Cinchel – A House Once Lived That Never Was (self released, 2014)

cinchel - A House Once Lived That Never Was album cover
Cinchel – Falling Asleep In The Big Blanket, Waking Up With snow Falling Outside The Bedroom Window (self released)
– falling asleep in the big blanket waking up with snow falling outside the bedroom window.mp3]  

Chicago’s Cinchel (aka Jason Shanley) has been slowly but steadily releasing super solid guitar drone records for the past few years, flying a bit under the radar for reasons unknown because this dude consistently knocks it out of the park and his newest release is no different. A House Once Lived That Never Was is like an hour and a half or something (according to my quick & sloppy math) and it’s all killer no filler tender ambient that’s as organic as Mountains used to be and as heartfelt as Andrew Weathers, taking a guitar and a tape delay and coaxing out the softest most delicate sounds, looped & dusty, droned & drifty, like chilling in a creaky house during a summer rain and listening to the air come alive, hypnotic strumming lulling you to a dreamland of pure perfection, this is absolutely wonderful stuff, and it comes with a 25 page color zine of photos taken by Shanley and his wife Kirstie (she’s really good). The digital version is out now (which includes a PDF of the zine) and the physical version will be out late May/early June.

AGB Radio (April 14, 2014)

Played lotsa stuff you can find for free on Bandcamp (Jute Gyte, Sádon, Le B’OO-Ray, Ak’chamel…)
 

AGB Radio 2014/04/14

/Background music/ J. Spaceman & Kid Millions – Han (from Live At Le Poisson Rouge)
Shrine – Disintegration Of An Ego (from Nihil)
Strom Noir – All Souls (Will Be Born Again) (from Urban Blues)
Goliad – Turn Up (from Inevitability)
Fleshpress – Each Eye Holes The Sky (from Tearing Skyholes)
The Kevin Costner Suicide Pact – I Don’t Believe Me (from Container Ship)
Lockbox – Maximum Kiss (from Prince Soul Grenade)
Sádon – Nameless Soul (from Fire)
Le B’OO-Ray – To Be Twice Put In Jeopardy (from V)
Randall McClellan – Mountain Frangrance (from The Healing Music Of Rana)
Jute Gyte – Endless Moths Swarming (from Vast Chains)
Ak’chamel, The Giver Of Illness – Head Of Acantun, Talking Stone (from Fucking With Spirits)
Damian Valles – Two (from Extrusions)

Alex Cobb – Marigold And Cable (Shelter Press, 2014)

alex cobb - marigold and cable album cover
Alex Cobb – Marine Layer (Shelter Press)

 

After shedding the Taiga Remains moniker and debuting the supreme Passage To Morning in 2012 under his own name on Students Of Decay (the label Cobb runs), Alex has returned with his second full length under his new name and it’s a motherfucking champion of tender drone. This dude conjures next level sounds out of his guitar à la Stars Of The Lid, super soft and precise tonal shifts that buy cialis wholesale exude warmth & emotion, and it’s all done live sans synths, heavenly minimalism subtly penetrating the dark crusty core of your heart that’s reserved for only the most intimate of moments, majestic & goddamn glorious without being overbearing or overwhelming, this is a perfectly balanced reserved euphoria, organically turning the surrounding sterile atmosphere into a peaceful familiarity. Best of the fucking best. Only 500 copies from one of my new favorites, Shelter Press.

Intro To Drone

Intro To Drone for DEBCON 1

“Dazzle Fox” by Andrew Sempere

 
My pal Deb, who you may remember from running the Zed Equals Zee music/tech blog, or the current Daily Idioms thing, decided to throw a conference for her birthday (and called it DEBCON 1), letting all of her multi-talented friends give short talks about an insanely wide variety of topics. So, I’ll be talking about drone, obviously. That’s where this mix came from.

Deb also asked me to put together some drone to play at DEBCON, and I figured this would be a good opportunity to do a chronology of sorts of the genre starting with its introduction to the Western contemporary music world in the ’60s up to the current crop of bad dudes. So here’s the background on this mix. I tried to go for more drone than ambient, and I generally opted for longer songs. I tried to go with “classics” but since you can’t really have a new classic, the later years are more of my favorite well known(ish) stuff. I tried to keep the spacing more or less equal between the decades and was pleased with a nice round number of 20 songs. I included the year of composition or recording when possible but otherwise the year is the release date of the record. I did some equalizing of the tracks but since it’s almost 7 hours (1GB) of drone, I didn’t have time to listen to the whole thing again afterwards, so please let me know if there’s any crazy shit going on volume-wise (side note: Radigue’s piece is on the low side, but it’s maxed out with no clipping so just dig deep and zone in).

Thanks and enjoy.
 

Download Intro To Drone for DEBCON 1

UPDATE: Someone mentioned having trouble unzipping the file, so here’s a link to a folder with the contents of the zip (just 1 mp3, a text tracklist, and the artwork)
 
1. Tony Conrad – Early Minimalism: June 1965 (Part 1) (from Early Minimalism Volume One, 1965)
2. Terry Riley – Untitled Organ (from Reed Streams, 1966)
3. Eliane Radigue – Onward 9,5 (from Vice Versa, Etc…, 1970)
4. La Monte Young & Marian Zazeela – 13 | 73 5:35 – 6:14:03 PM NYC (from Dream House 78′ 17″, 1973)
5. Brian Eno – Discreet Music (from Discreet Music, 1975)
6. Yoshi Wada – Bagpipe (from Lament For The Rise And Fall Of The Elephantine Crocodile, 1981)
7. Pauline Oliveros – Horse Sings From Cloud (from Accordion & Voice, 1982)
8. Phill Niblock – Ten Auras (from A Young Person’s Guide To Phill Niblock, 1994)
9. Windy & Carl – Antarctica (from Antarctica (Bliss Out Vol. 2), 1997)
10. Stars Of The Lid – Austin Texas Mental Hospital: Part 2 (from The Tired Sounds Of Stars Of The Lid, 2001)
11. Charlemagne Palestine – 2 (from Music For Big Ears, 2000)
12. William Basinski – Disintegration Loop 4 (from Disintegration Loops III, 2003)
13. Tim Hecker – Incurably Optimistic (from Mirages, 2004)
14. Mountains – Hundred Acre (from Sewn, 2006)
15. Fennesz – Happy Audio (from Endless Summer, 2001)
16. Sun Circle – Untitled 1 (from Sun Circle, 2007)
17. Deceh – Untitled 1 (from Deceh, 2009)
18. Kyle Bobby Dunn – Movement For The Completely Fucked (from Ways Of Meaning, 2011)
19. Nicholas Szczepanik – Untitled 2 (from The Truth Of Transience, 2012)
20. Eluvium – Memory Print Boutique (from Catalin, 2014)

Symbol – Online Architecture (Holodeck / Light Lodge, 2014)

symbol - online architecture album cover
Symbol – Shadow Harvesting (Holodeck / Light Lodge)

 

Christopher Royal King of This Will Destroy You exorcising his inner psyche with this solo debut as Symbol. On the surface this could be just another synth record, a drop in the overflowing barrel of New Agey revival, but King takes this shit to the next level, if only due to the additional instruments he brings to the table, he’s got harmonium (which is an instant win obviously), singing bowls, hammered dulcimer, bowed cymbals, tape manipulation (another “fuck yes”), and guitar, all processed to heaven and back, giving this gorgeous beast a rare richness, full blown bliss that’s overworked and overdone to perfection, simple subtle drones that drift like dust in the sun, burnt static & soaring melodies opening new doors in your mind, falling apart as soon as you grab ahold of it, euphoric but not overwhelming, truly fantastic work that sounds all the better on wax.

AGB Radio (April 7, 2014)

Action packed drone set.

 
AGB Radio 2014/04/07

/Background music/ WWC – Wingspan (from Alienself)
M. Sage – Gulls Over Landfill Caldera (from A Singular Continent)
Otavan Veret – I (from Otavan Veret)
Cvbe Ov Falsehood – Upon The Stillness, Manifest (from II)
Godseye – The Drunken Boat (from A Season In Hell)
Morgan Evans-Weiler – Drone (from Refrained Beams)
Hellvete – Ode II (C-221) (from Ode)
Ambarchi, O’Malley, Dunn – Ebony Pagoda (from Shade Themes From Kairos)

Questions For Andrew Weathers

andrew weathers interview

Photo credit: Andrew Marino

Americana droner/guitar whisperer Andrew Weathers, who’s made some truly killer fucking records (some of which have made it to my Top 10 Drone list) and co-runs Full Spectrum Records with Andrew Marino, took some time and answered these questions for me. Super kind of him. He’s got a couple upcoming records, One Day We’ll Find The Valley on Lifelike Family and a split tape with Wes Tirey coming on Scissor Tail Editions, so definitely keep an eye out for those. And if this dude is new to you, start here and try not to fall too far down the hole.

 

What is the best way to die?
Probably of Natural Causes, surrounded by loved ones.

How do you think you’ll die?
Recently I was driving around the mountains in Humboldt County with my partner & I said
“I have a feeling that this is how I’m going to die, driving over one of these ledges.” But
I’m just very afraid of heights.

What makes you happy?
Work, hanging out with my friends and family, being in transit, a good anecdote, eating,
coffee in the AM

How can you die happy?
At the end of my life, if I tried to be good to be people, did as much good work as
possible, & maintained a certain level of integrity while doing it, I’ll be happy.

How close have you come to death?
I’ve been pretty lucky so far, I’ve not come all that close to death. Not counting the very
real every day dangers of being a pedestrian or driving a car, the closest I’ve felt was one
night in Oakland. I was waiting in line at the grocery store with my friend Hannah to buy
some beer & a frozen pizza; three men with masks & guns came in & demanded the
money from the tellers. Hannah & I ducked & walked towards the back of the store.
Everyone in the shop hid in the loading dock until they left, I was on hold with the Oakland
PD for about ten minutes before I talked to anyone. Nobody was hurt, but we were a little
fried after that.

What does kindness mean to you?
Being welcoming & helpful without expectation. Always working on this one.

Where do you find love?
There’s infinite love in finite existence.

When were you most afraid?
I either don’t remember a lot of fear in my life, or there just hasn’t been much. I felt intense
fear most recently on the cusp of mounting a pretty large production for my day job. There
was a lot of people’s time & money put into it & it’s my job to make sure that it went well. That is fucking heavy.

One summer I was in Chicago eating lunch next to the water with my friends during one
of the Andrew Weathers Ensemble tours. All of a sudden there was a massive explosion
followed by gunfire. I thought for sure this was some sort of attack & we were through. I
reached for my phone to call my folks, we were all kind of losing it. Turns out they were
filming the third Transformers movie. The entire city of Chicago was in on it but we
weren’t.

How do you listen to music?
In my car, from my laptop in the mornings, sometimes while cooking or at work. After a
particularly difficult day, I’ll listen to pop punk in headphones on the train. I often feel like
I’m not a devoted enough music listener.

Chester Hawkins – Semisolids (Intangible Arts,2014)

chester hawkins - semisolids album cover
Chester Hawkins – Iodine (Intangible Arts)

 

DC noise vet Chester Hawkins has shed his long running previous project, Blue Sausage Infant, and starts fresh with his regular name. With the new/old name comes a newish sound, so if you’re a fan of the BSI stuff you’ll still most certainly dig this, the industrial creep & wonderfully bizarre factors are still plentiful, lots of oozing synth, nauseating wobble, and piercing squelches, but also deep grooves running throughout, a heavenly hypno-buzz that’s a bit transcendent, taking cues from psychedelic krautrock and cosmic jammers, a killer retro-futuristic vibe that’s just as perfect for a horror sci-fi score as it is for freaky party times, a dark & dangerous mind eraser record. Dude definitely leveled up with the name change. Excellent fucking work.

Inventions – Inventions (Temporary Residence, 2014)

LP_Jacket_RE11183
Inventions – Entity (Temporary Residence)

 

First of all, Matthew Cooper aka Eluvium is one half of this new project so it’s already the best thing ever. The other dude is Mark Smith, guitarist from Explosions In The Sky, so yup, definitely 100% the best thing ever. It sounds kinda like what you’d expect, there’s moments where it literally sounds like those clean EITS guitars on top of some premium Eluvium drone, and that’s fucking great and it would be perfectly satisfying if that’s all it was, but it’s sooo much more. These two come up with something familiar but unique, taking their respective talents and washing it in a blissed drone pop that feels way better that you’d ever imagine it could, like magic space dust swirling in slow motion, with subtle mini-crescendos, unexpected rhythmic grooves, and wordless soothing vocals, this is the golden shimmer on top of clouded water, the score to the dreams you hope for every night, giving you the feeling that yeah maybe everything is ok, at least for the duration of the record. Pure fucking excellence. This one has been pretty much glued to my turntable for the past few weeks. Couldn’t love it any more.

AGB Radio (March 31, 2014)

Saved the best for last.

 
AGB Radio 2014/03/31

/Background music/ Sun Araw – Remedial Ventilation (from Belomancie)
Reverberant Evenings – Freezing Last Lights (from After The Silence)
The Declining Winter – The Dismal Endless Gray (from Lost Songs)
Magic Eye – Holy (from Babylon)
Koenraad Ecker – Stuffed Men (from Ill Fares The Land)
Koen Holtkamp – Between Visible Things (from Motion)
Solipsism & Nacht Plank – Imperfect Queen (from The Cerenarian Sea)
Knit Prism – Untitled (Side A) (from Pace)
Andrew Kirschner – Side A (Part 2) (from Patient)
Janek Schaefer – Radio 105 FM (from Lay-By Lullaby)
Stefan Jaworzyn – I Am Not Going To Make This Mistake Again (from Drained Of Connotation)
Gunnar Haslam – Fleuve (from Porte Maillot)
Radere – Good Evening, Ghosts (Sun Hammer Version) (from Repurpose (Two))
Luis Pérez – Suite Al Culto Solar – Ketzalkoatl Yauh Miktlan (from Ipan In Xiktli Metzli, México Mágico Cósmico, En El Ombligo De La Luna)

Saåad – Deep/Float (Hands In The Dark, 2014)

saaad - deep-float album cover
Saåad – New Helicon (Hands In The Dark)
– New Helicon.mp3]  

Pure fucking magic right here. Ever since that 3-way collab with Saåad, EUS, and Postdrome from a few years back, I’ve been keeping an eye on all of those guys, and everything they’ve done has been stellar, and Deep/Float, Saåad’s vinyl debut, is no different. Truly magnificent dark drone that soars and heaves, bittersweet & melancholic doesn’t even crack the surface here, this penetrates deep in the core of your soul and shows you things you didn’t know you could feel, steady and slow moving but it feels like every passing moment is a climax, the point just before you can’t take it anymore and the world collapses under the weight of life, both minimal and overwhelming, this is utterly fucking gorgeous and will bring even the strongest to tears. These two Toulouse dudes are at the top of the drone chain with this one. Out next month, only 300 copies, you can do this.

Your Favorite Record Shops

me at the record exchange

Me at The Record Exchange, my number one. Credit: my pal Amy

 

I’ve been doing a bit of research, looking for some of the coolest record shops in America. Reason being, I’m planning a cross country road trip at some unknown point in the future and I’d like to hit up some sweet record shops along the way. The problem is I only know what’s around me, and anytime I see a “best of” or whatever it’s always bloated with places like Amoeba in LA or Shangri-La in Memphis. Not that I’m not interested in those places, I most certainly am, but I’m more looking for the smaller, weirder shops, like Stormy Records in Dearborn, MI or the newly minted Hanson Records in Oberlin, OH. I know about those places because they’re run by artists I’m a fan on, so they’re already on my radar. So here’s where you come in!

First off, this isn’t just about me looking for places to hit up. I actually buy cialis online from canada thought it’d be a good idea to have a list like this, maybe something other people could make use of. So I’m not asking you to omit places like Amoeba. If that’s your favorite place to dig for records, awesome, include it and let us know why. But you know, the weirder the better, that’s the general goal of this, to let other people know about the little places, the holes in walls.

No rules here. There’s no required fields (you don’t even need to share why you like it). You can add however many stores you like (but one at a time please). Don’t worry about duplicates (knowing a shitton of people love Redscroll in CT would be awesome). They don’t have to be in the US. There’s no deadline. The responses will be publicly viewable, and depending on how it goes, I might do something with the data afterwards.

THANKS x1000

Here’s a spreadsheet of the responses.
 

AGB Radio (March 24, 2014)

The upcoming Saåad record is a fuckin doozy. Keep an eye out.
 

AGB Radio 2014/03/24

/Background music/ John Chantler – For Nuno (from Automatic Music, Volume II)
Ignatz & Harris Newman – I Will Bring You Buzzard Meat (from Bring You Buzzard Meat)
Ricardo Donoso – Affirmation (Paul Jebanasam Remix) (from Iron/Verse Remixes)
The Skull Defekts – King Of Misinformation (from Dances In Dreams Of The Known Unknown)
Jackie McDowell – Golden Fields (From Baptisia)
Love Cult Take Druss – Death Forever (from Yr Problems)
Pan Sonic – 7’06” (from Oksastus)
Angelo Harmsworth – Bulb II (from Fluxus Rainbow)
Bo Anders Persson – Invention I (from Love Is Here To Stay)
Symbol – Tracer (from Online Architecture)
D/P/I – WATCHYR.BACK3 (from 08.DD.15)
Talons’ – Part 2 (from MIDI Pillow)
Russell Haswell – Incalculable Harm (from 37 Minute Workout)
Tate Eskew – Egaster (from Oldowan)
Jóhann Jóhannsson – It’s Not Your Fault (from McCanick)
Diane Cluck – Heartloose (from Boneset)
Moss Garden – Strange Terrain (from In The Silence Of The Subconscious)
M. Sage – Red Dwarf In E (from Ceiling (Acoutic))
Saåad – Giant Mouth (from Deep/Float)

Jackie McDowell – Baptisia (Hairy Spider Legs, 2014)

jackie-mcdowell-baptisia-album-cover
Jackie McDowell – Apogee And Perigee (Hairy Spider Legs)
McDowell – Apogee and Perigee.mp3]  

Inez Lightfoot is no more. But the powerful alchemist behind Inez Lightfoot, Jackie McDowell, continues on with her regular name, definitely something a lot of artists seem to be doing lately. Not judging or anything, just observing. For posterity’s sake. You know. Anyway, Baptisia is McDowell’s first record under this name, and it’s a fuckin winner. It’s some sort of folk drone pop that’s heavy on the strange & mystic and steeped with buzzing organ hum, which instantly makes me weak in the knees. This has a deep Zomes vibe, especially after that last record with Hanna Olivegren spicing things up with vocals, and I fucking love Zomes so McDowell is already batting a thousand. This record is just a total fuckin burner, with her beautifully distinct voice, singing somber songs rooted in the pagan world, an occasional acoustic guitar, violin, or drum machine, and a dash of field recordings, together creating a haunting atmosphere out of otherworldly tantras, McDowell’s role is enchanting shaman, conjuring hypnotizing sounds that you’d hear while lost in the woods, the drone set to infinity and McDowell floating along with it in perfect harmony, this is a beautiful fuckin record, weird & magical in all the right ways, and it fits in perfectly with Hairy Spider Legs’ oeuvre. Comes out next month, preorders are up so put yours in now and don’t worry about missing out.