STREAM: Ghosting Season - Far End Of The Graveyard EP

Gavin Miller and Tom Ragsdale have unveiled their first EP as Ghosting Season on their Soundcloud.

After several atmospheric and tantalising teaser videos they have popped open the sonic airlock to reveal the four track Far End Of The Graveyard and it is more than worth the wait. The opening track is a slowly spiralling space walk of a stunner, similar in ambiance to Holy Other, if not pace; Ghosting Season build up to a headier, all consuming rush, equal in textural and sophisticated detail but less sensual, bringing the cosmic techno over from their Worriedaboutsatan days (especially the teutonic pulses of Pissing About and All Things But You Are Silent), remoulding it into a version significantly different enough for them to decide it needed a new name - whether that is discernible to us mere mortals is irrelevant, Satan decreed it so, and thus Season is born.

Exercise has a tangible Demdike Stare influence in the pan-enthno-tribalism of the beats, an unchartable but distinct primitivism contrasting with the ominous waves of electronic humming that loom up over them, not as claustrophobically dark and oppressive as the depths of the Demdike Tryptich albums dredged but an equal in form and slow burning intensity.

The third track is a reflexive cooling off session of liquid tones, gases turning to vapour turning to water, crystallizing, solidifying and crashing as solid mineral into the atmopshere of the finale Far End Of The Graveyard.  The impact on the surface of the track causing seismic beats and bass drops to rupture the senses in an airless slow-motion sequence of events that will have you rapt to the climax.

Stream the full ep from their Soundcloud before the EP is released on 4-track CD and 5-track digital on June 20th.  The digital version's extra track will be an exclusive remix of Far End Of The Graveyard by Sam Willis of Walls and Snoretex.

There will be a convening of occult and cosmic oriented electronica and ephemera later this week as Ghosting Season play with Demdike Stare in London at the Lexington on 17th June: Facebook event HERE

And finally, there is a great enlightening interview with the duo over on Sonic Router: HERE

PREVIEW: DEMDIKE STARE @ THE OUTER CHURCH

Couldn't be more excited for a gig than this - Demdike Stare at The Outer Church, in Brighton, this Tursday!!!

Here's the preview post from the OC Blog. All their words, not mine:

 

 

For its February 2011 edition, The Outer Church is proud to present a live performance from Manchester's occult cratediggers Demdike Stare. Miles Whittaker (MLZ/Pendle Coven) and Sean Canty (Finders Keepers) alchemise elements of techno, dub, drone, early electronics, astral jazz and non-western musics into a haunting and elusive whole, shaded by the pair's profound appreciation of vintage horror cinema. In keeping with the air of supernatural intrigue surrounding the project, its name derives from the pseudonym of Elizabeth Southern, one of the individuals accused during the witch trials which took place at Pendle Hill, Lancashire in 1612.

Following their 2009 debut, Symbiosis, Demdike Stare's acclaimed 2010 trilogy of vinyl-only albums - Forest Of Evil, Liberation Through Hearing and Voices Of Dust - has recently been compiled by Modern Love Records into a covetable 3CD set with an extra 40 minutes of bonus material.

Supported by their own visuals, the duo are a formidable live proposition. As they told FACT magazine last year: “We like to incorporate all of our identity with the live set, so we have visuals that are chosen for each section of the show, and we use records to mix live over our own music to add another layer. We like to improvise as much as possible – this can also be dictated by the atmosphere of the venue and crowd too, which all becomes part of the show."

This edition of The Outer Church - and all editions henceforth - is dedicated to the memory of Trish Keenan.

VIDEO: Demdike Stare - Hashishan Chant

Video for a track of one of the albums of the year - The best tryptich of the year, for certain; Demdike Stare's Hashishan Chant from Voices of Dust.  This eerily freaky video was produced by Jonny Redman who runs the lovelockandload European cult movies website. The trilogy will be released on triple CD as Tryptych, out January 2011 on Modern Love

VIDEO (of the actual LP): Sculpture - Rotary Signal Emitter

Sculpture is the London based duo of musician Dan Hayhurst and animator Reuben Sutherland. Rotary Signal Emitter LP is out now on Dekorder, limited to 300 copies. The Wire ran a feature on this in December's issue 322 and posted up a video of each side of the LP to show the incredible visual effects that come alive underneath a camera lens. The music itself is a kaleidoscopic world of rapid fire collage, with themes growing to conclusion, budding tangents then melting away as quickly as they appeared. There's little point suggesting any of the musical genres they actually involve within this, because they canter through this mixed terrain to fast to tie them down to anyone else other than artists covering similar ground themselves; from the darkness of Demdike Stare to the far more playful Grasscut alongside a GhostBox like fetishism for Radiophonic Workshop effects; to paraphrase Grasscut's label blurb - steampowered phonographic futurism.


Side A:



Side B:





After investigating a bit more about these kinds of visual techniques I discovered this neat and ultra clever bit of visual trickery/genius from an Austrian student called Klemens Kolger. Phonovideo is a VJ tool or visual instrument used to display animations in an analog way without the help of a computer, using multiple camera's, records and a mixing desk. Stuck in a Groove is the first film made with this technique, it serves also as a demo for the technique.  The music in the video is by Ritornell, taken from the album Golden Solitude on Karaoke Kalk

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...