Nothing Clear About The Breaking Day

Now here is ANOTHER album that was floating in the inbox in the aftermath of Christmas where I stockpiled nigh on 700 emails. There are probably heaps more that have slipped through, but I'm glad that Chicago duo Cleared's second LP Breaking Day managed to float to the surface like a bloated corpse - well, not that luridly morbid, but its a dark listen. Maybe it's serendipity - one of the duo Michael Vallera has collaborated with David Daniell in the past, whose current collab with Douglas McCombs I raved about only hours previous! Wow, right? Ahem.

So, the album is an intense ride of noise, that ebbs and flows like lunar tides. Opener 'Rogues' is probably the hardest to digest, utilising a lot of feedback, white noise and cymbals to create a relentless surge of confronting sound that nonetheless is alluring due to its hypnotic aural pendulum. 'Sighted' is an undulating schism of droning nothingness, the perfect purgatory for the release of the psych dirge of the title track. 'No Path To Claim' echoes like a beleaguered broadcast from a discarded and forgotten space probe, whilst the mono synthesia of 'Quartz' gives way to the heaving closer 'The Harvest', all skittering menace without release. These recordings are eerie and otherworldly, but most of all they refuse to give easy answers, instead offering for ambient distance and abrasive obtuseness - things that tend to alienate even ardent drone fans. The dark jewels are in there - are you brave enough to venture in?


Breaking Day is out now through Immune Recordings - grab it here.

Cleared - Rogues
Cleared - Breaking Day

Thrill Jockey Avalanche #2 - David Daniell & Douglas McCombs, Kandodo,

It has been an excellent year once more for that inimitable label Thrill Jockey (Pontiak, Man Forever, Eternal Tapestry, Plankton Wat, White Hills, Jon Porras), and they ain't finished yet. Here's a couple more recent Thrill Jockey releases that I thought you deserved to hear.


The duo of David Daniell and Douglas McCombs (he of Tortoise fame, amongst a gazillion other ventures) put out their second collaboration in the form of Versions. Essentially six sprawling guitar duets (four studio improvs and two live performances), the album is breathtaking in its audacity and surprising breadth, especially seeing as these tracks are made from the same seven hour improvisational session that made up their first album together, Sycamore. For me this easily trumps their first dig, and this is most likely down to Ken Brown (Tortoise) being given the mixing duties, thus cutting together what he felt were their brightest moments. He's bang on the money there, especially on the roiling classic 'Burn After Reading'. Great stuff.

David Daniell/Douglas McCombs - 30265


Kandodo also whips out an album and it is the most eloquent that Simon Price (lead of The Heads) has put out to date. Price describes them as "fuzzy lullabies", and there really is something warm yet verbose in these guitar-driven woozy interludes. Perfect headspace music (the crackly field recordings that drift in and out of the mix crackle and fizz on the headphones).

kandodo - Laud The Hyena

Both records can be grabbed here and here respectively - I strongly urge that you do so.