Damaged Tape & Andrew Bland - 2012 - Beyond the Ghost House

While we're on the topic of collaboration, here's a new set of recordings that I worked on with Andrew Bland. This is the first time we've shared space on a record since 'Paper Fences' in 2006. From what I understand, Andrew spent 2007-2010 working on his "Field Pictures of Echoes" album (which you'll find at his website http://andrewbland.net/. I took a bunch of bits and pieces that didn't end up on the album and worked them into finished tracks. I sort of assumed that we'd be working with a rustic groove (as you'll hear on his 'Cosmic Relief' album), but I guess that he'd been infected with the synth bug at the time, so I ended up adding a lot of percussion and guitar to the soundscapes in order to get them nice and warm.

I enlisted Scott Atkinson to add a bit of spoken word, and he came up with most of the song titles while flipping through a biography of Chairman Mao. I didn't touch Andrew's track for 'Sailing on the Mekong,' while 'Riptydes of Existence' is actually an outtake from the Damaged Tape album 'Ambiguous Reality.' It didn't make the cut for that one as the completed album was a little too ambient for the tune.

I do hope that you dig spending a little time in our miniature sonic worlds. I welcome any comments and if you're running another blog and like this, I'd be happy for you to repost.

Listen to Me:

Cosmic Relief - 2011

Quality: 4.25 out of 5

Trip-O-Meter: 4.5 out of 5

Here's the latest release from one of my past, present, and likely future collaborators Andrew Bland. His musical trade has basically become creating miniature, instrumental sound paintings and the pallet on this album comes out sounding quite colorful. The instrumentation here is rustic and organic, with a variety of percussion, bass, and electric and acoustic guitars mind-melding with flute and violins. The atmosphere reminds me of the rural cult sound of A Cid Symphony, which I reviewed way back when. Really this one is better - where the A Cid Symphony tends to drone on, Cosmic Relief provides a little more melody and texture.

This music is pretty much meant to meander on in the background in its entirety, but there are a few choice cuts that you may want to explore. "Manic Gaze Rag" does a fine job of occupying the sound of a long-in-decline hippy commune in the Ozarks. Meanwhile, you'll find a groovy, lumbering Crazy Horse with violin epic in "Wetlands." And I'm always up for the percussive, Indo-pulse of "Panorama." Really, you'll find a lot of short 'sound paintings' throughout the length of this set, and different ones will probably strike you in different moods.

I"ll admit that there may be a touch of conflict of interest with reviewing this as the primary artist was my roommate in uni, but I have found this album stuck in my regular listening rotation in the past few weeks. There a very nice variety of sound permeating this album which should interest the sonic mind explorers out there. The music definitely reeks of bohemian weirdness going on behind closed doors, and albums like that tend to get the Doctor's interest. I hope you'll have a groovy journey into this forest of sound.

You'll find me in the downloads section of this website:

http://andrewbland.net/

Andrew Bland - 2009 - Atypical Dimensions

Quality: 4 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 4.25 out of 5

As usual with this fellow, I should probably point out that this was my college roommate for several years, so I can't say that I'm completely unbiased here. That said, I haven't been in the same general vicinity as him for three years, so I feel able to approach this music with pretty fresh ears - and to those ears this is the best set he's come up with so far. Andrew's M.O. is to create hazy soundscapes with a variety of world and folk instruments alongside his guitars, drums, and an analog Korg. The liner notes suggest that these tracks are destined for a series of short experimental films, and they are mostly perfect for that venue.

Most of the tracks contain an early morning acid hangover sound that has cropped up in fringe music for the past forty years. While it's not quite destined for a David Lynch movie, it would fit in with those inspired by the eerie nightclub vibe of those films. My favorite track here is "Hurdy Gurdy," which comes across like a Brightblack Morning Light track, but is a touch brighter, which I think helps the vibe. I also dig the polyrhythmic percussion and dulcimers in "Sheet Lightning" and "Fuse." "Being in Time" is a fine rhythmic drone, although lacking in dulcimers. Almost everything here is pretty short, so if you do run across a tune that fails to tickle your ear, it's not a long wait for the next bit.

This is a fine album to lend your ear to if you're in the market for some hazy, homemade instrumental psychedelia. Andrew has a few new sound combinations to offer, and the experiments that don't quite succeed (for me the slightly spastic "Paper Lantern") still manage to remain intriguing. Here's his website if you have the urge to poke around: http://andrewbland.net/

Listen to Me:
Andrew Bland - 2009 - Atypical Dimensions

Paper Fences (2006) and Zonohedra (2007)

This is admittedly a bit of a "conflict of interest" post. Paper Fences and Zonohedra are projects ring-led by my old college roommate Andrew Bland. That's why you see no quality or trip-o-meters present. The Dr. spends plenty of time recording music too, and I'm all over Paper Fences playing guitar, bass, drums and synth. In fact, I'll apologize in advance for my somewhat spastic drumming. Anyway, these recordings are mostly psychedelic, and most certainly obscure, so I feel that they fit here.

Paper Fences started as a project in October 2005 as Andrew and I wanted to try making music together for the first time in a few years. He'd just converted his basement into a nice music space. I started with the impression that we'd be making a psych-folk sort of disc, although work eventually shifted to a more instrumental collection after a few creative difference fistfights (I never pick fights unless it regards recording music). Hearing the finished product, I actually wish that we'd completely dispensed with lyrics as a few tracks still have conventional vocals ("Dry Window," "Tectonic Glance," "The Inner Light").

Although we weren't completely sure about our plotting out musical course (or at least I wasn't), the best tracks here do sound unified. I hadn't heard the bands at the time, but in retrospect I feel like a lot of these tracks have a similar atmosphere to the band Arica or A Cid Symphony. There's a lot of color shining through the low-fi (but properly mic'ed) haze.

I often complain about the double album curse, and the same holds true here. To my objective ear, much of this sounds like some drunk folks screwing around, because it was. There's a few tracks (like "Polymorphic Sunrise" or "Garbanzo") where I assumed that we were just warming up or waiting for the buzz to dissapate. Andrew tied these jams together with an extra overdub or two and placed it on the final product. You might like it better without the window of experience.

By the time of the final recordings and mixing the Dr. was off to Japan again, but I might have done a little more editing if I were Andrew. Of course, we're not professionals and I'm sure he just didn't want to cut anyone's contributions. That said, here are the tracks that I'd put on one disc for a smoother listening experience: Invocation (Widening and Closing The Circle), Rainy Straw Hat, Fingertips Of Dreams, Confusciasm, Bamboo Gallery, Blue Glass, Paper Clip Button, Smoke, Snake Charmer, Penguin Stomp, Pantomime, Faces On The Ceiling, Glen Song, Cobblestone Kiosk, Refraction

I've added some bonus tracks of rejected early mixes that I had tried to mold into poppier psych-folk. They wouldn't have fit well on the finished album, and I wasn't completely successful at melding the analog recordings to my laptop based overdubs (compression is not the answer). But since I put a fair amount of work into them, I stuck them here.

Zonohedra is a more recent project from Andrew and a fellow I don't know named Steve Logel. With more of a battle plan (as opposed to aimless experimentation) and less egos to bruise, Zonohedra is a much more unified project. It makes for fine background music on a rainy afternoon or late at night. Andrew apparently liked the use of the MicroKorg from Paper Fences and brought in a few vintage synths to flesh out the all-instrumental disc. I tend to enjoy the more percussive tracks like "Alkaline," "Solstice," and "Whisper Forth" most.

At some point I'll probably post some of my own, somewhat technologically shinier music here (these recordings are more about organic sound). I guess that depends on your response to this (please leave comments! non-anonymous constructive criticism is welcome). Anyway, next up will likely be Pierre Moerlen's Gong.