - Breakers

  

Here's the beautiful little self-titled teaser track for the debut full length album Breakers, from the beguilingly sweet Boston duo Gem Club, out September 27th, on Hardly Art.  This track is also available from their Bandcamp site, along with new editions of their excellent debut ep from last summer Acid and Everything.  You can order copies with a pillowcase! Told you they were sweethearts.

I wrote about their ep in November and posted a few videos they made which you can jump to here

STREAM: Paavoharju - Ikkunat Näkevät

Fonal Records have announced the release of a new Paavoharju release, titled Ikkunat Näkevät.  The band's 2008 album Laulu Laakson Kukista was my number one of the year when it came out and they're still unmatched for luminous visionary music-making amongst the groups around the Finnish free-freak-folk scene, which is saying something if you've delved into it even briefly. The record will feature previously unreleased pieces and rare/long out of print/demo tracks.  Order the album and t-shirt HERE.

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.

PREVIEW: Urfaust - Der Freiwillige Bettler

New eerie rattling fuzz from Holland's Urfaust, in advance of their new album Der Freiwillige Bettler, here's the final track Der Zauberer.  Similar sound as before, the wobbling guitars, out of focus vocals, the whole preturnaturally nauseous shifting mass of tone sliding across your aural plane, unlike any other band around. The full vinyl version comes pressed onto red wax in leatherette gatefold, 12" booklet with artwork and scripture.  If not radically different, this track at least shows they're still a band with a captivating sound, and as such it is still exciting stuff.

Tracklist:

1.	Vom Gesicht und Rätsel
2.	Der freiwillige Bettler
3.	Das Kind mit dem Spiegel
4.	Der Mensch, die kleine Narrenwelt
5.	Ein leeres Zauberspiel
6.	Der hässlichste Mensch
7.	Der Zauberer

Preview: Demdike Stare - Voices of Dust

Voices of Dust is the third and final part in Demdike Stare’s trilogy of albums for 2010. The album was released as a limited 12" this week, and there's probably none left already but here's every track on limited edition Soundcloud stream from the label Modern Love.  If you've missed out on all the vinyl, the triptych is due for a triple CD re-release in January on Modern Love, which should hopefully come in much less strict supply.

The album opens with an analogue tape drone that seems to suck the light out of whatever environment you might find yourself in, powering up Demdike’s machinery for the bellydance disco assault of Hashshashin Chant that follows. Repository Of Light takes another diversion, this time wading through the gaseous environs that made the MVO trio’s debut album so memorable earlier this year, before Desert Ascetic flips things over for a dusted, relentless assault on the souk. The album ends with the decaying loops of A Tale Of Sand, leaving you with a bittersweet aftertaste and absolutely no sense of closure whatsoever...

GuMMy†Be▲R! Preview 2

Here's the second teaser for the new GuMMy†Be▲R! self titled LP, coming soon.....

PREVIEW: Craig Colorusso - Sun Boxes

9 DAYS  :  3 LOCATIONS  :  20 SUN BOXES

Here's another gig preview for all my US readers, for a really intriguing peformance that I have no hope of getting to: 

Sound artist, Craig Colorusso, returns to his hometown of Western Massachusetts to peform his latest piece, a solar powered sound installation; Sun Boxes.  For the first three weekends of November, Turners Falls River Culture will host Colorusso’s latest piece at three locations, allowing the participants to observe the piece's evolution as it moves through the town.

Nov. 5-7      Lawn of the Great Falls Discovery Center, 2 Ave.

Nov. 12-14   Peskeomskut Park, Ave. A + 7th Sts

Nov. 19-21   Lawn at the beginning of the bike path, 1st St

Sun Boxes is a solar powered sound installation comprised of twenty speakers operating independently, each powered by the sun via solar panels. Inside each Sun Box is a PC board that has a recorded guitar note loaded and programmed to play continuously in a loop.  These guitar notes collectively make a Bb chord.  Because the loops are different in length, once the piece begins they continually overlap and the piece slowly evolves over time.

Participants are encouraged to walk amongst the speakers, and surround themselves with the piece.  Certain speakers will be closer and, therefore, louder so the piece will sound different to different people in different positions throughout the array.  Allowing the audience to move around the piece will create a unique experience for everyone. in addition, the participants are encouraged to wander through the speakers, which will alter the composition as they move.  Given the option two people will take different paths through the array and hear the composition differently.  Sun Boxes is not just one composition, but, many.

To become part of the drone email Craig HERE

PREORDER: Islet - Wimmy

I am just discovering Islet . They're quite a propulsive, rhythm heavy take on post-indie-rock, although that's as weak a dropped genre as any and doesn't explain their sound so much, but it's a sound that certainly takes a lead from the epic scope of the Explosions In The Sky or And So I Watch You From Afar's of this world, whilst also retaining a very Indie sensibility at it's core - illustrated by recent tour dates with Los Campesinos! It's the vocal deliveries that lock them down into the realm of indie, but there's so much other stuff going on it runs off as a free-flowing hybrid of tone and dynamics influenced by everyone from Can to Campesionos.

A mini-album titled Wimmy is due for release as a 12" & download on 11th October from Shape Records (Turnstile).  You can download the free teaser track Ringerz HERE which has the feel of Afrirampo in the shuddering delay of H.Hawkline's yelped vocals.

Full tracklist:

Powys

Ringerz

Horses And Dogs

Dust Of Ages

Living In Manila

Obtaining

PreOrder Wimmy and buy their previous 12" Celebrate This Place now from Rough Trade HERE

Here's another, slightly different, insight into the bands sound from that last ep Celebrate This Place, that was released this summer.




They have no MySpace, but that's no big deal no more, they're ahead of the game there.No new bands will this time next year, for sure. ByeSpace!