microphones in the trees: lee boyd
Showing posts with label lee boyd. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lee boyd. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

bedroom ~ moons



Bedroom – a resident of the already legendary label Tranquility Tapes, is back at Fluere Tapes with the new album! Blissfully enveloping symphony made of tape-softened atmospheres. Like a shoebox of old polaroids found in the attic of parents house, these compositions cast a pleasant melancholy, outlining smoothly the shapes of half-forgotten images of childhood. Notes of piano blend into a viscid syrup, slowly diffluent in transparent waves, synth lines break into shimmering fragments for one moment to gather into powerful clusters of energies a little bit later, tunneling and preparing the head for the perception of cosmic energies. No matter how we are attached to the environment, memories, emotions - it's crucial not to forget about the infinity of the universe, and to come into contact with it from time to time.

There is a lot of music in the world both "earthly" and extraterrestrial, absolutely detached from mundane reality – but on this cassette, everything falls into the integral picture. Pastoral compositions of the first side seem to be moving away gradually, we are already at the height of the bird's flight, then we see the stars already twinkling – just to shine with a full force supported by the springy pulsation of the beat on the beginning of B side and to disperse into thousands of multicolored streams in psychedelic flight through the dimensions in a very characteristic for Tranquility Tapes sound, which will surely please fans of Cliffsides, Afterlife or Lunar Miasma. In the end, everything returns back to earth, the circle closes, history repeats itself – just as the Moon hints us with its phases, simply as our earthly life passes. Nonetheless, in endless repetitions, nuances and variations are born, and in every cycle, there is something that will never happen again.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

azaleas / cloudsound / forest walker


«Long-form new-age collages. First full-length from Azaleas». ~ blank_tapes

Two years ago I had a pleasure to share a split tape with Azaleas (duo of Kyle Wade & Alice Andres-Wade hailing from Denver) on Rainbow Pyramid label and started waiting patiently for their full-length debut. Hope was not lost, and here it is, spinning in my deck on repeat mode since December! And with the first winds of the spring this music seems to unfold even broader, carrying eternal bliss of best ambient genre developments. Shimmering layers of synth soundscapes, massive drones, new-agey melodies and organic hum of field recordings... Everything in its place, all corners rounded, every transition made with care. This tape has rare ability to became more and more interesting with every spin, telling the same stories differently each time you listen to it. You may get lost in all those layers, fades and vibes, travelling between dark thickets and wide open eyes of lakes, but don't worry – the hiss of blank tape in the end will leave you under charms of these marvelous tunes with joyful smile on your face and pleasant feeling in the heart. Highest recommendations!



«Reverie over outer space air space tween canopy slopes of mauve ambrosial gazes to ribbonious unfurls later spooled» ~ fluere tapes

Less is more! I always admired the ability to create pleasant atmosphere with seemingly minimalist and truly lo-fi sound. What Fluere Tapes boss Lee Boyd did on this tape easily falls into category of lo-fi drone, but the less you care about labeling, the more you receive in impression value. Actually, this tape can be a marvelous post-rock or shoegaze epic, simply recorded hundred of times from one old dusty tape to another. Yet, it has this unexplainable charm that wraps you like a cozy blanket, carrying away as a good old magic flying carpet. Massive layers of sound are hidden behind the surface of pleasant sound - same as the incredible amount of water looks like beautiful cloud from the surface. As the the artwork itself, this music is fused by light, an enormous cosmic nebula sending its glorious radiance light years away... Also I must admit that this particular album brought a lot of nostalgic moments for me, remembering those early psych/drone tapes by Deep Magic or Sundrips, feeling the awe in presence of those energies, such pure and sincere, like they are directly radiating from the artist's heart. Maybe I'm just too sentimental, but there is nothing is this world like Cloudsound. Absolute bliss.



Sincerely – I have no words to describe this album. It's clear, that with such love for ambient music I possess, album like UV Sea would turn into breathtaking experience. Forest Walker puts everything in one canvas and manages to blend all treasures of ambient genre into a single whole thing. Thing in itself. Pulsation of synth lines, deepest drones, huge waves of reverberated noises... even dusty saturated beats do no harm to this never-ending stream of bliss, supporting its torrent thought your perception channels. Is that infinity of the Universe transcending by the aural medium or endlessness of sound, forging new universe inside ours – who knows? Depends on which interpretation of quantum mechanics you follow. One thing is clear here, this music exist in more than one dimension. It spans like endless wave and each track is just range of frequencies we able to perceive. It's easy to imagine UV Sea as short part of huge intergalactic transmission, captured by limited instruments of humankind and then interpreted by our even more limited sense organs. But the message is so powerful that we can get it if not consciously, but more subtly, just intuitively. And unable to verbally express... Yet, transmission continues, so tune in!

Thursday, February 12, 2015

wave temples / heat sureens / cloudsound / azaleas & joshua dumas / creation VI


 wave temples / heat sureens ~ split (rainbow pyramid, 2015)

~  dusty headed sojourners reach the apex by dusk. split cassette from II hidden Florida's. ~

lo digo siempre... me encanta Heat Sureens y me derrito con Wave Temples, por eso ver sus nombres unidos en Rainbow Pyramid es el mayor de los sueños. ligeramente distinto a 'sleeping tortugas', faltan palabras para poder transmitir el ambiente de fantasía paradisíaca, la calidez y espiritualidad que fluye a velocidad de crucero en cada nota emitida por Wave Temples, en las grabaciones de campo tropicales que se respiran más que se escuchan, en las olas que vienen y van diluyéndose entre tambores tribales y flautillas de bambú, y que sólo pueden ser apreciadas mientras suenan los primeros minutos de la cara a, en ese minuto 7:14 de pelos de punta que parece firmado por el mismísimo Kazuya Nagaya. las brumas tropicales de Wave Temples tienen el contrapunto perfecto en Sean McDonald, capaz de condensar en diecinueve minutos todo el universo de Heat Sureens y mmm sounds, haciendo verdaderos malabarismos con la melancolía entre una marasma de campanillas y voces celestiales que son como ángeles. me atrevería a decir que el final es casi como una fusión real del paraíso tropical de Wave Temples y el paraíso celestial de Heat Sureens. necesitamos cintas así para tomar aire de vez en cuando, músicas de otro mundo que sugieren y hacen volar nuestra imaginación. ese 'aquí, ahora' al que muchas veces se refiere rafa cuando habla de un disco. no sé si habrá futuras colaboraciones, pero en todo caso...hasta el próximo viaje. 

 cloudsound ~ spirit of love as infinite life (rainbow pyramid, 2015)

Floating Ideals in Search of Paradise in all Shades. New Jammer from cloudsound (Sweden) 

me alegra decir que mi disco favorito de Cloudsound, más incluso que 'II', llega una vez más de la mano de Rainbow Pyramid. como cuando Ginjoha Tapes editó 'forgiveness' de Strange Mountain y sientes un flechazo con el disco, la portada, el sello, el título, la música. casualidad, tal vez no, tal vez sí... o que, definitivamente, es como si todos los músicos adaptasen un poquito su estilo al aura de Rainbow Pyramid. Lee Boyd 'buscando el paraíso en todas sus formas', en la guitarra transoceánica y planeadora de 'self as infinity attenuator' que tanto me recuerda a 'the garden of eternal life' de Mark McGuire, incluso a 'khol' de Steven R. Smith en la primera parte. envolvente, reverberante, sin apenas distorsión. esa sensación 'guitar meditations', como reproducida hacia atrás, permanece a lo largo del disco porque 'earth marooned alien echi', tan tan bonita, dura un suspiro y también me recuerda a Mark McGuire. o 'chrome drone', tan Sky Stadium, preciosa pero con un final demasiado  brusco, como si la canción estuviera incompleta. 'el espíritu del amor tan infinito como la vida' es nostalgia y adicción, coger un género centenario y hacerlo sonar actual sin que pierda el alma. 

~ ritual sunrise by early morning mantras from coast to coast ~
 
Azaleas is Kyle Wade & Alice Andres-Wade
 Joshua Dumas is Joshua Dumas 
Creation VI: Tim Six - Hulusi, voice, accordion, guitar, effects.

tanta veces usando la palabra bonito, y es al escuchar esta cinta cuando la necesito de verdad. destellos de electrónica exótica (Steve Roach) y planeadora (Harmonia, Manuel Göttsching), de ambient orgánico (Inner Travels, Laraaji) y de lugares como Camboya, Tailandia y Laos, lugar donde vive actualmente Kyle Wade con su esposa Alice, podrían contarse como influencias de 'ecstatic', preciosísimo mantra que vibra y deslumbra como la puesta de sol de la portada. pianos, drones, grabaciones de campo, sintes viajeros como los de Portopia '81 que conectan de forma asombrosa con 'son brahmana' (sacerdote hindú encargado de cantar los himnos del Rig-vedá) de Creation VI. de hecho suenan los pajaritos del principio y lo percibo como un cambio de la canción de Azaleas y Joshua Dumas. esa es la magia de los splits. a esos pajaritos se le suma un hulusi, flauta china que es pura delicadeza, y los sedosos mantras vocales de Tim Six, un enamorado de los drones y los instrumentos exóticos, de los mantras sin fin. y de verdad que es así, no puedo mentir, 'son brhamana', con permiso de 'akroamatikos', es para mí lo más bonito y, aunque suene a tópico, balsámico y curativo que ha hecho nunca Tim Six. se puede decir que Rainbow Pyramid y Cosmic Winnetou tienen una varita que suelta polvos mágicos sobre los músicos y los capta durante ese breve tiempo que dura su colaboración. si no, no tiene explicación.

 listen ~ buy 

todas las cintas de esta hornada están 'sold out', bien por rainbow pyramid, pero todavía podéis visitar su página de bandcamp.