Constellation new release | Colin Stetson – New History Warfare Vol. 3: To See More Light

Colin Stetson – New History Warfare Vol. 3: To See More Light

Released on Constellation in the UK/EU 29 April 2013

Colin Stetson established himself as an intensely original solo composer and performer in 2011 with the release of the widely acclaimed New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges. Judges ended up on countless year-end lists and emphatically proved that Stetson’s approach to solo saxophone transcends niche or genre; a unique and emotionally resonant instrumental music with influences as wide-ranging as jazz, metal, pop, soul, drone, industrial, minimalism, electro-acoustic and modern contemporary.

Remarkably, Stetson channels these manifold musical strains into a singularly identifiable and personal sound as a polyphonic soloist who doesn’t rely on looping/layering or multi-track/overdubs technologies. Anyone who has seen Stetson in solo performance can attest to the stunning physicality of his circular-breathing technique and capacity to produce a seemingly impossible palate of multiple voicings simultaneously in real time – making his already beautiful and evocative compositions all the more enrapturing and viscerally human.

New History Warfare Vol. 3: To See More Light is the final installment in a trilogy of solo albums and is Stetson’s most ambitious song cycle to date, again recorded live in single takes with a wide array of microphone positions and again mixed by groundbreaking producer Ben Frost. Colin’s membership in Bon Iver over the past two years has also led to vocal contributions from Justin Vernon for this record, who appears on four songs, with a diverse approach on each, and whose voice constitutes the only overdubbing on the album.

The record’s 15-minute centerpiece, title track “To See More Light”, is the longest piece Stetson has yet recorded and possibly the heaviest: a tour de force of swirling arpeggiation, continuous breathing, pumping valves and vocalizations through the reed of the horn that gives way to a tremendous, screaming, sea-sawing dirge through the song’s final movement. This latter stretch conjures a sort of saxophonic sludge metal, and the album’s heaviosity references other sub-genres of metal as well, most notably in the hardcore blast of “Brute” and the ambient grindcore throb of “Hunted”. In other instances, the album is soulful and even hymnal, especially where Vernon’s vocals play a lead role: opener “And In Truth” (featuring Vernon’s most instantly recognisable contribution, of massed, multi-tracked harmonies), the cover of Washington Phillips’ gospel tune “What Are They Doing In Heaven Today”, and “Who the waves are roaring for” where Vernon delivers some of the more tender and honest vocal performances we’ve heard from him in any context.

New History Warfare Vol. 3: To See More Light is the most cohesive and fully realized of Stetson’s solo albums to date. It should reliably stand as the apotheosis of the New History Warfare trilogy, and certainly signals the full flourishing of Stetson’s unique talents as both composer and performer, pressing his arsenal of virtuosic techniques into the service of vivid, impassioned and conceptually astute songcraft.

Sample album track “High Above A Grey Green Sea below” on the Constellation website.

EU TOUR DATES:

03.01.13	Copenhagen, DK	Jazz House Copenhagen
03.02.13	Hasselt, BE	Cultuurcentrum Hasselt
03.03.13	Vendome, FR	Chapelle St. Jacques
03.05.13	Metz, FR	Caveau des Trinitaires
03.06.13	Kortrijk, BE	De Kreun
03.07.13	Paris, FR	Cité de la musique
03.08.13	Amsterdam, NL	Muziekgebouw aan´t IJ- main hall
03.09.13	Stavanger, NO	Tou Scene/Maskinhallen
03.10.13	Bergen, NO	TBA
03.12.13	Luxembourg, LU	Carré Rotondes
03.13.13	Marostica, IT	Panic Jazz Club
03.14.13	Venezia, IT	TBA
03.15.13	Reykjavik, IS	TBA

 

 

Boduf Songs shares stunning self-made stop motion animation video & announces details of CD release

Mat Sweet aka Boduf Songs today unveils this stunning new stop motion animation video for the track ‘Song To Keep Me Still’ which he painstakingly created himself over a period of time and, according to Mat, nearly drove himself insane in the process.

The results are absolutely astounding, please feast your eyes on this work of art and do not hesitate to spread the good word about it…

 

The LP version of the album, Burnt Up On Re Entry will be released in North America via Southern Records on Tuesday 29 January. This deluxe and heavyweight 180g version of the album comes in a gatefold sleeve, with three sides of music and the fourth side featuring a gorgeous etching. This really is a thing of great beauty.

There will also be a CD version of the record released on Southern on 26 February.

Just announced…The Secret UK/EU tour dates with Deafheaven

Fresh from their tour with Converge, Touch Amore and A Storm Of Light, and proving to be quite the unstoppable force, The Secret return for a UK/EU tour with Deafheaven.

TOUR DATES JUST ANNOUNCED…

18.04.13 Germany Karlsruhe @ Stadtmitte

19.04.13 Belgium Durbuy @ Durbuy Rock Fest

20.04.13 France Rouen @ 106

21.04.13 France Paris @ Le Fleche D’or

23.04.13 Germany München @ Feierwerk

24.04.13 Italy Bologna @ Freakout

25.04.13 Italy Milano @ Lo Fi Club

27.04.13 Hungary Budapest @ Dürer Kert

29.04.13 Germany Berlin @ Magnet

30.04.13 Denmark Lyngby @ Templet

02.05.13 Sweden Stockholm @ IOGT-huset i Skarpnäck

04.05.13 Holland Arnhem @ Willemeen

06.05.13 UK Nottingham @ Rock City Basement

07.05.13 UK Glasgow @ Ivory Blacks

08.05.13 UK Leeds @ The Library

09.05.13 UK London @ O2 Academy Islington

10.05.13 Germany Köln @ MTC

 

We may have survived the apocalypse but this hateful act are still setting out to attack the planet with their latest LP and onslaught of live shows.

Since 2003 The Secret has waged musical warfare with their incendiary brew of blasting, metallic hatred, their songs growing sonically more caustic and lyrically more impatient with the human race with each studio offering. The band combines elements of crust/grind, primitive black metal, dark soundscapes and monolithic riffs to take the listener by the hand through a hallucinated trip towards a foggy and yet invisible tomorrow.

The Secret’s attack is more corrosive and convincing than ever on the newly completed Agnus Dei. As with their third album Solve Et Coagula, the new opus was recorded by Kurt Ballou (High on Fire, Converge, Black Breath) at Godcity Studios, resulting in a blasphemous titan that is without question their heaviest, and most filthy crust-ridden recording to date. Swelling with thirteen unstoppable new anthems in under forty-five minutes, Angus Dei proves itself to be the most hateful release from this killing machine to date, as every album in their discography has.

The band will continue to pulverize audiences with their unstoppable live show in support of Agnus Dei throughout 2013 – stay tuned for more updates in the coming weeks.

 

Hear Benoit Pioulard’s cavernous & spiritual ‘Margin’ from the new album Hymnal

Hymnal is the fourth Kranky album by Thomas Meluch under his musical alias Benoit Pioulard, following Précis (2006), Temper (2008) and Lasted (2010).

Today we invite you to listen to and share this cavernous and spiritual album track ‘Margin’ via Kranky’s soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/kranky/benoit-pioulard-margin

MORE ABOUT HYMNAL…

It was written and recorded throughout a year spent in southeastern England and on the European mainland, during which the ubiquity of religious iconography and grandiose cathedrals became an unexpected muse.

Raised as a Catholic but never especially pious, Meluch drew on this aspect of social history as the basis for Hymnalʼs 12 chapters. He notes a particular preoccupation with the ways that faith offers a sense of solace and belonging in an existence that inherently provides none, framed in a context of tradition, ritual and the notion of the eternal.

Themes aside, Hymnal contains some of Meluchʼs most expansive instrumental works (“Knell”, “Gospel”) and fully realized pop compositions (“Hawkeye”, “Reliquary”, “Margin”), making for a rich and dynamic long-playing arc. Also featured are string arrangements by Kranky label mate Felix and guitar work from ambient maestro Kyle Bobby Dunn.

Hymnal will be released on 4 March 2013.

Additional notes for editorial: The albumʼs cover depicts the dessicated interior of a centuries-old tree on the estate of surrealist Edward James in West Sussex; it was felled be an invasive, parasitic black fungus while still alive and verdant.

UPCOMING TOUR DATES…

03/07 at Columbia City Theater [Seattle] w/ Tiny Vipers

03/10 at Holocene [Portland]

03/12 at Hemlock Tavern [San Francisco] w/ Young Moon

03/14 at Human Resources [Los Angeles] w/ Sean Mccann

03/19 at Mohawk [Austin]

03/20 at La Carafe [Houston]

03/21 at Circle Bar [New Orleans] w/ Duane Pitre

03/22 at the Earl [Atlanta]

03/23 at Casbah [Durham]

03/24 at Sixth & I Synagogue [Washington DC]

03/25 at First Unitarian Chapel [Philadelphia]

03/28 at Casa del Popolo [Montreal] w/ Aidan Baker

 

 

Deathfix (featuring members of Fugazi, Morel, Farquet & Medications) to release debut album on Dischord

Deathfix formed in 2009 after Brendan Canty (Fugazi) and Rich Morel (Morel, Blowoff) met while touring in Bob Mould’s band. Having discovered a shared affinity for the sounds of 1972 – particularly glam and progressive rock – they started getting together to work on music at Canty’s warehouse studio space. Two years later, hoping to graduate the band from its studio-shut-in phase to its live ensemble phase, they recruited Devin Ocampo (Faraquet, Medications) and Mark Cisneros (Medications) to hold down the rhythm section. Both talented multi-instrumentalists and producers in their own right, Cisneros and Ocampo quickly started contributing their own riffs and arrangement ideas.

The band’s self-titled debut includes seven songs that were recorded throughout 2012 at Canty’s studio. During that time, Morel and Canty’s demos were torn up and expanded through extensive improv sessions alongside Ocampo and Cisneros. Tracks that started out small and introspective were blown up to a size and volume more befitting of the group’s cavernous practice space.

The tone is dark, but the lyrics – which cover themes covers themes like sickness, breakups, corruption, drugs, fame, and losing ones mind – shouldn’t be read as straight biography. They’re works of fiction; character studies that just happen to touch on topics that are close to home.

Deathfix will tour the East Coast in March, 2013.

dEAThFiX S/T TrAcK-LisT 1) Better Than Bad 2) Low Lying Dreams 3) Hospital 4) Dali’s House 5) Playboy 6) Mind Control 7) Transmission

Recorded at Trixie Studios by Brendan Canty and Deathfix in 2012. Mixed at Pink Noise studios by Rich Morel and Deathfix. Mas- tered by Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering Service.

Pombagira to release profoundly epic new album Maleficia Lamiah

Comprising two songs ‘Maleficia Lamiah’ and ‘Grave Cardinal’, their fifth album in as many years pushes the very boundaries of experimental, psychedelic, down-tuned, mind-expanding music. The album was recorded in June 2012 at Foel Studio and then finished at their favourite recording haunt Earthworks in Sept 2012. Maleficia Lamiah finds the band in a paisley ebullient mood given their success at breaching the suffocating expectations associated with belonging to a single genre.

No longer being sharply defined as a doom band, Maleficia Lamiah reflects a certain maturity which comes from Pombagira’s intent on concentrating solely on composition rather than playing live shows. While their retreat into silence, although missed by many, may have initiated whispers of disbandment, Pombagira have steadied their intent to unleash something so monstrous and so exciting, that many will be surprised if not shocked when they hear this new tome.

Although the departure from previous releases will be evident, there are of course the anchor points to ease the listener into their new epic corpse-scape style. Amps rage and soar with a focussed endeavour to draw the crossroads onto your flesh while the drums breathe a new life, reviving the Haitian cascading rhythms which nail the point for your ingress into their world.

Pombagira have drawn on their deep respect for the past. By acknowledging their influence to bands like Amon Duul II, Pink Floyd and Caravan this album stands as a testament to their ability to embody and innovate these past masters. For embedded within both ‘Maleficia Lamiah’ and ‘Grave Cardinal’ there rest tales of journeys into the world of the Pombagira as witch, while ‘Grave Cardinal’ asserts the majesty of their critical mass as a moment of transgression where the dead meet the living. But this is no Hammer House of Horror ‘cheap trick’ reference, rather a reflection on Pombagira’s involvement with the occult, academic writing on history and otherness, while also providing insight into the hypnogogic world where dreams and reality merge.

Resplendent in its intent, vibrant in its intensity, beautiful in its introspection, Pombagira may this time have really found the portal between the visible and invisible worlds. A magnificent psychedelic down tuned progressive behemoth Maleficia Lamiah will after due process expand your mind. Pombagira’s fifth album deserves to be acknowledged as one of the greatest progressive feats in the last decade or more. As a result the band don’t promise an easy ride through their paisley tinged sound scape, but like anticipating a gathering storm, the gradual shifts and turns build to a crescendo before Maleficia Lamiah finally makes landfall on your body.

It’s a journey fraught with trepidation but it does ensure that once you step aboard you will never be able to depart from their vision again.

Released on 18 March on Black Axis Records, here are some interesting additional notes for editorial:

+Vic Singh who infamously photographed Pink Floyd In 1966 for the Piper At The Gates Of Dawn album was enlisted for this album to take a new set of press photos, and the results are mesmeric and splendid. This is what Vic has to say about Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Maleficia Lamiah.

“I was approached by The Pink Floyd a new and comparatively unknown band in 1967 to take the album cover photo for ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’. The concept for the cover was left up to me, listening to The Piper for the first time surprised me, it was completely original, a complete break from the popular 60’s sounds, which we were all brain-washed into. The concept for the Piper cover photo remained mysterious for a while, finally I decided to use a prism lens which had been lying around in the studio and had never been used by me before. Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Maleficia Lamiah have similarities. Listening to Maleficia Lamiah for the first time I got a similar vibe as with The Piper of originality and the resolve to do something different, creating progression rather than repetition and stagnation.”

+The LP version is limited to 500 copies will be available for pre-order at http://www.blackaxisrec.co.uk from 5 Feb. This version will contain three extra bonus tracks.

http://www.facebook.com/pombagiradoom

http://www.blackaxisrec.co.uk

 

Soak up the sounds of new Grouper track ‘Vital’ taken from current release on Kranky

2013 marks the 20th anniversary for record label Kranky, and having already kicked off the year with a brand new album from Ethernet and reissuing the long out of print album The Ballasted Orchestra by Stars Of The Lid, there are some very intriguing things in the pipeline including a brand new Benoit Pioulard album in March, and before that, an unearthed treasure by Grouper.

The Man Who Died in His Boat is an album of unreleased songs by Grouper, recorded alongside the Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill album. It will be released on 4 February in the UK/EU.

Kranky have already released the first MP3 giveaway track from the album entitled ‘Vital’. Soak up the sounds via the Soundcloud page: https://soundcloud.com/kranky/grouper-vital and please feel free to spread the word about this track, as well as the news of the album.

“When I was a teenager the wreckage of a sailboat washed up on the shore of Agate Beach. The remains of the vessel weren’t removed for several days. I walked down with my father to peer inside the boat cabin. Maps, coffee cups and clothing were strewn around inside.

 I remember looking only briefly, wilted by the feeling that I was violating some remnant of this man’s presence by witnessing the evidence of its failure. Later I read a story about him in the paper. It was impossible to know what had happened. The boat had never crashed or capsized. He had simply slipped off somehow, and the boat, like a riderless horse, eventually came back home.”

 

Baptists: Vancouver Hardcore Unit’s Southern Lord Debut LP Confirmed

Vancouver quartet BAPTISTS will set loose its debut LP Bushcraft this February via Southern Lord

BAPTISTS advocate a creed of destruction through a blistering, discordant hybrid of punk-fueled hardcore. Immediately following its 2010 formation, the sect took to the road and built a strong buzz in the underground scene with ferocious live shows, as Southern Lord unleashed the self-titled 7” in 2011, which sold out instantly. Having laid to waste several The Power Of The Riff events and a plethora of high-profile shows in Canada over the past few years, BAPTISTS have spent a good portion of 2012 vigilantly writing material for an anticipated LP release.

For the recording, BAPTISTS traveled to Salem, Massachusetts to record at the infamous Godcity studios with Kurt Ballou, who captured the eleven anthems embodied on Bushcraft. With nearly a half hour of unhinged lyrical angst and a seething vocal delivery propelled by white-knuckled snare-blasts, d-beat thunder, dissonant riff urgency and an overall relentless by-the-throat approach, Bushcraft is a release not to be ignored.

Bushcraft will drop in UK/EU on February 18th, with BAPTISTS live/tour actions being devised in support of the release. Stay tuned as more details emerge.

 

Tartufi video interview launched and full details of their brand new album exposed

Putting all the facts together that we currently know, Tartufi are releasing their brand new album entitled These Factory Days on Southern Records on 25 March, and it’s a vibrant and progressive feat in experimental music. But who are Tartufi and what have they to say about their latest offering?

Check out this short video interview interspersed with behind the scenes footage which will answer both of these questions and hopefully lure you into their wonderful world…

 

Now that we have whet your appetite, here is some more in-depth biographical information about Tartufi and the recording of These Factory Days…

Having formed in 2001, the San Francisco trio comprised of Lynne Angel, Brian Gorman and Ben Thorne (Low Red Land, Minot), has become well know for their loop-heavy sonic soundscapes, overlaying harmonies, melodies and poly-rhythms. The effect is something unlike most popular music today, an aural overhaul, a hypnotic surrender to their sound and a wonder to witness, live or on record.

With six studio albums under their belts, these bastions of the San Francisco scene are showing no signs of slowing with the release of their new album These Factory Days (Southern Records) slated for March 2013. Building upon their musical mosaics and seamless song-craft the recent addition of Thorne on bass has allowed the band to fully metamorphose into a three-headed creature walking the wires between chaos and cacophony, subtly and synchronicity. Whereas before Angel and Gorman preferred the whirlwind approach, favoring a systematic shock to the senses – with the addition of Thorne the band is able to utilise time and space to elicit an overall sense of total fluidity. If you thought you were in a strange alien river before then best grab a paddle because this river flows into the sea of sonic accord. As one reviewer said, “Tartufi are unafraid of venturing into a complex sonic world where post-rock, psych and experimental pop are built from endless loops and pulsing polyrhythms, then blasted off into space to see what happens. The result is a beautiful, and unpredictable, wall of sound“.

Tartufi took over a year and a half to track and mix These Factory Days, once again with the aid of Tim Green (Melvins, Howlin Rain, Joanna Newsom, Fresh & Onlys) at Louder Studios and The Hangar, and also with Scott McDowell at Hyde Street. The result is a band fully settled within their sound, secure amongst an ocean of interlocking counterweights, where you are at once upon the bright surface and walking the cavernous depths.

Tartufi advance upon their layered spectrum of sound and further push the boundaries of sonic sameness and classic structure to evoke an overall sense of movement and progression. Pop songs be damned – Tartufi is a country of sound.

As promised last week, there is an abundance of video footage still to share in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for more creative sparkle from Tartufi very soon.

http://www.tartufirock.net

 

Jerusalem In My Heart – a new offering from Constellation Records

Jerusalem In My Heart (JIMH) is a project of contemporary Arabic and electronic music interwoven with 16mm film projections and light-based (de)constructions of space, exploring a relationship between music, visuals, projections and audience. With performances thus far occurring once or twice a year, no two JIMH events have ever been the same: configurations have ranged from solo to 35 participants, with varying degrees of stage theatrics alongside a film & visual component, using multiple projections to construct a space in constant flux. JIMH’s vocals and purposefully blown-out sonic sensibility have been the consistent thread, but neither its music nor visual propositions have ever repeated themselves – one of the reasons why JIMH has resisted for eight years any official documentation or definitive recording of the project.

JIMH was formed in 2005 by Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, a Lebanese national who has spent a large part of his adult life in Quebec and has been a fixture of the Montreal independent music community, from his early days in various notable 90s punk bands to his tireless activities over the last decade as a sound engineer, producer and co-owner of Montreal’s Hotel2Tango recording studio. Moumneh is also active in the Beirut experimental music scene, where he spends a few months every year. JIMH now consists of a core trio with French musician & producer Jérémie Regnier and Chilean visual artist & filmmaker Malena Szlam Salazar, whose two-year collaboration with Moumneh has resulted in the co-creation of JIMH’s debut album Mo7it Al-Mo7it.

JIMH forges a modern experimental Arabic music by wedding melismatic singing in classic Arabic styles and electronic compositions with contemporary electronic production. The album equally emphasizes the intimacy and narrative pace that focused, intentional studio recording allows. The result is a unique and profoundly emotive album of contemporary Arabic music, a stunningly subtle first record for a project that resisted documentation or any sort of fixity for so many years. Moumneh’s voice has become a powerfully authentic instrument, and his production techniques applying distortion, tape echos and delays to varying degrees transmit a timeless intensity to the recording. Saturated synths and the overdriven signals of Moumneh’s acoustic buzuk and zurna reinforce the reigning sensibility, providing a bracing counterpoint to the vocals and lovely, searching instrumental narratives in their own right. Szlam’s work was the source material for the album’s visual aesthetic. Szlam’s visual creation for the album derives from sequences that echo lunar notions and photographic intervals that reverberate and resonate, evoking the oscillation of time. Using frames from various hand-processed 16mm filmstrips, Szlam created a lunar sequence that consitutes the album cover artwork.

Inspired by the Lebanese educator Boutros Al-Bustani’s book Circumference of the Ocean, Mo7it Al-Mo7it signifies, in JIMH’s open and poetic interpretation, “Ocean of the Ocean.” The numeral 7 is pronounced like an h; all titles on the album are rendered in contemporary colloquial “mobile” Arabic (the transliterative characters used in Arabic phone texting).

Our words can only begin to convey just how exceptional this recording is so please do listen to a track from the album on Constellation’s Soundcloud page. Feel free to share: http://soundcloud.com/constellation-records/yudaghdegh-el-ra3ey-walal/s-Hj67c

http://www.cstrecords.com