I have somehow missed the myriad delights that solo guitarist Sarah Lipstate has put into the ether under her Noveller moniker, but with Fantastic Planet due out on Fire Records next year, there is no excuse. She has been around since 2005 though, so I have a lot of catching up to do. Plus she has collaborated with the likes of Lee Ranaldo, Cold Cave and Parts & Labor, so her explorations of the electric guitar form is well versed and admired. And my first taste of it rose the hairs on the back of my everything. The haunting ethereal grind on album opener 'Into The Dunes' is spacious, dark, gritty - it's as if Lipstate has taken some of the contemplative latter-day musings of Dylan Carlson, run it through a crystallised synthesiser, distilled it in a modular vacuum, headed back to 1968 and handed the results to Stanley Kubrick. It could go for seven times the size and still be as astrally hypnotic. Fantastic indeed.
You can pre-order Fantastic Planet (on delectable aqua vinyl) here.
I used to have a lot of animosity towards the cult that seemed to rise around Cold Cave and the label coldwave. It seemed like such a cultured, deliberate style and system, without much soul – a meticulously created zeitgeist. Of course my interests were directed elsewhere at the time, namely drawn to the likes of Times New Viking and other lo-fi guitar pop wailers, so my opinions aren’t entirely objective (and I never claim them to be). But the desolation and seduction of the electronic act sounds less synthetic in an inauthentic sense to me, and has found some footholds in my recent musical fascinations, especially as I delve into the AVANT!, NNA and NNF label rosters.
One guy that I have always found interesting however is Pierre-Marc Tremblay, AKA Contrepoison. His dark orchestral electronics seem balanced to take the hauntological tropes and fixations that some of these leather-clad heathens emblazon so desperately and bury them in a damaged soul. In fact, although I do love much of the output that LA wunderkinds Not Not Fun Records induce, there is a truer sense of purpose and soul in a Contrepoison release. Take in point I Keep On Searching, the recent EP to come out on AVANT! Records. For me the kicker is the one-two punch on the B-side of the title track and ‘Nectar of Destiny’ – the former an electronic swarm of burbling white noise out of the abyss, impassioned vocals echoing over the top, Gothic rocking in the foetal position, searching for enlightenment or avoiding madness, it all means the same; whilst the latter shows dappled light appearing through the broken heavens, a march to heaven or to purgatories unknown, Tremblay’s vocals a bastion to oblivion, the synth both uplifting and heartrending. The emotional core my change shape, a chimera of sensation, but it is there, and it’s that attachment that makes this EP a great release.
Wow, what a week. Sorry about our complacency. I fully intend to get back up and running at a daily rate. As you can see Paul is now once again on board, and what a change! Time to get re-invigorated...
And first cab off the rank is Los Angeles' Mickey Mickey Rourke (AKA Neon Navajo's Miller Rodriguez). New EP Inner Gazing (his 3rd release this year, following Festive Bummer and MMR) is freshly off the press, and it continues the languid ambient jams that the trop/psych kids will lap up. As do I - this stuff is very impressive, and is some of the best of its kind you can lay your mitts on. The success of Inner Gazing is in the essence of these tracks, that they coalesce around you before solidifying, trapping you in amber.
Secondly is a collaboration that Mr Rourke made with Canada's Lester Brown, appropriately monikered Mickey Brown. They released Vision Quest, a 12-track ectoplasmic entity that takes chillwave and eschews the common tropes - something like Cold Cave stuck in a prism created by The Books... Blending tropical with psychedelic, harbouring a kernel of inherent fun in each song, Vision Quest has clawed its way to the top of my playlist in no short order - alongside Inner Gazing, funnily enough. The reason why these two release are a cut above the rest is because they engage the listener in a way that most other artists of their ilk are loathe to do. Some - Forest Swords for example - hold their own in their aloof frostiness, but Mickey Mickey Rourke/Mickey Brown truly come from Magic Mountain. Hope the magic continues.
