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All Aphonia Recs fans should know who Agnes Szelag is by now. Not only has she released a solo EP “No Summer Or Winter” a couple of years back but also joined forces with The Norman Conquest as Dokuro. Now Ms. Szelag returns with an even more ambitious project entitled Evon “The Bees Are Coming.” It is her first full length on Aphonia and is available on compact disc or download now. From the official press release of “The Bees Are Coming”:
Heartfelt performances on cello, guzheng, and voice dance on a bed of intimately interwoven arrangements creating a lush combination of rock, classical, and folk genres with leanings in the avant-garde. Agnes’s unique instrumentation is further augmented by her distinct recording style and electronic sculpting.
Following the textural 2008 release No Summer or Winter (Aphonia Recordings), this album explores Szelag’s songwriting under the pseudonym Evon. The varied song forms intertwine with complex compositions containing the haunting, cinematic elements that Szelag is known for and that show up on her recent release The Amber Sea (Digitalis 2009) with Marielle Jakobsons as myrmyr.
Szelag’s focus in this record was to create a unified band sound that is moody and unpredictable but also very deliberate and delicate. Using her intuition for what should be written and what should be improvised, she displays her multi-instrumentalistism and production craft as she blends her performances with those of Jordan Glenn (drums), Shayna Dunkelman (marimba), Jon Porras (guitar), Alee Karim (guitar), Jason Hoopes (doublebass), and The Norman Conquest (various). The end result is a very eclectic but unified sound backing Szelag’s velvety voice.
Today Aphonia Recordings presents a very unique re-release of Portland’s folky favorite, Nucular Aminals self-titled debut (AR031CD). What is special about this new limited release is not only the fact that each disc is has hand printed artwork making each disc one of a kind, but most notably the two new bonus tracks, Blood Love and Kitty Pity – never available before!
These numbered and limited release CDs will be available only on Aphonia Recordings website and at shows on Nucular Aminals upcoming tour. See Nucular Aminals Myspace for tour dates in your area!
Hello Everyone!
A blitz of new physical and digital releases will coming your way in the next few months. First, longtime friend and cohort of Aphonia Recordings, Bill Horist is releasing The Psoriasis Coast (AR033CD) a full length CD (and download) available now from the Aphonia Recordings website. A marriage of density, loudness and sparsity Psoriasis is a fantastically conceived album and definitely a familiarly awesome sound treat from one of Seattle’s preeminent experimental performers.
Also in the pipeline is a re-release of Aphonia Recordings folky favorite, Nucular Aminals self-titled debut (AR031CD). What is special about this new limited release is not only the fact that each disc is has hand printed artwork making each disc one of a kind, but most notably the two new bonus tracks, Blood Love and Kitty Pity. These numbered and limited release CDs will be available only on Aphonia Recordings website and at shows on Nucular Aminals upcoming tour. See Nucular Aminals Myspace for tour dates in your area!
And last, but not least, Aphonia showcase stalwart and recording artists, L.A. Lungs (AR028CD) will be releasing an all new collection of tracks entitled How Far Our Feelings Will Fling Us. Like other Aphonia CDs it will be available only through the artists and through Aphonia’s website. It is an exciting full length album that travels down musical roads not yet charted for the psychedelic and drone oriented. Not all is drone-y on this release however, as L.A. Lungs provide a secret hideaway for private and cool mental meanderings that are neither static nor particularly cluttered. Masterfully collected and perpetrated sonorousness. Due out in July!
The Psoriasis Coast: while representing more familiar territory to those who know Bill’s work, indicates a different direction than previous records. Inspired in part by W.G. Sebald’s “The Rings of Saturn”, this record imagines an coastline in the midst of an interregnum between the end of a sentient species’ existence and the birth of a primal structure from which a new order will evolve. This is an itchy and decrepit place as the emblems of previous enterprise slough back into the ineluctable resilience of nature outside our own. Passages of dense noise and wailing are balanced by dolorous moments of stillness and quietude.
Come to Bill’s dual release party for The Psoriasis Coast and Covalent Lodge (available in CD/LP/download at northpolerecords.com) on Friday June 11 in the acoustically sublime chapel at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford.
Chapel at the Good Shepherd Center, 4649 Sunnyside Ave N, SEATTLE, 8pm, ALL AGES!
Famed cellist Derek M. Johnson (Olympia, Wash.) and Aphonia Recordings co-founder Andrew Senna (Seattle, Wash.) are to begin touring the western United States this February. These two longtime friends and musical companions begin their tour in San Francisco on February 19th. You can check their Myspace pages out for full tour listings to see if they will be in a town near you:
These guys will be serving up both melodic and droning noise for your aural appetite. Derek employs hand treated slides projected on an enormous screen to augment the expansive sounds he derives from his carbon fiber cello.
Andrew on the other hand will be colliding field recordings, analog synth warbles and spacious rolling electrified folk songs out towards the mountains.
This is the first tour both have them set out on, so go out and support them, buy their CDs and enjoy what will most likely be a provocative and nutritious musical buffet.
Pick up a Stranger or click here to read about our upcoming showcase at Josephine.
Hello Everyone!
I am happy to inform you all of Aphonia Recordings next showcase on January 10th at the Josephine in Ballard – that’s 01/10/10. That’s a lot of 1’s and 0’s… very binary. Anyways, we have sonic buffet of a variety that hopefully will be an auspicious beginning to a year that I think everyone hopes will be better than the last one. So don’t forget, Sunday January 10th, 2010 at the Josephine in Ballard: 608 NW 65th St N Seattle, Washington 98117… Read on about our featured artists this time around! I know its short notice, deal with it.
MANGLED BOHEMIANS
Mangled Bohemians (PDX) are an intensely atmospheric two-piece band featuring massively effected guitar and electronics. Mining heavily from the post-punk tradition of the likes of Glenn Branca, Savage Republic , Heathen Earth era Throbbing Gristle, and Sonic Youth’s SYR releases, Mangled Bohemians create long spacey drones that melt into beautiful washes & pseudo-melodies.
LUBE FONDUE
What started out as a collaborative effort for Butoh dance & sound between Casey Jones (Noisepoetnobody) and Briana Chittenden turned into a string of performances 3 years long. Eventually the situation blossomed into a romance story full of art, dance, noise & an outdoor wedding. Trained as a butoh dancer Briana incorporates experiences in movement art into a new medium seamlessly blending the boundaries between frequency and motion. Instrument builder and electronic musician Casey collects sounds from small peaces of metal, strings, springs, rocks, sea shells, kitchen tools & more with a hand soldered contact microphone.
NEW RED SUN
Seattle-based drone group New Red Sun weave delicate melodies into densely shifting tapestries, from violin, guitar, and interlocking feedback. Drawing on a diverse palette, NRS includes elements of folk, drone, black metal & noise. NRS self-released their debut EP “Riding the Slow Wave of Death” in October ’09 and will be releasing a more extended follow-up on Albuquerque’s Featherspines label. NRS work is especially informed by the acts with which they’ve been fortunate enough to share bills, including Dragging an Ox Through Water, Barn Owl, Bill Horist, Novemthree, Elm, honey.moon.tree, Dr. Jones, Thunder Grey Pilgrim, Vivimancer, Higuma, Violet, Groves, I Died, Hobby Knife, Shurpa, Tempered Steel, Cult of Zir, Sleeping with the Earth, Prion, Dementia, Split Horizon, Groves, Travis Johns, Derek M. Johnson, Vradiazei, and more.
You see? You can’t miss it! See you there!
Sincerely,
Andrew Senna
Co-Founder
Aphonia Recordings
It has been an interesting year and as we look towards cooler days and longer nights I would like to direct you to enjoy some aural treats at the next Aphonia Recordings Showcase on November 6th. We are on home turf again at Gallery 1412 in Seattle’s central district. For more info on Gallery 1412 click here.
This time around we have some old friends as well as visiting new friends. Most of you will recognize experimental cellist Derek M. Johnson, an Aphonia stalwart, having played at more of our showcases than nearly any other of our artists. Mr. Johnson wears many hats, so were never quite sure what he’ll be up to. Whether it is his abstract slides electric cello accompaniment, or all acoustic pure improv, Johnson never disappoints. Also, audio manipulator-artist-extraordinaire Pearson Wallace-Hoyt and eclectic violinist Jackie An – both veteran performers to our showcases are reincarnated in the newly formed New Red Sun:
Seattle-based drone group New Red Sun weave delicate melodies into densely shifting tapestries, from violin, guitar, field recordings and feedback. Drawing on a diverse palette, NRS includes elements of folks, drone, metal & noise. NRS has been fortunate to share the stage with artist like Barn Owl, Bill Horist, Novemthree, Elm, honey.moon.tree, Dr. Jones, Thunder Grey Pilgrim, Vivimancer, Higuma, Violet, Groves, I Died, Hobby Knife, Shurpa, Tempered Steel, Cult of Zir, Sleeping with the Earth, Prion, Dementia & Split Horizon. NRS self-released their debut EP “Riding the Slow Wave of Death” in October ’09 in support of their fall West Coast tour and are currently working with Albuquerque’s Feather Spines label on a more extended follow-up.
More about Travis Johns:
Travis Johns is a composer and sound artist from San Francisco, Ca. Using a combination of processed field recordings, sine wave oscillators and analog electronics, he attempts to weave textural gestures, thoughts and experiences into a singular mass of infinite sonic possibilities. Most recently, his work has concerned itself primarily with two notions – namely that of the desolation and excess of human industry, as well as the mysteries and intrigue of the subconscious mind, often sounding something like the distant swarming of well oiled mechanical bees woven with fissures of dark tones and noise rips.
Come out and support these artists at Gallery 1412 in the CD on Friday November 6th. The doors will open at 8PM.
Aphonia Recordings is pleased to present, along with Debacle Records, the new joint release of Mood Organ’s “Visiting a Burning Museum” available for purchase on the Aphonia Recordings website! Chris DeLaurenti of Seattle’s alt weekly The Stranger authors a column called The Score. This week he covers Mood Organ and writes:<br><br>
<block quote>”Mason inscribes his music with poetic details that reward headphone listening: lonesome guitar, rustles of wind, swelling tones, and keyboards that sound like they’re underwater, blurred by shivering eddies and ripples.”</block quote><br><br>
Of course, Timm Mason is Mood Organ and while Aphonia Recordings has hosted many incarnations of Mood Organ’s work we are especially excited for this new release, “Visiting a Burning Museum.” As part of the joint release, Debacle Records has manufactured a very short numbered run of 100 CDs and will be available at local record stores in the Seattle area, such as Wall of Sound and Dissonant Plane – so get yours while they’re hot!<br><br>
And, if you are in the Seattle area Mood Organ will be playing a show at Ballard record store, Dissonant Plane this Friday, August 28th.<br><br>
See you there!
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