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.

Tarentel on Geographic North records + part 2 podcast interview with Scribbler

Didn't know anything about Tarentel either before putting this on this morning. The last release out by Geographic North, the Psychic Powers single being slightly delayed (see below)
This is what I love about this series so far, I don't claim to know everything about music, far from it. I'm suspect of anyone who does. This is an evolving medium, music. I could argue faster than anything else. The rate we consume music and the little, technology-wise it takes to produce makes music this virus that adapts and divides every 24 hours.
This blog is part of trying to keep up with it, track parts of it...I don't know if I'll ever make the jump to 'music critic', I'm constantly coming across whole genres and connected bands I've never heard of...forcing me to start over.
Anything, and new subscription series or label that introduces new work, new artists to me is completely appreciated.

The A-Side
Sounds live, with lots of effects, like we just cut into a live set. I think I'm hearing live drum sounds that are being sampled as they are played and then delayed back and messed with, fed through all kinds of ringtones and distortion. I love getting into sound where it's a bit of a mystery, where it's not easy to dissect.
I was just reading all kinds of reviews about these guys fitting into Post-rock, how useless that tag is, and Tarentel's 20 minute track times. It must have taken some convincing to find usable section they would be happy with to abbreviate on a single...even at 33 1/3. It does make me want to go find a full length somewhere. I get into Mono and Godspeed every now and then when I'm working on something else...I think it's there to not distract me, but mostly it does even more than mindless pop. There's a lot of tortured guitar sounds...this is definitely recorded in a space, with everyone together, which is a nice change...to have that live, raw feel in this instrumental genre. The track abruptly ends, the same way it began.

Side B: I'm getting a soundtrack feel here, not immediate rock. It's this 70's chorus synth. Then some
Electronic metallic explosions that end up as feedback? Or you take a feedback sample and blow it apart, gate it to the point where the effect wants to cut it out completely but something is sneaking through...on top of that fading in and out is a chime-y electric guitar. It sounds like it's being hit with sticks...but delicately. Great weird sounds panning back and forth....this one is moving through changes quick. I hope this was a good experiment for Tarentel, to work within the confines of the 7", there isn't a dull moment on either side...they pull out all the stops and I'm forced to go back and see where this all started.

Tarentel...file them into my favorite genre....instrumental post rock jazz noise...whatever.

Just got word from Farbod from GN:

We're having the worst luck with the Psychic Powers sleeve printing, so it may be another month before you get that one. Belong's "October Language" 180 gram vinyl issue is next.

Part 2 of the interview with Craig from Scribbler is up this week. Episode 55 (18 min / 17 mb). We get into growing up in Halifax, whether or not geography has anything to do with a band's sound, the response from their single on Stumparumper, more of the Radiator Collective, Scribbler songwriting and recording....and Craig's solo project Chief Thundercloud...and what the Box Meat revolution is all about....

Scribbler songs played: (Prussian National Anthem, Sixth Side Road, Woodscar, croscarmellose, furnace (live)). These can be found at their reverbnation site...all free, a hundred songs or so...all over the place in a great way...like popping in an old sebadoh, or folk implosion cassette...could be an intimate home recording, or rock out rehearsal, or sound collage...but it all has a scribbler imprint on it. I have to really appreciate a band that has this range. Like Blood on the Wall...the album is a mix tape.

Tussle on Geographic North records

The second in this series GN02 is by the group Tussle...didn't know anything about these guys before setting it down for a spin.

More ultra minimal sleeve graphics on heavy card stock...I have to say it's nice to have a unified graphic look like this, I can pick them out of a stack easy...in fact I'm still looking for one GN03 (which is a poster, not a 7"....that explains it .....ed), but I'll know it when I see it from a mile away. Yellow swirl heavy vinyl here...

Tussle is giving me a kind of Cornelius feel, more like a remix kind of thing, not a DJ project, but more like sample archivist or environmental project. It really has that feel of separate pieces magically tacked together.
Turns out it's a four piece consisting of drums (live/sampled), electronics and bass. I don't know why it feels sampled. Maybe because the melodies are so independent, the sounds so idiosyncratic...the sounds so specific they're like sound effects.

The A-Side, sorry the North side, 'Animal Cop' is very bassline groove driven. This had to have been the foundation for the track, it's so right up front and sure. The drums are so clean sounding, I'm having trouble telling what could have been recorded live and what wasn't...aside from the obvious electronic glitchy hits. So many different sounds are used, cowbells, warning alarms. There's a breakdown part of just live minimal drums at one point. It doesn't sound too far away from Tortoise, Pullman...that post-jazz influenced sound. It's instrumental, and full of little twists and turns.

The B-Side 'Room 191' is a little less groovy, it sounds really like a rehearsal track or a demo take, and this is a little sliver of something larger. Near reggae dub-like in the bassline this time, with delayed piercing keyboard blasting in. Super short, must be less than a minute...nice little sample of what they can be capable of.

This one is still available for order from Geographic North....

A Sunny Day in Glasgow on Geographic North records

A: (cult of) The Cemetery Flowers (mandolins version)
B: Walking Pneumonia

I subscribed to this 7" series a little while back from Geographic North and dug the first three out the other day to give them a spin...you know there's that pile or section on the shelf that's for new stuff, and I have been waiting to review these kind of as a body of work. To see if I could figure out where Geographic North is going...where they might be headed.
All the sleeves for these singles, this one included are really minimal graphics...solid sky blue with gradients of blue running through at the top in a bezier curve. The flip side is completely black with the track listings and speed. The vinyl itself is a nice heavy opaque sky blue, just slightly marbled.
Now I remember how I heard about Sunny Day in Glasgow...they released a double album on Ruined Potential that looked pretty amazing...I think before I even actually heard these guys I was drooling over this vinyl package....that's ridiculous I know...but they got my number...it's all handmade, letter press, linen...limited to around 300. Same with this single...it might be sold out...it looks like you can still click the buy button on their site..so you might get lucky.

The A-Side (North side)
There are at least 3 ladies adding vocals in Sunny Day (who aren't from Glasgow, as I mistakenly believed at first), not sure how many are singing at once, how many layers are going on at any given time. It's reminding me of Lush, or Magnetic Fields...more specifically Future Bible Heroes with Claudia Gonson... angelic swirling harmonies with herself. It also has that quirky synth melody that's so hard to get away with. It's really deep in the mix here, you almost can't pick out any actual words.
The little high pitch almost electronic sounding 'oooo oooo' is a perfect example of something that might not work on paper, but it seems like they are trying to fully explore this sound and force it into something new, play with the conventions. The sounds gets a little heavier, full of muffled handclaps, layers of synth, it's a little twee, but hazy, my bloody twee. I can kind of see this as another tangent in a completely different direction to where the Vivian Girls ended up. Start from the same inspiration, but get rid of the guitars and 4/4 rock...

I'm still trying to work out if I have some new problem with my speakers or they are panning the low end back and forth, it's wobbly and I'm still not sure I'm hearing it right. I've reconnected the wires a few times now and it's got to be the song. Either that or I give up.
That's the beauty of this, the nuances in the sound, the subtle layers and layers that stick together in this sound that's bigger than it's parts.

The B-Side (South) begins with more vocal breathy loops, which work their way into a subtle dance 808 rhythm then comes the drone airy synth that is delayed forever. It doesn't veer off into dance like Dan Deacon I think because it's essentially quiet. The bass doesn't overpower anything, it's not mixed to push the bass cones around. They hold back a little... it's like Lost in Translation...that dreamy looking out a rainy car window at the neon. Is everything in slow motion or really fast? There's a sample...'I felt terrible....like...I felt sick.' ....now I get the 'Walking Pneumonia' title...
The synth and vocals really bleed into each other, like they are in tune with each other, and become something else. Sunny Day really has a handle on this tweegaze sound...it's never overdone...it really sounds like they're pushing this genre...there's still places to go.

Catchy and repeatable at 33 1/3...of course, you can't build up something like this quickly, but they make the time work.

This is limited to 300 copies available from Geographic North....the rest reviewed this week...

....and look at that, they're coming to Death by Audio June 27th....

A SUNNY DAY IN GLASGOW on geographic north records

(cult of) The Cemetery Flowers (mandolins version) 7″ - Released July 8, 2008

A: (cult of) The Cemetery Flowers (mandolins version)
B: Walking Pneumonia

Shoegaze, Shitgaze, whatever...this could have been on the Lost in Translation soundtrack, let's just put it that way.
I think the problem with that sound is it's so pigeonholed that any experimentation with that piling up of layered distortion can only go one way..does it end up sounding the same by default? Not necessarily... I think A Sunny Day In Glasgow is definitely doing something interesting within this framework. It's really reminding me of the Spinnanes vocally with the instrumentation of a Magnetic Fields....very Stephen Merrit layered synths sounds that become a repetitive base, turning into percussion. A rhythm to build on.
The thing that fascinates me about this sound is what happens when the sounds are allowed to just bleed all over each other like this...blasted into a space at full volume and then captured. The separation is gone, where it came from doesn't matter anymore...it really becomes it's own thing entirely, it's own haze...like some kind of sound alchemy...at least that what it sounds like from here.
Like the track '515 train', there is a wobbly synth sound that comes in and out, and is probably getting that effect from being recorded to magnetic tape and the natural overdrive and gating of the mic that happened when being completely blown out by some kind of super synth bass that comes in now and then...like the bass note sine wave is cancelling out the higher synth sound? That's where the magic happens...creating these sounds that we can't even capture...that cause the mechanics to just act a little wacky...this is as close as you are going to get, but still it even becomes something else once you record it. Like quarks.

They aren't sticking to this formula either, which could easily drive a bunch of albums...vary it just slightly, echo beyond recognition...at times it's a single instrument working on echo overdrive with most of the sound being clear like the track on this single 'Cemetary Flowers', ...there are just a bunch of electronic sounds, creating this deceptively chipper sterolab kind of loop. And the vocals are just right for this...any less echo and you get into Enya territory...it's right on the edge, but falling into the Crytal Stilts side of the fence.

Available directly from Geographic North Records who actually have a subscription series now that I'm looking at it...I'll have to look into that and get back to you about the releases....

From Aquarius records:
A SUNNY DAY IN GLASGOW "You Can't Hide Your Love Forever Vol. 1" (Geographic North) 7"

This Philly band captured our hearts a couple years back with one of the best shoegaze inspired records we had heard in ages, Scribble Mural Comic Journal, an album with which we fell more and more in love with every listen. So we were excited to see that they were picked to kick off this awesome new series of 7"s put out by Geographic North, called You Can't Hide Your Love Forever, which will also feature talented folks like Tarentel, Tussle, and more! These two new songs find ASDIG in perfect form, delivering more of their swirling daydream delights that remind us of brighter sunnier Cocteau Twins. Perfect for the 7" format as this is a band who creates songs that only get better with constant listens, we've been playing this over and over! Comes on cool blue vinyl and of course pretty limited as most of these sorts of things tend to be.

If you're interested, they have another one on Disjuncture records also....which looks like their only 7" release.