Deaf Center – Vintage Well 7″
Type
Latest edition in the T7PE series of 7″‘s, this time from Norwegian duo Deaf Center. Those familiar with the duo’s full lengths, Pale Ravine and Neon City will find much to love here. Gorgeous, drifting ambience with the right amount of creepiness and melody to make it very effective. Fans of Eno’s ambient works would be wise to pick this up. Three songs, “Vintage Well,” “Ashes,” and “Close,” the last of which could’ve easily fit on Ambient 2: The Plateau of Mirror or The Pearl. There seem to be tons of artists trying desperately to do this kind of thing now but rarely is it done so well. Highly recommended. Hand numbered edition of 400.
Oren Ambarchi – Destinationless Desire 7″
Touch
More in the Touch Sevens series. This one is every bit as good as Fennesz’ Transitions and the Fennesz/Jeck split 7″ that were released in the series. Ambarchi’s last full-length, In the Pendulum’s Embrace was something of a let down for me, but the two track here more than make up for that. “Highway of Diamonds” begins with about three minutes of low-end crackle and bass glitch before abruptly switching gears to something like an organ glissando. “Bleeding Shadow” is more low end disruption only this time with pitched down voices fed into the mix for a truly ghastly experience.
Tricorn & Queue – Hidden Entrances C-30
Digitalis Limited (www.digitalisindustries.com)
When I popped in this cassette from the label associated with Foxy Digitalis I just knew it was something good. The tape itself is baby blue with pink swirly labels and artwork to boot! Tricorn & Queue offer up two fifteen plus minute tracks and if you were to judge by the song titles, “Forever Lucid in Pearl Tree Shade” and “Free Falling to Crescent Meadow” respectively, you’d be right that it’s some dreamy stuff. Imagine Eno’s ambient works or something like Mountains or GAS’s Pop and you’d be close. It somehow manages to retain its own identity even with those touchstones. Very good stuff indeed but possibly hard to find at this point. Limited to 70 hand-numbered copies and already sold out at the source.
Wolf Eyes – Nuisance CD-R
I couldn’t find any info on this CD-R other than the tracklist and that the two shorter tracks, “Borken Order” and “Always Wrong,” are demos of stuff from their upcoming Hospital Records full-length tentatively titled Pretending Alive. The longer pieces are about fifteen minutes each If you’ve been following Wolf Eyes CD-R output in the time between Human Animal and now then you know they just keep getting more abstract and awesome. I’ve been wondering how they’re going to keep Wolf Eyes and Hair Police sounding different enough from each other now that Connolly’s doing both full-time. If Hair Police’s new one, Certainty of Swarms, is any indication then it won’t be hard. Seems that band is going back to its more rhythmically oriented hardcore roots ala Blow Out Your Blood even as Wolf Eyes get more broken sounding. Can’t wait to hear Pretending Alive. Seek this one out if you can, these dudes can do no wrong it seems.