Birchville Cat Motel & Anla Courtis - Three Sparkling Echoes (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, 2007)

1 First Sparkling Echo 12:23
2 Second Sparkling Echo 12:13
3 Third Sparkling Echo 14:13


We're sort of surprised this match up hadn't already happened before. Pretty much a no brainer. Campbell Kneale, aka Birchville Cat Motel, and Anla Courtis, from the now defunct Reynols. While it most definitely seems like a match made in noise rock heaven, there was definitely the potential for a very chaotic mess, but the two most definitely brought out the best in each other, and the result might just be one of our favorite releases from either of these guys.
Three looooong tracks, each a gorgeous and languorous slow build, minimal, but dense and heavily layered, simple propulsive rhythms, and all sorts of warm rich sonic textures. The opener, is maybe one of the most beautiful 'noise rock' tracks EVER. Swirling, beautiful cello-like melodies, low and lumbering, moan and croon, a deep, resonant, cavernous, creeping minor key dirge, lurking mysteriously beneath a swirling cloud of metallic cicadas and oscillating whirs and flutters. One of those tracks that should go on forever. Building gradually in intensity, but never exploding into full on heaviness, instead just drifting dreamlike, until the various sounds peel back leaving just a gorgeous soundscape of simulated nature sounds and abstract ambience. The first time we threw this on we ended up listening to this track 3 or 4 times in a row. But as soon as we could tear ourselves away, we realized that the other two tracks were darn near just as beautiful.
The second track is a spacious and spare expanse of tinkling music box chimes, strange percussive thumps, guttural vocalizations, and a warm melodic whir, heavily panned, swooping dramatically from speaker to speaker. Those swoops eventually transforming into thick slabs of guitar whir, a gorgeously glacial epic, rife with muted melodies, and dense with sonic subtleties...
The closer pretty much seals the deal. Simple tribal drums, clattery junkyard percussion, over warbly warped FX drenched guitars and a loping dirge-like rhythm building in intensity until the guitars become a huge tangly squall above that static mesmerizing rhythm. It's almost like a noise rock Tom Waits.... like the Black Rider performed by Sunroof! Or a super blissed out take on old Swans. Guitars so thick and warm you just want to curl up and climb under, letting that clattery motorik rhythm just carry you away...
Aquarius Records

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Reynols - Blank Tapes (Trente Oiseaux, 2000)

1 Untitled 3:32
2 Untitled 10:59
3 Untitled 11:06
4 Untitled 10:08
5 Untitled 6:22
6 Untitled 8:28

Explorations in silence and electrostatic sounds from this Argentinian trio consisting of Miguel Tomasin, Roberto Conlazo and Anla Courtis. Six tracks "made only with analog and digital processings over selected blank tapes dating from 1978 to 1999". The first piece consists of barely audible hiss, with only slight variations. This is the most "blank" of all the tapes presented here. The second piece builds on the same foundation as the first, but quickly becomes much more audible with high pitched hiss and whistling. The third piece flutters comfortably at a low volume (very nice!), while the fourth begins in silence and slides in and out with variations in tape hiss. The fifth piece startled me out of my complacency with its more intrusive sound barrage, and the sixth returns again to subtler shifts and variations. Of course, descriptions of these pieces are a far cry from being an adequate response to this recording. It's the total experience of listening to this disc that really matters, and requires an account that is less descriptive and more impressionistic. The tabula rasa that is the foundation for each of these pieces is a medium we are all familiar with. The way Reynolds builds on this foundation is remarkable - sometimes barely noticeable and at others unmistakable and startling. As an aside, I recently became aware that they are performing some live shows in Argentina. I wonder what a performance by these artists would be like? Blank Tapes is an excellent addition to the Trente Oiseaux catalogue, worthy of much attention, that should be welcomed the world over by fans of this label's activities.
Incursions

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