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Friday, August 21, 2009

Graveyards - Screwed & Chopped (Brokenresearch, 2009) ****

Of all the upcoming releases on Brokenresearch, this one of Graveyards is without a doubt one of the most powerful ones. The band consists of John Olson on reeds with Ben Hall on percussion and noise, Hans Buetow on cello and Chris Riggs on electric guitar. The music is close to impossible to describe : it sounds like the soundtrack for a horror movie, all doom and gloom, with slow, very slow sound explorations, full of reverb and cathedral-like echoes. Don't even think about melody, rhythm or anything close to jazz, because all you get is endless scraping sounds and odd percussion, like screeching doors, cracking wood, short drones, repetitive industrial beats, alternated with what comes close to animal-like roars, wails, but then just that notch too unfamiliar to classify them, to define their origin, taking away all footholds and even the possibility of getting to know what is going on. It sounds creepy and scary. It does. The listening experience comes close to the reading experience of Mark Z. Danielewski's "House Of Leaves". For those who have read the book : to me this is what you hear in the endless labyrinth below the house. Really strong stuff.

(sorry for the artwork above : because this is an LP, I had to scan it in two parts on my scanner and then re-assemble).

© stef

4 comments:

josh malamy said...

so ... these are really gonna be released soon?

Anonymous said...

josh,

I feel the same.No response at Brokenreasearch...

If you google around,you can find SMALL distributors carrying some of their discs(far superior than most reviewed,here)

Found some great ones-
Ex-Graveyards- "Mourning Light"

Ben Hall,Mike Khory,John Voigt-
"Horizon"

Traum-"Cinder Blocks"

Geg Kelly w/Hell & Bunny-"Burn It Down For The Nails"

Also on bug incision:

Traum-

"Tanto Impresos Como Sistemas"


And,a couple of killer discs(5-stars,easy) from these guys-

"Over The Transom"-
Jack Wright w/Hell & Bunny

"Deburring Tool"-
Jack Wright w/Tony Dryer,Jacob Felix Heule

Bill

josh malamy said...

thanks bill for the info. the new releases are out: http://www.brokenresearch.com/.

Anonymous said...

At last,Josh!,and I would like to thank,stef("old man",I could be your dad:-)for giving Graveyards/Brokenresearch this well-earned exposure!!! Excellent music,but difficult to collect.Managed to get a recent Graveyards' CD,"Ceilings Uneven" from a limited edition of 15 copies...

Bill