Derek Rogers / Sparkling Wide Pressure

Minor Phase Patterns (Kimberly Dawn, 2010)

For: Evan Caminiti, Sean McCann, Pop-era Gas

Byline: A beautiful ambient painting on the canvas of a 3" CD-R. Don't have a CD spindle? Get one.

I feel a little guilty reviewing this, as the release from the 3" CD-r label Kimberly Dawn Recordings is (perhaps unsurprisingly and indeed unfortunately) already sold out of its limited run of 50 copies, and the only place I've been able to track down that has even but a five-minute excerpt from the piece is a YouTube video that's embedded into Kim Dawn's blog. So it's troubling to me that many who read this may never get the chance to hear this work in full, as Frank Baugh (aka Sparkling Wide Pressure) and Derek Rogers' ambient effort is quite the treasure. Minor Phase Patterns layers long, slender guitar and synth tones against one another, allowing individual voices to kind of massage themselves together. It creates a homogeneously smooth and creamy hum with flashes of fleeting melodies you almost create for yourself subconsciously. Beats and rhythmic devices are sacrificed in favor of very slowly developing chord progressions, tonally fluid and morphing with the waxing and waning of textures so soft and slight (much like the works of composers like Wolfgang Voigt or William Basinski), changes barely go noticed. The music does follow a trajectory, though, a remarkable feat for a sound that remains so consistently firm in volume and overall girth—it's never fat or lean, starving or engorged—simply full. Elements breathe for themselves and are independent, but they work in a delicate tandem to operate like an organism, all singularly participatory in contributing to a common, well-rounded and balanced whole...

...I have to admit, most of my music these days is either downloaded, loaded into my slot-fed laptop, or, you know, I'm always partial to vinyl. So it was a task for me to find a way to hear Minor Phase Patterns. But interestingly, I was also immediately drawn to this little gem. These 3" discs are hip artifacts—folkloric vessels in a way, transporting music to an emerging subculture through a stylized material format. They empower ritual in art, emphasizing specifically planned, exclusive sorts of listening practices, encouraging more interpersonal moments of sharing that the internet age might be guilty of destroying. These CDs can be a pain in the ass to enjoy for those of you with nary a tray nor spindle, but they're also a beautiful pain in the ass, completely worth the effort whatever you have to do to hear them.

Crawf

This review originally published at Foxy Digitalis. Used by permission from Digitalis Industries, Inc. Read the full review here.

Kimberly Dawn Blogspot (Lots of great stuff here - and these sell out quick. Get on it!)

An excerpt from Minor Phase Patterns for your listening enjoyment:

Kyle Bobby Dunn

A Young Person’s Guide to Kyle Bobby Dunn (Low Point, 2010)

For: William Basinski, Stars of the Lid, German Shepherd

Byline: Slow-blooming, gorgeous ambient drones from the young Brooklyn composer... easily the best of its kind this year.

Names can be deceiving... The fact that the artist in question was born “Kyle Bobby Dunn,” coupled with this record’s (kind of hilarious) title, A Young Person’s Guide to Kyle Bobby Dunn had me fully expecting this to be either shit-kicker country or hushed, gentle folk tunes from an aging artist perhaps long forgotten and retrospected on a two-disc collection long after his fabled hey-day of yore. Wrong. Kyle Bobby Dunn is rather a Brooklyn-based ambient/drone composer. And he’s a damned fine one at that. And the fact that this guy is only 24, and that many of these compositions have been in the works for six years is astonishing and a bit humbling. Americana, he ain’t...what they in the music biz call “legit,” he certainly is. This collection can serve as an exemplary introduction to someone who’s sure to master this style even more throughout his potentially massive career than he already has... these 12 tracks in and of themselves represent something close to a masterwork already, but my guess is the best is yet to come.

“Composer” is an interesting word being thrown around these days, especially when used for this genre... it’s so difficult to imagine these songs on the printed page. Key signatures? Rhythm? Measures? Even something as fundamental as individual notes or chords seem irrelevant here... in the case of Kyle Bobby Dunn, none of that really matters. The result is a music that is much more about visual imagery than it is musicality or theoretical mastery... but don't tell him I said that. I'm sure Mr. Dunn has had plenty of Classical/Romantic-period music education to back up that "composer" handle, and it has indubitably paid off.

Discernible instruments are definitely here—bright trumpets, mellow horns, organs, pianos, strings... but largely they are not. Long-tones are held to such lengths that the physical frequencies emitted from the bells of horns and the strings of cellos become the true “instruments” that Dunn actually plays. They are living, breathing entities which Dunn fathers and attentively nurtures. He watches them grow up and mature with a tactful eye, sculpting each individual sound in such a way that lofty potentials are fulfilled in gloriously glacial monuments that reach high and rumble deep below. Layering and intricate details are subtle and gentle—so much so that they're hardly noticeable—but the big picture is stunning: tones overlap to the point where he’s creating and orchestrating something as natural as an outdoor day, but it's all synthesized in the concert hall, on a stage and in a room that is deep, wide and cavernous.

A couple of suggestions: listen to this album indoors, listen to this with noise-canceling headphones, and listen to this music often and at different volumes. The music has a keen relationship to nature—as most evident in “Promenade,” which features samples of a trickling creek and cricketing insects—but it’s best to let KBD create the images for you, rather than trying to suture the music with your immediate surroundings. Patience is also key, as these songs are long, for the most part hovering nonchalantly around the ten-minute mark (the album in full clocks in at over 2 hours). But as with most ambient music in this vein, forbearance rewards in spades: this music has the ability to wash over and fully consume you as textures segue with relaxed swooshes and sways, here and then quickly gone. If only they did that from track to track as often... some of these pieces just conclude a bit too abruptly. But with closed eyes and deep, nasal breaths, being lost in the world of Kyle Bobby Dunn is no different from being found: it’s just where you want to be.

—Craw’z 5/11/2010

Kyle Bobby Dunn Official MySpace

Buy A Young Person’s Guide to Kyle Bobby Dunn Here

Ambassador Engine

Live Dismally EP (Act So Big Forest, 2010)

For: Fennesz, The Books, Tim Hecker

Byline: “Live Dismally” is the new “Live Hopefully”. Download this.

It has occurred to me, in writing these funny little posts about the weird and wonderful world of musical meanderings, that you, the readers, may be interested to know more details about the histories behind some of the artists that we cover here at the TOME. Come to think of it, I myself would like to know more about the histories behind some of the artists we cover at the TOME. Alas, there is sometimes, of course, a problem with this, and that is that often we just don’t know anything about the artists we are covering here at the TOME. These folks are just sending us their records without nary a word, nary a notion, nary a Wikipedia article on who they are or where in the hell they are coming from. They’re wondering if we’re going to read, wondering if we’re going to listen, and then patiently wondering if we’re going to post. Well, our friend Ambassador Engine here is worthy of a post. Likely, if his upcoming full-length on the Fort Collins-based Act So Big Forest Collective’s label follows on the promise of this quite pleasant Live Dismally EP, the dude is worth two posts. He is also, therefore, worthy of probing research, and since there's not a whole lot of info on him or his work, I have decided to do my best to construct the life and times of a young man who calls himself “Aaron,” casually, and “Ambassador Engine” formally. With this, I present to you, a brief history of Ambassador Engine, as pieced haphazardly together through MySpace blog notes and his newest release, Live Dismally.

*shuffles notes*

June 6th, 2007 - In which a child named Sand Castles is born in the town of Greeley, Colorado. His birth is both immaculate and phenomenal, the event occurs with a small spark that builds gradually toward a blinding light charged with kinetic harmonic frequencies, finally exploding into fireworks of beautiful pain—brief, fractal images appear before his mothers eyes and terrorize her ears in manic stereo; It’s her entire life flashing before her in a whirlwind moment where time itself is reduced to a three-second final orgasmic flash. The exhaustive experience is enough to kill her, and after the doctor cuts the umbilical cord he brands something onto his forehead: the words “Save the Date” are written backwards beneath the letters “A” and “E”. Sand Castles is born into sadness. He has no father or mother, and immediately recognizes the smell of death that constantly surrounds him from the meat processing factories that pollute the airs of his hometown. The rest of his life will be barren, hollow landscapes interspersed with colorful characters whose fleeting appearances will guide him through his journey. From the first day of his life, he knows better things are waiting for him, something he’s reminded of every day he looks in the mirror.

July 16th, 2007 - In which the four-week-old child who ages and matures with a magical, fast-forward pace is put up for adoption and shipped over seas to Niigata, Japan where he will spend the early part of his life. He is taken in by a native of the region who teaches him Japanese and explains the healing, empowering and emotional potential of playing the drums. Sand Castles takes his drumset with him everywhere he goes from that moment forth, and records himself playing in train stations... train stations of the future. These are trains that use maglev technology to travel at supersonic speeds across vast distances and at times speed gracefully through underwater tunnels. Sand Castles controlled, linear drumming become a catalyst for his educational career, as he learns the intricate secrets of controlling electronic tones, collected samples, and flickers of static. He can hear his dreams, and he is cultivating skills to document them. He is learning that life is a journey, one that is short in reality, but long and broad in imagination. His destiny is becoming clearer by the second.

September 21, 2008 - In which Sand Castles completes his training in Niigata and returns to Colorado. Realizing his prophecy as previously foreseen by the man who aided in his miraculous birth, Sand Castles changes his name to Ambassador Engine.

September 30th, 2008 - In which Ambassador Engine takes a job driving semi trucks between Ft. Collins and Greeley, Colorado through the night. He does this for two years, living in a world harmonic stasis where time is signified in flashing truck lights whirring by his driver-side window. He is only awake at night. The trucks that pass are ghosts; they’re not really there. Ambassador Engine is sad in his current state of reality, but his drums are there to comfort him. He discovers tempo, and locks into a stately march toward an unknown goal, his chin up. It helps him get by. It passes the time. His prophecy has only been partially fulfilled up to this point. There must be something better on the horizon, and he knows this to be true.

May 17th, 2010 - In which Ambassador Engine has quit his job of driving trucks and time travels to the future in hopes of finding more for his life. Though he’s dropped into a future of a world devastated, one plagued by economic crises across the ocean, and oil slicks dividing the seas into models of filth, he still calls this chapter “Live Hopeful.” His document of the trip paints an expansive terrain that folds over itself slowly, progressively. It’s spliced with diaphanous synths that trickle a lightly beautiful melody, and build in volume and speed. His life is reaching an apex he’s never imagined or envisioned until just this moment. His heart is racing. He wants to help the world, and he knows just how to do it. His scatter-shot drums can give hope to the world. His melodious synths can give hope to the world. His droning guitars can give hope to the world. He sketches his final notes on a sonic tablet of tape and returns home.

April 16, 2010 - In which Ambassador Engine travels back in time to the present, and has just closed the first book in a forth-coming volume about his life that is still currently in the works. It’s a brief, vibrant summation of the first four years of his existence and chronicles seasons of change, growth, maturity, melancholy, creativity, heart, and optimism. His life up to now has been a dramatic crescendo, the first of more to come, he realizes. He gets on his computer, which has just finished mixing down the final cut of Live Dismally, and composes an e-mail...

—Craw’z 5/5/2010

Free Download of Live Dismally EP

Ambassador Engine Official MySpace

Act So Blog Forest

**Note: Almost none of the above is true. Except the parts about how good this music is.

2muchachos

Prespring (self-released, 2010)

For: Múm, Air, Sigur Rós

Byline: From Russia with love.... lots of love.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: timeliness. It really is an essential component to the blogosphere... one that I haven’t always been the best about, admittedly. But for the Russian outfit known as 2muchachos, it felt somehow more consequential to get this little gem into your hot little hands sooner rather than later—it’s not as much about staying on top of new music here as it is about pure seasonality and relevance as this debut EP couldn’t have come at a more perfect time. It’s appropriately called “Prespring,” and the short, four song collection is a soft, windy, drizzly affair, that is somehow also uplifting and warm. Think of it as a windbreaker album. 2muchacho’s light guitar work and mellow bedroom synths are best experienced outside as it almost feels like some of this was recorded there—a breeze blows by the microphone, or a babbling brooke bubbles by the duo sitting in the grass, perhaps, pawing casio keyboards and gently harping acoustic guitar strings. Though 2muchachos find a comfortable nook in methodic ambience, the ticking clock of time measures these compositions into structured forms, bringing the band’s sound closer to the realm of Icelandic slow core like Sigur Rós. Or, when factoring in the much more subdued, delicate touch the band employs and its mastery of pastoral bliss, more precisely still might be Múm. But the best part about Prespring is how little effort it takes to “get” the music. Everything is so simple and pure, and based on a solid foundation of gorgeous melodic motifs that almost feel personally channeled through your consciousness. This works in so many situations—throw it on the ol’ iPod, and enjoy at sunrise, on a spring bike ride, or beneath a starry night sky and feel your worries melt away. Clocking in at just under 20 minutes in length, coupled with the fact that it’s free, makes this (easily) the easiest listen of the year so far. Be on the lookout for a full-length from the band to be released on Parallax Sounds in the coming months.

—Craw’z 2/28/10

Free Download of Prespring

2muchachos Official MySpace

Parallax Sounds Official Website

Silk Harbour

Discolored Paintings (Self-Released, 2010)

For: Múm, Brian Eno, Gas

Byline: Creepier than it sounds like it might be. It’s a good thing.

How can I use the word “underwhelming” and make it sound like a compliment? I’m going to try really hard here.. check it - Silk Harbour’s album is totally underwhelming.. ...m..MANNNN!!

OK, it’s really hard to make that sound nice, but take note - this descriptor is meant in the best of ways possible. Look, almost all ambient albums are “growers” by default, and Discolored Paintings - the debut disc from the mysterious Josh Todd (aka Silk Harbour, whom I suspect is from the UK due to the .co.uk suffix of his e-mail address - NO MYSPACE ¡Viva la revolución!) - is one of these inside and out, through and through. Prepare to not be blown away - be as patient as the music when listening, for the rewards shall be many and they shall be great. The majority of the record is hushed, understated, controlled, reserved, and slow-blooming - and these are all the best things about Silk Harbour’s distinct sound, which makes its way from Eno’s ambient series, to Múm’s pastoral, chiming glockenspiels. Discolored Paintings is full of warm tones, hushed and subtle melodic motifs, backwards synths, choral bliss, and beautifully arranged strings. But there’s a dark and eerie side to Silk Harbour as well - Discolored Paintings is perhaps best enjoyed during the late hours on the shores of a still, black sea. Colors are mixed deep, dark, and murky. Synthetic harmonies swell into thick fogs where Silk Harbour’s delicate, unsettled touches of staccato jabs can easily play pranks on the mind - are there creatures to be found hidden deep in the abyss? “A Horizon of Broken Teeth,” is the straight-up creepiest. A desperate, pseudo-digitalized voice gasps a note of unintelligible lyrics beneath sonar blips, tumefying, stormy electronics and galloping drum samples. All told, Discolored Paintings adds up to a strong affair, despite the minor flaw of being slightly inconsistent style-wise. The album’s title track comes last, and the song bizarrely drops a chill-wavy/hip-hop beat (complete with a slick hook) into the album’s final minutes. Ironically, it’s one of the cooler tracks on the album - it's just that it sits a little strange among the record’s otherwise constant bulk of measured ambience.

-Craw’z (3/26/2010)

Free Download of Discolored Paintings

Chris Rehm

Salivary Stones (Self-released, 2010)

For: Belong, Tim Hecker, Microphones

Byline: Uhmm... cleverness escapes me right now. Look, just do yourself a favor, scroll to the bottom of this post, download this record and listen to it. Do it now. Please.

Timeliness. It’s an essential component to the music blogging world. Granted, many bloggers (myself included) are guilty of jumping on the bandwagon a little late. Chris Rehm’s new album arrived in our inbox just a short couple of week ago, and already Forest Gospel beat us to the punch on this one. But hey, Thistle’s got some ridiculous good taste (if you haven’t yet, please peruse his excellent top 100 list of the decade), and this certainly isn't a competition. We here at the Tome simply wish to emphasize and reiterate the importance of Mr. Rehm's work here in 2010, especially since the guy is doing everything completely on his own. Thistle wisely called Salivary Stones “The new white noise. The new experiment. The new texture. It is the new dirge and the new substance of clouds and the new manifestation of Ra.” Yeah, those are some strong words. That’s why he used them. Chris Rehm’s voice is indeed a strong one. Strong and mighty.

His music is constructed with broad and sweeping strokes of static and noise, blending flavors and colors together in a thick soup of tasty, piping hot harmonic porridge. “Salivary Stones” enters with a shocking blast of noise. But it’s not just distortion - no. This is noise that is pregnant with meaning, conjuring up vidid imagery that comes off as psychedelic, yet grounded in something very real and tangible. “Salivary Stones” is a fitting title as the track is the sound of a dry, coarse gravel grinding against itself, dripping with an oozy perspiration of melodic harmony that pours out in waves of emotion. Perhaps the short record’s strongest moment comes next, with “Don’t Leave Me Blue.” The song builds from a hypnotic pulse that rolls along in a way not unlike Panda Bear’s “Comfy in Nautica,” Rehm deftly arranging melodic snippets that lay like sheets on top of one another. Sounds violently scrape against themselves as if Rehm is bowing electronic frequencies like stringed instruments to produce these glorious sounds. The whole thing culminates with an epic climax of a soaring, sharp and searing melody that’s guaranteed to raise goosebumps.

The record continues along at a consistently high level of beauty, scaling tall mountains and diving from high cliffs into peaceful waters of moody meditations that recall Kid A’s ambient moments like “Treefingers.” But the most surprising moment comes last with “Soggy,” a jarring (given what precedes) shift to a more grounded, acoustically based guitar song in the vein of Microphones’ Phil Elverum. Here Rehm is gentle, honest and touching, and unveils his beautiful, fragile voice.

There’s something exciting about this release to me, though, that is hard to pin down and describe. Most of it has to do with the fact that Rehm came to us out of nowhere. I’d never heard of the guy, or his previous incarnation as Aphrodisiac, so to have this seemingly random, unbelievably great album show up and immediately consume my life, instantly shoot to the tip of the top in terms of best releases of the year, is both astonishing and wonderful. But we, the bloggers, aren’t the ultimate trendsetters. We’re not some kind of prophet-troupe of writers out to spit the new doctrine. We just love great music. And it’d be a shame for us to sit idly by and watch a guy like Chris Rehm get lost in the folds. No, it’s merely our job to share this music, and our thoughts on it with you. The real speakers of the new gospel are those like Mr. Rehm. Listen to what he has to share with you. Listen and wonder about what the possibilities of doing it for yourself might be. Gather those thoughts, hit record on your tape deck or laptop, and chronicle your reactions to the world at large and to your peers around you. And please. Send us your tape when it’s done.

--Craw’z 2/17/2010

Chris Rehm Official MySpace

Free Download of Salivary Stones