Sounds Are Active » Melk The G6-49

Strata- A Young Person’s Guide To Experimental Music (SAA1125)

Chris Schlarb — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 15:43:47 +0000

An ambitious compilation of noise, electronic, hip-hop, free jazz, prog and experimental music, Strata- A Young Person’s Guide To Experimental Music is a primer for those of any age. Featuring rare, new and unreleased tracks from: Create (!), Bizzart, Melk The G6-49, Lafcadio, Soul-Junk, MakeShift:Shelter, Manners For Husbands, Receptor Sight, Electric iLL and others.

Collected from the Sounds Are Active and Joyful Noise record labels, Strata- A Young Person’s Guide To Experimental Music, presents both previously unreleased and downloadable tracks with album cuts.

Produced by Chris Schlarb and Karl Hofstetter
Artwork by Tim McMullen

Track Listing
01. Philippians- New Inspiration
02. Melk The G6-49- The Instantaneous Mobilization of All the Resources in the BURROW and All the Forces of My Body and Soul
03. Deneir- Charting Oblivion
04. Soul-Junk- Genesis 15
05. MakeShift:Shelter- Faux Hawk
06. Lafcadio- Noticing Drastic Changes in Individuality and Enlightenment at Such a Young Age
07. Bizzart- Nivek (outputmessage remix)
08. Patagonian- Cage
09. Create (!)- Durindana
10. Electric iLL- Funaise
11. Gratis- Means and Ends (instrumental version)
12. Abner Trio- One
13. Manners for Husbands- Lions
14. I Heart Lung- Moving Through Colour (excerpt)
15. Receptor Sight- Bagel & Green

Press
“A co-release between the Sounds Are Active and Joyful Noise labels, Strata: A Young Person’s Guide to Experimental Music lives up to its title pretty well — even if not a kid’s album in a classic sense, there’s often a gentle, merry playfulness about this 15-track selection which gives a number of creative groups a chance to show what they can do in a post-indie/IDM/everything else vein. The most well-known would doubtless be Soul-Junk, whose pursuit of any number of musical muses over the years has turned out to be a quiet triumph of dedication and art — their retelling of “Genesis 15″ makes most attempts at indie rap seem like the lazy mess it is; lead man Glen’s voice sounds like he’s broadcasting from the outer planets. But things are hardly limited to that, as everything from grinding feedback freneticism into haunted drone from Melk the G6-49 to Lafcadio’s semi-math/rap rock and I Heart Lung’s Mogwai-leaning instrumental mini-epic “Moving Through Colour.” Track times are all over the map as well — Deneir’s brief tone/beat collage “Charting Oblivion” is under a minute, Receptor Sight’s own take on post-rock reach and majesty, “Bagel & Green,” is almost a quarter-of-an-hour. The slyest track — Patagonian’s “Cage (Reenactment of More Encores)” — sounds about like what one would expect.”- All Music Guide

Melk The G6-49- Glossolalia (SAA1119)

Chris Schlarb — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 08:01:50 +0000

A miniature masterpiece of thousands of amplified crickets, Glossolalia is Melk The G6-49’s finest moment. Recorded over three days, the Bloomington, Indiana bass and drum duo have composed an album that comes off sounding like a Christian Marclay-ed Melvins 12” crossfaded with a Ruins cover of Music for Airports. Hiss, trashy cymbals and 4-string bass blasts spasm and flop with no room for other sound. Melk have pursued their heavy-noise ambient methods with only John Spencer’s electric bass and Karl Hofstetter’s drums. According to Delusions of Adequacy “Melk the G6-49 makes a wall of sound so dangerously unconventional and label bending that slapping a label on this feels like going out and stomping around in an unbroken field of snow. It’s just sacrilege.”

Working in an emotionally and sonically intimate territory that is more normally associated with small free jazz ensembles, Splendid remarked, “they’re the metal equivalents of Matthew Shipp and William Parker.”

Track Listing
0
1 kilgore
2 the instantaneous mobilization of all the resources in the BURROW and all the forces of my body and soul
3 faith hill
4 big as a mountain
5 save the needy from death
6 henry [mp3]
7

Press
“Glossolalia is most definitely not for everyone. But for those who care to give it a listen, it will seduce, repel and move you simultaneously. It’s a minor masterpiece that’s unlike just about anything else being produced… in 2004… instantly propels Melk The G6-49 into the upper classes of Indiana musicians”- NUVO

“Hyperspasmic distortoids in macramé ski masks rocking the casio-crudules, duct-taped thunder-rods, and patchwork drum tumblers were all the rage about 30 minutes ago… But while acoustic guitars are the new laptops, Sweden the new Iceland, and dance punk the new jazzercise; power noise rock still holds a place in the hearts of the international youth movement, yet to be usurped by worldbeat cabaret ska…Melk the G6-49 sound more like an eighty pound weight falling from some unreasonable height. Hitting the ground it spins gracefully like a rogue manhole cover, building into a diagonal-to-horizontal crescendo. Glossolalia is meditative sped-up doom metal instrumentals that are complicated with a love for free-noise and dark ambience. While even Babel is temptingly exhilarating there is something appealing about the clarity and crispness of this record. The songs are more like ice cubes than charcoal briquettes. There are still moments of table saw and jack hammer through distortion pedal and skull bits, but the whole thing is delicately and purposefully composed. (7.8 out of 10)”- Bandoppler Magazine

“Alternating between extreme loudness and quiet noise, Melk offers up yet another masterpiece. Considering this chaos is created with the use of drums and bass, one has to wonder what on earth they could do with even more instrumentations. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that there’s any gaps here; without a doubt this melting of genre stereotypes is absolutely mind-bending. This is what jazz would have sounded like without the horns and with more drugs. Simply breathtaking”- smother.net

Imagine a car accident being run through a garbage disposal on wah-wah pedal as an epileptic with cymbals thrashes about in a room full of drums and you get the idea. As caustic (and as accurate) as that may sound the result is oddly fixating as the listening is pulled in to explore the aural forms.”- 1340mag.com

Sounds Are Active/Asthmatic Kitty Sampler (AS001)

Chris Schlarb — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 07:53:10 +0000

Sounds Are Active and sister label Asthmatic Kitty have pooled their collective talents to put something beautiful into the world: the 2004 Sampler. Over over 74 minutes of music from these two unceasingly original record labels. The Asthmatic Kitty “Side” features songs from Sufjan Stevens’ first three albums, as well as three tracks from the unrelentingly joyous Half-Handed Cloud. Songs by Liz Janes, Castanets and Viva Voce round out the 11 tracks- 3 heretofore unreleased.

The Sounds Are Active “Side” teems with spastic new work from Melk The G6-49, Bizzart and Deneir. New and unreleased tracks from Soul-Junk, Vla Hemia and Create (!). Softer pieces contributed by Xn. (featuring a slick remix from hip-hop producer supreme Omid) and the brooding “Two Planes for Elliott Smith” by the Constantine/Levin/Phillips/Schlarb/Shadduck quintet.

Track Listing
Asthmatic Kitty Side
01. Sufjan Stevens - All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace!
02. Half-Handed Cloud - Let’s Build A Planet
03. Viva Voce - Red D-Lish
04. Liz Janes - Guitar Guitar
05. Castanets - I’ll Be Just Where You Are
06. Sufjan Stevens - Happy Birthday
07. Half-Handed Cloud - Pressing Into It
08. Liz Janes - Vine
09. Viva Voce - Welcome Mat
10. Half-Handed Cloud - Here’s A List
11. Sufjan Stevens - Year of the Tiger
Sounds Are Active Side
12. Deneir - Random Object Subject
13. Patagonian - Hands in the Face of Time
14. Xn. - gone home early (Omid Remix)
15. Vla Hemia - Break Loose
16. Soul-Junk - Nova (Evig Poesi Remix)
17. Bizzart - Pink Summer in Hell
18. Melk the G6-49 - Henry
19. Create(!) - Three Butterflies, Seven Mockingbirds
20. Constantine/Levin/Phillips/Schlarb/Shadduck - Two Planes for Elliot Smith

Press
“Proving that sisterhood is powerful, sibling labels Sounds Are Active and Asthmatic Kitty cram a grab bag of sounds- everything from hip-hop to free jazz to folky weirdness- onto one sampler. The Sounds Are Active half buzzes with new tracks from Soul-Junk, Bizzart, Vla Hemia and others.”- XLR8R