Jun 10, 2018

Sundaze 1823

Hello, Canada is in the picture this weekend. Mr Trump demands the rest of the G7 must buy more American goods, we can't expect of this nincompoop to understand american goods are inferior, pumped full of hormones or genetically manipulated, with depressed workers rights, dilapelated infra structure, US simply can't compete with the standards held by the G6. All this could spell the end of the current format, China might make a move and start o new club with Russia, India, Brazil and invite Europe, Japan and Canada to join.  Dream on..like kicking the US army out of Europe, time for political parties to make that an issue.
Over in Montreal F1 is having it's 7th Grand Prix of the year Vettel's on Pole tomorrow but he will be worried about Max who despite loosing 1/2 a second on the long straight was less then 2/10 slower on the round and he's on grippier tyres at the start tomorrow, could well be his day tomorrow after all he has been fastest at all 3 training sessions, Hamilton meanwhile is still in damagecontrol mode. Behind the top 3 teams differences between places 7 up to 15 are small, expect crashes tomorrow.



Today's artist is an American ambient music duo consisting of Brian McBride and Adam Wiltzie. The duo formed in Austin, Texas in 1993, and they list among their influences minimalist and electronic composers such as Arvo Pärt, Zbigniew Preisner, Gavin Bryars, and Henryk Górecki, as well as Talk Talk, post-rock artists Labradford, and ambient innovator Brian Eno. Their compositions are largely beatless soundscapes, composed of droning, effects-treated guitars along with piano, strings, and horns; volume swells and feedback fill the gap of rhythmic instruments, providing dynamic movement. Their sound has been described as "divine, classical drone without the tedious intrusion of drums or vocals."
....N'joy

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Stars of the Lid is an American ambient music duo consisting of Brian McBride and Adam Wiltzie. The duo formed in Austin, Texas in 1993, and they list among their influences minimalist and electronic composers such as Arvo Pärt, Zbigniew Preisner, Gavin Bryars, and Henryk Górecki, as well as Talk Talk, post-rock artists Labradford, and ambient innovator Brian Eno. Their compositions are largely beatless soundscapes, composed of droning, effects-treated guitars along with piano, strings, and horns; volume swells and feedback fill the gap of rhythmic instruments, providing dynamic movement. Their sound has been described as "divine, classical drone without the tedious intrusion of drums or vocals."

Formed in Austin, Texas in 1993, SOTL is composed of two members: Brian McBride and Adam Wiltzie. McBride said in an interview that the band's name refers to "your own personal cinema, located between your eye and eyelid", suggesting the colors and patterns one can see with closed eyes (either phosphenes or closed-eye hallucinations). They recorded their debut album Music for Nitrous Oxide throughout 1993 and 1994 with third musician Kirk Laktas, and released the album in 1995 on the Sedimental label. Laktas did not continue with the group, and the duo of McBride and Wiltzie steadily continued with Gravitational Pull vs. the Desire for an Aquatic Life in 1996, The Ballasted Orchestra in 1997, Per Aspera Ad Astra in 1998, and Avec Laudenum in 1999, as well as the limited edition EP Maneuvering the Nocturnal Hum and a split single with Windsor for the Derby, both in 1998.

Stars of the Lid then released their first double album, The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid, in late October 2001. Nearly six years later, the duo released their second double album, And Their Refinement of the Decline, in April 2007 to widespread critical acclaim. Stars of the Lid toured worldwide throughout 2007 and 2008 in support of the album; throughout their European tour, they were joined live by a string trio featuring Lucinda Chua of Felix on cello, Noura Sanatian on violin, and Ela Baruch on viola. Their North American line-up included Julia Kent on cello.

The duo have been active pursuing side-projects and solo releases since And Their Refinement of the Decline. A teaser trailer for a possible Stars of the Lid feature film surfaced on the internet in 2008, but as of August 2017, the group has yet to release any new material.
Solo and side-projects

Brian McBride and Adam Wiltzie have both released material outside of Stars of the Lid. McBride released his first solo album When the Detail Lost Its Freedom in November 2005, then released The Effective Disconnect in October 2010, which serves as a soundtrack to the documentary Vanishing of the Bees, a film about colony collapse disorder. McBride teamed up with musician Kenneth James Gibson and began recording and releasing new music under the name Bell Gardens; their debut EP Hangups Need Company was released in May 2010, their first full-length album Full Sundown Assembly followed in November 2012, and their second album Slow Dawns for Lost Conclusions was released in October 2014 via Rocket Girl.

Wiltzie has been involved in several collaborative projects: The Dead Texan (with visual artist Christina Vantzou), Aix Em Klemm (with Robert Donne from Labradford), and A Winged Victory for the Sullen (with composer Dustin O'Halloran). Wiltzie currently lives in Brussels, Belgium, and McBride in Los Angeles, California.

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Music for Nitrous Oxide reveals Stars of the Lid's chemical makeup in its rawest and most basic form. All of Brian McBride's and Adam Wiltzie's obsessions are here: droning guitar feedback, garbled voice transmissions, and patient compositions unafraid to stretch past the ten-minute mark. This debut effort shows the scars of their primitive home-recording setup, but like the best four-track music, apparent technological shortcomings are turned into the record's advantage. The blurry, out-of-focus feedback drones blend wonderfully with the ambient noise of the living room and the fuzzy layer of distortion imparted by the analog cassette. Stars of the Lid acknowledge how well their music works in this environment by titling a track "Tape Hiss Makes Me Happy." Probably the darkest record in the band's catalog, there is an apocalyptic edge to Music for Nitrous Oxide that owes something to the disembodied voices floating through the tracks. "Lagging" is haunted by snatches of dialogue from a war zone news broadcast, while "Down" pulls the voice of a Texas faith healer from the AM radio airwaves. They would go on to refine and perfect their drone aesthetic (and make much prettier music), but Music for Nitrous Oxide shows that Stars of the Lid had some great ideas from the beginning.



Stars Of The Lid - Music For Nitrous Oxide  (flac 359mb)

01 Before Top Dead Center 5:23
02 Adamord 11:51
03 Madison 9:28
04 Down 6:33
05 Lagging 3:55
06 (Live) Lid 9:45
07 Tape Hiss Makes Me Happy 13:04
08 The Swellsong 9:14
09 Goodnight 7:13

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Gravitational Pull..., the second release from Austin, TX's Stars of the Lid, quickly became a favorite among illbient DJs, leading the Kranky label to issue it on CD with an extra track. Even more so than most ambient projects, the Stars create an atmosphere that's akin to a sensory deprivation tank, reducing everything to pulsating waves of sound -- Gravitational Pull... is consistently effective at this, and is even less dense, at points, than some of the group's other releases.



Stars Of The Lid - Gravitational Pull Vs. The Desire For An Aquatic Life  (flac 238mb)

01 The Better Angels Of Our Nation 3:56
02 Cantus II; In Memory Of Warren Wiltzie 19:03
03 Jan. 69 9:24
04 Lactate's Moment 12:18
05 Be Little With Me 6:27

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While ambient outfits are not especially prevalent in the United States, Texas' Stars of the Lid have found a niche as an unlikely American drone duo with an impressive discography. Taking in such ambient milestones as Brian Eno's Apollo recording, Stars of the Lid's Brian McBride and Adam Wiltzie fashion eight floating gems with touches of industrial noise and movie soundtrack atmospherics. No drums or clanging guitars here, just darkish, elegiac slabs of ethereal sound taking up 12 to 18 minutes at a pop. The overall effect is both calming and provocative. And adding a bit of welcome irony to the somber proceedings, the duo come up with such bluntly perverse titles as "Sun Drugs" and "Fucked Up (3:57 AM)." A bit cheeky? Yes. But the music will find even the most skeptical in a state of modern-age bliss.



Stars Of The Lid - The Ballasted Orchestra  (flac 321mb)

01 Central Texas 3:43
02 Sun Drugs 12:20
03 Down II 1:22
04 Taphead 12:34
05 Fucked Up (3:57 AM) 8:32
Music For Twin Peaks Episode #30
06 Part I 8:01
07 Part II 13:32
08 The Artificial Pine Arch Song 18:00

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Per Aspera Ad Astra is an intriguing 1998 collaboration between tone-generating minimalists Stars of the Lid and line-drawing minimalist Jon McCafferty, the latter best-known in music circles for the cover of R.E.M.'s Green. After working on a series of paintings inspired by Stars of the Lid's 1995 debut (Music for Nitrous Oxide), McCafferty approached the duo with a collaboration in mind. The recording was created with plenty of McCafferty's work around for inspiration (and incorporated environmental samples of him painting), then the sleeve was prepared by McCafferty once he'd immersed himself in the album. Separated into two sides, Per Aspera Ad Astra reveals precious little of McCafferty's working habits; except for faint rustlings in the background and passing traffic, the environmental portion is whispery and thin. The concept does allow for a degree of context within Stars of the Lid's music, though, always a good thing when a recording is as ambient and ephemeral as this. Deep and warmly atmospheric, with (per usual) few nods toward traditional instrumentation, the pair focus on indie-space music except at the beginning of side two, when a string section provides a brief interruption.



Stars Of The Lid - Per Aspera Ad Astra (flac 124mb)

Low Level (Listening)+
01 Part 1 6:22
02 Part 2 8:42
03 Part 3 5:29
Anchor States
04 Part 1 4:27
05 Part 2 8:51
06 Part 3 6:46

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Avec Laudenum moves at a glacier's pace and, slowly yet surely, calls to mind the glazed eye, vacant trance, and pure (temporary) euphoria of the heavy laudanum user. "The Atomium," a three-part work, takes all of 16 minutes to gradually build from a series of softened drones into the exquisite ambience of an orchestra lulling heaven itself to sleep, only to halt the reverie by (just as gradually) introducing ominous backmasked guitars. Of the other two pieces, "Dust Breeding" has much the same effect and feeling of transcendence, while "I Will Surround You" has slightly more of a Technicolor feel. Reportedly recorded by mail between SotL members Adam Wiltzie and Brian McBride, Avec Laudenum is a magnificent piece of minimalist ambience.



Stars of the Lid - Avec Laudenum (flac 148mb)

The Atomium
01 Part One 5:32
02 Part Two 10:43
03 Part Three 6:16

04 Dust Breeding (1.316)+ 9:08
05 I Will Surround You 10:28

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6 comments:

Roger Roobarb said...

Hi Rho

You are superb!!!
Thank you for posting Stars of the Lid, I have been a fan of their's
for some time. Their Music is very hard to come by too, I usually
have tracks on compilations (Touch Records).

Thanks again

Rogerthedodger
:0)

Anonymous said...

another thanks from me. I have Tired Sounds and Refinement on CD, had been after these others in lossless for a long time. GRaham.

Anonymous said...

Fuck Trump. Don't Fuck America. Do you believe the mother fucker can do what he wants? We have helped you fucking Eurpe-eons and the fucking Canadians. Chill on the Americans. Unless you don't understand here in America we feel war. And that sucks.

Rho said...

Trump is but a figurehead, a sympton and as such represents a large part of US citizens. That said i'm well aware that this large part is a minority in the US. I understand that Americans feel war it's all about fear and your masters feed on fear and the US is it's favorite feeding ground. I'm sorry

Anonymous said...

Glorious! Stars of the Lid!

T said...

Hi could you please reup Gravitational pull?