JACASZEK
Glimmer
GI147
Ghostly International 2011
09 Tracks. 41mins24secs

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With each new release, Polish musician Michal Jacaszek seems to be getting closer to creating the classical work he has been nurturing for the best part of the last decade, but his approach seems to ensure that, if he ever does, it will be on his own terms. Mixing acoustic instrumentation and electronic treatment, Jacaszek’s music is particularly cinematic and emotional, served by beautifully crafted melodies and warm instrumentation (clarinet, harpsichord, acoustic guitars) which, placed against, decaying textures and found sounds, appear even richer and more exquisite. Jacaszek has until now been published on Gustaff and Miasmah, but following his recent signing to Ghostly and his subsequent appearance on the label’s SMM: Context compilation earlier this year, he is now unveiling his latest and most ambitious solo effort.

With Glimmer, Jacaszek returns once again to the themes that have defined much of his previous releases, but the wider scope of this record is quite clear from the start. Right from the opening sequence of Goldengrove, he slowly builds up a gentle guitar melody, upon which he later adds layers of harpsichord, placed in contrast to a fluctuating bed of looped crackles and discreet found sounds. This juxtaposition of the wonderfully sharp and melodic and the somewhat murky and textured defines the entire album as Jacaszek carves a series of evocative melancholic pieces which, while all sounding extremely consistent sonically speaking, shift between slightly sombre constructions, as demonstrated on the introspective triptych formed by Dare-gale, Pod Światło and Evening Strains To Be Time’s Vast for instance, the latter eventually growing into a cluster of distortions towards the end, or on the melancholic What Wind-Walks Up Above! or Windhover, made more poignant with delicate clarinet motifs, and more radiant shimmering arrangements, form the delicate opening piece to the swelling guitar and harpsichord sequences on As Each Tucked StringTells.

All throughout, Jacaszek regulates the emotional flow of his compositions to sustain his narrative by applying delicate touches or regularly shifting the focus from instruments to soundscapes and back, without overburdening it with sorrow. This is in itself quite a difficult balance to achieve, but Jacaszek has never been interested in the overly dramatic, and Glimmer is undoubtedly his most restrained and finely crafted record to date.

4.6/5

Jacaszek | Ghostly International
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Tycho
Dive
GI145
Ghostly International 2011
10 Tracks. 50mins37secs

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Tycho is the music project of San Francisco-based graphic designer Scott Hansen, who, as ISO50, has developed a highly identifiable graphic style, often inspired by old seventies imagery. Equally, as Tycho, Hansen produces music which, while primarily electronic and contemporary, appears warm and worn.

Following a first self-released EP published nearly ten years ago, Tycho’s debut album, Sunrise Projector came out in 2004 on short-lived imprint Gammaphone. The album was repackaged two years later, with additional material, as Past Is Prologue, on Merck, then on Ghostly when the Ann Arbor-based label signed Hansen following the demise of Merck. If this has proved a hazardous journey, it hasn’t discouraged Hansen, whose second album proper, Dive, is now being released.

As was the case with Sunrise Projector, Hansen lays down a series of beautiful warm and lush electronic compositions here, most of them somewhat chilled. But while his first album relied entirely on electronic textures, Hansen layers his soundscapes with acoustic guitar and, occasionally, electric bass. If this doesn’t strictly impact majorly on Tycho’s sound, it reinforces the organic feel of these compositions, and allows Hansen to inject his melodies with fresh energy.

Right from album opener A Walk, Hansen builds up rich evocative soundscapes which are often reminiscent of the dreamy electronica of Boards Of Canada or ISAN, but he opts for more direct melodies and soundscapes throughout. Yet, if his compositions often appears straightforward and deceptively simple, they are in fact often rather complex sonic constructions, built from dense layers of finely refined and treated sounds, upon which he adds discreet elements of wear and tear to give his pieces a slight psychedelic feel. This is particularly apparent on Hours, Dive, Adrift or Epigram, especially as some of these seem to be subjected to more or less continuous tape distortions. Elsewhere, Hansen focuses more on the dreamy aspect of his compositions, giving pieces such as Coastal Brake, Ascension or Melanine a wonderful pastoral touch.

Dive doesn’t depart hugely from its predecessor, despite the relatively big gap in between these two releases, but Hansen confidently asserts his style, as he has done with his graphic work, and builds upon it. In fact, these two aspects of his creativity seem intricately linked, as if the music he creates was a sonic extension of his visual work, or vice versa.

4/5

Tycho | Ghostly International
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VARIOUS ARTISTS
SMM: Context
GI133
Ghostly International 2011
11 Tracks. 64mins52secs

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Anchored in Ann Arbor, a stone throw away from the Mecca of techno, Detroit, Ghostly International has, in the twelve years it has been operating, continuously ventured in and out of the dance culture and reached out into pop, ambient, hip-hop or experimental works by expanding its roster to include the likes of Schools Of Seven Bells, Syntaks, Tycho, Lusine, Dabrye, The Sight Below, Twine or Christopher Willits. While still very much an enigmatic acronym, the term SMM was apparently coined in 2004 by Ghostly to define the then emerging breed of music mixing classical forms with contemporary ambient electronica, a genre which has since been the forte of Miasmah in Norway, and less exclusively, Type in the UK.

The first in a new yearly compilation series from Ghostly, SMM: Context gathers a number of familiar names and attempts to chart a genre which boundaries are, almost by definition, somewhat hazy. Lush cinematic ambient formations are placed against ethereal piano-led pieces and drone-based works, highlighting the variety in the compositional process as much as demonstrate their common approach to textures and ambiences. The overall tone is predictably sombre, ranging from relatively gentle contributions from Goldmund, Leyland Kirby, Jacaszek, Rafael Anton Irisarri or Peter Broderick to more ambitious sweeping soundscape work from Christina Vantzou and Manual right down to the unsetting and claustrophobic offerings of Svarte Greiner, Aidan Baker or Kyle Bobby Dunn and the distressed textures of The Fun Years.

This constant alternance of styles and moods helps relieve the tension slightly, but it doesn’t quite distract from the overall sombre tone of the record. Svarte Greiner’s Halves is an oppressive piece, weighed down by heavy reverbs and occasional distortions,. Placed between Kirby’s more delicate Eno-esque Polaroid and Vantzou’s mournful 11 Generations Of My Father, it could have sounded a tad too intense, but, if anything, it exacerbates the density of Erk Skodvin’s composition, and casts a shadow over its neighbours. Equally, the distorted soundscapes of The Fun Years’ Cornelia Amydgaloid is in sharp contrast to Jacaszek’s finely defined Elegia, and appears more vivid and angular as a result, but as Manual’s deeply instrospective Three Parts rolls in, it casts a very different shadow on its fragmented ground, while later, the textured piano of Irisarri’s Moments Descend On My Windowpane or subtle guitar work of Broderick’s Pause appear to lighten the mood set by their respective precedecing tracks.

Overall, while it tries to cover a fairly vast ground in a relatively short time frame, SMM: Context documents a genre which, while now firmly established as a definite form in its own right, continues to develop as new artists give their own angle on it, and provides an interesting snapshot of what it is at this present time.

4/5

Ghostly International
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CHRISTOPHER WILLITS
Tiger Flower Circle Sun
GI116
Ghostly International 2010
15 Tracks. 45mins21secs

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Christopher Willits is, amongst other things, a guitarist, but listening to his records and how processed his sound can be, one would be forgiven for overlooking this fact. But Willits is much more than a musician; label owner of Overlap.org, software designer and audio visual artist amongst others, there is, it seems, very little he is not willing to take on. With twenty records released in twelve years, Willits has been rather productive. Beside his solo efforts (four in total), he has worked with a number of sound artists and musicians over the years, amongst others Taylor Deupree, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Oren Ambarchi or Shuttle 358, and has had music published on labels as diverse as Fällt, 12K, Room40, Plop or Mille Plateaux.

Returning to Ghostly International, four years on from Surf Boundaries, Willits’s latest is once again a kaleidoscopic collection of sun-drenched digitally enhanced guitar music which owes as much to the Beach Boys as it does to Aphex Twin as Willits explores a vast array of genres here, incorporating elements of surf music, intense electronic processing, psychedelic pop and ambient into his compositions. There is no boundary he is not ready to break through. This gives his music a great sense of freedom and tempers the experimental nature of his work by injecting a hefty dose of fun into it. To accentuate the genre-hoping impression, Willits keeps the majority of his compositions well under four minutes, at times barely pushing them any further than a few seconds. Arguably, this creates such a volume of information for the listener to process that it rapidly becomes impossible to take it all in at once.

Willits processes his soundscapes in a variety of ways here, from the finely detailed granularity of pieces such as Sunlight Is You or Subconscious Transmission and the hypnotic textures of Plant Body, You Are Always Surrounded By Stars, The Hands Connect To The Heart or The Heart Connects To The Head to the sweeping ethereal melodies of Green Faces, Intent-Evolve or album closer Flowers Into Stardust or the folk-infused Light Into Branches and the gritty and textured Branches Into Flowers, but all these actually find their rightful place into the overall tapestry that is Tiger Flower Circle Sun and each contribute to the album feeling extremely consistent. Willits’s vision is certainly complex and diverse, but he makes it extremely accessible by applying touches of experimentation rather than big sweeping statements.

If anything, Tiger Flower Circle Sun is even more eclectic and rich than Surf Boundaries, and here, Christopher Willits dares to push much deeper into abstract territories to create this rather impressive soundtrack.

4.2/5

Christopher Willits | Christopher Willits (MySpace) | Ghostly International
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THE SIGHT BELOW
It All Falls Apart
GI102
Ghostly International 2010
07 Tracks. 49mins56secs

RAFAEL ANTON IRISARRI
Reverie
IMMUNE010
Immune Recordings 2010
03 Tracks. 23mins19secs

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Rafael Anton Irisarri: Amazon UK: LP US: LP Boomkat: LP

There is fundamentally not much of a gap between the work Rafael Anton Irisarri releases under his own name and that he publishes as The Sight Below. The angle he approaches these two projects places them in very different spheres. With one, he deploys deeply atmospheric soundscapes into almost gothic compositions, while, with the other, it is towards an ethereal form of instrumental pop music and electronic shoegaze that he turns his attention to. It may be pure coincidence that two releases, one for each project, have materialised almost simultaneously, but this contributes to expose Irisarri’s range in interesting fashion. First in line is it All Falls Apart, Irisarri’s second full length release under the Sight Below brand, published on Ann Arbor, MI’s Ghostly International, a record which partly builds on the vast sonic landscapes of its predecessor. The second release, Reverie, coming under Irisarri’s own name, available as a limited edition LP and download set from Chicago, IL’s Immune Recordings, focuses on much more introverted music forms.   

Whereas the majority of tracks from The Sight Below’s debut album, Glider (Ghostly, 2008) and follow-up Murmur EP, released last year, were driven by relentless minimal beats, buried deep beneath dense layers of sound, often reminiscent of Wolfgang Voigt’s Gas, this is not quite the case on It All Falls Apart. Here, the Seattle-based guitarist and producer strips most of his compositions of beats, and concentrates on vast expanses of hazy sounds, built primarily from heavily processed and layered guitar textures, instead. There are still occasional signs of the Sight Below of old, but these are few, only materialising on Through The Gaps In The Land and Burn Me Out From The Inside. This lack of groove opens up the rest of Irisarri’s sound world and reveals a level of emotion which had, until now, remained partially hidden. In this, he gets closer to his other project, but this album is ultimately rooted in abstract pop music. The beautifully crafted melody of album opener Shimmer or follow up Fervent attest of this pedigree, and this extremely tasteful treatment also informs most of the somewhat orchestral Burn Me Out From The Inside.

All the way through, Irisarri plays with slowly ebbing and flowing clair-obsure soundscapes which often evoke vast liquid stretches, especially on pieces such as Fervent or the extremely hazy and shaded cover of Joy Division’s New Dawn Fades. This is taken to a different level entirely on the thirteen minute epic Stagger, which closes the album, its sumptuous floating ambient textures, upon which interferences and subtle electronics resonate for most of the piece, is not far from evoking some of Brian Eno’s most stellar work. Textures are given a slightly less polished finish on the title track, which sees Irisarri team up with Simon Scott, who provides additional guitar and electronics.

Echoing Irisarri’s Daydreaming album, released on Miasmah three years ago, Reverie is a more austere and introspective work. Here, the guitars become sparser and step back a tad as other instruments are given more prominence; a slightly muted piano on Lit At Dawn, a much clearer one on Für Alina. On the latter, the piano is actually central to the piece, and features from the start, first alone, surrounded only by enigmatic founds sounds, then by a slowly rising tide of sound heavily clad in effects, which remains for some time just an echo in the background, but which becomes more potent in the second half. Irisarri however never quite brings this to the fore. In between though, Embraced relies much more heavily on guitars and delays, working a rather bleak backdrop on one side, and applying sparse drapes on the other.

It is quite difficult to define with precision where Rafael Anton Irisarri stands, but this contributes to give his work some of its enigmatic appeal. With The Sight Below, he stretches the boundaries of pop music to flirt with much more openly experimental angles, and this also informs his other project, but here, it is almost as if he was doing the journey in reverse, by investigating desolate territories and bringing them to life by subtle melodic touches. Whatever the case, he is proving a complete master at his art.

It All Falls Apart: 4/5 Reverie: 4.4/5

The Sight Below (MySpace) | Rafael Anton Irisarri | Rafael Anton Irisarri (MySpace) | Ghostly International | Immune Recordings
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Rafael Anton Irisarri: Amazon UK: LP US: LP Boomkat: LP

In a way, Halloween and dark dance floors exist for the same reason: to encourage people to let go of inhibitions and look a little silly, if only for a moment.  Being on a dance floor during a good DJ set is analogous to attending a costume party, possessed by the temporary thrill of leaving one’s own mundane insecurities for the rush of an alternatively structured social situation.  Maybe New York’s infamous Club Kids were on to something, always flaunting such flamboyantly unusual fashions.

The night’s main event is a live set from Audion, Matthew Dear’s hard minimal house alias, the desirous Id to the Ego confessions from his given name or the detached mechanical Superego that is False. First comes a series of DJs, starting with James Fucking Friedman, a local favorite at Studio B, I’m told.  In a flamboyant leather daddy costume (complete with gratuitous chest hair and moustache), Friedman leans mostly toward disco-house.  The previous year’s party, the first in what has now become an annual tradition, featured a split of DFA and Ghostly artists.  Dropping LCD Soundsystem, Friedman keeps the spirit of that New York punk-disco label alive and well.

Next up is a Daniel Wang, a real treat in New York all the way from Berlin.  Wang’s solo output is sparse but consistent – Pistol Oderoso and Berlin Sunrise are two of the best singles from the Ghostly catalogue, for my money.  A skinny figure with a permanent smile and loads of classic disco 12″, Wang is a regular Larry Levan – impeccable selection and an ecstatic back-and-fourth with the crowd, many of whom venture up to the DJ booth to dance alongside him or offer kudos.  Following Wang is a set from Mattie Safer, of dance-punk act (and former DFA flagship) The Rapture.  Safer’s taken the Halloween theme to its extreme, dressed as Michael Jackson from the music video for Thriller.  Further, Safer’s set consists entirely of songs that are either by, covered, or sampled from Jackson.  Gems include I’m Billie Jean, Jackson’s cautionary tale of broken hearts sung from the viewpoint of the titular woman, and an extended mashup of the Thriller intro, utilized to prolong the epic drop of Quincy Jones’ signature beat.

A costume contest brings out the freakier side of things, though for such a hipster-filled venue, there’s surprisingly only one topless woman.  The winner is an obsessively detailed Klaus Nomi, from the oversized triangular suit to the gelled-up receding hairline.  My costume consists of a rubber skullcap with floppy green spikes, borrowed from a friend.  Unfortunately, it’s itches like hell and is soon gone, leaving me in the unenviable role of “that guy.”  It’s alright when the lights dim, however, and the main event quietly begins.

Audion is minimal like a nest of hornets.  Look at the pocked enclosure, and you’ll see an indistinguishable plethora of the angry little beasts.  Still, they can all sting, and scare, and bring one to attention.  Likewise, Dear rides the Audion set through a repetitive structure: clouds of piercing hi-end synths, rushed over with throbbing bass, then flanking by microsamples of speech, clicks, cuts, and other groovy ephemera.  The old favorites still stick out, as the crowd cheers for the introduction of signature single Mouth To Mouth, but much of the night consists of new and unreleased material.

Matthew Dear as Audion is, like the music, a radical departure from Matthew Dear the avant-pop artist.  The lights are kept to a dim blue, such that the bobbing and dancing Dear is virtually in the shadows on stage.  This being a Halloween show, Dear is dressed as club culture icon Leigh Bowery, in a snappily modern white suit and a headpiece fashioned out of leather, tape, and light bulbs (later taken off as the set heats up).  Donning a costume, it’s not hard to imagine I’m seeing another side of this pop-house critical darling.  Audion is the rawest of Dear’s aliases, with bass that never fails to throb and track titles that verge from suggestive innuendo (Your Place Or Mine) to blunt sexuality (Titty Fuck). The subwoofers receive a scorching workout at Dear’s hands, occasionally dropping out to focus on the tics and whooshes and build up to the next bass drum orgasm.

In a live setting, this all sounds dark and foreboding – the set begins with a slowed-down drawl intoning “the car is on fire, and there’s no driver at the wheel”.  Crawling along at a snail’s pace, it’s hard to tell at first, but Dear is indeed sampling the opening monologue from Godspeed You Black Emperor’s Dead Flag Blues. Apocalyptic meditation, then, is the set up for what’s to come (the monologue also appears about 3/4 through the set, when the music drops out and essentially restarts).  Right here is the wickedly enjoyable paradox of Halloween, a holiday about horror and fun, where escapism is employed not to visit utopia but to revel in the adrenaline rush of terror.  Terror, such as the aforementioned unpredictable blasts of angry hornet noise.  Dancing is a feverish and claustrophobic purgatory, and I’m not sure whether sub-bass this strong should induce elation or nausea.

Just like that, it’s over.  A brief stripping of layers, and the lights are on, and it’s nearly dawn.  This has been a party and an exorcism on the dance floor.  I’ve grooved to dynamite disco riffs, and closed my eyes to be blown away by frantic swarms of clicks and cuts.  Dear works well in the role of trickster demon, and I don’t think I’ll be able to listen to Audion against without hearing this faux-malevolent smirk.  I don’t know about the rest of the crowd, but I’m spent, and ready to get back to my comfortable patterns.

Matthew Dear | Ghostly International

MICHNA
Magic Monday
GI73
Ghostly International 2008
12 Tracks. 47mins50secs

Adrian Michna spend part of his early years in New York, but it is his move to Miami and the party spirit that can be found there that fuelled his need to make music. Having cut his teeth as a DJ, Michna’s first noticeable foray into electronic music was as part of Secret Frequency Crew, who released the splendid Forest Of The Echo Downs four years ago.

Having now landed a place alongside the likes of Matthew Dear, Kiln and School Of Seven Bells on the eclectic Ghostly imprint, Michna delivers his first slice of solo goodness, splattered all over the forty-eight minutes of Magic Monday. Reflecting the highly colourful artwork, Michna’s music is at once playful and often unpredictable. Heavily drawing on hip-hop and its sub-genres, Michna creates complex little vignettes around groovy beats and infectious melodies, upon which he applies various levels of electronic treatments and samples. The result is a joyful patchwork of beats, grooves and sounds which seems to jump from one clever moment to the next with disarming insolence, as if this collage was the most natural thing in the world. And in the hands of Michna, it is. Thing is, he does it with quite a fair bit of class and a certain flair for rather grand melodic themes and sumptuous settings.

Of course, there are more of less obvious references to anything and anyone standing somewhere between Prefuse, Boom Bip, Flying Lotus and DJ Shadow, but this actually doesn’t play against Michna, in any way. As he distils his sounds, collating electronics, guitar textures and samples into his little instrumental urban tales, he manages to create a universe of his own, from the luxurious spreads of Believe In It, Bumper Car Masters or Do What You Want To Do to the more atmospheric Levitation, Redline Flights or Third Orbit and the groovy Swiss Glide, Italian Visitor or the slow funk of Skunk Walk.

Michna may look like he’s barely out of high school, but he’s gathered some fine influences over his formative years, and he put them to good use on his debut album. While not totally unique nor original, Magic Monday is nevertheless a rather clever and alluring record.

3.8/5

Michna (MySpace) | Ghostly International
Buy: CD | iTunes

TWINE
Violets
GI59
Ghostly International 2008
10 Tracks. 58mins42secs

Greg Malcolm and Chas Mossholder met in high school in the late eighties and began collaborating as Twine toward the end of the nineties, after having spent part of their formative years in various bands. Their first album, Reference, was released on AdAstra in 1999 and was quickly followed by Resource, a split album with Horchata. Since, the pair’s complex and emotional mix of glitch, dense atmospherics, reminiscent of 4AD at its haunting peak, and intricate electronic structures adorned with found sounds, has been constantly refined, redefined, and applied on three magnificent albums, released over a three year period, from Circulation (Komplott, 2001), to Recorder (Bip-Hop, 2002) and Twine (Ghostly, 2003). Since, despite being announced for over three years, Violets had remained mysteriously out of Ghostly’s release schedule, until now.

Right from the album’s opening sequence, as a lonely electric guitar is caught between a stormy backdrop and occasional dense swathes of treated guitars, Twine revive the vastly emotional and seismic soundscapes of their previous opus and continue to polish a sound which, although deeply reliant on electronics, actually focuses primarily on structural layers of electric guitars treated to various levels. Sounding like the ghost of My Bloody Valentine, stripped of distortions and noise, with its emotional essence and scope intact and laid bare, Twine weave a series of harrowingly beautiful instrumental pieces which they ornate with excerpts of phone conversations, monologues and crowd noises. On Endormie, Cranes singer Alison Shaw is found murmuring in her best French about feeling on the edge of sleep and dreams while ominous clouds of drones, treated guitars and clicks develop in the background.

As the album progresses, the atmosphere becomes denser and darker, especially on tracks such as In Through The Devices, Violets or the epic Lightrain and the minimal structures drawn by Malcolm and Mossholder feel more spacious and vast, while remaining at the same time deeply claustrophobic and oppressive. But Twine don’t content themselves with creating stark atmospheric pieces, and, deep amidst thick layers of textures flourish subtle melodies, which develop almost imperceptibly, at times eventually emerging entirely from the sonic fog and radiating glowing warmth over the pair’s post industrial formations, at others remaining hidden below the surface, growing like a cancer or snaking their way through arrhythmic pieces.

With Malcolm living in Baltimore, Maryland, and Mossholder in Boulder, Colorado, Violets was, very much like its predecessors, recorded as the pair exchanged files over the net and added layer after layer of textures and depth to their compositions. This certainly contributes to the impression of extreme fine detailing that prevails throughout. On Violets, Twine take the dense and moody soundscapes of its predecessor and amplify them, accentuate the relief and depth of their music, but, crucially, loose nothing of the emotional scope that gave their previous work its gravitas. While it has been a long wait, Violets proves that the flame that has kept Twine alive until now deserves to burn brighter than ever.

4.9/5

Twine (MySpace) | Ghostly International
Buy: CD | iTunes

In the space of just a few years, Matthew Dear has established himself as one of America’s most consistent electronic musicians around. A true all-rounder, seemingly as much at ease with techno, minimal house and techno pop, Dear follows his instinct instead of trends. His most recent album, Asa Breed, has catapulted him into electronic music’s premier league. Here, he talks to Robert Rowlands about being influenced by European techno, touring with Hot Chip, how his music is a reflection of his life and what matters to him when listening to other people’s music.

How was touring in England? I saw you in Wolverhampton and your set went down really well.

Touring in England was great. My childhood self wouldn’t believe me if I said I’d visit places like Wolverhampton when I was older. People have a hunger for live music in your country.

What do you think of the music scene over here? Does much of it filter through to the US, and how do you think it compares with the scene in America?

The UK has a more voracious appetite for the music experience. Bands tend to get hoisted up on the pedestal quite quickly over there, but there isn’t very much room at the top of media these days. It’s a dangerous place to be sometimes. Longevity is dreamy.

How did you find it touring with the Hot Chip boys? They seem like the kind of guys who would play Scrabble after a gig rather than trash the hotel. Was there much partying going on?

Amazing guys. We hadn’t properly met until the tour kicked off. We’d traded emails and remixes, but never hung out in person. I never saw a scrabble board while on tour, but did see an orange jumpsuit, bison grass vodka, and a breadphone.

How did the English crowds compare with American audiences? People tend to need to fuel themselves with a few beers before they let themselves go here…

Englanders definitely like to drink. My kind of crowd. But once they do, they let loose a lot more than American audiences. I think we were a bit over the heads of some younger audience members. I tend to brood a bit more than the Chip.

I know you’ve done remix work for Hot Chip. Is there anything further planned? Maybe a collaboration? Or any collaborations with other people?

I’d love to collaborate with more of my musical friends, Hot Chip included. I’ve got some ideas tucked away. We’ll see if they come to fruition.

Were you surprised by how well Asa Breed was received or was it one of those records where you had a feeling you were on to something big?

I strive to represent my life at the moment with my music. My life is always changing, and so is my music. I was happy with the way this turned out, since it represents a large chunk of my life. Almost four years went into this album. I’m glad some people like it.

It’s a much more relaxed album than some of your stuff as Audion. Do you enjoy part of the mystery that surrounds using pseudonyms to put out different kinds of music? People like Aphex Twin take a perverse pleasure in doing it – both to get different kinds of music out there and to keep trainspotters guessing.

I need the pseudonyms to keep sane. My audience would be confused to all hell if the follow to Asa Breed was a deep techno record without vocals. I’m playing into different markets, and luckily I have some labels that allow me to experiment drastically.

I read that you started out by listening to tonnes of Detroit techno. Is your own music a continuation of the spirit of that era – or a departure from it?

I lived in Detroit and attended quite a few warehouse parties there in my formative years. However, I was never bitten by the Detroit techno bug. I have nothing but respect and admiration for the founders of this wild music, but I think I was more directly influenced by European techno when I first started producing.

You have a very unique vocal style. Was there any particular inspiration behind it? I think I hear David Bowie at times in your intonations…

I have to work with what I’ve been given. I’m not much of a vocalist in the sense of hitting high notes and singing scales. My music tends to float in one key throughout a song, allowing me to explore monotonous phrases and sing within a drone. It works for me.

You’re obviously a big name on the electronic music scene now. Did you see things playing out this way when you started out back in Texas?

I was merely tinkering with a guitar at home in Texas. I moved to the Detroit area when I was sixteen and began to serious explore music. I was deep into electronic music when I put my first record out, so being successful has been a dream for sometime.

There’s something very “now-ish”, if you’ll forgive the expression, about your music. It sounds very modern. Does the inspiration for it come from what you hear now, or is it a mistake to pay too much attention to your contemporaries?

I rarely listen to new music, as it seems extremely disposable. Music I come back to again and again is so dense with effects, sounds, and rhythm and I don’t hear very much of that anymore. I need to dissect music in my head to make listening fun. It’s like a puzzle, I need to reconstruct it and imagine just how a production was made. Holger Czukay and Brian Eno pieces never fail to grab my attention.

The ethic behind Ghostly International is all about embracing anything “from Thrill Jockey to Blue Note”. Do you think that enough artists and labels out there now are doing that, or is there too much pigeonholing and insularity in electronic music nowadays?

I’m not too worried about what others are doing. Sam (owner of Ghostly) can focus on the cultural ebbs on the label. I’m lucky enough to concentrate on my music.

With Asa Breed, it almost seems as though you’re moving away from the more techno-oriented side of things. Is that accurate, or will you always move between these different styles?

I’ve always worked on vocal-based music, even while I was getting my entrance into the dance scene. It was just a matter of time before I was able to release both simultaneously.

How do you explain to yourself the very different kinds of music you’re making. Are you a man of many contradictions?

Music is a science that I want to learn and manipulate. A never ending project.

As a DJ as well as a musician, you probably sense the movements in music as much as anybody can. Where do you see music moving in the next couple of years?

I really can’t to be honest with you. Time will tell, but hopefully I can carve a living out of it even if it changes drastically.

I also hear that you like nothing more than a bit of fishing. Is this the bizarre secret source of your music – or the best way to get away from things?

Just a way to get out of the noise. I leave Monday for a four day excursion with my father in the south of Texas.

And what is next for you? A nice long break, or straight back to the studio?

I’m always in the studio. Expect more releases, remixes and the like from me all year long.

Just to finish off, what five records would you take with you to a desert islands?

I could get by with just these two:

My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts – David Byrne & Brian Eno
World Of Echo – Arthur Russel

Email interview April 2008.

Matthew Dear | Ghostly International

]]> http://www.themilkfactory.co.uk/st/2008/04/interview-matthew-dear/feed/ 0 http://www.themilkfactory.co.uk/st/2008/04/kiln-dusker-ghostly-international/ http://www.themilkfactory.co.uk/st/2008/04/kiln-dusker-ghostly-international/#comments Mon, 07 Apr 2008 22:00:47 +0000 themilkman http://www.themilkfactory.co.uk/st/2008/04/kiln-dusker-ghostly-international/

KILN
Dusker
GI56
Ghostly International 2007
11 Tracks. 52mins07secs

Michigan-based trio Kiln, formed of Kevin Hayes, Kirk Marrison and Cark Rehberg III, originally operated under the Fibreforms and Waterwheel banners. As Kiln, they have released five albums since 1997, exploring the boundaries between post rock and electronica. With their latest effort, released at the end of last year on Ghostly International, these boundaries are more blurred than ever. Indeed, while the trio’s music is partly based on guitars, drums and live percussions, these sources are considerably processed and redeployed to fill spaces that aren’t naturally that of the original instruments, making it almost impossible to distinguish between the sound sources and the added components.

This results in Kiln’s sound appearing warm and organic, with tracks building consistence around dense sonic formations and slowly evolving into heavy melodic themes. The album opens with the rather intense Fyrepond, led by a comatose beat upon which additional percussive layers add to the original oppressive impression, only partially lifted as the refreshing tones of an electric piano trickle down on the piece for a moment. A similar mood is found later on Templefrog and Rustdusk. On both tracks, the progress seems to be made more difficult by the dense atmospherics applied on both rhythmic section and on the overall backdrop.

But then, the mood lifts up quite noticeably on the piano-led Airplaneshadows and Korsaire, and, to a lesser extent, on the more subdued Flycatcher or Arq, revealing beautiful pastoral soundscapes evoking the sensorial wealth of the countryside at springtime. It is as if green valleys and rolling hills, luxuriant with new vegetation, had been turned into sounds and brought to life once again through some widescreen kaleidoscope. There is however here no gentle Boards Of Canada psychedelia. While Kiln create colourful soundscapes and apply them in generous brushes, the mood remains somewhat restrained all the way through, privileging impressionist rather than expressionist touches.

As the album enters its last phase, the tone becomes once again darker and heavier. Sunsethighway floats over cobblestone-like statics and clicks, with the recognisable strum of an electric guitar guiding the way, while Tigertail, the longest track of the album, slowly progresses through a dense forest of earthy sounds to draw the album to an elegant close.

With this latest effort, Kiln are found more than ever between traditional instrumentation and electronic processing, their overall treatment having developed into a strong and consistent sound. While Dusker can, at times, appear dark and ominous, it is actually its lighter moments, concentrated in its core, like a clearing found deep in a rainforest, that reveal the true heart of this surprisingly engaging and accomplished album.

3.9/5

Kiln | Ghostly
Buy: CD | iTunes