‘Drones and Piles’ emerged as a reinterpreted live version #13 of a composition from ‘Drones and Drolls’, with 12 previous versions first appearing on the concept album ‘Le Batteur Est Le Meilleur Ami Du Musicien’ by Piles drummer Guigou Chevenier.
Based in the French cities of Nancy and Avignon, Piles is comprised of Guigou Chevenier (Etron Fou Leloublan, Volapük), Anthony Laguerre (Filiamotsa, Club Cactus, Myotis), and Michel Deltruc (Isle-Adam 95, NAJA Nancy Jazz Action). In 2016, Chevenier had the idea for Piles to continue his musical work with experimental trio ‘Les Batteries’ between 1985 and 2000. This drum trio also involved British drummer Charles Hayward and American drummer Rick Brown. Piles’ three drummers have long and rich careers.
‘Una Volta’ is a knock-out record of eight drum sound compositions, revealing secrets of the universe that are written in light. Abstract instrumental, this collection of tracks was created by three friends who teamed up especially for this recording.
Piles’ sound is a free fall into the universe of energetic beats, rhythm, dynamics, repetition of the unexpected. It is an adventure that reveals the hidden depths of their sound spectrum of acoustic drums.
Piles’ drumming is shaped by their individual musical roads by life, architecture, landscapes, nature, politics, film, art, dance and theater. By seeing and hearing the rhythm in all that surrounds us. Taking inspiration from krautrock, free jazz, and improv, they are also influenced by Can, Dave Grohl, Arvo Part, Drumbo (of Captain Beefheart), Robert Wyatt, Abe Cunningham, Jimmy Chamberlain, Jon Theodore, Joe Baron and many others.
Piles ‘Una Volta’ CD is accompanied by a 32-page booklet based on the graphic stop-motion video ‘Drones and Piles’, created by graphic artist Bas Mantel. The visuals were created to the music in the same way the scenes of Eisenstein’s1938 film ‘Alexandre Nevski’ was directed totally based on the rhythm of the music of Sergei Prokofiev.
The rhythmic and fragmentary style of the black and white images exposes the art of dance with Lettraset, dots-dots-dots, molecules transmitting life and death, cells constructing shapes and graphic radiowaves translated into frequencies and velocity, repetition in electromagnetic patterns, and the isolation of getting lost in outer space.
Like Piles’ drum-based sound, these graphic designs are frightening, direct, loud/quiet, raw, layered, fragmentary, abstract and experimental. REV. Lab founder Bas Mantel felt Piles would be a perfect fit for the REV. Lab. series, released jointly with Aagoo Records.
‘Una Volta’ is a limited release of 300 copies, including a CD with book carefully packed in a semi-transparent glassine bag. As of September 21, it will be available via online stores and streaming platforms, but can already be ordered from Aagoo Records’ website and digitally via Bandcamp.
LINKS:
http://www.revlaboratories.com
https://www.facebook.com/revlabrecords
https://revlabrecords.bandcamp.com
https://www.soundcloud.com/revlab
https://www.vimeo.com/revlab
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCorO-e4Y06ICQ67dhV6LsNA
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Submotile – Eastern Sky Sundown
Dublin-based dream-gaze noiseniks Submotile present their debut album ‘Ghosts Fade on Skylines’. Released digitally on April 16, the Midsummer Madness label will also be issuing the album in a limited edition run this summer.
On this 9-track offering, the duo blurs the lines between shoegaze, pop, noise-rock, ambient and post-rock, Submotile delivers a unique brand of layered, atmospheric and immersive indie rock.
Submotile are Michael Farren and Daniela Angione, an Italian-Irish couple who call the Irish capital their home. Now full-on hybrid in their sounds, defying genre pigeonholing, Submotile were initially conceived as an ambient, experimental project.
The duo evolved its sound considerably once Daniela began to add vocals to Michael’s guitar experiments, yielding their first proper collaborative track ‘Signs of My Melody’. The well-received debut EP ‘We’re Losing The Light’ followed, gaining the band significant interest in the shoegaze community. This encouraged them to pursue their dream of recording a proper album. ‘Ghosts Fade on Skylines’ is the culmination of nine months of recording – from August 2018 to March 2019.
“We wanted an album that ebbed and flowed, with nine diverse songs that complimented each other without being too different from each other. The idea behind the music is to express the dualism of warmth over hostility, passion over frustration, all these dynamics projected onto a sense of hope and renaissance. I’m not sure if we succeeded, but hopefully it works,” says Daniela Angione.
Recorded and produced by Submotile in their home studio, this album was mastered by Brian Lucey from Magic Garden Mastering, well known for his work with Ringo Deathstarr, Sigur Ros, Liam Gallager, Marilyn Manson, Neko Case and The Black Keys, among others.
“Having quit music in 2009 due to the frustration of never having been able to translate the sounds in my head to tape, ‘Ghosts Fade on Skylines’ was recorded during a wonderful period of rebirth and rejuvenation, a period where I was discovering all the great new music that was out there, whilst simultaneously finding out just how far music production technology had evolved,” explains Michael Farren.
“This evolution allowed us to come that bit closer to the sound in our heads, enabling us to labor over songs, adding hundreds of tracks and experimenting with samples, guitar pedals and tones – many a happy hour was whiled away tracking this music. If someone out there enjoys listening to it a fraction as much as we enjoyed making it, then to me it’ll be a success.”
Submotile’s music is influenced by numerous artists, including My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Warpaint, Smashing Pumpkins, Massive Attack, Swans, Spiritualized, Sonic Youth, Nirvana, and Stars of the Lid.
Michael Farren adds: “It’s not an understatement to say that we obsessively labored over this album, with most songs having well in excess of 120 tracks (with ‘Winter Storm Sequence’ having 167). The vocal mixing alone on some songs took over six days. We wanted something that lent itself well to headphone listening, creating an immersive experience that reveals new layers on repeat listens, yet hopefully without sounding like an overblown, excessive mess.”
‘Ghosts Fade on Skylines’ is available now for streaming via Spotify and from stores such as iTunes, as well as the duo’s own Bandcamp.
LINKS:
https://submotile.com
https://www.facebook.com/submotile
https://twitter.com/submotile
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_EuA0D1DTO2nz0GcfvqeyA/videos
https://www.instagram.com/submotile16
https://open.spotify.com/artist/28aLk8jR0vvmYWJnPL8Q66
https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/submotile/1369284602 -
She Made Me Do It – Fun And Games
That perfect blend of dark, dirty, dance, and dirt is what you get with She Made Me Do It and their new single titled ‘Fun and Games’. The track grits your teeth as it grabs your gravy and forces you on the floor with moves that may embarrass you but enrapture your entourage. Beauty is a bitch and she made me do it.
‘Fun and Games’ was produced by Will Crewdson and mixed to perfection by the legendary John Fryer (Depeche Mode, This Mortal Coil, Fad Gadget, Love and Rockets).
The single will be released on all major streaming and download platforms on 6th September 2019.
About She Made Me Do It
Stylish and powerfully intense London outfit She Made Me Do It present their new single ‘Fun and Games’. A slamming, instant Electro Rock classic with heavy pop sensibilities.The sultry vocals of Shaheena Dax (Rachel Stamp) underpin the whole 3-minute rush while Will Crewdson (Rachel Stamp/Adam Ant band) thrashes away on guitar as a man possessed.
Shaheena and Will met when they both played in the Rock band Rachel Stamp. Bouncing song ideas off each other in that band it seemed natural to carry on as Shaheena moved from the keyboards to lead vocals and bass. Two albums, various EP’s and singles later they have sharpened their sound into a killer aural punch which is embellished by the addition of Joe Holweger – also from Adam Ant’s band – on drums.
LINKS:
https://shemmdi.com
https://www.facebook.com/shemademedoitpage
https://instagram.com/shemmdi
https://twitter.com/shemmdi -
Folk Devils – Forever
Folk Devils, the London group that took their name from a well-known academic text on media scapegoating*, have returned with their first new music in 33 years. The band blazed a trail across the UK’s independent music scene of the mid-80s with their unique brand of post-punk energy, known for their acclaimed indie-chart singles “Hank Turns Blue”, “Beautiful Monster”, three John Peel sessions, plus live dates opening for Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The Fall, The Gun Club, Screaming Blue Messiahs, and others.
The 3-track “Forever” EP lands on 10” (Clear Red Vinyl)^ and Digital on September 18, 2020, via Optic Nerve Recordings and features two new compositions, the title track “Forever” and “My Slum Soul”, plus an incendiary new version of an old live favorite “Ink Runs Dry”.
Recorded at London’s famous Konk Studios in North London and mixed and co-produced by Grammy Award-winning engineer Rik Simpson, the re-born Folk Devils drew inspiration for new recordings from the release of their 2016 career retrospective “Beautiful Monsters (Singles & Demo Recordings 1984-86)” and the excellent reactions at subsequent live shows around the UK with kindred spirits Membranes, Inca Babies, The Wolfhounds, and The Cravats.
Founder members, guitarist Kris Jozajtis and bassist Mark Whiteley, reformed the group by recruiting members of a short-lived 1987 version of Folk Devils; guitarist Nick Clift and drummer John Hamilton.
Together with singer Dave Hodgson they soon discovered they had created a well-oiled twin-guitar juggernaut that brimmed with the same restless, twisted blues that characterized the first and second iterations of the band from 1983-87 when they were fronted by the highly underrated and now sadly-departed singer/songwriter Ian Lowery.
Hodgson, a fellow transplant from the North-East, had known Lowery in the early 80s prior to Folk Devils when the two were in their respective post-punk bands Ski Patrol and Parting Shots.
LINKS:
https://www.facebook.com/FolkDevilsUK
https://twitter.com/Folk_Devils_UK
https://www.instagram.com/folk_devils_uk
https://folkdevils.bandcamp.com