The back cover of Pariahs Sing Om, a massive three-disc set by London based New Zealander Peter Wright, bears the scrawled addendum "collected drone poems 2000-2003". That lowercase subtitle may seem casual but Wright's pieces (all wordless save for the minimalist elegy "Some Words For The Dying") are certainly verse-like. His mix of abstract music and field recordings evoke poetry's hybrid of sound and sense, and his layers of drone reflect each other like rhyming lines.
Pariahs Sing Om collects CD-Rs previously issued by Last Visible Dog, Apoplexy and Celebrate PSI Phenomenon. The first, a repressing of 2003's Pariahs Sing Om, uses the widest range of sound sources. "Moutere" turns reverberating guitar chords into waves of oceanic drift, while "Hanging Bottles" melts metallic rattle into electronic noise. On the disc's peak, "Esoteria", shimmering drones and acoustic strums evoke Fursaxa's tonal hymns.
Wright often uses volumn as an instrument. His sounds appear at varied distances, approaching and retreating in gradual shifts. That's clearest on disc two, culled from 2001's Catch A Spear As It Flies. "Strumming Rotunda" draws rumbling guitar forward until Wright's strings seem to escape the speakers, while "Rotunda" buries chirps under hypnotic hiss, and the epic "Low Ground" sounds like a gamelan performance blurred by fog.
On disc three, an amalgam of 2000's Duna and 2001's A Tiny Camp In The Wilderness, Wright's drones (mostly recorded on the streets of Christchurch) have a more primal appeal. The granulated chime of "Miasma" becomes a sandstorm, while the growling "Sierra" and the squawking bleat of "8 Minutes & 6 Seconds" conjure Tony Conrad's violin attack. Here, Wright's work feels most distinct. His dense drones may owe a debt to artists like Phill Niblock, Flying Saucer Attack, and much of the Kranky roster, but their unpolished power makes Pariahs Sing Om inimitably personal.
The Wire
New Zealand's Peter Wright has been experimenting with guitar sounds and field recordings for the past few years. His myspace page, and let's face it who isn't on myspace these days?, states that he plays “disconnected avant guitar gloop distilled through a series of electronic filters and single malt, heavily influenced by guitar pop, free jazz/improv, atonal guitar noise, cats and city trash”. While the label info for Air Guitar says that it should be filed under “Guitar-Mantra-Drones”. This certainly makes the, now London based, Kiwi artist sound intriguing.
The title track of this 7” is luscious daydream of warm rich tones. A gentle drone that carries the listener away floating in a calm blue ocean of sound. This is the most relaxing thing I've listened to in ages. The Sunday Hangover is a perfect aural hangover cure. A simple melodic guitar line over a collection of found sounds evokes lazy Sunday just relaxing around the house or lying in the garden. Another great chillout track in a different style than the first piece. The Last Post for Michael J. Hex continues the dreamy feel of the previous tracks but again takes a different direction. This piece has the warm overtones of the first piece with the found sound ambience of the second. Sounds of lapping water and waves of sound flowing over the listener make this a very physical experience. In fact there is a very bodily quality to this whole listening process.
Overall this Air Guitar EP is very different from the usual stuff that I review here. There's a warmth and light to this that is the antithesis of most of the releases crossing my path. Personally I thoroughly enjoyed it and will be looking up more of Peter Wright's material. Anyone looking for something to relax to or music to accompany a contented day should check this out. Also anyone who likes quality expressive, guitar work that is outside of boring rock genres, this should be on your purchase list as well.
This EP comes on orange vinyl in a limited edition of 300.
Heathen Harvest
First 'official' release of 2007 comes in the form of a single 35 minute track recorded during the rehearsals for the AM/PW tour of the USA and Europe in November 2006. A long form glacial drone that erupts towards the end into a crumbling distorted lahar of debris and fire. No really. Distortion pedals and stuff like that. An excellent warm up to the forthcoming PW CDs due for release in the next few months. Comes in a limited edition of 100, some in red card sleeves, some in brown and a rare handful on a pearl parchment card.
IN OTHER WORDS...
We last saw Peter Wright in transatlantic collaboration with Brad Rose in Servant Sun. With Crater Lake, Wright appears alone, as lonesome as the disc's single 34-minute composition, an expanded nod to Stars of the Lid, Andrew Chalk, Growing; shimmering, cresting swells of reverberation rising from thick silence, gently overlapping as they phase in and out, with slight ripples as the metallic vibration hums like a swarm. The subtle accumulation and volume of droning bodies comes crashing down in the piece's final third, where a thunderclap of hollow metal begins the precipitation of a high, brassy reed, tinged with the selfsame darkness of Labradford's masterwork 'Mi Media Naranja'. A traffic of deep rumble passes beneath the track, and carnival screams reveal a dark fantasy not unlike the impressionistic compositions of Holst or Webern. No frills CDr comes in a hand-numbered, heavy-stock folder with unruly design by Joe of Blackest Rainbow. Limited to 100 copies. Definitely recommended.
Massimo Ricci, Touching Extreme
New disc from London based Peter Wright who recently travelled around and played shows with Campbell on the Birchville Cat Motel UK visit. Over 30 minutes of excellent drone, this starts with the quietest 3 minutes ever and develops into a mind-shattering blister of sound. Limited to 100 hand numbered copies. First 10 copies come in parchment paper sleeves, the other 90 copies on brown or red pastel paper.| 1 | Above Lewis Pass | |
| 2 | Adrift At 30,000 Ft | |
| 3 | Like Clockwork | |
| 4 | Kashmir | |
| 5 | Point Blank | |
| 6 | South From A Bedsit Window | |
| 7 | Evening At Ben Ohau | |
| 8 | Leaving Town |
