★Kranky
Ravedeath, 1972
OUSTANDING!!! Tim Hecker's latest work approaches a form of secular musical transcendentalism from within the battered temple of spirituality. Recorded in a church in Reykjavik, Iceland and using a pipe organ as the primary sound source, this new piece is essentially a live recording. In reality, it exists in a nether world between captured live performance and meticulous studio work, melding the two approaches to sonic artifice as a unity. It is in parts a document of air circulating within a w…
Lasted
Lasted is the third album by Thomas Meluch under the alias Benoit Pioulard. Thomas has toured throughout North America and Europe since his last record, the process of which has had a marked impact on the development of these songs as lyrics and structures have been scrapped, tweaked and reworked in the live setting. As with previous albums it was recorded and mixed in domestic isolation, this time throughout the rainy season in his current home of Portland, Oregon. While the extent of the…
The Effective Disconnect
From Brian McBride: When George and Myriam approached me to compose for their film they suggested I concentrate on four different themes: the gloriousness of the bees, the endurance and hardships of traditional beekeepers, pesticides and the holistic nature of non-industrial agriculture. I was especially intrigued with the idea of combining some of their mournful aspirations with something more serene. Composing began in May of 2009. I had decided to start fresh not using anything that I …
Powers of Audition
Jonas Reinhardt continues his cosmic flight inward on "Powers Of Audition". The instrumentation from his debut album expands here to include acoustic drum patterns, guitars, and woodwinds alongside synthesizers and electronics. Together, these voices seamlessly twist and meld into a singular aural journey. This is music of the spheres for an electronic era where new age visions are re-imagined through a lens of experimental rock. The titular concept behind the album, drawn from ideas of the post…
Endless Falls
Endless Falls is the fifth full length release by Scott Morgan under the loscil moniker. The album begins and ends with the sound of rain recorded by Scott in his back yard, precipitation being a constant presence in his home city of Vancouver. Many of the other sounds on the album are derived from these same recordings, processed and combined with other harmonic sounds to create the textures and drones. Something completely new to this release would be vocals, of a sort, a first for any loscil …
Our Bed Is Green
With ethics that even Igor Stravinsky would be proud of, 'Our Bed is Green' was originally released by the Charalambides on cassette way back yonder in 1992 before it made it onto CD then vinyl and now back onto double CD as part of Kranky's reissue series. Comprised of heavy-psych veteran Tom Carter and Christina Madonia, Charalambides are an aural vulture that picks through disperate genres and styles to find the sound that best matches that in their heads. Opening with the overt fragili…
Likeness
Likeness is the newest release from the duo of Tom and Christina Carter. Recorded over a period of several weeks during the Spring of 2006, the album is a return to the spontaneous composition of previous Charalambides records such as Houston and Union. With the exception of "The Good Life", which appeared in a primitive version on the Wholly Other CDR Home, all of the tracks on this release sprung forth after 'record' was pressed, and were fleshed out via overdubs, editing, and a malfu…
Joy Shapes
To say that the words "unique" and "singular" are over-used in describing music is to state the obvious. To apply these words to the sounds created by the various duo/trio configurations of the Texas group Charalambides over the last decade plus would be understatement. To be sure there are numerous antecedents to their music; to deny this of any artist's work would be akin to saying that they are deaf. But they have surely broken new ground in the primitive/folk/mystic/improv/psych valley in …
You Are The One I Pick
"Nottingham duo Felix make their Kranky debut with this fine and idiosyncratic collection of songs. The main focus here is the vocal/piano/cello talents of Lucinda Chua, whose sparse yet quirk-loaded minimalism receives guitar and bass backing from Chris Summerlin, who's probably best known for his work in the rock band Lords. Chua's writing is quite unlike anything else currently out there; her lyrics convey strange or often very simple, domesticated ideas delivered in a pared-down, plaintive f…
Kompilation
2 CDs filled with 21 tracks. Over 148 minutes of music. Brand new music from PAN AMERICAN. A preview of forthcoming albums from STARS OF THE LID & KEITH FULLERTON WHITMAN. An exclusive mix of an album track by GREG DAVIS. All priced CHEAP at less than the cost of a CD EP! It's been years since there's been a KRANKYsampler (& that one came out in Europe only) so it's time to show what we've been up to for the last few years. Way back when compilations like Pillows & Prayers& Wanna Buy a Bridge? i…
Magnog
Debut from a guitar/bass/drums/moog trio from Washington state. Not since the heyday of early Guru Guru and the original Ash Ra Tempel have we experienced such unrestrained, free playing taking place within the confines of a 'rock' band. More recent examples of this aesthetic might include the early recordings of Dif Juz on 4AD, Milwaukee's F/i, the recent collection of 4-track recordings from Cul de Sac or the homespun psych of Charalambides...
The Dream House / Dedications To Flea
The Dream House is the first album of new material from Windy & Carl in five years. Recorded at their home studio in Dearborn, MI it consists of two tracks. The Dream House is in many ways the duo's simplest and most straight-forward release, concentrated as it is on two evolving pieces. It is also Windy & Carl's most ambitious recording, with the duo deliberating on longer forms. Windy & Carl are capable of sustaining melodic ideas and patiently apply attention to singular musical gestures. Win…
Rainwater Cassette Exchange
12" version. Certainly not a group to rest on their laurels (especially difficult when they have new songs burning a hole in their collective back pockets), Deerhunter delivers five new tracks on this extended play. This is not some stop-gap release between albums, or mere leftovers from their most recent Microcastle album, but an all new session. The band loves the EP format and thinks it does not get the respect it deserves. Hell, some bands arguably work best in the EP format, think Cocteau T…
Mutually Arising
Davis' second album for Kranky following 2004's Somnia. Features two tracks over 51 minutes, "Cosmic Mundra" is a subtle & slowly changing circle, a sun, the sun, the moon. Not the Arpeggio Minimalists, rather: the quiet time stretchers of long tones & long tones sustained & hyper-sustained until buzz value outweighs pitch, sounds seeming to fly around the screen, hyper-spiritual with hardly a word. "Hall of Pure Bliss" is a chord and all sorts of wonderful sounds which live to its left and righ…
Schöner Flußengel
here we go... lp-only release #2 for the magnificent kranky label. this turned out exactly as i had planned it (no typos to be found!). don’t let the doom/industrial cover (which was a take off on “a sucked orange” and “ohrenschrauben”) fool you... this is a psychedelic-drone freakout of just about the highest caliber i’m currently capable of producing...this particular record had its roots in a “krautrock-themed” lp i was working on for the deluxe label a few years back (i.e. “hrvatski ‘73”). a…
Tape Chants
A series made up of performances & compositions using tapes as the main source material, as well as mono speakers of various cassette players for the piece's amplification. Inspired by experiments with tape loops, cassette players & recorders, analog synths, sine oscillators, mixer feedback, contact mics & various acoustic sound sources. The studio version adds rhythmic textures to the once static drone compositions.
White Bird Release
Vinyl! The sixth album from Mark Nelson's longtime solo project following Quiet City. A mix of warmth & foreboding expansiveness, neither of which is minimal nor overdone.
An Imaginary Country
Double LP version: An Imaginary Country continues from the trajectory of his last album, the critically acclaimed Harmony in Ultraviolet, while also showing a few new tricks. Tim has incorporated more pulses into this work and also works with a sound palette including overdriven mellotron strings and synthesizer. At times this album is less overtly aggressive than previous works, but the notion that this is pastoral work would be dead wrong as there are plenty of the agitated crescendos that he …
Playthroughs
The source material for every piece on Playthroughs is guitar: acoustic, electric or otherwise. From Sept. 2001 to April 2002 Keith Fullerton Whitman transformed those guitar pieces via laptop computer into the tracks on Playthroughs. Whitman has used ring modulators, granular shuffling algorithms, delays and spectral effects in a process that owes a lot to Terry Riley's Time Lag Accumulator and Steve Riech's 'Piano Phases.' Technology and Whitman's careful selection of notes combine to create s…
Multiples
Multiples was recorded at the Harvard University studios, where a stash of vintage synthesizers and electronics was made available to Keith Fullerton Whitman during his time as a lecturer there. The eight tracks on Multiples flow through hit hat shimmer to skull-scraping electronic tones to interlocking clusters of repetition. This is Whitman's most inclusive and developed album yet. The limited edition Antithesis and Schöner Flußengel LPs released in 2004 showed the range of Whitman's interests…