Take Off And Give WIth A Heligator

Ryan Hall is one of the founders of excellent Denver-based blog Tome To The Weather Machine, which shines a slanted light on the outliers of making sounds. He is also responsible for Heligator Records, a label extension of this outlook that showcases original pieces made especially for the project. I have mentioned a couple of their releases in the past, most notably Lake Mary and Nathan Wheeler. What makes the label even more important is where the money raised goes to. All money raised is donated to the Malindza Refugee Camp Library in Mpaka, Swaziland.The money goes to maintaining the library and providing a small stipend to the volunteer, refugee librarians. The library is home to over 1,500 books, two computers as well as English and French classes taught by refugee volunteers. To learn more about the Library and where your money is going please visit the Library's blog.

The last four albums to come from the roster are just as beguiling... I actually started writing up a review of Make-Overs' self-titled EP back in July, the South African duo donating the four tracks for the cause. There is a uneasy juxtaposition between the melodious arrangements that teeters from a sunny disposition to one of wary disdain - a slowed down, metronomic post-punk that never fully pulverises nor pulsates (although 'Sharp Teeth' tears through and holds its own), but rather seeps through the defences. 'Never Enough' reminds me of a downbeat Pixies, whilst 'Jellybean' percolates like The Stone Roses at their most embryonic. The best song though is opener 'Surprize' - it seethes, sullen yet persistent, brooding yet pugnacious.



Utah guitar manipulator Braeyden Jae (who has his own collation of out-there artists with Inner Islands), donates 'Switches', a six minute rolling opus of glacial electric discharge, a sonic stormcloud building inexorably on the horizon. It never exults in a deafening apocalyptic implosion however - by the song's end we are revitalised and reborn. It's a beautiful track.



Oakland surfers of the outer realms Clipd Beaks threw their chips in the ring with 'FKWRK', a roiling psych jam that starts as a subtle simmer, a few glimpses of broiling hermetics, before a rawk explosion hits, the distortion/delay/flange/hallucinogenics kick in, the reedy calls become wails...and we are wasted. All within three and a half minutes. A lot of people forget that good psych can be short. Clipd Beaks haven't.



Finally we have Landing - yes, Landing! 'Traveling' eschews the drum machine beats of their last few releases, and we are left with a alluring Syren squall of a track, with Aaron Snow murmuring "I'm not invisible" before piercing the sky with his sharp, shimmering guitar lines. It's such a great track, and seeing as it is exclusively available through Heligator, and the money goes to a great cause, you would be a fool not to at least chip in a dollar...



So as you can see, you the listener gets a lot out of this pay-for-music malarkey as well as knowing you are contributing to an extremely worthwhile cause. Win-bloody-win.

Everybody's Droning On The Weekend

That headline (and indeed lead picture - but that's nothing unusual here...) is a slight misnomer - some of these acts aren't really drone, just are producing instrumental pieces that offer differing styles of repetition - but I thought that seeing as most weekend mornings are spent in varying stages of a fugue state, why not try to provide a soundtrack for it? Let's see if any of these five acts fit the bill...

One band that does fit into the drone zone is English act Dwellings, whose Don't Say Nothing LP has just started shipping out of Trensmat Records. Originally out on Tesla Tapes, it's a heady leap forward from the split release they did with Druss that was "presented" by Britain's progenitors of black drone alchemy GNOD (seeing as Dwellings is the mask behind which GNOD bassist Chris Haslam resides, and Tesla Tapes was started by the band), encompassing as it does the double-helix concoction of trance-inducing percussion and heaving swarms of industrial ambiance. Say what? Trust me, when these elements meld into each other, a metallic sheet of white ephemera that beguilingly lingers in the air like burnt ozone. Buy Don't Say Nothing here.

Bathetic Records are privy to some good dronal material, and the latest act they have gotten behind with such a proclivity is Matthew Sullivan's LA ephemeral crawl experiment, Earn. On the new LP Hell On Earth, Sullivan strikes out on weightless travails through unfocused streets and neon lights - pastels and fluorescence out of sync, floating towards the precipice of unconsciousness and unconscionable acts, yet never allowing you to slip under the covers of darkness - a constant bucolic wrestle for the soul. A fair tangent from the harsh noise loops of the past, Hell On Earth  nevertheless upholds the uneasiness, the fleeting moments of clarity hidden amidst a miasma of half-images and clouded ideas - and is all the more entrancing because of its obtuseness. I definitely recommend picking this up here.

Over to New Zealand now and Wellington post-rockers Sunken Seas. They visited Australia a few months ago but didn't make it as far north as Queensland; let's not hold that against them, especially when we see how on-song they are on their Cataclysm EP. Ryan Harte's vocals are making more of a presence amidst the shuddering, shimmering walls of noise that cloister around them, threatening to topple at any moment in a cataclysmic torrent of fury. Again mired in emotions as dark as the political despair Sunken Seas engenders to unearth, Cataclysm turns the mirror onto the souls of the band, in a room of mirrors shining out on the world. As in its cyclical, and emblematic of a rising emotion, here etched in noise. Despite the squall it all sounds crystalline and precise - these guys know exactly what they're doing. Cataclysm is out now through Muzai Records.

A blog that is no strange to the world of drone is Colorado-based alum Tome To The Weather Machine. One of its creators Ryan Hall has branched out and started his own digital-only singles label, Heligator Records, and the first piece to come from the newly-minted stable is a beauty. 'Agrimony (Porch Music)' is a collaboration between Lake Mary and Nathan Wheeler, an 11 minute pastoral glory that is anchored on the delicate, plaintive pluckings of a six-string acoustic guitar and Wheeler's pump organ. (Imagine Black Eagle Child territory) Its the kind of floating gem that can fill you head with all kinds of Malick-esque ruminative natural montages - then the postscript is a pretty hilarious bursting of the bubble. More please.

And let's finish with a prodigy, shall we? Henry Plotnick is but a babe in the woods - ELEVEN years young to be exact - yet with Fields he has crafted nine sonorous suites of cyclical, coalescing soundbites of light. The experimental complexities and professional acumen present in these looping, kaleidoscopic classics defies explanation - it's good enough to be the lighthearted musings of William Basinski, or the nightmarish daydreams of David Lynch if 'Field 4' is anything to go by, let alone the machinations echoing forth from the mind of a child not ready to leave primary school yet. Holy Mountain have snatched Plotnick up (figuratively speaking, of course), and it's a coup of sorts - if this is what he is capable of now, give him five, ten, fifteen years. Seriously blown away by this. You can, and bloody well should, buy Fields here (how many people IN GENERAL can claim to have a double LP out which is winning global critical acclaim? Jesus.)

A Day On A Remote Island's Heaven

Picked this EP up from Crawf over at Tome To The Weather Machine. The band is Philadelphia's Remote Islands (or more accurately, Colin Pate and a revolving door of mates), whose Days Of Heaven EP is an interesting mix of folk and experimental intricacy. For whatever reason I got a mixture of Mercury Rev, Neil Young and Syd Barrett when listening to this. The multitude of instruments on display, including banjo, mandolin, upright bass, Wurlitzer, flute, cello (the list is goddamned extensive), combined with the lo-fi production, creates an otherworldly sound, something that is orchestral and baroque in the way Modest Mouse might have been in the 1800s (see 'The Story Of Chairs'), yet with a lot of synth disco influences flooding through the veins (see 'Landau/Midlands' and 'There's A Cost Associated'). I was supposed to be marking dissertations - I instead ate a spinach and feta foccacia, drank two coffees, and threw balled up pieces of scrap paper at the bin - for about an hour. A true procrastinatory tool - obtusely fascinating, strikingly unfamiliar, yet altogether attractive.

Finding Musical Nuggets In This Denver Goldrush

This is an incredibly exciting notion - a festival run by three ace of base blogs! Pity its in Denver...too far away! The rad dudes from Tome To The Weather Machine, Magic Teepee and Speaker Snacks have united to present the first annual GOLDRUSH Music Festival, in two weeks' time, September 16th and 17th at the Hi-Dive Rock Club and Sputnik in Denver, Colorado. This two-day event will cover a wide, varied selection of musical styles from across North America, featuring rock, electronic, pop, and ambient from over 30 nationally renowned artists, headlined by Tennis, CVLTS and How To Dress Well. The Tome's Crawf and Ryan H., Magic Teepee's Ryan P., and Speaker Snacks' Jake Martin are all longtime friends and avid supporters of all things music. Each site has had a careful hand in picking out the artists performing this year, making the artist invitations/acceptances and pending performances extremely personal and sacred. These musicians have been obsessively listened to, worshipped, and then subsequently written about—and for good reason. Its a veritable who's who od SM-endorsed artists like Vitamins, Junior Low, Tjutjana, School Knights, Candy Claws, Seven Feathers Rainwater, Slow Magic, StaG, the Kevin Costner Suicide Pact, Steffaloo and Teen Daze, plus a shedload more, GOLDRUSH promises to be something special.

The guys put together this compilation to showcase the event, and its pretty spectacular. You can get tix for the event here! Its uber cheap and will be an amazing weekend, so get on board!!

Vitamins For The Weather Machine

I was talking to Crawf over at Tome For The Weather Machine before the Xmas break, mainly riffing over how amazing Tjutjana's self-titled LP was, and he threw me this video from his own act, Vitamins. They've been rocking Denver for about three years, so are well versed in all things Tjutjana, as well as getting chummy with Woodsman. they have been playing with the likes of Tennis and Gauntlet Hair too, which is pretty rad. There is talk of a new release in the works, and they may be doing a vid with Rob Feulner (who's done some wicked vids for CFCF and Hobo Cubes) so keep tuned...

Liquid Crystals-Original Score by Vitamins and Shyman from Matthew Daniels on Vimeo.