Pospulenn - Sun People Sleepwalker

Pospulenn was an alias of Kane Pour (of Tricorn & Queue and Hundreds) that was mainly guitar-based in its sound. Sun People Sleepwalker is a compilation of Kane Pour's recordings under the Pospulenn name, which total up to over an hour in length. This release, I would say, is the best work I have ever heard from Kane Pour as of yet. In all 13 tracks, melodies are layered over one another as the songs build, and each one hits every single note in its key. In the midst of the guitars, field recordings faintly add density. This combination creates a dream-like feeling that seems completely new to me. During their slow builds, the songs begin to sound so lush that they form a drone that is absolute ecstasy. For its entire 69 minutes, Sun People Sleepwalker never loses its momentum. (description taken from olive music)

basically - guitar ripples of the best kind. as a friend of mine puts it - 'soft, arpeggiated totality'.

flown and flewn. 

Colleen - The Golden Morning Breaks

Colleen is a composer of electronic and ambient based folk music who is based in France. This is her 2005 album, 'The Golden Morning Breaks'.

If you don't really have many childhood memories, you can listen to this. It will make quite a few of them up for you.

the golden morning breaks

Sean Mccann - The Capital

Sean Mccann is a great and relatively new ambient/drone musician on the scene. His 2011 record 'The Capital' is pure bliss, and escapist in a way the album cover would suggest. I recommend this wholeheartedly.

the capital

Clint Mansell/Mogwai - The Fountain OST

Clint Mansell needs no introduction really. He's one of the most successful contemporary soundtrackers to all your favourite films (Aronofsky or otherwise). And Scottish post rock act Mogwai need no introduction either; while I'm not a fan of their LPs very much, I'm willing to forgive anything for their work here. This is my favourite work of Mansell's, the massively underrated soundtrack to The Fountain, which just might be my favourite Aronofsky movie too. (I'm a hopeless romantic, can't you tell). Actually, barring Koyaanisqatsi, I'm ready to call this my favourite soundtrack of all time. Blah blah hyperbole, i know.

It snowed heavily a couple of nights ago. I was out at a friend's place a bit out of town, halfway between civilisation and isolation in terms of population density. I was in good company, old friends and wine and warm fireplaces and rusty, slightly detuned guitars with familiar songs carrying us amidst drunken revelry. It was lovely, but I felt an urge to get out for a bit considering it was January and it was not that cold despite the snow, and lord knows how cold it usually gets in January here in Canada.

I had this burnt as a CD for my friend because she was getting into OST's in general and I had to burn her a copy or two of my favourite stuff. (I'm that guy in the group, still burning CDs, still ripping files) She hadn't listened to it yet and I asked her to come along for a walk because well, it's nice being alone but better being alone with company. I inadvertently slipped this into her discman and off we went, into frozen winter lakes and trees that have slipped into silent slumber. We talked, about our lives, loves, ups and downs, about nothing and everything, and eventually settled to rest against the bark of a gigantic oak overlooking her cottage. We shared earphones and rested, and smoked half a pack of Belmonts. It was a clear, clear night, amazing how much of a difference in perspective the skyscape presents when away from the perennial urban haze.

We eventually passed out there, in silence. I woke up to a warm hug from her, suggesting that we should head back because we'd been out for a good 3-4 hours. I realised that at this very moment, my heart was full but my mouth was empty. That, at the very best of moments, I had nothing to say, except apologise. (I say sorry a lot, a personal defect, if you must). It's an eerie kind of inner peace, one that I am still reluctant to accept. We walked back and we caught each other glancing back at the old oak, like it had heard all of our unfocused discussions, our laughter and our pseudo-romantic aspirations. It was like leaving something behind, but not in a way that was sad or threatening, or even disquietening. It was, simply, humbling.

Now, whenever I listen to 'Together we will live forever', I know there's a place where I can recede to where nothing can taint me. It's the light that never goes out, as Moz sung, it's the essence of the beating heart, it's the only place where you can 'draw a drop of blood from a sugarcube'. This is me, fucking batman, broken, happy, sad, completely detached and completely innocent. And there is nothing more that I can say that would justify the beauty within this album other than the fact that I sometimes find myself there when I'm listening to it.

together, we will live forever

William Basinski - Melancholia

William Basinski is a classically trained composer and ambient musician who rose to prominence with his documentation of disintegrating tape loops. Here's my favourite record of his, Melancholia.

take a walk with me, let me take you someplace. i don't know where, away from here is all i know. reach into my flesh, take what makes my heart loop and mind deteriorate and wear it like a mantle. symbolise your eternal longing with a nascent kiss, amidst torrential downpour, swallowed under city lights. take it all. take it away from me, even though your blood just blended with mine. take it all away because i love you, and i want to remember this, even though my memory is unreliable and words always fall short. let me put on this tape as i drift off to sleep, cursing the clarity of my memory. these twinkles. they lull me. and it's already yesterday. mementos are journeys.

melancholia

Bowery Electric - Beat

Bowery Electric were an NYC outfit, active from 1993 to 2000. They played a futuristic, spacey blend of trip hop, gazer and ambient, best highlighted on their magnificent 1996 effort - Beat

Somewhat bizarrely, Beat received a large amount of critical buzz over its supposedly groundbreaking fusion of hip-hop/techno rhythms and the band's older dream pop stylings. Anyone who had heard Loveless-era My Bloody Valentine or a fair amount of Chapterhouse's material probably had some things to say about that judgment, while in turn many dance mavens saw the band's efforts as already terribly outdated in terms of general sonic approach. Set all this aside and concentrate on enjoying Beat in and of itself, though, and the fine qualities of both group and album come through quite clearly. Bowery Electric may not be on the cutting edge, but Schwendener and Chandler aren't pretending to dwell there. The title track sets the album's tone from the start, an open-ended guitar drone from Chandler later accompanied by Schwendener's low-key bass and distanced singing matched with a crisp drum loop. Variations on this basic formula throughout Beat: slight rhythms are sometimes more prominent, sometimes buried, guitar lines are clearer here or more heavily produced there -- but taken as a whole the release is quietly intoxicating. Standouts include "Fear of Flying," with a strong guitar scream/wash from Chandler and a more upfront bass/drum combination, and the thoroughly but beautifully zoned out "Black Light," which features a rare Chandler vocal and an enveloping delay-pedal-produced atmosphere. Notably, the drumming on the latter track is more in line with, say, early Pink Floyd or Slowdive rather than the loops used elsewhere. Both performers are incredibly undemonstrative throughout the album -- Beat works best as something either totally concentrated on or left running as ambient music; a party record this isn't. At times Bowery Electric eschew percussion entirely, to lovely effect: "Under the Sun" is a brief but dark piece, a low bassline providing the only forward motion. 


black light

Alphane Moon - The Echoing Grove

In their incarnation as their main project 'Our glassie Azoth', the Welsh duo of Dafydd and Ruth traverse the chaotic elemental heart of psychedelic music. Forgoing riffs for alchemy, OgA’s albums are nothing less than howling, hair-raising exorcisms of blinding white noise. When the squall of OgA’s feedback hurricanes subsides, Alphane Moon is revealed. As experienced in the opening swirl of “An Open Entrance,” these magic moments achieve a rare sense of consequence. We witness the total transfiguration of Dafydd and Ruth, their swaddling of Dionysian cacophony cast aside for the white robes of pastoral mysticism. The Echoing Grove was originally released in multiple cassette micro-runs. For most, however, this extraordinary CD will serve as a first exposure to Alphane Moon’s arcane workings. Prayer and incantation both figure within this duo's acid-gilded ceremonies, though not in any traditional sense. What few words are uttered owe everything to the tradition of British Isles folk-poetry. This is a ritual in sound, not text. Guitars coruscate and radiate, elevating tricky, Pink Floyd-ian noises to a state of luminescent drone/flux sublimity. From the glimmering “Circle Of Four” to the blazing psychedelirium of “Reap A Field Of Light,” the sound that floods The Echoing Grove is absolutely supernatural. This isn’t just music—it’s magic .

celestial influences

Tim Hecker - Harmony in Ultraviolet

Tim Hecker is an electronic musician and sound artist based in Montreal, Canada. He is by far one of the best ambient musicians working today, his use of texture in music is second to none, in my opinion. Here's my favourite of his works, Harmony in Ultraviolet. Sometimes I have trouble believing a living, breathing human made this, it's like a portal to another world.

Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one. A moment. In childhood. When it first occured to you that you don't go on forever. Must have been shattering. Stamped into one's memory. And yet, I can't remember it. It never occured to me at all. We must be born with an intuition of mortality. Before we know the word for it. Before we know that there are words. Out we come, bloodied and squawling, with the knowledge that for all the points of the compass, theres only one direction. And time is its only measure.




 blood rainbow

Brian Eno - Another Green World

Brian Eno. Doesn't need any introduction. Pioneer in pretty much every genre he worked in - there's very few musicians as accomplished as this man. Here's Another Green World, an album that requires no introduction as well.

Breathtakingly ahead of its time, Eno's outlandish experiments somehow coalesce perfectly into his pop sensibility. Can never tire of this.

St. Elmo's Fire

Further reading on Eno's ambient work courtesy of a fantastic feature here.

Cocteau Twins - Victorialand

Cocteau Twins were a Scottish alternative/dreampop band active from 1979 to about 1997. Hugely influential and unique, they forged a sound that was ethereal unlike any other, and well, they had Liz Fraser, who could quite possibly be the best female vocalist of all time. 

Sometimes Cocteau Twins albums may sound a bit dated, even if they are perfect otherwise. But with no drum machines on Victorialand, there's nothing holding this back. Stratospheric ambient pop, if there ever was such a thing. 

The thinner the air

Yo La Tengo - And then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out

American alt rock band formed in Jersey, in 1984. One of the most consistently pleasant catalogs of music of any rock band, here's my favourite album of theirs; And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out. 

Yo La Tengo's most consistently brilliant record is also their quietest, as husband and wife Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley turn the volume down while exploring decidedly grown-up relationship themes. It's definitely not the shoe-gazer-tinged barrage of guitars they've supplied in the past, but the silences here speak louder than an amplified guitar ever could. One of my definitive picks for albums to listen to in the wee hours. 


I wanna be Paul Le Mat, in 1980

Bark Psychosis - Independency

Compiles the EPs of one of the most complex and consistent band of the 90's. When you listen to this stuff, remember that it was a bunch of 15-16 year olds recording it. Yes, amidst all that grunge and commercial bastardisation of rock music, these kids saw the future, and played alongwith it. Immense, layered and gorgeous in its simplicity, Independency should open a few doors for those treading these grounds afresh. 

blood rush

The KLF - Chill Out

The KLF were a British band, pioneers of electronic and ambient music in the early 90's. Though they were predominantly working in the field of electronica, the control they maintained over their own art and their distaste for the corporate music business is probably unparalleled in music history. In 1990, they released Chill Out, one of the most influential and kickass ambient albums put to record. Check this out: 


Their first record sampled ABBA who promptly sued the band for unauthorised use. After confronting ABBA in their recording studio, the band burnt all the copies of the record in a field. They then went back to the drawing board and made an ambient album ‘Chill Out’ and then the house classic ‘The White Room’ before finally appearing at The Brit Awards violently firing blanks from an automatic rifle into the audience, causing mayhem in the area. Later in the evening the band dumped a dead sheep with the message "I died for ewe—bon appetit" tied around its waist at the entrance to one of the post-ceremony parties. Then they dropped out of the music business almost immediately, burning all of their back catalog (which remains unavailable and out of print to this day). Their statuette for "best british group" of 1992 was found buried in a field near Stonehenge. 

"We have been following a wild and wounded, glum and glorious, shit but shining path these past five years. The last two of which has [sic] led us up onto the commercial high ground—we are at a point where the path is about to take a sharp turn from these sunny uplands down into a netherworld of we know not what. For the foreseeable future there will be no further record releases from The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, The Timelords, The KLF and any other past, present and future name attached to our activities. As of now all our past releases are deleted.... If we meet further along be prepared...our disguise may be complete" 

With The KLF's profits, Drummond and Cauty established the K Foundation and sought to subvert the art world, staging an alternative art award for the worst artist of the year and burning one million pounds sterling..

An insight from a fellow rymer:


Taking cues from Brian Eno’s early ambient records, ‘Chill Out’ seems to simulate a night time road trip across southern USA highways while you have the radio on low because everyone else in the car is fast asleep; it’s enveloping bliss. Some of the tracks don’t even have any melody in them, but they all add to the dreamy ambiance of it all. You can hear train-crossings, birds, engines, even sheep; why some of them are in there is anyone’s guess, but like The Orb’s classic debut, ‘Chill Out’ has a great sense of humour bundled with it which means that there’s always something to take you by surprise. ‘Chill Out’ is also heavily indebted to sampling; the strains of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Albatross’ and Acker Bilk’s ‘Stranger On The Shore’ aren’t disguised in any way, but they don’t really steal their melodies; ‘Chill Out’ isn’t about melodies. It’s all about atmosphere and that’s exactly what the samples provide. As the ‘Albatross’ snippet fades in slowly, you can see yourself sipping coffee parked in a petrol station watching the traffic spin round in the pouring rain.

I strongly doubt there has ever been (or will ever be) a record like this. Though The Orb’s ‘U.F.Orb’ came close, ‘Chill Out’ still exceeds it in nearly every aspect. A transcendant, transporting highway wilderness. In a bizarre change of plan, the year after ‘Chill Out’ was released, The KLF had more UK hit singles than anyone else that year, then the year after that they withdrew one million pounds from their bank account, nailed it to a board of wood, then burnt it. That weird stunt may have shown their madness, but ‘Chill Out’ shows their genius.


Madrugada Eterna

Swans - Soundtracks for the Blind

Swans have been an immensely influential no-wave act who have gone through various transformations, sort of like a shedding skin and maturing with absolute class without sacrificing any of their quality. 


Michael gira is an enigma. Raised and fed on a diet of the experimental and largely noise oriented new york scene, Swans is practically his vehicle for expression, one he's guided through the years and has been its only consistent member, from the inception of the band to date, where we await their new studio album almost 20 years after the band formed. 

Early Swans material, was in a nutshell, absolutely fucking brutal. Tape loops, heavy riffs, guitars completely detuned and atonality are pretty much commonplace here. This is basically some of the most aggressive music that ever existed. Case in point, shows were so loud and dissonant that people were reported to have ended up passing out and occasionally going dizzy, from sheer volume. Cops would regularly shut down and ban them from playing in certain areas (Gira returns his love for the authority on the wonderful release 'Cop') But it wasn't harsh for the sake of being harsh, the time signatures were reminiscent of Gira's love for jazz influenced 'rock', the minimal chord structures seemed to be a nod to early, minimalistic blues based rock and roll.   

Swans themselves are a study in evolution. From the violently noisy beginnings in the now legendary no-wave scene, they carved out a really unique path for themselves, seeing them morph ever so slowly, but surely, into a more melodic juggernaut, paving the way for 2 of their finest efforts - White Light from the Mouth of Infinity and The Great Annihilator. What was to follow was anyone's guess, but really, nothing in the world prepared anyone for the masterwork that was Soundtracks for the Blind. Soundtracks adds up to nearly two and a half hours in length. It's a sprawling effort, one that changes mood and tempo on every possible turn, but still retains its character alongwith its devotion to an unique, sinister atmosphere that is always seductive and hypnotic. Dissonance is the modus operandi here, you are literally compelled to understand music as you know it as a different kind of instrument altogether. 

They meddle with a frenetic punk aesthetic on "Yum Yab Killers" which is layed out deliciously over Jarboe's ferocious vox, they travel into warped techno soundscapes on "Volcano" and even feature a medieval harpsichord swirl on "Red Velvet Corridor". The drones exist to serve as psychoactive rather than a foreground mechanism, slowly lulling you into a lucid daydream, evoking ambience that brings to mind desolate industrial landscapes, war torn fields and ruins of ancient civilisations. Maybe they are allusions to the dark recesses of the human psyche; "Prisoner in Yr Skull" and "Final Sacrifice" seem to be the sound of personal ghosts being exorcised.  There also seems to be an undercurrent of carnal sexuality to the rhythms that pulsate under each selection, from the thunderous tribal drumming to the beating of primal overtones that permeate the drones. But the two key highlights on the record are definitely the epics, 'Helpless Child' and 'The Sound'. The former being a cinematic ode to a obsessively dependent relationship that glides effortlessly into the atmosphere as it builds to it's climax, and the latter is just about the best fucking song there ever was - a monstrosity that predates the 'post rock' movement by at least 3 years and is arguably the watermark for Godspeed you! black Emperor's career and every other derivate that has followed since - 'The Sound' stands as a milestone in 'build-and-release tension' finesse in music; a solemn orchestral dirge that marks Gira's omniscience on the record to fantastic effect. 

It's quite hard to believe they bowed out with this, even for today's standards. A disjointed, double disc ode that compiles nearly every manifestation of Swan's career and more; tape loops, mournful drones, samples, field recordings, distorted guitars, ambient keyboards and Gira's lovely baritone - the result is spectral, to say the least, there's not a wasted minute, and the album is so unstably unfocused that trying to allocate a narrative to it is almost invariably bound to be futile - it has to be heard to be believed. Soundtracks for the Blind stands as a testament to one of the best bands of our time - Swans were so far ahead of their time that most of us are still catching up. I recommend that you give it a listen because it could possibly change your life.


Lose your eyesight

Bark Psychosis - ///Codename:Dustsucker

So let me kick things off here. I'd like to start off by posting the album that the blog name is derived from. Let it be known everywhere that Bark Psychosis, the pioneers of the 'post rock' genre in 1994 (with the magnificent Hex), came back ten years later to show the competition how far ahead of the game they still were. Master innovators who use texture and form to fantastic effect. Listen closely and you find enough enigma and intricacy in this record to qualify it as a musical puzzle, one that reveals more every listen. Check out this review from Nick Southall from the now defunct Stylus Magazine.

Vapour trails of distant airplanes turning orange in the sunset, a smear of royal umber bruise. Universes appear within your iris, tremulous rumbles consume miniscule worlds. Glass and metal are pushed beyond physical limits, bend and break. Bark peels like skin from trees. Points of water evaporate under immense heat. Whispers drown out coils of industry. Forward motion is reversed and progresses faster. The church walls begin to close in again, and so you swing aside the oaken door and step outside into the buzzing orange half light another time, people still moving, still alive, even at this time of night, and you melt into the tarmac, the brickwork, the sulphur, the pallid strip-lights… 

Shrouded in ten years of mystery and disappearance and elusive ‘other projects’, it’s easy to feel that ///Codename: Dustsucker doesn’t really exist. Bark Psychosis as a band don’t exist anymore, certainly not in the way they did a decade ago. John Ling and Daniel Gish have long since gone, and Mark Simnet exists on ///Codename: Dustsucker only in the form of ‘found drums’. By the time “Blue” was released and the band put on hold in 1994, Bark Psychosis had fallen away, leaving only Graham Sutton. When he put Boymerang aside in 1999 it was only natural to pick up where he had left off: resurrect Bark Psychosis and once again make a music different to that of those elsewhere, everywhere. 

Use of shape, space and sound betray ///Codename: Dustsucker’s lineage and creation from the moment a corrupted, familiar melody bleats from the speakers as if it were a forgotten joke. Time is blurred for fifty minutes, topography altered, positions changed, rules of deportment completely unconsidered. It’s clear that ///: is the work of the man behind Hex and the singles compiled onIndependency, but it is not simply a retread of the past, or even a direct continuation of what was left ten years ago. ///: has a decade of space and a lifetime of experience between it and its predecessor; it is necessarily a different beast. Five years of creation have ensured that every detail is deliciously agonised, every note placed with purpose, nothing left to chance except chance (a guitar is knocked over, ruptures sound like fractured bone; a flippant voicemail message given space within the minus seconds). No significance is attached to passing time; dates are ignored, anniversaries forgotten, temporal shifts unnoticed; “From What Is Said To When It’s Read” floats over you on hypnotic waves of guitar and suggestions of electronic noise, before pausing and crashing back with the force of a tidal wave, hushed, devotional vocals subsumed beneath a gorge of sound, absolute calm within absolute intensity. This is just the beginning. 

Delayed organs, mouthless do-do-dos and a cascading guitar riff form the bedrock of “The Black Meat”, talk of standing on “black sand” and trees, “one for you / one for me”. Hesitancy, a clock is broken, someone closes a door. A guitar groans and signals the birth of a trumpet, slowly melting into gaseous synths and a whiff of melodica; it comes in two parts like The Isley Brothers through the looking glass. “Miss Abuse” is a cavernous, sinister cloud of dub space, a bassline crawling for a handful of notes every few bars and no more, a kick-drum with arrhythmia, an eptopic heartbeat guiding the song’s progress through vortices of sound towards the moment when a 303 begins, seizing the songs arteries and windpipe and strangling life slowly from it. ///: is uncategorisable, even neologisms fall short now that the old words have been warped. It exists in a space outside of rock, post-rock, jazz, pop, dance and avant-garde, in a nothingness zone, unfettered by genre or gatekeepers. 

“Dr Innocuous / Ketamoid” rips apart the fabric at the centre of the album, a distant stamp and tear, Lee Harris using hi-hats and cymbals in a way that makes them sound like broken glass, building an intensity before stop. begin again. piano. count to three. brushed guitar strings. “Did you ever hear the one / About that bird-girl?” A pipe organ breathes for a second. “Burning The City” is an escapist dream, rebellion touched with an elegiac sense of yearning and a wry smile, warm in tone. As is “400 Winters”, caressed by a woman’s voice, tiding on acoustic guitars and falling into piano. “INQB8TR” crawls through infinite dub-space, glades of synth and destructive passages of rich, beautiful noise. “Shapeshifting” tears itself apart with electric guitar scree, filling your head before backwards loops and perpetual-motion drums guide the song through an estuary of found-sounds. “Rose” guides us home under a swell of Germanic trust and nothingness. 

///Codename: Dustsucker has been a long time coming (it seems an age since its existence was first even rumoured) and it will not please everyone because it is not a simple relation of Hex. But taken on its own terms it is an outstanding record, multi-hued and consuming, concerned with invented realities and blurred lines in much the same way as Magritte’s pipe and Borges’ invented facts. Agonised, fearful, compelling, beautiful and measured with infinite precision and chaos, ///: is close to miraculous. 

Headphones: Recommended