Sean Gadoury : Astronaut ice cream ep

the album starts off with "Dehydrated peas" which is fitting cause the first thing you notice is the back to basics sound and approach the entire album has, its simple layered guitar looping for a
lazy afternoon, there are very little delay and echo effects, no beats or drum machines, just sparse and distant ambient noise and both acoustic and electric guitar looping,

the album plays like a side projects side project, its not gonna make you start a revolution,
with that said there is lots of room for works that don't blow your mind, but take you somewhere for the time being even if you never visit that world again,
four songs isnt a lot to map out an entire sound but i feel like maybe the point wasn't put across as well as maybe it could have been, i've gotten more out of three song chat blanc releases,

the layered guitars and ambient hums are
a departure from sean's other work like that on the diction ark release,
which features a more conventional guitar, drum machines, keyboards approach to indie prog rock, think king crimson on drag city records, ...which strangely is what Weird war sound like but thats beside the point, its interesting to see that this is another side to a multi facaded artist,

freeze dried French fries is the stand out track,
it starts off with a slightly discordant overlapping of high and bass repeating notes,
there is something just not exactly right about it, and that makes it endearing,
it leads to a perky trilling chorus section which sound like the words "lets get up and go!"
its a happy and contrasting piece that kind of solidifies the rest of the album,

seans attention to detail and ear for trills and gentle guitar tones make this effort
a success,

you can download the entire album and the front insert for free at the dusty trails website,
http://sean.dukmedia.com/

sean gadoury : ASTRONAUT ICE CREAM (EP)

dtltdt-A03
Artwork by Sean Gadoury
Dusty Trails Ltd



http://www.myspace.com/dustytrailsltd
http://www.myspace.com/seangadoury

Sing Leaf : wandering

toronto band Sing Leaf release their second ep this Oct. 18th
the four track album opens with North, its chill and a little trance-y,
a soothing chirping rhythm and flutes fill out the song with a continuing bass blurp in the background,
it last for a minuet and 51 seconds, and goes straight into yavanna the second track more trance-y chirps and flowing energy,
this track introduces vocalist David Como (musician, band leader) who floats over the tracks like a possessed angel,
or a less happy Robert Schneider,

the album ends with golden yellow oak, which comes off like their older material,
it falls somewhere in between the subversive church folk of jeff mangum and Reg Vermue,
but with a much older feel, the whole album has an oldsoul feel even at times it gives off Celtic vibes with the dreamy flutes,

unlike some ambient electronic artists, repeating melodies sometime take a back seat for the sake of sound effects,
sing leaf find a way to bleed the waves of laptop chirps and catchy deja vu melodies together into a poppy serenade,


the electro half of the electrocustic banner they have been branded with is the predominate half on this album,
unlike some of their older work (like the sing leaf ep) which was more aligned to the the acoustic side and a little more lo fi,
and in my opinion was better and more focused than this effort, it does feel as though they are happy with this sound,
it comes across a more confident sounding release, but the trance beats and electro washed tones take away something from the sincerity of the band,




http://www.myspace.com/singleaf

Dead Embers : elbow deep in dawsons creek

ok so its the dynamic duo,
Darcy Atkinson (Autoerotic asphyxiation, twin scales, rocket pony*rip*,) and Josh st Denis (goatfooted, ghostbitch, ghostfood,)
ripping through an hour of music,

side a (christ on a bike) starts us off with some rhythmic delay taping, like throat chirping and rock banging,
it picks up and dies down and picks up and dies down again,
leading to some mild zlerps and slurps of a malfunctioning raygun,
it soon quites down into electric static with the occasional raygun appearances,
we than detour into stereo overdrive bassy ups and downs with interspersed high frequency
radio burps and broken hospital machine fluctuations,

its lots of fun to listen to, you can taste the energy that the duo are feeding off of,
the whole thing is quite and controlled but it never becomes annoying,


side b (yes, james ready drank coffee porter) features the abrupt dueling distortion flatulence, with pops of staticy chirps,
it builds to a nice wall of dueling static delay,
much more messy and dirty than side a.


the casing is a simple piece of chalky black paper with DEAD EMBERS stenciled on,



copies 2-6 featured a kitty cat insert, my copy features a Russian politician insert,

MT008
limited to six copys
myiasis tapes
http://www.myspace.com/myiasistapes

Hunting Rituals : tree route

hunting rituals is one of the many exciting solo shots from Scott Johnson
(gasoline gathers hands, gathers friends, bottom feeder, thoughts on air, cloud valley records....)

side A plays like a narcoleptic train ride, weaving in and out of sound structures like restless dreams, track one, or the first section of side one starts with the squeak of broken wheels, and passing sounds from an open window, water and voices from the forest below,

the second section could be when diner is served (imagine the sound of cutlery scratching to the back drop of screeching squealing wheels!)

and than the third section brings in the loud cries of the steam whistles discordant at first,
and than more and more rhythmic, the whistles bleed in to a dull wall of dead noise as you pass through a tunnel,

side B is a more consistent meandering of swamp folknoise,
the constant rub of a rock grinder set to the cries of the loon, (a juxtaposition of nature and industry?)

the whole album is made with horns and effects,
this doesn't limit the range of the recording at all, quite the opposite actually,
most of the time you cant define an origin to the sounds,

this album also marks a continued collaboration between cloud valley records Scott Johnson
and housecraft records Jeffry Astin, i cant wait to see what comes next,

the art is simple but beautiful, consists of one insert,




house craft 047
http://www.myspace.com/housecraft
http://www.myspace.com/huntingrituals
http://www.myspace.com/cloudvalleyrecordings

Ryan Jewell : Rooms

the first song is "I'am sitting in a holocaust room" recorded at the holocaust room in Cincinnati with the wasteland jazz unit,
the track opens with direct and straight forward wailing amp feedback & hooting whistles you can soon make out the crashing and bashing drums
that are leading this cacophony, soon followed by horns and more wailing effects, it continues like this till a brief pause with some yelling and shouting,
if you are familiar with WJU than you have an idea what this track sounds like, the song is excellent and WJU and Jewell are both some of the best experimental jazz artist in the noise scene,
the song last for nine minuets but goes by much faster, (feels like five maybe?)


the second track is "I"am sitting in a dressing room" live in the womens dressing room at artsplace Lexington,
this track could be mistaken for some one fixing a bike down by the running washing machine in the basement, or a duck masturbating, it last for seventeen minutes,
the sound of a cappuccino machine or someone blowing water with a straw comes in at the 2:00 minuet mark, you can really get lost in this track in a good way,
it makes for great background noise for what ever activity's you may be up to in the middle of the day,

the two tracks work well back to back the first track being a insane barrage of sound to melt your ears and the second track brings you back from the brink,


i got my copy from ryan and im not sure its the finished art but it looks fantastic either way,

its a simple piece of woodgrain paper maybe a type of wall or decorating paper,
with the text writen on the back in pen,

Mabus : Great creator comet

now defunct crump project, like disguises is very raw right from the git'go
it has that open air room sound, you can hear a television in the background in a few tracks,
track three starts with Alice cooper's schools out, which quickly switches to dialog from
a sitcom and building microphone feedback, the resulting wall of sound consists of twilight zone delay whoops and jet engine roars,
the rawness of the recording in no way takes away from the dynamics of the record, the tracks keep your attention till the very end,
the packaging is simple and crude but memorable,
MABUS spray painted in red with a piece of tinfoil stuck inside the plastic sleeve,
the inside insert is a piece of black cardboard with black ink printed on it, the black on black makes the insert look very smart, but is hard to read at first glance,


all and all this is a great record and one i come back to often,




cover


one side of the gorgeous insert


2006
3 tracks
limited to 50 copys
Wintage records & tapes WRT005

http://www.myspace.com/disguisesx