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Our album of the week (27th January 2012)
...according to our Mike on Fri 27 Jan, 2012.
Windy and Carl are back with their first album in three years. Nice to see that there are some people who still take their time over these things. This husband and wife team have created some astounding sonic architecture in the past with their neofolk-inflected minimal-ambient drone. After a surprisingly folky beginning where fragile guitar and mournful vocals over nostalgic crackles carve out an aching sense of pathos, they continue treading that path quite expertly on this latest collection, with dense, calming drone textures through which you can pick out snippets of piano and bass and guitar as the ethereal washes morph elusively. Predominantly, though, this record is all about the drones. The twinkly, fragmented, layered drones that lift you up to somewhere more peaceful and detached. They're always of the tranquil and celestial variety, though; no dark, grinding, twitching ambience here, just comforting, immersive, calming tones with occasional folky touches. Delightful.
* The first new recordings from Windy & Carl in more than three years.
*Press quotes for Songs for The Dream House/Dedications to Flea (kranky 2005):
- “This set justly reverberates with sorrow, loss and longing. Melting bands of delay tangle and offer an amorphous rhythm of refracted guitars before twinkling chimes bring the room back from a world of echo to four cold walls. Absence in The Dream House is almost made literal, it is felt.” (Dusted)
- “Taken together, The Dream House and Dedications to Flea are a rumination on the deaths of loved ones and the effect those deaths can have. These are drones for a dark room, drones to cry to, drones to sleep to, drones that, on the right night, can invoke the most extreme sense of joyful peace.” (8/10 Popmatters)
- It is absolutely wonderful to know that some things will never change, as Windy & Carl have delivered their finest work to date with Dream House/Dedications to Flea. There's more of an organic feeling this time around; it's the sort of music expected to resonate from the halls of majestic chapels and sacred grounds. It's beautiful music from the hands of experts -- meticulous and seamlessly beautiful.” (All Music Guide)
1. For Rosa
2. Remember
3. Spires
4. The Frost in Winter
5. Looking Glass
6. Nature of Memory
7. The Smell of Old Books
8. Fainting in the Presence of the Lord
Brian Thunderpony said:
I was supposed to review this album but I didn't quite have it in me to meet the deadline because I was drinking wine and talking to our Anthony incessantly about how I liked how Throbbing Gristle had blown a new arsehole through music in the 70s and beyond., i'm reading this and thinking I'm so glad our Mike is the absolute bees knees with genuine words and feelings ala the music we love here....x
So, what do you think? Best reviewer each month gets £10 off their next order!
Norman Records,
Unit 20, Croydon House,
Croydon Street,
Leeds,
LS11 9RT, UK.
Tel/fax: (+44) 0113 245 4399
Email: phil@normanrecords.com
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