REVIEW One Unique Signal - Hey Alchemist / Neuralgia (Genepool)

One Unique Signal smashed straight into my foveal vision with their first full length album Tribe, Castle & Nation back in 2007, every year they have managed to put out one essential release every year, be it a two track download or longer EP (the Dismemberment ep, we at NFR put on the release party for. Hands up, I claim conflict of interest - I already love this band).  Just ten seconds into any of their songs will illustrate why it took me approximately two seconds from receiving Nick's email to hitting the download link:  A gritty grey-skied UK version of A Place To Bury Strangers apocalyptic noise walls mixed with Wooden Shjips psychedelic strung out eye-ball blazing transcendence. Plus those textbook touchstones when piling the sound high - MBV, J&MC, Sonic Youth;  Whilst they are less heavy on the sheer volume than APTBS (but they do play ceiling collapsingly loud), they are no less intense, making up for painful levels with layers and layers and layers of textural guitar pulse, ebb & flow, drone and agonisingly ecstatic incremental shifts in the riff structure; there's the soul and distortion of those aforementioned bands, then then weight and nuance of a band like Sleep lurking about in there. Bass lines that possess your body, drum beats that replace your heart consuming your body's synchronicity and marching it around in thrall to the all consuming rhythm - and if that doesn't get you the sheets of guitar will envelop and constrict you into submission.

Some of you may get turned off on repetition, some of you might have just had all your switches flipped to On. Well, some of you Lose.  To paraphrase Ripley Johnson's comments in the recent Stool Pigeon interview; the riff doesn't stop you just lock into it from the continuum in which it exists and morph it to your own requirements and desires, bend it to your will, release yourself to it, into it and with it, and that's exactly what One Unique Signal do: Bad ass, killer zoned out/zoned in synapse-frying head-rush mind-fuck trance

This new EP is being released by Genepool who have released four of the band's six releases - the other two being self-distributed downloads.  This EP is two songs, the 6 minute Hey Alchemist! and the 7 minute Neuralgia - The melding of neurology and alchemy being this bands signature sound in a nutshell.  The first track drops straight onto the riff, leading with a snarling brute downstroke that drives forward with malicious momentum boiling to a finish of feedback and warped vocal loops.  The second track is more limber, elastic and loose, the Raw Power rock and roll of The Stooges stretched out and rolled over and over until the whole band stops it dead, leaving you suddenly alone in the empty cosmos of silence feeling all insignificant and quiet against the vastness of sound that just dumped you. Until you press play again and the whole thing picks up where it left off ad infinitum.

No links, previews, or edits to tease you with for this release, you'll just have to take my word for how good it is.  Head over to the bands website to download their previous free eps for a taster and order this from the label now. Digitally released on 5th September for just £2 from iTunes, the Ltd Ed 7" will be out on Oct 3rd on Genepool.  There is also an interview with Nick about said single on The Blog That Celebrates Itself, here.  

On top of that there's an essential date for Brightonians diaries - OUS play the Prince Albert in Brighton on the 18th September with The Telescopes - another key influence to their sound and a band they have been working closely with as promoters and producers for the last couple of years. 

DOWNLOAD: One Unique Signal - Gora

NFR Favourites One Unique Signal have another song to give you, entitled Gora. It's their shortest track yet at a blink-and-you'll-miss-it 2 minutes, but that doesn't mean it's no less intense for it, losing no time in slamming metal against metal in a torrent of wah and triple guitar rhythms.

Recent shows have had copies of this strictly ltd ed track on "pointless floppy disc format", but it's also available as this far more sensible, but less sweaty free download version, packaged with a live version of Villains - which has the far more sensible running time of 17 minutes, giving you plenty of room to breathe in the expansive swirling mists of sound, yet at the same time sucking all the air from the room in its turbulence.


Get it here: DOWNLOAD

REVIEW: Island of Raiell - Ab Initio

We’ve been tipped off about this band by good friend of NFR, Nick Keech from kraut - gaze - noise - drone outfit One Unique Signal - His sister Louise is half of the enigmatically named duo Island Of Raiell along with Angie Cheung. The pair have been in a multitude of London based post-punk, indie rock outfits (and Angie even helped pen a Brand New Heavies chart topper!) With indie credentials and bonus real life Success established, the duo are heading out into less predictable waters with their new audio-visual experimental project Island of Raiell. They have just released Ab Initio; their debut album through indie label/distributors Genepool Records as a 42 minute long single track available through iTunes for the bargain sum of £3.49.

The band insist that the album should be heard comfortably reclined, immersed in low mood lighting - but that's implicit from the opening hum; the eerie atmosphere this album exudes makes it sound like it was recorded in halflight and shadow. Anyone familiar with the kinds of resonance heavy ambient soundscapes that Deleted Scenes, Forgotten Dreams regularly throw out will find a lot to engage with during this album. Although it certainly begins with them, across it's nine individually titled movements the album quickly progresses beyond the murky abstract aquatics suggested by the cover into movements similar to the rhythmic chanting of Pocahaunted; spectral churn of Religious Knives and forlorn anthems of Kate Bush. Distant drums echo, voices surface and fade like the suggestions of ripples over heavy water. There's a dread sentiment to this story of a drowned sailor and it's sung by two sirens beckoning a wider audience toward their aquatic embrace.

We have the third section, Rock & Wave for you to download as a teaser. It features an unsettlingly slow and doomy piano lead that literally does come back later to haunt you.

DOWNLOAD: Rock & Wave

The most strikingly dramatic section to the piece arrives with Black Wave in the form of a blast of Middle Eastern horns, a crashing torrent of noise and a harsh shriek - it's a peak in violence that represents the last gasp of the central character before he slips under the waves; an event that leads towards the next highlight of the album - a choral passage titled Lie Beneath that rises from whispering ambience at around 30 minutes, then that slow, heavy-lidded grim-robed piano refrain comes back in accompanied by a backwards sounding buzzing and faint traces of reappearing choir.

It's a record designed to disturb and enchant all at once, and it succeeds with absorbingly fine attention to detail and involving yet unforced narrative structure.





Lynx:

DOWNLOAD: Ab Initio Part III: Rock & Wave

www.myspace.com/islandofraiell
www.last.fm/music/Island+of+Raiell
www.islandofraiell.co.uk

www.thegenepool.co.uk/genepoolrecords/

One Unique Signal - Villains To A Man EP

The new ep from Brentford's One Unique Signal, Villains To A Man, is available to download free from the band themselves now.

In 2003 they released their first ep Lowry, enhanced it's skeletal angular style with background textures on the 2007 album Tribe, Castle & Nation through Genepool Records which made my top 10 of the year. In 2008 they played us one of our greatest NFR shows when we put on a release party for their previous self-release Dismemberment ep which is still available to download free through them as well. That release and the live show developed the layers of guitar tones, noise washes and textures into a visceral experience that has been pushed further out into cosmic psych territory with this new release.

Recorded at the Bunker studios in Middlesex by Dan from Guardians of the Ancient Wisdom, Villains To A Man sounds to us more like Finnish psychedelic bands like Tivol or Circle - locking down a gritty central riff with all kinds of sounds freaking out around it, guitar lines emerging out from it spinning off from the central themes gradually moving focus of the track and intensifying it.

Across these three tracks the effect becomes increasingly hypnotic: The opening Plasticism moves at a heady tempo with the drum pulse backing it's pointed bass riff for a good 5 minutes before descending into a pounding wah freakout for the final run in. Jaded is a slower, more menacing piece, it's bass riff seeming to bounce itself off the walls of noise surrounding it, the whole track keeping a steely pace whilst ramping up the pressure until Byron's vocal come in low, reverbed and really scary to finish it off. Final track Villains starts with a rotating shimmer before dropping straight onto an almost bluesy riff that finds it sweet spot in within the first 8 bars then its an epic sensory assault from thereout, the band layering on sheets and sheets of rhythmic guitars while the core riff keeps smashing itself onwards with a sense of increasing velocity before the addition of a brass coda comes in punctuating and peaking it like the horns in Wooden Shjips' Sol '07. After almost 20 minutes the monolith blows itself out and all is still once more.

Did we make that sounds essential enough for you?

As well as the download you can contact the band for hard copies or pick one up at their shows. They come in hand made orange art sleeve with a separate card inlay containing info.

Download Villains To A Man ep
Download Dismemberment ep

At the request of the band, feel free to share these links around.

Watch OUS play Villains live @ The Railway Inn, Winchester - 17/07/09:




Lynx:

Website: http://www.oneuniquesignal.com

Last.fm: http://www.last.fm/music/One+Unique+Signal

MySpace: www.myspace.com/oneuniquesignal