As promised , a trainspotter's delight to complete the unveiling of & revelling in our Improbably Late 80 - the broader counterpoint to our earlier Furtive 30 & some kind of a conclusion to our end of year-listing for 2012 (though, as noted , there's still a label profile/interview to come as we explore the outer limits of improbable lateness...). This final batch of pieces from (& previews of) IL80 [...]
Even in an era of mega-compilations, Headphone Commute 's ...and darkness came is a giant. Not just for its epic scale, though at 87 tracks its self-description as "colossal" is a un-hyperbolic statement of fact, but for its ambition: " to benefit all of those affected by Hurricane Sandy, the largest Atlantic hurricane on record, which has devastated portions of the Caribbean, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States in late October 2012. [...]
Still under the gun (& staying there for another four weeks), but to keep our collective hand (& ears) in: a quartet of compelling pieces harvested a while back, slackly stacked in draft... Featuring Marcus Fischer (whose lulling Unrecognizable Now project - including a fine album for Kesh, Two Rooms - will be covered here soon-ish... ) ; Celer [...]
Re-up for aggregation... Clearly you can't compare a compilation with a single release like the astounding Peregrine . But even if it necessarily lacks the same coherence & singular artistic vision the new Experimedia label sampler (which includes a chunk of Lawrence English 's instant classic, incidentally) is still one of my albums of the year. I don't even know if the sampler 'exists' as a formal release. Perhaps its only life is digital - as an online [...]
Clearly you can't compare a compilation with a single release like the astounding Peregrine . But even if it necessarily lacks the same coherence & singular artistic vision the new Experimedia label sampler (which includes a chunk of Lawrence English 's instant classic, incidentally) is still one of my albums of the year. I don't even know if the sampler 'exists' as a formal release. Perhaps its only life is digital - as an online curation of streams [...]
In the eighteen months since Danielle Baquet-Long passed away, there have already been upwards of a dozen albums worth of material released which were recorded by her and her husband Will Long before her untimely death. Especially given the quiet, introspective nature of all this music, there comes a point where you have to wonder just how much more there is to say, or how many ways there are of saying it; even the title of this latest album may almost be verging on self-parody. But not for the first time, I'm confounded; once again I have found myself buying [...]
A Gareth Hardwick post pushing current Low Point releases listing Ben Fleury-Steiner forthcoming: prompted harking back to and digging out of lamentably overlooked gem from last year (March 2010 release). Ben's Keep a Weather Eye Open on the estimable Infraction got an ‘Also outstanding’ in LMYE’s Festive 50 , but there's been barely a peep from anyone elsewhere on this accomplished bit of ambient-drone gear. Good pretext for bigging it up a bit. Ben F-S lists [...]
Witness a striking new outpouring from Celer 's Will Long - five languidly unfolding but gripping pieces already this year, two dated & uploaded just yesterday, from an apparent sojourn in Japan. Even by Celer's standards , that's pretty epic output. These ears especially appreciate the long, faintly rasping sweeps of Blue [...]
Despite a lack of rain, the river still flows. Fairly recently, I remarked on the surprisingly steady stream of Celer-related material which was still emerging. It has now become a cascade, tumbling down with such speed and volume that a new vessel has been created to hold some of the overflow: Two Acorns. Two Acorns is a new imprint curated by Celer's Will Long and dedicated to Danielle Baquet-Long, which will focus (understandably) on "sentimentality, in all its forms", which will include not just recordings, but also books. The first bottling from this freshly-assembled vat is a fine blend of [...]
Will Thomas Long - Sequoia As many already know, the incredible husband-wife drone duo Celer ceased making music once Danielle Baquet-Long died last year. However, Will Thomas Long, the other half, continues creating and just released a new EP through the new netlabel offshoot of my most favoritest sites ever, basic_sounds . Sequoia is one 22 minute track dedicated to the memory of Will's late wife. It's a minimal [...]
Ambient footnotes dept: following recent pieces on Scanner & Chubby Wolf , more richly layered, reflective loveliness from the same fertile sources - the Professeur's Sighs, Wonders in [...]
A year on from her dreadfully premature death, listening again to Dani Baquet-Long's Chubby Wolf - not for anniversary reasons but because there is still so much to hear in Celer & her solo spin-off (as well, of course, as so much of it to hear...). Try her notably effortless, seemingly limitless Ornitheology cassette on Digitalis (extracts below). Ironically, the physical tape is extremely limited ( 125 copies... [...]
'It doesn't matter how much misery this produces, how many social pathologies such policies produce, and how much real economic stagnation it results in. Until the neoliberal accumulation model is threatened by a class insurgency, or is consumed in a war of such a magnitude as to destroy much existing capital and re-open currently closed investment opportunities, the ruling class will not part with it.' Why Neoliberalism Persists Isengrind - Night Dew Call Dylan Ettinger & The Heat - Smokin' Family Portrait - Mega Secrets [...]
Tipped via tokafi on twitter , here's a free download compilation for Dragon's Eye Records' 4th anniversary. 7 pieces of drone and soundscapes, including our eternal loves Celer , Pierre Gerard, Wyndel Hunt and label boss Yann Novak. Tune into Tokafi's extensive review : Meanwhile, the work of Canada's France Jobin (aka i8u) displays unexpected similarities with Novak's own contribution „Shortwaves to Longwaves“: Both rely on a blend of ultrahigh and extremely low frequencies, a suspenseful delineation between a highly direct foreground and a deep, atmospheric backdrop as well [...]
Muslimgauze , possibly? Perhaps, but in an arguably narrower range. Few other artists' fecundity matches that of Celer , o ne of LMYE's 20 artists of 2009 - & almost none maintained the same quality across a raft of often very long releases. The five years they operated as a duo & solo artist Chubby Wolf are [...]
After the sad and sudden death of Celer's Danielle Baquet-Long last year, you would have been forgiven for thinking that as far as the group was concerned, that was, well, that. Not so. At that time there were still around 25 Celer albums in some form or another awaiting release, and Danielle's husband and musical [...]
If you were to open the dictionary at "unassuming" it could do worse than refer you to Low Point records. Everything about the label screams understatement. If you can scream understatement. Which you probably can't. Everything from the name, to the simple, stark photography which adorns these records, to the modest price (these will set [...]
Usually when you show up at a brewery and learn that they aren't giving any public tours that day, you feel like a jackass. Especially when you've driven through traffic to get from LA to San Diego. But every once in a while, a missed opportunity turns into something really cool and special. My trip to the AleSmith Brewery turned out to be a bust, but a few miles down the road at Ballast Point Brewery, I had a really amazing time drinking and touring the brewery. Follow that up with a trip to Pizza Port Carlsbad and you've got [...]
The death has been announced of Danielle Baquet-Long , the female side of husband-and-wife dronescape duo Celer. "Dronscape duo" and even "ambient" are too slight terms to try and explain exactly what Celer were up to; a mixture of self-produced, self-released records, installations and performance. The Spekk website tries to sum it up: Their intent is producing works that reflect the nature of love, family, and their concerns and interests, through a relative and absolute symposium of expression. They currently reside on the coast of Southern California. Danielle had a cruelly [...]
I've tweeted about the loss of Celer 's Dani "Chubbs" Baquet-Long on Monday, but I couldn't find some time to make a proper post because of the our vacation. This Southern California couple were very talented blissful drone/soundscape makers and all around artists into literature, poetry and philosophy etc. and they were quite prolific with a lot of releases on and/OAR , Infraction, Digitalis and their own label Celer. I've only begun collecting their work but 2008's Capri is an amazing soundtrack (made after a journey in Italy's Capri Island) that I started our Aegian vacation with. It [...]
Lend Me Your Ears
mapsadaisical
Anti-Gravity Bunny
undomondo
Swan Fungus
No Rock And Roll Fun
Kanye West Pushing Will Smith To Record, Release New Music
[MP3 Playlist] Indie Dojo (May 2013 Round #5)
Dimmed lights on the Sunset Strip
