burnt flowers of my hills

MONO
Pilgrimage of the Soul 
September 17, 2021

ilgrimage of the Soul is the 11th studio album in the 22-year career of Japanese experimental rock legends, MONO. Recorded and mixed – cautiously, anxiously, yet optimistically – during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in the summer of 2020, Pilgrimage of the Soul is aptly named as it not only represents the peaks and valleys where MONO are now as they enter their third decade, but also charts their long, steady journey to this time and place.

Continuing the subtle but profound creative progression in the MONO canon that began with Nowhere Now Here (2019), Pilgrimage of the Soul is the most dynamic MONO album to date (and that’s saying a lot). But where MONO’s foundation was built on the well-established interplay of whisper quiet and devastatingly loud, Pilgrimage of the Soul crafts its magic with mesmerizing new electronic instrumentation and textures, and – perhaps most notably – faster tempos that are clearly influenced by disco and techno. It all galvanizes as the most unexpected MONO album to date – replete with surprises and as awash in splendor as anything this band has ever done.

MONO began in Japan at the end of the 20th Century as a young band equally inspired by the pioneers of moody experimental rock (My Bloody Valentine, Mogwai) and iconic Classical composers (Beethoven, Morricone) who came before them. They have evolved into one of the most inspiring and influential experimental rock bands in their own right. It is only fitting that their evolution has come at the glacial, methodical pace that their patient music demands. MONO is a band who puts serious value in nuance, and offers significant rewards for the wait.

Pilgrimage of the Soul

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MONO - Riptide

Warsaw-based cellist/composer Resina (Karolina Rec) returns with a first standalone album in three years, taking a big step forward on a bold and brilliantly expansive record that explores ideas about language, the voice and the unpredictability of nature. Recorded by Resina and Michał Kupicz, with striking additional mixing & production work by Daniel Rejmer (Ben Frost, Björk, Foals, Girls Names), 'Speechless’ is fluid and muscular, with wide dynamics and a dark and powerful dramatic weight. Across nine tracks, Resina's cello, voice and electronics are set alongside drummer Mateusz Rychlicki and the 23-piece 441 Hz choir.

Speechless

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Resina - Mercury Immersion

Track taken from the upcoming album 'Objects & Apparitions'...

- All tracks written / played by Gideon Wolf except *track 10 (In the Wake) Cello part played by Tom Spencer

- Mastering by Ian Hawgood

- Design by Daniel Crossley

Objects & Apparitions

Gideon Wolf - With Eyes Closed

Three tracks off "Seer", the new Golden Retriever record on Thrill Jockey.

Golden Retreiver - Sharp Stones

Superposition

An ode to the late Nick Talbot (Gravenhurst)

12.4.15

I first discovered Gravenhurst back in 2004 while exhausting the last of my pizza-serving paycheck at my local record store, Stinkweeds in Tempe, AZ. As I was thumbing through new releases, eerie, atmospheric-folk began to play over the store’s sound system. When Nick’s voice emerged from the fog, I was hooked. I purchased Flashlight Seasons that day and immediately felt as if I was let in on a secret. I listened to that album incessantly. To make extra money during this time I began to DJ weddings, mitzvahs and private parties.  The nights were long and the playlists were pre-chosen by the clients. When I climbed into my ’86 Honda Civic (nicknamed “the roller skate”) at the end of the night all I wanted to do was to cleanse my ears with Nick’s beautiful, intimate songs. His music was my companion; something I could count on when I was lonely. Although I never got a chance to see Nick perform or meet him in person, I felt like through his songs I knew him intimately.

Nick passed away a year ago today. At the time I coped with the tragic news by recording one of my favorite songs of his, “The Diver”. And while my version could never hold a light to the original, I recorded it with great sincerity and sorrow. I learned later that Nick had suffered from the seizure-causing disorder epilepsy, a disorder my mother also suffers from. That’s why I’m releasing the cover as a pay-what-you-want digital download via Bandcamp with 100% of the proceeds going to the http://www.epilepsysociety.org.uk/, the leading provider of epilepsy services in the UK though research, awareness campaigns, info. resources and expert care. Please consider donating a minimum of $1 for the song and help give people with this often debilitating disorder your support. 

With gratitude and fond remembrance, 

- Kael Smith

You can download the cover and donate here: https://muteforest.bandcamp.com/track/the-diver-gravenhurst-cover

Recorded and arranged by Kael Smith
Lyrics by Nick Talbot
Mastered by Taylor Deupree (12k)
Cover art by Lynn Vanlandingham
Original of "The Diver" appears on Gravenhurst's 2004 album Flashlight Seasons (Warp Records)


The Diver (Gravenhurst cover)

Nik Bärtsch – Universal Rhythms

Chiaroscuro

Arve Henriksen - Opening Image

Artist: Paul de Jong
Title: Johnny No Cash
Album: You Fucken Sucker
Release Date: April 6, 2018

Pre-Order: www.temporaryresidence.com/products/trr298

As a society, we know that we are overwhelmed – consumed by hyper-stimulation, and frustrated by what often feels like an exhaustive barrage of external forces. For Paul de Jong – the innovative composer and cofounder of beloved collage-pop eccentrics, the Books – that societal frustration was compounded by a series of unexpected and frightening personal turns. His new album, You Fucken Sucker, is an uncompromising and overwhelming statement; an uncanny (and sometimes uncomfortable) reflection of our collective mental excess.

Presented in the exact sequence in which it was conceived, You Fucken Sucker charts a route of personal tragedy and emotional fatigue, and the loss and eventual retrieval of the illusion of control. Over the course of its 14 tracks – which range in length from 15 seconds to nearly 10 minutes – we hear complex tapestries of acoustic and electronic instrumentation submitting to waves of unhinged screaming; found-sound assemblage seamlessly incorporating subtle R&B rhythms; Freudian funk; lo-fi prog-metal; and vast synth patch orchestration adding unexpected textures and tension to the whole spectacular mess.

Like much of Paul de Jong's work, You Fucken Sucker is a genre unto itself, overflowing with innovative exploration of sounds and senses. Unlike his previous work, it is an unvarnished exposition of his anger, frustration, misery and confusion. Perhaps most vitally, it is an opportunity for the rest of us to experience the kind of communal emotional purge more typical of pre-Internet basement punk rock shows, to bask in the rarified air of being unafraid of being afraid.

You Fucken Sucker

Paul de Jong - Johnny No Cash

Taste Of Peppermint by TWINS off his album, That Which Is Not Said. 
Pre-Order That Which Is Not Said: https://2mr.lnk.to/ThatWhichIsNotSaid
Follow TWINS on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2Eh8zPa

Connect on Social:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thatwhichisnotsaid/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thatwhichisnotsaid/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/whichisnotsaid

Videos From TWINS:
Taste Of Peppermint: https://youtu.be/PRtxzJQGOTg
Boiler Room: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0rWsm2-P5g
Stuck: https://youtu.be/5VnujOIA7sE

Lyrics:
let's go in 

stayed back enough 

it's our 

time to go down 

why yes I need 

to believe that I could still think 

there was enough 

to leave a taste 

in my mouth 


there's no way to get it out 


thirst 

fill the air with peppermint 

done 

clear away now 


nights run  

downhill 

these skies can feel endless 

back out 

stay away 

pick up the slack now that i've let go 

it's never enough 


tonight 


hey now we've made it 

let's split a pack of gum 

this taste of peppermint 

gets all on our tongues 

i absolutely  

in the here and now 

back out 

stay away 

pick up the slack now that i've let go

That Which Is Not Said [2MR-033]

Taste Of Peppermint

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TWINS - Taste Of Peppermint [2MR-033]

With seemingly effortless precision and a sense for the imperfect, Popp merges Ambient, Third Stream and Minimal Music on his debut album „Laya“. The title derives from the Sanskrit language and signifies a place of rest and mental inactivity. In the spring of 2019 Popp created these 8 tracks from hours of improvisation in his own studio. The moments thus captured were then enriched with more sounds and effects to add layers and shed the manually played percussion of all its earthliness. The result is an album of concealed complexity and unadorned beauty. 

Raised on an old farm in rural Bavaria, Simon Popp started playing the drums at the age of 9. During his studies at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Munich, he extensively studied music from countries like Ghana, Benin, India and Cuba where rhythm is central to culture. On his quest for this world‘s sounds, Popp collected and recorded a wide variety of drums and other instruments, adding to the placelessness of Laya.

releases July 12, 2019 

Written, Recorded and Mixed by Simon Popp 
Mastered by Christoph Stickel at CS-Mastering 
Distributed by wordandsound, sales@wordandsound.com 
Artwork by Miro Maria Schachtner 
Design by Daily Dialogue

Lilac

You're my place of quiet retreat;
I wait for your word to renew me

...

New website / radio station coming soon!

www.the-quiet-place.co.uk

The Quiet Place

SIAVASH AMINI, A Mimesis Of Nothingness, LP

Release date - Aug 28th 2020
Catalogue nr. - HG2006
Format - Vinyl with 8-page booklet/digital

https://hallowground.bandcamp.com

Tracklist:
1) Lustrous Residue (07:59)
2) Perpetually Inwards  (02:58)
3) Moonless Garden  (08:50)
4) Observance (Shadow)  (05:32)
5) A Collective Floundering  (06:48)
6) The Stillborn Baroque  (03:31)

Credits:
All Music Composed by Siavash Amini
Written and Recorded in Tehran 2018-2019
Based on Photographs of Tehran by Nooshin Shafiee
Booklet Photographs by Nooshin Shafiee
Mastered by Lawrence English at Negative Space
Cover Photo Nooshin Shafiee
Cover design Ruth Stofer and Greenpointless

///
Siavash Amini returns to Hallow Ground  with »A Mimesis of Nothingness,« his fourth album for the Swiss label. Following up on »Harmistice« together with fellow Iranian artists 9T Antiope, the six tracks were conceived in close collaboration with another artist and see the prolific composer intensify his interdisciplinary approach. The six tracks enter a dialogue with the photographs of Nooshin Shafiee, an acclaimed artist whose work capturing their hometown Tehran becomes the starting point for one of Amini’s most visceral and haunting records. »A Mimesis of Nothingness« translates the ephemeral situations and melancholic moods of Shafiee’s pictures into suspenseful soundscapes that masterfully navigate between the concrete and the abstract.

Amini met Shafiee while setting up the sound art space SEDA Projects at the Emkan gallery in Tehran where the photographer’s second solo exhibition was shown. Following the suggestion of curator Behzad Nejadghanbar, the two started a fruitful collaboration that would eventually lead to »A Mimesis of Nothingness,« which was written and recorded between the years 2018 and 2019 and which includes a booklet with a selection of Shafiee’s work. The two share an interest in exploring the sensual experience and the metaphysical dimensions of space. »I was fascinated by Nooshin’s approach,« explains Amini who, ever since releasing the album »TAR« through Hallow Ground in 2017, has focused on how our experience of places is shaped by the individual and collective subconscious. »It wasn’t the Tehran that everyone projected into their work, it was Tehran showing itself through tiny and giant overlooked places or objects.«

Amini’s music accordingly does not seek out a specific sonic picture of the city, but rather lets it come alive on its own terms. »A Mimesis of Nothingness« is a disquieting record precisely because it is a quiet one. Working with field recordings, Amini sculpts dynamic portraits that create an atmosphere of tangible suspense that is never fully released. Even when string-like sounds enter the picture as they do on the third track »Moonless Garden« or when the abstract and glacial noise on »Observance (Shadow)« demand the listener’s attention, the six pieces take hold of the subconscious rather than trying to be direct and confrontational. It is sound conceived not as a description, but a circumscription of spatial relations and the eeriness embedded in them. 

»We both saw something decadent or violent about all of these captured places and objects,« says the composer about Shafiee’s pictures. »There is no resolution, just excess. It seems they are eternal remnants of a violent scene, no matter how new or old they were. Never finished, never begotten, a stillborn.« Throughout »A Mimesis of Nothingness,« its ghost roams freely.

SIAVASH AMINI - Moonless Garden (HG2006)

Track taken from the upcoming album 'Hearts full of sorrow, souls full of hope, we look to the west...'

www.fluidaudio.bigcartel.com

Paul de Jong - Johnny No Cash

Temporary Residence Ltd

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