★Kranky
Strands
From Steve Hauschildt: 'Strands is a song cycle that is about cosmogony and creation/destruction myths. The title alludes to the structural constitution of ropes as I wanted to approach the compositions so that they consisted of strands and fibers which form a unified whole. This was so the songs could have the appearance of being either taut or slack without being fundamentally locked to a grid. So the sounds/tones have a certain malleability to them and sound like they're bending throug…
The Benoit Pioulard Listening Matter
LP version. "The Benoît Pioulard Listening Matter is the sixth Kranky album from Thomas Meluch under the nom de plume Benoît Pioulard. It arrives on the 10th anniversary of his first LP, Précis, and offers a rekindled focus on self-examination, as well as a return to vocal-based pop structures following the mostly instrumental Sonnet (2015). Recording for the Listening Matter began during a period of grief, turmoil and self-medication, and continued throughout two years of growth and healin…
Physicalist
Double LP version. Gatefold sleeve. "Physicalist is the third album from New York City synthesis trio Forma. Since their acclaimed self-titled debut in 2011, Forma have been perfecting a distinctive style of improvised kosmische and minimalism that blends swirling arpeggios, ambient soundscapes, and driving motorik beats. Physicalist is a sprawling, double LP journey featuring new member and multi-instrumentalist John Also Bennett. The first Forma album to include acoustic instrumentation,…
Precious Systems
LP version. "Precious Systems is inspired and influenced by the landscape in and near New Orleans, particularly the juxtaposition of the natural with industrial and commercial constructs as they reflect life here. The songs on the album attempt to create contrasts of their own as one means to induce unreality or alter perspective. While it is greatly influenced by science fiction, its sounds and stories often become it themselves. The sounds come from a variety of sources, but are anchored by a …
Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill
Brand new edition of Grouper's breakthrough 2008 album which has been out of print on all physical formats for the last few years* Here's what we had to say about the album when it first came out on Type 5 years ago: "With the label's hiatus well and truly over, Type Records follows up Peter Broderick's amazing 'Float' with a brand new album of midnight Shoegazer classics from Portland's Liz Harris - and it really is one of the most special albums you'll hear this year. While the filtered, tape-…
The Man Who Died In His Boat
2016 reissue. Following a series of impossible-to-obtain releases for her own Yellowelectric imprint and a CD compilation of her gorgeous 'A I A' set, Liz Harris seems to have settled with Kranky who are re-releasing her classic Type album 'Dragging a Dead Deer..' and this new album of previously unreleased material drawn from the same period: 'The Man Who Died In His Boat'. It's not so hard to believe but we'll say this straight away - the material on this new set is just jaw-dropping, a …
No. 3
Gatefold double LP version. "Album No. 3 from Christina Vantzou is the result of a two-year process of composing, arranging, rearranging, experimenting, and melding classical instruments with synths and electronics. Recorded in Belgium with a 15-piece ensemble of strings, horns, woodwinds and micro-choir, the tracks vacillate between orchestral, ambient soundscapes and more structured works that the composer refers to as 'pillars.' The internal core of the record, however, is unwavering. A…
The Original Faces
"When I was a child, I spoke to Helen."Helen is a pop group from Oregon. Liz Harris (vocals/lead guitar), Jed Bindeman (drums/tambourine), Scott Simmons (bass/guitar), and Helen (backup vocals). Originally started with the intention of being a thrash band, it turned into something else entirely. The Original Faces was recorded over a period of several years in Portland by the band members and their friends Nick, Chris, and, largely, Justin Higgins. Written together, some songs based on Liz and S…
Where All Is Fled
Double LP version. "Steve Hauschildt's new album is his first since the late 2012 release of Sequitur. Although Where All Is Fled sonically harkens back to his earlier albums such as Rapt for Liquid Minister and Tragedy & Geometry, it slowly becomes apparent that it is also a divergence from those recordings. Both the artwork and the music on this new work were heavily inspired by surrealist landscape paintings, early alchemical emblems, and recurring visions Steve had from dreams. The resul…
Sonnet
The sound of the fifth Benoit Pioulard full length is lush and verdant, a temperate rain forest of ear ecstasy that reflects the environment surrounding the artist. A mostly instrumental work, it is an adept melding of song and sound, melody and texture, the intangible and the palpable, that in an abstract sense recalls the more fractured and loose end of the 70's krautrock movement."The basis of the album was a series of field recordings of tones and unintentional harmonies that I made in the s…
Ruins
"Ruins was made in Aljezur, Portugal in 2011 on a residency set up by Galeria Zé dos Bois. I recorded everything there except the last song, which I did at mother's house in 2004. Iʼm still surprised by what I wound up with. It was the first time I'd sat still for a few years; processed a lot of political anger and emotional garbage. Recorded pretty simply, with a portable 4-track, Sony stereo mic and an upright piano. When I wasnʼt recording songs I was hiking several miles to the beac…
No. 2
Developed over a four year period, and entirely funded by a part time job working as a SAT university entrance exam mathematics tutor, Nº2 was composed using synthesizers and a variety of unidentiï¬ÂÂÂed samples that were manipulated beyond recognition. Christina Vantzou then collaborated with Minna Choi of the San Francisco based Magik Magik Orchestra. Vantzou and Choi worked on the notation and arrangements and recorded the compositions with a 15-piece ensemble at Tiny Telephone studios in S…
Mirages
First time this classic Tim Hecker album has been available on vinyl. Incredibly rich, sumptuous album from Tim Hecker, layering his particular blend of organic ambience with slivers of piano, found sounds and the quiet hum of abandoned machinery. Playing counterpart to the processed acoustic transmissions of Fennesz, Hecker takes a much darker route, only offering relief from the mass of textures he concocts with deep buried remnants of melody and light. As a follow-up to Mille Plateaux's subli…
Virgins
Virgins was recorded during three periods in 2012, mostly in Reykjavik, Montreal and Seattle, using ensembles in live performance. The sound palette of this work is wider, almost 'percussive' and tighter sounding than previous works. While this album remains committed to a painterly form of musical abstraction, it is also a record of restrained composition recorded live primarily in intimate studio rooms. This record employs woodwinds, piano and synthesizers towards an effort at doing what digit…
Space Mirror
Space travel is the dream of many and the reality of few. Since Yuri Gagarin first shed the bonds of earth gravity in 1961, only about 500 humans have made the trip beyond the atmosphere. Ken Camden travels to space while still grounded on terra firma. His vessel of choice is a guitar and some effects with which he journeys on fantastical expeditions and surveys the biggest territory of all, the one between your ears. The glimmering sound fields he forms could be a soundtrack to an epic '60s sci…
Era
"Era is the fourth annual report from Chicago powerhouse quartet Disappears. It was formed during the gloom of the Chicago winter at Electrical Audio by now regular foil John Congleton. Insular and dark, the album sees the band further refining their love of dub, minimalism and repetition into their most original and stark set yet. It harks back to the early 80's post punk period, when almost anything seemed possible with the classic two guitar, bass and drums lineup, and exploration and…
Antithesis
2013 repress, originally released in 2004 "first of two lp-only releases on kranky; this one features some of my favorite archival material, over which i labored some time ago, then again for some time late last year... on one hand i love theses pieces dearly and listen to them often, but on the other i didn’t want to seem like i was eschewing computer music altogether for a more “organic” route (couldn’t be further from the truth). i came very close to doing a 300 copy lo-fi lp of this material…
Hymnal
"Hymnal is the fourth kranky album by Thomas Meluch under his musical alias Benoit Pioulard, following Précis (2006), Temper (2008) and Lasted (2010). It was written and recorded throughout a year spent in southeastern England and on the European mainland, during which the ubiquity of religious iconography and grandiose cathedrals became an unexpected muse. Raised as a Catholic but never especially pious, Meluch drew on this aspect of social history as the basis for Hymnal's 12 chapters. H…
Connected
Presenting a new collaboration featuring Oren Ambarchi on guitar, the electronics of Robin Fox, and both performing on various other instruments. The music on this album came about as the result of the two being asked to co-compose the soundtrack for a new production by renowned Australian contemporary dance company Chunky Move for their Connected production. 'Chunky Move's artistic director Gideon Obarzanek was drawn to the organic and deeply musical qualities of Ambarchi's work and the digital…
Sequitur
Emeralds co-pilot Steve Hauschildt follows up his 'Tragedy & Geometry' album for Kranky with the plush new age disco dreamscapes of 'Sequitur'. Arguably, Steve is the lazy one in Emeralds, conjuring only three solo album to date compared with the gazillion respective works from bandmates John Elliot and Mark McGuire. But, as evidenced here and previously, he's also the canniest and most pop-wise, honing a more concise, richly rhythmic and melodic style of composition still rooted in cereb…