'Spective Audio Release Day!

Hey y'all,

The cassettes are ready! I should have an update on the arrangement with Reckless Records tomorrow, from what they've told me in the past, we shouldn't have any issue with getting the tapes into all three stores, but I need to speak with them all individually.

If you would like to arrange an order, please email spectiveaudio (at) gmail.com. Cassettes will be $6 USA, $7 Canada, $10 international.

The Cinchel releases, including handmade art by Cinchel himself, are going quickly. Get one while we have 'em!

SOLD OUT: SPCTV CS2: Cinchel drone.dump SOLD OUT

Cinchel drone.dump (including hand-made segments of a large watercolor, individually unique to each package. Kelly green tape.)

Release date: March 2, 2010

This release is personal in the most significant way; I received it as a gift after watching Chicago guitar artist Cinchel play a set at Hotti Biscotti alongside Dense Reduction and Travis Bird. It was handed to me in an elaborate, hand-made watercolor double-CD case, and it featured two astonishing releases: one featuring guitar compositions alongside various found sounds and recordings, and another featuring pure, intense, nearly endless guitar drones, sustaining for an hour.

This is a story about those guitar drones.

Endless notes sustain through both sides, as Cinchel constructs a note, leaves it there, suspends it in time, only interrupting it with sometimes chaotic, unsettling arrangements that pass through the recording with a certain peace that is completely at tension with the endless note. Textures arise with this method, and the surprise of the arrangements add to the suspense of the overall composition.

By cycling the notes, and continuously processing or manipulating the sound, Cinchel creates a dense landscape that is ominous, labyrinthine, introspective. The event of this release is your very own reflection throughout its sounds, and while focusing on its moments, peaks, and surprises, the time stamps on the progression of the tape are your thoughts, emotions, and desires that correspond to, or conspire against, the recording.

As a sonic adventure, the piece closes with an assault on the previous template for reflection, the full 40 minutes of music that precede the finale, the most brutally repetitive passage of the entire recording, a dark timbre, built completely from the sum of the previous arrangements, a climax that did not seem likely and is therefore that much more effective. By the closing loop, the tension decreases, and the mind is once again ready to reflect and encounter the emotional passages of a world that begins once the recording is completed.

EDIT: As of January 17, 2011, the Cinchel cassette will mostly be available through Permanent Records, Reckless Records, Tomentosa Records, and the artist (more details on an upcoming show soon!), pending availability at those sources. Copies at the source will be sold out shortly.

SPCTV CS1: The N.E.C. B-Sides

The N.E.C. B-Sides (features artwork by Cyrus Shahmir and tinted red tape).

Release date: March 2, 2010

TRACKS

A1: Cruel Sea
A2: A Drone
A3: Firing Room

B1: Maniac Wonderlust
B2: Void
B3: Plum
B4: So Many Apples Fall
B5: C Drones
B6: The Bells
B7: Mean Grievance

The N.E.C. split the difference between the ambient and heavy sides of the Atlanta psychedelic scene, driving their sound with textured noise and soul sensibilities throughout their catalog of releases from 2007 to present. Eclectic and engaging, on the first 'Spective release the group meander, drone, and layer their way through the back catalog of the recording sessions behind their previous releases (from Million Minks (2007) to Is (2010)).

On the A-side, the group rips through the extended jam "Cruel Sea," a song that features droning vocal passages amidst a literal sea of instrumentation -- drenched guitar, driving bass, and unrelenting drums. "A-Drone" and "Firing Room" explore the ground cleared by "Cruel Sea," one heavier, the other ambient, with particularly strong songwriting shifts in "Firing Room."

The journeys of the A-side are matched by a series of succinct statements on the B-side, with the band once again showing all of their eclectic sides -- if most bands are placed in boxes, the lack of borders with this group find them more suited for spheres. Cycles presented, that move through various themes, that return to previous moments only with the momentum and memories of the entire journey.

Specifically, the band showcases the skeletons of their pop sensibilities against the noise experiments from the first side. It quickly becomes apparent that the unrelenting fuzz and driving rhythms of the first side are never quite gone on the other side, but rather confined in a different manner, much like endless power building within the steel framework of a third rail of a train.

At the very end, the other-worldly peace of "Mean Grievance" carries the ear back to "Cruel Sea" once again, and on second listen, you'll find that those pop skeletons were not ever absent on the first side, simply serving as the invisible structure of an organism that takes on a life of its very own on the surface.

***

Other releases available:

Is (2010, [ove:evo] / Double Phantom)
Jovontaes / The N.E.C. (2009, [ove:evo] / Double Phantom)
"Only One You Know" EP (2008, [ove:evo] / Double Phantom)
Million Minks (2007, [ove:evo])