Goldmund - Corduroy Road (Type Records, 2005)

1 Ba (1:33)
2 Door Of Our Home (3:27)
3 Marching Through Georgia (1:11)
4 Downward To Darkness On Extended Wings (2:13)
5 My Neighborhood (4:47)
6 The One Acre (2:07)
7 25 Thousand Miles (4:14)
8 Methusela Tree (4:48)
9 Larrows Of The Field (3:01)
10 Provenance (2:56)
11 Parhelia (6:05)
12 Yamase (3:54)
13 Anomolie Loop (1960-1969) (7:09)

Depuis la sortie du premier album (Handwriting) de Khonnor sur Type Records, les sorties du label sont attendues. Corduroy Road, premier album de Goldmund, est un brillant disque de piano. Sous n'importe quel pseudonyme Keith Kenniff fait sentir qu'il vit pour la musique, et qu'il ne fait que ça de sa vie. Ses morceaux travaillés respirent l'honnêteté, l'envie d'approfondir une démarche construite sur des bases solides. Corduroy Road a été élaboré autour d'un piano, d'un micro et d'une guitare qui vient épisodiquement. Les éléments électroniques ont été mis de côté pour un moment de beauté et de délicatesse. Goldmund ne part pas dans des expérimentations folles : il ne se branle pas dans son coin en écrivant et produisant des disques inécoutables, de notes insouciantes sur un piano jouées à la va vite. Mais ses notes lui appartiennent, et il les partage avec ses auditeurs. Les mélodies sont pour la plupart magnifiques, et construites. Rien n'est laissé au hasard, et une impression de calme extrême se pose dans les pièces ou sont jouées le disque. Sans jamais se presser, il tisse cette oeuvre avec beaucoup de grâce, et fait passer par la musique son amour pour la beauté et la mélancolie. Magnifique !
Liability

Boston- based multi Instrumentalist Keith Kenniff is a busy man. He has appeared as Helios on a number of acclaimed releases, including Type Records' very own Deaf Center Neon City EP, and released a debut album Unomia on Merck records which has appeared on many best of 2004 lists. All this while studying at the prestigious Berklee College of Music, and playing drums, guitar or contributing production to a host of amazing musicicans. Kenniff lives and breathes music, something that is very obvious when hearing tracks under any of his pseudonyms.

As Goldmund, Kenniff has disregarded the electronic elements of his music almost entirely in favour of just a piano, a microphone and occasionally a guitar. Corduroy Road is thirteen tracks of pure recording, the sound of the piano being opened and the feet on the pedals, the sound of fingers pressing lovingly onto the keys. This is a record of rare and unusual beauty, so shocking and yet unpretentious in its simplicity. When the guitar does emerge from beside the delicately touched piano, it serves as a balancing point for the record. Weaving in and out of the melodies, it adds another layer to what is already incredibly moving music.

Corduroy Road is rooted in Kenniff's love of folk music from the American Civil War. We can hear this directly from his rendition of Civil War era classic Marching Through Georgia, but the influence carries throughout the record. There is an unheard voice which propels each track through history, maybe the ghosts of dying soldiers whispering in a long forgotten bar. Every haunting note drifts deep into the psyche and is lost in the ether of nostalgia. In this way it is a concept recording of sorts, it certainly has a narrative and has to be listened to in sequence. The story has clear themes; loss, history, friendship, camaraderie, forgiveness and hope, all clearly marked out by musical segments. It is no surprise that Kenniff's passion for cinema shines through so strongly.

It would be hard to draw comparisons to music so rooted in folk traditions, but the music evokes traces of Ryuichi Sakamoto, Mark Hollis, Keith Jarret or even Eno's more piano based compositions. Yet influence seems unimportant when listening to this deeply personal work. Just let it sink in and drift into the psyche.

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The North Sea & Rameses III - Night of the Ankou (Type Records, 2005 (2006 reissue))

1 Death Of The Ankou (17:56)
2 Night Blossoms Written In Sanskrit (18:01)
3 Return Of The Ankou (Xela Remix) (7:45)

A côté de l’élégant album Eingya d’Helios, Type publie un album collaboratif entre le musicien américain Brad Rose aka The North Sea et le trio Rameses III, qui voit la structure anglaise s’intéresser à d’autres univers musicaux. Ce disque fait de deux longs titres, déjà paru en cdr sur le label finlandais 267 Lättäjjää, est réédité ici accompagné d’un remix de Xela (gérant de la maison TYpe).

Night Of The Ankou est une album ambiant dronique aux accents psychédéliques, qui évoque certaine productions récentes de chez Kranky. Sur Death Of The Ankou, des nappes vibrantes s’épanchent longuement, et sont agrémentées de flûtes, grelots et autres arrangements orientalisants, résolument tournés vers Katmandou. Puis le morceau découvre une ambiante plus sobre et plus éthérée. Night Blossoms Written In Sanskrit s’insrit dans une veine plus pop et shoegaze, mais pas forcément moins classique. Le remix de Xela reprend l’Ankou là où il s’était arrêté (aux portes du Tibet) pour en extraire une version élaguée, simplifiée, où l’émotion est plus brute que sur l’original, car moins diluée dans l’encens et le feu de camp.

Autres Directions

The aural equivalent of gazing across a stormy midnight ocean, the newest release on Type comes from The North Sea & Rameses III - with 'Night Of The Ankou' a long-distance collaboration that provokes unflinching comparisons with Slowdive, Deaf Center and all manner of soft-footed troubadours. Utterly vast in a manner that shows no embarrassment with the more epic end of prog, 'Night Of The Ankou' opens through the wheezing tones of 'Death Of The Ankou', wherein London's Rameses III and The North Sea (aka Digitalis boss Brad Rose) build an ambient masterpiece from an encroaching batch of elements that are simultaneously calming yet utterly beguiling. Recalling the work of Poppl Vuh and Stars of the Lid, 'Death...' lulls the spirit through Eastern elements that are hypnotic without ever losing their focus - sucking your attention in deep, then keeping it there through just the right amount of instrumental bliss. Like having your emotions moulded around a sweetly satisfying core, the next piece is just as arresting - with 'Night Blossoms Written In Sanskrit' changing its focus marginally, ushering in shoe-gaze comparisons through triumphant arrangements and blissful soundscapes. Despite both clocking in at nearly twenty-minutes each, neither stay a second past their welcome - coaxing filaments of rimy instrumental nourishment from the fibrous elements on show. If that weren't enough, Type boss Xela has also turned up for a friable remix, contributing 'Return Of The Ankou' and in doing so topping off an already affecting record with a batch of oven-fresh drones and couched harp. Psychedelic, epic and genuinely warming, 'Night Of The Ankou' is a gem that won't need polishing.
Boomkat

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Koen Holtkamp - Field Rituals (Type Records, 2008)

1 Half Light (2:44)
2 Sky Flowers (14:09)
3 Bee Change (1:42)
4 Bear Bell (9:10)
5 Walker (4:45)
6 You Mean The World To Me (2:41)
7 Night Swimmer (5:17)
8 Haus Und Spirale Im Regen (15:09)

Ces spirales de guitare acoustique traitée aidant, le court et inaugural Half light est là pour nous rappeler que le berceau originel du New-Yorkais Koen Holtkamp n’est autre que Mountains. On retrouve ici ce goût immodéré pour les motifs de guitare à la tonalité pastorale, retouchés à l’outil informatique, mêlés à des samples naturalistes et une kyrielle de sources acoustiques numériquement remaniées. Sur près de 15 minutes, Sky flowers illustre parfaitement ce propos, dans un registre nécessairement onirique et rêveur, où les guitares se délitent et s’étirent sur fond de gazouillis enfantins.
Si l’on décèle ci et là des éléments qui trahissent nettement son implication dans le génial duo épris de nature, on note par ailleurs que l’héritage de Brian Eno pèse dans la fondation de ces paysages sonores. Bear bell, par exemple, explore une veine plus ambient, où les notes de guitare se font, sinon absentes, beaucoup plus éparses, comme perdues dans cette immense étendue de nappes où harmonica et mélodica tirent leur épingle du jeu. Walker, parcouru de samples signes d’une urbanisation massive et survolés du violon(celle) ténu de Jesse Peterson, convoque l’ambient orchestrale de Stars of the Lid. Ensuite, quelques notes perlées et gouttes de piano sous delay viennent choire sur le tapis oscillant de You mean the world to me, tandis que la contribution vocale de Scott Mou métamorphose Night swimmer en un rendez-vous entre Anthony Harding de July Skies (la voix) et les traitements aquatiques de RF. Résolument ambient, le caudal Haus und spirale um regen superpose 15 minutes durant, une abondance de scintillements avec d’épais drones lâchés par l’harmonium de Ben Owen qui laisseront assurément l’esprit de l’auditeur engourdi.
(8.0)
Sébastien Radiguet, Onde Fixe

Koen Holtkamp, one half of the bliss-inducing Mountains, has two solo records to his credit as Aero on the Apestaartje record label he started in 1998, but he hasn’t aligned a project with his given name until now, a decade into his career as one of the avant-garde’s more sublime performers. One can understand the decision after listening to the truly radiant Field Rituals. You don‘t let nicknames take credit for albums of this caliber.

Opening amid a flange-damaged guitar chords ("Half Light") and ending on a bed of whirling crystals ("Haus und spirale im regen"), Field Rituals‘ humming expanse of scintillating flux is pierced by leviathans of ice that crest and dip back into the mineral shimmer. These wrinkles might prevent your standard supine drift, but there’s enough atmospherics and acoustics that we wouldn’t rule one out. His headphone daze lingers, lustrous and evanescent.

As its title suggests, Field Rituals transforms the potentially mundane into the mystical. Raw "field" recordings and other organic components – such as the schoolyard cries and chatter of "Sky Flowers,” snippets of pattering feet and rustled objects throughout – become spectral signals leaking from cracks in the memory bank or the liminal edges of consciousness. The subaquatic resonances of "Night Swimmer" seem to buoy the ghost of Arthur Russell, turning the wordless pleas into a tranquilized blur. “Bear Bell,” a glistening marsh of radioactive fluorescence, comes limned with the same electric slipstream of phased throb that once fixated J. Spaceman.

Throughout, Field Rituals mixes soil and plasma, the rattle and creaks of handiwork with astral filaments and geodesic drones. Holtkamp’s guitars have a percussive ring – chattering, chiming, switching between metal, glass and wood – or they’re dissolved into analgesic billows of carbonated ointment. He, thankfully, never finds it necessary to challenge his audience with shards of hiss or distortion, to ensure that these bows of honeycombed incandescence aren’t perceived as laserium soundtracks. Holtkamp’s just comfortable being comforting, so bask in the balmy glow.

Bernardo Rondeau, Dusted Magazine

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Peter Broderick - Float (Type Records, 2007)

A Snowflake (3:25)
Floating/Sinking (4:08)
A Glacier (3:17)
A Simple Reminder (1:15)
Stopping On The Broadway Bridge (7:28)
Another Glacier (3:51)
Something Has Changed (2:23)
Broken Patterns (3:32)
An Ending (4:29)
A Beginning (1:57)

L'an passé, à la demande des danois d'Efterklang qui avaient formulé le souhait de le voir arpenter les routes avec eux, le jeune Peter Broderick a plaqué Portland pour Copenhague. Et pour l'avoir aperçu et apprécié sur scène à l'occasion de cette tournée commune, l'annonce d'un album laissait augurer de belles choses dans la sphère largement fréquentée du néo-classique.
Se situant dans le prolongement direct d'un single et d'un mini-album annonciateurs, Float fait montre d'une unité de ton liée d'une part à la récurrence de thèmes mélodiques, d'autre part à l'omniprésence de cordes (piano, violon et violoncelle pour l'essentiel) qui s'expriment dans un vocabulaire et une grammaire que l'on croyait jusqu'alors être l'exclusivité de Sylvain Chauveau ou Max Richter.
Comme chez ces maîtres du genre, l'humeur générale est à la mélancolie contemplative, la surcharge sonore est prohibée, ce qui n'empêche nullement aux cordes maîtresses d'accueillir des voix (les intonations du double-mixte vocal sur A glacier et Another glacier ne sont pas sans évoquer The Dead Texan), de s'acoquiner de quelques triturages numériques, de prendre de l'étoffe de manière ascensionnelle sous l'impulsion d'une batterie et d'un banjo (Broken patterns), ou de venir s'enrichir d'un supplément de matière organique sous la forme d'une instrumentation discrète et variée (célesta, Theremin, scie musicale, banjo, etc...). Une palette aux variations subtiles que la longue pièce centrale Stopping on the Broadway bridge pourrait à elle seule résumer, avec ses pensées évasives de piano automnal momentanément interrompues par un tandem de drones et sostenuto de cordes émaillé d'une touche de banjo et célesta.
Même si Float se situe un cran en deçà des oeuvres du grand Max, il constitue la preuve irréfutable d'une belle maîtrise du sujet de la part de son auteur (surtout si l'on prend en ligne de compte ses seulement 21 ans).
(8.5)
Sébastien Radiguet, Ondefixe


After a bit of a break the Type label return with this long awaited album from the enigmatic Peter Broderick, an artist who has already been courted by more high profile labels than we care to mention. By the time you'll have finished playing through this incredible album once you'll already feel like you've somehow known this music all your life. Broderick has an inimitable ability to score work that's both technically complex and effortlessly archetypal, so much so that listening to it now im convinced I've heard this music in films, adverts, documentaries - I just can't place exactly where or when. Piano, violins, cello, drums, banjo and guitar take centre stage, painting intimate pictures with that same widescreen quality that so many of you have loved about the likes of Max Richter, Johan Johannsson, Harold Budd, Alberto Iglesias or Michael Nyman - but Broderick makes more than just a pretty sound, his composition barely believable for a man of his age (incredibly, this guy is just 21 years old), his arrangements handled with a kind of masterly self assurance that's so often lacking with this sort of music. There's enough substance to offset the pastoral beauty of the music, enough uncertainty to keep proceedings from turning to unbridled romance - Broderick's music is multi-faceted, deep and utterly unforgettable. We honestly reckon this album is nothing short of a masterpiece, grab yourself one of these and make your life a tiny bit better...

Boomkat

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Deaf Center - Pale Ravine (Type, 2005)

1		Lobby (3:01)
2		Thread (3:39)
3		White Lake (6:35)
4		Path To Lucy (4:54)
5		Stone Beacon (3:29)
6		Weir (6:34)
7		Loft (4:15)
8		Thunder Night (4:28)
9		Lamp Mien (3:58)
10		The Clearing (4:13)
11		Fog Animal (4:24)
12		Eloy (2:15)

It's no surprise that the first track on the debut full-length from Deaf Center is entitled "Lobby." Pale Ravine seems to take a lot of influences from the theater, whether it be cinema itself, or the dark and sometimes dusty confines of the old buildings themselves. Following on the heels of last years Neon City EP, the Norwegian duo mixes field recordings with processing and actual played instrumentation (mostly strings and piano) to create dark ambient music that sounds like a cross between Max Richter and David Lynch.

The aforementioned "Lobby" sets the pace gradually, mixing swirls of strings and synths into sort of an amorphous cloud of sound from which only subtle heaves escape. "Thread" follows and is even more crushing, dropping super-low programming under more cinematic swells of strings and some manipulated rustling that sounds like the crumpling of paper magnified to become an overwhelming insect. "White Lake" opens things up ever so slightly, letting expressive piano melodies trickle down over a precise plucked bass and quieter strings and field recordings that open up in places to let everything breath.

Some tracks set the mood even more by using a specific field recording. "The Clearing" recalls the title by using what sounds like a recording from nearby a swamp, but as the sound of flies enters and the music gets more creepy, you wonder if the group is trying to convince you that a dead body is laying nearby. "Loft" compresses space by mixing some woody scrapes and shuffles, as if the listener is blind and stumbling around in a small room, haunted by foreboding music and the things you cannot see.

In places, the swells of strings and nebulous overall atmosphere of the disc sort of blend together, and while the sounds are always fairly intriguing, the group seems to make a stronger case when they have a bit more development to hang on. The gorgeous "Stone Beacon" is a perfect example, blending melodramatic orchestral bleeds with melancholy piano and some shuffling feet in grass feet field recording. Pale Ravine is definitely soundtrack style music, but it works the best when it nudges you just slightly in a particular direction. Fans of the aforementioned or Johann Johannsson take note, this is some nice stuff.

Almost Cool Music Reviews

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