the submersible dirigible

Bottling Smoke was Digitalis Industry and Phantom Limb’s first experimental, field-folk festival, featuring the many of the best acts contemporary ambient/experimental music has to offer. Festivals are a dime a dozen these days, some good, some not so good. Bottling Smoke, though, was something special. From an outsider’s perspective, the numerous collaborative performances were the highlight of the festival and a fitting reflection of the communal backbone vital to the contemporary micro-label culture. One glimpse at the Brad Rose or Grant Capes (festival co-curators and Digitalis/Phantom Limb masterminds, respectively) discography is evidence enough of this empowering, internet enabled, globalization of independent, self-produced music. As explained by Sir. Rose, Bottling Smoke was a chance to bring these artists together for the first time, who had previously only been able to collaborate remotely. Tragically, I was unable to attend, so my take on all this can’t be terribly insightful.

Fortunately for me though, Digitalis has produced and recently released the first slew of disks in their new ‘Arroyo’ cdr subscription series. ‘Arroyo‘ is apparently intended to capture and communicate some of BS’s wonder and magic for the rest of us, the geographically deprived.

we were so inspired by the whole of bottling smoke and the people we met, we decided to pour all that into doing a new subscription series. and suffice to say, we’re beyond stoked about this one. we’ve expanded it to 11 CDRs (and you can be sure there’ll be some unannounced bonus surprises again this time) and cranked up the packaging a notch. “arroyo” is about impermanence, which is one of the central ideas behind a lot of this great music… be it through improvisation, one-off performances, or the sometimes impermanent nature of CDRs themselves… there’s something kind of great in that idea, and we’re hoping to shine a bright stinking light on it with “arroyo.” — Brad Rose, Digitalis

Terracid, Taiga Remains, Starving Weirdos and Rose’s own Ajilvsga grace the first mailing of cdrs, shipped out a couple months ago. All four discs are exhausting (and generally rewarding) listens, each lasting between 30-40 minutes. While the journey is half the fun with ambient and drone, enjoying as multiple layers unfold imperceptibly, it’s the shimmering moments of clarity, a song’s aural peak, that makes for a truly rewarding listen.  Rest assured, Arroyo has peaks a plenty, even if the hike get a little exhausting.

Terracid’s ‘Reduxer’ is the most unique of the bunch, a chaotic blend of apocalyptic, lo-fi folk-grunge, improvisational electric screes, and experimental sound collage (it makes for an occasionally confusing listen).  Fans of Michael Donnelly’s Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood or 6majik9 will find plenty to enjoy here, even if there don’t seem to be direct similarities at first glance.  This Terracid release maintains much of Donnelly’s characteristic raw, craggy tribalism.  Besides the compositional or aesthetic similarities, this doesn’t sound much like anything I’ve heard from Terracid, or any of the related side projects. ‘Evacuation of Earth’ style expanses of noisy, screeching guitar are mostly absent from this recording. Standing in for nosier elements is an frantic, collage of radio-dial surfing snippets (I even hear aphex - windowlicker sampled at one point), aleatoric recordings, subdued improvisations, and stunningly beautiful diy folk gems in the spirit of Pumice or CJA.  Somehow, all these pieces are crammed together, and come out sounding remarkably cohesive (in a Jackson Pollock sort of way).  As a whole, ‘Reduxer’ is an simply a pleasure. Stumbling into Terracid’s folk interludes, which occupy only around 10 of the album’s 40minutes, is like discovering some concealed, overgrown forest hollow nestled beside an overpopulated, paved hiking trail. I’ve never heard this side of Terracid before (a glimpse appeared on the Digitalis Golden Leaf Branches comp I suppose - but isolate from the collage context), so it’s a real treat to now hear solid songwriting with the Terracid edge

Anyone who’s heard from the Starving Weirdos, Ajilvsga or Taiga Remains before should know already what to expect from these established artists.  SW’s ‘Live’ is full of familiar anxious, metallic drone. Wailing guitars define the musical skyline here, a foundation for the billowing cloud of wind instruments, percussion, electronics and careful plucking that fill the dingy-grey, crumbling industrial horizon. Of particular note is one track culled directly from the Bottled Smoke festival’s final night at Mr. T’s. Ajilvsga’s (Brad Rose, Nathan Young) ‘Holy Objects’ carves deep glacial canyons of dark-ambient and Sunn/Earth style doom-metal. ‘Let An Omen Be Absent’, the opener, is the lightest of the bunch, a comparatively chilled breeze to the album album’s bulk of slow, guttural, lava-flow pacing. Ashen skies, and a slowly advancing, glowing hot carpet of lava are best capture last two track’s, ‘Recite the Ritual’ and ‘Empty the Ashes’, aesthetic. Taiga Remains spring-scented ambient nicely balances the Ajilvsga scorched landscapes. Guitar strings seem to shimmer on an upper layer of TR’s ‘The Sad Marvels’, the dew laced glowing strings just underfoot a thick, chilly layer of steady ambient fog.

Besides Terracid’s surprisingly unique ‘Reduxer’ nothing too out of ordinary is has arrived from the Arroyo series thus far. Still, it’s wonderful to listen to all these albums as one cohesive set, enjoying the ways they play off each other’s strengths and weaknesses. The subscription series won’t have much appeal for a newcomer to the genre, but anyone settled into the scene looking for a four lovely, consistently pleasing releases from genre giants should seriously consider subscribing. The best is yet to come from Arroyo, with the Xela, Ilyas Ahmed, and Kowalsky releases sounding especially alluring.

Please note, the podcast only contains short excerpts from each of the albums. Most of these tracks can only be really enjoyed in their exhaustive entirety, and my little snippets are hardly a perfect representation of the final product. (tracklist: SW 0:00, Aj 4:09, Terracid 9:35, SW 12:15, Taiga 16:21, Terracid 20:17)

excerpts podcast (itunes subscribe)

 

 Arroyo Series (Oct) excerpts: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (218)

Finally, here’s a wonderful short video of an Ilyas Ahmed song from bottled smoke, an exciting glimpse into what his Arroyo cdr might sound like:

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More videos of the Bottled Smoke festival here. Also, Echo Curio still has their festival page up, which has some pictures and nice descriptions of the event.

photo: Theo Angell @ Echo Curio, by Ned Raggett –
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