[iron mitchell]

Eyes And Arms Of Smoke - A Religion Of Broken Bones

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"The mystical sound magi of Louisville, Kentucky's Eyes and Arms of Smoke conjure a rare magic on their "A Religion of Broken Bones" LP. This record exhibits a kind of scattered, what-the-hell aura, which materializes in an unclassifiable instrumental sound that brings together chamber music, jazz, folk, electronics and more into a smooth, kinetic sound tunnel to the other side. Some of it is quite composed; other parts are definitely free. So, I suppose this could be thrown in the free folk camp, though the other releases I’ve heard from EaAoS veer closer to dub inflected industrial drone.
Two bands come to mind when listening to this album. The first is Portland’s schizoid lounge crawlers Rollerball, and I mean that really only in that they both have a sort of schizoid aura. Elements of many styles are found in the first track alone, “Pioneers of Sleep” (now there’s a song title), starting with a minimal guitar melody before downbeat brass and cello trills fill a gray sky. Guest Greg Kelley’s (of Cold Bleak Heat and Heathen Shame) trumpet can be heard in the treated tonal swells at the opening of “Eyes and Arms of Smoke,” easily 90 seconds of the most gorgeous organic drone I’ve heard this year, before the track shifts dramatically into a rustling acoustic dash across the decayed forest floor. Cue high pitched vocal harmonies and you might experience fevered flashbacks to Comus’s “First Utterance” also. But to their credit, Eyes and Arms of Smoke incorporate a mélange of bizarre chamber instrumentation into their decidedly electronic prog-edelic meanderings to reveal a unique, part orchestrated/part improvised, entirely live/organic sound.
This is haunted music with a great deal of character. It reminds me of other psych and noise genre perverts, such as Cerberus Shoal, the aforementioned Rollerball and Sun City Girls, but EaAoS maintains its own forlorn signature sound with fluctuating tempos and style shifts that are as nebulous as the band name. By the time 14 min closer “Nemesis” kicks in at a full gallop of room saturating drones, cello and raga guitars, it’s apparent that these people have crafted something quite visionary. “A Religion of Broken Bones” ain’t too shabby, but it is just shabby enough to enthrall from start to finish." -Lee Jackson


Draugar - Weathering The Curse

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"The black ice continues to spread, a grim black metal glacier slowly enveloping all with ears to hear. The West Coast black metal contingent's influence grows steadily, until one day hell walks the earth. Sorry, getting carried away. If the above scene had some sort of hierarchy, Leviathan would undoubtedly be the king. Xasthur would be a prince, or perhaps another king vying for supreme power. Crebain would be a knight, sent to slay all who shall dare oppose, and then Draugar, well Draugar would be the kings ex-vizier, locked in a dark dank dungeon, insane and murderous and demented, from years of no light, eating bugs, lack of sleep, and staring endlessly into blackness. Draugar is definitely the black sheep of this already black family, imbuing his home recorded evil, with the grim buzz of classic black metal, but with a healthy dollop of damged brilliance a la Benighted Leams, Lurker Of Chalice, or Striborg. Buzzy and black, droning and depressive, Draugar more than holds his own amidst the blackened elite, but somehow, everything he touches turns to what-the-fuck? Gentle clean arpeggiated clean guitar melodies are way up in the mix, layed atop a sluggish stream of indistinct guitar fuzz and Whitehouse-ish vocals. Sounding a little like somebody taped Darkthrone over a Slint record on an old C90 that had been in their back pocket for a month. Loping midtempo buzz over buried angelic choruses, like Morricone's The Mission performed by Graveland. Occasional ambient breaks, where guitar melodies wander aimlessly across barren soundscapes of distant rumble and creepy shimmer. Sometimes the riff seems to just splinter apart and what was moments earlier a galloping black metal juggernaut, has become a seasick drone. contructed from fuzzy almost melodies and vocals so distorted and so affected they sound like bursts of radio static. As always, heavy and grim and completely fucked!" -Aquarius Records


Robert Horton - Angel Humming Through A Wire

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"Hail to the summer breeze! The debut of Robert Horton is a cause for celebration. Years in the making, Angel Humming Through Wire is a glorious look at this Boston (now on the west coast) native's washed out headspace. Organic compositions of love and loss that occupy similar space as Thuja or Birchville Cat Motel. In this land of giants, Horton bends and distorts acoustic instruments into various shapes, producing sounds never before heard. In his travels, he has collaborated with the likes of Tom Carter, Michael Shannon, and Daniel Raffel, but this voice is solely his own. Angel Humming Through Wire is an exorcising experience; it is the search for that which the earth has sacrificed." -Foxglove

"From Foxglove we have Robert Horton with 'Angel Humming Through A Wire' where abstract guitars circle and weave mathematically precise patterns or form slowly evolving layers of signalling electricity generated by steel strings. This is a soundtrack to a city, to the wires and cables and tiny pulsing which connects us. Of the traffic noise merging with bird song, of the sounds and melodies formed from our movement. The slow guitars, the notes fading in, the harmonies, the environmental sounds interwoven, it's like hearing the breath of a city. It's fragile music, lovely and lonesome, the city never sleeps." -Unbroken Circle