Hey Starz,

Merry Christmas. If you are looking for a good gift for a guitar
playing, I've been eye-ing that day by day calendar of guitar
exercises....

As you may know our recent Christmas compilation for free download
has been doing pretty well (over 1500 downloads last I checked, see
some reviews below) & the next thing we're working on is a comp of
people covering songs by Silber artists . The deadline is January 31,
2007.

hrt
Brian John Mitchell

recent reviews -
SILBER SOUNDS OF CHRISTMAS
A very nice cross-section of unusual Holiday spirit.
~ François Couture, CLFX

As a starting point to this review and I don't know if it really
matters, but I personally really dislike Christmas. My family stopped
celebrating Christmas a few years ago, so there's no pretty packages
waiting under a tree for me come Christmas morning, and besides that
I'm not religious in the slightest and most importantly I really,
really hate the Christmas music I have to hear at work all night.
Good thing this isn't a typical Christmas music compilation.
With that unpleasantness put aside let me get right to the point and
say that this compilation offers up a lot of music (one hour and
forty three minutes) with the cool price tag of being absolutely
free. Download this monster right here.
There are some bands doing a few straightforward covers of classic
Christmas songs like Shiny Around the Edges performing `The Christmas
Song' & Mars Field with `Jesus Christ.' None of these are really my
thing and that's mostly because they sound close to the originals and
as I've already said I'm not one for Christmas music. There are also
a bunch of classic Christmas songs that have received the good `ol
rearranged and reinterpreted format such as The Upsidedown Stars
with `Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,' Sailor Winters with `What Child
Is This?' & Remora with `O Come, O Come, Emmanuel' & `What Can I Give
Him?' The rest of the compilation is mostly newer compositions from
old and new Silber artists/friends performing songs that have
references to Christmas and winter, but are surely not typical
Christmas music.
The styles present are as you can probably imagine rather diverse;
neo classical, guitar drones, alternative pop/rock, ambient,
experimental sounds, electronic, rock, noise, and acoustic. Quite a
bit to take in, but it all gels rather nicely together. As already
mentioned this compilation is absolutely free so head on over to
Silber and check out this enjoyable compilation and play it while
opening all your gifts Christmas morning. I also accept free gifts if
anyone wants to send me anything. :)
~ Joe Mlodik, Lunar Hypnosis

A wonderful collection (27 artists) that for all its unusual material
still sounds to me about as sentimental as music gets. This 2006
installment in Silber's series of Christmas comps invokes the
religious/wintery aspects of the season, and, not surprisingly, given
the label, an ambient/drone aesthetic looms over the collection. The
tracks have a cold, somewhat bleak feel, whether they're ambient,
noise, fast or slow pop, solo improv, or, well, Christmas Music.
Brian John Mitchell checks in with his always-intriguing Small Life
Form and Remora projects, and I'm glad excellent guitarist Peter
Aldrich is still in the fold; however many of my other favorite
Silber artists from years gone by are absent this time out. Not to
worry, though, as there is plenty of good material from a newer crop
of Silberfriends such as Immune, Electric Bird Noise, Plumerai,
Bokor, Mars Field, Blessed Child Opera, The Wades, and many more. Too
many good tracks to name, but standouts for me include the tweaked a
cappella of `The Christmas Song' by Shiny Around The Edges, the
blurry rocker by South West Airline, the lovely solo piano piece by
Duane Pitre, and the seriously noise-corrupted versions of `What
Child is This?' and `Hark, the Herald Angels Sing'. Happy Holidays,
musical explorers!
~ Max Level, KFJC

So this is Christmas, and what have you done? Well John, if you could
drop that accusatory tone for just a second you'd discover that
various chums of Silber Records have recorded a compilation that's as
fat as a spoiled child's stocking. Or even as fat as a spoiled child.
It's generously available as a free download, so if you want to add
some thrilling, web-based interactivity to this review, you can head
over there and concurrently listen to any tracks which tweak your
interest. Please be aware that any written-word-to-actual-sound
discrepancies you may experience during this process are most likely
down to some kind of inner-ear imbalance.
Like the aforementioned stocking, the contents of this comp are a
little hotchpotch. Though some offerings will feel like receiving a
fantastic toy or delicious chocolates, other parts will be more akin
to pulling out an indefinable plastic makeweight. With so many
different artists across a substantial amount of tracks (28, fact
fans) this is somewhat inevitable, as a variety of styles are
explored within a broad spectrum. Loosely speaking though, Silber are
the bus terminal in which bands defining themselves as ambient and
darkwave meet up and take a ride to drone central, only to discover
that the seats are made out of weird electronic sounds, scratchy
violins, and other assorted oddities of noise.
As it's a seasonal affair, a fair few of these tracks are covers of
Christmas favorites—although they generally bear about as much
resemblance to the originals as the curious womble-alien half-breed
on the record cover does to jolly old Saint Nick. Remora's take on "O
Come, O Come, Emmanuel," for example, would probably sound more at
home accompanying a panoramic sweep of an alien craft, cruising
ominously around the universe. Familiar notes are audible somewhere
in the mix, but the foreboding echo of recurring delay-washes crush
all resistance. It's an intriguing approach, but slightly undermined
by a track-listing that places a cover of "What Child Is This?"
(which adopts an identical tactic) immediately following. This time,
the recognizable melody seems to be struggling against a vicious
horde of bees that have descended upon the pianist at an unhelpful
moment. Our plucky hero is eventually saved by some enthusiastic
hoovering, which fortuitously removes the bees but doesn't contribute
much to the listening experience.
Some of the real treats can be found outside the Christmas stable
entirely. "The Gleams Remained After the Blast" could just as easily
be soundtracking an irradiated dystopian world, or what happens
inside your fridge when the door is closed and the milk pixies
appear. Whichever interpretation you choose to lay on this
understated piece of floating, pulsing ambience, it will still soothe
and beguile. The same holds true for "In the Land of Nod" by the
Zanzibar Snails, which is closer to replicating the flittering sound
of vibrant insect life and distant thunder than sleigh bells and
roasting chestnuts. Others, like Origami Tacet, hint at aspects of
the traditional narrative—their heavy-stringed "Remembrance" motions
enigmatically at expansive deserts and the Eastern mysticism of the
three wise men.
Back in the covers corner, a shining star appears in the form of My
Ambient Nature Girl's retelling of "Handel's Messiah (Part 4)."
Supplemented by the merest suggestion of a choir, harmoniously
complementing the cascading sparkles of sound, the song seems to
encapsulate the finer moments of this Silber selection. Different,
without having to force the difference. Beautiful, without being
pretentiously so.
~ Peter Parrish, Stylus

Say you work in the service industry-- maybe in a coffee shop, record
store or café-- for a company that's cool enough to let its employees
select the in-house music during their shifts, but lame enough to
require the dispensation of Christmas-themed music around the
holidays. Say also that you like chaotic, convulsive music, and that
the joy of tormenting your customers with harsh noise is surpassed
only by the sorrow of listening to corporately-mandated compilations
of Yuletide favorites each winter. You, my glum friend, have found a
loophole in the Silber Sounds of Christmas compilation. Sailor
Winters' version of "What Child is This?" isn't the best thing on the
album, but it's the most amenable to extracting sonic vengeance on
the voracious petit-bourgeoisie. The song's sprightly piano melody
sounds lonesome, submerged in billowing static; it gives up entirely
as the amorphous noise begins to cascade, saturating the speakers in
a dark, grainy haze. Things get seriously spooky when a pendulum-like
roar starts swooshing through the mix. What child is this, anyway?
Echoing drums describe the approach of massive footsteps, evoking
some terrible and countryside-scourging giant. Jesus is coming-- run!
~ Bryan Howe, Pitchfork

28 More Things to Love About Silber Records
1 Origami Tacet - "Remembrance" (video edit)
2 Immune - "The Gleams Remained After the Blast"
3 Rachel Goldstar - "Christmas Day"
4 Siberia - "Hibernation (Coda)" 5 Living in Photographs - "Barabbas"
6 Small Life Form - "Bells & Envelopes"
7 Electric Bird Noise - "Christmas with Reilly"
8 The Zanzibar Snails - "In the Land of Nod"
9 Plumerai - "Crucifixed"
10 Remora - "O Come, O come, Emmanuel"
11 Sailor Winters - "What Child Is This?"
12 Shiny Around the Edges - "The Christmas Song"
13 Peter Aldrich - "Finger Pick Prince of Peace"
14 Wrong Brothers - "Slay Bells"
15 Bokor - "Secrets"
16 230 Divisadero - "Storm in December"
17 Moral Crayfish - "He Was Disturbed, and All of Jerusalem With Him"
18 South West Airline - "Sweet Sweet"
19 Recorded Home - "No Sound Around"
20 Remora - "What Can I Give Him?"
21 Duane Pitre/Pilotram - "Piano Improvisation for Mr. Cage"
22 Mars Field - "Jesus Christ"
23 Goddack vs JM - "A Winter Rhythm in You" (featuring Sue Zen)
24 Blessed Child Opera - "Broken Breeze"
25 My Ambient Nature Girl - "Handel's Messiah Part 4"
26 The Wades - "The Snow"
27 The Torch Marauder featuring Matt Westlake - "At Blitzen's Funeral"
28 The Upsidedown Stars - "Hark, the Herald Angel Sings"
No, we haven't suffered a stroke. What the above list shows is the
track number, artist name, and song title, respectively, of the brand
spankin' new Silber Sounds of Christmas compilation from Silber
Records. The physical 2xCD-R version is available to order now, but
in the true spirit of giving, the whole shebang is downloadable here
for FREE! Bless you, sweet baby Silber Jebus!
Most keeners will remember Silber as the label that issued the solo
album of guitar workouts by Alan Sparhawk (Low) earlier this year,
named, curiously enough, Solo Guitar, but to keener-ers, the North
Carolina record company has been a formidable provider of minimal,
neo-classical, noisepop, drone, etc. since the mid-1990s. Although
most of the acts on this third yuletide volume eat up Christmas
spirit and spit it out like Gramps does with the errant stems in
Mom's homemade cranberry sauce, it is obvious they all carry the
essential elements of the holy season inside their artistic hearts.
Silber Sounds includes renditions of x-mas classics like Rachel
Goldstar's "Christmas Day" and Shiny Around the Edges' "The Christmas
Song," seasonal tribute gifts such as "Piano Improvisation for John
Cage" by Duane Pitre/Pilotram, the political incorrectness (but only
if you take it out of its biblical context) of Moral Crayfish's "He
Was Disturbed, and All of Jerusalem With Him," and possibly an ode to
everybody's favorite gifts, pre-op tranny hookers, in South West
Airline's "Sweet Sweet." Drop in paeans to tinsel- and tonsil-hockey
and you will almost be able to hear the sleighbells on the roof!
~ David Nadelle, Tiny Mix Tapes

PLUMERAI: RES COGITANS
Combining the sounds of many popular groups like Evanescence and The
Cure, yet adding a harder tone with vibrating female vocals, Plumerai
emerges with driven and appealing music that gets better with every
listen.
Plumerai's four-track EP shows incredible force and diversity.
Interchanging between the influences of trip hop, rock, and some post
punk, the quartet's music is difficult to categorize. They've been
characterized as a pop band, but such a match is difficult to make
because Plumerai deserves credit for their unmistakable
sophistication and substance.
"Avernal," the EP's first track, kicks off with the concentrated
guitar and drum contributions of Martin Newman, Todd Richards, and
James Newman. Effectively portraying their ability to play within the
conventional music styles, Plumerai inserts a subtle and driven back-
melody behind the main melody. The enrapturing vocals of lead singer
Elizabeth Ezell are unmistakable. Pinning listeners to her ethereal
vocal styles in the track, Ezell conveys both warmth and a haunting
sentiment, two beautiful emotions that reside with listeners
throughout the Res Cognitans EP.
Starting with quick reverberations of notes on the guitar, "Linear"
grabs listeners from the first measure. As soon as the echoing guitar
effect settles in, an uptempo snare enters the track during the
guitar's offbeat. The EP's most cheerful track, "Linear" absorbs the
listener as Ezell's slower paced lyrics match up against the quick
background music of the composition. The lyrical pace in the song's
chorus quickens to match the swinging pace of the musical background,
and Plumerai reveal their catchy pop tendencies with the
infectious "Linear."
Plumerai covers a vast expanse of the music world in Res Cognitans.
This stirring 21-minute EP has proven that the Boston-based quartet
is more than ready to proceed to the next step in the music business.
January of 2007 marks the release of Plumerai's forthcoming debut
full-length album, and with it are great expectations from the band
and listeners alike. (Silber Records)
~ Lauren Proctor, Performer Mag