Ilyas Ahmed - With Endless Fire

Our review
Customer reviews
Press release

5...according to our Mike on Wed 01 Feb, 2012.

Super tasteful psychedelic gatefold sleeve on this one, and some mystical loveliness on the wax, too! Ilyas Ahmed is back to weave more of his slow-burning spirituals with rock and drone and psych-folk elements, but always beautifully measured and hypnotic. This is music that really takes you somewhere interesting, with Ahmed's hushed voice peeking out over layers of twinkly repetitive acoustic guitar and simple, primal rhythms, occasionally joined by searing fuzz guitar to take things up a notch, or floating spectrally over a washed out 12-string stomp, while in other places drones and intermittent fingerpicking hold together fragile melodies. It's quite nostalgic-sounding stuff, with echoes of the '60s, but there's a burnt-out aura of resignation and a layer of murky haze that's very modern too. The guitar sounds here are beautifully captured and when he takes it down a notch on 'Every Minute Of Every Hour (For Jr)' the depth of tone on the beautifully picked steel string refrain is quite transcendent, as a gradually swelling drone grows over his unobtrusive vocals. Really quite magical stuff. This track's the highlight for me but the whole album is just indulgently pretty and will seduce folkies and minimal/drone-heads alike with its silky charms. And in an edition of just a thousand I can't see this hanging around for long...

With Endless Fire is a brand new album from Ilyas Ahmed and his third release for Immune following the instantly sold out Record Store Day split 7” with Steve Gunn and Between Two Skies/Towards The Night, the massive 2xLP reissue of Ahmed’s first two albums.

Since 2005 Ilyas Ahmed has been blurring the folk/drone/raga/rock realms into a sound that is uniquely his own. A string of self-released CDrs in 2005/2006 brought Ahmed immediate attention and he soon released landmark albums on Time-Lag, Digitalis, and Root Strata. In 2010 Immune began working with Ahmed first giving his first two albums Between Two Skies & Towards The Night a deluxe 2xLP vinyl release and then in 2011 releasing a split 7” between Ahmed and Steve Gunn for Record Store Day.

Ahmed’s brand new album With Endless Fire was entirely written, performed and recorded direct to analog tape by Ilyas Ahmed in Portland, OR. It is Ahmed’s first album since his 2009 release Goner (Root Strata) and continues the much fuller sound presented there, giving us his unmistakable voice with a mix of acoustic and electric guitars, harmonium, organ, and drums.

Ilyas Ahmed on With Endless Fire :
“This record started out during an extended period of decline and gradually shifted focus to let more light in, to reconcile the murky depths and the ecstatic highs of everyday life. I wanted to make music that was “of” rather than “by”. It was the first time I felt there was no separation between head & hands, instruments & speakers, microphones & air, fuzz pedals & tape machines. The songs are inspired equally by memory, loss, love, and electricity.”

With Endless Fire is presented with the utmost highest production standards – mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk in Portland, OR and cut to vinyl by Roger Seibel at SAE in Phoenix, AZ the album is pressed on high-quality virgin vinyl at RTI and housed in a heavy-duty old-style tip-on gatefold jacket printed by Stoughton. Also included is a free download coupon.
LP is limited to only 1,000 copies