Muttley - Closcrate
My closing cloak is not of scarecrow
A jacket tattered by tintinnabulate
Part usurped in Modern Classical archway
Exponentialism projected out of school.
Resonance of arpeggio in dusk
A rippling viola tremolos in dawn
Now resplendent in the Royal Philharmonic
The murderer stories have all gone.
But we wait, for a sickly, tiny
Pressuring on the 79th piano key
Of anti-plaigiarist Software harking
Herald a choir that boon-barks continuity.
Classical, discrete and music concrete
The final FTAL triad piece, named 'Closcrate'.
FTCL 001 - 7th October 2012
Islaja - Keeraminen Paa
Fonal CD / download
A beacon in the wall from Finland with singer Islaja's new band, treading a triumvirate of synth Pop squelches, mono-and-double syllabic refutes of the Riot Grrl-in-Electroacoustica tussle, plus seductive serration of bilingualism, stretching resonantly from the French to Arabic. Very uniquely, this suffusion works to immeasurable success with listen 1-X. "Suzy Sudenkita" reclaims harpsichord bordering, in a Mahan Esfahani fashion. Working the scales in an abacus of elemental line dancing, "Dadahuulet" reasons up a Paavoharju percussion duel-sprint, a delectable dial-up ping on the barometer, background noise subsectively. De facto: what's mud in less skilled hands is fields of gold with Islaja. "Pimeytt Kohti" shows her as a more than able Bjork-counterpart, in melismatic cappucino crystals over the LP's entire brew.
See what Pitchfork say
Jens Lekman - I Know What Love Isn't
eMusic.com download
Love has rules for some. For several, love's an open book written individually. To learn from lacking love, it's where we resist abiding, trying out futures anew, when love exists for two. Jens Lekman, objectively/subjectively, foretells experience of coming undone. It's a heartbreak epilogue, not a break-up lament. To his credit as a songwriter in the overcrowded indie-partnership paradox. What's vein-addled Rock from Punk's bombast egg plant. Okkervil River closely resemble "Erica America" in craft, but these tracks wholly posit a culinary artery-healer regarding simplistic economy, instrumental richness. And Lekman's Nick Drake-esque harmonic promise, transcending crusty bread and wine. His interpartiality of "A sinking rock tied to the lake of a person" is a right reason to not become someone else's entirety, apart from who maturely suits the original self - love inside, as one.
Read more and download on eMusic
Braindead Collective & Rob St. John - The Whites Of Our Eyes
Shelter Charity Single - Bandcamp download
"The Whites Of Our Eyes" was originally released in late 2010 as a charity single for Shelter, Audioscope's long-standing fund-receiver for their superb all-day festivals, every Autumn. With soundscapes here, Braindead Collective's kettled Improv and songwriting stew, it includes Song, By Toad Records' Rob St. John, coming up flush like a 4am boat party against a spirit-raising dour-fest, rivalling any of Radiohead's chillier Ambient-centric mementos. A rally of egghead flour in instrumental virtuousity and programming, their band pre-Flights Of Helios, examinations were predominantly opening slots, to bands as widely known as A Silver Mount Zion, and local Oxford favourites The Graceful Slicks. Radiant like a long-eye meet amongst two enjoying lovers, ploughing hopeful looks into coined dough-raise-we.
Investigate and buy on Braindead Collective's Bandcamp Page
FTCL002 - October - November 2012
Chaz Knapp - Finger
Fat Cat Records CD / download, 2009
Chaz Knapp first sent me "Finger" aged 19, signed to Fat Cat Records, home of Max Richter. String quartets firing on cosmological cylinder, edging across Venus' personified womanliness to Pluto's retreating, refrain-like stratospheric positioning in temperance. On "Begin", Knapp displays immaculate high-res-conundrum: light electronics, a Ligeti-esque chord section plussed by small star graphs of piano. Flickering to and fro like a moth caught in the light, without superfluous catchy-cool hooks, that contemporary classical tries to indoctrinate in wider channels. Ambient-interpartial forays like "Waste", ironically succumbing to titular misnomner-ness of early Intelligent Dance Music, such as Venetian Snares' more comical names, join up favourably with Goldmund sensibility for a bright ride.
http://chazknapp.bandcamp.com/
Zvuku - Other Room Listening
Futuresequence CD / download
Filled with claret-red love paste that puts ideas of shedding death in the cupboard with the vitamins, there is no wallpaper isometric/iconclastry-stick fodder for Zvuku. Characterised by an impressionately austere, parliamentary whisking of timbres where "Log Pile" adjoins otherwise thorny field recordings - now a homely one-of-five-a-day depth plumbing. In principle, of! E.g a hotel splendour down a back street in Oxford, mixes the patchwork of my teenage memories, towards a post-adolescent division dialogue that Karl Mcgrath, aka Zvuku, can relate to with previous experience as a pirate radio DJ of Jungle, Ambient and acousmatic library music. Put through a baker's sieve and drained of all the fat to restructure a nighttime soliloquoy to the bedroom massive, simply: these are proper tunes.
http://www.futuresequence.com/releas.../#.UL5D7_VyXFk
Paul Ferrini - Heart And Soul
Dancing With The Beloved CD / downloads, Heartways, 2007
Paul Ferrini heralds an oracle of wisdom in his multi-dialectic shimmer writing. It's word-play with no webbed hands, a strong religiousity to tow the line from looking and touching those who listen. Keyed into amiable entrance for after time, after life, after death and duly "held and caressed", as Ferrini notes, a congealing mint-fresh intermingling of piano, phrasing delicacy and motion in his spoken tones entangles, buffers, and loosens the balls of intrinsic wool gently. Notions we have never encountered quite the same, and for this quality alone it's a special selection. Perfection of the surmise holds in the lines: "The tragedy of consciousness is not what we know or do not know, but what we forget and have to remember, gradually. Entering another cycle that begins in the dark; and feeling the rays of light ripple through the mind, like fingers reflected in a pool of water someone has stirred."
http://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Belove...-21&ascsubtag=
From Paul Ferrini's purchase page before "Silence Is Golden" and "The Hidden Jewel" entry
"Paul Ferrini wrote The Hidden Jewel to express in a simple and clear way the core concepts of his Roadmap to Healing and Transformation. The CD also features two flute improvisations, as well as Paul Ferrini reading wonderful love poems from his books Dancing with the Beloved and Crossing the Water. Paul’s poetry has been compared to that of Rumi and Gibran. If you have not experienced it yet, you are in for a treat.
Silence Is Golden
FTCL 003 - January 2013
Lifted from:
For The Closcrate Lovers...review and mixtape archive 001
Nadia Sirota - Baroque
Bedroom Community CD / download
Classical occasionally indebts itself to a changing-hands penchant, a multi-errand in composition, e.g the induction of composers to write music for a musician, who plays as well as composes, or an ideas person to weave in notes of real significance. Take Daniel Bjarnason on "Baroque", who contributes three pieces for violin, ensemble and all-round stattaco/pizzicato anti-numb. His last notable recordings were "Processions" solo and collaboration with Ben Frost on the "Solaris" soundtrack, so he knows a thing or two about harmless interaction. Classical is also at odds with the ego in many senses: discipline gives way to more arrogance with how something should sound, but arrogance is little present on "Baroque". It's stunning music and enough lubrication for concept babies for every violinist.
http://www.bedroomcommunity.net/news.../nadia_baroque
Sun Araw, M Geddes Gengras & The Congos - Icon Give Thank
RVNG International CD / download
Like wearing bright clothes cheers us up instead of wearing dark or dingy clothes, listening to subversive lyrics cheers up the subversive mind. Mid-ground sing-a-long shimmy is bound to get the vibes pumping as such, and Sun Araw with synthsman M Geddes Gengras and legendary Reggae collective The Congos take a lead from the half-step Drum & Bass undertone, with a whopper of melodic juice squeezed between the lines.
It's almost a David Attenborough documentary jangle about Jah, remixing The Specials' "Ghost Town" feel along the way. The Congos calm your blues by chanting, singing fuzzed-out shanty tones, and with beats as revered as rhino meat, Sun Araw plays a cutesy hypnotism on the inner cortex. "We breakin' all de earth" they toast as "New Binghi" gets underway like a synthbomb dropped in Toots & The Maytals' community kitchen. And it's certainly a heavy "Happy Song" that heals the heavy heart even more.
http://www.emusic.com/album/sun-araw...hank/13371993/
Chad Valley - Young Hunger
Loose Lips Records CD
Loose Lips released this classically-trained-to-the-ear (hence the inclusion) Pop behemoth last year, an outing from Hugo Manuel and collaborators that was tastier than its Quavers suggested. For this is hyper-produced, sugary rich Pop music firmly lodged in the vein of Hall & Oates, Thompson Twins and early Electronic, stroking Pet Shop Boys for style but never quite going traditionally gay as a daffodil. "You know I want to do this together / You know I want to go far" on the always seductive "Evening Surrender" featuring female enchantress El Perro Del Mar, outlines an intention of quietude in discrete music; doing things behind closed doors; away from interference; dirty hands; and all the better for it. "Fathering / Mothering" with Anne Lise Frokedal is another calmer gem, robing the class in high detail.
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/yo...er/id559825208
Lifted from:
For The Closcrate Lovers...review and mixtape archive 001
