Pendulum
Psychic Space Invasion is Ian Holloway's main project, and Pendulum is already the eighth release by this project, if I understand correctly. Mr. Holloway has thus had ample experience in electronic music, and that shows. This album is built up solely of drones, loops and effects, but he makes into a gripping adventure that is quite unlike most drone albums, and indeed also different from the other PSI material I've heard so far.
The album consists of six untitled tracks that are all built up using the same technique. Many layers of looped drones are combined with effects. Now, where your usual drone or ambient album often lacks a pronounced rhythm, that is not the case here. The loops work in such a way that they put forth a distinct pulsating cadence, realised not only in the swell of the drone, but also accented perfectly by the soft glitches between loops. Various effects add different frequencies to the whole, and provide additional depth. Like I said, all of the tracks are built up in this same manner, but that definitely does not mean they all sound alike; rather, each has a unique character and sound palette. The low drones don't claim the lead role as they often do in this kind of music, but they are but one of the elements in these tracks. Many higher frequency sounds provide the necessary variation.
This combination of sounds and subtle rhythms make this an extremely hypnotic and engrossing album. Rather than aiming for a particular visual or concrete atmosphere, this music completely immerses you in pure, warm sound, and it does it well. This is definitely something for trippy electronic music freaks only, as it might be somewhat of an acquired taste, but I'll be returning to this album often. - Oscar, Evening of Light
Like many reviewers I receive many cds, demos, cdrs and lot's of them are so and so or simply horrible but a minority of these releases is really good and sometimes I happen to hear some interesting output from an unknown band like this. In general the releases on Elvis Coffee are really good but since I don't take it or granted I didn't know what to expect, but it was quite catchy from the very early listenings. Psychic Space Invasion are an remarkable example of how you can realize an appealing collection of tracks just working on minimal ideas, infact the music sounds more or less like minimal ambient influenced both by "ambinetal works" and by that grey area f musicians that ranges from early Current 93 minus folk and Stepleton's Nurse With Wound just to mention some of the famous name. "Pendulum" is really simple and sometimes pushes around the same idea without any substantial changes for many minutes, but the fact it that the idea/sample/melody on which the whole track is built is someway really fascinating. I wish they're gonna distribute this cd, many probably will ask if there is anything new under the sun of weird ambient...I can't say, but sure this’ one much more attention-grabbing than many releases on bigger labels I've heard recently, thumbs up for P.S.I.! (not to be confounded with Pitch Shifter Industry). - Andrea Ferraris, Chain DLK
Immensely interesting to observe: An invisible hand randomly stirs the spoon.
Most people think of Drones as static and immobile, but that is really a misunderstanding. With few exceptions, they always have an inherent pulsation, a sort of intrinsic bowel movement caused by its own frequential capacities or soft filter modulations on the part of their creator. Because artists from the genre have a tendency to prefer drinking green tea over black coffee, this usually goes by unnoticed by the lesser trained pair of ears, but not so on “Pendulum”.
What Ian Holloway of Psychic Space Invasion effectively does here is condense the oscillations of his source material to a point where they retain their atmospheric timbre, but start approximating a clearly distinguishable rhythm. Think of a wide yet flexible wave being sent through an ever smaller circular tube until it starts biting its own tail. Claustrophobia, dyspnea and tension are natural side-effects of this state and they are the main moods with which Holloway works. This might seem an awfully restrictd repertoire as well as a predictable one, but the Psychic Space Invasion have been around for some time, allowing the project to mature and bring its simple elements to full fruition. In the background, imposing walls of harmonics rest silently within themselves, while the propulsive ondulations keep thickening and morphing in the foreground. In the meantime, the distinction between major and minor chords is never decisive and subject to constant change. While some pieces may start off in a sweet and warm dreamstate and end up in unsettling hypertonic nightmarkes, others begin in a bizarre stellar overdrive only to slowly find their peace over time. The process is one of putting several coloured tinctures into a glass of water and watch them flow into each other, while an invisible hand randomly stirs the spoon.
Definitely an album to be listened to attentively, instead of yet another flowery aural wallpaper. There are six pieces on “Pendulum” and even though all of them are driven by the same logic, their development remains immensely interesting to observe, simply because their parameters are never the same. As Elvis Coffee Records, the long-time home of Psychic pace Invasion, changes its name to Quiet World, getting stronger as we speak, Holloway’s rhtyhmical drones may soon penetrate the scene like a sword of fire. - Tobias Fischer, Tokafi
ECR (Elvis Coffee Records) releases its last CDR: from now on, the label's name will be Quiet World. But Psychic Space Invasion remains the same, and we're lucky for that. These six tracks were recorded in a 7-night span (winter of 2006) in the Welsh Gower Peninsula; Ian Holloway used pre-recorded loops, bass guitar, hosepipe and glass bottles to raise some serious goosebumps. Now, this gentleman is not that kind of "Johnny-on-the-spot" dronescaper who lends a stroke or two of JamMan whenever the occasion arises. His music's feel is one of active meditation, a basic minimalism if you will, not in the commonly intended meaning but rather referring to the apparent paucity of means utilized, which for contrast generate wavering lights that almost instantly find the right spot in our ever-willing being, in perennial search of regular doses of ear-rubbing, mind-calming low frequencies. But, lo and behold, there come recycled sequences and melodic snippets, which heave in sight at safe distance from the basic foundation yet give the sound a gradation and a density. Since fine feathers do not necessarily make fine birds, the difference between Psychic Space Invasion and many of his fellow charmers must be found in Holloway's sincerity: the man does not hide himself behind "majority leader" declarations and quotes from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, preferring instead to let the aural matters speak for themselves, well aware of their alluring behaviour. It's one of those cases in which the music becomes a presence whose importance is understood only after its conclusion. Great pulse, entrancing in the "right" way. Almost flawless and, as usual, highly recommended. - Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
The Elvis Coffee label is no longer, 'Pendulum' is the last release. But there is no reason to be sad, since the same people founded a new label, Quiet World. There is also a fanzine called Wonderful Wooden Reasons, which reminded me of the old Vital, when we knew what paper looked like. Psychic Space Invasion is basically Ian Holloway playing with friends, and it's indeed psychic and space like music. 'Pendulum' continues the work that started with the previous release 'All God's Children Space', except that now we are dealing with six tracks. Like the previous, Psychic Space Invasion loves the drone music. Still it's hard to say what it is that is done here. It might be a synthesizer or a simple organ, fed through a delay and/or some reverb, but it makes pretty strong music. There is a strange sense of rhythm going on (perhaps they are using the old casio SK-1 samplers), that indeed tick like the pendulum at my grandmother's house once did. Trance inducing music for sure. Rather simple made, but with great effect. A proof that expensive equipment is not always leading to good results. A good idea counts too! - FdW, Vital
В одно лицо проект британца Йона Холловэя (Ian Holloway), в рамках PSI вот уже пять лет производящего расплывчатые звуковые полотна, обволакивающие и обтекающий, как только липкий тамошний туман может обтекать и обволакивать. "Pendulum" — глубинный, мягко и ватно вибрирующий дрон, сделанный — как уверяет пресс-релиз — равно на традиционных (бас-гитара), и нетрадиционных (стеклянная бутылка) инструментах. Впрочем, бутылочных наигрышей здесь проследить не удается. Можно лишь подозревать, что г-н Холловэй немного эзотерически погудел в пузырь из-под любимого односолодового виски, далее отъсэмплировав полученное до состояния антимузыки сфер. Итого: самая верная ассоциация к такому звукоряду — вышедший в открытый космос отважный астронавт оторвался от своего крепежа, и теперь мееедленно-мееедленно, словно летаргический слизняк, уносится в холодно пялящаяся равнодушными звездами пространство, беззвучно (потому как в переговорном устройстве батарейки, знаете ли, сели) вопя, марая изнутри слюнями стекло шлема. И никто тебе не поможет, родной... - Oleg Manson, GIAG
I'm gonna have to venture a guess that Ian Holloway, the man behind Psychic Space Invasion, is also the man behind most of the synth/effects work on the previous disc (I wrote the other review before hearing this one). "Pendulum" is much more steeped in electronic/dark ambience than "Sound on an Empty Road", maybe even adding a touch more of electronica and straight-up ambient feel than one might expect. There's six untitled tracks here clocking in at about 50 minutes, and each is built around cold, mechanical loops that expand and grow like amoeba in whichever direction Holloway sees fit. I read a review of another Psychic Space Invasion album describing it as "static minimalism" and if you can't top it you might as well adopt it so that's the course I'm taking. Pretty accurate if you ask me. Track four is a definite favorite, with a convulsive un-rhythm carefully prodded forward, lapsing into a guitar (?) driven pulse like the Floyd on "One of These Days", and tracks three and six could be the best things Tim Hecker left off his "Radio Amor" album. Holloway doesn't do too much to shatter the mold here but it's all pulled off with the skill and precision of a seasoned vet (which he may well be as I don't know his backstory in the slightest). If you like your tones cold and your moods bad, then you'll get along fine with "Pendulum". Especially if your bag already consists of gents like the aforementioned Hecker, Lustmord, Bjerga/Iversen, Machinefabriek, early Daniel Menche, Dick D. James, and the like... - Outer SpaceGamelan
To some industrial noise is disorientating and annoying. But not for a stotter like me matey! But saying that I was glad when the 11 minutes of track 1 was over!
I don't mind repetition, nor do I mind noise, but there is a fine line between being boring and being interesting.
As with most experimental music of this nature it needs an ear that is not adverse to obscurity nor abstraction, a one that is willing to indulge in the torments of the twisted minds offering sanctuary in their world. Those who understand this will get away with Pendulum. Others with a softer, less harsh hearing palette will be disgusted and put off from the very first sound. I however found myself sort of in between and I listened to it only because I had to I think.
I found it very harsh on the ears and would say that it is a love it or hate it job.
You will love it if you are into bowels of hell type sounds, with obscure horrible scratchy things pouncing from the sulphurous innards, which dwell therein. You will hate it if you'd rather listen to soothing angelic floaty sounds. Put it this way, I will not be listening to it again because I heard nothing adventurous or creative from it the first time. All I heard was harsh noise and realistically I would have been more upbeat if short wave radio noise had been fed and tuned through a delay pedal.
For me it was too one paced throughout and I found that by the end it did not venture very far from where it initially began.
On the plus side I will say that the CD envisages a subduing feeling, rather like that of sickness. And I ask, is this not where Psychic Space Invasion wills to take you? Beware it'll ring ya withers! - Albert Pollard, Aural Innovations
Here is the latest (and last) release from ECR. "Pendulum" by Psychic Space Invasion who for the last 5 years is Ian Holloway. REPETANE repeating samples that create a drone along with more drone samples...yes quite lovely! very meditative and pleasant, the effect you hope for with experimental music!? PITTLE more loveliness, Ian, you're kicking ass!! This track has an intentional pop that moves from one speaker to the other, pops in stereo! Yes, yes, I like it! TRANSLATENT more of the same, this one has a pop too!? Is this intentional? Why have it on 2 songs? Oh, here comes some new different sounds, active and droney space, yes, yes! TENALIST a different pace and repeated different sounds but same loops on top of each other!?...OK, the repeated pops are getting a little old! SCOPTIC more repeated pops and strange noises looped and piled on top of each other!? ELLIPSALIC 2 this one has hiss looped, actually sounds pretty good! From the press sheet, "the basic forms of the 6 tracks that make up Pendulum were recorded over 7 consecutive nights during winter 2006 whilst watching the snow fall across the Gower Peninsula in Wales. The recordings made each night were mixed with pre-recorded loops, and both 'traditional' (bass guitar) and 'non-traditional' (hosepipe, glass bottles) instrumentation." Carlton Crutcher, Rumbles
