Friday 7 September 2012

A Haunting Week(s)


Sorry, this is a bit of a lazy post, as it is predominantly press filler. Basically I'm really tired, it's been a hellishly long (yet ultimately excellently productive) week, and next week there is more to come. Thing is, I can barely keep my eyes open, yet I really want you to know everything about this first release from Nibbana Records, a new minimalist/drone/ambient label. The release is A Haunting Sun by Chris Weeks (AKA Kingbastard AKA Myheadisaballoon, both of which will get some post time in the upcoming weeks), and it is enthralling, engrossing, immersive material, really good stuff. So read, then listen to the entire album below. It truly is worth this preamble AND the presser, I promise!


After many years of releasing all manner of beat driven music here at Tigerbeat6 we have decided it necessary to start a new sublabel focusing purely on ambient, drone and minimalist music.

A Haunting Sun is a study of light; an enveloping opus of intricate, alternative, ambient soundscapes; inspired by sunlight and its interaction with picturesque landscapes.

Chris captures the beauty of this synergy via subtle organic textures, dense immersive drone-scapes, fragile lo-fi frequencies, and shape-shifting tonalities; tinged with the timbre of isolated melancholy.

A Haunting Sun flows chronologically, unfolding over the course of a day (Sunrise to Dusk); drinking in the light’s delicate interplay with the surrounding natural locales, mesmerizing minutiae and voluminous vistas; the audio equivalent of ‘light-thirsty Scenedows’.

‘Scenedows’ feature in works by science fiction author ‘Bob Shaw’, notably ‘Other Days, Other Eyes’, from which the tracks ‘Slow Light’ and ‘In Light Of Other Days’ draw their inspiration. Shaw introduced the concept of ‘slow glass’, through which the past can be seen...

‘Slow glass' delays the passage of light by years or decades, and is used to construct windows, called scenedows.’

“…having a scenedow was the exact emotional equivalent of owning land. A man who owns tailored gardens and estates doesn’t spend his time proving his ownership by crawling on his ground, feeling, smelling, tasting it. All he receives from the land are light patterns, and with scenedows those patterns could be taken into coal mines, submarines, prison cells…”

Chris plays on this concept. A Haunting Sun can be seen as series of scenedows; harnessing the aesthetics of light; evoking a captivating idyll of cinematic imagery. He transports the listener - from even the darkest of spaces - into sunlight-soaked scenes of exploration, which echo his physical and allegorical encounters, uniting to form a detailed picture and emotive narrative of escapism; all the while shadowed by A Haunting Sun



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