Endless Reams Of Sonic Meditations

This is a small post, as after a protracted series of emails with Expo 70 alchemist Justin Wright I forgot to check out the new releases on his cassette label, Sonic Meditations. Today is my last day at work for a little while, and I found my Expo 70 shirt that I had mislaid over a month ago, so this fortnight will be all about dropping out. No better way than with the acid elongations of Kansas trio Gemini Revolution, the excellent cyclical internal guitar drone of Italy's Metzengerstein, or indeed Expo 70's own Closet Full of Candles. Every release is handpicked by Wright for exclusive limited runs, so most releases are almost out of stock (if they aren't already).

Nobly Ruined

It's pretty bleeding obvious that I love me some drone. It started with Mogwai, and continued along that path until albums by the likes of (but nowhere near exclusive to) Barn Owl, Ensemble Economique, Expo 70 and Robedoor consistently circle within my head like sharks in the water. Lee Noble has been an artist that has slowly risen in stocks for me to the point that the simultaneous release of his Ruiner and (reissue of) No Becoming albums through Bathetic Records was something of an event on Planet Masala.

What draws you in isn't the noise, it's the patience that it takes to get to the end point that you know will end in heartbreak and catastrophe; a controlled tension eked out on a knife's edge, time being stalled or stretched without warning. Noble's disembodied vocals are another cipher, an out-of-body experience that refuses to be pinned down, yet irrevocably draws the focus from the sleights of hand that are at play. Ruiner can be glacial and fragmented, isolating yet entrancing - like most drone, it takes you somewhere, often with hundreds of others around you, yet you are cocooned to all but your own experience, your own cryogenic dreamstate.

Yet there is a baroque air to Ruiner, a playful redolence that casts off the oppressive chains and allows the blood to pump through the veins once more. Hard to believe, but Noble at times seems insistent that he is crafting pop - an alien, subterranean version, yet pop all the same. So whilst the icy stabs through your brain still exist, there are counterpoints (often running tangential or parallel to the more industrial moments) where it can either hurt or refresh; paralyse or revitalise. Above all else, Ruiner offers a bruised beauty too - like most experimental music, it plucks at your fraying emotions, forcing you to feel.

You can buy both Ruiner (cover above) and No Becoming (the excellent cover at the top of the post) here. 

Lee Noble - December ∞ 
Lee Noble - Demon Pond

The Vastness Is...Ensemble Economique

 

The way I came to Starving Weirdos/RV Paintings alum Brian Pyle's solo output under the pseudonym of Ensemble Economique holds its roots in getting into drone in 2008. I came across his debut At The Foot of Nameless Roads and was floored by the variations on what drone could be, just within this one piece. Since then I have floated in and out of his output (thanks to Paul I was all over the brilliant Psychical) and been able to shine a light on this enigmatic yet entrancing sonic explorer.

 EE's latest release is The Vastness Is Bearable Only Through Love, out through Shelter Press. Such a title is typically allusive, as it precipitates a miasma of acidic, caustic sounds that drill into your inner core, fuelling unease, pushing the needle into the red until the rhythmic undulations claw at the undercarriage of your brain. The haunting piano line in the title track (that takes all of one side of the 12") is, in my opinion, the coup de grace - a touchstone on the most eerie ghost stories, it proves to be more sinister than the metallic blips, shudders and hisses that it mingles with. A study in paranoia and insanity, this track is unnerving in the truest sense.

The two tracks on the B-side don't quite live up to this nerve-grating precursor - 'All That Remains Is Dark Sky' is the arbitrary fallout from such an aural marathon, a wasteland of white noise and undulating synth; whilst 'Something New Is Happening' is exactly that, a hint of a densely-layered silver lining flickering at the edge of the abyss...but to what end? The Vastness Is Bearable Only Through Love is an endurance test, one where the Machiavellian machinations of Ensemble Economique don't become clear until the album is fully ingested - and possibly not even then. Is this what the future sounds like? If so, my nightmares are much safer places to be.

   

 You can pick up The Vastness Is Bearable Only Through Love here - it's in sexy blue vinyl to boot.

Ensemble Economique - All That Remains Is Dark Sky

Come On Down To Expo 70, And Have Yourself A Time

It’s never long before Missouri drone tech god Justin Wright AKA Expo 70 has a new release out – and if you hide under a rock for a few months you end up drowning in them. So it seems here at Sonic Masala, as there are THREE releases of the last half of the year that have come out, all of them varying degrees of awesome.

 

Let’s start with the album, Beguiled Entropy (out through Blackest Rainbow). My pick of the bunch, these five track perfectly encapsulating the different sonic currents Wright tends to traverse, extrapolate and wrap in on itself, and as such is a true genre definer. From the aqueous drift and bleeps of ‘Mark of the Rising Mantis’, the soaring space spectre of ‘Luminous Traveler’ and the apocryphal drone of ‘Sunseekers (Out Of Diminished Light)' to the flipside and the warped odyssey of ‘Backmasking Deeper Than Darkness’ coming on like an aural 70s mindfuck film score – headphone orgasm alert – and the throbbing crawler ‘Pulsing Rings Of Ice’. It’s always hard to properly describe a good analogue drone record from the repetitive or the dreck – the line is infinitesimal, its all in the nuance of the atmospherics – yet Wright nary puts a foot wrong here.

Expo 70 – Luminous Traveller

Then there is this split LP the Missouri multi-instrumentalist did with NY avant-savant Ancient Ocean (AKA John Bohannon of Electric Temple Records) through Sound of Cobra (in collaboration with NO=FI Records). Expo 70’s contribution is the 21 minute ‘Waves In Caverns of Air’, which eschews the guitar for more effects driven glacial Moog drone. The planet Hoth reimagined by Stanley Kubrick. (Ancient Ocean’s track is damned rad too).

Expo 70 – Waves In Caverns Of Air

Finally there is this enormous four way split double LP put out through Immune Recordings that sees Expo 70 sparring with Portland’s cosmic synth paean Pulse Emitter, Oakland’s hazy space provocateurs Date Palms and Peaking Lights' Aaron Coyes' sunblissed offshoot Faceplant. Here Wright goes into more of a stoner riff mantra, and it proves to be a fun killer counterpoint. Wright is joined with a rhythm section which he has been touring with for the majority of this year, and it’s a dark yet electric combination. Seeing as I'm a real sucker for these kind of jams, I love this direction almost as much as Beguiled Entropy.

Expo 70 - Closet Full Of Candles

Grab these titles stat - Wright can do no wrong.

Gnod On The Wire Past The 5th Sun

Salford's best exponents of dark, dank, dirty psych drone (and funniest bastard alive Stewart Lee's fave band) Gnod have two recent releases of note that are damned (and killer).


First of all, we have Chaudelande Volume 2 which came out a few months ago on Tamed Records. The followup to Chaudelande Volume 1 (strangely...), this three track release is one tripped out motorik trip into the netherworld and back, guaranteed to tear a fraction of your soul away in the process. The grooves inherent in this album are insane - I never expected Gnod to reach these heady heights. I personally love 'Man On The Wire' (why didn't this soundtrack some portion of Kill List? Or maybe The Wicker Tree - that film mightn't have been such a dire disappointment otherwise...) and 'Entrance', but 'Genocider' is beautifully unrelenting also. They are so on song here that it is scary. You must get this - seriously.

Gnod - Man On The Wire


Then to make things interesting, along comes brilliantly destructive Irish label Trensmat (who have also put out sweet one-offs by the likes of White Hills, Evan Caminiti, Expo '70 and Cave) and and drops 5th Sun, a delectable slice of Gnodisms that works as a symmetrical trip into an exploding star. The flip side is '5th Dub', the closest these dark alchemists will ever get to being Massive Attack (and it's still solar systems in comparison). You can grab that one here.

Gnod - 5th Sun

One of the most underrated psych bands out there. Get on board.

Raven Steals My Hovering Resonance (Not Really)

Dammit, Raven Sings The Blues beat me to this by a day! Goes to show what wading through a backlog of music will do to ya. Still, RSTB is an amazing music blog, if you don't already frequent their page and delight in their delicacies, then you aren't living.

Sound Of Cobra put out a cool release by Cannibal Movie last year (word is that CM are bringing out a full length release this year - watch this space...), and now they have mixed blood with the ever excellent Expo 70 (AKA Justin Wright) for Hovering Resonance, a swirling, coalescing masterpiece of motorik haze. It is nuts how many releases of great consistency this dude puts out - it's hard to even ascertain where to start! But I think that this rivals anything he put out last year, including the Night Mist cassette he put out on Nurse Etiquette, or Inaudible Bicoastal Trajectory which was far spacier. This has a hedonistic bent that is yet somehow more palatable, and that isn't a detriment. There is a lot of playback value on this one. The krautrock drive underneath the title track in particular will have you coming back for more.


You can grab Hovering Resonance here - I highly recommend this one.

Expo 70 - Hovering Resonance

Papal Nods At Gnod

Ah, Gnod. Ive been espousing the dark temptations that these UK drone psych rockers offer for a while now, and here they are again, giving us decidedly fucked up shit on Ingnodwetrust (through Rocket Recordings). A perfect way to round out our Thursday of incredibly warped musak, Ingnodwetrust (great album title, by the way!) is as volatile, warped and incendiary as anything else that has come to pass from their LSD-addled loins. The weird thing about this two track behemoth (yep, I say that phrase again - Expo 70 doesnt have a monopoly over it!) is how clear the production it is, and how fucked up it insists on still sounding. There is so much skewed effects and samples melted into the soundscapes here that it arrests any train of thought and forcibly wrestles you into their own world, one where pleasure and pain are indistinguishable. There is some decidedly Italo disco darkwave meanderings laced in this release, which tells you how far out we are treading here. And the papal imagery reminds me of Ken Russell's The Devils in its blatant controversial and yet flippant adherence. I will admit that many of you will abhor Gnod and their kind. Fair dues too. However, if you are just a smidge adventurous and dip the toe in the murky, oily waters. Don't expect to come back from this trip - or to even want to.

Pick up Ingnodwetrust (as well as a plethora of other spaced out releases, including the stellar Gnod split with White Hills!) here.

Gnod -Tony's First Communion

Expo '70 On A Predictably Unpredictable Trajectory

Expo 70 has never done anything by halves, continually dishing out his brand of droning guitar explorations with an astonishing rate of consistency. A solo project of Kansas City-ite Justin Wright, Expo 70 lurk around the outer realm of psych rock yet deserves to be further in the sunlight - even if its the wan, sickly kind. Latest release Inaudible Bicoastal Trajectory (out through Aguirre Records) is a two track behemoth, offering menacing drum machine, synth devilry and vibrating guitar thrums that intends to rend your world asunder - and succeeds unequivocally. The best part about this release is that it is a live performance, something that I struggled to fathom. Yeah, its drone, its Expo 70, its life as Wright knows it - yet I find it absolutely compelling, and another example of just how great this guy is.


Buy Inaudible Bicoastal Trajectory (along with all other Expo 70 gear) from his store here.

Expo 70 - Hypnotic Brain Cloud Float