Hey kidz,

 

There was a recent article about Alan Sparhawk in the New York Sun, read it at http://www.nysun.com/article/37007?access=415952

 

Been busy lately getting the promos out for Heller Mason, Plumerai, & Black Happy Day.  Also working on a new QRD out soon.  More info for you on that next week.

 

Below are a some recent reviews.

 

hrt
Brian John Mitchell

 

VLOR: A FIRE IS MEANT FOR BURNING
In this incarnation Vlor is a drone supergroup of sorts: Brian John Mitchell (Remora) created skeletons of songs and got friends like Jon DeRosa (Aarktica), Mike Van Portfleet (Lycia), Nathan Admundson (Rivulets), Jessica Bailiff, Jesse Edwards (Red Morning Chorus) and Paolo Messere (6 P.M.) to help complete them. The concept is friends making music together, and the music itself is exploratory and ofen quite exciting. It opens with the sound of a lone guitar, as the project did; the first track "Trust in Weapons" is a contemplative guitar piece built around a melody and some spacey guitar sounds. It sounds peaceful yet engaged with the unknown. The next track "Wires" is instantly heavier and creepier, crunching forward with a big, layered sound that resembles both a giant metal machine and some kind of film-soundtrack orchestra. There's shimmering noises and grinding noises at once. A Fire Is Meant for Burning is seldom as dramatic as that particular track, yet it's often filled with sounds that reek of mystery in a similar way. The music overall is quite beautiful, yet seldom just beautiful for its own sake – often dark and forboding and filled with some raw energy. It's generally instrumental, but then there's a brief lovely, ghostly ballad sung by Bailiff. You get the sense that talented friends, working together, can take their music any direction they can collectively conjure up.
~ Dave Heaton, Erasing Clouds

 

This band did exist in another time, as a duo, but after the two drifted apart, one lonely soul, Brian John Mitchell, decided to dust off the cobwebs and call in some friends to expand his skeletal musical frameworks. Essentially, Mitchell recorded guitar riffs and arpeggios and then sent them off to various people to help finish them up. While the end result sometimes showcases this piecemeal approach, there is a subtlety and fragility to these compositions that charm. The most obvious theme is that of repeating guitar chords, which are embellished, muted or just left on their own. Working with such slow burn artistes like Rivulets’ Nathan Amundson, Jessica Bailiff and Aarktica’s Jon DeRosa, the songs draw out their beauty, yet sometimes it seems repetitious. “Horses in Deserts” is a perfect example, where there is an ever present haze, yet it slowly lifts to showcase the galloping guitar alone. Then, the instrumentation eases on in, adding a little abrasive violin, eventually taking the beat back to the sonic fog it came from. Fire is not the most cathartic of listens, but it does possess an intimate quality for those who love to work for their rewards.
~ Chris Whibbs, Exclaim!

 

Thank goodness I just happen to wake up at 5am to listen this minimal, guitar-centered collaboration from some of Silber records' all-stars. As we all know, the early morning is the best time to listen to this kind of thing. On A Fire, main guy Brian John Mitchell has Jon DeRosa of Aarktica, Mike VanPortfleet of Lycia and others add reverbed acoustic guitar and more reverbed acoustic guitar, doing away with the need to rock. The better, more engaging tracks come when there's an airy vocal, bass or keyboard, which, as minimal as it is, adds depth and spookiness that the guitar can't achieve. Yeah, more of that, please. The guitar is way too lonely.
~ Kenyon Hopkin, Advance Copy

 

Progressive experimental audio collaborations between Brian John Mitchell (Remora) and his friends Paolo Messere, Jon DeRosa, Jesse Edwards, Jessica Baliff, Nathan Amundson, and Mike VanPortfleet. For this album, Mitchell recorded 90 minutes of guitar pieces and sent them off to his friends to complete the recordings. The best were chosen for inclusion in this album. A Fire Is Meant For Burning is, not surprisingly, a peculiar and spontaneous affair. The album is a purely artistic endeavor in which the musicians communicate with one another. This communication translates into the substance of the music. Confusing, soothing, abstract...A Fire Is Meant For Burning is an interesting trip into the minds of those involved in the real undercurrents of modern audio art.
~ Babysue

 

Take the finest of some of Silber’s premium artists to date (Brian John Mitchell of Remora, Jon DeRosa of Aarktika and Mike VanPortfleet of Lycia fame) and slap them all in a room together and you’re sure to be on a winner. Vlor, the name given to this sacrosanct amalgamation (with the added bonuses of Nathan Amundson of Rivulets, Jessica Bailiffs, Jesse Edwards of Red Morning Chorus and Paolo Messere of 6P.M ) is exactly what you’d expect from four friends with a penchant for experimentation.
The birth of Vlor began in 1992 and sadly ended in 1998 with founding member Russel Halasz leaving the group, however like a phoenix from the ashes the new, 21st Century Vlor arrives with a new album entitled A Fire is Meant for Burning a collection of the best results from these new partnerships. There is a foray of emotion from Vlor’s latest, with tranquil yet mournful tracks like the opener “Trust in Weapons”, “Days Like Smoke” or “Weakening Blows” placing you into one mindset while other tracks such as “Wires” have a much more brooding orchestral feel.
“Potential New Sound” too has an ominous quality about it though more potent than in “Wires” is the spellbinding power of the repetitive guitar and synth composition, that enthrals you effortlessly within the atmosphere of the song.
“Houses Not Homes” meanwhile shows off some of Van Portfleet’s idiosyncratic guitar riffs via an opening that has the dark wave flare akin to all of Lycia’s releases, creating a sound, and track, that on the whole grounds the experimental release within the Post rock genre.
“Suncatcher” should be mentioned simply for Bailiff’s downplayed vocal talent and while the lack of vocals throughout the rest of the album emphasises the music, a little more of Bailiff’s input could have given an extra bit of spice to the album.
While the concept of four equally talented and lateral artists getting together conjures up ideas of some sort of avant-garde super group the reality is more humble. The end result sounding similar to countless post rock groups out there already. Though as Vlor’s modus operandi is to unite four friends and have fun playing instruments then the reality is that the listener is in a sense an intruder into the sound they create. That the sound in question is enjoyable, if generic, is neither here nor there to the important party, the musicians themselves.
~ Michael Riley, Left Hip

 

ALAN SPARHAWK: SOLO GUITAR
Sparhawk, one of the alchemists behind the beguiling phenomenon referred to as Low, a band with such a legion following that it solely comprises its own meaningless sub genre “slowcore” appears to have plugged his instrument into a passing thunderhead judging from the many weather analogies present in the titles. Also it could explain all the lightning and rain that happens whenever I drop this spark-throwing piece of lonely poetry on the player. Sparhawk gets at the “core” or “slow” here, letting the songs issue forth like you are watching a stop-action film of flowers opening and closing, or a half-speed document of fireworks. Things start to get going a couple minutes into the elegiac “Sagrado Corazón de Jesú (Second Attempt)” where looped effects and stray sounds ratcheted off the main stem recombine into something that sounds like the hybrid of a Stratocaster and a coyote losing its shit on a still night. When people throw around the pyrotechnics of My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields as an endgame strategy, I offer this up. It is still rock music, just barely, but it still is, but it moves in almost minimalist classical circles.
The foghorn nature of his tone is not lost on the artist in the four-part ‘How the Freighter Enters the Harbor,” “How the Weather Hits….,” “….the Freighter,” and “How the Engine Room Sounds” and to be honest I can’t really add anything constructive to those descriptions accept to second them. The real tongue in cheek here comes toward the end with “Eruption by Eddie Van Halen” which is a forlorn, death-drenched take though the Guitar 101 solo form Van Halen’s 1978 debut. I’ll venture to say there are more notes played in a mere 10 seconds of the original than in the whole of this sparse 2-minute portrait, but the weedly-weedly at the end demonstrates that Alan knows the canon. And truly, there is nothing more akin to sexual climax than an unchained guitar solo dropped in at just the right moment, don’t let any punk rock stay-on-mission conservative sway you otherwise. It’s a beautiful majestic little record that leaves you a little breathless, but refreshed at the end, much like….well you get the point.
~ Alex V. Cook, Outside Left

 

This isn't the first extra-curricular activity from Low's main singer/songwriter to surface, however, those who are looking for something like "Sleep Song," or Hospital Children or Black Eyed Snakes type recordings are in for a surprise. The title of Solo Guitar should be a hint, as this recording is more for the fans of the uneasy listening of Loren Mazzacane Connors or Keiji Haino on a calm day.
The disc opens with what sounds to me like a couple false starts: two brief pieces that barely pass the one-minute mark which oddly have a copious amount of dead space. They sound like either outtakes from album sessions or a guitarist doing a sound check on an empty stage. However, by the time the third piece rolls around I'm seemingly deep in trance and time has completely warped: elapsing way faster than it seems. "Sagrado Corazón De Jesú (Second Attempt)" is a 13+ minute song which is firmly established from the beginning with low tone guitar loops. Higher tone loops are added for more coloring but the star of the tune is the wailing of the repeated and modified theme, sounding like the cry of beastly bird. Knowing Alan Sparhawk mainly as the singer for Low, I can visualize his playing of this song, completely involved in the trance that he's brought everbody else into, too involved to pay attention to time, space, or anybody in the audience. It's perhaps one of the most expressive instrumental things I've ever heard from him.
"How A Freighter Comes Into The Harbor" is the only other piece on this nine-track CD which also stretches to a great length. This nearly 18 minute bit is also constructed from various layers but with the more dissonant higher toned loops it's creepiness is undeniable. While the title suggests otherwise, to me this one evokes the feeling of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, like in a dark field, lost, as fog rolls in, making the struggle to find the way back home less possible. Scraping metallic sounds overcome the piece about 14 minutes in, painful as that metal on metal sound when old trains with rusted brakes pull to a stop at the station.
The rest of the disc is colored with short bits and pieces which are mainly noisy outbursts and rarely expanded into actual songs. I can't say for certain whether I'm less fond of the solo show-offery of something like "Eruption By Eddie Van Halen" or the lathe cutting like sounds on "How The Engine Room Sounds," but "How It Ends," the final bit on the album has a beautiful cadence. Faintly (and appropriately given some of the noisy tracks on this album) echoing "When I Go Deaf" from last year's The Great Destroyer, this one would actually have been nicer expanded into something far more substantial than the 55 second tease that it is.
~ Jon Whitney, Brainwashed

 

If For a Few Dollars More had been set in a post apocalyptic landscape then surely Sparhawk’s offering of tense atmospheric guitar would fit the bill as the score to the futuristic Wild West wasteland.
And while the above analogy may seem a little trite I challenge anyone to listen to Solo Guitar without getting images of the Leone style west, albeit with some barren industrial tweaks.
Step into Solo Guitar, with its first offering, “How the Weather Comes Over the Central Hillside” a contemplative and haunting sound driven predominantly by stressed guitar distortion.
“How the Weather…” pretty much sets the scene for the rest of Solo Guitar, as throughout the album, Sparhawk’s guitar work oversees and conducts the echoing and desolate soundscape. “Sagrado Corazon De Jesu (Second Attempt)” being another example of the sombre spirit inherent, the track sounding like a chilling eulogy with the added bonus of a slight Latin twist.
How the Weather Hits the Freighter brings a slightly more intense feeling to the ambiance, creating a whirl of guitar reverb and other sounds that go with the aforementioned title poignantly.
“How the Engine Room Sounds” continues in a similar vein and is arguably the most disquieting to listen to. A repetitive wall of mechanistic sound which at times allows a faint sound of human voices (I think) to creep through, only for the intensity to end abruptly.
Peace however only arises at the end of Solo Guitar via “How It Ends”. A still, composed and petite track, positioned with great effect after the bombardment of edgy distortion before.
Sparhawk is probably better known for his work with the band Low as well as working along side his blues band The Black Eyes Snakes. However it is more than likely that Solo Guitar will provide Alan Sparhawk with enough fuel to drive him onto playlists of those already fans of Remora, Aarktika (A good percentage of Silber’s artists in general) Earth and any other drone based bands I’ve failed to name drop!
~ Michael Riley, Left Hip

 

Alan Sparhawk's album Solo Guitar puts forth a strong, minimalist rock sound that begs the question: can a rock album sustain itself on only atmosphere? Sparhawk (one part of the mood pop tri Low, from Duluth Minnesota on the heels of their master stroke, The Great Destroyer) creates a record of 43 minutes - nine songs, none of which serve to evoke any real tension. They are somber, straining tracks that pierce and drone into the unconscious, urging not so much action as inaction with thoughtful purpose.
And it is something you've never heard.
It would be rueful to delve too deeply into a review of Solo Guitar without first illustrating its method. The entire album was recorded live, using guitar loops and reverb, a technique that results in a present, performance quality that is so rare. It feels like Sparhawk has plugged in, right there in your audio system. Free of song structure and studio structure as well on this record, the slowcore rock genius broadens the spectrum of guitar exponentially. On the record, there aren't songs per se; there are segments of mood divided into edible bites. Seven of the nine tracks are less than three minutes, with two in the middle at over thirteen. The shorter tracks are pieces, splendid jams that get brilliant shrift, a la Another Green World an album of experimentation that is so tantalizing it would make your head spin to imagine any of its ideas fully realized. In the end there are traces of aggression (tracks "How the Engine Room Sounds" or "Eruption by Eddie Van Halen", if you need names) amid the languid, a necessity, but they are short and spaced out with long pauses. More accomplished pieces "Sagrado Corazon de Jesu (first attempt)" and (second attempt) are similar to one another in their sprawling, technically masterful ways. A few minutes under this spell and time is as obsolete as vocal chorus.
Retreating from the original premise that this is a rock album, it would be more accurate to say that this is an anti-rock record. Sparhark creates a sustained piece of ponderous temper, and on the way to that lofty, perhaps avant-garde ideal, a wonderful bit of real music. The deceptively simple titled Solo Guitar isn't party rock -- remember, it isn't rock, not even as much as Low is. It's a harkening back to experimentation and boundary pushing by Tom Verlaine and Eno, and is ultimately one of the better recordings of 2006.
~ Erick Mertz, Kevchino.com

 

An album of improvisational guitar from Alan Sparhawk of Low. Solo Guitar is a purely artistic release from a man who has previously released music that has had at least some commercial appeal. Perhaps as an outlet for his own peculiar emotions...or perhaps as a response to folks who expected certain elements to be heard in his music...Sparhawk ventures out on a limb, recording this album live with nothing but a guitar and various odd effects. Low fans will be forewarned that this project has few--if any--commonalities. These sparse instrumental experiments have more in common with modern classical music than with underground pop. It's hard to describe or even rate something like this. It's an interesting project. Is this genius...or is this mere self-indulgence...? It's interesting to be certain but...hmmm...we just can't decide this time around...
~ Babysue