microphones in the trees: August 2009

Saturday, August 29, 2009

cursillistas

"deluxe & expanded vinyl version co-released with matt lajoie's own l'animaux tryst (field) recordings label. originally presented in 2006 as the first l'animaux tryst release, an extremely limited 3inch cdr. this new version fills out the album with four previously unreleased bonus tracks from the original recording sessions. each track is newly mixed and whole album features super nice warm analog remastering for the ultimate in hi-fi lo-fi. these recordings represent a definite turning point in the cursillisitas trajectory, with the sparser intimate acid-folk-pop sound of the earliest releases blending easily into a more filled-out and improvisation based psychedelia. heavy use of layered overdubs, xylophone, live looping, and more experimental atmospheres added to the reverbed vocals, acoustic guitar, and crude percussion push things towards the more free-wheelin' full band sound of the present… a drifting trip that wobbles between the dark & the light… pressed on 180gm vinyl. packaged in a totally deluxe letter press printed tri-fold art paper cover with metallic screen printed interior, photo-mounted vellum insert, and all sealed up with a hand-sewn button enclosure. this vinyl version also includes a cd version of the album packaged in a stark hand-stamped art paper cover. hand numbered edition of 300 copies." time-lag

Friday, August 28, 2009

sacred basil

"Hometown meets out of town in a blow out jangle of sounds. Recorded last fall in Portland, Sacred Basil brings together Cursillistas, Gorman, Planets Around the Sun, and Tempera for a living room improv after breakfast. Grooving organ, trumpet wails, building drum circle pounds, singing bowls, etc. A treasure chest of instruments dumped on the floor and a rotating cast picking them all up to work out the tones. Packaged in a tri-folded art paper 'booklet' that opens to reveal a full-color collage and pasted on vellum insert. Tapes painted & stamped and tied with twine. Limited to 50." cabin floor esoterica

Thursday, August 27, 2009

cursillistas / white light


"Cursillistas and White Light are hitting the road with a limited 12" split LP to celebrate the occasion. 150 copies large, Travel Light gives each band their own side to showcase their latest material. Your chance to nab a copy depends on the tour dates below--if you can make it to a show, you'll have a shot at hearing this beautiful wonder. If you can't make it out to see Cursillistas and White Light, then keep your fingers crossed that L'animaux Tryst has a few extra copies post-tour they are willing to part with.

Cursillistas' side begins with previously-unreleased live favorite "Crutches" (hand-picked by White Light for this split), and then follows up with a bummer-folk quartet of their most recently-recorded material. White Light presents four previously-unreleased songs on their side of the split, which mark their first official output since a well-received 7" single in the Tryst Haunt Series over a year ago. A warm lo-fi glow cushions these psych-soul-pop tunes, which mix communal spaced-out jams with heavy loner meditations." electronic voice phenomenon

Saturday, August 22, 2009

second family band

"5 or 7 second family band tunes out of thin air. Recorded on the shores of windy Lake Mendota. Acoustic strumming, guitar-body drumming, trad sec fam throat singing, courtesy db pedersen and some amazing string action from Jared Annoye. For the most part a daylight affair but the Suns definitely dip behind the cloud more than a few times. First 25 copies on sunny yellow cassettes." earjerk

Friday, August 21, 2009

julian lynch

"Is there something in the water in Ridgewood, New Jersey, or does the Garden State just happen to be coughing up a lot of blissed-out psychedelia these days? Like childhood neighbor and long-time collaborator Matt Mondanile (Ducktails, Predator Vision, Real Estate), Julian Lynch has been churning out more quality homegrown recordings than we have time to digest. His sound, a one-man patchwork of vocals, wah wah guitar, bass, drums, and kitschy synth effects, carries the happy-go-lucky quality synonymous with recent Ridgewood output into the territory of the singer-songwriter." visitations rites

Thursday, August 20, 2009

plankton wat

"Debut solo lp by Dewey Mahood of Portland psych-jammers Eternal Tapestry. Ten songs recorded at the Owl House basement last winter on cassette 4-track. Plankton Wat is a vast array of sounds and moods, from blissed-out drone punk rippers to super chill deep space folk. Total late night stoney textures, and radiant sun anthems. Acoustic and electric guitar, drums, banjo, mbira, and some singing, all mega tripped with syrupy analogy delay. Really beautiful heavy zoners. Hand drawn covers and insert by Dewmah. Edition of 500 on marbled red vinyl" dnt

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

second family band

"Pack some granola. Two long hikes through the haze grace this 80 minute cassette. 'Morning in the East' blazes trails." I'm taking my banjo along through the Himalayas and if you wanna drag that arp along that'd be cool with me." The flip has a real dirty metropolis groove. Traveling. Lets crescendo awhile. Way out west now...How long we been drivin? ...Any Natives still live around here?. Second Family Band" earjerk

foto: ƒenk

Monday, August 17, 2009

Saturday, August 15, 2009

huaraches

"Chants, vocal drones, no words, freedom, light, evolution, sometimes spatial, open, diffuse, other times rhythmically unified, interlocked, circular. One being the other's opposite. Syncopation, spontaneous. Hand drums, shakers, clinging glass bottles and cans. Tambourines, improvisation. This album is all about love and friendship, listening with an acute awareness, feeding off of the surroundings. No pretension, simple and subtle, yet all the more powerful and transcendent. Instrumentation centered around guitars and percussion. All free, spiritual and healing for the mind. Huaraches is Roberto Meza, George Glikerdas, and Gordon Spencer-Blaetz. Recorded fall/winter 2007. Cover drawing by Roberto. Comes with a poem by Gordon on the experience." sailing

Friday, August 14, 2009

niao

"Warm analog synth electronics, 6 long songs crafted to be realized and performed with three other people: Ben Lorber, Gordon Spencer-Blaetz, and Austin Julian. Pentatonic blues runs on the keyboard, hypnotic rhythms and melodies accompanied by toms, tabla, cymbals and tambourine (the only percussion). Religious and ritual-like vocals of the night that serve a prominent role throughout the album. No words, only drones and simple syllables like EY AH OO WAH. Dream loops that linger like a forgotten foundation. This is Niao's most mature, unique work that is tight and together. A craft of sound but it will move you physically as well as mentally. Our best release thus far, without a doubt, we are very proud and excited of this one. Recorded spring 2009 by Anthony Kingsley." sailing

Thursday, August 13, 2009

cursillistas

"Cursillistas has been a longtime Digitalis favorite so we're very, very excited to be offering up their newest creation as a vinyl-only release. "Joint Chiefs" sees originator Matt Lajoie joining spirit and forces with Dawn Russell and burning new ground along the way. This is a new path entirely. Where past Cursillistas efforts have been drenched in sunkissed tones and melodic stirrings, "Joint Chiefs" dredges up muddy waters and dark emanations like a blast from the deep. this is barn owl meets the dust bowl meets peyote music. Loose strings ring out on acoustic guitars while rattling percussion marches toward the river. Lajoie and Russell send their voices out on top as a guide, looking for any light that is seeping through the thick, duststorm clouds. Just when it looks like it's going to clear up a bassed-out blanket of fuzz and synth tones come along to ruin all the progress you've made. "Joint Chiefs" feels like an epic journey, sordid and sweet. If you find yourself lost in these dark woods, all you can do is adapt, suck in the smoke-filled air and toast the charred heavens. Cursillistas reinvented." digitalis
peace pipers (mp3 excerpt)

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

saturn finger

"Debut release for Saturn Finger (Enfer Boréal + Uton), recorded during winter 2007 / 2008, previously released as a very limited tour cdr during their last France / UK / Netherlands tour. Psychedelic drone, mystic chants, shamanistic percussion...those tracks were made looking a the far east where both SF members spent some time wandering and listening. uton hidden in the sea of wind" crier dans les musées

Monday, August 10, 2009

tulasi


"Bumtapes is proud to give you another chance to hear this incredible album, plus another previously unreleased track from the same sessions, and with all new artwork. Originally released on vinyl in an edition of 118 copies by Troglosound in 2008 (now totally sold out) Finland’s Tulasi crafted an album drenched in Eastern drones and Finnish backroad folk meditations. The two musicians who make up the band have also featured in bands such as Vapaa, Keijo & Free Players, Aan, Uton, Kulkija and Kutomo. And have also previously released a cassette on Sloow tapes.

To quote the original write up for the LP...."One of the most harmonic expressions of spiritual freak-folk coming out from Finland, Tulasi spreads around warm and positive feelings, created through spontaneous junctions of flute, guitar, violin, percussions, tambura and voices. So, the perfect sound to bring our Souls peacefully inside the wintertime is coming directly from the North”. bumtapes

foto: neil krug

maravilloso de la pe a la pa y en especial untitled V

Sunday, August 09, 2009

hny

"HNY is a member of sonic oddballs Social Junk and this is her first release solo. HNY traverses the same mystic forests as her witchy contemporaries (think Grouper, Inca Ore) but prefers to head out into those forests in the dead of night. "Mute In The Dust" is jammed full of darkly-looped synth and guitar lines which swirl like blackened smoke around her banshee wail. Occasionally her vocals are allowed to travel along on their own and end up in wind tunnel of mirrors."expressway to my skull
"Dudes can dispute it, but the feminine mystique is real, especially in the realms of haunted interior-psych voice musique. A lotta our favorite ladies (Inca ore, Grouper, Pocahaunted,..) have the “private dreamer” communion ritual down to a science, whether due to talent, vision, chromosomes or some combo of the 3. We wanna add another siren to the squad: HNY. When not buried in work as the sax/bass-playing half of Social Junk, she’s found time to drop a couple stellar solo joints over the past year-ish (here you can touch the sky). Nine song-stories of naked keyboards, 3 am spirit loops, and creaky attic narratives that blur the line between bedroom voodoo ceremony and otherworldly suicide note. Recorded entirely outdoors on a tiny side porch in West Oakland. Dive in. Pro-dubbed tapes in white cases with hallucinatory guitar-girl cover art (3 different color paper possibilities), and housed in hand-painted canvas pouches. Edition of 100" nnf

Saturday, August 08, 2009

hope sandoval & the warm inventions

"new dark lullaby from the woman who’s been whispering us off to dreamtime for two decades now. from through the devil softly, out in late September from the good people at Nettwerk Records." arthur magazine

blanchard

Friday, August 07, 2009

im jahrtal

im jahrtal • reprisen und instrumentalstuecke [sloow tapes 2009]

"Post-Pilz folk instrumentals from the mountains of Tyrol. Jahrtal is the one-man project of Ewald Spiss, who has been involved in music and art since the early eighties. Tranquil melodies, exotic instrumentation and barking dogs echoing peaceful mountains and forests. 70 copies." sloow tapes

"Im Jahrtal is the magical musical world inhabited by Ewald Spiss of the Austrian Tyrol. It's a world of pastoral psych-folk instrumentals with backwards tapes, drifting flute, exotic instrumentation, guitar and pipe organ madrigals and a rudimentary charm in the way it's all put together. Lovely stuff." boa melody bar

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fotola: coquinete

se vale soñar :)

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

dreamcolour

"Recorded at The Barn in Ojai, CA by Dreamcolour. Intermission for Triangle Theories is full of trip inducing sounds. Guests include: Natalie Alyse, Teodora Nikolova, Betsy Sue and Bryn (tapdancing!). Blood Quantum starts the album with a chugging tribal beat giving way to a wave of free-form sounds, fading directly into Zoned, a tap dance/sax duo fades into a free-improv session complete with multi-drum sensory overload. Cover design by Rita Sue" dreamcolour

fotola y portada: hoy joy

Sunday, August 02, 2009

bird country

01. shirtless ~ town and country
02. BRDDRMS ~ bird show
03. dim ~ the zoo wheel
04. lightning ghost ~ bird show
05. phoney fuckin' mountain ~ town and country
06. allways / never sleep pt#I ~ bird show
07. untitled ~ pillow
08. after ~ joshua abrams

"there is no concept to the music - I am just working and working and if I am happy while I am working then I think the music is good - it has to feed my life - I love to make music because it takes care of me and it connects me to my friends and family and reveals me to myself." ben vida

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dibu: smicksy

Saturday, August 01, 2009

the free players


The Free Players are a super-group of featuring members of Finnish free-jazz pawnpins Vapaa, Kheta Hotem, Kundalini Snakes and the venerable Keijo Virtanen. While previous documents of this band exist, this is apparently the more democratic version (no longer is it 'Keijo and the Free Players'), a shift documented by the more accessible sound here.

What we have here is an hour long set of jams that seems more reminiscent of Floyd and the Dead than what we've come to expect from Keijo's previous output. Wild guitar leads and wailing sax (nevermind the space-organ) reveals immediately what cloth this recording has been cut from -- which is to say that The Free Players is a true psychedelic album!" last visible dog

foto: coquinete