Depression is often misunderstood, even by those who suffer from it…

Sadness, the blues: even when that is the original cause, depression should be regarded as a separate condition. (We have Chaucer to thank for the longstanding association to blue, which is the wrong color. Depression is somewhat grayish in hue). Serotonin and noradrenalin become deficient, resulting in brain slowness. Thoughts and speech slow to a crawl. Both can become slurred with treatment. And amid all of the muddy slowness lies thunderous anxiety, and trippy nightmares that tend toward the apocalyptic.

Gray, crawling, thunderous, anxious, apocalyptic: such fitting descriptions here. Marc Euvrie’s The Eye Of Time debut records the composer’s “personal fight against depression and hopelessness,” and there is nothing subtle or small about it. It is an overcast place, prone to extended calms, and sustained, violent storms. Three LPs, 19 tracks, 108 minutes of music. It is a masterpiece, and like any work of art that shares such a description, there are huge swaths of perfection, and major shortcomings. For a taste of the former, start with “Don’t Cry Little Child,” listen through to the end of “Away and Lost,” and try to find a single flaw anywhere in that 24 minutes of material. For a taste of the latter, you need only turn to the album’s finest track (“Time Has Come”) and take in the unnecessary transitions and over-the-top vocals. Even the defects here are breathtaking.

Probably best described as dark ambient — but sharing strands of DNA with house music, and at its heart a drummer’s album — The Eye Of Time is effortlessly, defiantly its own. The deft lounge beat of “Time is watching me” delivers on the paranoia guaranteed in the title, while the ringing guitar lines belie some nagging post-rock preferences. “Use your wings” is straight-up, too-fast-for-dancing electronica, with a hyperkinetic house drumbeat and warm digital fullness. The lonely e-brass echoes which open “After us” set up mournful samples, syncopated and wandering rhythms, and a searing ambient haze. Always the dark gray pigment (it is a shame that “gray matter” already has physical connotations, because that is exactly what Euvrie has produced here, in sound). Always the punishing anxiety and morose purity. But where The Eye Of Time really succeeds is in the roar of the drum.

“Time has come,” from the second LP Jail, begins with processed orchestration and a hoarse, howling chorus: a Carmina Burana for the digital age, if not the Malthusian. The neckjacking drum solo begins after six minutes and a few zigzags: industrial at first, with menacing instrumentation and a deluge of reverb. After another minute the skins become turntables, and the percussion shots become processed scratching samples. The guitars wail with avian craziness, and the curtains draw with the finality of brass. Exhausting.

“The distance between you and the Rest,” also from Jail, rises gradually, a gentle, cinematic, high-register drone that fills the room with temporary color. The genre-mocking begins with the second act of three, a reverberant guitar solo that spills into the metallic clang of tapas drums. It’s a long, ecstatic crescendo until the 8-minute mark, where the unconventional fade lasts for more than a minute.

Come February 24, we will at last have our first, great release of 2012. Denovali Records is taking pre-orders now for, among other formats, a limited 3×12″ black vinyl edition, with “thick glossy triple gatefold cover,” and “30 page booklet with an image for each song.”

- Fred Nolan for Fluid Radio

www.denovali.com

Second Language are one of those labels that don’t belong in today’s downloadable, I-want-everything-yesterday society. Their lovingly hand-crafted releases reward patience on the part of the artist as well as the audience.

Tyneham House is a fittingly timeless release, produced in conjunction with Clay Pipe Music, who have lent Frances Castle to provide the simple but effective folky artwork. Comprising of numerous short melodic studies by several anonymous Second Language regulars, the album has been put together from snippets of old cassettes and records and dedicated to the village of Tyneham in Dorset.

As with any Second Language release the packaging is just as important as the music; particularly so in this case. Featuring a lino-printed illustration of Tyneham House, a cardboard box contains a little treasure trove of sounds and images nestled amongst shredded paper. Accompanying the CD and bonus cassette is a brief introduction to the release and a beautifully illustrated booklet containing further images along with touching quotes from former Tyneham residents. Once a thriving and charming village, Tyneham was requisitioned by the military for training purposes during World War 2 and subsequently never given back. Its once proud manor house fell to ruin and it now remains a ghost village. Second Language felt that it was high time tribute was paid to this fascinating place.

So, on to the music. Arranged like audio postcards containing brief messages from the anonymous inhabitants, the 14 CD tracks come and go, offering glimpses of the landscape. Flutes, guitars and accordions are order of the day and although much of the music borders on the twee there is something so charmingly English and picturesque about the whole thing that you can forgive it. This is undeniably music for sunny days, meadows and flocks of birds whistling through gentle breezes. There are, of course, the occasional breaks for rainy days and a cosy fireplace, as in the drifting ‘The Ragged Cat’ and sparser moments such as ‘The Porch Room’.

There is a more fragmented nature to the cassette tracks, which offer further explorations of the source material. Characters and places are formed through a greater use of field recordings of rainfall, bird song and spoken word. We are invited into people’s homes and to local gatherings, all adding another layer to the work. A sense of place is conveyed, offering a glimpse of what life may have been had the village been returned to its rightful owners.

All in all this is a lovely little collection of pictures and sounds and certainly succeeds in providing a fitting soundtrack to this intriguing story. Fans of esoteric folk musings and of course Second Language’s previous releases will certainly not be disappointed. – Recommended!

- Katie English for Fluid Radio

www.secondlanguagemusic.com
www.claypipemusic.blogspot.com

Following a run of critically acclaimed releases, New Zealand’s Alicia Merz returns once again under her Birds Of Passage moniker, joined this time by I’ve Lost – the solo project of US based experimental artist Bobby Jones. While Birds Of Passage is something of a Fluid Radio regular, Jones last popped up on our collective radar all the way back in 2010 with the excellent Dissociative Fugue, appearing on Portugal’s Feedback Loop label (incidentally, Feedback Loop’s curator Leonardo Rosado also created a collaboration LP titled The Dear And Unfamiliar with the ever busy Merz, still available from Denovali).

I Was All You Are commences with the title track, which at fourteen minutes takes up roughly half the EP’s length. The piece begins with thick ambient textures quite dark in timbre, setting a suitably charged atmosphere until Merz’s vocals join the mix. Indeed, the inspired pairing sees Merz and Jones move firmly into their roles from the opening number, each artists’ strengths complemented by their counterpart. While Jones provides a musical foundation and his work is in a complementary role, it is essential nonetheless and the artist shows both great restraint and a keen ear in order to play just what is necessary to allow Merz to shine.

On Never Said Goodbye however, it is the music (and, assumedly, Jones) which takes centre stage and the detail contained within the multiple layers of sound on offer bring to mind something of the essence of earlier Eluvium material. On this track, the artist proves himself more than capable of holding his own without vocal accompaniment and the piece adds an overall depth and variety to the EP. I Was All You Are then closes with Bullrush In The Sun, which sees each artist contributing in equal measure to produce a stunning finale.

Though a well-trodden music-reviewer’s cliché by now, I Was All You Are truly offers the listener an impressively deep listening experience and an attentive ear will be sure to appreciate the finer details of the deep ambient textures on offer, especially when offered in tandem with that voice. The duo produce a cohesive and beautifully unhurried work which serves as a testament to the worth of such ambient/experimental pairings when carried out correctly. In a collaboration of labels, Heat Death Records and Merz’s own recently conceived Cooper Cult label come together to offer I Was All You Are in a limited run of 12” record.

I Was All You Are is due for release in February 2012.

- Adam Williams for Fluid Radio

www.heatdeathrecords.co.uk
www.coopercultrecords.com

It’s just over a month since the incredible ‘Ballads of the Research Department’ by The Boats graced our midst…

Mr Deupree is on a serious mission for the new year as the 12k label present TWO new projects from Gareth Dickson and Steve Peters / Steve Roden. We have had the luxury of listening to both albums over the last few weeks and they are simply immense!

Some good news… Those that place early orders (pre-orders start Feb 7th from 12k HQ) will receive an exclusive three track EP (Noon) from Gareth Dickson… Result!

Comp… To celebrate the new releases, we are offering the chance for one lucky winner to receive both albums along with the bonus digital download EP. Simply answer the following question:

- Name the Japanese Tanka poet that featured in Illuha’s recent 12k album ‘Shizuku’.

The comp closes at the end of this week. Use the following contact form for sending in your answers.

…………

Gareth Dickson – Quite A Way Away

Over  a couple of decades, Richard Youngs’ discography has grown into a rather vast, ever evolving time capsule of solo recordings and collaborations that one would need many many months to get to know. Since his circa-1990 debut Advent he has relentlessly carved out a place in the UK contemporary folk / improvisation / experimental field through his hypnotic acoustic adventures, more abstract electric processes and appearances in various groups. Released by Apollolaan in early 2011, Atlas of Hearts portrays a man largely engaged with single instrument – the acoustic guitar. Alongside this there are various manipulations, effects, washes of fuzz and layered vocal lines… but this is essentially a minimal record.

Kicking off in a fairly sunny fashion, opening track Haze I is a loosely played breeze through free-form, slightly bluesy finger picking and chord progressions, with a bed of pitched down vocal sounds underpinning the sparse lyrics that characterise the track and indeed most of the album. Alternating between this jaunty, sprightliness and an atmosphere much more intense and sombre, Atlas of Hearts does very well to gently pull the listener about a bit, coercing you into joining Youngs’ restless journey through the album’s seven tracks.

After the toe-dipping introduction we’re thrust immediately into that darker other side. Track two The Glaze and Clean Shade and the following track What Day Is This Day possess a sense of distraught tension and eeriness – a particularly strange, sombre afternoon in Youngs’ native Glasgow maybe. The looped or delayed vocal layers intertwine and produce a fairly confounding result when combined with the vaguely rhythmic, nocturnal sparkle of picked guitars. These two tracks combined make over ten minutes of murky (despite the bright string timbres) and alluring space, weirdly pretty and borderline psychedelic.

The phased electric scree that occupies the background of Heart In Open Space lifts the mood a touch, with help from much calmer and soothing acoustic work. A much needed break after the preceding couple of songs that gives room for contemplative listening. Without the distorted wails this could easily sound like the incredibly captivating oddity that is David Thomas Broughton – as could the rest of the album in fact. Joyride presents a further progression of sound (and by this point the feeling of hearing an album as opposed to a collection of tracks is starting to emerge), swapping the fuzz for plummeting whistle sound effects, bravely exposed being as they are quite high in the mix. Alongside the more familiar elements however, these strange inclusions seem to make sense and don’t sound as contrived or superfluous as they could.

Perhaps the albums clearest and most direct moment appears as interlude length, penultimate track Sussex Pond. A quite beautiful repeating riff provides the framework for the warning, or threat, of the lyrics – as much akin to Van Morrison in its slightly pastoral, English village tone (Sussex Pond – Country Fair) as it is like the often sinister folk-rock of Bristol based Gravenhurst with its implied dread (‘don’t go near the Sussex Pond’ – ‘Emily, don’t go to that house tonight‘). And then the close is a reprise of Haze I, unsurprisingly titled Haze II, resolving the album and breaking the spell.

Atlas of Hearts succeeds on many levels and makes it an interesting proposition for lovers of both traditional and contemporary folk. Following the direction of the likes of Fahey or perhaps Martyn but with a precisely deployed sense of experimentation it hits, very subtly of course, on many levels.

- Daniel W J Mackenzie for Fluid Radio

www.apollolaan.blogspot.com
www.jagjaguwar.com

Olli Aarni’s new project ‘Nuojuva’ has risen out of the ashes of the now discarded ‘Ous Mal’ moniker. Fans of Olli’s previous work need not fear however…he hasn’t so much changed his style, rather, perhaps, refined it.

Clearly Olli hasn’t discarded his main compositional tool – the sampling and resampling of old records – throughout Valot Kaukaa the reassuring familiarity of deeply layered vinyl crackle is omnipresent, covering every track in warm, distorting grit. What really shows is how integral this compositional method is to the final production. I think a lot of music within our niche tips its hat to this analogue warmth but manages to incorporate it via digital means…Olli’s music is slightly different. You can genuinely hear that this is not a superimposed veneer of crackle, but is richly embedded within the majority of sound sources.

The music itself seems like a pared back, slightly leaner version of the Ous Mal sound – the tracks don’t feel quite as dense or busy. One gets the sense that a more reductive, clearer sonic vision lies behind Valot Kaukaa. The music remains somehow otherworldly, but more focused than previous outings…and I think that this is a good thing. While I’m a fan of the Ous Mal material, Nuojuva sounds more instantly accessible (not that it will be troubling Bieber in the near future) because I think it’s more considered and less haphazard. There’s a more consistent mood at work here too…slightly less playful than Ous Mal, there is still variety across the album, but Valot Kaukaa sounds like a coherent artistic statement.

Most tracks feature vocals of some sort, which constitutes something of a departure from previous releases. Again, this new element hasn’t been introduced in such a way as to push the overall sound into overtly unfamiliar territory, but it certainly adds a new twist to Olli’s compositions. The vocals are frequently hidden behind a fog of reverb, or purposefully kept low in the mix so that they have a more instrumental, rather than lyrical, presence in the tracks. The effect of introducing these vocal timbres is that, although the tracks themselves are less densely layered, they (almost perversely) sound more ‘full’ than the predominantly instrumental Ous Mal releases.

Overall then, if you know Olli’s previous work you aren’t going to be shocked by Nuojuva. However, what you will hear is a more subtle exploration of a unique sound made up of folk-tinged ambiance, blurry voices, deep production and touches of astute instrumentation. There’s no-one else doing music quite like this and it’s nice to see artistic growth in someone who had already established himself as having a fairly distinctive sound. Valot Kaukaa is a very strong showing for both Olli and the Preservation label which, to my mind, continues to surprise with each new release. Great work.

- John McCaffrey for Fluid Radio

Available through the Fluid Radio store Stashed Goods and direct from the Preservation label

www.preservation.com.au

Slow modulating tones open “Ozark Dream” by The New Honey Shade; it all begins here with the track also named Ozark Dream, a post future retro feel that reminds me of British information films… the mining of a similar past as explored by Ghost Box, Future boards of Canada or Broadcast. This is way off though, completely way off in terms of influence, if not sound and mood.

The album was made to a series of 16mm home recorded films made in Oklahoma between 1950 and 1970, and dedicated to Mark Kuykendall’s mother, so what we have here is a beautifully personal and incredibly special album. ‘Ozark Dream’ is of it’s place of origin but it’s not until “Young Poet” that there is anything I would immediately identify as sonically and geographically reminiscent of this place, at least to whatever pre-conceptions I hold.

Mark records and produces in his hometown of Tulsa Oklahoma, and his music is clearly of great importance, central to his life in many ways, using the Oklahoma landscape of today and also of his memory to create this music. The techniques involved using modern studio equipment, customized instrumentation and old films, creates a sound world all of it’s own and one that is definitely worthy of your attention.

The album continues in fine form – dreamy, hazy, sidereal pieces of sound; this is comforting, perfectly formed music. By the end of the album I was left wanting to hear more and believe they’ll leave you feeling that way too.

- Mathew Shaw for Fluid Radio

www.thenewhoneyshade.com

Here’s a heads up for something new and rather wonderful from the Preservation record label. Below you can read up on the release information and check one of the tracks from the album whilst we get to work on a full review…

The Preservation label presents Valot kaukaa, the second album from Finnish producer Olli Aarni. Valot kaukaa is the first work for Aarni under a new name, Nuojuva, having previously appeared under the name Ous Mal.

As Ous Mal, Aarni’s 2010 debut album, Nuojuva Halava took the early promise of his CD-R releases into a beautiful realisation of a unique sound that evoked both a curious nostalgia and a sense of future pathways, combining classical overtures, narcotic beats and warm atmospherics into blissful song.

Aarni’s beguiling vision holds sparer focus on Valot kaukaa (the title roughly translates as ‘lights from far away’) for a more overtly ambient space filled with delicate instrumentation – including cello, piano, flute and violin – as well as a new interest in the possibilities of voice. Spacey and intimate with wintry and autumnal shades, its whispered melodies and open drift making for an heightened state still somehow grounded in downhome feeling.

The gliding vocal textures of Rachel Evans – aka Motion Sickness of Time Travel as well as one half of duo Quiet Evenings – is a recurring highlight, while Sophie Hutchings’ dazzling, rolling piano propels Laakso into a wonderful orbit.

Honing a special path explored on Nuojuva Halava, Valot kaukaa feels like one long, suspended, beautiful moment.

Available through the Fluid Radio store Stashed Goods and direct from the Preservation label

www.preservation.com.au

Here’s a hauntingly beautiful video for MayMay’s upcoming self titled EP released through flau records. You may or may not (no pun intended) remember we reviewed MayMay way back in July, 2010 after they had come to our attention via the Portland Stories compilation, released through Sonic Pieces. The new EP looks like being another wonderful release for flau and comes highly recommended!

……………….

MayMay’s self-titled E.P. is a collection of 5 songs, written on a tattered lawn chair in the backyard…

Recorded during the fall and winter of 2008 in Portland, Oregon, MayMay shares a history through the sounds of fingerpicked nylon guitars, haunting vocal melodies and beautifully crafted string arrangements. With quietude and warmth, Laurel’s compositions flow full of emotivity and a natural sense of restraint. The music of MayMay transports us to a world in which we can dive to the bottom of the sea, ignoring the pressure of the water above us. – flau

www.flau.jp

Picture a scene in time lapse. From a breaking dawn follows parting clouds. Trees blow, their branches swaying from a wind unseen but felt by many. Birds trace the sky, ants march from their nests, the world awakes. A light powers on and in tandem a car exhaust bellows its fumes. Life asserts itself onto this earth, all of which is captured in this one, prolonged moment.

Now imagine something altogether different. First, witness the crack of an eggshell and then visualise the merging of textures. The thick, clear innards of the egg are blended with a coarse sugar, powdery flour and a solid, sticky butter. It’s an effort but they join together, forming into a blonde coloured slime, with a drooping consistency.  A simple act of heat will transform this messy substance into an entirely edible creation. A cake will arise and its sweetness will be a taste to behold.

From here we’ll diverge slightly. Let’s internalise. How did we reach our present? What were the conflicts and the pleasures which brought us here? We met crossroads, suffered loss, felt love and experienced hope. This was what drove us forward, these merged emotions. Yet here we stand, unaware of the future. The road that lies ahead is an unpredictable one, but the only certainty is that our destinies will be formed by conflict and the convergence of elements both human and of the world itself.

So what of sound? Not everything is comprised of something visual. Those heart strings can be pulled by reverberations too! Let’s consider what influenced the above and how its wholeness is also dictated by the meeting of varied notes. Our subject is a musician, Jerome Alexander. He has an alias, Message to Bears, and an accomplice in Laura Ashby who plays stringed instruments. For this exercise we’ve been invited to explore “Folding Leaves” which marks the second long player from his musical canon. His formula is precise; subtle narratives woven together from varied influences, but his impact is vast.

Small worlds of sound will form as we enjoy this record. As with our thoughts on captured moments, baked goods and the journey of life itself, the nine fragments at work here are built from the brilliance of joining. Whether guitars, violins, chanted voices, field sounds or minimalist thuds of percussion we witness the beauty of noise in unison.

Each song is guided by a strange juxtaposition. An undoubted melancholy rests at the base of the tracks and as the ingredients of each number dance around, connecting with one another to form these creations; they are supported with a piercing light of encouragement. It is to this effect that these songs take on the presence of something more than just music. The sounds feel like some sort of digestible air whose nutrients and vitamins will tug at the inner workings of one’s emotional foundations.

To move away from the conceptual and diverge into the literal, let us conclude by encouraging others to enjoy this musical experience. “Folding Leaves” truly is an excellent work; a winter composition to savour and one that should be embraced by a listener willing to let their emotions amalgamate through the binding of multifarious sounds.

- Josh Atkin for Fluid Radio

www.messagetobears.tumblr.com
www.deadpilotrecords.wordpress.com