A double headline show from:

JAMES BLACKSHAW
(Important Records) /
ALEXANDER TUCKER
(Thrill Jockey)

with special guest:

CIAN NUGENT (VHF Records)

Unitarian Church, Stephens Green, Dublin
Friday 11th May – Doors 7.30pm

Tickets €15 from www.tickets.ie/skinnywolves

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JAMES BLACKSHAW

http://soundcloud.com/jamesblackshaw

James Blackshaw performs celestial and spirit-lifting guitar-led compositions. Meditative in quality, cinematic in scope, his music spirals gracefully across complex patterns, motifs and harmonics. He made his name as a 12-string acoustic guitarist, and his relationship with the instrument is near perfect. With an extensive back catalogue to his name on labels like Young God Records, Tompkins Square and Important, he has developed a unique playing style that takes Takoma school finger-picking into an entirely new place. Swirling overtones, cascading notes and a thousand points of light cascade from his guitar and create ever-shifting textures that bear the influence of contemporary classical composition, post-rock dynamics and invisible soundtracks as much as the American folk guitar tradition.

Despite his transcendent state music he is a grounded and earthly fellow who has been written about with reverence and has played churches, festivals, folk clubs and large concert halls on his many travels in the US, Europe and Japan. These have included extensive touring with the reformed Swans, as well as collaborative performances with Hauschka and Nancy Elizabeth. He performs and records as a member of Current 93 and with Jozef Van Wissem as Brethren of The Free Spirit.

New album Love is The Plan, The Plan Is Death is released on Important Records in April 2012. Written at a time of great emotional disquiet, it’s a beautiful and bittersweet new chamber work containing six original pieces whose titles are lovingly misappropriated from those of short stories by the great science fiction author James Tiptree Jr AKA Alice B. Sheldon. The instrumentation is more stripped back and integrated than on recent albums, allowing his impeccable nylon-string classical guitar playing to come to the fore, with small details like the scraping of his fingers on the strings and breathing patterns adding to the emotional honesty of the mix. Grand piano, vibraphone and B3 fill out the tracks, with Geneviève Beaulieu’s stunning vocals featuring on the track ‘And I Have Come Upon This Place By Lost Ways’.

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ALEXANDER TUCKER

http://www.thrilljockey.com/thrill/Alexander-Tucker/
http://soundcloud.com/thrilljockey/alexander-tucker-his-arm-has

British avant pop artist Alexander Tucker releases his much anticipated new album, Third Mouth, on Thrill Jockey in 2012. This album builds on the strengths revealed by his landmark debut for the label, Dorwytch released in April 2011, culminating in his finest work to date.

Using songs written over a 12 month period he achieves his own inimitable blend of psych rock and ambient pop using a variety of studio crafted effects, rudimentary beats, guitar and bass, as well as synth and cello drones. He pushes himself even further however as he breaks new ground on the electronics only track “Rh” and heads further out into the deeper reaches of space with the sci-fi influenced cosmic meditation “Andromeon” as well as experimenting with more progressive song structures like those in “The Glass Axe”.

Tucker’s sound has developed over the years since his first self-titled solo album, which featured acoustic finger-picking, experimental electronics and was released on Jackie O Motherfucker’s U-Sound Archives label. He went on to combine compositional song structures, drones, layered vocals and improvisations on his 2005 album Old Fog released on ATP Recordings. This collection of spectral moods, eerie landscapes and fragile emotions was followed by Furrowed Brow (2006) and Portal (2008), where the songs and melodies became more pronounced, whilst infecting the tracks with underlying drone currents, traditional finger-picking, doom riffs and David Crosby inspired harmonies. There was a shift in direction away from improvisation and toward scored pop music for Dorwytch (2011) with its nods to Brian Eno’s Another Green World, while still retaining the organic drones of Cluster and Lichens.

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CIAN NUGENT

http://www.vhfrecords.com/catalog/125.htm
http://soundcloud.com/cian-nugent

Cian Nugent is a guitar player and composer from Dublin, Ireland who combines personal passions, such as suburban/coastal blues, traditional musics, late 1960s & ’70s singer-songwriters, jazz ambitions, 20th century composition and the Takoma school into a deeply personal style. His music boasts an orchestrated and fully instrumented sound that is playful and eerie at the same time. In the past he has toured with people such as Jack Rose, Glenn Jones, Micah Blue Smaldone, Ben Reynolds, Nalle, The Family Elan, George Stavis, Jozef van Wissem, C Joynes, Peter Delaney, Thinguma*jigSaw and James Blackshaw throughout Europe and the United States.

JOHN WIESE (USA)

TOYMONGER

& Guests tba

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Sunday 1st April 2012
The Joinery, Stoneybatter, Dublin
B/Y/O/B

ADM €10 : ticket info soon

FB Event : https://www.facebook.com/events/271245509615606/

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JOHN WIESE

http://www.john-wiese.com/
http://soundcloud.com/johnwiese

John Wiese is an artist and composer from Los Angeles, California. His ongoing projects include LHD and Sissy Spacek, but is known for his collaborations with many artists as diverse as Sunn O))), Wolf Eyes, Merzbow, Thurston Moore, Bastard Noise, No Age, Smegma, Kevin Drumm, Cattle Decapitation, and C. Spencer Yeh as well as his work as a solo artist. He has toured extensively throughout the world, covering Europe, Scandinavia and Australia as a member of Sunn O))), the UK as part of the Free Noise tour (a tentet including Evan Parker, C. Spencer Yeh, Yellow Swans, etc.), the United States alongside Wolf Eyes, and recently performed in the 52nd Venice Biennale with artist Nico Vascellari. While releasing albums on a variety of international labels, Wiese often releases work on his own label, Helicopter.

His newest release ”Seven of Wands’ on German label, Pan, was mainly developed while touring the US, UK and Europe with Liars, No Age, and (in quadraphonic) Matmos, and feature source material contributed by Angus Andrew (voice, field recording) and Julian Gross (percussion) of Liars.

Seven Of Wands contains a romanticism only hinted at previously. Comprised of pieces from a range of eras and sequenced into a narrative arc, this very unique album has a quality of being beautiful, listenable, immersive, and transportive all at once. He probably wouldn’t like this, but I dare say “musical.”

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TOYMONGER

http://www.munitionsfamily.com/

Andrew Fogarty (Boys of Summer, Reptile Brain) and Gavin Prior (United Bible Studies, Sabre Series) explore primitive home-made electronic music-making. They exclusively use amplified strings, steel, drum machines, bad circuitry, tape, clarinet, detritus, etc. The equipment is constantly breaking down and is never fetishised; the atmospheres created, more important than experimental tinkering.

Please catch SOMADRONE at one or all of the following shows:

• Fri Feb 4th – Cork – Triskel Arts Center – w Magic Pockets
• Thurs Feb 23rd – Belfast – Menagerie Club
• Sat Feb 25th – Dublin – Unitarian Church, St. Stephens Green w Angkorwat and I am the Cosmos

Neil from Somadrone says:

“I was listening to alot of library music this time around, with alot of German stuff like Cluster and Harmonium. I just wanted to make a completely new record, challenge myself to write out of my style. The results are interesting, less acoustics on this one. It’s full on electronic pop. Our live set is now myself on stereo guitar, modular and other synths, Glenn Keating on drums/electronics and David Kitt on guitar and vocoder”.

SOMADRONE

w/ Guests:
ANGKORWAT + I AM THE COSMOS

Saturday 25th February
Unitarian Church, Stephens Green, Dublin

Doors : 8.00PM
ADM €10 / Tickets : www.tickets.ie/skinnywolves

Facebook Event

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Somadrone sound is a lush minimalism, a sonic trip, soundtracks for early light.

Somadrone live at Electric Picnic 2011

Beginning in 1998, with a focus on electronic pop and experimental music, each album evolves with a change tone, instruments that help bring about new directions: the 1999 EP Lets Depart was a first trail, slow moving landscapes made on 4-track and cheap keyboards in a haunted house. Fuzzing Away To A Whisper (2005) used vibraphone, harp, theremin, indian drone machines to achieve a disembodied electronica. In 2007’s Of Pattern and Purpose analogue synthesizers helped evolve the sound to a more anchored, textured and slow- motioned pace. 2010’s Depth of Field (Skinny Wolves Records), recorded in parts in Ireland/France/Sweden/Germany/California, it’s a 3-year labor of love, aided by grand piano, harpsichord and voice, the album further pushed his sound into dreamlike miniature symphonies.

• It is, quiet simply, gorgeous, reminiscent of Bowie’s Berlin albums – Hot Press 4/5
• Outstanding electronic pop album, file between Brian Eno and Air – Star 4/5
• Depth of Field is simply spellbinding – Evening Herald 4/5
• Transports the listener with a Howard Blake style enchantment – Sunday Tribune – 4/5
• Cuts a path between Brian Eno, Steve Reich and Ryuichi Sakamoto – Irish
• Times 4/5
• Philip Glass and Steve Reich are obvious influences here, but O’Connor is no mere copyist – Irish Independent 4/5

Read more about the new Somadrone track, Reckoning here, and/or listen below  :

Poster by M&E

ANGKORWAT

I AM THE COSMOS

GROUPER – “Violet Replacement”

& Special Guests

RAISING HOLY SPARKS

The Unitarian Church, 112 St. Stephen’s Green West, Dublin, Ireland
Tuesday 27th March 2012, 8pm

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• Tickets on sale at €12 from www.tickets.ie/skinnywolves
• Facebook Event : https://www.facebook.com/events/126813674098727/

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GROUPER

• http://typerecords.com/releases/dragging-a-dead-deer-up-a-hill
• https://sites.google.com/site/yellowelectric/

Musician/artist Grouper aka Liz Harris unveils a haunting new performance comprised of tape loops, field recordings and submerged atmospherics presented in a set of naturally resonant and specially customised locations.

Grouper’s shimmering compositions exist in their own world, out of time and out of space. She stands out for the emotional resonance and epic reach of her song-writing. A singular and much revered artist, her latest double album A I A, released in April, has been touted as one of the year’s best.

“AIA… cements her place as leader of the pack. Harris has always outfoxed her peers in terms of pure atmosphere, and these twin 12”s are no exception” – The Quietus

Since 2005 she has released a flow of LPs, CDRs and tapes into the world on labels like Type, Room40 and her own Yellow Electric imprint. Using the barest of instrumentation (voice, guitar and keyboard) and layer upon layer of reverb, feedback and distortion, she dreams up songs that explore metaphysical themes of the self and the universe, of love and loss, life and death. The Wire recently compared to the rural psychedelia/drone odysseys of Flying Saucer Attack, while the pure, haunting quality of her voice brings to mind Julee Cruise.

Grouper’s live shows are rare occurrences and are always in tune with the architecture and acoustics of a space. For this tour she performs a new collection of tape collages derived from a commission for New York’s Issue Project Room. Field recordings, Wurlitzer loops and vocal tracks from her archives are mixed, spliced and processed live from an array of dictaphones and tape players. This is an eerie, melancholic set, in which fragile melodies and submerged textures gradually transform the space before decaying into nothingness

RAISING HOLY SPARKS

http://soundcloud.com/raisingholysparks/sets/the-depths-of-bailey-point/

David Colohan has operated under the name Agitated Radio Pilot since 1993. The development of a new approach based on field-recordings, shapenote singing, loops and synths, and coloured by an interest in Hasidic mysticism, prompted the winding up of that project and the adoption of a new identity: Raising Holy Sparks.

The debut release ‘Beyond the Unnamed Bay’ features a pair of side-long suites made up of songs and instrumentals. The well-crafted balladry of Here Begins Our Lasting Joy will be familiar to fans of ARP’s World Winding Down album, while the lengthy The Depths of Bailey Point follows on from the abstract and atmospheric works found on The Lunar Arcane and The Days and Hills Grown Old. However the synth-pop stylings of As Far As We Can Go presents Colohan’s songwriting in an unexpected new context.

Listen to some remixes, of songs from 936, by Adrian Sherwood/On-U Sound, DaM-FunK, Maria Minerva, Main Attrakionz, Damu, patten, Sunless ’97, Cadenza, d’Eon and Doldrums here : http://www.936.fm/

A 12″ featuring the remixes from Adrian Sherwood/On-U Sound, DaM-FunK, patten and Main Attrakionz will be released by Weird World in December.

CRYSTAL STILTS

Tracklisting

• Ave Sangria – Dois Navesantes
• El Kinto – Muy Lejos Te Vas
• Sandhy & Mandhy – Vuelve a Ser El De Antes
• Os Mutantes – Dia 36
• Los Saicos – (Fugitive De) Alcratraz
• Marconi Notaro – A Vida Avida (Oh Greedy Life)
• Lydia Mendoza – Los Besos De Mi Negra
• Congregacion – Atrapados Porun Densamiento
• Quarteto Novaera – De Repente
• Arif Sag – Osman Pehlivan
• Selda – Niyecattin Kaslarini
• Thomas Mapfumo – Shumba
• Raderman-Beckerman Orchestra – A Europaische Kolomyka
• N.V. Group 65 – Dank Zij De Heer
• Dutronc – L’oppurtunist
• Solieau & Robin – Je Veux Marnier
• Catherine Ribeiro – Diborowski

CRYSTAL STILTS – Mix// November 2011 by SkinnyWolves

Crystal Stilts was born out of a friendship between JB Townsend and Brad Hargett, and started life around 2003. It took an expansion of the band (now five members) and another five years for their first record Alight of Night to appear, and when it did, its fogginess and sense of tattered pop charmed; as did Hargett’s strident baritone which provides a pleasing metronome amidst the swaying dishevelment of songs like ‘Crystal Stilts’ and ‘SinKing’.

Something the band does very well is the way they create a brooding atmosphere, helped out by Hargett’s dreamy and unknowable lyrics, and though there are countless influences and references, they wear them up rather than on their sleeves.

Their second record In Love With Oblivion is more expansive, with all five members contributing in a more measured way, which might have something to do with the longer gestation period of the recording and mixing, as well as last year’s collaboration with David Feck of Comet Gain (Cinema Red & Blue) which might have loosened things up a little. And while Hargett sounds as world-weary as ever, there is a jauntiness to proceedings, providing a different kind of drive. Perhaps the clue remains in the lyrics, which are more precise but more surreal, set amidst the familiar menace and playfulness; swerving from tenderness on ‘Silver Sun’ to Dali-esque on ‘Invisible City’.

Andy Adler of the band talks to Siobhán Kane

Crystal Stilts has had various incarnations, expanding into the five piece we see now. JB and Brad have had a long friendship, and have been playing for years, did you also start playing music quite early on?

I started playing guitar and taking piano lessons when I was small, and we are all mainly self taught, and then started playing properly in an informal way. Keegan [Cooke] our drummer now, hadn’t played much drums before, we were friends with him and we thought because we shared a similar aesthetic, that was a good reason to collaborate and go from there, rather than bring in someone who could simply play well.

Crystal Stilts with Andy Adler (far left)

That seems to have informed your second record, it seems somehow more cohesive and inclusive.

It’s a little more varied, that’s true. Both records were recorded differently. The first record was largely JB playing everything himself, whereas the new record included all of us and has more of a live feeling to it. The circumstances of recording have influenced the sound somewhat. We all had jobs and other things we were doing, and you just can’t walk out on all those things, so in some respects it was nice to record something and then have some time to figure out what worked and where we wanted to go with it, rather than trying to compress it all into a certain amount of time, where you stop listening to it with fresh ears. Sometimes though it felt like it was going on a long time, and mixing took a while, but I think it has been worth it!

We recorded it with Gary Olson, who has a studio called Marlborough Farms and we spent a lot of time. The studio is in his house, and he is a friend, so there was a real homely feel to the recording process with this one, I think we work better that way. You know, the first record was recorded really quickly with JB doing overdubs, but he and Brad weren’t happy with the mix, and through lack of funds it took a long time to sort out. It was probably a year and a half after it was recorded that we could go back and give it a proper mix that we were happy with, it had a long lifetime, actually, that first record.

There is such a warm sound on this record, which must have something to do with the cosy studio, but also what you use, I believe you use a lot of analog and older equipment?

Yes we do. For the most part we record on to analog tape. We did some overdubs with computers when we ran out of tracks, but mainly it is recorded on to tape and I think it gives it a warmer quality, the amps and microphones are probably older as well. I have a really ratty bass that I have had since I was a teenager, and is really beat up, it is incredibly ugly, but can withstand a beating, and keeps on working, which is good in this band! I don’t know if we have a particular allegiance to anything in particular in terms of equipment, Kyle [Forrester] has a nice homemade organ that he built with a friend of his, a modified thing, so that’s probably his favourite piece of equipment. I think because we have lost a lot of equipment over the years we try not to get too attached, which is unfortunate, but the older stuff is great.

You have that lovely mixture of referencing older sounds, equipment and influences, but also being thoroughly modern. However. it must be strange being in a band at present, as things have changed so rapidly in music over the last decade.

I think it is a very changing world out there, so it is hard to grasp as we are in the midst of it, especially where we are situated at the moment. It is so different to even, say, ten years ago, the structure and labels and distribution are all changing by the month. I think in some ways things are more difficult, then some things are more easy. It is definitely easier to get your music initially out there now, you can release digitally, and it is easier to get music out in the sphere, but I don’t know if that is for the best or not. It’s hard to tell, people still buy records now, but people are buying less physical records, though there is a broader network of music than ten years ago, when it was focused on fanzines and publications that perhaps weren’t graspable.

Someone I really admire is Dean Wareham, who has continued to be creative, within the changing landscape, it must be heartwarming that he is such a present and supportive fan of yours.

I think Dean has been so impressive to be able to do that, and maintain a personal and purposeful direction, when all of this other stuff has been going around. He has been so great to us, and it really means when people like him or Sonic Boom let us know that they like what we are doing, we deeply appreciate it, especially because these are people that we have long admired.

Water as a metaphor keeps cropping up in Brad’s lyrics, I wonder if in some ways that is because you are all living in such a big city, and nature takes on a more abstract form?

Certainly! I think living in such a large city means I have a very different relationship to nature, it becomes more abstract and distant than if I were living somewhere more rural, where it would be a tangible, more everyday thing. So living in a big city, I think nature can take on this metaphorical and mythical quality.

New York itself has become a kind of metaphor and mythical as well, especially for musicians, do you feel that quite keenly?

Definitely. I moved here in 1997, so in some respects it is what I am used to in terms of living, but it is also an ever-changing city. I think we are all somewhat less inclined to go out and be midnight revellers [laughs] but it definitely plays a part in what we do, I don’t know how necessarily thought out it is as much as us not being able to help it shape our music. There is a certain urban quality that runs through New York, and its history has always played with that, for example a certain kind of drone music has come from that, and there have been outgrowths of other kinds of music from that. With us, its influence is not necessarily planned, but you somehow find yourself usurping these things that are already there, specific sounds in New York that you hear in your daily life.

That’s interesting, because it is an unconscious thing, and I remember reading that a lot of Brad’s lyrics come from his dreams, and that one of the verses of ‘Through the Floor’ actually came from something he woke up saying.

I think for Brad a lot of the lyrics come for dreams, he is very conscious of the unconscious [laughs]. A lot of lyrics on this new record comes from dreams, he logs them down and gets songs from them, it is a fairly potent thing. It is probably a literal lyrical thing more than musical content, though.

The musical content is so layered, it has a kind of swirling, all-conquering effect.

Thank you, that is something that we have tried to attain. A lot of the songs are mainly within cohesive pop song structures, but within that again there is a relationship to a more abstract sound that works on a less literal, conscious level. It is one thing we try to do – have that dialogue, and then eliminate both sides from a different perspective again.

Is that tricky to navigate live?

We do some rehearsing, but not a lot. Some songs are a bit difficult. There are a few different ways these things can go – some of the songs we have been playing live for a couple of years, and when we went to record them we switched some things around to make them more interesting for the recorded version, but then there were some songs that weren’t fully formed at all,but when we recorded them they took shape, so we had to learn how to play those songs live more than the others. The new record really has a mixture of both kinds of sets of songs, so there is no one real answer! Though through playing a lot this summer I think we are comfortable playing them now, at least I hope so [laughs].

Crystal Stilts “Through The Floor” from Slumberland Records on Vimeo.

More Information

• Stream their new Radiant Door EP here 
• Read more about their Dublin show taking place in the Grand Social on Friday 4th November 

David Colohan has operated under the name Agitated Radio Pilot since 1993. The development of a new approach based on field-recordings, shapenote singing, loops and synths, and coloured by an interest in Hasidic mysticism, prompted the winding up of that project and the adoption of a new identity: Raising Holy Sparks.

The debut release ‘Beyond the Unnamed Bay’ features a pair of side-long suites made up of songs and instrumentals. The well-crafted balladry of Here Begins Our Lasting Joy will be familiar to fans of ARP’s World Winding Down album, while the lengthy The Depths of Bailey Point follows on from the abstract and atmospheric works found on The Lunar Arcane and The Days and Hills Grown Old. However the synth-pop stylings of As Far As We Can Go presents Colohan’s songwriting in an unexpected new context.

The album draws together the strands of Colohan’s earlier music into a more cohesive whole and a richer sonic palette, aided by Vicky Langan (Wölflinge, United Bible Studies) and Declan Q Kelly, with guest appearances including Stefan Neville (Pumice), Richard Moult and Audrey Ryan. The cassette includes a download code, and the cover art features the RHS logo designed by Oscar Strik.

Beyond The Unnamed Bay by Raising Holy Sparks

David Colohan: 6 & 12 string acoustic guitars, Appalachian dulcimer, autoharp, bugle, Casio CA-110, electric guitar, electronic shruti box, field recordings, harmonium, Hohner Organetta, Mandobird, mandocello, piano, tapes, voice. Samples: ARP Odyssey, EMU Modulator, EMS Synthi 100, Fairlight, Glass Armonica, Mellotron, Ondes Martenot, Synclavier & Univox Rhythmer.

Vicky Langan: RCA Theremin, voice.

Declan Q Kelly: chord organ, field recordings, horn, pipe.

with

• Richard Moult: voice ( II, VI )
• Paul Condon: Monotron ( IV, VIII, IX )
• Kevin Kennedy: Qualpex 3/4” barrier pipe ( III, VIII )
• Stefan Neville: acoustic guitar ( I )
• Aaron Coyne: ukelin ( IV )
• Audrey Ryan: voice ( III )

Oscar Strik: cover image Words & music by Raising Holy Sparks except Hallelujah – words by Charles Wesley (1759) & arrangement by William Walker (1835) Recorded in Ballymahon, Cork, Dublin, Galway, Minneapolis & Star Hill.

Fort Evil Fruit

Fort Evil Fruit is an Irish-based cassette label dealing in psych, metal, whatever

Now available:
FEF1 — RAISING HOLY SPARKS – Beyond the Unnamed Bay
FEF2 — UNITED BIBLE STUDIES – The Dreamlike States of…

Available from:

• Into the Void (Dublin)
  https://www.facebook.com/IntoTheVoidRecords
• Loki Records (Dublin)
  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Loki-Records/120940054593910
• Elastic Witch (Dublin)
  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Elastic-Witch/181940095188618
• Plugd (Cork)
  https://www.facebook.com/pages/plugd/163945017374

More info on stockists, distro and mail order soon. Send any queries to fortevilfruit@gmail.com

Sacred Bones is elated to present a new EP from a NY band that has been very near and dear to our hearts for many years now, the Crystal Stilts. Recorded in early 2011 by Gary Olson, with the band’s guitarist JB Townsend producing, Radiant Door unveils some of the Stilts’ most dynamic recordings to date. The album features the beguiling blend of romanticism and mystery that one expects from singer and lyricist Brad Hargett.

Radiant Door reflects the band’s experiments with specific ideas in the studio and what they’ve been excited about and listening to, including Blue Orchids, Sanford Clark, and many more. Opening track “Dark Eyes” may be their strongest song to date, unshackling them from their fuzzy reputation, which, even at its heaviest, could never obscure one from this bands dexterous song-craft.

This has been a remarkable year for the band, including the release of their sophomore full-length, In Love With Oblivion, to rave reviews, and almost continual touring since. Fall plans consist mostly of staying close to home and working on new material, with some additional US and European touring scheduled for November.

Released by: Sacred Bones Records 
Release/catalogue number: SBR-064
Release date: Nov 15, 2011