"This German trio of Nils Lehnhäuser (bass), Christian Dräger (drums) & Eric Bauer (piano) have produced a wonderful set of minimal, melodic, ambient jazz. The instrumentation is sparse, the melodies free-falling and the mood tense yet underscored with a studied lethargy. I'm reminded, favourably, of Angelo Badalamenti's scores for Twin Peaks as "Ausmerzen" has that same dreamy quality to the music. It's a twilight album full of sleepy colours and vague shapes and for the most part it's really quite beautiful. I'll admit to being less than enamoured with the final track as the musicianship and musicality of the rest of the album is replaced with atonal, avant-garde crashes and bangs. It sounds like an Einsturzende out-take or a Z'ev composition and as such feels remarkably out-of-place here. In other circumstances I'd have probably enjoyed it but after the sublime beauty of the preceding tracks it is a disagreeable end to a sumptuous album." - Review by Wonderful Wooden Reasons

Sonic Meditations

Fjords are a new guitar and keyboard duo from Boston, MA. Their debut reelease is comprised of improvised recordings that fuse melodic guitar with moody synthesized passages, creating a lush lanscape that flows gently while building sonically. A bit like Troum jamming with Barn Owl in a forest cave watching the sunset. Much patience was excercised in the music and it really shows.

Sonic Meditations

Koi Pond is comprised of 3 friends who get together when the time is right to do what is known to many band participants as "jamming". This term may be a bit harsh on your eyes, but when friends David Aron, Arik Roper and Pete Vogl some together to "jam", its an epic dense solid session of heavy playing. Koi Pond originally released a cassette on Night People entitled Volcano, which I has the pleasure of happening on to. That limited cassette peaked my interest, sounding like a basement tape from Exmagma or some other lost recording from the mid seventies. After contacting the band to find out this is a one-off project between friends, I coerced the trio into reuniting for a recording, which became So Higher, a recording of 2 side dimensions between locked Krautrock groove with washes of synth exploration. Side two is a very different affair, more improvised heavy jamming comprised of solid bass line, dubby drumming and heavy psych guitar workouts. Those same elements from the cassette "jams" are there, but more focused and sonically represented.

Sonic Meditations

Sounding the Deep have been very prolithic and ever-changing. The Kansas City based group has released three full-length albums. “Anthems of Light” collects outtakes from “A Union According to Energy” and unreleased material recorded prior to “Glacier” fills this album well, drifting tones and melodies the way Sounding the Deep does best. All material is solo performances by David Williams.

Sonic Meditations

I like more than drone, I fancy some metal and even the darkest realms of nasty metal, which some deem to call "Black Metal". A first for the label, here presented is Andrew Plante's first foray into that dark abyss with the help of Sounding the Deep members on percussion and acoustic guitar, Plante's vision for, which I believe is the first Black Metal outfit in Kansas City, bring 4 carefully crafted melodic and droned out blackened tunes.

Sonic Meditations

Two live sets from the 2009 East Coast tour that spawned the Immune 2xLP, "Where Does Your Mind Go?", between the touring duo of Justin Wright and Matt Hill (Umberto). Side A consits of the stellar set from Ithaca, NY two days prior to the Immune Recording, headliners were Blues Control that night. Side B is the last set the duo played the last day of tour in the afternoon at WNYU in Manhattan, NY on less sleep than you can imagine. This set of live shows aptly named "Blackout" after a show at the now defunct New Market Hotel as part of an anti-CMJ show where the duo blacked out, probably scaring half the people responsible for the venue and show.

Sonic Meditations

Third album, second released, from David Williams recorded by Justin Wright of Expo 70. Tracks written in one day and recorded 2 days later. Inspired by footage of life beneath the ice of Antarctica. Patient sounds summoning Propol Vuh, Earth and Eluvium. Deep tones for meditations...

Sonic Meditations

The 2006 epic heavy drone suite.

Sonic Meditations

With all the mystique involved in this form of unmusic, cover art and artwork will often be taken as clues to the intent of a work (especially now artisan packaging and cover art is firmly a part of the experience of consuming music.) Here Wright suggests some aesthetic link or inspiration from geology or space. But to spend ones time searching for clues to the secret of obscure art would be a waste of time.

Foxy Digitalis