Area C
Charmed Birds Vs Sorcery

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Sound clips for Charmed Birds Vs Sorcery by Area C: on CD at Norman Records UK. CD, Students of Decay, SOD-18, £6.19.

What their label says...

"Charmed Birds Against Sorcery" is the third studio album by New
 England-based musician Erik Carlson, and constitutes a startling
 development in his sound. The first Area C record, 2006's "Traffics
 + Discoveries," was a small marvel of whirring loops sourced primarily
 from processed guitars.  Last year's "Haunt," Carlson's second record
 for Last Visible Dog, was a different affair entirely, investigating the
 provocative drone capabilites of farfisa organs.  The compositions which
constitute "Charmed Birds..." develop and, often, transcend the motifs
 found on these prior albums, with Carlson revealing an astonishingly
 refined and singular approach to guitar-based composition.

Soundwise, the album recalls more the crystalline, kaleidoscopic webworks
 of the first Area C record than the ragged organ workouts of "Haunt."
 Glacial harmonics drift in and out of each channel, skittering, modulated
 notes pulse and surge, sputtering suddenly to luminescent manifestation
 before disappearing just as quickly. Many of the compositions here are in
fact more remniscient of the ambient side of Wolfgang Voigt's work
in Gas, or perhaps the less beat driven aspects of "94 Diskont"-era Oval
than what we've come to expect from what is ostensibly a 'guitar and
 electronics' based project. An almost kraut-like rhythm subtends the
 topography of "Composition Journal," the album's stunning opener, its
low throb punctuated by brittle shocks from deconstructed drum
machines over which Carlson weaves a spiralling lattice of bowed and
 picked notes. Later, on "Sleeping Birds," we're presented with a lulling
idyll concocted by way of flute-like tones and languid note clusters, a
 shorter piece which dissolves seemlessly into modulating static at the
 onset of the pointillist microcosm that is "Spell of Resistance." The title
track is without question the album's apex and constitutes a formal peak
in Carlson's discography, as brilliant, bright guitar lines tread effortlessly
 in a sea of tranquil pulses and disembodied percussive elements.

It should come as no surprise that, by day, Carlson works in the field of
architecture. For with "Charmed Birds..." he has constructed an edifice
of stunning complexity, originality and beauty.



Area C - "Charmed Birds Against Sorcery"

1. Composition Journal
2. Of Set Purpose, No Arrangement
3. Fact, Fancy, Legend
4. Sleeping Birds
5. Spell of Resistance
6. Meeting Mid-Air
7. Charmed Birds Against Sorcery
8. Black-Thorn, Falcon, Picris