EIC's 10Q's w/ Loscil

"..minimal arrangement, slow movements in tone, evocation of a particular environment and place..." 

Loscil

Pelagic Milieu

Loscil Bio:

Born in Canada, Scott Morgan apparently appropriated his Loscil alter ego from the operation code within the sound synthesis system Csound. Although he admits he rarely actually uses Csound to create his compelling minimalist recordings, he asserts that looping and oscillating are the basics of his music-making process. Loscil’s debut, Triple Point, was named after the scientific term for the temperature where a material can exist with its solid, liquid, and gas phases all in equilibrium. Based on a collection of demos entitled A New Demonstration of Thermodynamic Tendencies, the album takes the titles of its minimalist dub/techno/ambient-inspired tracks from the language of thermodynamics, the science that investigates the conversion of heat into mechanical force or energy and vice-versa. However, Morgan has confessed that track titles such as "Hydrogen," "Enthalpy," and "Discrete Entrophy" were lifted from a book bought in a second-hand store and "presented as a sort of false document on thermodynamics" rather than having an explicit correlation with the music. Morgan studied music at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, facilitating the musician’s exposure to 20th century experimental composers like John Cage and Stockhausen (while, incongruously, Morgan simultaneously played drums for a series of indie bands). Drawing stated influence from contemporary post-techno musicians such as Oval and Wolfgang Voigt’s Gas, as well as early electronic music pioneers such as Brian Eno and Raymond Scott, Triple Point’s fluctuating tones and pulses are explicitly intended to drift between the intuitive and the intellectual. Perhaps echoing descriptions of Loscil's music as deep and oceanic, the follow-up, Submers, looked to underwater craft for its emotional and thematic coherence. Each of the track titles was named after a submarine, such as "Argonaut I," "Nautilus," and "Le Plongeur." The release closed with a touching requiem for the crew of ill-fated Russian nuclear vessel Kursk. For 2004’s First Narrows, which was inspired in part by the first gap in the entrance to the Burrard Inlet, Morgan collaborated with other musicians, an approach he repeated for 2006’s Plume. Released in 2010, Endless Falls was another step forward, featuring vocals courtesy of his Destroyer bandmate Dan Bejar on its final track. 2012's Sketches from New Brighton took its name an oceanside park in Vancouver that was considered to be the city's birthplace. Under the moniker of Loscil Sound Design, Morgan creates interactive music and sound design for websites, CD-Rs, film and video projects, and "ambient environments."

Hello, how are you?

I'm well, thanks.

What are you currently listening to?

Simon Scott gave me his 'Navigare' CD when we met in Prague and I've been listening to that a lot. Really nice work.

Is there a story behind the band name?

"Loscil" is lifted from a computer music language called Csound.  It is a function that loosely means "looping oscillator" and can be used to loop sampled sound… I thought it was a nice, simple, abstract name that encapsulates all that I do with computer music.

Care to shed some light on your latest release 'Intervalo'; theme, favorite track, etc?

'Intervalo' came about through a live collaboration with Kelly Wyse (pianist) while playing Rafael Irisarri's Substrata Festival in Seattle in 2012. I retrofit a few pieces to included the piano ("Endless Falls", "Hastings" "Sunrise") and we also recorded some works that were specifically written with the piano in mind including the Harold Budd tribute, "Rye Fields" and the Lunar Caustic soundtrack, "City Hospital".  In the end, I was so happy with the results that I decided to record and release it myself as a special edition.

Is there a reason you didn't release this one through Kranky?

Partly because I just had a release come out on Kranky in the fall and wanted to get this out right away to bring on tour, but also because it's reworked material and something more suited to a limited edition which is not really something Kranky does.

Speaking of Kranky, whom/who is you favorite Kranky artist of all time?

Wow,  tough call but it's probably a close tie between Stars Of The Lid and Pan American.

Got any other projects we should know about?

I have a collaboration with bvdub in the can that will be coming out on Glacial Movements later this year. I also have a 7" single being pressed right now on my friend's label JAZ records. That should be available soon. I've commissioned a series of remixes of the track "Second Narrows", which was written as a soundtrack to an iPad game called 'Hundreds'. The collection of 100 minutes of remixes is currently being mastered and will be released very soon via bandcamp.

What movie would work best on mute while listening to you music?

Hmm. Perhaps 'Stalker'.

You can only keep/listen to ONE album for the rest of your life ..which album would it be?

John Cage's 4'33" (OK, I'm cheating).

Are you living your dream?  I am living one of my dreams.

I still dream of owning a specialty farmhouse brewery one day.

Thanx Scott!

Loscil recently released 'Intervalo', you will go buy that now.

EIC's 10Q's w/ Orcas

"..extremely delicate and relaxing, they will eliminate all your stress, put you in a better mood (maybe..) and put your ears/brain in a trance given the right conditions (your ears work).."

Orcas

Hypnotic Miasma

Orcas Bio:

 Orcas is a band by haze-pop auteur Benoît Pioulard and post-minimalist composer Rafael Anton Irisarri. Theirs is a style deeply rooted in personal variations on songform and ambient craft, and as a duo they bridge the furthest outlying aspects of their previous solo work published on Kranky, Touch, Miasmah, Room40, and Ghostly International. On their debut album as Orcas song and abstraction become one entity.

Hello, how are you?
Yeah, not bad, thanks. Greetings to you, too.

What are you currently listening to?
Tom: The gentle crackle of a fireplace in the massive, oaken hall of an English castle, with rain hissing against the windows.
Rafael: Rain, torrential down pouring outside my house. Ahh, the Pacific Northwest!

LOVE, love, love this project. How did it begin/who's idea was it?
Oh, thank you very much indeed… We originally crossed paths in 2009 at the Decibel Festival in Seattle, where it was discovered that we’d been listening to each other’s works for quite some time. Following that we kept in touch and began experimenting with guitar setups at Studio Irisarri a few months later, which then led to adding vocals and aiming for more ‘proper’ compositions. Because of such a natural process, there is still a major improvisatory influence on the outcome, and most of our songs are born from just a few wandering notes, or sometimes from absolute nothingness.

Care to shed some light on the band name?
Orcas (the creatures) are a classic emblem of the American Pacific Northwest – as well as its history and culture – which is where we made the album; as hunters they’re methodical and ruthless, but they also evoke a quietly powerful nature. We aimed for fluidity in the sound of our recordings while using disparate elements like pop hooks and spatial ambience, so we find such a balance to be quite fitting. As an acronym, it also stands for “ORegon + CAScadia”.

What's your favorite song from your debut LP?
Tracks 1-9 (or in the case of the digital version, 1-11)

Will you be touring as Orcas?
We’re currently arranging a tour as a trio (completed by a pianist) in the UK and Europe for later in the spring, and have discussed a stateside trip, too – though we’re not sure when that will actually happen since we may be on different continents for a while, and those cross-Atlantic flights tend to drain the resources pretty quickly.

Have you guys decided if this project will carry on or remain a "one off" yet?
We keep in quite close contact and have been sending files back and forth ever since completing the first LP, so we’re already creating demos of new pieces. We don’t yet have a particular goal or framework in mind, but for as well as we work together, there’s no reason to let things rest anytime soon.

What movie/TV show would work best on mute while listening to your music?
Either Aleksandr Sokurov’s 'Mother And Son' or… I don’t know, anything by Michael Bay.

You can only keep/listen to ONE album for the rest of your life ..which album would it be?
Rafael: Harold Budd & Brian Eno's 'The Plateaux Of Mirror'
Tom: If this were to be the case, the rest of my life would only be as long as it took me to find a suitable weapon with which to do myself in. But I’d probably keep 'Geogaddi' (Boards of Canada) to put on in the background.

Are you living your dream?
In a certain way, yes; though in order to live it to completion I’d rather not have to make a daily choice between food and new music gear. Or food and anything else, for that matter.

Thanx Flow, Tom & Rafael!

Orcas are currently touring (A few spots in the US and a few in Europe), be sure to check them out live if you can...

REVIEW: Eraldo Bernocchi, Harold Budd, Robin Guthrie – Winter Garden

7.75 out of 10

Find it here.

Earlier this year, Harold Budd's "In The Mist" showed the world the famed Ambient artist at his most raw and expressive. The album reflected a Budd free from the guise of reverb, where for the first time each of his compositions were wholly dependent on structure and harmony. But in Budd's newest album, "Winter Garden", the minimalist's lush soundscapes have returned with the help of Italian-producer Eraldo Bernocchi and ex-Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie. 'Winter Garden' does not mark the first time Budd has worked with either of these composers. Guthrie and Budd's partnership began six years ago when the pair released their soundtrack to Gregg Araki's "Mysterious Skin" – a debut which perfectly conveyed the film's sublime blend of intensity and calm. 2005 was also the same year Bernocchi and Budd released their first split: the dark and almost Post-Industrial "Music For Fragments From The Inside". Darla Records's "Winter Garden", however, is the first time these three artists come together on one release. What arises out of the collaboration is a sublime fusion of Bernocchi's icy, claustrophobic productions with Budd and Guthrie's warm, lush harmonies.

'Winter Garden's' first minutes echo a tamed resemblance to the former discography of Budd – a vast soundscape layered with skeletal, flowing piano lines. However, as the album moves into “Entangled,” Budd's collaborators finally take their rightful place, quickly evolving the album into one of much higher intrigue. The song starts with Bernocchi's pulsing bass, then continues with Budd's eloquent piano overlaying Guthrie's droning guitar. None of the three members overwhelm the other; each play with a masterful calm and balance. However, to hear the full extent of this fragile fabric of sounds, look no further than “Stay With Me.” In just over five minutes, “Stay With Me” curiously blends an epic structure with bare minimalism. It begins similar to the rest of the album, but in the piece's final two minutes, a shimmering techno beat swells. Washes of noise envelop you in a sonic whirlwind rarely experienced with such subdued music.

The album closes with “Dream On,” an already routine showoff of piano and guitar. It's songs like that, however beautiful they may be, that inevitably weaken 'Winter Garden'. Too seldom does Bernocchi intersect his own elements to forge a palette of noise separate from the one explored on Guthrie and Budd's previous splits. It's this shortcoming which forces you to view this release as a mere glimpse of the trio's abilities. However, like in the album's title itself, the music of 'Winter Garden' holds a peculiar paradox. At first it is bare and skeletal, cold and desolate. But within the melodies and vast expanse of the superb interweaving of sounds lies a hidden garden of noise. It's a stillness waiting for you to fall into and disappear, to become lost in a dimension only masters like Bernocchi, Budd, and Guthrie can create.

Standout Tracks: Entangled, Harmony And The Play Of Light, Heavy Heart Some More, Stay With Me

EIC'S10Q'S w/ Teaadora

"..dark, with a faint "silver lined" raining cloud.."

(Photo credit: Scott Steele)

Teaadora
Beautiful Aphotic Canticle

Teaadora Bio:
Teaadora Nikolova (born May 20th, 1986) is an American singer and artist, known for art performance, and her Minimalist Lo-Fi Droning Abstract songs

Hello, how are you?
I am well. I've just been busy with university and protesting in my local area for the Occupy Together movement.

What are you currently listening to?
I am listening to the sound of the cars as they pass by, mostly trying to let the nothingness come in, and letting the sounds fill in the silence that is coming in. I don't listen to as music as I once did but I am not as peaceful as I once was either. I had a deeply peaceful walk last night to renew my rare quiet inside, it was great contrast amongst my busy days.

If you could tour with any two bands of your choice whom would it be with?
I'd love to tour with; Mirabai Ceiba, Prince Rama, Daniel Higgs, Grouper, Rhys Chatham, Terry Riley, John Maus... some light barriers.

When you began writing music did you have an idea of the sound you were trying to achieve?
When I began music to achieve the conceptual framework of this project, I knew it would involve a great deal of emotion and simplicity. A lot of artists I know, who have continued to evolve with their music learned through appropriating their sound through artists they admired. However, I long stripped my desire to fulfill a protege and only create with the same ears I use in the silence of the dark. I create new things by searching for them with an open heart in the dark. So, I am unsure if I was trying to achieve anything besides truth, especially the unmovable truth of allure.

Is there a theme on "A Jamais Vierge/Virgin Forever"?
The theme of the album is related to my virginity, and my striving for purity, a time capsule a certain part of my life, that says I try to love through only a universal space, but no access love through the intimate sphere. It was a time when I decided to live my life with a taxidermy of the heart, I will never take the risk of falling in love, and thus never have any scars to age my heart.

Got any side projects/collabs coming up?
I am doing a compilation tape called "Pilgrimage" for Bathetic Records, which will feature Arrington de Dionyso (of Old Time Relijun), Daniel Higgs (of Lungfish), Susan Alcorn, Kyle Clyde/ Isa Christ, and many others I feel have influenced my musical journey to be where I am. Lastly, I am compiling a soundtrack for Lindsay Denniberg’s Video Diary of a Lost Girl . You can see and hear the sample she created the visuals for and I matched with electronic sounds on her website for the film. The basis of the soundtrack and film take place where Liquid Sky left off with artists such as Dan Deacon, Soft Metals, Tearist, Rene Hell, J.D. Emmanuel, which we are still submitting submissions for. Lastly, I will be in a movie directed by Joe Chang called “Present” over Halloween in Asheville for a weekend.

If you could re-score a movie soundtrack which movie would you pick?
THX1138, because of all the emptiness, futurism, feeling of despair and disconnection. I have an affinity with it as much as I would dislike it conceptually if someone explained it to me, its about the experience. I would like to give warmth to its sterility and play within supernatural ideas, in synthesis with reality and epic-machinery.

Whom were your favorite new artists of 2011?
Mostly my friends, I'll recall my favorite performances of the last year; Isa Christ, Emceesquared, YellowFever, Good Amount, Ryley Walker + Dan'l Bachman (+ Ben Bilington) Combo, and French Quarter..

You can only keep/listen to ONE album for the rest of your life ..which album would it be?
Harold Budd/Brian Eno: 'The Pearl'

Are you living your dream?
I like that you ask this but I think the real question is, "do you have a relationship with your dream?" I know that I ask some people this question playfully and with some I see the balloon pop over their head... the question fades because they haven't thought of life in these terms for so long, maybe never too deeply but mostly as in the cliche that everyone is living out their dream. I see now a days more and more that people aren't living out their dreams as they might think, which makes me think I may be projecting my own lack of relationship with my own dreams. My initial reaction is yes, however, I also know that for me this idea is very complex, requires many steps, and development over time. Either way, I find a lot of meaning in my direction, aside of refining possible.

Thanx Teaadora!

Teaadora is currently an underrated artist who deserves more attention, and will soon get it...;)