The Doll - Hiss

Sounds escaping from time. Like watch dogs or guards, recording devices are positioned on make shift perimeters. There is no struggle, sonic patterns are captured on magnetic tape or in binary form. This aural pool is full of all noises, initial vanguard cacophony sacrificed without hesitation. Soon the instruments used to keep the Hiss contained within a specific time frame will reach capacity. The machines will begin to frizzle and wail in their own mechanical way. Creating more sounds, new notes, bleeps and blurps to join the departing throng.

The Doll is coltish and also very sussed. Hiss is brought to life with the most basic tools. Combing melodies, noise and field recordings, listeners are pulled into a world of imagination. An industrial play ground brought to burbling life by creative force. What remained motionless and silent was bestowed energy and purpose. Hiss has eight tracks with mostly one word descriptive titles like, Saw, Static, Wheel, Radiator and Bubblewrap. All clues to what interest the The Doll at the time. The track Home Sweet Home combines the surrounding world in field recordings with that of The Doll. Maybe indication this artists is of our world, or at least here for a spell.

Released this month, Big Sleep Records produced fifty copies of Hiss. This is the first release for the label this year. Lost in a Sea of Sound has described previous Big Sleep Records outputs here. If you want to continue exploring, The Doll has many recordings on their bandcamp page ready for listening.

Links
Big Sleep Records - bandcamp
The Doll site - bandcamp

Yiorgis Sakellariou - Diapsalmata: A Collection Of Short Works

Yiorgis Sakellariou has pulled from the infinite sound pallet. A difficult endeavor much akin to a chef with a fully stocked gourmet pantry. The ability to use too much or wildly unfamiliar is very easily crossed. Reading the ingredients makes the dish sound exotic and mouth watering, but the taste is overwhelming. Yiorgis Sakellariou has not taken this path. Sound sources are very recognizable, signals, chants, insects, train stations and watermills to name a few. These are part of every day life for many people. On their own, any of these attributes can be overwhelming and caustic. How will this composition feel? What is Yiorgis Sakellariou's purpose? Listen through Diapsalmata: A Collection Of Short Works, and then the following description may connect.

An aural painting for your consciousness. Brush strokes dissolving, relinquishing their collective images in sonic euphoria and sighs. The scene dissipates leaving faint images unmasked on the sonic canvas. These exposed bones are gradually covered up by eroding factors on sound itself. Common noises, repeated in countless successions, filling the fabric life is accustomed to. Infiltrating our thoughts until each listener is in a nostalgic coma. Subdued by sounds categorized as the droning ambiance called every day existence. Diapsalmata: A Collection Of Short Works changes our perceptive receptors. Familiar is dismantled, soothing white noise changing alkalinity, revealing red or blue on the litmus paper. Yiorgis Sakellariou is too experienced to leave listeners at ends of the spectrum. His composition feels like the world we live in, yet purposefully shifting slightly out of phase. Resulting in a sonic nudge, a gentle push to help us understand the complexities of the world we all try to simplify.

Released on the Belgium label Tanuki Records only ten days ago. Probably in the fifty to seventy copy realm from past release quantities, but this is uncertain. Many Tanuki Records releases are sold out, so do not push Yiorgis Sakellariou's composition off for too long.

Links
Tanuki Records - bandcamp - facebook

Yiorgis Sakellariou site

The Binary Marketing Show - Short​-​Term Fix For a Long​-​Term Death

In the depths of dreams, where disjointed sounds connect for no reason, becoming revelations for brief moments then crumbling as the conscious awakes, this is a Short​-​Term Fix For a Long​-​Term Death. Folk music separated by continental drift, left to evolve over an incomprehensible stretch of time. So long, organic origins have deteriorated, dusty electronics hiss, buzz and crackle, trying to continually share a love for music a culture had progressed to. Foundations in gorgeous music making, heard through unique creativity and layers of wonderful mystery.

These ten track will require repeated explorations before bearings come into focus. The Binary Marketing Show has a dream like quality, aural foundations in the fleeting moments between wake and slumber. A place of all things making sense, yet the mind smiles with feet on the table because nothing is really what you think. The really fascinating qualities of Short​-​Term Fix For a Long​-​Term Death are the illusions of sing along vocals and cadence. These attributes can be heard vividly in the fields of high wavering grass, only to be consumed by wind and rustle when any attention is turned to investigative direction. The gist of what these words are doing their best to convey is, don't think too much, only listen and succumb to beautiful creativity. Abram Morphew and Bethany Carder are making sublime sounds in a world of immediate reveal. Digital investigations fortunately can not touch their source for the love of music they cherish. Short​-​Term Fix For a Long​-​Term Death can not be explained and that is it's best virtue.

Scheduled for release on Friday, June 29th. This is one of the rare occasions Lost in a Sea of Sound's words come before the release date. Excuses for not ordering a copy will be justified only from their sources. And there are two choices, the cassette, used for this write up, and black vinyl for the analog groove enthusiast. Released in quantities of one hundred and three hundred respectively. This is also a label conglomeration of New York's Already Dead Records & Tapes and Kalamazoo's Satellite Records.                       
                           

Links
Already Dead Tapes site - facebook - bandcamp
Satellite Records site - twitter
The Binary Marketing Show site - facebook - bandcamp

Touched By an Angle #2

Crash Symbols has the connections and experience for a monumental summer soundtrack. Filled with pressure cooked beats, simmered vocals and sun drenched ambient sound waves, Touched By an Angle #2 can feed all audiences. With twenty six tracks, twenty six artists, Crash Symbols has done the calculations on congruent compression and rarefaction. These artist's offerings flow with seams so gentle, there is difficulty distinguishing Touched By an Angle #2 as a V/A conglomeration in any sense. Explaining how many cassettes have sold so far. There are only a few remaining, so quit reading and get to placing an order.

You need a few more descriptive words..... There is a label in California, "Bonding Tapes". Their first release titled Quality Time Volume 1 reminded me of Touched By an Angle #2. The thickest connecting threads are an assortment of hidden beautiful beats. Where does this music come from and how do you find it? The same questions surfaced when listening to Quality Time. The process of compiling such a large array of unexplored artists rivals the difficulty of fitting their works together so smoothly.  Touched By an Angle #2  is like a laser cut sonic jigsaw puzzle, once completed, suitable for framing.

From the twenty six artists on this cassette, Lost in a Sea of Sound has had the opportunity to describe only a small handful. Fletcher Pratt with a previous Crash Symbols release (sold out), YlangYlang with an earlier Crash Symbols release (also sold out) and former_airline with releases on many labels. The connection for Lost in a Sea of Sound was an excellent cassette on A Giant Fern. So using the descriptive words "unexplored artists" is accurate from these listening and writing foot holds.

There are some new favorites on Touched By an Angle #2, but each listener will find those own their own. With such well chosen music, this will change with repeated listens. Crash Symbols also has a bundle with a high end glow-in-the-dark pin (last picture). If you have read this far, thank you! Hopefully your opportunity to grab a tape and a pin is still there.

Links

Crash Symbols site - bandcamp - facebook

Stars Are Insane - To Be There

A little over a year ago, Lost in a Sea of Sound described Stars Are Insane's Rok Lok release To Be Here. Now the label has released a companion cassette titled To Be There, the span of time capturing thoughtful movement through existence. Listening back on the cassette To Be Here and reading the words used to connect sound and thoughts, clearly shows just like the music, writing changes over time. Not sure how Stars Are Insane feel about their sounds, but reading early descriptions on Lost in a Sea of Sound seems like a different person was doing the work. Wisdom, experience or repetitious droll, not for the musician or writer to know. The listener or reader must make these analogies themselves.

There is definitely a flowing stream connecting To Be Here with To Be There. Tributaries like the ends of branches making their way to the supporting trunk. Music takes this route, sounds in the distance radiating at the same fervor. It would be inaccurate to describe To Be There as different from To Be Here. Many of the tracks could be easily divided differently among these two releases without changing the overall feel. And the feel.... melodies in the far reaches of the aural landscape. Dust hazing the sonic fabric in the form of feedback and distortion. Gentle vocals whispering directions, opening conscious pathways to a quiet heart. Is this mutated pop music or the exposed veins from ambient erosion? Stars Are Insane cycles through both worlds, returning these vivid dreams during each restful interlude.

To Be There clocks in around forty minutes divided through ten tracks. Copies are available from the Rok Lok website as well as their bandcamp page. There are also a few tapes remaining of the To Be Here release.

Links
Rok Lok Records site - bandcamp - facebook
Stars Are Insane - bandcamp - facebook

Cookie Tongue - Orphan Arms

Past the massive stone walls of the Gormenghast castle, out through the ornately decorated gates, keep following the path to the inviting glade. There on a small hill, trees towering in a circular pattern, a small group of musicians gather. The sounds about to be played have been outlawed, sparking the consciousness is something the collectors can not condone. Having people think, and the most heinous crime, being creative, undermines the structure of the current state. These thoughts hide in unspoken corners as dusk slips away unnoticed, a fire beings to take long lasting form. The back flaps are opened on a horse drawn covered wagon. A vibrantly dressed player turns and outward waving one hand down as the other begins manipulation of a small traveling piano. The fanfare has begun for the night.

Cookie Tongue is not of this realm. Current music trends have paved over their world. Orphan Arms reaches out, grabs a hand a pulls us to hear. Drawing listeners through the structures minds have created. Someone singing, a banjo playing, drums made from skins, these things have been forgotten. Rhythms gain intensity, Cookie Tongue plays with a cyclic fever, a wax and wain faster then the cycle of the moon above. "When your dancing shadows reign, we are the colors tonight - When your dancing out of light, we are the colors tonight". A song to make your "Rubber Hard Thumb". These words ring in listener's thoughts through the night. Bodies swaying to the musical sparks, the unencumbered glow with creativity and delight.

Orphan Arms holds moments of good spirited fun, then squeezing harder to free subdued introspection. The backing drum always hinting to Native America, a connection bridging physical and spiritual. Stringed instruments surfacing passed down genetic memories of folk songs across Europe, Asia and Africa. The depth of the night is tethered by the unpredictable beauty of each and every song.

Released last year on compact disc, still available from Cookie Tongue's bandcamp page. Orphan Arms has been re-released on cassette by the super eclectic label Eh? Records. You can order a copy from Eh? or straight from Cookie Tongue. The closest and best comparison i could make for Cookie Tongue is another album with similar beauty, Where Snakes & Seers Go by Laughing Eye Weeping Eye. Not the same in sound only in free spirit.

Links
Public Eyesore / Eh? site
Cookie Tongue - bandcamp - facebook

Nagual - Florida

In a past journey, Nagual made their way through Florida. Like the thick humidity in every part of the state, their sounds saturate the entire listen spectrum. Two tracks on this compact disc, one recorded live in Miami the other live in Gainesville. These populated nodes becoming focal points for wildly glowing energy from ancient times.

For the selected piece from the Miami show, Nagual is pulling from the early Cenozoic period, channeling life from a dense Florida land mass. Murky heat waves of sound oscillate in a steady rhythmic cadence. Air buzzes with ancient vitality, creatures breathing in the tropical density. This is Florida before humans existed, vast amounts of time droning beneath the sun.

What was included on this compact disc for the Gainesville session stays in a similar realm, but has an entirely different tone and feel. Middle Jurassic period, the south Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico begin to form. Florida has separated from Gondwana and the land mass begins partial development as a peninsula. Beginning it's two hundred million year continental drift. Nagual has compressed this energy into the Gainesville piece. Massive drone seeping out of oceanic riffs. The force behind Florida's current geological position.

Nagual's Florida compact disc was released on the Miami's HologramLabel. In an edition of one hundred, available from Nagual's bandcamp page or the HologramLabel bandcamp page. These are live recordings with some final processing to make them ready for release. Excellent sounds on both tracks and a great recording to get involved with both Nagual and the HologramLabel. Have been a fan of David Shapiro & Ian McColm for a long time and Florida is another example of why.

Links

Nagual site - bandcamp - facebook
HologramLabel - bandcamp

Bird Songs - In & Of

A world of reporting, important information relayed across molecular space. Life's moments captured, dialogue potentially never heard again. Stored somewhere on magnetic tape and now digital memory. Bird songs has spliced the reels, fed history across metallic heads, brought back moments time has buried. This process requires a soundtrack, In & Of is the complete resource. Ambient guitar landscapes backing forgotten people washed upon the shore. A delicate balance, augmented by some very choice field recordings.

In & Of starts off with heavy political reporting, Weather Underground launching a bombing campaign across the us in the late 1960's. Bird Songs creates an AM radio buzz while playing solemn melodies in accompaniment. The effect is very intriguing, nostalgic and relevant simultaneously. The second track seems a little more modern, and very tenuous. There is more fervor as the harmonies concur in magnitude. Sounds return to social struggles in the same time frame as the first track. The venue is the 1969 National Revolutionary Conference for a United Front Against Fascism. Another heavy, tying In & Of together. The finale is the most colorful, titled "Hope", showing everyone we need as much as possible.

Released in April in an edition of forty on Rok Lok Records. Bird Songs is Andrew from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He has created a moody composition, that remains solid across all five tracks. There are a lot of details in these recordings and the aural tones make this one to repeat many times. Copies are currently available from Rok Lok Records.

Links
Rok Lok Records site - bandcamp - facebook
Bird Songs - bandcamp

Greening Lambourne - Thought LEADER & Thought PARTNER

The heat of the summer is lapping at the consciousness. A season for time off, family vacations, and unfettered relaxation. For many, the summer remains constant with responsibilities that will not go away. The temperature melts in, forcing forth memories of school breaks and grand plans. Cool it down, insert Greening Lambourne into the cassette player, these sonic vibrations will gain volume and pressurize the continual monotony aside. The most refreshing aspect, when you finish the first cool listen of Thought LEADER, your aural tumbler gets filled again with Thought PARTNER.

Music and time are interwoven. For centuries melodic sounds have been created. What is heard now is a slow evolution from forgotten times. Created sonic beauty is relevant to both the past and future but remains most poignant to the present. Greening Lambourne is hear with us, expressing absolute emotion, showing us allure in tones. A tangible relationship to what has been before and what will be. The charm of these two cassettes is how refreshing the energy is. Henry Miller said "Music is a beautiful opiate, if you don't take it too seriously". Greening Lambourne fits this thought perfectly.

Thought LEADER, taking genres and folding them so tightly the seams disappear. Some comparative thoughts drew near, then were quickly stranded as clefs drifted away. Grooves from distant transmitters changing in an instant to electronic delight popping in delicate fashion. Deeply consuming baselines backing a nighttime light show parade. There are moments of sonic reflection, crystallizing tones causing thoughts to meander in cadence with the physical world around us. And within this natural space, Greening Lambourne plays like soundtrack for creatures moving in rhythmic like fashion. Amusing dances to homo sapiens, life or death actions for insects and animals. Then a rocket launch fanfare, the aural fabric leaves the planet in some Flash Gordon-ish rock anthem, homage to color saturated comics and an undiscovered universe. Drifting on, the ambient melodies are sustained in the last three tracks. Taking listeners to the companion cassette Thought PARTNER.

The transcription of sound has become more subtle. Furrowed out beats and rhythms have mutated to an ambient showcase of prismatic arrays. Thought PARTNER takes off, soaring in the between altitudes. Surface and space equal distance, the gravity of harmonic heaviness pulling on the relaxed consciousness. The vast distances above remain as dreams for the future. The longest track on this cassette, "E Lower Wacker" is a very good example. Sounds sustained in non measurable mediums, time has lost any known value. Audio clarity in peak splendor then phasing to distorted spiritual haze. Each track on Thought PARTNER, a reflection of sentiment fueled by earthly certainties. Genres and styles seem distant, like memories from very early youth. The mind cherishes these meditative impressions, nostalgic comfort cooling down the current climates.

Released by Greening Lambourne from Oxford in the United Kingdom. A relationship to Bloxham Tapes from London is there, but details are still ambiguous. With this connection, there is certainty of the creative quality in both sound and the delivery medium. For Greening Lambourne, cassettes with vibrant artwork by Rebecca Pearson. These are extremely limited, twenty editions of each tape. As alluded to in the start, perfect melodies for the summer.

Links
Greening Lambourne - bandcamp - soundcloud

IMPERIVM LVCIFERI

Saw tooth sound waves generated under fifty hertz, IMPERIVM LVCIFERI has found resilience in the molecular density. Working with heavy tones, like steel rails vibrating miles from the locomotive source, IMPERIVM LVCIFERI conducts each listeners passage. From ancient times, through and on to distant futures, this is the soundtrack always playing. An under current of surface life, vast tunnels stretching to where no living soul has gone. This is the journey we all have taken and will all take again. Darkness slowly pulsating, breathing on you shoulder, it is always there.

This compact disc is divided into two roughly twenty minute tracks. "LVCIFER'S FALL" is the first, a sonic sink into droning quicksand. There is struggle, a fight to stay one with breathable air. The harmonics keep pulling, until light and oxygen disappear. Heartbeats become louder and the mind rationalizes if this is real or a dream that can be escaped. Maybe these are hallucinations, IMPERIVM LVCIFERI has become the only constant and sole comfort. "REGENCY OF CHAOS" is beyond this realm. If the previous track was thought of as dark or embodied with some aspect of the other life, "REGENCY OF CHAOS" bellows more than truly comprehensible. There is no struggle anymore, only a massive molten flow, white hot rock moving in an unknown direction. These sounds are the heaviest drone, shallowly breathing as souls fall into the thickest current.

IMPERIVM LVCIFERI was released in an edition of fifty on Deivlforst Rec out of Germany. This compact disc came out almost a year ago and is sold out. Not usually in the habit of posted older releases, especially ones that are sold out, but this was sent to Lost in a Sea of Sound just recently. Started listening and really felt depth and emotion in these sounds. Followed the path back to the label and found many cool releases that are sold out or on the threshold of being unavailable. So the intention with this post is to share a very good heavy drone composition by IMPERIVM LVCIFERI and to direct any interested listeners to the Deivlforst Rec label. Worth the attention on both accounts. Hope you enjoy this one. 

Links
Deivlforst Rec - facebook - bandcamp

Endurance - Shade Terrarium

Endurance is a saturated cloud, releasing heavy ambient droplets over the past few years. Just a little over two solar revolutions ago, Lost in a Sea of Sound described City of Signals. Saying Endurance has come a long way since this early Illuminated Paths release, would be inaccurate. If you have seen the diagrams of the multiple Earths, layered slightly askew and on top of each other, all representing different but parallel words, this is where Endurance is now. In unreachable locations, alternate Joshua Stefane's have been composing sounds and transporting them to various labels around the world.

Constellation Tatsu, with their vast experience of mining the cosmos for illusive exquisiteness, has secured the transmission frequency for one of the latest Endurance releases. Shade Terrarium is a lengthy fifty minute recording, spaced out over seven tracks. Each track like nebulousities, absorbing evaporated cultural tones around altered planes of existence. Once these billows of sonic haze are imbued with the maximum amount they can take in, a gentle ambient rain begins to fall on all listeners. Each track like a passing cloud, bestowing a slightly different tone and feel. A good sound illustration of this is the track "Mercurian Umbra", there is a Gamelan undertone resonating like breathing spirits. Tracks like "Embran" and "Fluminam Ductur" have captured ambient and lost communication airwaves. Both in foreign languages from English, interwoven in the tranquilizing molecular density. "Itineranturum" must have cast shadows on City of Signals, making tones in similar aural fashion. Shade Terrarium allows fine details to be heard, the scorching solar radiance of sounds have been subdued.

Released in the middle of May, Shade Terrarium is part of the Constellation Tatsu Spring Batch. Four cassettes, each in the top of the line up in ambient splendor. For this release, Joshua Stefane contributed both the music and artwork. The mastering was done by Sean Conrad and of course design and layout by Steven Ramsey. A very talented group making the framework for Shade Terrarium. Many of Joshua's tapes have sold out, and with the Constellation Tatsu Spring Batch being so solid and popular, do not wait to long.

Links
Constellation Tatsu site - twitter - bandcamp - facebook
Endurance - bandcamp - facebook