Tom Carter & Vanessa Arn - What Is Here For (A Silent Place, 2007)

1 Points Before Vanishing
2 Means to Another

Album collaboratif entre Tom Carter (Charalambides) à la lapsteel et Vanessa Arn (Primordial Undermind) qui pilote un synthétiseur de fabrication maison...: drones puissants...

Limited Edition of 515 copies. First 110 copies released as coloured (brown) vinyl. Including a small insert. Contains two long and deep duo cuts of univibe-era lap steel/ electronic tone generator improvisation, one side recorded live and stamped w/ the indelible mark (ie, the #15 bus rumbling by) of Bullbabe Studios, Austin TX (the odor of sweat, lone star, and barbeque is palpable). The sounds: monolithic serenity infused with a deep breath from the void, as peaceful and violent as a mountain range. A shame that this configuration is so underrepresented in the discography, as the mesh of T&V's playing is so instantly seismic... Tom Carter is best known for his work with Charalambides, which he co-founded with longtime creative partner Christina Carter in 1991. Since 2002, Carter has also undertaken solo work and collaborations. His 2003 solo tour, centered around the seminal Brattleboro FreeFolk festival, featured unaccompanied solo shows and musical excursions (on stage and tape) with Bardo Pond, Thurston Moore, Dredd Foole, the MVEE Medicine Show, Ian Nagoski, Tower Recordings, and Double Leopards, among others. Vanessa Arn became a member of Boston/California/Texas group Primordial Undermind soon after Tom's brief tenure in the group. The potential for mountainous difference tones between the lap steel and the triwave tone generator (a custom built synthesizer) was immediately apparent to all parties, and Tom suggested a collaboration (which was greatly assisted by the fact that Tom and Vanessa were at the time next door neighbors). A sole performance and a handful of recordings ensued and the results are here for your perusal.
A Silent Place

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Aidan Baker - The Sea Swells A Bit... (A Silent Place, 2006)

1 The Sea Swells A Bit (21:00)
2 When Sailors Die (17:19)
3 Davy Jones' Locker (15:58)

Espace à la fois pour l'auditeur et pour les morceaux, longs, qui se construisent graduellement... on se laisse emporté par le courant... Sublime...

This is just amazing. "The Sea Swells A Bit..." is comprised of three epic tracks weighing in at around 20 minutes each, and over the duration Baker experiments with guitar textures, tape loops and drum machines to create a thoroughly warming and textured listening experience. There are echoes of the avant-shoegazers Windy and Carl or Labradford, or even Talk Talk / Bark Psychosis in places, resonances of post rock and hints at the dreamy ambience of Brian Eno or Stars of the Lid, but Baker’s sound feels more live and more spontaneous than any of the above. The eponymous opening track is the choice cut here, coming across like the Cocteau Twins submerged beneath the Atlantic. It’s an aquatic journey into hidden melodies and waterlogged, wheezing drum sounds and after 20 minutes you’re deep into Baker’s world. However it’s not single tracks that make this album what it is, it’s the blurry vision that Baker exudes over the course of the entire record, making for an utterly involving and mind-meltingly beautiful listening experience. Sublime.
Boomkat

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The North Sea - Archaic Spines (A Silent Place, 2007)

1 Splendor (7:57)
2 Oh Velveteen (3:49)
3 Silent Order Of The Shrouded Tombs (12:22)
4 We Salute The Sandblasted Turrets (2:48)
5 The Feather'd King, The Bluejay Queen (13:16)

Festival de ragas utilisant uniquement un bouzouki...

Brad Rose, the man behind the Digitalis and Foxglove labels returns with another solo album, on another beautifully presented ha limited edition imprint. Archaic Spines is an album that utilises only a bouzouki and a hint of vocals, spreading five celestial ragas over forty minutes of improvisation. Unlike the open tuned raga variations we've come to expect from the Takoma lineage, these pieces tend to be strummed with droning open strings as you'd find in classical sitar music. For all the nods toward Eastern harmonic patterns and improvisational structures Rose remains plugged into American folk music and psychedelia - with typically imaginative, fanciful song titles like 'Silent Order Of The Shrouded Tombs' and 'The Feather'd King, The Bluejay Queen' being suggestive of the trance-inducing mediaeval mysticism Rose is aiming for with his extended string workouts.
Boomkat

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Fabio Orsi & Valerio Cosi - We Could For Hours (A Silent Place, 2008)

1 We Could For Hours (Part One)
2 Cold Fusion (In Our Fingers)
3 Pink Sheep Blood
4 We Could For Hours (Part Two)

Fabio Orsi et Valerio Cosi associés pour créer un album tout en drones désolés...

We Could For Hours is instability. It represents the will to open the gates of unknown. It is the dark, whispered sounds and hidden truths. Chaos. And now here it starts, everything takes form, sensations rise, objects acquire colours, distorted vision but still a vision of reality. Everything dances and follows the rhythm of music, an unknown tribal dance. Silence. Sounds follow themselves but always hidden in a veil of mistery, words are mute, everything is listening attentively to the enchanting melody of nature. Mind, free from human limits, goes straight towards a long journey and meets the supernatural and then sinks into the knowledge oblivion. Everything is nothing. Nothing is the time. Time becomes memory and memory brings us to happy thoughts that rise first, then fall in the end. Hallucinations. The precariousness feeling is overwhelming us, tollings of a clock without hands are molesting our ears and they scan the slow and endless flowing of life. Too late to be back. There's no possibility. We have to live desolate countrysides burnt by an August sun. Lysergic vision. Void.
A Silent Place

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Fabio Orsi / My Cat Is An Alien - For Alan Lomax (A Silent Place, 2006)

1 Fabio Orsi - Spring No More And Love Come In The Wind (38:46)
2 My Cat Is An Alien - Heart Of The Eart H (27:49)

Disque dédié à la mémoire d'Alan Lomax et première apparition de Fabio Orsi sur un vinyl, si je ne m'abuse...

Dedicated the legendary collector of folk music Alan Lomax comes this latest release from the incredibly prolific Italian brothers Roberto and Maurizio Opalio aka My Cat is an Alien. This time around the bring fellow Italian experimental type Fabio Orsi along for the ride, who kicks the disc off with a 40 minute slice of utterly breathtaking ambience. Using field recordings, guitars, a piano and the wind itself, Orsi structures a piece of crystalline beauty, embedding the themes of collected worldwide folk music beneath a mire of harmony and emotion. I rarely expect to be greeted by this kind of unashamed reverence within a MCIAA project, but I must say it’s a pleasant surprise and I’m now intrigued to hear more by Fabio Orsi. As for the MCIAA piece which follows, this is a recording of one of their legendary live shows in which they distort the sounds of their guitars and ‘space toys’ to create a sound truly cosmic. Space travelling folk music if you like, and the ghost of their biggest influence Alan Lomax is omnipresent throughout. Unmistakably adventurous and another hypnotic drone-journey – recommended!
Boomkat

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