Sickoakes - Seawards

Label: Type Records

Released: 2006

Style: Post-Rock

"Based in Stockholm, Sweden; Sickoakes are a six piece instrumental rock band and Seawards is their long awaited debut release. Since the release of an early recording of ‘Wedding Rings & Bullets in the Same Golden Shrine’ on the Pleasedosomething net-label some years ago there has been a bubbling interest in their next move, so it is an absolute pleasure for us to present their full album, and what an album it is. Taking the finest fragments of the ailing post-rock genre, and infusing this with vibrant orchestral flourishes, Seawards is a slow burning triumph.

Unsurprisingly for such an epic work, the band have based it around some kind of basic narrative. With their travels of the Eastern Bloc firmly in mind, they have realized the album as a kind of telegram; a message to themselves or a series of lonely photos. As non-participating viewers into something isolated and detached they can watch as the world slowly comes to an end, and then tries to pick itself up again. These sentiments are perfectly represented throughout Seawards, which reads from beginning to end flawlessly. Much more than merely seven anonymous tracks, it is a voyeur’s journey into an unconscious world.

The album opens with ‘Driftwood’, a majestic and wistful maritime letter to a long gone lover. This acts as the perfect prologue, short and very sweet before the swooping majesty of ‘Taking the Stairs Instead of the Elevator’ continues the story with cascading guitars, glockenspiels and militant drumming. Before long we reach the album’s clear highlight, ‘Oceans on Hold’ which hits like a freight train without brakes. Although we could go on about more of the epic beauty of this album – the most important thing here is that it rocks, it really rocks. ‘Oceans on Hold’ is simply huge, and the album’s longest work ‘Wedding Rings and Bullets’ which takes up almost half the record in its two parts is simply earth shaking.

This is a very special record for Type Recordings, with a band we have been working with for a very long time now so we urge you to explore the beautiful and peculiar land of Sickoakes." - Label

Tracklisting:

1 Driftwood (4:05)

2 Taking The Stairs Instead Of The Elevator (10:23)

3 Oceans On Hold (10:06)

4 Missiles And Mammals (2:57)

5 Wedding Rings & Bullets In The Same Golden Shrine (Part I) (4:41)

6 Wedding Rings & Bullets In The Same Golden Shrine (Part II) (22:47)

7 Leonine (4:12)

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Animal Hospital - Memory

Label: Barge Recordings

Released: 2009

Style: Abstract, Rock, Post-Rock, Experimental

"The people behind Brooklyn's Barge imprint have clearly spent the last six months trying to work out how to follow up last year's jaw-dropping "Baby, It's Cold Inside" album from the oddly monikered 'The Fun Years', one of the most satisfying and immersive releases of the year. Their response? Why they've only gone and produced this astonishing, multi-layered epic from Kevin Micka, aka Animal Hospital. "Memory" is a record that engages with familiar techniques and proceeds to completely f*ck with the programme. The album starts with a shimmering duet for music box and guitar, laying the foundations for what's to follow. Except things don't quite develop in the manner you might expect if you're into this sort of delicate, engrossing home listening, "His Belly Burst" is up next and slowly evolves from the sound of a mournful, solitary Cello (beautifully played by Jonah Sacks), to a rumbling, droney, sometimes distorted mass of sound that brings to mind the post-post-rock of, say, the Constellation label, or Mogwai's quiet/loud blueprints but with a completely unfamiliar backbone shaped by electronic, experimental and classical traditions. By the time "2nd Anniversary" sweeps in it becomes hard to really identify what sort of album you're listening to, finding yourself in the presence of distilled, affected guitar noises that lie somewhere between late, treated John Fahey and Neil Young's amazing soundtrack for the film "Dead Man" - the dissonance at once jarring and deeply moving. In turn, "A Safe Place" sounds like a cross between Oval, Tortoise, Mika Vainio and Radiohead, rearranging and rewiring human sounds inside reverberating bass and malfunctioning electronics before Micka's voice resonates through the sparse elements to ground the music in a deep, mournful clearing. Fuelled by coffee and heartache and recorded in an old bank, an antiquated movie theater lobby, and various apartments around Virginia and Cape Cod, It's left to the 17 minute title track to close the album with perhaps its most astonishing and heart-wrenching segement. The opening once again seems indebted to Tortoise, but the unusual, wordless vocal layering introduces entirely different dimensions. 8 minutes in and things become quietly colossal, merging sweeping strings, twangy, edgy drops with extraordinary arrangements that keep you at once transfixed and disturbed. And that's the thing about this amazing album - it has all these different, wildly incompatible ideas that somehow come together and merge into eachother, making use of electronic devices, shelves of effects, delay units, as well as shiny guitar tones, vocal washes, and dramatic build-ups that create a unique sound you're unlikely to come across again despite all the familiar elements squeezed in. It's the realisation of one man's messed up vision, held together by things that shouldnt work but somehow really do. Just awesome." - Boomkat

Tracklisting:

1 Good Times (2:25)

2 His Belly Burst (17:31)

3 2nd Anniversary (4:28)

4 ...And Ever (12:33)

5 A Safe Place (4:43)

6 Nostalgia (1:42)

7 Memory (16:50)

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Labradford - Labradford

Label: Kranky
Released: 1996
Style: Minimal, Ambient

"Though still wafting in a saline bath of 4AD-esque ambiance, Labradford have solidified into a more coherent whole by their third album. Labradford mixes the spare, whispered vocals of their previous LP, A Stable Reference, with smart bits of percussion and a warm, clean fusion of guitars, analog synths, a violin or two, and loads of effects units. The group have trimmed the noodly fat that cluttered previous efforts in assembling their best, most listenable release to date." - Allmusic

Tracklisting:

1 Phantom Channel Crossing (4:43)
2 Midrange (6:29)
3 Pico (5:46)
4 The Cipher (3:12)
5 Lake Speed (6:47)
6 Scenic Recovery (4:52)
7 Battered (7:57)

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Collections Of Colonies Of Bees - Birds

Label: Table Of The Elements
Released: 2008
Style: Experimental

"In an era of pervasive lo-fi meandering and leaden, self-indulgentnavel-gazing, Collections of Colonies of Bees sweep in grandly, astheir name implies, in great, billowing swarms of sound, bourn alofton a thousand wings of miniscule, elegant detail. In these extendedinstrumental tracks, guitars chime and soar, recalling the bestcampaigns of the guitar armies of both Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham;deft yet intensely focused percussion propels towards an inevitabledawn; covering it all is a gossamer veil of subtly nuancedelectronica.

Birds is a joyous, expansive experience; crisp, clean, and clear;dappled in sunshine; mottled with dew; epic minimalism in exquisiteregistration. That’s saying something. In our present musicalclimate of smoggy lassitude, Collections of Colonies of Bees arediligently producing a sound that is dazzling – and as sweet as honeytaken straight from the comb. Dig in." - Label

Tracklisting:

1 Flocks I (7:06)
2 Flocks II (10:23)
3 Flocks III (11:00)
4 Flocks IV (8:45)

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Zelienople - Pajama Avenue

Label: Loose Thread Recordings
Released: 2002
Style: Experimental, Post-Rock, Jazz

"Although Zelienople might now be best known for their basement psychedelic jams, all crunching guitars and floorboard-rockin' free drumming, they actually started as something slightly different altogether. 'Pajama Avenue' was the band's first album and originally surfaced back in 2002, and showed the band to have much more of a leaning towards 'Spirit of Eden'-era Talk Talk, Bark Psychosis and early Verve (when they were good). This is no bad thing in my book, and the album stands as not only a reminder where the band came from but also as a stunning piece of work in its own right containing enough classic Zelienople moments to surely win over fans who have only recently discovered them. The first thing you notice from the gorgeous opening track 'It's Hard to Steal Cars' is the use of gently reverberating synthesizers, something which sets the mood perfectly - a shimmering navel-gazing ambience punctuated by Mike Weis's tight percussion and brought to life by Matt Christensen's breathy vocals. This is carried into the second track 'Chase Scene' that brings the bass guitar into the fore, yet keeps the mood intact with the whole track sounding as if it was recorded in a reverb chamber, giving a dream-like quality which becomes synonymous with the record itself. Elsewhere we get the Slowdive-esque 'Back to Dangerous' (possibly the most ineffably beautiful track the band have ever made?) and the anthemic title track 'Pajama Avenue' and you realise that back in 2002 Zelienople made an album of pure unashamed pop. While now they might now be associated with the wyrd folk/avant psyche scene more than necessarily the pop world, it's easy when you hear this album to work out how they reached the grimy heights of 'His/Hers' and 'Pajama Avenue' stands as a hugely impressive debut and should really be heard by far more people than it has been already. Huge recommendation and an essential purchase!" - Boomkat

Tracklisting:

1 It's Hard To Steal Cars (4:15)
2 Chase Scene (3:49)
3 Friendly With The Father (3:47)
4 Back To Dangerous (3:52)
5 You Got Shot Down (5:36)
6 Pajama Avenue (3:14)
7 Christmas (3:37)
8 Please To Police (5:07)
9 Untitled (5:04)

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Port-Royal - Afraid To Dance

Label: Resonant
Released: 2007
Style: Post Rock, Shoegazer, Ethereal, Ambient

"For those unfamiliar with their debut, port-royal are anything but just another generic epic instrumental outfit; utilising subtle electronics and almost classical arrangements, they create lengthy, expansive, melancholic compositions that often have movements within the individual tracks, constantly evolving and shifting in tempo.

Though "Afraid To Dance" follows the formula that made "Flares" such a success, it also displays sufficient progression to be more than just "Flares pt2"; though the same components are evident, the emphasis has shifted towards the electronic beats and pure rhythm that underpin their sound, bringing them to the forefront while the hypnotic spacerock guitars and synth gently weave melodies beneath." - Label

Tracklisting:

1 Bahnhof Zoo (4:51)
2 Pauline Bokour (2:07)
3 Anya: Sehnsucht (8:50)
4 German Bigflies (5:21)
5 Deca-Dance (9:10)
6 Roliga Timmen (Longing Machines) (4:35)
7 Internet Love (4:41)
8 Leitmotiv/Glasnost (8:56)
9 Putin Vs Valery (7:11)
10 Attorney Very Bad (aka The Worst) (4:32)

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