Hey kidz,

Been busy the past few weeks getting the new label sampler out to
some stores & radio stations, so hopefully some of you will be a
little more likely to hear our stuff on the radio & in your local
indie record shop.

The other thing going on is working on this year's Christmas
compilation, but it's coming together now & I'll let you know when
the free download of it is available in a few weeks.

There's a recent interview with Black Happy Day up at
http://terrascope.co.uk/Features/Black%20Happy%20Day.htm

Clang Quartet is doing a tour up the east coast:
October 27 - Jeff The Pigeon - Allentown, PA - with American
Band & Black Meat
October 28 - Kent Ave - New York, NY - with American Band, Black
Meat, Mouthas, & Taylor Bow
October 29 - Red Rum - Providence, RI - with American Band,
Black Meat, Shallow Waters/Set Of Red Things, & Kites
October 31 - 119 Gallery - Lowell, MA - with American Band &
Black Meat
November 1 - The Bank - Baltimore, MD - with American Band,
Black Meat

I've been realizing lately that I'm over-working myself a bit, so if
anyone is interested in doing some intern work for Silber over the
phone & internet, let me know.

Thank you all for all of your interest & support, it means a lot to
us.

Below are some recent reviews.

hrt
Brian John Mitchell

VLOR: A FIRE IS MEANT FOR BURNING
Vlor is Silber's This Mortal Coil-like supergroup, featuring members
of the roster in collaboration with label head Brian John Mitchell.
Joining him in the jam-sessions are Rivulets' Nathan Amundson,
Jessica Bailiff, Aaartika's Jon DeRosa, Remora's Jesse Edwards, and
Lycia's Mike VanPortfleet. The music found on a fire is meant to burn
is mostly instrumental, all guitars, and fits nicely between the
folk/rock/drone stylings of the collaborators. At times the music is
rough, such as on "Houses Not Homes" and "New Machine," other times,
it's extremely hypnotic, such as on "Wires" and the rare vocals of
Bailiff on "Suncatcher" makes for a nice treat amongst the focus on
instrumental acumen. This is mood music for the thinking man; it's
never too dull, never too flat, even though it is mainly an
instrumental collection. Best moment: the gorgeous ambience of "Days
Like Smoke," where Mitchell and Mike VanPortfleet turn in a Lycia-
like soundscape that's extremely lush and utterly beautiful.
~ Joseph Kyle, Mundane Sounds

Brian John Mitchell developed Vlor's A Fire is Meant for Burning's 12
guitar pieces by having formidable guests like Jon DeRosa (Aarktica),
Mike VanPortfleet (Lycia), Nathan Amundson (Rivulets), Jessica
Bailiff, and Jesse Edwards complete the 90 minutes of riffs and
arpeggios he initially recorded alone. Some songs feature a couple of
musicians while others a large number, allowing for effective
contrast between full-bodied and skeletal arrangements. In "Wires,"
Mitchell's guitar becomes an audible nucleus for the scalding swirl
that swells around it. At various times, traces of DeRosa's bright
harmonium, Bailiff's voice and violin, and Edwards' Indian
instruments augment the songs' guitar foundations (the dreamily soft
purr of Bailiff's singing is especially lovely on the
fleeting "Suncatcher"). More often than not, however, settings
like "Light at the Speed of Sound" are peaceful and ruminative in
character; guitars drift through "Days Like Smoke," for example, like
tumbleweeds through a ghost town.
~ Ron Schepper, Textura

ALAN SPARHAWK: SOLO GUITAR
Alan Sparhawk's solo debut, Solo Guitar, is, indeed, a true solo
release, as it only features him playing, well, solo guitar. This no-
frills concept is also a no-frills collection, with songs that
glisten in reverb, noise, and drone. Musically speaking, the music
found here is not unlike the music found on Low's former label
Kranky. Truth be told, the record contains two extremely long
compositions, and the rest are short, brief numbers, but those songs
are just as good, such as the opening "How The Weather Comes Over the
Central Hillside." This is true ambient music; it simply falls and
fits into the background, and you can easily forget that you're
listening to a record while listening to it. It's also a very, very
narcotic record; it's easy to slip into a woozy state while listening
to it. Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? It really depends
on your point of view. Personally, I love it, even if there's really
not a lot to say about it.
~ Joseph Kyle, Mundane Sounds

The guitarist of LOW has made an instrumental album with no other
musicians involved – no prizes for having figured that out (but with
overdubbing, so in a sense it's not exactly solo). There are many
precedents by acoustic guitarists, rather fewer by electric
guitarists (there's a bit near the end of "How a Freighter Comes into
the Harbor" where a loop somewhat recalls Frippertronics, but what
Sparhawk does over it is nothing like what ROBERT FRIPP would do),
but certainly this slowcore great has a sensibility suited to the
task.
Thus, thankfully, this is not an indulgent effort showcasing fast
fingers, nor a collection of pretty tunes, except for "Eruption by
Eddie Van Halen," which is simultaneously a joke and an interesting
extrapolation. Instead, it's a collection of dark, frightening
landscapes turned to sound, pushing listeners to really focus on the
emotional, physical quality of timbre and the way it can create a
sense of space – or, on occasion, a claustrophobic lack of space.
Sometimes the means are simple, almost elementary – "How the Engine
Room Sounds" is half industrial racket, half blips of feedback and
hum and thrum dripped into silence. Five of the tracks are under two
minutes, but even the two epics (13:25 and 17:52) don't overstay
their welcome; Sparhawk gauges the viability of his material well.
Anyone with any sense of listening adventure should check out this
compelling disk.
~ Steve Holtje, The Big Takeover

Low frontman Alan Sparhawk gives his axe a thoroughly intense workout
on the prosaically-titled Solo Guitar and heightens the immediacy of
the experience by recording the material live using loops and reverb.
Interestingly, seven of the nine pieces are short (though not lacking
in consequence, with Sparhawk engineering a convincing industrial
simulation in "How the Engine Room Sounds" and a tumultuous snarl
in "Eruption by Eddie Van Halen"), making the long settings "Sagrado
Corazón de Jesu (Second Attempt)" and "How a Freighter Comes into the
Harbor" the obvious focal points. In the former, Sparhawk segues
between episodes of disturbed calm and brutal violence, the guitar
wailing against a droning haze of reverb and at times generating a
piercing roar so huge it could rip your throat out. Evocative
soundscaping at its most terrifying, the 18-minute "How a Freighter
Comes into the Harbor" opens with the instrument simulating a ship's
muffled horn before descending into a harrowing dungeon haunted by
anguished screams and committing seppuku in its final minutes. Feel
your heart palpitate as you anticipate the explosions that threaten
to erupt at every moment throughout these two epics.
~ Ron Schepper, Textura

"Do you want to hear the solo-album of Alan Sparhawk?" Alan
Who? "Alan Sparhawk, the guitar player of minimal popband Low and
these days also known as member of angst-ridden blues orientated The
Black-eyed Snakes." I had never heard of either bands, never found a
note played by one of them the time to tickle my eardrum. And there I
was, finding myself in the unique position to listen this album
without any biased presumptions. Yes, let me listen this album of
Alan Sparhawk.
The album is called "Solo guitar" and for a guitar-player this is a
very hazardous name. Solo guitar, in my opinion, can only lead to a
person playing boring and endless pieces of guitar music. An
instrument on which these musicians seems to be interested in showing
their skill in playing pieces which sound difficult but are nothing
more than a load of boredom. In my opinion all solo-guitar pieces
with the intension to make an album is not a good idea, especially
not if the guitar player resides in a popband. But Sparhawk was
careful enough not to go down the same pitfalls as his predecessors
did before him. His "solo guitar" is originate more on an
experimental base then the basic showing-of-the-skills you would
expect. Through the possibility of loops and reverb he entwined his
music into drone-like pieces of music.
A fair goal, but there is a slight problem. The entire album is
improvised and therefore recorded in just one take. This makes it
nothing more then a live-album of Sparhawk touching his guitar. Maybe
it all was in the studio, but still it was recorded in one take and
there we also find the flaw within the album. I would be the last to
deny Sparhawk's potential in making great music or even lacking the
knowledge to make beautiful drone-based music, but this album can't
even be compared with the real genius of drone musicians. Alan
Sparhawk certainly can play a nice pop of music, but when it comes to
making experimental guitar music it's better if puts some effort into
re-working his recordings. "Solo guitar" just misses the tension I
like to hear in drone-based music and beside a piece like "How the
freighter comes into the harbor" it made me fall asleep with boredom.
~ Gothtronic

BLACK HAPPY DAY: IN THE GARDEN OF THE GHOSTFLOWERS
Black Happy Day, a collaboration between Lycia's Tara Vanflower and
Stone Breath's Timothy Renner, blends elements of both artists' work
into something of a folk/ambient/experimental hybrid. On their full-
length debut, In the Garden of Ghostflowers, the duo share vocal
duties atop a diverse framework that is sometimes sparse and stark
while at other times dense, often due to sound processing, and
layered. The disc's production is well done, taking liberty with
experimentation and spatial layout while often retaining a low-key,
organic air that serves the material well.
Of the disc's eleven tracks, it should be noted that four
(namely "The Leaves of Life", "Edward", "A Lyke Wake Dirge", and "Be
Thou My Vision") are traditional songs, albeit usually with slightly
more experimental modern arrangements that take full advantage of
technology through the use of sound processing, particularly delay
and reverb. These four are largely guitar/banjo/dulcimer/vocal-
oriented folk tunes, the haunting "Edward" arguably being the most
impressive and "The Leaves of Life" standing out for it's delay-
effected, layered a cappella delivery.
Vanflower and Renner's original compositions encompass similar folk
offerings (the disc's title track, the catchy highlight "Hand in
Hand", and the short and quirky "How They Weep and Moan!", featuring
layered wailing from Vanflower). However, they also expand into more
experimental/ambient territory, the nearly-10-minute "How Many
Hours 'Til the Spider's Work is Done?", blending processed string
drones and spacious layered male and female vocals, coming close to
bridging the gap between the disc's two styles. Of the album's more
sonically adventurous outings, "Wolf & Hare" is arguably the most
interesting, a running water backdrop with more musical ambient
elements and layered and processed spoken word vocals melting into a
sparser guitar-driven dirge. "Of the Wind and Loneliness" is also
notable, if only for the fact that its music box-esque lullaby
delivery sounds like nothing else on the disc.
Combining differing styles and songs spanning centuries yet managing
to work them into a nearly seamless album, Black Happy Day have
managed to construct a work that serves its folk roots well with a
highly organic sound while also incorporating a fairly heavy amount
of sonic experimentation. Those simply here for the folk side may
find the disc's several lengthy ambient/experimental outings a bit
hard to swallow, but ambient/ethereal fans with a penchant for dark
folk music should give Black Happy Day's impressive debut a listen.
~ Joshua Heinrich, Grave Concerns

If you're in the market for some dead of the night, backwoods
creepiness, then Black Happy Day will merrily guide you through
swamplands and blighted forests. Ghosts are indeed abundant on In the
Garden of Ghostflowers; what they want is never quite clear — do they
merely desire to warm their hollow bones next to your campfire, or
will they leap through the flames and pull breath from the ladder of
your ribcage for just a fleeting taste of the bittersweet exhalation
of life that they can never own again?
The duo of Tara Vanflower and Timothy Renner provide the voices:
shimmering, fleeting, strong and insistent, fragile and translucent,
messengers with only the energy to break into this realm and deliver
their missives, evaporating before the last syllable has rung through
the trees.
Had they relied only on a cappella phrasings, In the Garden of
Ghostflowers would have still birthed a disquieting collection of
drones and atmospheric wanderings. But their implementation of
instrumentation and sound effects augment their voices, providing
extra color, larger backdrops over which to spin their unsettled
tales.
Steel-stringed guitar turns a traditional number like "Edward" into a
warped raga folk ditty, Vanflower and Renner trading lines back
forth, parting lovers unable to release their embrace as keening
animals provide a shifting backdrop. Gouts of water emulate a
crackling fire as incantations are recited on "Wolf & Hare," the fire
slowly subdued by a sparse acoustic guitar dirge that plaintively
overlaps desiccated vocal swaths by Renner. "Whore" evokes a clearer,
less abstract version of Liz Harris' work in Grouper; Vanflowers'
lamentations undulating over misty, uneven ground and mysterious
drones carry her voice forward like rickety carts, finally breaking
down in a drift of electronic gurgles and flutters, passage into a
different plane.
But for sheer hair-on-end, mysterious-sound-from-under-the-bed, get-
me-the-hell-out-of-here eeriness, "Of the Wind and Loneliness" trumps
all. Imagine being lost in the woods, you round a bend to find a
grown woman with a distressingly child-like face sitting cross-legged
on the ground, twigs are sticking out of her hair, a tattered,
gossamer sundress hangs from her shoulders and smudges of dirt and
bruises peeking through every tear and hole in the material. In her
lap, she works a musicbox through erratic paces, her voice girlishly
tra-la-la-ing and out of step with the notes, a mixture of vacancy
and bemusement shining in her eyes. Your impulse is to help but for
the seven foot behemoth standing behind her muttering non-descript
sounds from a cavernous chest, his eyes conveying both protectiveness
and pleading. And you know, intrinsically, that one of them is going
to leap at you at any moment while the other mourns that they can't
prevent it from happening.
Black Happy Day taps into a realm devoid of any era, an agelessness
where voices thrown to the prevailing winds are all that's necessary
to carry their stories across time and space.
~ Maelstrom

Timothy Renner of Stone Breath, and Tara Vanflower of Lycia are Black
Happy Day. They make a darkly hallucinatory sort of personal and
traditional folk music blended with some chilly goth flavored
atmospherics. Dreamy reveries, and more songlike pieces blend, as do
the highly contrasting vocals of both participants. An eerie mix of
acoustic textures, and incantations, spoken pices, and witchy
evocations in the dark.
~ George Parsons, Dream Magazine

Described by the label as 'ambient roots music' this is in fact a
crossroad creative combination of styles from Timothy Renner (Stone
Breath,..) and Tara Vanflower (Lycia,..). While Timothy's music
usually was rooted in a kind of neo-folk style, with some
experimentation, Tara Van Flower used voice with ambient music, with
a not too deliberate Gothic association with an individual choice of
style. In this melting pot, both talents were often deeply mixed with
the extra phoenix-factor derived from creativity. There were also
chosen four traditionals of which some of them were an inspiration
before by Timothy, but in a different way. I think also previously
used songs by Timothy were used to receive a complete new arrangement
and sound. This new sound is in fact a whole new style inspiration
for both artists who have assembled all what they've done before into
a new marriage of style. The collection is mostly weeping songs with
the theme of death and destiny. None of the grieving in the songs
comes too much forward in real emotions-on-the-moment; the songs are
more like ghosts of these lost and unattended cries, carried away by
the wind (this is like "how the weep and moan" is described).
"The leaves of life" sounds like a death ballad, with some echoed
distortion on the voice, hung-over of where and why the cry was
set. "In the garden of ghostflowers" is sung in acid folk styled duet
with picking guitar. Even with lots of feedback on the voice, like
on "whore", another story of sad destiny, lead by Tara, the folk
flavour is also never too far away, like on "Edward". "Of the wind
and loneliness" is like a musical box lullaby from a left alone and
unattended child's (or person's) grief. Also "A lake wake dirge",
which is arranged with various harmony vocals, carries a similar
cry, -do I hear oud here (?)-. "How many hours" has an Indian
flavour. The background vocal arrangements by Tara here come very
close to the way Amelia Cuni experimented with Indian singing
overdubs. We hear here also some Indian flavoured drone instrument,
caused by effects on the instrument recording, and by the specific
droning instrument sound (?). On "Hand in Hand" I recognise Tara's
style of voice loops and water. This has a second part of guitar by
Timothy, with wa-wa-like effects echoing around, and the actual
song. "Wolf and hare" is another nice and simple folk duet with
guitar. These last few songs lead almost unconsciously to a spiritual
solution of the darkness of its themes. Last song "Be thou vision" is
therefore also like a happy ending, in a gospel psychfolk style, an
expression as if the voices of these ghosts one day will gather and
unite in harmony. Like the series of pictures of a wolf and rabbit in
the booklet, united in themes of death, trying to find peace, the
concept of this release is surely a successful expression of a black
happy day. An interesting collection and succesful concept.
Instruments used were vocals, guitar, motheart (?), water, ektara
(?), relevator-guitar (?), ministrel banjo, glitchgear musicbox,
dulcimer, saintbanjo (?), harmonium, feedback.
~ Gerald Van Waes, Psyche Van Het Folk

One of the stranger records of the year. Black Happy Day--members of
Stone Breath and dream-gothics Lycia, go from vocal exercises to a
medievel version of Beat Happening within the first few minutes,
burning with self-indulgence. The third track, called
(gasp!) "Whore," features disembodied vocals atop sounds delivered
straight from an old sci-fi film, while wierd ones such as "A Lyke
Wake Dirge" are just a mystery, with an Asian-music banjo and the
many vocal efforts of unusual baritone Timothy Renner. A challenge
and a half.
~ Kenyon Hopkin, Advanced Copy

Black Happy Day is an unexpected collaboration between Tara Vanflower
(of Lycia) and Timothy Renner (Stone Breath, Mourning Cloak, Spectral
Light & Moonshine Firefly Snakeoil Jamboree and the Revelator).
Acoustic guitars pluck beautiful chords alongside banjos, dulcimer,
harmonium, glitchgear musicbox, vocal effects and feedback. What
makes this album hit so much deeper than your regular folk album is
the aura of mystique that runs through all of the album's 51 minutes.
One important element that helps create this bewitching beauty is
Vanflowers' feather-light voice, which works like a sharp contrast to
Renner's solemn baritone. The simple but astoundingly chilling "Of
the Wind And Loneliness" displays this with the sound of a banjo
successfully riding on the ridge between the two voices. If you're
already a fan of Renner's experimental take on old-time folk music
you'll definitely need this and if you're not, well than it is time
to give him another go.
~ Mats Gustafson. The Broken Face

HELLER MASON: MINIMALIST & ANCHORED
The culmination of three years of work, Heller Mason's Minimalist &
Anchored finds sole member/songwriter Todd Vandenberg enlisting the
help of a slew of additional musicians to flesh out and breathe life
into a set of noteworthy compositions. Striking performances abound,
the album's eleven songs (the last two being bonus tracks) range from
impressively arranged country-tinged rock to moody string-laced
ballads, all immaculately produced. Musically, its more upbeat rock
tracks fall somewhere between Neil Young and Red House Painters,
while its darker ballads have some similar elements but evoke the
same emotional response as later SoulWhirlingSomewhere.
Whether they be full-blown, radio-friendly rock outings like the
opening "After All is Said & Done, More was Said than Done" or
stripped down acoustic guitar affairs like the album's two closing
bonus tracks, the more up-tempo rock-oriented tracks found here are
more or less universally solid. From the wobbly lead guitar of the
aforementioned opener to the impressive layered lead guitar work
of "Packing My Bags for Hell", the instrumental arrangements are
extremely well done, adding a compelling edge to the material.
While the album's more upbeat offerings are excellent, it's the
downbeat songs that make the album. The heartwrenching, cello-
accented "I Hate Drama & You're Being Dramatic" is simply beautiful,
it and the similar and almost equally lovely "Drown the Villages on
the Maine Coast" arguably providing the disc's most striking duo. The
moodier, sparser "Barreling Towards Nowhere Like There's No Tomorrow"
is also spectacular, featuring a stunning layered male and female
vocal delivery, while the album's title track is particularly tear-
jerking.
From start to finish, Heller Mason's Minimalist & Anchored is simply
stunning, a blend of upbeat americana and rock melancholia with
lyrics that are straightforward yet frequently striking. Both
technically impressive and highly emotional, it's a release that's
certainly worthy of repeated listens.
~ Joshua Heinrich, Grave Concerns

The vocals of Heller Mason's main person, Todd Vandenberg, are
tearjerkingly soft and weepy. It leads the way for M & A's thoughtful
country-esque slowcore, which measures up to similar artists any day.
The cello, piano and trumpet that is scattered over the record
fleshes out the mature lyrics and comforting acoustic guitar. Apt for
campfires at 1am, or quiet mornings in your kitchen in the country at
5am.
~ Kenyon Hopkin, Advanced Copy

Quite a change of pace for Silber Records. This is a rollicking set
of eleven warmly melodic songs cut from a cloth similar to the
musical garment worn by Mark Kozelek and his work with Red House
Painters. Extreme tenderness, a slow and certain pace, gorgeously
harmonic layers of acoustic strings plucked, strummed and bowed,
soaring instrumentally and usually backing the tender expressive
vocals of Todd Vandenberg of Little Chute, Wisconsin. Heller Mason is
Todd's one man band, but he's helped out by nine friends on: electric
guitars, drums, bass, backing vocals, cello, piano, trumpet, lap
steel, and Wurlitzer; all helping to flesh out Todd's very beautiful
musical inventions.
~ George Parsons, Dream Magazine

When I hear the first laidback guitar sounds on "Minimalist &
Anchored" my jaw drops. After a few seconds I get goose bumps and
within one minute I'm a devoted fan. The sound that Todd Vandenberg
aka Heller Mason creates is beautifully serene and warm. The
songtexts are perfectly melodramatic and the multi-layered guitar
playing – accompanied by sometimes a violin, sometimes a trumpet – is
heavenly. All the eleven song are made with passion and devotion. A
real personal highlight is `Barreling towards nowhere like there is
no tomorrow', but there aren't any bad songs on this record. Listen
for example to songs with characteristic titles like `After all is
said and done, more was said than done', `Drown the villages on the
maine coast' and `So this is how it ends?'
The presented references are The Swans during their "Burning World"-
time and Neil Young's "Harvest". Personally, I'm very fond of both
albums so I was delighted to hear that these were exactly the
association I got while listening to Heller Mason. And I have to add
one more: the Heller Masons work reminds me a lot of the slow
Americana/country by South San Gabriel .
If you're in the mood for a slow and easy-listening guitar album
that's created with heart and soul, than "Minimalist & Anchored" is a
real treat. There is just one question I'd really like to get an
answer to: Why change the unusual name Todd Vandenberg into the next
unusual name Heller Mason?
~ Gothtronic

PLUMERAI: RES COGITANS
Taken from the theories of 17th century Swiss philosopher Rene
Descartes, Res Cogitans translates roughly as "occurrence thorough
consideration," an offshoot of the much more famous Descartes
deduction: "I think, therefore I am." Zap forward four centuries to
Boston, and occurrence finds its direction from Plumerai's
consideration. The four-piece's latest EP is almost as thought-
provoking as Swiss philosophy (but rest assured, much more thrilling)
and defies labeling. That said, let's give it shot: Res Cogitans is
complicatedly ethereal, moving forward with a delicate grace that
could only be supplied by Elizabeth Ezell's equally flowing voice.
While Plumerai only gives us a 4-song taste of what is to come, each
song flows forward for about 5 minutes, moving from small beats to
explosive climaxes, patiently transitioning the listener from emotion
to emotion. "En Vole" ("Be Willing to Behold") drips with maturity
and elegance, and with added spices of foreign influences, it's hard
to believe that such a sound came out of Boston. Anything
but, "Linear" combines a bouncy beat with almost shoegaze touches,
moving into "Illuminate," a mysterious orchestral ride that just goes
to show anything can be expected from Plumerai. If they continue to
put this much consideration and thought into their music, their new
album should make quite a splash indeed.
~ Michael Schmitt, Music Emissions

Following on the heels of their self-titled full-length and
encompassing a number of lineup changes, res cogitans, the new 4-song
EP from Boston's Plumerai, showcases more of the shoegazing ethereal
rock that's made a name for them on both the local and national
scenes. Sounding something like the genetic culmination of Hope
Sandoval, Polly Jean Harvey, and Melora Creager, frontwoman Elizabeth
Ezell's lush, sensual warble leads the way through four tracks of
moody, catchy, diverse post-punk-influenced alt rock.
The opening "Avernal" is easily the disc's best, its moody rock
delivery and catchy chorus hook certainly delivering, while the
following "Linear" is nearly on-par, a poppier and almost equally
infectious affair that almost recalls The Sugarcubes.
Unfortunately, "Illuminata", sounding uncannily like the band's
attempt to rewrite the James Bond theme, is fair but less satisfying.
The sultry rock of the closing "En Vole", however, recovers
relatively well with its Latin undertones and Italian accordion
accents.
With a new album apparently slated for 2007, expect to hear a lot
more from Plumerai in the next year. Until then, the res cogitans EP
is a mixed but, overall, satisfying slice of shoegazer-infused alt
rock/pop.
~ Joshua Heinrich, Grave Concerns

Plumerai is a bit of a different kind of band for Silber, in that
it's a pop band. Okay, it's a pop band that's more influenced by
Portishead, The Sundays, Lush, and other bands from that early-90s
Britpop era. Not that they're Britpop, but they've definitely got
that sexy, moody sound thing down. Res Cogitans is a four-song EP,
but those four songs are so substantial and meaty, you're left both
wanting more and feeling quite satisfied. I really, really dig the
sexy singing style of Elizabeth Ezell. All four songs are
interesting, and all of them are new favorites, but I really dig the
seven-minute "Avernal" and the shimmery, should-be-a-
hit "Illuminata." Great music, and hopefully the promises delivered
here will be followed through next year with their forthcoming LP.
~ Joseph Kyle, Mundane Sounds

GODDAKK: MONUMENT TO A RUINED AGE
Goddakk is the project of Plumerai's Martin Newman, but it sounds
nothing like Plumerai. monuments to a lost age a complex collection
of dense, electronica-based compositions. For music that is seemingly
difficult, it's also amazingly easy on the ears. The songs appear to
be a blend of loops and guitars and synths, and even though the music
is dense, there's a pleasure to be found within the soundtrack-like
songs inside. Comparisons to bands like Aphex Twin and Coil are not
without merit, though Goddakk never gets as weird as either. Best
moment: the wonderful, Robin Guthrie-esque "Opened," which,
appropriately, opens the record.
~ Joseph Kyle, Mundane Sounds