ulaan khol

ulaan khol [steve r. smith] - i (soft abuse, 2008)

Throughout his career as a solo artist, and through membership with the celebrated ensembles Thuja and Mirza, Steven R. Smith has had a hand in creating some of the most compelling and singular instrumental psychedelic music of the past ten years. Smith's latest project, Ulaan Khol, moves beyond the Eastern European-inspired sources and scales employed by his work as Hala Strana towards an approach alternately true to his personal musical lineage and in a realm beyond any pre-existing work. As Ulaan Khol, Smith digs in deep with a palette of drums/guitar/organ to craft a monolithic & expansive free form, feedback-heavy atmospheric din that bonds the disparate realms of Fushitsusha and High Rise with Popul Vuh and Flying Saucer Attack.

As Ulaan Khol, Smith has planned a maximalist three-part suite, 'Ceremony.' In the first installment of the trilogy, I, the tone is overwhelming bleak as the pieces (all untitled) caterwaul, moan and crumble. Dripping with basement doom, Ulaan Khol's cosmic histrionics emanate with the raw essence of White Light/White Heat jettisoned by Harmonia's amorphous drifts.

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y desde hoy son 3

Lluvia, vapor y velocidad, Joseph Mallord William Turner (1884)

Tal día como hoy hace tres años, puse las primeras piedras en aldea f. y parece que los cimientos aún aguantan. Quizá en este tiempo, f. no haya crecido demasiado pero las historias siguen y, espero, seguirán narrándose. Os dejo el relato de Juan José Arreola que inspiró el nombre del blog y cierta dosis de imaginación, la cual, he tratado de imprimir al blog, encarnada en el fantástico mundo que recrea y en esa figura del viajero con destino a T.

El Guardagujas

Pd.: gracias a quienes observan desde la sombra y, sobre todo, a esos pocos con quienes tengo el placer de compartir.

rusalnaia

rusalnaia [sharron kraus & gillian chadwick]- rusalnaia (camera obscura, 2008)

Rusalnaia is about honouring (some would say placating) the Rusalki - mischievous water nymphs capable of tickling victims to death - with song, dance, tree-decorating and wreath-making. Rusalnaia is what happened when Sharron Kraus and Gillian Chadwick, then neighbours in Fishtown, Philadelphia, became friends and decided to honour the Rusalki in each other! The two, coming from very different musical backgrounds, made journeys into each other's terrain until it was no longer clear what the boundaries were. In the collaborative process they became as close as sisters and found their way to the shared musical aesthetic that is Rusalnaia. Rusalnaia's album was recorded at Hexham Head Studios in Philadelphia, engineered by Greg Weeks (Espers, The Valerie Project) in two sessions through 2007 that corresponded with Sharron's extended visits to the country. Weeks helped capture the duo's organic and sometimes unusual instrumentation, from dulcimer and guitar to pennywhistles and goat's nail shakers, and contributed his own accents to a few tracks: acid Les Paul leads and vintage 70's synths. Eight tracks of haunting, ritualistic, magical pagan-folk were the result, varying from the darkly processional tale of dispossession "Shifting Sands", though the Comus-like ceremonies of the title track to the extended forest-folk trance of the concluding "Wild Summer".

La voz de Sharron Kraus me insipira soledad y abandono, pero su torturado folk siempre ha querido verse rodeado y adornado de otras perspectivas. Unos meses después de su debut colaboró con el maravilloso snow-folk de The Iditarod de los que ya nada sabemos, después vendría más sonriente con Christian Kiefer, luego el bellísimo traditional-folk con Meg Baird & Helena Espvall y este año la estelar colaboración con Tara Burke. Ahora vuelve al inicio, a Camera Obscura, al lado de Gillian Chadwick.

¿Qué nos depara esta vez?

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the grand hotel

the grand hotel - the upper reaches of wind river (lattajjaa, 2006)

What a nice surprise this record turned out to be. It's on legendary Finnish microlabel 267 Lattajaa, but these fellas are in fact American, and while they do traffic in a similar style as many of those forest Finns we love so much (Avarus, Anaksimandros, Kemialliset, Islaja) they seem to hew closer to the drifting murky, field recording flecked nature folk of the Jewelled Antler collective. But all that makes them sound super derivative, which they definitely are not. Three songs, all woven into one gorgeous sonic patchwork, tangled and gloriously blissed out, beginning with a soft bramble of acoustic guitars, hovering on a bed of blear eyed FX, over the top, sing-songy falsetto vocals coo and croon, sounding not unlike Glenn from Skygreen Leopards. The second track is a strange lo-fi rhythmscape, focused around a martial drum beat, pounding tribal and insistent over a swirling morass of processed vocals, bits of shimmering feedback, murky ambience, and thick swells of subtly melodic whir. The final track, which at 17 minutes makes up the bulk of the record, is a sprawling epic, that traverses all sorts of different sonic territories, managing to make them all sound wholly interconnected. A burst of hiss and damaged FX, synths and feedback, gives way to deep resonant stretches of metallic buzz, which in turn give way to some aggressive acoustic guitar strumming and muted percussion, a creepy haunting Comus-like ritual, before morphing into an ever changing soundscape of glistening melody, rumbling low end, fractured folk, and smeary soft focus abstract ambience, finishing off with an almost peppy sounding outro, all major key guitar, strange percussion, a simple barely there rhythmic pulse, and slithery strands of glimmering fuzzy melody. Wow. The bad news is... we only got a handful of these, and we're not entirely sure we'll be able to get more. But give it a go, fans of dreamy abstract free folk do NOT want to miss out on The Grand Hotel..." Aquarius Records

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mary-anne patterson (rare earth XXI)

mary-anne paterson - me (uk, 1970)

Firmly established as one of the rarest records of its time, and never reissued until now, Mary-Anne Paterson's sole album is a beautiful combination of traditional and original material whose echoing production perfectly captures her haunting voice. This first-ever reissue of Me is sure to appeal to all folk lovers, and deserves to elevate Mary-Anne to where she belongs - alongside Anne Briggs and Vashti Bunyan in the pantheon of Britain's leading folk singers.

"Mary-Anne Paterson was a painter, teacher, actress and folk club regular whose only album is delivered in high, pure tones with basic acoustic backing, occasionally enlivened by understated electric guitar and pounding bongos" - Mojo
"Me's contents vary from haunting treatments of traditional material (Black Girl, The Water Is Wide) to beautiful original compositions (Love Has Gone, Reverie For Roslyn). A true rarity and a prime candidate for reissue" - Record Collector

Según parece Mary-Anne que, por entonces, era profesora de teatro viajó a Londres a finales de 1969 para grabar una demo con el fin de recaudar fondos para el centro donde trabajaba. Este viajé acabó germinando en un improvisada sesión de 1970 en la que se grabó 'Me' y en la que la escocesa fue acompañada por músicos callejeros que no volvería a ver. Ella seguiría siendo profesora, además, pintaría, escribiría para la radio y tv y continuó cantando pero, desgraciadamente, no hubo otro álbum. Rescatado de la oscuridad por Sumbeam hacer un par de años, es una pequeña joya del traditional-british-folk, es medieval, es acústico e íntimo, es Shirley Collins, es Judy Dyble, es C.O.B., es una maravillosa voz. Dentro de la tradición que recoge Mary-Anne, el marcado ambiente del medievo se ve aderezado, puntualmente, por flautas, 12 cuerdas, bongos... que le aportan algo de luz, ahí está el acid-folk de 'Black Girl'. Sólo cabe admirarla como una dama más del verdadero folk.

Audio: Love has gone
Download: Me

seventh sons (rare earth XX)

seventh sons - seventh sons (1964)

Seventh Sons is a folk rock trio (with the add of Frank Evatoff for the flute parts) who released only one album back in the mid 60's. The leader, guitarist & multi-instrumentalist Buzz Linhart provided a lot of materials. He was recognized as the main protagonist of the Seventh Sons typical sound. After the band's scission he launched a career in solo as a guitarist. Historically this is a must despite that great followers will blow away this effort. Simply called "raga" this album is maybe the first experimental rock item which successes to conciliate "eastern" influences, harmonies & elements with basic, standard rock structures. The only track is built around a single theme developed in several sequences, according a large part to acoustic guitar & flute "floating" lines. Rather discreet pop voices are added to the mix. Back to the 60's musical context “raga” figures as an undisputed masterwork in "indo" pre-progressive rock universe.

Más rare earth, el espíritu de esta aldea. Poco, muy poco se ha hablado de Seventh Sons y su único disco. Su nombre, supongo, está insipirado por la tradición y el folclore que acompaña al número 7. Catalogado como el primer raga tocado con instrumentos eléctricos, lo cierto, es que resulta sorprendente escuchar un disco como éste en 1964, adelantado a la psicodelia y a las influencias que las bandas de occidente recogerían de la India. Tanto es así, que no se publicó hasta 1968. Difícil delimitar por donde se mueve la única pista, el evocador y místico 'Raga', conducido por las cuerdas de Buzz Linhart y las infecciosas percusiones de Serge Katzen, una voz que actúa como un instrumento más y la adicción al trío de la flauta de Frank Evatoff ornamenta el viaje y rompe las eternas líneas de bajo de James Rock. Eastern free-folk-psych en clave raga o mejor, libertad en su estado puro.

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talugung

talugung - flooded fields (foxglove, 2008)

Someone should start a clan of the instrument builders. and if such a thing existed, talugung (aka ontario resident, ryan waldron) would be one of the leaders of the movement. even though no such organization exists (damnit), there's still this debut album of waldron's fractured exploits. "flooded fields" isn't played on all instruments he's built, though. he accents this with all sorts of random, ethnic instruments - circular xylophones from god knows where, for example - creating a wonderful cacaphony of sound. the proceedings here are choppy and melodic, but underpinned with an organic sense. at times, it sounds like something you might find on a sublime frequencies release, and is also reminiscent of the work of henry kuntz. 100 copies

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juju

juju - a message from mozambique (black fire, 1973)

The first album by the group that later went on to become Oneness Of Juju! The album was recorded with a group that featured Plunky Nakabinde and Lon Moshe on reeds and percussion -- plus Babatunde on congas and drums -- and the overall sound is very much in kind of an Art Ensemble Of Chicago mode - with more "out" soloing overall, mixed with some of the spiritual jazz leanings that would show up more on the group's later work. The album's a fitting record for the Strata East label -- as it shows the imprint's equal ability to carve up heavy avant work and more strident spiritual soul jazz. And if we say so ourselves, Plunky's really a wailer on tenor and soprano -- sounding a lot like Kalaparusha or some of the other AACM players from the time! Titles include "(Struggle) Home", "Soledad Brothers", "Freedom Fighter", and "Nairobi/Chants.

La infección rítmica de James Plunky, afro free-jazz que tendría continuación bajo el nombre de Oneness of Juju y un sonido más cercano al funk y a la world-music. Este primer album va en la estela de la AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) y de anteriores viajeros de f. como Maulawi Nururdin y sobre todo, Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre.

Audio: nairobi chants

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