azha

azha - celestial meadows (perfect wave, 2015)

Azha is the collaboration of Kathleen Baird (Spires That In The Sunset Rise, Sapropelic Pycnic) and Andrew Fitzpatrick (Noxroy, Volcano Choir, All Tiny Creatures, Bon Iver). In their debut release, Fitzpatrick processes Baird's flute and vocals through Ableton creating an icy, eerie, celestial ambience. Edition of 50. perfect wave

No se puede negar que en 2015 hemos contemplado un nuevo amanecer para Ka Baird. Siendo honestos, lo cierto es que se venía gestando desde un par de años atrás tras el sendero abierto por Tropical Rock. No obstante, el estallido avant-garde y free-jazz que supuso 'Beast in the Garden' ha liberado un torrente de reencarnaciones (Sapropelic Pycnic) y colaboraciones (Azha) al cobijo de Terry Riley, John Coltrane, Roland Kirk, Cluster o J.D. Emmanuel. Los más de 37 hipnotizantes minutos de la larga suite, secuenciada por Andrew Fitzpatrick sobre las improvisaciones vocales y flautiles de Kathleen, parecen fluctuar entre en un ambient que recorre las profundidades marinas y el espacio exterior. A estos parajes, dispares a priori pero que transmiten sensaciones similares, es a donde a mí me transporta ‘Celestial Meadows'. Flotas ingrávido entre interferencias, loops y disonancias, surgen vocecillas que se asoman para desaparecer rápidamente y vislumbras un arcoíris en la inmensidad helada que va desvaneciéndose paulatinamente. 

buy- listen

sunmoonstar / maia ibar / sapropelic pycnic

sunmoonstar ~ ibid (twin springs tapes, 2015)

"Twins Springs Tapes is proud to offer this, the debut album from Sunmoonstar (Natasha Home, Sydney, Australia). Panoramic frequencies and percussive surfaces weave satiny landscapes. Pastel planes reflect soft complexities of clouds." 

listen ~ buy

maia ibar ~ when you close your eyes / and i see (perfect wave, 2015)

"Maia Ibar of Dual-Split is experimenting with restorative sound voyages. She is interested in assisting you, her, him, them, to come into natural states of balance and harmonies through tones, frequencies and sound. Mysterious but familiar senses of timelessness, traveling through space, or back in the womb... Seeing "when you close your eyes," and "I see." We can always see, we are awake, we are awake."

synths, bells, chimes, drums, tibetan bowls, vocals: Maia Ibar 

guitar, bass: Baptiste Ibar 

vocals: Jean-Pierre Ibar 

listen ~ buy

sapropelic pycnic ~ see sun think shadow (perfect wave, 2015)

"Sapropelic Pycnic is the solo project of Kathleen Baird of long running avant psych project Spires That In The Sunset Rise. On her debut release as Sapropelic Pycnic, Baird releases a stunning 8 track record of piano improvisations performed on a Steinway Grand in December of 2011 in a church in her hometown of Decatur, Illinois recorded just days before her father’s passing on December 30, 2011. These improvisations have a raw focus that premiere Baird’s piano training as well as very own style of punctuation, spacing and repetition. Her approach brings to mind the playful, spacious qualities of Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou, the unrestraint of Cecil Taylor, the rolling arpeggiations of Alice Coltrane, and the ghostliness of Arvo Part." 

buy vinyl ~ listen / buy

tropical rock

 tropical rock ~ 'suma love' (perfect wave, 2015)

 "new project featuring Kathleen Baird of Spires That in the Sunset Rise and Camilla Padgitt-Coles. keyboard/tenori-on/flute/vocal space-scapes" all events

 listen ~ name your price

tropical rock

tropical rock ~ 3 lewej (perfect wave, 2014)

Kathleen Baird ~ Casio PX800, Camilla Padgitt-Coles ~ Tenori-on

"a sonic journey birthed under the auspices of frog possession in the lush confines of the cyberjungle. playful and minimal, Tropical Rock is an earpath, improvisational frequency route into some kind of alternative reality." perfect wave

 "I'm getting more involved with Perfect Wave and I'm helping with some releases coming up. there is a release, just a cassette, of something totally different that I've never done before, just really minimal ambient keyboard stuff with my friend Camilla Padgitt-Coles, and it's this project we have called Tropical Rock." entrevista con kathleen

 un casio, un tenori-on y tres nanas preciosas. colleen, roj, plastic moonrise, madalyn merkey...

listen ~ buy

spires that in the sunset rise / the iditarod

spires that in the sunset rise ~ mirror cave (perfect wave, 2014) 

‘Mirror Cave’ is a conceptual album in 8 movements based on Italo Calvino’s short story ‘Sword of the Sun’ interspersed with excerpts from Shinkichi Takahashi’s ‘After-Images: Zen Poems.’ In a face-off with the ego, Palomar (Kathleen Baird) observes, reacts, contemplates, struggles and finally transcends how the “sword” of the sun’s reflection on the ocean always appears to stop exactly at his very own eye. Taralie Peterson represents some other dimension of reality~”the sensation that you are here but could not be here in a world that could not be but is.”  

Recorded in spring of 2013, STITSR later connected with Providence based artist Erik Ruin on a colorful 28-page offset printed booklet to accompany the live recording that combines hand-drawn text, ink drawings and scratchboard elements in layered and unexpected ways." 

Kathleen Baird ~ flute, voice and Taralie Peterson ~ cello, voice

listen/buy the cassette book ~ listen/buy 

the iditarod ~ foxfur and rarebits (morc, 2014) 

"this album brings together oddments ~ compilation tracks, plus a previously unreleased live recording ~ and, although these songs were never meant to be together as an album, they do work as one. If you randomly pick two EP or compilation tracks or outtakes of The Iditarod,and  you put them together, they strangely make sense." morc 

order the 12'' vinyl ~  listen/buy

hay discos que siempre se acogen con los brazos abiertos, nombres especiales de los que ya nunca esperarías que volvieran a dar señales de vida. y de repente las sorpresas y las casualidades hacen que coincidan The Iditarod y Spires That in the Sunset Rise, para mí siempre tan parecidos, casi en el mismo día. aunque la canciones de The Iditarod en realidad no son nuevas, de ahora, (hay una inédita en directo y muchas que ya habían aparecido en recopilatorios), sigue siendo un regalo reencontrarse con su paraíso folk, con la voz de Carin Wagner, dulce hasta derretirse, el cello y el banjo de Sharron Kraus y el glockenspiel y la guitarra de Jeffrey Alexander. 'where the cold winds blow' es demasiado bonita y me recuerda a 'the turin horse'. 'mirror cave' de Spires That in The Sunset Rise es la plenitud. me gusta casi más que sus dos últimos lps y conecta de alguna forma con la música que escucho últimamente. inclasificable en épocas y lugares, tiene una flautilla muy 'libray music' que lo inunda todo, un aura a cabaret y a cosas antiguas que me encanta. y la voz inabarcable de Kathleen Baird, otra gran dama del folk favorita desde los inicios del blog y a la que siempre recordaremos con especial cariño por ser la autora de 'calm in trees'. 'la sensación de que estás aquí pero podrías no estar en un mundo que podría no ser, pero es." ya sólo faltaría un nuevo disco de Davenport y otro de Black Forest/Black Sea...