KYLE BOBBY DUNN
Bring Me The Head Of Kyle Bobby Dunn
LP049
Low Point 2012
15 Tracks. 121mins45secs

Amazon UK: CD | DLD  US: CD | DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD

Even to Kyle Bobby Dunn’s standards, Bring Me The Head Of… is a hugely austere introspective collection of soothing textural pieces. Recorded between his native Canada and Brooklyn over the course of several years, this double album follows A Young Person’s Guide To Kyle Bobby Dunn, also published on Low Point two years ago, which gathered rare and long unavailable material onto two discs, and last year’s excellent vinyl-only Ways Of Meaning (Desire Path).

A nudge over the two hour mark, Bring Me The Head is, like its predecessors, composed entirely of vast sprawling atmospheric compositions in between which slightly more concise pieces are inserted. Continue Reading »

KYLE BOBBY DUNN
Ways Of Meaning
PATHWAY002
Desire Path Recordings 2011
06 Tracks. 40mins28secs

The folllow up to the rather excellent A Young Person’s Guide To Kyle Bobby Dunn (Low Point) and contribution to Standard Form’s Rural Route series, Ways Of Meaning sees Brooklyn-based Canadian sound artist Kyle Bobby Dunn return to the reflective drone-based work for which he has been gaining praises across the board. For the occasion, he has stripped down his palette to very little more than guitar and organ, processing them into vast fluid soundscapes.

The second release on burgeoning vinyl-only imprint Desire Path, Ways Of Meaning is quite a pastoral effort, built around long progressive themes for which Dunn arranges his reduced sound sources into celestial drapes which appear to float effortlessly, defying gravity with elegant swirls and drones. Continue Reading »

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

Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | LP | DLD Boomkat: CD | LP | DLD iTunes: DLD

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. Continue Reading »

KYLE BOBBY DUNN
Rural Route No. 2
SFRR002
Standard Form 2010
02 Tracks. 20mins40secs

Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Norman Records: CD iTunes: DLD

Earlier this year, Brooklyn-based sound artist Kyle Bobby Dunn released the rather sumptuous A Young Person’s Guide To Kyle Bobby Dunn, a double album which collected a series of atmospheric drone-based pieces, some of which had previous been released as a download-only album, Fervency, others which had until then never been released. Out on the artisanal imprint and print house Standard Form, based in Toronto, Rural Route No. 2 is part of a series of limited 3” CDRs which has seen inputs from Damian Valles, Martin Clarke, Alex Durlak, The Gentleman Losers and Machinefabriek.

Following a similar path to A Young Person’s Guide…, Rural Route No. 2 contains two tracks, each lasting around ten minutes, built from guitar, strings, organ and radio mutations, all processed beyond recognition. Continue Reading »

KYLE BOBBY DUNN
A Young Person’s Guide To Kyle Bobby Dunn
LP033
Low Point 2010
12 Tracks. 112mins45mins

Amazon US: CD Boomkat: CD

Based in Brooklyn, Canadian-born sound artist and composer Kyle Bobby Dunn creates music at the complete opposite of the hustle and bustle of the urban metropolis he lives in. Working primarily from recordings of pianos, guitars, strings and brass, Dunn processes them into vast minimal sound forms, where sounds are blended into dense soundscapes to create superbly evocative atmospheric pieces.

The five tracks making the first CD were originally released as a download-only album, Fervency, on Moodgadget a year ago, and are now complemented by a second CD of previously unreleased material, and published on UK imprint Low Point. Continue Reading »