‘Mane Blooms’ is the very first vinyl release by Celer, the husband and wife duo Will Long and Danielle Baquet-Long
Seen by Celer as an 'outdoor' companion piece to ‘Brittle’, the duo’s album recently released on Low Point, the music on ‘Mane Blooms’ was created by multiple layers of cello and piano, which were then processed and played back at differing speeds. Also contained within the tracks are field recordings taken whilst Dani rode horses along the Californian coastline, a weekly pursuit that acted as a form of self-therapy and enjoyment.
With the music composed specifically with the vinyl medium in mind, the two sides of the record act as a mirror image. For the B side, Celer approached the music of the first track in reverse, inverting the structure and musical motifs established within the first piece. Altering the playback speed of the vinyl brings previously hidden textures to the fore, providing each of the tracks with a new identity and a different reflection of memory.
credits
released October 19, 2009
Released on October 21, 2014 via Hidden Vibes and AZH Music
Strings. Gentle piano chords. Drift off or come round, dependent on the time of day. The opening moments to ‘Fragile’ provide the sound of a world slowing down. The record is Endless Melancholy’s third and there’s a dynamism on show here that indicates the maturity of the project, how Oleksiy Sakevyvh is able to create compositions that differ in register and tone, but come together to work as a single piece of neoclassicalism with delicate fragility that captivates and sooths.
Hailing from Kiev, Ukraine, it’s difficult not to juxtapose the tone of the album with what is going on in the country politically. That something so ethereal can be born in such a tempered environment is testament to the power of music.
Endless Melancholy is pianist Oleksiy Sakevyvh’s project and the arrangements he has created on ‘Fragile’ work fluidly, creating emotionally transformative music. The switch in tone from ‘Wherever’ to ‘Glory of the Sun’ is a fine example of this – Cello fading out as sharp piano notes arrive. ‘Glory of the Sun’ is in fact one of the more interesting and layered tracks on the album – and one of the few to utilise electronics, while the addition of drums half-way through takes us from subtle ambient into something with far more punch and pace. More of this development within tracks would have been interesting.
This is an album that is far more butterfly than bee however. It soaks through the listener, imbibing a sense of warmth and, yes, melancholy. Like any ambient work of this nature, there are times when it is easy to drift, to lose concentration on the music itself, but can this really be such a bad thing?
More Ambient....progressive music... with a Irish fiddle thrown in.... and of course great Musicians....
The Gloaming.....
The Gloaming
Ireland (Irish Republic)
The Gloaming is fiddle master Martin Hayes, guitarist Dennis Cahill, sean-nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird, hardanger innovator Caoimhin Ó Raghallaigh and New York pianist Thomas Bartlett (aka Doveman). These five master musicians, each with highly successful individual careers, have come together to create new music which pairs memorable, yearning melodies with a progressive style.
Although charged by the traditions of Ireland, what The Gloaming do with the structures of Irish music is anything but simple nostalgia. They introduce deep wells of personality and experience. Lyrics are drawn from the history of Irish literature, old and new. The music is played with the authority of virtuosos. The result is unclouded by sheen or sentimentality. Instead, it's haunting and emotionally charged. It sounds ancient without being a mere reproduction.
Martin, Caoimhín and Dennis have been recognized for extending the Irish and Celtic music traditions, balancing traditional rigor with an energy that seems
entirely new. Thomas has been identified with the independent rock scene for his work with artists as diverse as The National,Glen Hansard, and Antony and the Johnsons. Iarla has made many ground breaking recordings with the Afro Celt Sound System, his distinctive voice venturing far beyond the boundaries of any one genre.
In early 2011, the five musicians first met to explore their collaboration at Grouse Lodge Studios in Ireland's County Westmeath, an hour northwest of Dublin. They discovered a shared musical aesthetic that transcended the genres for which they'd become known. Later that year - newly christened The Gloaming - they went on their first Irish tour, including a sold out debut show at The National Concert Hall, Dublin. The sell-out hints at the excitement surrounding their formation, as does the fact that Ireland's Prime Minister, Edna Kenny, was in attendance that night. Summer 2013 saw their return with more packed concerts in London, Amsterdam, Paris & New York.
2014 saw The Gloaming play more shows in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Australia, Canada and America, notably a performance at London's Royal Albert Hall as part of Ireland's President Higgins' state visit to Britain - their appearance a special request from the President. A triumphant return to Dublin's National Concert Hall in Spring 2015 preceded a sell-out show in The Barbican's main hall, followed by the Port Fairy Folk Festival, WOMADdelaide, the Auckland Arts Festival and WOMAD New Zealand
The Gloaming were the worthy winners of the 2014 Meteor Choice Prize for Irish album of the year, fending off competition from Hozier, Aphex Twin, Sinead O'Connor, U2 and Damien Rice.
Live, The Gloaming delivers "a remarkable set … one can only marvel at the intuitive understanding between the five. But it's not just jigs and reels that make them remarkable: the opening Song 44, with Bartlett holding down his piano strings to mute them, and violins scraping ominously, has more in common with post-rock than with Christy Moore. It's a staggering display of both emotion and virtuosity." (The Guardian)
"Vocals, two fiddles, a guitar and a piano - it doesn't sound like a traditional band really," says fiddler Martin Hayes. " It doesn't sound like it should sound." Hayes is the musical centre of The Gloaming - the player sat centre stage at their concerts, while the ethereal voice of the great sean nos singer Iarla Ó Lionáird envelops it."
I remember the first time I heard Martin play," says US pianist Thomas Bartlett, "and there was something that happened to my body that I hadn't experienced before, where I felt like my heart would expand and contract with the way he was playing ." It's a good summation of how many listeners respond to the master fiddler from County Clare.
With Hayes in the string section, Caoimhin Ó Raghallaigh's hardanger fiddle is the music's expressive underworld, probing the depths with drones and abstract textures, setting the reels and airs in a musical chiaroscuro. "Caoimhin was part of a new generation of musicians, young and thoughtful," says Hayes. "It's not so easy in a traditional music form to find your voice; it's a tricky thing, and he did, he found a unique voice and a very unique way of playing."
US guitarist Dennis Cahill's is minimal, percussive, punctuating playing that lifts and amplifies specific spots, like musical acupuncture. "It's the mark of a great piece of music," he says, " when it's bendable, and it doesn't lose its integrity, and I think the tunes are spectacular like that, they can be played in a lot of ways."
Thomas Bartlett's piano is perhaps at the furthest remove from the folk tradition that Iarla, Martin and Caoimhin share. "Maybe why this band is working well," he says, "is that I don't recognize the lines that the rest of this band sees. They're very happy to go outside of those boundaries, but the fact that I don't even know the tradition helps make them disappear."
I bought this on a chance.... a rather unique LP ..... and quirkey....I am happy to say I was not to be disappointed..... great album by great musicans.
Psychic G Shit..... Licking Mirrors.... on Music Cassette.
Excellent quote here from Boomkat...
Boomkat Product Review:
CFT catch Ste Spandex, Crispy Duck and Govinda Chugdream’s Licking Mirrors on a brilliantly burnt-out mindstroke with their debut excursion, Psychic G Shit.
This is music for the after, after, after-party when everyone operates on a properly telepathic level and accidents are commonplace. It’s on a higher level of unfidelity, detuned to fishy scales and prone to witter on and f**kin’ on, as with the mind-engulfing 34 minutes of sprawling noogie boise in Electronic Like Smokey Robinson or the slompy acidic thistle Ain’t It Funi, and just as likely to take in the buggin’, screwed junk of Hit it from the Back or No Mirrors Left Un-licked, whilst the rum sorts of Feed The Dog, Boy! and Are We On For One hit a hard vein of no wave acid-billy chug
Boomkat Product Review:
Best Available Technology back at it on his Working Nights label, scene of 2014’s Gallery Tape, with a typical diverse collection strafing sludge rock thru slompy, lo-fi blues and serene, widescreen American minimalism with a freeform and noisy yet tender electro-acoustic tactility.
