Lend Me Your Eyes

Destello from Ivan Villafuerte on Vimeo.

A certain juxtaposition of image and sound that gets into just the right zone of resonance and removal: videos by Ivan Villafuerte, stumbled on while researching d_rradio. The above features "The Atomium - Part Two" by Stars of the Lid and "Early Evening Reverie" by Auburn Lull.

More of the vision thing:

"Still In A Storm" and "Death Of The Fair Green Veil" by d_rradio

Opsin from Ivan Villafuerte on Vimeo.

"Void" : Chihei Hatakeyama, "The Daughters of Quiet Minds" : Stars of the Lid

Sprawl from Ivan Villafuerte on Vimeo.

"Early 80's Snowfall" : Epic45, "Ruins Of A Wall Of Sound" : d_rradio

Snow Avail from Ivan Villafuerte on Vimeo.

"Body Within Body" : Jefre Cantu-Ledesma

Vis Pneuma from Ivan Villafuerte on Vimeo.

"Returns" : d_rradio

Aether from Ivan Villafuerte on Vimeo.

"The Immense Quiet Of The Dark Blue" : d_rradio

Departure from Ivan Villafuerte on Vimeo.

"Close Forever Watching" : Deaf Center

Municipality 15 from Ivan Villafuerte on Vimeo.

"Cloister" : Loscil

Candela from Ivan Villafuerte on Vimeo.

"Net to Catch a Ghost" : Andrew Thomas and "Bending Dream" : Eluvium

Fiestaval from Ivan Villafuerte on Vimeo.

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

PostClassical Gas

Very likeable: "Laika" from d_rradio’s upcoming postclassical-tastic Forecast, on Heat Death.

d_rradio - Laika from Ivan Villafuerte on Vimeo.

OK, so Stars of the Lid will obviously be the generic reviewer’s de rigueur reference, and, yes, there’s definitely an influence from them there (where isn’t there in the current crop of slowcore-ambient-drone-cum-postclassical-home-listeningzzzzzzz?). But, derivation aside, this Geordie lot's Forecast is better, to this LMYE scribe’s ears at least, than Mr Wiltzie’s effort with his latest collaborative flame, Dustin O’Halloran, A Winged Victory for the Sullen.

d_rradio - Forecast by heat death records

Go here for full stream opportunity.



A possibly knowing reference to Stars…?


Shades of early-mid Eno too (Apollo esp.). Also I can hear Kiln’s sadly unsung Thermals (Infraction) too (try this, that, and the other), esp. on the following:


Last track is just gorgeous, and wins a spontaneously instituted LMYE Award for Tuesday Track of the Day


Previously on d_rradio, Parts, from which comes this:

Opsin from Ivan Villafuerte on Vimeo.

And before that, Leaves:

D_rradio - Leaves by transportation



(Get it from stormin’ Norman)

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Thin air

Gorgeous, intense but not lachrymose reflectiveness? Check. Limpid post-classical quasi-ambience? Check. Stately, filmic unfolding themes? Check. Gloriously overblown, portentous titles? Check again.

Yes, Stars of the Lid are back. Well, sort of - A Winged Victory For The Sullen is SOTL-er Adam Witzie discovering "after almost 20 years of struggling to create interesting ambient drone music", in tandem with composer Dustin O’Halloran & premier league sidekicks like Hildur Gudnadottir & Peter Broderick, "...what I am doing."

Blurb (straight faces, please...): "‘A Winged Victory For The Sullen’ is the first installment of the new collaboration between Stars Of The Lid founder Adam Wiltzie and L.A. composer Dustin O’Halloran. The duo agreed to leave the comfort zone of their home studios and develop the recordings with the help of large acoustic spaces, hunting down a selection of 9ft grand pianos that had the ability to deliver extreme sonic low end. Other traditional instrumentation was used including string quartet, French horn, and bassoon, but always juxtaposed is the sound of drifting guitar washed melodies. The recordings began with one late night session in the famed Grunewald Church in Berlin on a 1950s imperial Bösendorfer piano and strings were added in the historic East Berlin DDR radio studios along the River Spree. One last session on a handmade Fazioli piano in a private studio on the Northern cusp of Italy, before the final mixes took place in a 17th century villa near Ferrara with the assistance of Francesco Donadello. All songs were then processed completely analogue straight to magnetic tape. Their secret to harvesting new melodic structures from the thin air of existence was for the duo to push themselves to dangerous territory, realising that clear thinking at the wrong moment could stifle the compositions. The final result is seven landscapes of harmonic ingemination. In ‘Requiem For The Static King Part One’ – created in memory of the untimely passing of Mark Linkous – they have taken the age-old idea of a string quartet and then shot it out of a cannon to reveal exquisite new levels of sonic bliss. Of the 13 minute track ‘Symphony Pathétique’, Wiltzie says ‘after almost 20 years of struggling to create interesting ambient drone music, I feel like I have finally figured out what I am doing’. Notable guest musicians include Icelandic cellist Hildur Gudnadottir, as well as Erased Tapes label comrade Peter Broderick on violin. A Winged Victory For The Sullen is not a side project – it is the future of the late night record you have always dreamed of.

CONTEXT: On May 24th 2007, in Bologna, Italy, Adam was on tour and playing with the late Mark Linkous & his beloved Sparklehorse, on what would be their final European tour. That night Adam invited friend and colleague Francesco Donadello to see the concert, and Francesco's guest this evening was composer Dustin O'Halloran (Sofia Coppola’s ‘Marie Antoinette’ O.S.T.). Through a strange twist of backstage conversations surrounding passport cache conundrums, and love of Italian gastronomy, a curious friendship began that now has brought forth an offspring of truly curative compositions for the world to savour."

a winged victory for the sullen - steep hills of vicodin tears

A Winged Victory For The Sullen - Requiem For The Static King Part One [via erasedtapes]

we played some open chords and rejoiced, for the earth had circled the sun yet another year (teaser) [via adambryanbaumwiltzie]

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

The Power of 'Al'

Pausal's hymnal, orchestral, tidal "Autumnal" enchants, the appeal of all these 'als' perhaps subliminal - esp. to a Guy Called Al. Gorgeous and expansive, “Autumnal” trails a forthcoming cassette release of the same name by the cuddly but unfluffy Hampshire duo - due in June (6/7/2011) on Alex Cobb’s Students of Decay (Edition of 100, so look sharp).

Pausal: "Autumnal" by Students of Decay

Their set at The Cube last May was great, putting Chihei Hatakeyama, whom they effectively warmed up for in a somewhat chilly shade.


Hanging halfway-house with Hampshire homies, however briefly, I mentioned to Alex and Simon, not critically, but discursively, talking trajectories of influence and this'n'that'neverything, that their sound had about it more than faint resonances of Stars of the Lid. This was somewhat muttered into (metaphorical) beard, as SotL had kind of become the default knee-jerk referent deployed by Every Reviewer And His Wife in seeking soundalikes for the slow-and-low neo-symphonic upwellings of a new wave of ambient-drone-crones, and it was tired (like SotL's sounds), I knew. But they were happy (tape hiss made them?) to acknowledge SotL’s status as lowlight legends. And undeniably reminiscent this “Autumnal” is, it has to be said, of the cadences of some of SotL’s early-mid period (circa The Ballasted Orchestra / Avec Laudenum).





"Autumnal" sounds very much still in the vein of their acclaimed Barge debut, Lapses (review), and its older smaller relative, Pausal ep (review) (plus, incidentally, see prefiguring autumnal cover below)





While we're here, worth noting that one half of Pausal, Alex Smalley, with sometime string-y contributor, Svitlana Samoylenko, make up Olan Mill, whose fine Pine (on Serein!) is still fragrant.

Olan Mill - An Obedient Ear from Serein on Vimeo.

Olan Mill - A Heavy Leg Cycle from Serein on Vimeo.

Gorgeous Pausal-curated mix (tracklist here) as a bonus for reading this far!

Pausal - Pausal Mix by _type

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Glory be to

NB: edited re-up for of yesterday's post to get the track it was built around aggregated (26 others made it, but not the central, new one...). Apologies.

Typical. You wait years for an album of apiologically-oriented experimental ambient & suddenly, despite or conceivably because of Colony Collapse Disorder, two bumble through on near-matching flight paths - both outstanding & each enhancing their classic labels (see LMYE's 2009 pantheon)'s already strong years. With the blissy buzz of Koen Holtkamp's Gravity/Bees (Thrill Jockey; coverage) still reverberating, Brian McBride's ravishing, mournful The Effective Disconnect surfaces via the still firing - consider this year's output - kranky.

TED is from the soundtrack to the important documentary The Vanishing of the Bees (trailer below). You can still hear the serenity & hopefulness McBride aimed for originally. But the piece's fascination is in how these are entwined with & sometimes overcome by lament - appropriately, given the alarming subject. Although not one of the album's darkest moments, Supposed Essay below bears out this ambivalence.

Previous coverage (also here, here & here: BM & SoTL). Discogs (BM).

McBride: "When George and Maryam approached me to compose for their film they suggested I concentrate on four different themes: the gloriousness of the bees, the endurance and hardships of traditional beekeepers, pesticides and the holistic nature of non-industrial agriculture. I was especially intrigued with the idea of combining some of their mournful aspirations with something more serene. Composing began in May of 2009. I had decided to start fresh not using anything that I had already recorded. Preparing the music for the film, I knew that I needed to provide more built-in changes in the structure of the pieces to give George and Maryam more flexibility. As I worked, I purposely distanced myself from the more continuous architecture employed in my previous recordings in favor of several mini-suites. In the thinking about the music, I hoped that the pieces would do justice to the “gloriousness of the bees” theme, striving for a more overt hopeful quality. But old traditions die hard and the hopeful side of the music was eventually more subsumed by the lamentable.

I should also mention that if you have seen the film, this record will not contain all the music used and scored for this film.

I am incredibly honored to be a part of this project even if the final compositions turned out to be more appropriate for a different and more forlorn film. I know you have a lot to think about in this world but if you care about food or the world around us, you deserve to at least consider the arguments within this honest and real piece of film-making."

Brian McBride > Supposed Essay on the Piano [B major piano Adagietto] (from The Effective Disconnect, forthcoming on kranky)

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Glory bee

Typical. You wait years for an album of apiologically-oriented experimental ambient & suddenly, despite or conceivably because of Colony Collapse Disorder, two bumble through on near-matching flight paths - both outstanding & each enhancing already strong years their classic labels (see LMYE's 2009 pantheon) are once again racking up. With the blissy buzz of Koen Holtkamp's Gravity/Bees (Thrill Jockey; coverage) still reverberating, Brian McBride's ravishing, mournful The Effective Disconnect surfaces via the still firing - consider this year's output leading up to this 150th release - kranky.

TED is from the soundtrack to the important documentary The Vanishing of the Bees (trailer below). You can still hear the serenity & hopefulness McBride aimed for originally. But the piece's fascination is in how these are entwined with & sometimes overcome by lament - appropriately, given the alarming subject. Although not one of the album's darkest moments, Supposed Essay below bears out this ambivalence.

Previous coverage (also here, here & here: BM & SoTL). Discogs (BM).

McBride: "When George and Maryam approached me to compose for their film they suggested I concentrate on four different themes: the gloriousness of the bees, the endurance and hardships of traditional beekeepers, pesticides and the holistic nature of non-industrial agriculture. I was especially intrigued with the idea of combining some of their mournful aspirations with something more serene. Composing began in May of 2009. I had decided to start fresh not using anything that I had already recorded. Preparing the music for the film, I knew that I needed to provide more built-in changes in the structure of the pieces to give George and Maryam more flexibility. As I worked, I purposely distanced myself from the more continuous architecture employed in my previous recordings in favor of several mini-suites. In the thinking about the music, I hoped that the pieces would do justice to the “gloriousness of the bees” theme, striving for a more overt hopeful quality. But old traditions die hard and the hopeful side of the music was eventually more subsumed by the lamentable.

I should also mention that if you have seen the film, this record will not contain all the music used and scored for this film.

I am incredibly honored to be a part of this project even if the final compositions turned out to be more appropriate for a different and more forlorn film. I know you have a lot to think about in this world but if you care about food or the world around us, you deserve to at least consider the arguments within this honest and real piece of film-making."

Brian McBride > Supposed Essay on the Piano [B major piano Adagietto] (from The Effective Disconnect, forthcoming on kranky)

Bonus: it's none too difficult to hear McBride's fine solo debut When the Detail lost its Freedom (samples here, here & here) or his decade-plus of drowsy, lulling Stars of the Lid brilliance (try this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this & this to be going on with...).

But you may not have come across his other work. To these ears, this mournful piano piece from a group that also contributes to WTDLIF is the best of it:

The Pilot Ships > The Lazy Swimmer (from The Limits of Painting and Poetry, BlueSanct)

Finally, something from McBride's new avant-pop Bell Gardens - less to LMYE's taste, but completism & willfulness dictate including it anyway...

Bell Gardens - Through The Rain (Audio Parade Mix)

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Fuller absorption

(Apologies - another re-up for aggregation, but the last for now.)

From the first it sounds special, precious, profound - & unlike almost anything else out there. Neo-classical drone? Yes, sort of. A classical palette is put to work bobbing on gargantuan bass swells that seem to last forever (& often do clock up serious, sustained minutes) – but the ‘real’ instruments involved seem to be all summoned snippets & loops. It’s a kind of classical hauntology in which traces of strings & horns are woven into epic drones, reconstituted adagios...

Kyle Bobby Dunn brings a rare intensity to bear in his music. Not in a balls-out, late Coltrane or Ben Frost mode, but rather an exceptional single-mindedness. There’s a real bravado to his very narrow sound range & its epic sustains.

Close-up it’s busier, layers of tremulous detail interlocking & fading. People talk, rightly, about The Necks’ magnificent, long-range builds. KBD, although commonly working in 10 to 15-minute chunks rather than an hour at a time, feels like their match - even if the comparison is off-beam in many ways (live improvisation versus composition, group versus solo, drums versus beatlessness...).

To take a far more obvious comparison (unsettling mood, slow-motion unfolding, uncloying beauty), he also holds his own with the drowsy, indolent Stars of the Lid...

To these ears Fervency & its ravishing expansion, A Young Person’s Guide to Kyle Bobby Dunn (out earlier this year on LMYE's revered Low Point & streamable in full below), remain his triumphant peak. Pieces like the radiant trio Empty Gazing, Small Show of Hands & Promenade (a Fervency original) achieve a consummateness of tone, of pace, of shape that is very rare. Several others are almost as memorable.

But nothing of his that's made it through to LMYE (yet to track those early releases on Housing & some others down yet, admittedly) is less than enthralling. Although the two long pieces making up the recent Rural Routes No.2 seem austerer, less instantly enticing than older material, they still unfold into richness - the more romantic Senium III especially. Dissonant Distances, meanwhile, draws on a refreshed & quite refreshing palette - more abrasive, certainly, but also fascinatingly studded with found fragments (voice, guitar, room sounds?).

Empty Gazing

Small Show Of Hands

Promenade

The Tributary (For Voices Lost)

Kyle Bobby Dunn - A Young Person's Guide To

"Low Point label proprietor, Gareth Hardwick, has been kind enough to release the 'Fervency' recordings on CD with extra material and second disc of music for guitar, piano, horn, viola, and cello. These are pretty old works for the most part - things starting in 2005 up 'til modern day 2009.

I worked again with various musicians on this but took very minuscule bits of their sound offerings and reworked them into mostly elongated pieces. There are some shorter works that feel longer -- 'Empty Gazing' and 'Last Minute Jest' are featured."

Kyle Bobby Dunn - Dissonant Distances

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.