Hypnagogue - Adrift

Forces gently pushing as the consciousness opens. Simultaneously, factors are pulling in varied directions. There is no gravitational reference point, up or down do not exist. Only expanding thoughts or contracting perception. If any components of the process are to strong or overwhelming, the space the self holds is eroded away. Finding sounds to help maintain this equilibrium is always an excellent discovery. This brings Hypnagogue's Adrift into focus. A mesmerizing composition stabilizing the mind in the vast expanse.

Adrift is three tracks just over twenty minutes in length. James Rosato is the artist behind the Hypnagogue project. Amazingly James is also a member of the band Eaten from Massachusetts. You think two projects, big deal, but these two en devours are as extremely contrasting as possible. Hypnagogue, meditative, serene, sounds that are a platform for broadening the mind. Eaten, metal, grindcore, a place where the world has exploded and there are head down serious heavy revelators making music. With talent and experience, Hypnagogue has a reason to exist. Ambient tones hovering neither in light or dark, sounds to balance exploration to the fringe. A secure tether for the mind on it's still undiscovered journey.

Adrift was released on cassette at the end of last year. This one is not on a label, all put together by James Rosato. Copies are currently available from his bandcamp page. Here is the link to the Eaten bandcamp page as well.

Link
Hypnagogue - bandcamp - facebook

Morning River Band - Brambles

There is a collision of sounds on Brambles that is confounding. With a push towards the roots of blues, country and rockabilly twang, Jeffrey Fields writes and sings like many of these songs are rock/metal ballads. Nine tracks conveying the hardships of social constructs of love, friendship and disrupting liquid octane. To give Brambles a single specific genre is an impossible task. For example, just went from "Space Boy Rag" to "Ezekiel's Wheel/Gloucester Skyline" and thoughts are spinning.

One simple assignment is to explore the musicians in Morning River Band. Jeffrey Fields on guitar and lead vocals, Arthur Herrmann on lead guitar, Denny Barron on bass, and Joe Idell on drums. Everyone helps with the vocals throughout the composition. Looking back on previous releases, the band has changed a few times, with more musicians playing additional instruments. The core on Brambles seems to be the constant since their beginnings over six years ago.

The tracks on Brambles constantly surfaced music heard from the past. A simultaneously polished and raw sound of early punk and country, beyond simple singer songwriter with a well skilled band playing tightly together. Trying to make this connection was just beyond reach. The tape kept repeating and after many listens, their sound began to resonate with sounds heard before. Like listening to a long burning fuse, the consciousness detonated. Sifting through the fragments of this mini explosion there were two albums connecting Brambles to the past, Green on Red "Gas Food Lodging" and Rank And File "Sundown". Both hiding under nineteen ninety two.

Some well written lyrics from Jeffrey on Brambles:
"Every evening in a drunken stupor, hung over every day. Keep pretending that i'm clean and sober, begging you to stay"

"Daylight stole the moon away from me"

"Couldn't keep living on gin and regrets, eased my foot off the brake and let the car do the rest"

Released on a new label from Spring, Texas titled Under the Counter Tapes. There are three tapes in their catalog already! Under the Counter Tapes also has cool label pins and individual pins for each release. Brambles is in an edition of one hundred with cassettes currently available.

Links
Under the Counter Tapes - bandcamp - facebook
Morning River Band - bandcamp - facebook

Adrian Knight - Vacation Man

Vacation Man, please do not despair, your dignity is still on the top of the charts. Listening to this massive testimonial to life and friends, your sorrows resonate with the drizzling rain outside the window. The years have gone by so quickly, remembering these tones and timbre from parents records and childhood radio. Adrian Knight shows how existence is cyclic, what was smooth and silky, discarded then found again. A polyester jacket, sewn with a large collar and zipper closure, sits in the closet. Removed from the hanger and worn again, still fascinating with bright multi colored patterns, but somehow out of place in modern fashion. These tracks are flipped from white to black, played in a hazy minor scale and radiating a melancholy beauty.

Adrian Knight has dialed the rotary phone and read poetry from his pocket notebook. Verse connected to emotion, thoughts of friends and their actions conveyed in composition. In order to impart these messages, the band is back together. A revolving mixture of GALTTA's studio band, Michael Advensky, Alice Cohen, David Lackner, Nick Stevens, along with Adrian Knight. All reveling the turn of the radio dial through temporal space. Stereo signals flicker as sounds from the Bee Gees, Carol King and Wings hold keys to both accord and sentiment. Taking cues from both harmony and sleek delivery, this well honed group of musicians finds grooves in the most special manner. A place where sound has gone, and no one until now has the channeling ability and talent to begin to match it. The beauty of Vacation Man is the connection to the past, and it's coconut butter twist on the future. Relevance is left for music scholars to figure on and they will ponder arduously...

Released on the GALTTA label from Brooklyn. Vacation Man is in an edition of one hundred and twenty five. Very importantly, the lyrics are available with download after purchase. Copies are currently available.

"Salt in my heart again
and in my soul
It’s in my ragged brain
and it consumes me whole"

Your radiogram is amazingly clear.

Links
GALTTA site - bandcamp - facebook

LEUMANN - Dystopian Land​(​e​)​scape

Ubiquitous sounds filling the spaces in the consciousness. Decaying drone, once painted so harmoniously across the temporal facade, now dissolving as melodic brightness radiates through the cracks. Dystopian Land​(​e​)​scape situates itself on the precipice of a despairing world, hopefulness either fleeting or returning, this remains unknown. Still, in this aural glimpse, beauty is manifested. A melodic cadence finding tranquility within the corrosion of society. Sounds tangled like twisted tree roots that penetrate the ground below. 

LEUMANN is an Italian sound artists and this EP represents a fluctuating sonic connection with melodies languishing through time. Dystopian Land​(​e​)​scape consist of five tracks in just over sixteen minutes. This cassette turns through quickly, but fortunately the set is duplicated on both sides of the tape. The third track utilizes narration and guitar by Fabiano Pittiglio. A deviation from the other tracks, anchoring the composition with lives many people live. Similar to the Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime" meanings, LEUMANN's "I-nine-infinity-x" is about achieving goals set by societies standards including owning a Frigidaire. Excellently narrated, mingled in storytelling and documentary techniques.

Dystopian Land​(​e​)​scape is released on Gertrude Tapes in January of this year. In an edition of fifty cassettes with copies currently available. The cover image is by TJ Norris and fits perfectly with the thoughts going into these sounds.

Links
Gertrude Tapes site - bandcamp - facebook

Perrache - Une Cassette Comme Les Autres

A world of sound with heavy sonic elements. The consciousness throbbing with cyclic undulating cathodic sound waves. Hours have been lost in the darkness of night, now the sun rises radiating blocky splotches of energy. A long lullabye to usher in colors splitting the sky. Une Cassette Comme Les Autres is a dazzling veer of sounds. From the coldness of machines and their human less locations, to heat filled sways of reverberating tundra, this composition covers so much alien ground. With the vast range of feelings Perrache evokes, daily life is thrown into a vortex of warmth and introspection.

Serious throw back to late seventies mixed with a dark chip tune vibe. Perrache is mystery. Soundtracks for sarcophagi resting in Elysium. Sleeping souls listening to hymns spanning eons of existence. With seven tracks spanning over a half an hour, Une Cassette Comme Les Autres is a difficult composition to categorize. Electronic vignettes, so succinct individually, all forming a collage of grander perspective. Perrache delivers seven journeys, one for each skill of Akira Kurosawa's samurais. These audible frequencies hold secrets from the past and present pathways for the future. From start to finish Une Cassette Comme Les Autres is utterly fascinating and will garner infinite repeat listens.

This is Perrache's solo debut on Taping Desk O-phon Mania. A label based in Stuttgart, Germany with Une Cassette Comme Les Autres being their seventh release. Joachim Henn is the musician behind the the Perrache moniker. Another project he works on is E Jugend. Lost in a Sea of Sound had the opportunity to describe an E Jugend vinyl lp titled History Works on the Cosmic Winnetou label almost three years ago. Was really excited to dive into this composition and have listened to it now many times. Une Cassette Comme Les Autres is well worth the time. Copies are available from Perrache's bandcamp page.

Links
Perrache site - ejugend - bandcamp
Taping Desk O-phon Mania site

Adderall Canyonly - Lucid In A Wasted Way

Heavy sonic pixelation, harmonic dots in some continual organizational process. Like ants moving grains of sand, digging asymmetric tunnels in the darkness of underground. Adderall Canyonly sending signals only eusocial receptors the Formicidae family can truly understand. Move here in a block like dance, move this with your Herculean strength, move back and repeat. These electronic beacons are mysterious, ponderously rich, carved from a consciousness that hears a world homo sapiens hold in awe and consternation.

Lucid In A Wasted Way is filled with endless halls and turns. A perfect companion for exploration in Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast Castle. Titus discovering a millennia of congeries surmised in just under forty five minutes. For parts of this composition, Adderall Canyonly has zeroed in on the late 60's gravitation towards psychedelic rock. Maybe this a stabilizing root that supports OSTs, pop music and lots of mushrooms. Other tracks dissect sounds from the 90's and beyond. "Murochrome" and "Tomorrow In A Day" are futuristic anthems for late night zero gravity travel. The title track, "Lucid In A Wasted Way" brings everything back for a meditative rhythmic introspective farewell. Trying to place any of these sounds in one category is unquestionably not possible.

This cassette was released by \\NULL|ZØNE// in the fall of last year. In an edition of fifty with all of these being completely sold out from the label. Found out yesterday from Adderall Canyonly, he has few copies left on his bandcamp page. This was good prompt to get this description done and let listeners know there are some copies left.

Links
Adderall Canyonly - bandcamp - facebook - twitter
\\NULL|ZØNE// - facebook - bandcamp - twitter

dyLAB - Rum Sodomy and the Crash

Lost in a Sea of Sound is not an expert on Acid Music. More accurately, poorly knowledgeable is a better validation.... When the time arrives to describe this new release from dyLAB, there is some trepidation. Describing sounds is always difficult and this genre is part of that process.

Acid/Techno music have been around for a long time and dyLAB has been creating sounds for a very good part it. Check out his bandcamp page, the first release under the dyLAB name was from ten years ago. On this newest release titled Rum Sodomy and the Crash, four heavy tracks are divided in just under a half hour. With a few repeated listens to this composition, dyLAB slowly drills the metal sheeting on the consciousness. The revolutions per second or beats per minute held seamlessly steady. There is no grand build up for each track. Just continued beats, augmented by hypnotic electronics. These sounds oscillate above the continual percussive canvas and vary in angular degrees between each track. A fully developed experience for those who can handle the minds deep crevices.

Rum Sodomy and the Crash is a spoofy title on another popular album there is no need to go into. Not sure where the connection is, maybe a melodic structure that carried over. Never listened to the referred to Pogues lp so can not make that analysis.

Released on the label Degenerate Trifecta out of Washington State. This compact disc is in an edition of twenty five with only six remaining. dyLab is from Melbourne, Australia. He has a radio show on Seance Radio every Sunday night at 11pm GMT.

Links
Degenerate Trifecta - bandcamp - facebook
dyLAB - bandcamp - facebook

Revolution Rabbit Deluxe - Tales From Armageddonsville

Tales From Armageddonsville is a heavy testimony. Psychedelic influenced rock music filled with observations about the current state of our social structure. Revolution Rabbit started off on a solo journey of song writing and guitar playing. He was joined by Chanda, May and Una all contributing to vocals and adding bass, guitar and drums respectively. Maybe the additional musicians are the "Deluxe" in the band's current name. Together these four artists have combined with a driving sound filled with passion and energy,

Trying to classify the sound of Revolution Rabbit Deluxe is a tough task. Their melodies seem to cross genres and decades, pulling from a wide array of influences and emotions. This makes comparing Tales From Armageddonsville to other albums or bands is lost en devour. But finally without hesitation, Lost in a Sea of Sound has one of the only chances of referencing a much listened to band from the same city. The ties are their Cardiff roots, well written music and solid rock sound, but Budgie has to be mentioned. These bands sound nothing alike but do possess love for a heavier sound with well written lyrics and diverse tracks. Replace the metal with a modified lighter alloy and age it for over forty years, Stranded mutating to Going Solo. One thing for certain, the lyrics on Tales From Armageddonsville are much heavier than the metal rock writing of the past.

Self released and available on most every digital platform. Physical copies in compact disc form are available from the band at RevolutionRabbitDeluxe@gmail.com

Links
Revolution Rabbit Deluxe - facebook - bandcamp

Radio Free Clear Light - Rare Is The Moment

A door opening into a sonic shop of antiquities. Sounds ticking like vintage wooden clocks, chiming with the brush of a body and disintegrating upon closer inspection. Radio Free Clear Light steps directly into aural puddles created by the precipitation of genres and time. Melodies and musings so finely tangled, thoughts becoming submerged in the haze of intricacy filling the consciousness. Rare Is The Moment could be a soundtrack for the mortal coil or a glimpse of the future's endless possibilities. Each listener will undoubtedly experience this composition on their own terms.

Radio Free Clear Light has been channeling higher sounds for a long time. The current composition of artists for Rare Is The Moment is Juan Carlos Mendizabal, Etanna Zak, and Lydia Harari. Each with their own love for creative beauty and continuing journey to explore the impact zones of the cosmic craters sonic vibrations create. With twelve tracks arriving just shy of an hour, this body of work is extremely faceted. Sounds moving through the antique x-ray screen, radiation exposing the most minute details. Motion continuing and oscillating to only hear the facade of what is held within. Rhythms and beats kept in the waiting room, their cry for attention and urgency faintly heard as this examination of inner workings continues on.

Released on the Black Note Music label from Daly City, California. On compact disc in an unknown edition. Physical copies are available from the label's website.

Links
Radio Free Clear Light - bandcamp - facebook
Black Note Music site - facebook

Dolphin Midwives - Liminal Garden

Impalpable sounds from spiritual space. Where ethereal voice and harp are gently torn by probing electronic fragments. There are moments of rest, but these are such random occurrences. A sonic landscape filled with pulsating debris left over infinite amounts of time. Dolphin Midwives is Sage Fisher and this is her world of broken elegance, a place where sunlight chaotically dances as it's rays are filtered by wind and leaves.

Ten tracks divided in various links in over forty minutes.  Richly organic tones with music loosing ground to natures prolific growth. The balance is constantly undulating but neither side ever tips the scale. The fluctuating stability is the most alluring quality of Liminal Garden, the exquisiteness of Sage Fisher's harp playing and voice, caught in a spiraling vortex with the recesses of her consciousness. A world were unknown creatures speak in foreign tongues about all things yet to be understood.

The release date for this lp is tomorrow, Friday January 18th. Liminal Garden is a project of two labels working together Sounds et al and Beacon Sound. Both labels with roots in Portland, Oregon.
In an edition of five hundred. This record can be ordered directly from either label.

Links

Dolphin Midwives site - bandcamp 

Sounds et al site - facebook - twitter

Beacon Sound site - facebook - twitter