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reviews on the blog click here

 

reviews on the blog click here

 

lauki homepage

reviews on the blog click here

 

 StringStrang Two is a formidable exercise in minimal droneworks from Jan Kees Helms. Using using only guitars and field recordings - all the pieces were recorded in one movement without the use of overdubs. These are considered works which enigmatically stretch onward and outward, drawing the listener in deeper over time. This work is a continuation of the Stringstrang project, the first part of which was released earlier this year on the German 'The Verato Project' of Suggestion Records

 

 RNCPS is a collaboration between nigel samways and daniel dickel. the project was mostly improvised and jammed using a variety of live instruments and devices, always incorporating a large amount of sampled material direct from low quality soundtracks and foley. the album is split into two sections - one of collage based, erratic sketches and scenes and the other reflecting more of an introverted retreat. the album deliberately juxtaposes the absurd and the serious in an often jarring fashion. influenced by 1970s and early 80s sci-fi films and comics - in particular the filthy imagined junk future of strontium dog from 2000ad.

nigel samways has previous releases on taalem, hibernate, experimedia, etc but this is the first release of the new RNCPS collaboration. artwork by daniel dickel and k.imanaka

+ listen

 

 jonathan read's second ep for ephre comes as a very worthy follow up to his 2010 work. 'volans 2' covers a different, possibly more outwardly emotive musical terrain but has a certain sentiment and spacious, deep sound in common with it's predecessor. hints at selenographic matters link with the previous ep's notion of cocooned space travel.

+ listen

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 plundering sampled material from two eminent and quintessentially English composers of differing creed and re-working with his own performances, this ep relates to a teenage experience of potentially baffling and unexplained origins whilst alone at night in the dorset countryside. further illumination on this matter can be found in the inner sleeve of this release.

nigel samways has previous releases on taalem, hibernate, experimedia, etc plus 'silver rain, green trees' and 'poor henrietta marie' on ephre.

+ listen

 

 ephre presents a challenging new work by a spanish improvising ensemble of miguel a.garcia, miguel prado and juan carlos blancos (coeval). fizzing drones merge with field recordings and live instrumentation to create a luminous sonic landscape that moves through some intruiging passages, still turning up some twists and surprises.

together they have previous releases across labels such as con-v, mantricum (where miguel a.garcia has a split with carlos villena from eph03), alg-a, homophoni, zeromoon, etc.

+ listen

 

full line up of artists: enrico coniglio, francesco giannico, gigi masin, obsil, elisa luu, attilio novellino (un vortice di bassa pressione), pierpaolo leo, christian di vito, ornithology, leastupperbound, alessio ballerini, cop killin' beat, llso4, ennio mazzon and paolo veneziani. together they have releases across labels such as touch, porter, laverna, sub rosa, ripples, cronica, zymogen and more

 

erik de cordier from palermo, italy works with audio samples stolen from abandoned night-time locations - a deserted hypermarket car-park, lonely seaports and unhabited buildings. with a particular focus on evp, he collages sound into intruiging and potentially disturbing musical episodes.

erik de cordier recently featured on two compilations - 'blurred tapes' (cathedral transmissions) and 'against it, vol 1' (against it records).

 

for his ep on ephre, jonathan read crafts three enigmatic drone works alluding to space flight and a possible journey to and from 'cybele' (the grecian, divine fertile earth). in this light, despite the alien overtones to the music, there is a feeling of warmth hidden inside and one can imagine the heat and open skies of his home merriwa, australia when listening to his music.

jonathan's debut album 'stooky bill' was released on the enpeg label.

 

in contrast to the title - referring to a repetitive or even obilgatory event, this piece from david newlyn is an enigmatic, labyrinthine sonic journey. constructed from field recordings made in a nightime durham cathedral, we hear muffled choral swells rising and falling away into an uncertain hushed atmosphere amongst the pews and buttresses before the whole piece solidifies into a shimmering drone that forges on through the haunted ecclesiastical gloom.

david has previous releases on u-cover, symbolic interaction and mobeer, plus up and coming on tokyo droning. he also curates the cathedral transmissions label.

 

superb sound design and soundscaping from carlos villena, who hails from barcelona in spain. constructed from solar landscape field recordings, this single longform piece shifts between different atmospheres and textures, at once building into aggressive pillars of noise only to fall away into uncomfortably serene passages - an aural hallucination of sunblindness.

carlos' work borders the sonic worlds between environmental sound recording, noise, drone, black metal and improvisation. he also runs the mantricum records label and has releases/splits with francisco lópez, z’ev, cornucopia, freiband, and more.

graphic design by conor gorman. running time: 22 minutes.

 

+ special joint release by ephre imprint + hibernate records

ARCHIVED - now available as a free download from ephre bandcamp

poor henrietta marie is based on a single mobile phone recording of a young girl singing "wade in the water" unaccompanied on the street of a small english town. the recording was later treated and re-arranged on magnetic tape, then passed through dsp processors and set alongside live multi-tracked instrumentation. henrietta marie refers to the sunken slave ship of the same name that now resides in a sad watery grave. the ep comprises of one long work, moving through 3 sections.

ltd edition 3" cdr had full gatefold artwork by jonathan from hibernate. running time: 21 minutes

nigel samways homepage

hibernate records homepage

frans de waard @ vital weekly 718 review:

"...samways uses tape treatments, dsp processing, instruments and some more field recordings, and
crafted a great piece of music of a loop of singing, to which a whole brand of small electronic sounds, drones and glitches are added. think 'jesus blood never failed me yet' meeting 'salt marie celeste': a radioplay like piece of obscured field recordings which tell us a story, other than 'just' beautiful music. excellent release here."

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+ one ep / vecchi-teller [eph02]

ARCHIVED - now available as a free download from ephre bandcamp

vecchi-teller are an electro-acoustic improvisational duo. material gathered here from live sessions 2005-9, now hewed down and re-configured. live instrumentation of toolbox junk percussion, a purple vibrator, analogue synthesizer and rotten MW radio interference are processed and re-sampled through live dsp scenarios. the music can be abrasive and visceral, taking musical cues from noise, free jazz and industrial. tracks are presented non-chronologically, with material recorded at different times collaged and juxstaposed together within individual tracks. running time: 21 minutes, 5 tracks.

frans de waard @ vital weekly 714 review:

"...five blocks of sound, heavily layered, with some strong noise based undercurrent. sounds crashing into each other, but there is always a deep drone end to the pieces. Its not noise as the textbooks describe, but rather a violent brother of musique concrete..."

 

a further entry in an ongoing series of works based around adhoc recordings made in the midst of different cityscapes. after 'mestre full stop' (venice) and 'veilleur de nuit' (paris), comes 'silver rain, green trees' constructed on a bed of recordings made in london 2007-8. focusing on the redundancy and decay of the old thames and a sodden overgrown suburbia, where the decompositional textures of the of the music mirror london's bruised and battered underbelly. the cdr version release contains the same audio + running time as the lathe cut. nigel samways has previous releases on labels experimedia, october man, camomille and taalem. 7 tracks, 23 minutes

 

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