Whiteline review

Whiteline AKA Level (pictured) has some great comments on Offthesky's Creek Caught Fire over on his blog. It's been a great resource for new music and covers a lot of releases you can't read about anywhere else.

"The trio of Jason Corder (composer and producer), Jordan Munson (noise textures), and Colin Cambell (percussive samples) make up the intriguing unit known as Off The Sky. This delightful album, Creek Caught Fire, although continuing The Land Of’s lo-fi packaging aesthetic, demands focussed and concentrated listening on hi-fidelity equipment. Here we have a music akin to much of the early 12k output, combining delicate, minimal slices of instrumentation, filtered through a scree of texture and fine sampling manipulation. This is not unlike early Sogar, Taylor Deupree, or Sebastien Roux in feel, as carefully crafted pieces are dissected and dessicated into fine slivers of elegant sound, tumbling around in a froth and foam of ethereal organic textures. These gently decaying pieces would certainly not be out of place amongst some of the higher end minimalism emerging from labels such as 12k, NVO, Room 40 , and a host of others, and this further enhances the reputation of a small label rapidly emerging as a contender for larger audiences, by introducing an ever stronger roster of talented artists.

With titles like Willow Piece, Cloud Spotting, and Red River, it would be all to easy to assume that these are pastoral pieces, borne of a kind of backwoods electro-folk aesthetic – far from it, Off The Sky present us with eight carefully rendered sound tracts that although not entirely original, are beautifully sculpted, and sophisticated layers and fracturings, perfectly paced for passive listening in a meditative environment, the ideal backdrop for a chilled winter afternoon by the fire, or even as a pre-sleep come down – neither too intrusive, nor too demanding on the ear, yet utterly fascinating and immersive listening, particularly standing up to close scrutiny under headphones. One of the year’s finest minimal/ambient/crossover albums, that I have played several times per day since it arrived at my door. Most excellent. BGN"

Year end lists

KILN had some kind words about The Green Kingdom's Laminae album as part of Textura.org's 2008 Artists' Picks. Check out the full list here.

"The Green Kingdom: Laminae (the land of): This record was the runaway favourite this year. Combining beautiful, elastic waves of tone with knocks, clicks, and field noise. All these elements are rooted by the most interesting and tasteful use of filtered, cut-up guitar. Perfect. Michael Cottone's previous full-lengths, Meadowview and The Green Kingdom hint at the niceness still to arrive which then congealed on Laminae. Manufactured by the land of imprint, this limited-edition disc even comes in a raw, cardstock sleeve letter-pressed with silver ink which gives the first impression that each unit is hand drawn."

Happy New Year!

People Like Us - Work, Rest & Play (2007)

People Like Us (Vicki Bennett) never fails to amaze me. Check out this piece courtesy of UBU web.

The Green Kingdom - CD review

Tofaki has a great piece on two releases by The Green Kingdom including "Laminae" from The Land Of. Thanks Tofaki!

“Laminae” is so much more than an aural refuge for stressed-out ears, however. The result of years of continued reconsidering, recombining, recomposing and eventually returning to the simplicity of the first, inspired moment, it manages to peal structure and immediacy from essentially free-flowing ambient clouds. Cottone is unafraid of allowing the occasional dissonant Piano tone and impurely plucked Guitar string into his soundscapes, he uses whispery thunderstorms and silently babbling brooks for instruments, sends out pulsating waves on his cosmic Rhodes and builds tension through a careful friction between complete outward harmony and a galaxy of diversely interrelated micro-events underneath the surface. Nothing lasts forever here and sometimes, you find yourself reminiscing that one, irresistible moment of bliss which will never return. But isn't such a moment sufficient for the whole of a man's life?"

Sympathy for the Devil

This past weekend I was able to check out Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967 at Musée d'art contemporain in Montréal. I can't recommend this enough! It ends Jan 11th. I took the above photo before a security guard had a few words but once I put the camera away I checked out some Christian Marclay collages, paintings by Robert Longo (above), some of the original Peter Saville work for New Order's Power Corruption & Lies and much more.

From the site:

"Among the New York artists featured are Rita Ackermann, Robert Longo, Richard Prince, Christian Marclay, Adam Pendleton, Mika Tajima and Jack Pierson. A group of portrait photographs by Richard Prince depicts such legendary art and music figures as Brian Eno, David Byrne, Dee Dee Ramone, Tina Weymouth, Adele Bertei, Kate Pierson, Cindy Wilson and Laurie Anderson. Also on display are photographs from Richard Kern’s New York Girls series and stills from his film Submit to Me Now, as well as Christian Marclay’s Untitled (1987-2007), made up of vinyl LP albums spread over a gallery floor."

Ohrwurms

The WSJ has a interesting article on the psychological effects of music that covers everything from holiday music torture to the future of social interaction through music.

Kitchen Daily Blog

I've really been enjoying April Lee's Kitchen Daily photo blog. In addition to her beautiful photography work she is also 1/2 of the group Aspidistrafly and a designer as well. Check it out.