lefolk – Isn’t this dangerous?

Ambient & Experimental, Review by Genre // By: alancloseAuthor: alan Email: alan@netlabelism.com
More Authors Posts (12) // 15/05/2013 // No Comments

I look forward to releases on the Resting Bell Netlabel as they seem always able to deliver a product that is a deep breath, an expansive thought, or a calming pill to my every day. One of the more recent releases available from Resting Bell, lefolk’s 8 track “isn’t this dangerous?”, made its debut in January. Since then I have found the release has made its way onto my iPod, home stereo, and multiple radio show playlists more often than many releases do. Whenever this happens I have to take pause and ask, “Why?”, as there is an exceedingly large amount of new music that comes across my digital doorstep every week and for something to take hold in my synapses and not be shaken free, to be soon forgotten, is not a simple occurrence.

lefolk (yes all lowercase) is audio/video artist Leif Folkvord of Ann Arbor, Michigan USA. He has released a previous album “intermitter” on NKR. The new release “isn’t this dangerous?”  is described, on the Resting Bell Netlabel website, as “a deep and moving 48-minute journey. A fading structure and slight beats in the back, layered with organic drones and soundscapes and melodic sprinkles, hisses and crackles on top. The album is inspired by the stories of the ‘lost cosmonauts’. Whether true or not, lefolk is fascinated by the idea of souls who gave their lives in the pursuit of expanding the limits of mankind’s reach, yet have been forgotten to history or ignored altogether.”

Now here is what I believe allows “isn’t it dangerous” to stand out a bit in the sea of organic drones and glitch ambient. Too often artists in these genres pour out tracks which could be easily interchangeable – the glitchy electronic clicks and pops and scratches, the single tone drone with wave after wave of slight shifting wind blowing in my empty head, the “ambient” recording that is really just a slowed down techno release (that is a whole other rant I’ll save for another day or drunken tirade which you may all hope to avoid). Many of those releases lack variety and depth. The inability to feel each track as a separate entity processing a soul of its own, and at the same time an entire release of these tracks lacking a cohesive “story” or emotive thread to tie them all together, allows them to too easily become a collection of seemingly unfinished  studio experiments.

Leif Folkvord has managed, with this release, to find a story that ties his tracks together. The drones of equipment and inner thoughts, as these cosmonauts hurtled through space or floated alone in emptiness, coupled with the glitched call and response of circuits and support aboard their craft or inside their suits give the listener a feeling for the vastness and reflection of their experience. The subtle beats carry the drone and glitch compositions forward, or outward, into the universe, supplying the tracks with movement and a path rather than just leaving them to roil in on themselves, becoming self-consuming emptiness.

The cosmonauts hailed in each track seem less lost or desperate, with their lives emptied of earthly bonds. Their souls seem to have become more expansive and limitless, united with the universe,  through lefolk’s compositions.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Link to Release Page [RB116]

Explore more of lefolk’s audio and video releases at http://www.lefolk.com

Idiot Queen – Self Titled [mi194]

Ambient & Experimental, Indie & Indietronica, Singer Songwriter // By: alancloseAuthor: alan Email: alan@netlabelism.com
More Authors Posts (12) // 30/06/2012 // No Comments

Dawn Mendonça is a member of a focused, small art collective known as the Idiot Society in which she reigns as Idiot Queen. While not initially sounding as a glamorous title it takes but a single listen to her latest recorded works to realize her position of  royalty is a well deserved and earned one while the label of “idiot” is apparently all tongue in cheek. The musical moniker of painter, photographer, musician Dawn Mendonça, Idiot Queen, has been compared to both Laurie Anderson and Anne Clark. As a musical artist she explores electronic sounds and dabbles in collage, dissonance and cleverly crafted repetition.  The songs and musical yarns are built out of electronics, sampled acoustic instruments, looped samples, and a vocal quality closer to storytelling than singing.  “Love and loss, the absurd and the divine are the broad themes Idiot Queen explores in this release for MiMi Records”.

Idiot Queen initially  presents as having the qualities of many similar past experimental releases, primarily due to the  somewhat rudimentary quality of the looped rhythms and synth patches coupled with breathy and disembodied “spoken” word.  While simple in technique, the structure of her tracks are compelling enough to not fall into the realm of ridiculous retro and this release is far from a throw away effort standing far above many similar attempts within this genre’s past.

Dawn Mendonça’s experimentations with painting, photography, writing and music lend part to her musical approach through a visual language utilized in her  compositions. She draws us in to a palpable scene for each song, creating a mood or environment for the eventual expression of her thoughts an stories. These ventures range from contemplative to absurd and almost mundane as in “I wish I could sing jazz like you”. Overall, each track seems a unique expression of a particular place and feeling, while simultaneously drifting timelessly. What most surprised me about the Idiot Queen release is that it held its own for ten tracks. Each track stood on its own merit and the entire release did not become repetitive or stale as pieces composed in this genre are apt to quickly become.

I always  find it interesting to listen to songs recorded in a language I don’t speak. This usually allows me to hear the music, combined with the emotive qualities of the voice unhampered by the content of the lyrics. The track “Quando passas por mim” is a perfect example of how well this works for me and is a standout favorite of mine. The steady raw looped groove reminds me of what I might expect from a mid-period Massive Attack demo. Her unique vocal style lends a sense of mystery to the track, as it does to most.

Mendonça has cleverly included fellow Idiot Society member Bill Rivers, as we’ll as past collaborator Frederic Choudin to lend their voices to the tracks “The Sun Will Set and Never Rise” and “Amour”, respectively. The collaborative efforts serve to break up the release a slight bit, further preventing it from falling into a stylistic rut and still retain a cohesive flow throughout.

We do not get the chance to hear releases akin to Idiot Queen often, at least not releases that are compelling and can hold up to more than one listen. I commend  Dawn Mendonça for her efforts and achievements generating such a compelling collection of tracks. I see a very unique talent here that I hope to see grow and nurtured artistically. I believe she has only just begun to explore the textures and possibilities of her potential sound palette and I look forward to hearing more from her and the Idiot Collective in the future.

Idiot Queen – Quando passas por mim

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Deep link to release page

Radio for the Daydreamers – Mother Superior and Her Fields of Migraine [Elpa 76]

Ambient & Experimental, Audio // By: alancloseAuthor: alan Email: alan@netlabelism.com
More Authors Posts (12) // 10/11/2011 // No Comments

Radio for the Daydreamers is an experimental band based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They state their musical intentions as “creating a cinematic amalgamation of suspense, horror and thrillers.”

Radio for the Daydreamers’ latest release, ‘Mother Superior and Her Fields of Migraine’, is their first release since their 2009′s “Clouds of Smoke and Poison”. While it has been two years since we have heard from them, it has been well worth the wait and the latest release heralds the start of the planned “Praying for the be(a)st”, a triptych following a creative non-fiction story of a Faustian character.

The release notes for this first installment state, “Our intentions with this album, were to take elements from avant garde jazz, classical music, black metal and electronic music and create an amalgamation.” (there’s that word – amalgamation – again) It is very rare that any band can cross these genres and do so effectively and still hold true to a theme within their work. ‘Mother Superior and Her Fields of Migraine’ proves,  without a doubt, that Radio for the Daydreamers can not only cross these genres but can do so effectively and elegantly and add in a few more genres than they even care to mention (dubstep and rock). Their ability to allow the music to unfold the narrative of a complex story is a rare gift that very few contemporary artists seem to possess. We have for years listened to concept albums that seemingly make sense only to those who wrote them, or suffered through the over indulgent rock operas, and withstood ridiculously anthemic or repetitive musical soundtracks in theater. The other side of the coin is artists who are asked to created the soundtrack for a film after the fact, leaving the music to tell less of the story and serve more as an accompaniment or embellishment. With ‘Mother Superior and Her Fields of Migraine’ we are able to listen to a piece of music and draw out the storyline or the characters and follow them emotionally through a plot line that only exists within the music.

The artists share:

“This section tells the story of our character indulging in misery, self-realization, seclusion, developing phobias, anxieties and a need to break out to help his own mind. Accepting negativities, even though it is clear that the consequences of those negativities would be grim. To accept evil just to get some purpose. This section of the story takes place in a single room.”

I feel the artists do give a little too much away in their release notes and I think knowing less upon first listen allowed the story to build without limitations. Each track seems to flow together in a cinematic way allowing the listener to explore a variety of feelings and emotions…vastly different in approach, each track is unique and individual. While most of the tracks seem a distinct part of the whole I was a little disappointed by “I am Not Coming Back Home”, a vocal selection that seems to lay outside the thematic flow and really does break this installment of the triptych into two distinct pieces. My first impression was that the  inclusion of a vocal piece amidst the instrumentals maybe have thrown off the intended flow, however another vocal track “Curl Up, Time to Die” is very effective in adding to building the overall narrative and stands out as one of the strong tracks on the album. “Curl Up, Time to Die” is short, sweet, haunting, mysterious – and the follow-up track “Praying for the Be(a)st” brings home a slightly discordant fear that has crept through the entire release’s range of emotions.

There is a video released for the track “Wasted Faces in Secret Places”  -  a song about the “silent-silver-sandals of desolation”. The director, Teresa Tam, has expanded on the theme of the song by taking a unique perspective of her own which holds true to the emotional aspects of the track.

Radio for the Daydreamers are of rare musical storytelling talent and  have started their triptych on the right foot. I am eager to hear how the story unfolds and hopeful that they can maintain the flow they have created and continue to produce with the compositional skills they have presented in this first installment.

Radio for the Daydreamers – Magentar Mephisto

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Deep link to the release page