★Kranky
Recollection
Jacob Long’s fourth full-length for Kranky began as a notion to reimagine Earthen Sea as a “piano trio,” inspired by a year-long immersion in the ECM label catalog, but the compositions soon grew more complex. Elements were chopped and resampled, the…
Triple Point
"Loscil — who may be more familiar to some as Scott Morgan, the drummer for indie-popsters Destroyer — is the exception that proves the rule. And his debut album Triple Point, an ambient-techno concept album about thermodynamics (no, really), is no l…
Temple IV
This is the first vinyl issue of Temple IV, arguably Roy Montgomery's finest solo album, originally released in 1996 on CD. The original album has been enhanced with two newer tracks that constitute side four of the album. Montgomery states: "The two…
Stars of the Lid and Their Refinement of the Decline
2023 Re-press. Triple LP. Painstakingly recorded, processed and assembled over the last five years, Stars Of The Lid once again deliver a massive work filling two compact discs and three vinyl albums, clocking in at over two hours. While most albums …
Tired Sounds Of Stars Of The Lid
2023 repress on triple-vinyl. "Are there other earthling-conjured soundworks rivaling the majesty of Henry Flynt's minimalist hillbilly fiddle fantasias or the heavens-rending power of Olivier Messiaen's works for organ? Undoubtedly, else why bother …
Avec Laudenum
2023 repress. "The first vinyl release in the U.S. for this, the fifth Stars of the Lid album, originally released by Sub Rosa in 1999 and then reissued by Kranky in the fall of 2002. A pivotal album in their career, this marked the first time the du…
No Highs
The latest by Canadian composer Tim Hecker serves as a beacon of unease against the deluge of false positive corporate ambient currently in vogue. Whether taken as warning or promise, No Highs delivers – this is music of austerity and ambiguity, purg…
Colours Of Air
The union of composers Lawrence English and loscil aka Scott Morgan is seamless, sublime, and long overdue. Born of a conversation centered on the notion of “rich sources” as a forge for electronic music, Colours Of Air is a collection of recordings …
No. 5
LP version. "While on the island of Syros in the Aegean Sea for a film festival performance, Christina Vantzou experienced what she characterized as 'a moment of focus' -- a specific vision for the sprawl of raw recordings she'd been amassing for her…
Gravitational Pull vs. The Desire For An Aquatic Life
2022 Repress ***Received a 7.7 rating from Pitchfork. The release of Music For Nitrous Oxide, the 1995 debut by Stars Of The Lid, heralded a new strain of the American underground music scene, one born of the heat and humidity, boredom, and the insul…
The Patience Fader
The glacial distillation of Pan American aka Mark Nelson’s “romantic minimalism” achieves unique fruition on his latest Kranky collection, The Patience Fader. A suite of solo guitar instrumentals accented with lap steel, harmonica, and twilit atmosph…
Coast/range/arc//
Loscil's dreamy 2011 ambient classic "coast/ range/ arc/" gets the deluxe reissue treatment with a fresh remaster and an additional track. Originally released in 2011, "coast/ range/ arc/" is a dense, evocative ambient record - the kind of album tha…
A I A : Alien Observer
**2019 small repress on Kranky** The tools Liz Harris uses to make music as Grouper tend to be pretty basic: piano, guitar, synths, drones, hiss, and lots of reverb. If you've been following along with the twists and turns of noisy ambient music thes…
A I A : Dream Loss
'This sound / synapse transposition is as haunting as it is beautiful -- surely Grouper's best.' --Tiny Mix Tapes. 'If past Grouper releases have inhabited abyssal trenches and damp backwoods, here Liz Harris takes us journeying across constellations…
Equivalents
Canadian composer Scott Morgan’s 12th long-player as Loscil takes its title from an influential series of early 20th century photographs by Alfred Stieglitz, abstracting clouds into miasmic, painterly canvases of smoke and shadowplay. It’s a deeply f…
Cloud Room, Glass Room
With percussionist extraordinaire Steven Hess now a full-fledged member, Mark Nelson and Pan American deliver their first new album since White Bird Release in 2009. This collection of new sounds began with the duo rehearsing for a series of shows i…
Dream Memory
"Guitarist Ken Camden returns for his third solo album, continuing his explorations to seek out new techniques and sounds from the electric guitar. By utilizing both a steel slide and e-bow technique, Camden has moved into micro-tonal territory to b…