The Late Virginia Summers / Long Division split 10" on Harding St. Assembly Lab

I've been meaning to talk about this crazy split 10" series from guys over at The Harding Street Assembly Lab, they were nice enough to send over the entire series (so far?) and I just started making my way through them and his one is already my favorite...I know I have to hear the other two but honestly this is an incredible document, musically and the package is a real fitting memorial to what's inside.

The A-side is from The Late Virginia Summers and I think I forgot just how great these guys have been in the past and need to be included in that instrumental section. The perfect thing for writing or even reading, it just works on that jazz listening level, you can be completely compelled to take in every note, without the narrative context of a lyric, or let it exist as this kind of environmental soundtrack working subconsciously. Like this first track, “Heather Majestic Purple” slowly fading in long drone tones, warbling waves of sound that repeatedly fade through each other.... pulsating tones that start moving cones, a far off chime. These are layers to slowly absorb, the kind of composition that’s slowly changing. The twinkles of a slowed down Explosions in the Sky track off in the distance. It's making you question all the sounds around you. Is that a screeching bus brake off in the distance? Or a glass ringing imperceptably for minutes on end? Tilt your head, it’s getting louder. The chimes and creaking gates.
I love a piece that can create this mood, the details get filled in later. That vibration on the wood floor...that’s the low end synth. Sometimes you don’t even hear driums and there’s no reason to miss them, it would be too much of an interruption. The calming right before that storm is coming. The black clouds are gathering, but there’s time... nothing is happening right away, I’m not even worried about thunder there’s enough time to gather all the things in the yard and bring them in the wind is picking up.
A hundred layers of soft ringing and a ghostly kind of un-harmonic sound, everything else is gathering itself together in one layered wave that's working parallel to the next octave up... but that ugly off minor key that repeatedly bends is leading towards this bigger ominous sound... and wouldn’t you know it, that whole previous composition that made you wish you were safe inside is just about on top of you now.
“Chime Ray Du Peter Kent” samples a french broadcast and leads into a slow sampled pattern without the bit decay... might even be played live here. The broadcast isn’t near anything and becomes just voices since you can’t understand... even if you knew the language. It’s not related to dance or even electronic, the chime repetition is back getting louder and this beat falls away. The chime turns into a moogy ocillation, rising and falling with the emotion of a computer.
"Matisse (Final Vision)" brings things back to feeling more hopeful, those drone sounds have been spreading themselves across this entire side, never really going away, just turning into an environment for the rest of the instrumentation to develop. Growing at a snails pace, this final track gives way to guitars and drums, mic'd oh so softly out in the distance and completely beautiful, I already know what’s left on the side is going to be over way too soon for this kind of Tortoise rhythm jazz informed perfection. Big drums catching all the sublte intonations of hits, a vibratto guitar slowly picking up and lifting our skinny tunrtables to heaven. The slow epic grow that needs to be seriously listened to all night. With this broad palette on one side of a record leaves you really empty because it’s over.
Written, performed, tracked and mixed at Joe’s house in Jan 11.

Then it's on to the Long Division side which is a five piece instrumental band out of Norfolk, VA and are a perfect match to A-Side's TLVS, in fact Joe and Nathan both tracked, mixed and edited this a month after their A-Side. “Transmogrifier” sounds to be working with the more traditional elements of instrumental rock, subtly weaving in the weird,, disparate complex beat then kicking right into one of those grooves. They’re managing to stay far away from EITS or the more metal sounding stuff and keep it really light and airy, with nontraditional effects for this style of melancholia. It's going deep and really full, but that guitar keeps a rock edge and doesn’t go so dramatic right for the heartache. I think there’s a group of strings but it’s so layered in, it could very well be some kind of synth sound, but as it slowly starts playing against the strong distortion and breaking free with weird Modest Mouse sounding string bends, it’s a groove that keeps changing with all the headbobbing.
“Tragic colors of anna maria” the ringing now comes from the frantic back and forth of a metal string played with animal hair, really distant in the mix here, incredibly quiet, like listening from the other room. The guitar playing against this free form bassline turning the see saw motion into a groove, which is in a different rhythm entirely with picking high melodic strings under far off reverb. This one has been trying to warn you it’s going to take off with a stronger beat, still working through multiple quicknesses and repeated off kilter melodies and it all drops out for a while to let another set take it’s turn. This constant musical chairs of instrumentation never actually finds the time to build any kind of long term castle, all the pieces keep getting swept back into the ocean. They have the delay do all the work, reverse decay and chance. That’s how it’s all going to end. All of it.

These bands are a perfect match and with Joe and Nathan a part of both visions they end up in the same place prodiuction wise with this smart package with handstamped plain white jackets, I’m more eager than ever to get the next volume in the series. On splatter swirl vinyl, an every-color-at-the-plant mix, color insert, hand printed sleeves with mythological battle scenes. Knowing the lab, these refer to specific stories that the songs directly refer to. They're working on that level.

The late virginia summers (TLVS) present one of their most impressive (as well one of their oldest) moments with the drone of "heather majestic purple", then finish the offering with a recent creation ("matisse") penned specifically for this EP. norfolk’s long division hand in a couple of pieces written during the creation of their self-released "calm before". "transmogrifier" is loaded with memorable hooks & passages, while "tragic colors" is a darker trail, replete with perfectly placed layers of feedback & wash. this b side also features the final sessions of long division in their "classic" lineup.


AVAILABILITY: marbled teal vinyl + digital download, limited run of 100
ARTWORK: jacket & insert courtesy of HSAL


*this is the first of our split 10? series. the idea is to feature one of our own on the A side, with a friend of the label holding down the B side.*

Check out the tracks below and pick this up over at the Harding St. Lab, highly recommended, 100 pressed!!

Sore Eros on Blackburn recordings

Sore Eros (why does that sound dirty?) is a recent addition to the Blackburn Recordings label who just put out this single from Robert Robinson, the driving force behind this psyche-folk project.
The thing is... these tracks should be soothing - even comforting, the layers of subtle washes of plucked melodies on acoustic guitar are calm, the slow tempo kind of lulls you into a brief hypnosis, but the vocals are completely unsettling. Maybe it's that they're a little too delicate...they sound like they're about to break at any moment... just cracking slightly off key. Robert's breathy, daydream delivery is mic'd super close and he's straining to push out a lyric, but the whole track is sitting on top of him. It manages to be a bit of a children's song, its managing to keep a structure while it's slowly falling apart.

The A-Side 'Taal Compass', keeps a monolithic haze going without a repeatable direction.
The weird part is how interesting this way of thinking is, I mean literally you are directly listening to someone who does not conventionally put melodies together. Exactly like Gary and Ariel...I wouldn't have thought this kind of unique songwriting was happening in so many places...it's just unrecognizable.
Right towards the end of 'Taal Compass' there's a simple electric guitar line that for a second actually sounds like a moment on an old pavement single. I'm thinking about how much this is kind of related...a different time and place they might be on the same bill...as a laid back more psychedelic strain of the goofy indie rock.

Now here's a generalization for you, there are a few guys I would say working in this style of wall-of-psyche-folk-sound: Woods, Gary War...even the Fresh and Only's...I think it's pretty closely related to the shoegaze scene in the 90's, not in style but content...and attack. I think the elements are there, the energy, the intense layering....minus the earsplitting volume. It's a negative approach to songwriting; take everything in dense layers, actually use all 24 tracks and then start stripping away the central part of the melody to get at an entirely new unexpected direction of the song....of course leaving room for the essential part of the whole thing...that your brain fills in the blanks between that static and hiss in ways you couldn't even play...and are completely personal.

I think it says a lot that Gary War lent his synth work on the B-Side track 'Wide Open', I know it got me to track this down.
Wide Open is even more freeform than the A-Side, lots of heady electronics, and vocals that are merely a heavily echoed arrangement of sounds really...just oh's and ah's.

This single depends on what your goal is: to be challenged by something that isn't obviously gunning to kick out the party jams.

Psych-pop masters Sore Eros return with a brand new single on Blackburn! Both “Taal Compass” and b-side “Wide Open” (which features space age post-punk hero Gary War on synths) are slow burners that reveal an understated majesty, but their style and execution suggest wildly different mindsets. The title track is plaintive, with songwriter and lead man Robert Robinson’s vocals emerging organically from the analog distortion that coats the song. Flip the record over for an atmospheric epic that builds gracefully to an overwhelming crescendo that certainly earns the name “Wide Open."

Get it from Blackburn Recordings.

What kind of an angry god is paypal, that I am forced to appease him almost daily?

Just want to also let you know about another review of a 12"er by The Late Virginia Summers I posted in the forum...it's a really great full length of instrumental intellectual rock. Can't wait for the vinyl to fianally be pressed. Get in on it before the 100 copies are spoken for.

A New Dawn Fades and The Late Virginia Summers split on Cherub Records

This single arrived in the mail a little while back with a nice note from P.J. whose label Cherub Records put out this split from A new Dawn Fades and The Late Virginia Summers. Nathan from Harding Street Assembly Lab, who I talked to in a podcast a while back is in both bands, and this TLVS track was their first committed to vinyl and is completely different from the live rock slow building direction they've been up to lately. From the sound of both tracks these are early incarnations of an instrumental direction that's since turned towards the use of string instruments and basic live setups to pull of their own directions of that post-punk Chicago sound, Virginia style.

A New Dawn Fades on the A-Side does 'When Lights are Flashing' which is an instrumental that runs the entire soundscape from free form freakout dead set at the beginning, deconstructing the opening riff into chaos to dropping out into quiet Lync type movements. Minimal restrained barely strummed sections of sad electric that carry all of that implied burst of chords about to come. The jump back to the opening riff and the song doesn't even have the time to build, it seems to be testing how abruptly they can change tempo and emotion. An aggressive electric jam ends on that opening structure to quit. There's actually an impressive string version of this track on their myspace, which brings an entirely different southern flavor to the piece, or a kind of Alarm Will Sound reinterpretation of this one.

'NY 104, headed West' from TLVS, is a huge departure from what I've heard. Lots of electronics start it out, static snares and low res kick making up an off kilter quick rhythm. Just a hint of xylophone sounding repeated melody take me back to a hint of Tortoise TNT reference point. PJ warned me it was very different from their current sound, and it's great to hear this early direction, playing around with a forgotten home demo that has since turned into a full fledged side project.
I actually grew up in a tiny town near RT 104 and I have to think that's what he's referencing which is completely crazy. I drove on 104 every single day of my life, to school, to any kind of larger town, and I have to ask him what the hell he was doing up there.

There's only a few of these left on mostly white swirled red 7"'s. The only disappointment was I thought the sleeve on both sides was actually spraypainted, but instead it's nicely offset printed...I think a missed opportunity here to add another layer to the homemade quality I love about singles, but then again maybe they love the ozone.

Get it from Cherub Records.

Interview with The Harding Street Assembly Lab

"Why don't we just be the record label?"

I talked to Joanna and Nathan from the Harding Street Assembly Lab a couple weeks back now and tried to get a sense of the amazing sounding community of artists and musicians they're bringing together under the umbrella of THSAL. We talked about the origins of the Lab, the singles they've released so far, Joanna's art for The Late Virginia Summers single, what relationship central Virginia has to this collection of musicians and the various connections of all the bands involved. It's a utopian collective, like the Endless Nest on the west coast.

Herizon kicks the interview off with 'All Gone' and at the end you'll hear Pebble Azalea Starfish from 'The Late Virginia Summers' both available from the Lab contact them direct (hardingstreet(at)gmail.com) to pick up these singles, they're an idiosyncratic piece of central virginia.

Episode 75 (!) is part one of the interview with The Harding Street Assembly Lab, download it here (18min).

They also just released this compilation to sample for free the other day....the Lab is working overtime.

it's here! it's here!

our first compilation, available as a track by track digital download, is up & ready for consumption over at www.hardingstreet.org.

we are super excited to be sharing the work of these artists & friends with you!

let us know what you think, be it a 350 word write up on the entire comp for your blog, or a simple reaction to one of the songs.

a HUGE thanks to all the artists that have contributed to making HSAL #08 something special:

- andrew weathers

- white laces

- CAVE DRUMS

- moruza

- brian hall

- goodwill falcon

- starmount

- saskatoon

- herizon

- asentimentalsong

nathan . the harding street assembly lab

www.hardingstreet.org

The Late Virginia Summers on Harding Street Assembly Lab Records

Every time I even think this band name in my head 'The Late Virginia Summers' I can't help but think it's memorializing some deceased celebrity (seems I'm not the only one), and then realize it has to be just the right description for their somber, instrumental style. I almost wouldn't put this in a post-rock place as much as I would something more delicately rocking akin to Jack Rose or James Blackshaw. It has a sort of meandering folk direction at first, but it's all building towards an epic climax that sounds like Explosions unplugged. The high trembling melodies, with a quick start and stop. They're pushing the math equations of the classical composition just slightly with a nod to all things Chicago circa late 90's. It's avant garde without needing a decryption.

This single came in from the brand spanking new Harding Street Assembly Lab of which husband and wife team Nathan and Joanna are curating the new sound of central Virginia. Nathan is one half of TLVS with Joe Morgan, and Joanna, who is a showing artist in the VA area is behind the sleeve art of this single. Cue Sly & the Family Stone: It's a handmade affair, the kind of thing that makes 7"'s so great. They're assembling them on the kitchen table, hanging with clothespins across the livingroom, moving piles around to find a place to sit down and have coffee. It's commitment, not to mention at $5 postage included, it's not a part of their retirement plan. They love music, period.

The xerox insert says these two sides were recorded almost exactly in opposite seasons, this one on the A-Side, 'Pebble Azalea Starfish' was committed January 1st, and both sides could be a commissioned study in seasonal disorder. Pebble is looking towards the coming spring, dramatically building layers of guitar, acoustic and electric while the percussion works it's way in there to abruptly come to a screeching halt. I'm going to think that's not the end but the beginning.

The B-Side, 'Golden Cypress', has a bass melody, that could possibly be electronic. There's a lot of delayed electric atmospherics amidst a decidedly more subtle experimental feel here. Low end hum builds. This being recorded in the summer, it's that blinding oppressive heat...you can barely move. Sweat everywhere, set up the loop and carefully reverse it. I bet now you're wishing it was winter again, but that's the curse of the seasons, just when you think you can't wait for summer, you're dying for snow again. When are we going to just sit back and appreciate the season we're in?

A full length should be out sometime later this year, and I hope it makes it to a long playing LP, and I will put it right in between Pullman and Ativin on the shelf.

HSAL 02: TLVS, “Pebble Azalea Starfish” b/w “Golden Cypress” $5 PPD
This single marks the first recordings of The Late Virginia Summers (TLVS) in their current two piece incarnation. “Pebble” features a trademark Joe Morgan rift pushing through cascading layers of electric guitars & phased out organs. The flow of “Golden Cypress” resembles a hazy west coast sunset, with a low end groove dissolving into an ocean of guitar washes. Both sides were tracked & mixed at the Harding Street Assembly Lab by the band.

Get it direct from Harding Street Assembly Lab by emailing the Laboratory at hardingstreet(at)gmail.com