Kranky Records
Album Review: Earthen Sea –‘Recollection’: Blissful ambient techno with a deeper trip-hop flow.
Jacob Long’s musical journey has wound from seminal Dischord post-hardcore band Black Eyes through the deep dub rhythmics of Mi Ami to arriving, around 2014, in more greyscale/ambient landscapes with his aka Earthen Sea. From this point Long’s sound documents have mapped a pathway from home studio sketches to his first album ‘Ink’ on Lovers …
Track: Restless ambient artist Earthen Sea announces new album ‘Recollection’ with a luscious and loose double preview.
You may recall the name Jacob Long as a member of the seminal Dischord band Black Eyes, a group who defined post-hardcore’s in-built non-conformity. Such a starting point inevitably embedded unorthodoxy in his music making and his next excursion with the deep dub rhythmics of Mi Ami only underlined his disinclination to stand in line. …
Album Review: Belong – ‘Realistic IX’: The illusive ambient-shoegaze duo return, their deceptive power undiminished.
Things may come and things may go but the shoegaze dance still unravels. Thirty years on from a time when Catherine Wheel were possibly the most important thing in the world to a small herd of droopy fringed teenagers, some of the scene’s more prominent pioneers have been having another moment. Ride have heaved themselves …
Track/Video : Illusive and illustrious shoegaze duo Belong return to announce new album ‘Realistic IX’.
New Orleans ambient shoegaze duo Belong might come across as determinedly illusive, maybe even deliberately opaque. Their music seems to arrive from nowhere, marked by increasing time voids between each release and then, almost as succinctly, Turk Dietrich and Michael Jones (a.k.a Belong) disappear. Their debut album, the underground classic ‘October Language’ emerged in 2006, …
Album Review: Christina Vantzou -‘No. 5’: astonishing ambient-classical story telling.
Visual artist, experimental film-maker and ambient classical composer Christina Vantzou works with a method. Following her beginnings as one half of ‘The Dead Texan’ with Adam Wiltzie (Stars of the Lid), she has devoted herself to a series of lengthy projects lovingly documented on the seminal Kranky label. These recordings have revealed themselves with careful …
Track/Video: Eminent composer and film-maker Christina Vantzou previews album ‘No 5’ with the radiant ‘Reclining Figures’.
If you are looking to explore a ‘body of work’ rather than a plain old back catalogue then Christina Vantzou’s CV will see you right. The composer, artist and experimental film-maker has been engaged in the refinement of sound and vision since her 2004 collaborative release ‘The Dead Texan’ with Adam Wiltzie (Stars of the …
Album Review: Earthen Sea – Ghost Poems: subtle, sensitive, soulful electronica.
Jacob Long (aka Earthen Sea) has a musical provenance that inevitably draws you in to take a look. He’s been a member of the Dischord endorsed, post-hardcore agitators Black Eyes, injected sax and bass to the electro-dub, No-wave work-outs of Mi Ami and since 2014 released less abrasive sounds as Earthen Sea, probing ever deeper …