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

In a quest to find music that both excels in beauty and at the same time can turn round and bite you in the arse, Tim Hecker definitely fits the bill. So when I found out that the recent sell out show at St Giles in the Fields had been expanded to include a second earlier slot on the same evening I jumped at the chance to get a ticket.

The possibility of a miscalculation meaning that the church would be near empty and it would therefore be possible to luxuriate in the acoustic space offered by the venue was soon quashed when the queue stretched out beyond the pub I was encamped in. Still the show eventually started about half an hour late i.e. on time.

Signs everywhere saying no photos mean there’s very little I can show you of the gig itself but then, to be honest, there was next to nothing to see. Initially there was a relatively impressive looking precision PA stack at the front. As the concert was essentially billed as an organ recital, Hecker had automatically set himself a significant challenge as the organ is generally at the back leaving the front of the church for the MC/Clergy. This left us all staring at the stack or ceiling, although I did catch a glimpse of him as a woman behind me whispered “isn’t he handsome”, no comment on that. Shortly after that the lights went out and the concert began.

Before moving onto that, it’s worth briefly trying to summarise his recorded output. Hecker’s work involves manipulating the sound of acoustic instruments by digital means, most recently organ and piano. Harmonically he is almost exclusively rooted in the diatonic; using effects, often distortion, to create contrast and dissonance. The results are intense, reaching ecstatic almost religious heights. With his album “Ravedeath, 1972” regarded by many as one of best albums of 2011, the question was how well could the music translate into a live environment?

The performance consisted of a single 46 minute gapless piece. While that isn’t particularly long, the high sound levels and distortion was somewhat warring and a few applause breaks may have been helpful. All of the sound came from the speaker stack and this was a disappointment, as it would have been great to hear the organ without any form of processing on it. This also made it difficult to tell what was pre-prepared and what was live.

Live or not, the set opened with a slow building chord that after a while revealed itself to be “Dropped Piano” the first track from ”Ravedeath, 1972” as the piece developed, it became clearer that Hecker was adding material, which eventually came to dominate the sound field. This acted as a transition to the next section, and from then on the format was set. A track – a transition, improvised or prepared on the organ – another track. I don’t think there’s much point listing the tracks, most of them were from “Ravedeath, 1972” but not exclusively so. The transitions tended to be less coherent and at times became chaotic, dissonant sound-scapes, which worked well enough and provided a dark contrast to the more ecstatic album material.

Overall it was an interesting and worthwhile experience. Performing the whole thing in the dark was a nice touch. It’s surprising that more performers don’t do that (health and safety?). Going back to listen to the album, it becomes clear that a lot of the subtlety was lost in the performance. I think this was partly to do with sound levels but also a much greater amount of distortion was used. The problem with distortion is that it tends to remove definition from the sound and stamp a monochrome tint on everything, like a poor photo copy. So while a great variety of material was used, sadly it all started to sound the same. The gapless approach didn’t help in that regard either, as the ear was never given a chance to rest. So while I would say that “Ravedeath, 1972” is an absolute must listen, the concert wasn’t as good as I hoped it would be.

- Joe Evans for Fluid Radio

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

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

Back in 1991 when Earth first began releasing music as a band, a review of their music would’ve felt at home on the pages of Metal Maniacs. Now here we are in 2012 and a review of Earth’s new album feels at home on Fluid Radio. Most people mark the career of Earth by its two phases: the 1990s version saw them inventing the doom/drone metal genre that Sunn O))) continues to explore, and then there is the mid-2000s incarnation that saw them return as mellowed out blues-country explorers. What links both those phases is an interest in an interaction between player and instrument. This latest album sees Dylan Carlson and co continuing to explore minimal terrain, but in some ways Earth is still the heaviest band around.

A lot of things have changed in Earth’s sound over the years but little has changed in their approach. As Aphex Twin once said of Squarepusher: “A lot of musicians are interested in the sound of music; he is interested in the sound of sound”. The same could be said of Carlson’s work, or, really, of many musicians that use minimal electronics to create drone music. There is a parallel between Carlson’s works and, say, Gareth Hardwick’s ‘Sunday Afternoon’ in that both are interested in focusing the listener on really hearing a particular instrument, slowing down the music so that you can really hear the nuances. When Carlson arrived on the scene in 1989 Seattle he proclaimed the ‘sludge’ sound of The Melvins as a key influence. But by taking that sound to a whole other level and branding it as metal he created a whole new sub-genre of metal. And remember, he was doing this following a period when most prominent metal musicians were interested in getting faster. If you ever watch a video of Carlson play live you can tell he’s listening very closely to not just what he’s playing, but what his instrument is doing, be it an extra twang, a sporadic moment of feedback, etc.

Which brings us to the real question that most people ask themselves when comparing Earth phase 1 and Earth phase 2: Is this the same music just without the distortion? Certainly, Carlson seems to embrace the idea that people use the earlier releases as a guide to frame the current material. However, this really is an expansion of that earlier approach. On this record it feels like Carlson’s work is a guiding force across the album while other instruments serve to accent the swells of each riff or to provide the more drone aspects of the record. Opener “A Sigil of Brass” consists of guitar and little else. Cello and drums occasionally enter to lend a coda to the main riff.

“His Teeth Did Brightly Shine” finds a bluesy, psychedelic mode while palm-muted bass gives the piece stable bedrock to build on. Guitars are layered and offer experimental nuances, but still the riff is the center of the universe propelling everything else out from it. In true Earth fashion there is little movement in the compositions on the album, instead they rely on an almost meditative repetitiveness that insists the listener pay close attention, appreciating the attention to the details of an extra string bend, a strum.

On “Multiplicity of Doors (A Waltz)”, drums enter the album for the first time in a prominent way. Cello too drifts in and out of the mix offering menacing sharp notes and extended bowed phrases. Each note of the primary riff feels like a punch to the gut and this is one of those instances where old Earth is a useful to guide to see that this is a distortion pedal away from being the heaviest thing you’d hear all year.

“The Corascene Dog” finds the band in late night-jazz territory. Percussion is prominent on this one. There is a lose but dramatic style of drumming that Earth has embraced over recent years that makes Carlson’s riffs even punchier, but also lends the music a sort of restless quality. Again, Carlson has two channels of guitar coming at the listener: one providing a repetitive central riff, the other being more loose and having an almost psychedelic blues feel to it.

Song five “The Rakehell “ is the album closer. It’s a bluesy headnodder and again, that second layer of guitar is lending something new to the band’s sonic palette, it almost makes the album feel more ‘jam’-like; an odd thing to say about a band still noted for being a drone metal act. However, Carlson has noted that Earth finally feels like a concrete band, rather than a revolving door of valued collaborators.

“Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II” is an album that continues the pleasing evolution of these doom/drone purveyors. I’m reminded of early Queens of the Stone Age and certain Clutch records in its ability to nod in the direction of the blues music that inspired early metal. Not because it sounds like those artists but because it offers a simple record conceptually that still manages to hint at the players’ appreciation of those that came before them whilst also appreciating that those musicians did their best to create new and challenging music, thus so should you. The story of Earth’s evolution continues to be a most interesting and, thankfully, rewarding one.

- Brendan Moore @essentialyes for Fluid Radio

www.southernlord.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

On the 16th of January, SoundFjord curated an evening of music and sonic arts at Cafe Oto where Daniel Thomas Freeman, Attila Faravelli and Mem1 shared the bill and had the small but dedicated audience both enthralled and unsettled…

Daniel Thomas Freeman is by now well known from the Fluid audience for the wonderful album ‘The beauty of doubting yourself’ released last year on Home Normal. The context underpinning the release was, as discussed in an interview, the depression he suffered from a few years ago and the way he recovered to finally get to the present state of self-acceptance and happiness. At Cafe Oto, he very humbly introduced each piece in relation to the illness, turning his short performance into a rather emotional affair. Freeman began his set striking a small gong for 10 minutes and gently processing it through his laptop. That first piece, which should appear on his next album, really impressed me by its sheer simplicity and its rather ritualistic outcome. He then proceeded to play tracks from ‘The beauty of doubting yourself’, made of looped violin drones, emotive piano miniatures and a final piece that beautifully embodied Freeman’s new-found inner peace. When he asked his wife to join him on stage to play celestial chimes towards the very end of the set, one couldn’t help thinking about that aforementioned interview where he said: “The beauty of doubting yourself is that you have to rely on someone else”.

I first came across Attila Faravelli’s work whilst reading Gianmarco Del Re’s first ‘Postcard from Italy’ for Fluid a few months ago. I remember being intrigued by the way Faravelli described his process: “I always try and work with the space I play in, and tend to avoid the sound system of the venue. I still work with a laptop, I physically manipulate the sounds I send to my speakers through differently shaped objects. This makes sounds almost visible.” Seeing him play the second set of the evening at Cafe Oto was a unique opportunity to experience his rather unique music. The setup: a laptop diffusing sound files through an array of small speakers distributed throughout the venue – as far as I could tell, there were cheap hi-fi speakers, walkman headphones, piezo speakers and maybe more. The performance: Faravelli moving around his speakers with shaped object (serving plates, metal cheese bell, a 12” record amongst others) and catching the reflections of soundwaves in order to alter their properties. At times, he would manipulate the speakers themselves as a way to localize some sound sources at very precise locations or went through more esoteric gestures that would dramatically change the nature of the diffused textures. Even if the audience couldn’t directly translate everything Faravelli did into tangible sonic outcomes, the physicality of the performance, that could at times become quite theatrical, made for a very engaging and powerful statement about the nearly solid nature of sound, manipulated like clay by Faravelli for the matter. In a sense, it was like watching a sculptor moving about his creation, using unusual tools to further elaborate his artistic discourse. But unlike a solid and inert block of clay awaiting to be shaped, Faravelli’s material was very much alive and dependent on the acoustic reflection of the room, thus turning this performance into a fine sonic balancing act.

US-based duo Mem1 (Mark and Laura Cetilia) played the last set of the evening – a 30-minute performance using laptop, cello, electronics and radio broadcasts. The concert was an occasion to showcase their work during their Visiting Hours residency at SoundFjord, documenting their experience of London through location recordings. I found their performance surprisingly restrained but nonetheless true to the spirit of their beautiful and visceral album ‘Tetra’ released in 2010 and described by fellow reviewer Michael Vitrano as a work whose “three profound pieces move beyond the reality of the sounds to create an ongoing expedition into the uncanny”. Mem1’s set began with sounds emitted from what looked like an AM radio receiver and manipulated with custom software, thus reducing them to a ghostly core whose remnants of electromagnetic transmissions were gently wafting into the venue. Soon, emotive and plaintive cello motifs, played and processed with pedals by Laura Cetilia, added subdued layers of melancholia that wonderfully related to the feeling of walking in the deserted streets of London just before dawn. In the second section of the set, things took a more abrasive turn with what sounded like the processed sound of roadworks, but careful electronic manipulations once again stripped the outer layers from their rawness to reduce them to beautiful and undulating droning textures where one could decipher distant calls in the far reaches of the city, unveiled by the delicate electronic deambulation of Mark and Laura Cetilia – an “ongoing expedition into the uncanny” indeed.

- Review and photography by Pascal Savy / Film by Gianmarco Del Re

www.cafeoto.co.uk
www.soundfjord.org
www.descendingangel.com
www.attilafaravelli.com
www.mem1.com

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