13 Jul 2008, 20:43
by cm1974
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(02.22.08) After a lengthy hiatus, UK-based label Awkward Silence makes a welcome return to the electronic music scene. Having previously released a series of acclaimed split 7” singles featuring artists such as
Arovane,
Lowfish,
Skanfrom,
Sybarite,
Bauri,
Novel 23,
The Marcia Blaine School for Girls,
Maps And Diagrams and
ISAN to name just a few, the label resumes activities with split single from
Cheju and newcomers
Shoosh. Limited to just 300 copies, the single comes housed in a sleek little m-lock CD case complete with its familiar black and white Awkward Silence styled artwork. Picking up where they left off, the label continue their ongoing series on limited edition 3” CDr's which allow them to include up to 21 minutes of music with each split release. They have also introduced a digital format.
Cheju is UK-based electronic musician and producer Wil Bolton who co-owns respected electronic music label Boltfish Recordings. A prolific artist in his own right, Bolton has EP, album and digital releases for labels including Smallfish, Rednetic Recordings, Static Caravan, Boltfish, October Man Recordings, Kahvi and Camomille (to name just a few) and also has collaborative projects with
Mint and
Zainetica. For his two tracks on this release he sticks to what he knows and does best; melodic electronic music. The first of Bolton’s tracks, “Moody Copy,” is a melodic flowing track with gently cascading guitar, discrete little reversed effects and crunchy, slightly metallic beats. His second contribution, “Drogo,” is again resplendent with smooth flowing texture, harpsichord-like melodies and precise snappy beats. Of the two tracks, “Drogo” is the darker and more reflective but by no means melancholic.
Shoosh, the trio of Ed Drury, Neil Carlill and Craig Murphy, have a different approach to their music. More guitar-based than Cheju, Shoosh features a love-it-or-hate-it vocal style. Their track “Elastic Soil” is predominantly guitar-based but also features some soaring electronic textures underneath it all. Their second track, “Come in from the Cold,” is weirder still vocally and features shimmering electronic swirls and acoustic guitar. The first of their tracks sounds like
David Bowie meets
Genesis P Orridge while the second is more like
Bob Dylan; both sound like drug-addled psychedelic folk.
Awkward Silence’s return produces two distinctly different tracks; Cheju produces two crunchy melodic electronic tracks while Shoosh offer uniquely blissed out weird psychedelic folk excursions. It is good to see that Awkward Silence are willing to experiment with pushing boundaries and introducing something a bit out of the ordinary to listening public. Look out for more releases from the label in coming months, who knows what they will come up with next!
Losing Today
Cheju /
Shoosh ‘Split’ (Awkward Silence). No sooner have we managed to wean ourselves off the delights of Cheju’s ‘hutton’ (out now via October Man) then up pops this rather cute split release with Shoosh. Admittedly I think it was prompted by and large by our bemoaning of the fact that it’d somehow escaped our radar to which Wil (Cheju) immediately responded by dropping off a copy. All the same though its been a while since we had a chance to marvel over anything from the Awkward Silence sound bunker in fact quite possibly the last thing might have been that rather spiffing
Marcia Blaine School for Girls split with
d_rradio (which blimey was about 4 years ago). Now issued on dinky 3” CD’s as opposed to the old style vinyl - which we kind of miss - any strictly limited to just 300 copies Cheju - who really shouldn’t need any introductions in these pages given that he pops up here with more regularity than Weekender and Static Caravan releases - decorates his side of the split with a brace of exclusive cuts. The exotically located ’moody copy’ is a reclining evensong braided with lightly dusted Vini Reilly styled minimalist lunar rustic finger works that sweetly float atop a gyrating and spellbound field of entranced skittering glitch scuffles - very much appealing to fans of both
Manual and
Ellis Island Sound and gracefully despatched with prickling perfection. ‘drogo’ is equipped with a more expansive sound and hitherto wide screen presence, sumptuously stirred in a beguiling haze of cavernous drone swathes and deliciously invested with soft centred harpsichord florets, this ornamental odyssey swirls in biter sweet climes of melancholic magnificence.
Shoosh are a UK trio who feature among their collective ranks Neil Carlill who was one time member of
Delicatessen and Lodger who these days can be found splitting recording duties with his other band
Vedette who we recommend you check out immediately via
http://www.myspace.com/vedettemusic (we’ll mention them in passing next missive out though frankly I suspect we‘ve mentioned them previously - ah well two mentions never hurt anyone - I hope). Not to be outdone Shoosh’s ghostly alluring ‘elastic soil’ is an off centred though numbingly beautiful work of ethereal psych-ambi-folk, pining celestial sheens, crooked and dust ridden stumbling acoustic flamenco strums serve as deliciously spectral montages underpinning the ether driven wandering vocal mantras - all at once hazy and disquieting though magically omnipresent the individual parts coalesce and caress like heavenly apparitions weaving in and out of view imagining
Animal Collective centre stage in a celestial gunfight setting amid supernatural serenades sourced from
Neil Young’s ‘eldorado’. ‘come in from the cold’ is an ostensibly more twinkle some affair, tranquil and measured this arresting countrified slice of star watching bliss out groove had us recalling at times
Mercury Rev’s lackadaisical ‘Carwash hair’ which in our books is no bad thing - need we say more - I think not.
www.awkwardsilencerecordings.com
Further listening -
http://www.myspace.com/cheju - a tiny peak into the world of Cheju - a world of lush glitch grooves, star hopping amorphic ambient love notes and glacially swept melodic monuments that embrace a clinical IDM matrix with a warming analogue persona. Featured here are a brace of cuts from his ultra limited u-cover outings ‘diode’ which we mentioned in these very pages a few missives ago - however we suggest you go direct to ‘pachinko’ culled from 2005’s ‘taito-ku’ EP which admittedly we missed - and smother yourself in the delicate orientalised Faltermayer like sveltely threaded textures within.
http://www.myspace.com/shooshmusic - 6 tracks featured all by and large from the Orpheum Circuit sessions - we suggest you rip the weirdly eerie and spectral oriental chamber like frosted ambi-folk elegance of ’snake eyes’ - quite gorgeous once it gets into its sublime groove.
http://www.myspace.com/solipsism - the alter ego of Shoosh man Craig Murphy who it seems from his base of operations up in Ayreshire has been knocking out EP‘s like nobody‘s business making them all - by and large - free to download from Last FM- the words looking and gift horse spring to mind. Non of your half arsed twiddling about here - no sir - what you get are consuming collages depicting in the minds eye intergalactic voyages to far flung milky ways, gloriously wide screen in stature and vividly fulsome in texture. And while the obvious winner hand down here is ’bastardism’ - a lushly envisaged cosmic pit stop where shuffling statue-esque beats orbit amorously across swirling passages of soft psych ambient blissfulness - think
Biosphere trading dialects more appreciable to the polar climes of
Amon Düül and
Jean-Michel Jarre - a magnificent dreamscaping delight. Though that said our money is squarely on the monumental ’this is our tree and were not getting out of it’ - a desirable and engaging slice of achingly lonesome spectral beauty, frail and fragile yet none the less chilled, charmed and caressing - culled from the ’free’ EP which like it inadvertently says on the tin is - er - free from the aforementioned outlets. Talk about spoiling you.
http://www.myspace.com/weirdfields - its that man Craig Murphy again this time under his guise as
Weird Fields - a self described ‘ambient / film soundtrack’ project who not content in dividing himself between his Shoosh and
Solipsism identities can be found occasionally orchestrating opining odysseys of cavernous cascades. Delicate, lonesome and hitherto monolithic these somnambulant drone-scapes swirl in frosted pirouette formations applying a stately courtship (none more so than ‘distant star‘). Two free to download albums to his name via Lastfm in the shape of ’a place to call home’ and ’destruct science’ which we thoroughly recommend that you seek out and love - for now though amid the showcase of glacial tides and sparsely drawn and effecting minimalist washes of lilting electronic symphonies we suggest you stop by at your first opportunity to sample the warming radiance of the playfully orbiting oscillations of the melting ’so long good friend’ - bit of a peach by our reckoning appealing to ’magnetic fields’ era Jaare and
Vangelis fans alike.
Angry Ape
Past editions of Awkward Silence’s split CD series has seen some notable artists featured throughout its 23 volumes. The likes of
ISAN,
Stafrænn Hákon,
Marcia Blaine School for Girls and
Epic45 have all appeared, often offering exclusive material. This release, the 24th edition, pairs a duo of electronic tracks from Cheju with two offerings from the unique trio of shoosh.
Cheju is the work of Boltfish Recordings co-owner Will Bolton, whose particular brand of sprightly laptronica merges inventive
Astrobotnia-like beats with glistening melodies. “Drago” is the pick of Cheju’s two compositions, with the sun-kissed, harpsichord textured synth work anchoring this effort at the euphoric end of the electronic scale.
shoosh, though, steal the show. Featuring the talents of
Solipsism man Craig Murphy (programming and synths), Oregon-based multi-instrumentalist Ed Drury (guitar) and former
Delicatessen frontman Neil Carlill on particularly evocative vocals. Carlill is heavily influenced by surrealism and the Dadaist movement of the early twentieth century and this transcends to his unique, other-worldly vocal style. While other shoosh compostions come across like a space-age version of
Pink Floyd, “Elastic Soil” finds them exploring a different plain altogether.
Carlill’s vocals immediately pique the interest with its multi-tracked and warped out of shape tone. These are cushioned by a galaxy of spectral drones and superb Spanish guitar work to create this highly inventive piece of music. The trio has somehow invented a brand new genre, that I will now christen flamenco-infected psychedelic ambient space folk. They take all of these elements and wrap them together to create something entirely new.
“Come in from the Cold” only confirms these sentiments, shoosh are one unique proposition. They have clearly spent a lot of time honing their art that quite literally sounds like it originates from another planet. They have been sitting on a completed album (“Orpheum Circuit”) for some time. All they need now is an adventurous label that can match the scope of their ambition.
Angry Ape
Past editions of Awkward Silence’s split CD series has seen some notable artists featured throughout its 23 volumes. The likes of
ISAN,
Stafrænn Hákon,
Marcia Blaine School for Girls and
Epic45 have all appeared, often offering exclusive material. This release, the 24th edition, pairs a duo of electronic tracks from Cheju with two offerings from the unique trio of shoosh.
Cheju is the work of Boltfish Recordings co-owner Will Bolton, whose particular brand of sprightly laptronica merges inventive
Astrobotnia-like beats with glistening melodies. “Drago” is the pick of Cheju’s two compositions, with the sun-kissed, harpsichord textured synth work anchoring this effort at the euphoric end of the electronic scale.
shoosh, though, steal the show. Featuring the talents of
Solipsism man Craig Murphy (programming and synths), Oregon-based multi-instrumentalist Ed Drury (guitar) and former
Delicatessen frontman Neil Carlill on particularly evocative vocals. Carlill is heavily influenced by surrealism and the Dadaist movement of the early twentieth century and this transcends to his unique, other-worldly vocal style. While other shoosh compostions come across like a space-age version of
Pink Floyd, “Elastic Soil” finds them exploring a different plain altogether.
Carlill’s vocals immediately pique the interest with its multi-tracked and warped out of shape tone. These are cushioned by a galaxy of spectral drones and superb Spanish guitar work to create this highly inventive piece of music. The trio has somehow invented a brand new genre, that I will now christen flamenco-infected psychedelic ambient space folk. They take all of these elements and wrap them together to create something entirely new.
“Come in from the Cold” only confirms these sentiments, shoosh are one unique proposition. They have clearly spent a lot of time honing their art that quite literally sounds like it originates from another planet. They have been sitting on a completed album (“Orpheum Circuit”) for some time. All they need now is an adventurous label that can match the scope of their ambition.
Bleep
Awkward Silence
Jean-Michel Jarre
Equinoxe IV' by Jean-Michel Jarre.
Listening to those songs I would completely drift off to weird fantasy worlds.