Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Landing, Vol.7 on Geographic North Records


The latest Geographic North single made it to my mailbox the other day from another band I've never had any experience with: Landing. They are from Middletown, CT, not a place I think I can name another band from actually, and not a place I would imagine these slow, dirgy epic soundscapes that are rattling the speakers to come from.
The North Side 'Into the Hall' has some vocals on top of slow drone electronics, that are going in Eno directions, until a snare march comes in with delayed quiet guitar melody. It's a little Jesu, a little Explosions...and the vocals are barely understandable, they are up close, louder than anything, but almost whispered around the same range as the bass and deep electronics so it bleeds into a single plane of melodic hummmmmm.

I have to say I'm impressed by the sound quality of the single at 33. There are super lows, and layers of subtle distortions, it sounds great on vinyl, this really highlights the range of sound they are dealing with.
The slow tension buildup, sounding kind of classically influenced...it's really reminding me of Locrian or Godspeed you... like on the B-Side with 'Following Daylight'...those slow, shifting layers of sound fading in and out. Just a huge black wall, you can't see the ends or top, it's just closing in.

All of it pressed on snow white vinyl with their trademark minimal geometric sleeve. This single, as well as subscriptions to the whole series, is still available from Geographic North, lots of interesting artists, way off the radar of my usual garage/no-fi/weirdness, and I'm grateful.

2 comments:

  1. wow, good to know that this exists! i used to go see landing all the time when i was living in new haven, but have kind of fallen out of touch and didn't realize they had released anything new lately. my favorite record of theirs was a tour ep from (i think) 2002... also, there are related bands called PAPER and SURFACE OF ECEON that are quite nice.

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  2. Yea, this was unexpected...great band I knew nothing about. I'll check out those other guys as well...thanks.

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