Each time I listen to this album i'm left wondering why it took me so long to understand it, to see what all the fuss was about and to fall totally and utterly in love with it. Without doubt Treny has a firm place in amongst my favourite ambient albums, a worthy contempary of albums like The Fun Years - Baby, It's Cold Inside, Grouper's Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill, Phill Niblocks Touch Strings, BvDubs Prayer to False Gods and Eluviums Lambent Material. Its sound is so soothing, deep, not warm, almost eerie in places, but generally enchanting, maybe even spiritual, certainly angelic, the kind of album that demands to be listened to through headphones and certainly a grower.
Showing posts with label the fun years. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the fun years. Show all posts
on Saturday, 16 October 2010
Each time I listen to this album i'm left wondering why it took me so long to understand it, to see what all the fuss was about and to fall totally and utterly in love with it. Without doubt Treny has a firm place in amongst my favourite ambient albums, a worthy contempary of albums like The Fun Years - Baby, It's Cold Inside, Grouper's Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill, Phill Niblocks Touch Strings, BvDubs Prayer to False Gods and Eluviums Lambent Material. Its sound is so soothing, deep, not warm, almost eerie in places, but generally enchanting, maybe even spiritual, certainly angelic, the kind of album that demands to be listened to through headphones and certainly a grower.
on Thursday, 4 February 2010
Although not as instant as the two excellent releases last year care of Smallfish and Under the Spire (those labels names alone should really tell you enough, you're almost guaranteed satisfaction) Tom Whites latest on the up and coming label Hibernate is still most worthy of your attention.
Slightly conceptual in manner, the tracks are inspired by the photograph that serves as the albums artwork and carry an icy winter cold feel to them, On Sundays is all crackles and cold winds, its almost chills you just to listen to it. Slight echoes of Godspeed slip in toward the end of the track, though they should in no way be used as a main reference.
It's a slow burning album, but things really pick up come track A Pardon and the two tracks that follow, delightfully liquidy in sound and reminiscent of The Fun Years organic wash of a sound, crackling embers over running water, a real delight.
The almost title track, Visibility, finely mixes the field recordings with a gently churned out melody, squeezing it self out like a bulb sprouting from under the snow showing the first sign of new life following the bitter winter.
It'll take a good few listens, even now i'm only just appreciating the quality of tracks such a Moredon Cooling Towers. I've said it before and i'll say it again, Tom White is very much one to watch.
on Tuesday, 28 April 2009
Ben Frost - Theory of Machines
I love that feeling when you discover an album that you instantly fall for, look no further than the Lovely Eggs review below for a recent happening where a track hit me so hard I listened to it 17 times in a row.
Despite being about as far away as possible from The Lovely Eggs, Ben Frost's Theory of Machines has hit me in a similar manner, you know how you read all those glowing reviews on Boomkat about the latest release from Machinefabriek and a whole host of other artists, and then you find that you're ever so slightly disappointed, i will step to one side to admit that not always do Boomkat dissappoint, in fact their end of year selection is normally amongst the most reliable, but if you're looking for pure drone perfection, pure drone perfection with a hint of noise, but restraintful noise, perfectly built up and executed then you should really look no further than the marvellous Ben Frost. Not since the Fun Years wonderful and ever fresh Baby, Its Cold Outside have i heard an album of such magnitude and natural, oraganic perfection. Static sounds and gentle, soothing soundscapes of epic proportions, so natural and inviting, a dream in sound, balancing the noise perfectly with the drone like a master of suspense. I can't recommend this highly enough, believe me, its on constant repeat.
on Thursday, 4 December 2008
Today I sat at work listening to Tim Heckers Radio Amor and though I have no doubt that he is a great artist just occasionally it all seems too difficult, too much time between crackles of static and too much straining. it made my head hurt, on the other hand The Fun Years have been drifting in and out of my ears pretty regularly. I think with drone music you have to be in the mood and the right environment, The Fun Years defy the rules creeping in and blending in to your brain before you know it, static sounds that dreamily drift quite beautifully.
With one musician (Isaac Sparks) using turntables and effects, and the other (Ben Recht) on baritone guitar The Fun Years have produced one of the albums of the year.
The Fun Years on Last FM
Boomkat: Finally back in stock. Ever wandered what a cross between GAS, Tim Hecker, Mogwai, My Bloody Valentine, Stars of The Lid and Philip Jeck would sound like? If so, you're in luck, for this utterly incredible album from 'The Fun Years' ticks all the above boxes and emerges with a 50 minute listening experience that's left us gasping for breath. There's a dense crackle and frayed balance to these recordings that makes you feel like the whole thing could disintegrate at any moment, pulling you in to a sound-world formed by broken instruments, the crackle of battered, old vinyl, the edgy ambience of the great outdoors in the middle of the night and, quite suddenly, an amplified wall of sound playing tricks on your senses. Each of these tracks begins with the fizz and snap of looped and popped vinyl and ends with a devastated, tumultuous re-arrangement of sounds, but it's the process from A to B that's almost impossible to fathom in one sitting. These kinds of aural tricks that make use of manipulated found sounds, turntablism and affected acoustic instruments are hardly new, but 'The Fun Years' mark themselves out with a brilliant disregard for generic templates and accepted convention, imperceptibly realigning sonic boundaries in the process. That seemingly effortless transition from one sonic methodology to another is what makes this album so special, just listening to the opening track 'My Lowville' takes you from a Philip Jeck style crackle to a reverberating acoustic strum, towering processes reminiscent of Tim Hecker and finally an opaque catharsis transmitted from deep inside Wolfgang Voigt's famous forest. By the time you reach the end of the album you're left astonished at this band's ability to create a sound that's at once so gorgeously warm and familiar, yet so confidently removed from the confines of precedent. Definitely one of the albums of the year - an absolutely essential purchase.
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