Thursday, October 14, 2010

Cloudland Canyon on Bathetic Records


Bathetic Records, who have been releasing sounds by Jeans Wilder and King Dude on the most obscure format: cassettes have broken the cycle and pressed this 7" vinyl from Cloudland Canyon, which is actually a real place in Georgia (thanks google) and gives these track titles entirely new meaning.
The sleeve isn't giving away anything other than a lot of squinting and holding it away from your face. I think a car on the reverse is about to hit this deer turning away from the camera...an all too familiar scenario where I grew up. If you didn't shoot it in the first few weeks of hunting season, then you hit it on the way to school, but that never stopped anyone from hanging it from a tree in their front yard.
The point is, Cloudland Canyon seems to be all about those hazy memories and nightly reoccurring dreams with no meaning. Or do they?
The A-Side Mothlight Pt 2 has no beginning or end, really. Where it picks up, the rhythms have already been rambling away in the canyon at dawn and this 6 minute piece was simply captured like a field recording for the chain of pedals vocals to be added later that day. It's definitely got imprints of that psyche, shoegaze sound from England not so long ago, and it slightly veers off that direct course every now and then with a weird electronic sound that almost gets Gary War on you but like I said this underlying metronome of haze is unstoppable. The instrumentation is separated in it's own directions adding to the swirl. If you do it right, it gets hard to tonally pick it apart. The vocals are so changed, they start to get heard as another sound coming from something electronic.
The B-Side "In the Cold" seems to be more subtly bringing the haze. Understated loops in a Ducktails style way off in the distance drive this one where the vocals are even more unrecognizable that the previous side. I think you have to have a fair amount of restraint to not have this kind of thing get away with you. To keep it as hushed as this...it's a massive secret, no matter how loud you turn it up, it's not going to become overwhelming. Warm Jets with a beat.

From Bathetic Records on appropriately swirled multicolor vinyl with dreamy color insert.


CLOUDLAND CANYON
"Mothlight, Part 2" b/w "In The Cold"
33 rpm 7"


Tracklist:
A1. Mothlight, Part 2
B1. In The Cold

Bathetic is proud to release, not only the first single from the upcoming Cloudland Canyon full-length LP, Fin Eaves (coming out on Holy Mountain), but also our first 7" vinyl release! We're very happy this chunk of dreamscaped atmosphere could serve as our first venture into vinyl territory.

Cloudland Canyon are widely respected for their shimmering approach to music, a combination of elements as varied as krautrock, shoegaze, pop, and drone. "Mothlight, Part 2" is a perfect first single and represents the band's slight re-direction into the more uptempo, catchier nooks and crannies of their vibe. Don't miss out on this!

Limited First Edition of 300.
Almost forgot to mention CC still has copies of a split they did with Citay, covering galaxie 500 tracks available on their blog....

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:36 PM

    You don't know obscure until you've record on water! You can hear every nuance!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Try Robot Pubes!

    ReplyDelete