cloaks

cloaks - a crystal skull in peru (atheists are gods cdr 2007)

"First ever non-Starving Weirdos release on their own Atheists Are Gods label comes from Spencer Doran aka Cloaks who present two long minimal pieces that recall the evocative repeat-cosmologies of Terry Riley and Steve Reich with aspects of Go Hirano, Jewelled Antler Collective and early Richard Youngs nose-diving into beautiful vapour trails scored for piano, tape, zither and bells and electric guitar, piano, harmonium and electronics." volcanic tongue

"The first release comes from Cloaks, aka Spencer Doran, who for his first readily available domestic full length release, offers up two gorgeous lengthy pieces, one for piano, tapes, zither and bells, the other for electric guitar and piano with harmonium and electronics. The result is lush and spellbinding. The closest comparison that even begins to come close is Lubomyr Melnyk, with his dense flurries of notes, creating dizzyingly intricate swirls of melodic fragments that while ultra complex are so intricate they seem to melt into long dreamlike drifts.

The opening track begins with a strange jumble of chaotic percussion, weird boings, effects drenched squiggles, sounding like something that could be a bit goofy for our liking, but after a burst of record crackle and needle on vinyl static, the track settles into a gorgeously sun baked, glistening shimmer, a fine mist of notes enveloping the listener like a warm fog, multiple abstract melodies drifting into one another becoming gloriously intertwined, hovering ghostlike over soft drifts of smeared piano in the background. It almost sounds like Oval's Diskont, but with soft shimmery piano instead of skipping cds. Fluid and organic, softly swelling, so many notes... you know how you can sort of blur your eyes and make everything look all fuzzy, well imagine you could blur your EARS, it's like listening to Reich or Riley or Palestine with blurred ears. Soft focus and indistinct, every once in a while bits of melody coming into view but quickly fading into the sounds around it. So pretty. One of those rare tracks that we wish went on forever and ever...

The second track is a subtly different beast but with a similar vibe. Beginning with spare spidery electric guitar, suspended in a wide open expanse of near silence, a sort of skeletal post rock, which quickly slips under a gradually building wave of dense Wave-Lox like piano. Thick roiling low end squalls of reverberating rumble and rich overtones, very lush and intense. Near the final few minutes little bits of electronic glitch and grrr begin to surface, slowly wrapping themselves around the piano flurries, eventually surrounding it completely, becoming a dense buzzing electronic drone with almost no trace of the piano remaining...

Packaged in super striking silkscreened digipaks with pasted on textured paper, full color art, and with a hand screened insert." aquarius

qué bonita es la calavera de cristal de Peru. tallada en lapislázuli, o de cuarzo ahumado, cuenta la leyenda que en el mundo existen trece calaveras de cristal de tamaño natural, y cuando todas sean descubiertas, transmitirán a los hombres todo su conocimiento. como ocurre tantas veces, la información sobre Cloaks es muy poca, de hecho no existe ninguna web del grupo y ni siquiera la página de Atheists are Gods parece activa. sabemos que Atheists are Gods es el sello de Starving Weirdos y que A Crystal Skull in Peru es la primera referencia que editan sin ser un disco de Starving Weirdos. Gregg Devaney (harmonium) y Charlote Olsen (electronics) crean cincuenta minutos de auténtica magia, una perfecta combinación de ritmo y melodía dividida en dos sinfonías instrumentales próximas en espíritu a Steve Reich, Charlemagne Palestine, Richard Youngs y Terry Riley. un collage de piano, sonidos naturales, campanillas y harmonium, una cascada inagotable de campanillas cristalinas que deberían prescribirse con la recomendación de ser escuchadas entre tucanes y cocoteros. muy, muy bonito

a crystal skull in peru (mp3 sample)

grass pillow (mp3 sample)