TL0741 - Back to minus

Pat Gillis is TL0741 who works with synths, effects and tape manipulation. Back To Minus is on HC3Music, and he has a myspace page which is probably the best place to follow this up through - and it is worth following up.

There are five tracks on this live recording, three over ten minutes and a couple half that length. Again, the recent Tone Generation podcast is something of a touch stone, as similar combinations of tone beds, noises and tape loops are subtly and excitingly combined. This is not generally melodic, but rather balances warm enveloping analogue tones with harsher, blipping burring sounds. It is worth playing loud, as there are some wonderful tweeter fodder tones.

Hard to describe but crackles, looped notes, burbles, grumbles, screeching all occur in the first two thirds of Orchrsutra before a sweetly ambient final part. Back to minus is somewhat more restrained pulsing burring pips warmth, while in Mirror faces mirror there is a collection of almost animal-calls through the sonarish beeping and high tones, pulsingly lovely, shimmering and chittering.

Shorter, and more singly focused, Simmervolts is stirring dense forceful drones with gravitas and Morphantasia is warm vocal like unfoldingness.

A fascinating release, spacey analogue but not cliched and with exciting variation

Gultskra Artikler/Lanterns split disk

From the Other Electricities label comes a split 12" - the three track Berezka fom Gultskra Artikler together with Lanterns' Monkey Lament. I have a promo cd (so can't comment on the total pakage) and it will be available from download sites.

Gultskra is a Russian musician. Pervie gusli is is a piece of psychedelic ambience, spacey guitars, swirling atmospherics, clicks drifting through, a clattery percussion builds and it finishes with some slow slides. A world music feel to Figase layers a whisper-like electrocrackle, pops crackles and hiss with a Middle eastern horn and voice sample - slightly distant and distorted), and this swings in and out of focus finely balanced atmosphere. I Berezka take 2 a hint of acoustic guitar underscores electronic bloops and blips, bells, an organ pulse to create an eno-ish melodic ambience.

From Leeds and Glasgow Lanterns is currently a duo and present two very different tracks. Snake ice is a dense drone work - big organ pulsing drones, long guitar tones, complex subtley changing wall of sound that ends with a deconstruction. And then Dir tup is a more acoustic work: whistly shakhujachi, a clattering, strummed guitar and bird song throughout. The guitar cycles though and some harmonica joins and a bowed fiddle or guitar - a bucolic rural ambient piece which is gently relaxing.

A fairly short album - just under 26 minutes - but showcasing two quite different artists who themselves create varied music: the pros and cons of the format, effectively an opportunity to showcase which is more focussed than a compilation but not a single mind's music view. An enjoyable excursion.

Mystified - Forbidden Planet and Falling from Grace

Mystified returns with another couple of real-world disks.

For those who have been listening to the Tone Generation podcasts - pointed to some time ago - his album on Roil Noise A Tribute to Forbidden Planet is a beauty. While I can't compare it to the original (having only seen the film once many years ago and have heard snatches of the soundtrack, including on the podcast) this seems to capture the spirit of the time with analog synth woobling and fibrillar pulsing, singing tones, crackling edgy generator-noises, humming and grainy tones. Recurring themes and changing moods - there are some contemplative moments - keep you focussed on the musical drama. In a further act of homage, it seems the tracks are the exact same length as the originals - when I ripped this into my iTunes library the tracklist database identified it as the soundtrack and lobbed up the titles. A lot of fun and a strangely modern blast from the past!


Meanwhile, from Sartgalgh records a 3" 20 minute drone piece Falling From Grace. This is a shifting work with quite separate movements that slide into each other - the first part is quite direct metal drones, which shifts to a gentler ringing before a more subtly beated section. Then a long soft fade that ties off this very nice little work.

And of course there has been plenty of activity on TreeTrunk and Webbed Hands in the interim - Mystified's Ocean of Vapour on Webbed hand, the two remix albums based onMystified's Particular Stream; more Constants; another in the Rain series on Webbed - the first from label boss McDill and a huge compilation of String ambient by familiar and less so names.