Lotte Kestner

China Mountain (Silber, 07.2010)

For: Edith Frost, Tiny Vipers, Laura Gibson

Byline: An arresting collection of portable pacific northwest melancholy kept simple and beautiful on an acoustic guitar and looped vocal accompaniment.

China Mountain can be found on a map. Right...There. Lotte Kestner's musical influences are traceable as well. On China Mountain we hear echoes of early nineties slowcore bands like Idaho and Hayden, we get the sense of the strong female singer-songwriter signed to Sub-Pop, K, and Kill Rockstars record labels, as well as flashes of the faraway hazinesss of Laura Gibson's latest ambient/improvised project with Ethan Rose. China Mountain, like its musical influences are rooted in the northwest. China Mountain is a floating island in the sky, untracable, unlocatable, umapped. Felt more than seen. Recorded on an 8-track in the middle of Marfa, Texas, Kestner takes her quaint, closed, influences and rolls them across the expanses of Texas-plain nothingness. Her minimal compositions sound vast, big enough to get lost in, but quiet enough to sound like someone singing in the motel room next to you. Singing close to the microphone, Kestner's voice seems to overwhelm on the first listen but tapers back on subsequent spins allowing a more three dimensional soundscape to emerge. Were those trumpets on "Compasses"? Sleigh bells on "Leif Erickson"? I am not going to ruin the suprise. Kestner's voice, while often adorned with only skeletal guitar lines and occasional looped vocal arrangements, swirl and form into a cloudy Wang Hui painting, all mist shrouded and depth-perception challenged. It is hard to imagine Kestner's voice accompanying the mundane, repeated acts of domesticity. Frequent nature allegories tie this record to the expanses of a dusk-fading field or a choked forest full of man-sized ferns and moss-covered trunks. Take this album for a spin. A hike. A walkabout. A pilgrimage. A hadj. You will be in good company.

Ryan H.

P.S "Leif Erickson" is an Interpol cover.

Lotte Kestner Myspace

Carta

An Index of Birds (Silber, 03.2010)

For: Low, Spokane, Unwed Sailor

Byline: Sounds of an out-of-print classic that is very much available. Gorgeous slowcore/post-rock album with its roots firmly planted in forgotten nineties subgenres languishing on used CD shelves somewhere in the midwest.

I can understand the obsession with vinyl. On a nice pair of speakers the music really does sound warmer and richer, the artwork on a nice gatefold record is something worth cherishing forever (Crawf showed me the Torche's Meanderthal LP... AMAZING!), and the act of purchasing and owning a tangible recreation of an album lives up to the hype spun by independent record stores. I, on the other hand, do not have a record collection. Not because of a conscious choice, I just never got around to dropping the money on a nice turntable and speakers. I do own three records to date, Neil Young's Everyone Knows This is Nowhere (a wedding present), Thursday/Envy Split EP (don't judge me, released on Temporary Residence, limited edition), and a Woody Allen stand-up album I bought at a thrift store in Idaho (don't ask me why). What I do have is a pretty rad CD collection. I am a CD advocate, for many reasons. It was the medium of my generation, the artists who adapted could do wonders with the mini format (The Magnetic Fields 69 Songs Box Set!? Get outta here!), and of course with the relatively cheaper format of releasing albums on CD guaranteed a bunch of crazy crap would eventually be released (although the LP owns the title of worst album covers. Nineties graphic artists just got cheap and lazy)

What I'm getting at here is that I can't divorce some great records with the way I bought them, from dusty (inexplicably sticky) racks of used cds in the dank basements of record stores and pennies on the dollar for garage sale steals. These have been my most treasured possessions, even though they aren't on vinyl. After listening to Carta's An Index of Birds I can imagine this album being one of those finds. Everything from the creepy severed doll head album cover to the subdued color pallate, this is one of those albums I can see myself thinking "this looks intriguing", buying it for 4 $, brining it home and being blown away. So, if you don't find it in a dusty corner of a record store, consider yourself luck you found it here, on a dusty little corner of the blogosphere. Released on Silber Records, which has never let me down, An Index of Birds is a hushed, fragile, mostly instrumental record that marries charming ambient pieces centered on looped acoustic instrumentation with the decided post-rock march towards a climactic end. Carta take the prettiest moments of Low, the downcast shuffling rhythm section of unsung slowcore heroes Spokane, and the maritime steadiness of Unwed Sailor and processes them through the post-classical sensibilities of Rachel's or this years amazing Slow Six. Gorgeous stuff, granted some of the more ambient tracks feel like segues, Carta knows how to write songs. Instrumental song-songs that have a purpose, direction, and determined end in sight. Although used sparingly, Carta uses vocals to counterpoint the general luminescence of their recording as a whole. The imagery on "Small Lights" creeped me out a little to tell the truth, and while "loud" isn't beyond my list of adjectives, "Back To Nature" and "The Late Alfred M" do not hold anything back when voicing disappointment or near-threatening visceral song writing. The female vocals on "Descension" courtesy of Lorealle Bishop, posses the smoky, breathy emoting of Ida's Elizabeth Mitchell. A standout moment on the album.

An Index of Birds, is a rare find these days, nostalgic but wholly original. A period piece of a faceless generation. A lovingly crafted musical statement. Silber Records, you're doing it rite.

Ryan H.

Carta Myspace

Carta Silber Records Page

Aarktica

In Sea Remixes (Silber Records, 02.2010)

For: Stars of the Lid, German Shepherd, Yume Bitsu

Byline: One of 2009's best releases gets the remix treatment from loads of talented musicians. Drop everything and buy this.

Jon DeRosa's elegiac masterpiece of an ambient-drone record In Sea got me through a very busy semester of school last year. The weight of the music, DeRosa's amazing story, and the therapeutic nature it had on me as I sat up writing paper after paper led to an easy place on my best of 2009 list. Now, Silber Records is graciously releasing a glorious remix album no more than 3 months after its initial release. The remix album is a tricky feat to pull off. First, the source material has to be strong enough to retain its core attributes while withstanding radical tonal and textural changes.

A big check in that box.

Second, the contributers have to alter the original recording enough to warrant another listen to a song you have spun through over a dozen times.

Put another check there.

Those said changes have to alter the song enough to make you look at it in another light, recognizing things that you missed and opening the song to limitless possibilities.

Three for three.

Fourth, make sure Prefuse-73 is on there.

Oh man, so close.

While Scott Herren may be absent, Aarktica's talented friends more than make up for this. Remixes include contributions from Al Qaeda (fellow non-SLC moondial tape contributers) who take "A Plague of Frosts" and underscore it with post-industrial percussion and haunting field-recordings in the vein of Odd Nosdam's eerie "Burner" off Level Live Wires. My favorite remixes are by Planar and Keith Canisuis who take previous wordless songs and sing over them, totally owning the song and changing its very meaning. I have an unhealthy obsession with the Keith Canisuis remix of "Autumnal", I love his decidedly 80's take on the song, transforming the subtle guitar lines into cheesy 80's synth lines and gorgeously-weird keyed up vocals. I don't know very much about this Dutch artist, but I expect to be delving into his back catalogue very soon. Other contributers include but are not limited to: Aidan Baker-collaborator-ThisQuietArmy, the skittering electronic percussion of yellow6, Mason Jones, the pastoral field recordings of Summer Cats. TOME favs Remora, Declining Winter, James Duncan, Ramses III, etc... Not to be missed.

Ryan H.

Silber Records Page

Myspace Page

Aarktica

In Sea (11.09, Silber Records)

For: Remora, German Shepherd, Yume Bitsu

Byline: Now, where am I going to put this in my best of 2009 list?

Listening to music that sounds like it was recorded underwater is an auditory indulgence. I am a sucker for music that sounds like it is coming in from next door or seeping up from the basement. There is a strange sense of everything being far away and non-centered, like when you are coming out from anesthesia. While I can enjoy this strange experience from time to time through headphones, I couldn't imagine this being my only auditory connection with the world. For Jon DeRosa, the man behind Aarktica, this is a 24-7 experience. Nerve damage left him completely deaf in his right ear. Seems like a career ending injury, right? Like an ACL tear in basketball. In DeRosa's case, he translated the warped, distant sounds of hearing everything like he was underwater into a quietly epic, droning masterpiece of layered guitar sounds. DeRosa's drones, like a less abstract Eluvium, are centered around looped chords and textured guitar effects that build into a quiet crescendo. In the drone landscape, DeRosa's output is unique. DeRosa builds his icy soundscapes around an almost pop-like song structure, eschewing the temptation to wander aimlessly across a frozen tundra of half-baked musical ideas. This blending of the familiar and unchartable gives way to a bottemless cavern of eerie guitar effects and buzzing drones that float freely beneath the surface. What is amazing about In Sea, (I don't think I have mentioned what an awesome title that is) is that one expects a aural representation of DeRosa's braille like interpretation of sound. Instead the fidelity is the exact opposite of underwater music, it is clean, precise, and of course more than just a little fractured and woozy. I was already considering this one of the best post-rock/guitar drone albums of the year before a quick look at the back story cemented it. Well worth dropping everything and listening to it.

Ryan H.

Aarktica Silber Records Homepage

Remora

Derivative (10.09, Silber Records)

For: Birchville Cat Motel, German Shepherd, Silver Antlers

Byline: Bob Dylan, droned.

Being a pretty marginal fan of both metal and hip hop, I nevertheless get pretty giddy when I hear stuff by Girl Talk and Birchville Cat Motel. When my brother puts on Girl Talk in the car we begin a tag-team dissection of cultural/musical references. He is all over the hip-hop tracks like, "this is the Ying-Yang Twins, duh" and I've got the "Dude! That is The Band! or Yo! He is sampling Rainbow on this track!". I also get chills up my spine when I hear Birchville Cat Motel's thirty minute long dismantle of a single Iron Maiden riff on "Drawn Towards Chanting Chords". Not that I have any past with Iron Maiden, I don't think I have ever listened to a full album, BCM's meditation on that riff is just so heavy and beautiful it makes me want to do something with my life. So when I read that ambient/drone guitar pioneer Brian John Mitchell's project Remora would be releasing Derivative, which would follow suit in crafting guitar drones around cherished pop hooks I knew I had something amazing on my hands. Creating solo guitar drones in the style of an noisier Aidan Baker solo project, Remora tackles musical passages by Bob Dylan, Journey, Pere Ubu, Warrior Soul and Hefner. Not that you would be able to pick any of these songs out by any sort of compositional familiarity, not by a long shot. I still can't really figure them out. But with or without this knowledge going into this album, Derivative is a drone masterpiece. I wouldn't ever call drone piece catchy per say, but the album opener "Every Prince" has a gorgeous guitar upswell that nearly takes my breath away every time. If anything comes close to a drone single, this is it. A type of shoegazy beauty that defies categorization. Layer upon layer upon layer of hypnotic, swirling guitar parts stretch any pop tendencies into a meditative sea of clairvoyant noise. I know I am not using clairvoyant in the right sense of the word but it felt nice to write. Derivative is a stunnigly gorgeous album and stands on its own regardless of maybe, just maybe being able to pick out a Pere Ubu bass line. But Warrior Soul, I've never heard them before. Remora just made me a huge fan. Serious.

Ryan H.

Silber Records Homesite