Showing posts with label Os Tres Amigos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Os Tres Amigos. Show all posts

PETER KRIS
“Mandan / Moroni” C56 / C58
(Os Tres Amigos)



Even the above pictured cassette shells are glued to the back of 120+ grit sandpaper, which is to say that this release, on every level, is mighty fine. Os Tres Amigos (Portugal) should be known by now as a label that takes great care in the dramatic curations of their physical releases, providing a memorable piece of art to ponder alongside the sounds contained within their tapes’ magnetic strips. 

Peter Kris, by any measure, holds up his end of the deal.  "Mandan/Moroni" gives us nearly two hours of contemplative, minimalist electric guitar meanderings that patiently veer and sway just off the beaten paths between ambient-drone and guitar-soli disciplines, each and every single track a distinct sonic labyrinth of its own, loosely drawn with ghostly melodies, relaxed pluck, and all the time and patience in the world. 

As you’d imagine, the tapes are already almost sold out, so get hopping!

and/or

—Jacob An Kittenplan

SOMNOROASE PASARELE "Auto[1]"
(Os Tres Amigos)




In the hills of Oakland, Pauline Oliveros's frogs still reign supreme, still rain down their psychedelic exhortations to the burning grass fires and warehouses below; "Come! Do osmose your soulless din through our amphibious skin! Let the chordal whir of your motorhearts sew itself into the motherchorus of life we summon!"

&Some 10,000 kilometers away, Gili Mocanu answers this call with his and Katri Virtalaakso's Audio/Visual collaboration, Somnoroase Pasarele, specifically via their latest album "Auto[1]", out on Portugal's label, "Os Tres Amigos".

A cursory glance at the 25cm x 20cm mini-poster included will show a cartoon calendar-esque caricature; the internal organs/rooms of a living breathing tenement building, both its healthy and sick microfauna, spending and passing their lives in hollowed out ecstacy, deep introspection, and/or manufacturing their basic needs. Each room is built to be independent, yet they all contribute to the aches and quakes of their greater structure, this beast itself under the weight of so many plaguing forces, all interplaying independently, no One Single Straw upon any camel's back.

A cursory ear bent under decent headphones will reveal textural galaxies gravitationally guided by, but nowhere near adherent to, some concerted allusion of scaffolded intention. Syncopated sonic strata upon strata upon strata interweave and unveil themselves, intermittently, in four dimensions or more, the breath between each measured nervous meditation acting as wavering pausal walls between aforementioned rooms/organs above. And then there are all the frogs; robotic, amphibious, their atonal mating calls and war cries, their rubberized digits' pads dragging shredded suction-cuppylike across smooth'd granite and broken glass, shrill trills and deep moans coaxing sympathy from the hills and deep down below the earth's crust, urging greater faults to subterraneously groan along, hertz-wise; implied.

Anyone who has ever attempted to meditate knows the true brute force of the monkey mind, its unbridled power to redirect, fracture, quake & liquify the very foundations of breath itself, this in/exhalation an otherwise universal means to keep time. In this rhythmic hallucination, Gili Mocanu colours & contours so many atonal, timbrally pregnant signals, chirps, & floes with a hypnotist's massaging of time's passing, rendering audible a channeling of earth's possessed vibrations, mocanucured mercurially, to get lost in, over and over and over, again.

https://ostresamigos.bandcamp.com/album/auto-1
and/or
soundcloud.com/somnoroase-pasarele

--Jacob An Kittenplan

GERMAN ARMY - 3 tapes



GERMAN ARMY
"Kurgan Hearth" C39
(Os Tres Amigos)

What do German Army, Andre the Giant, Albert Einstein and a tweaker covered in baby oil all have in common? They’re pretty much impossible to pin down! Yes, you guessed it; GeAr continues to blurrr the ever-loving-shit outta the boundaries between industrial, ambient, tribal, and devotional genres, melding their disciplines like scratching an itch your third eye didn’t know it even had. Both expertly innovative and bewitching, this hypnotic (too upbeat for “hypnogogic”) document transports half our brains to distant Promethean ceremonial circles while dragging the other half along the exhaust-blackened walls of occupied underpasses soon to be “under construction” again.

This somewhat recent release (out of Portugal) is one of (well?) over 60 others (for GeAr) and is already sold out (of course), so give it a spin on the ol’ bandcamp (link below) and keep your eyes peeled for more brilliance in the (likely NeAr) future.

and

-- Jacob An Kittenplan

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GERMAN ARMY
"Pyura Chilensis" C35
(Luce Sia)

I could see GeAr putting out a cassette in each of the 195 countries in this world by 2020 and each and every goddamn one of them being worth the shipping/smuggling cost. Seriously, this prolific project kicks out the…well…not “jamz” per se, but some seriously entrancing tracks of the industrial/ambient/tribal/devotional/fusion variety. And just what the fuck exactly does that sound like? Well, it sounds like German Army. 

This time around the globe, “Pyura Chilenses” comes out of Switzerland, and it’s a decidedly colder, more industrial offering, and just as Rock Solid as ever. My favorite track (Kaleteur Mist) pairs such disparate timbres as Andean flutes (field recorded, wafting over a valley?) and frenentic, blown out, metallic drum machines rattles that could be mined from any number of construction sites. Dynamically navigating the levels of attachment, GeAr evoke feelings of detachment and overwhelming mood-swing (of the chill variety), and it’s a damn fine trip! 

Strongly recommended for anyone who loves the early Skinny Puppy instrumentals/interludes.

and

-- Jacob An Kittenplan

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GERMAN ARMY 
“Swidden” 
(Total Black)

“Swidden” is yet another psychic onslaught from San Bernardino’s finest purveyors of ambient industrial wreckage and postapocalyptic sonic doom. Here we find the group on Berlin’s Total Black, a total perfecto match and a total win for central Europe. A total win for us Americans, too, as we’re able to purchase things from other countries and have them shipped to us here in the States. Bet you never saw that coming.

There’s also the digital files, but what’s the point.

Brilliantly earwormy as usual, German Army tracks wriggle around like arthouse nature films, like insects in the throes of predation. These tunes burrow into your brain like rat lungworms, parasites that feed off the very activity they create. In fact, the pulsing electricity created by brainwaves reacting to “Swidden” is sheer nourishment to a vast ecosystem internal to the human body. I’m certain you’d be super grossed out if you levied it with any degree of scrutiny.

“Swidden” is not for the faint of heart. German Army is never for the faint of heart.

German Army 

Total Black


--Ryan Masteller