Book of Dreams
Another one of Ian Holloway's quietly impressive releases. He's on a bit of a roll at the moment. His deft hand at this moody soundscape palava gets better with each release. Those who've compared him to Elph-era Coil are being a little generous in their praise and a little unfair on Holloway because his work is good enough to stand on its own two legs. The isolationist tones are spatial and resonate deep. The occasional dollop of heavy reverb is clumsy and only clouds what should be a clearly defined horizon. I do wonder if these recordings are merely a soundtrack to his interests in shamanism. While not being practical or ritual in feel, they do have a sense of a world created within the curve of a warp in time. That's how convincingly constructed these sounds are.
It's a pity good work is being put out on CDr and on a label that has the word 'Elvis' in the title, but if that’s what it takes then so be it. - HM, Adverse Effect vol. 3/3
This is an eerie journey into the chilly catacombs of Ian's mind. Mysterious, unearthly & retaining enough tension to dub this 'not quite so late night listening'... unless you WANT to go to bed a trifle scared! Tangerine Dream, Nurse With Wound, Origami Galaktika, to name but three, all have varying degrees of warmths within their desolation pieces because, even at their coldest, they still burn something akin to a gas boilers pilot light. Here, it's like being cast adrift between stars... fahrenheit er, total zero. Today in London the sun may be shining & this room may be bright but I feel cold. So here is something just a dinky bit fresh for our jaded 'civilisation' that has seen & heard everything (but has acted on NOTHING!)... Music to seduce a corpse to. And if you think I am being crass & cringeworthy, check out Lynne Stopkewich's astonishing 1996 film "Kissed"... "We carry the body, carry the body, carry the body..." - "I'm playing the CD, playing the CD, playing the CD..." - Paggie is "Punching the beary, punching the beary, punching the beary..." This is worth Ł4 of any self-respecting necrophile's inheritance money.
- Gary Simmons, GIAG
Boring goth inflected electronic ambience. Nice enough textures, but it has a claustrophobic digital sound that wrecks all the warm tones and rolling blips. Then there's the occasional goth inflections. Which I can't tolerate. Whatever, I wish I hadn't wasted 3 listens on this. - (sorry I've lost the reviewers name, if i find it i'll post it - ian)
As Psychic Space Invasion, Holloway creates ambient music that is deep, spacey, complex, and exceedingly dark. He fills his sonic space with mysterious drones, some of them deep and oceanic, others thin and shrill. Through the drones, gurgling electronics, twitching, twittering glitches, space moans, bell-like chimes and distant voices echo and melt. And even though this music can be categorized as ambient, it never completely drifts into the background. Sometimes the sounds are so arresting that it is impossible to divert your attention away from them. One of the weaknesses of ambient music in general is that often a lot of the pieces tend to sound the same, but Holloway manages to infuse each piece on Book of Dreams with its own unique character. - Jeff Fitzgerald, Aural Innovations
Fourth official cdr release on Elvis Coffee by UK soundmaker Ian Holloway. The name of his project pretty much describes it all - PSI stands for trippy, yet dark electronica, somewhere between old minimalism/computer music and post-industrial. The press sheet mentions Elph-era Coil, which might give you a clue. Though mostly based on synths and effects, the sound is pretty varied, also incorporating desolate piano lines ("Hiraeth"), vocal samples, percussions ("an essence of true sleep", a bit à la Zoviet France) - but PSI's main direction seems to be a grey isolationist ambient ("nothing exists", "yellow duck") with cosmic excursions ("echoes of memory", "the theatre of the warm"). Promising material, but a bit too repetitive in some parts (some delay abuses, for example) and, for me, not that engaging on a gut level. - Eugenio Maggi, Chain DLK
And The Cows Go Mu
Welsh musician Ian Holloway is the sole entity sitting in PSI’s (or, Psychic Space Invasion’s) control booth. “And the Cows go Mu” is his (or their) fourth and goes the way of Noggin (if memory serves?) and Picastro in employing Chinese funeral money as sleeve art. This apparently gains ‘worth’ only when burnt and transported to the next whorl of existence – I believe I’m halfway there already… But PSI have value now – so that new flamethrower of yours can remain in the broom cupboard – ok? Again, as before… 4 ‘untitleds’ place a faceless string section, vague in number, into the muffled acoustics of an undersea cave. Bizarrely – 9 minutes into the first track – you can actually hear what seems to be a diver’s airways snagging on jagged barbs of steel wreckage! His atmospheric pressure (Pounds per Square Inch?) dropping drastically and it’s almost real enough for you to think about dialling the coastguard. - Steve Prescott, Rumbles
Fourth cd for Welsh artist Ian Holloway, who I think has progressed a lot since his latest "Book of dreams". Not that anything has dramatically changed in PSI's palette, which is still mostly based on sideral electronics, with a considerable dose of musique concrete elements and a tribal-ish rhythmic backbone here and there; but this time Holloway just offers stronger, more mature and engaging material. Something could probably be mixed or arranged better, but the four lengthy tracks flow very well and the attention never flickers. Staying true to his name (and despite the silly title), PSI's music is spacey and trippy but in an entropic, and eventually paranoid way: no romantic stargazing is evoked here. Dark cosmic music which I'd recommend to fans of Elph/Coil or Monos' "Nightfall sunshine". Minimal but nice-looking packaging too, made of Chinese paper to be burned at funeral ceremonies (sic!). - Eugenio Maggi, Chain DLK
As Ian Holloway (aka Psychic Space Invasion) explains in the press notes, "we constantly move between states of awareness and consciousness whether this be by chemical means, sleep, meditation or the simple act of daydreaming. This project seeks to map those shifts, to produce aural representations of these other states and stimulate that state in the listeners". You could probably say "Been there, done that" but - surprise - this album is effectively maintaining its promises, constructed as it is upon a series of lively psychedelic vistas which make good use of well known ingredients - throbbing tensions, projection of repetitive figurations, intelligent looping, pseudo-shamanic drones - carefully deployed and organized according to a transmission order rarely heard in recent times, therefore uncomparable with (more or less) anything else. Imbalances and contrasting signals fulfil our brain's needs in an alternance of shades of pregnant post-mortem electronics and somnolent womb sounds where all that appears decontextualized suddenly becomes the most logical explanation to every unpleasing doubt. Holloway lights up the path through uncertainty while we gradually get used to the absence of a guideline, prepared to face our worst preoccupations without flinching. - Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
Psychic Space Invasion is an one-man band, consisting of Ian Holloway and 'And The Cows Go Mu' is his fourth release. According to the information, this a more meditative release than the previous three. This is the first release in the Liminal Animal drone series, 'the liminal phase is the point during a ritual where the participants is journeying between one state of being and another'. Four lengthy cuts of drone music, made up with a variety of cheap machinery, or it seems to me. Textured sounds swirl in and out of the mix, with the addition of percussive elements. I am not sure if I went to another state, but it was quite a pleasant release. - FDW, Vital
Wales — a land of mystical phenomena, weird musical outfits and strange personalities. Forgive me my naiveness but that’s my personal relation with this country and with the impressions I get from there. So, ok I’m so charmed by Wales that Japan already got into the second place of my top three of the countries I strive to visit.
Psychic Space Invasion is an evident example of the kind of oddity and strangness I desire, sometime I even feel so small infront of such energy, but I can also join it easily. The name of that project stuck into my mind for long. Ok, so what does P.S.I. have in common with cows? Don’t know? Ask a granny (as Lithuanians would say). What I hear is some strange organ music passed through the filter separating from the real cognition. However quite chaotic waves echo, like a mad scientist in the climax of his alchemical experiment. He wonders about his results and moves forward towards the unknown areas. Sometimes he obtains a miserable part of the truth. This truth is shown by the instant waves of expressive organ music. Finally the waves are replaced by short sounds and the space gets filled with mysticism.
The second track reminds me of International Space Weather Orchestra but it is closer to the Earth. Cosmic latitudes filled with organic crackles and synth vibrations remind of a working frequency of a train. Something is happening but far from concrete.
The third track sounds like awakening from the lethargic sleep. Coming back to consciousness, though it reminds me of some death ambient aesthetics: sudden delayed sounds, abstract organic rhytmic and so on.
The last track starts with a middle tone pleasant electronic drone loop, which is later polished with a higher one. The composition becomes even sweeter and eventually some periodic electronic crackles join. It’s very interesting to follow them or just to use this recording as a tool for introversion.
I had quite a strong experience with this release. I was walking in the sacred places at night, listening to this CD, I got very strong connection with the present environment, these very wonderfull moments! Recommended! - Arma, Introspect
‘And the Cows Go Mu’ is a four track affair. No track list or meaningless babble sullies the pristine, arty paper cover. Tracks one and two are Flying Saucer Attack-esque soundscapes of peace, tranquility and warm washes of ambience while track three is more of an ‘Erazerhead’ style nightmare of heavy industry. Sheet metal machine music to soundtrack your Night Nurse-aided bedtimes. Fourth and final track returns to the eerie/ambient vibe somewhat and fades away quietly, leaving you to ponder your lost hopes and dreams. - Mark Ritchie, Sniper Glue
The Magpie Rhyme
Welsh artists Ian Holloway is the man after this project, a darkish series of variegated soundscapes whose influences range from Nurse With Wound and Contrastate to abstract electronica. PSI moves in an oneiric dimension where every kind of source reveals itself as a passage towards uncharted territories; pulsations and nightmares are levigated by a haze of narcotic effects transforming the sounds into a nice mess of almost naive sensations. If certain tricks - slowed down voices and deformed laughter - sound a little worn out by now, there are genial touches across the tracks, the nicest being a warped quacking duck moving around like a supernatural joke. The most excellent moments come from looping spirals keeping the heartbeat at a calm pace; those more "sober" parts could constitute the foundation for interesting future developments. - Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
'The Magpie Rhyme' is the latest release by Psychic Space Invasion, and, again according to the information, sees a return to 'the more abstracted ambient territories that characterized previous releases'. Holloway uses here guitar, harmonica and melody horn, along with a box of broken glass. Here the music is also lurking in ambient corners, but is throughout more musical and less based on drone music. Strange percussive sounds and guitar feedback set against a wall of ambient sounds, making this is a more massive release, filled with sound from every corner. - FDW, Vital
From Wales, United Kingdom, Psychic Space Invasion is Ian Holloway and The Magpie Rhyme is his fifth album. DANNNNSH (7:20) - Pre-recorded vocals? A training tape? Drones, effected out slowed down drum machine. It's starting to make sense, the slowed down vocal mixed with drones and slowed down drums somehow fits together and now I'm slowed down. WHERE THE PRETTY BIRDS SING (8:12) - Clicking with effects, and more clicking, then spacey gurgle howl along with clicken and then some heavy overdrive growl. Some nice panning (going from one speaker to another). But what does it all mean? Who are these Pretty Birds? Are these Pretty Sounds really the Pretty Birds and if so what are they trying to tell us? More and more crazy sounds. Demented, laughing, zippin' around Star Wars sounds. This is pretty cool music. Definitely psychedelic! (whatever that means) 50 PENCE FOR BUDDHA (11:34) - Intense layered drones, glass clankin', nice sound, more effective panning. Oh my, the glass is breaking. I seem to be losing my mind again. Is this weird music just for the sake of making weird music or is it art, that's the question. BIGGER TIME MIND (9:25) - Starts with big cool sound, a squalling squall, and more and more of it. At 3:24 it changes pace. Slow percussion, then some static and stuff... then some Big Band records? Oh my, what's it all mean?. Ian can ride the awesome drone. A LOVE, A WIND (9:01) - Electronic train goin' down the experimental tracks. Dark, moody, unidentifiable sounds. Demented laughing, or a duck barking? Demonic Donald Duck? Changes gears, more goin' down the train tracks, squealing and squalling vocal effects. MADE FROM ASH (10:34) - Slow, moody effects, nice feel, but in some ways this CD could be more engaging if there was less sameness. More to set it apart from other CD's of this genre. More nice squalls of sound. ON A WHISPERING SOUTH WIND (8:17) - Dog whistles? Gloomin drum machine, more dreamy dronage... the answer is Yes, it might just be weird music for sake of making weird music, but it's art! - Carlton Crutcher, Aural Innovations
Sometimes it’s NICE to receive unexpected packages in the mail (unless, of course, you work in an animal vivisection lab), so I was quite overjoyed to get an unsolicited parcel containing four CDs from Swansea’s Elvis Coffee Records. I’d read reviews of their stuff before, without ever actually HEARING any of it. I expected noise. Crazy, shouty nutters ranting and raving about dark nights of the arsehole. Well, Psychic Space Invasion don’t sound like THAT at ALL. In fact, they inhabit a far more dreamy, ambient landscape. Their ‘The Magpie Rhyme’ release begins hauntingly quietly. A sombre-sounding man speaks over low drones. Sounds like a slowed-down sample from a ‘learn another language’ record. This proved to be an eerie accompaniment to the funeral of George Best, which was playing silently on television when I listened to it. Next track, ‘Where the Pretty Birds Sing’, conjures up images of a child playing with clackers on a post-industrial wasteland in a howling radioactive wind. On ‘50 Pence for Buddha’, glass shatters, wind-chimes chime, electronic noise swathes everything in a cloak of red velvet. The coffin lid closes. It feels like there’s no way out.. But WAIT! Here comes ‘Bigger Time Mind’, offering the spinning blades of helicopters, the angry hiss of locusts, a youth of sonic maelstrom which softens into a hymn to the natural, inevitable laws of decay. There are actually some BEATS on ‘A Love, A Wind’, although they appear to follow a rhythm all of their own, quite unlike anything you could ever possibly describe as ‘conventional’. Distant stabs of percussive echo fade in and out of the, now familiar, Orwellian drone, before giving up the ghost and disappearing altogether. ‘Made from Ash’ is VERY gentle. Something to soothe the troubled brow and ease the transition into a better world. There MUST be a better world than THIS! SURELY? Final track, ‘On a Whispering South Wind’ continues the injection into this peaceful vein, although spooky harmonica and ‘Jaws’-esque strings make you wonder just WHAT kind of planet these Psychic Space Invaders have traveled from. - Mark Ritchie, Sniper Glue
All God's Children Got Space
Ian Holloway/Psychic Space Invasion has created a minor masterpiece of static minimalism which you'd be silly not to grab, especially considering that all Elvis Coffee's releases come in limited editions of 50 to 75 copies and are sent in exchange of postal costs only. All evolves from a fixed organ chord which somehow recalls Charlemagne Palestine's synthesizer pieces circa "Four manifestations on six elements", all oscillating harmonics and undulating frequencies which truly free the mind from extraneous thoughts and tense interferences. Halfway through the CD, slightly contrasting currents generated by different chords and a few minutes of flanger-like treatment of the sound move the music a little bit while remaining coherent to the grand scheme of things. At the end, everything returns to the initial flux, a quasi-immobile procession of elongated reflections whose conclusion finds us relaxed, almost intoxicated, our heartbeat slowed down of several notches. Warmly recommended. - Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
Would someone please explain why an artist of the calibre of Ian Holloway… Mr Psychic Space Invasion himself… isn’t better known? Why he has to stick in the shadows of a cult record label… no offence Elvis Coffee Records… when lesser deserving individuals get a higher profile on more well renowned record labels. Madness. Utter madness. One day realisation will finally dawn on all the music lovers out there to just what they are missing out on. Here’s hoping it’s not too late.
There is a school of thought, although in truth more like a classroom, that says that minimalism in music is dull and far too easy to produce. They, the philistines, do not fully understand the complexity involved in creating such intricate patterns that are finely balanced to the nth degree. Ian Holloway does. His music attempts to go places where Maeror Tri failed to go. And there are similarities between the music of Psychic Space Invasion and Maeror Tri. There is. Trust me. On the one track, 43+ minute release "All God’s children got space" Ian takes electronic drones into another dimension. This one long undulating piece is the epitome of cathartic release. A monumental swirling revelation that manages to reach out and touch the void. There is an underlying sereneness to the music which is quite breathtaking when you let it permeate and take hold. Free flowing, ever expanding and changing, it envelopes the listener just as Maeror Tri accomplished throughout their work. Whether Ian classifies his work here as ‘pure drone’ is a moot point and one that can be argued at will some other time To me it fits that category and thus it will stay there.
Another reviewer called Massimo Ricci, credit where credit is due, described this work as a ‘minor masterpiece’ and you know…I’d have to agree with him. Damn him for getting in there first. If two different reviewers can share the same viewpoint then the release must be worthy of immediate investigation. But knowing things the way they are you’ll let this gem go undiscovered. Madness. It’s all around. - ANM. Aural Pressure
Ok, ignore the bad layout, first because this cdr is available for postage costs only, second (and most of all) because this is a dramatic improvement from PSI's previous releases, which by the way were not bad at all. Ian Holloway hasn't changed the nature of his project (i.e. synth-driven cosmic ambient), but has surely created a more daring and focused piece of minimal music. The single 43' 30'' track starts begins with a huge organ sound which will float in the air for some 20 minutes, when a synth sweep and then a pitch-shifted melody are slowly added. Then the organ returns, closing the piece in a circular way. While I'm still not a fan of overtly audible synth sounds, PSI has written a great composition, with a skillful use of timing and sequences; and the organ-like sound is splendid (think of jliat's "The Nature of Nature"). Well worth the few pennies to cover postage. - Eugenio Maggi, Chain DLK
This is the umptienth full-length of Psychic Space Invasion, main artist on Welsh experimental label Elvis Coffee Records. All God´s Children Got Space is quite a peculiar album, even for PSI.
The album consists of an endless organ-like drone, accompanied by slow, slow minimal changes in the background. Additional drones of the same sound fade in and out, and shape into tiny looping melodies. Extremely monotonous and minimalistic is another way of putting it. In this case, minimalism does not work out for its own benefit, at least in my opinion. The record is an excellent example of how someone can make music that is essentially the same as, for instance Moljebka Pvlse, just completely uninteresting. It is simply the quality of the sound that fails to fascinate me, grab a hold of me or affect me in any other way. It does not succeed in being hypnotically monotonous, or alive enough to create an encompassing atmosphere. It is just boring. Those seeking good, vibrant organ drones can start on Current 93:s Sleep Has His House.
I do find Psychic Space Invasion to be a talented artist, but this one is simply a miss. - -john björkman, kuolleenmusiikinyhdistys
This UK one man band (Ian Holloway) has released 7 CD-Rs on the Elvis Coffee Records label. This CD is one 43 minute piece of music. Be patient, sit back and absorb the sounds. IT begins with a ringing like drone that is slowly taken over by another drone by the sound of an organ. As the ringing disappears and the organ sound develops into a special drone some spaced out sounds are starting to filter into the sound (17mins or so). IT gets very spaced out in the min 20 minutes and then the sounds are modulated further until it slowly fades out into nothingness as it began. Phew….Special stuff… - Scott, Lowcut
Also avaliable from the same label is “All Gods Children got Space” the latest recording from Psychic Space Invasion which features one long ambient drone that leaves feeling becalmed one an endless sea,as it gently undulates around you,the subtle changes in texture and tone giving the music the feeling of disintegration and timelessness. - Simon Lewis, Rumbles
One long 40+ minute track.....first off i dont usually like droney stuff like this starts off with this LONG keyboard drone reverb thing that goes on and on for about 19 - 20 minutes before it gets going with some slurpy whistling sounds and some mellow distortion this goes on for 10 minutes or so before it starts to melt.........continues to melt for 10 minutes gets stuck panning back and forth....etc....the end...something to get high to and mellow out with not really my thing..........2 out of 5 - Pat Rubbish, Introspect
In Vital Weekly we first encountered the music of Psychic Space Invasion, aka Ian Holloway via two releases that were a bit different from each-other. One of them was drone music. For his new one he expands again on the subject of drone music. In a forty minute piece he plays one long drone, which starts out quite solemnly, but over the course of the next forty minute, things get expanded and more spacious through the use of sound effects, mainly the phaser or flanger. I am not sure, but it doesn't need be expensive synthesizers to make something that sounds very good. There is a strong similarity between this release and the first few Jliat releases, with a kind of similar organ like sound, but Psychic Space Invasion does just a little bit more than Jliat did in the past. - FDW, Vital
All God's Children Got Space is one of the more recent releases by Welsh drone artist Ian Holloway, under the guise of Psychic Space Invasion. This particular CD-R contains one long track of organ based drone. Actually, I can be rather quick about it. It's nice, but not as good as his other material.
Like I said, the track is actually one long drone, based on an organ sound. It begins softly, with a subtle pulse to it. Gradually it's enriched by more layers of the same sound, but with slight differences to give the whole a fuller sound. This method is employed more, adding lower sounds along the way. After about 10 minutes, a different tone takes over, which fades after a few minutes again, giving way to the original one, which is then embellished by some effects. The second half of the album elaborates further on this, keeping the effects, and interchanging different tones and layers, and finally ending with the same sound as the album started with.
It's an elaborate drone, and the many layers prove that it's made by someone who knows how. Yet still, it's a bit too long for my tastes. The sound of this album is close to that on the follow-up, Pendulum, but All God's Children Got Space lacks the variation and more pronounced rhythms that made Pendulum so good. Because of that, this album tends to drift into the background more. Still, if you liked the other Psychic Space Invasion material, this is a nice album, and also if you're into very extensive and long drones. - Oscar, Evening of Light
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
Walking Through Fireflies
A soft requiem for a friend: Holloway's work has taken a turn.
Sadness and sorrow are no prerequisits for art, but they can certainly stimulate creative processes. Neil Young tried coping with the deaths of Danny Whitten and Bruce Berry on the horrifically beautiful "Tonight's the Night", an album that translated numbness and the inability to speak into a universal sentiment. For Ian Holloway, too, loss has been at the centre of his most recent output. "Walking through Fireflies" is a tribute to his friend Vic Golightly, who died of cancer last year. It has turned out a soft requiem and his most personal album to date.
The motivation for the album also explains why Holloway has dropped his Psychic Space Invasion pseudonym this time. When he speaks of Golightly, he does so with tenderness and with the memories still fresh: "Just being around him made me smile" - a work like this knows no distance.
The music, too, has taken a turn and even though the PSI handwriting is still all over the place, there are a couple of tracks which step outside of what we have come to expect and tread new ground. The appropriately titled "New Season", for example, with its circular chord scheme played by a detuned and delayed piano. Or the closing "Sunnyshine", a gaping black hole of dark breathings, spaceous hiss and depressed melodies. The rhythmic aspect of "Pendulum", his previous release, has all but disappeared, even though the mysterious flutter within his drones has remained, this notion of inner agitation.
Most of the tracks are no longer driven by minute development, but rather by swelling and decaying sheets of sound, as well as the stretches of near-silence which seperate them from each other. The radio scramble-like noise collage, "A lighter Being" is a noticeable exception. But it's merely a short moment of concreteness, before the blackened pads, distorted and downwardly transposed vocal samples and the metronomic curve of loudness and quietude return.
Towards the end, the pieces get longer, epically contorted and more disturbing. Needly hands are tearing at the "Tower of Winds", as if the transmission were being coded, before the aforementioned "Sunnyshine" closes the door. Somehow, though, the experience is not all darkness, but rather a sort of woeful, yet releiving way of saying goodbye.
Holloway always finds the light and the will to carry on in his music and there is something solemn and strenghening in it, despite its sad and sorrowful connotations. There is a strong transformational character to "Walking through Fireflies" – one we can all experience. - Tobias Fischer, Tokafi
The Elvis Coffee Records label is no more and it's now moved on to be Quiet World and the first release is by Ian Holloway. Another move, since before he called himself Psychic Invasion, but with the new label name also a change of his own project. Music wise there has been not much change, I think. Holloway, as before with his Psychic Invasion, plays a fine set of dark atmospheric music. Using something that sounds like synthesizers (but they might very well be coming from the computer), field recordings, guitars and loads of sound effects, Holloway created seven pieces that sound quite different from eachother, and not throughout the same. 'A Lighter Being' has not much to do with drone music per se, and quite an improvised feel to it (and it's not the greatest moment here). Other pieces are more quiet and drone like and are just better. A pretty varied and throughout fine release. - FdW, Vital
Darren Tate has recently collaborated with Ian Holloway on "The Moon As A Hole" project, and Ian has just released his latest solo album "Walking Through Fireflies", another slow-moving drone collection that is beautifully realised with the sounds blending into a delightful whole. Featuring seven tracks the music ranges from barely moving low end whispers to more abstract soundscapes such as "A Lighter Being", the sounds shimmering and evaporating like a heat haze. Whilst there is a wider palette, the album has a conformity of purpose that pulls it together creating a warm and deeply enjoyable collection. - Simon Lewis, Rumbles
holloway's release using his own name, comes after quite a few years of recording as psychic space invasion. in the accompanying notes that were sent to me, it was said that a close friend of ian's, vic golightly, passed away from cancer, and that this disc was a tribute to his memory. obviously, releasing it under his own name would make the album significantly more personal.
i love what ian said about his psi project on its myspace, "ambient music that seeks to be an integral part of the listeners environment and not merely a soporific". while i had to look up that last five dollar word, i knew even without definition what he was talking about: ambient music that craves attentiveness. that's a tall order for a lot of musicians, at least it seems that way, but ian shows that he can walk the walk (ack, a pun, fuck me.. ) with this disc. i'd credit his lack of relying on unwavering, repetitious drones for his success. the music is layered well, with great panning in areas (specifically, a lighter being) and the inclusion of organic instrumentation, like the piano, add depth to the music.
throughout this cd, holloway does a good job of combining traditional ambient music (i.e. light, spacey synth drones) with elements that make me think of beat-less minimal techno. a lighter being and tower of winds are the best examples of this meshing. it comes across more so in the background textures and sounds that they use. you could use words like cold and dark to describe ian's music, i guess, but even then i feel like too much would get lost in the translation. while walking through fireflies serves as a memorial to vic, don't let that sway you into thinking that it's filled to the brim with plaintive sounds. that's not the case. ian started working on the album prior to his friend's passing; the music wasn't influenced by it.
with fireflies, ian's put together an album of minimal electronic music that any fans of the genre would be very pleased with. for me, i don't really listen to too many things that sound like this, but even i enjoyed listening to it. it provided some great mood music for this lovely overcast day we're having right now. - avant gardening, Smooth Assailing
There are records that just don't ask for more than their sheer existence, and that people play hundreds of times without any real reason, simply content of keeping them functioning in that fragment of time in which they're enjoyed. Ian Holloway's "Walking through fireflies" is one of these items. This music's constituents are few and not necessarily new: familiar-sounding low frequencies (probably deriving from synthesizers), processed guitars, piano, altered voices (I'm not fond of the latter, but Holloway being a serious man I'll gladly accept this, too) and, whenever a melody appears, it's extremely simple, slow, almost uncertain. This would seem to depict a customary darkish ambient outing, one of the dozens that visit my CD player once, then will be forgotten until I die. Not so, as this album gains its strength when we insert its unassuming tranquillity amidst the regular activities, especially if the weather allows us to leave windows open. Yes, I'm aware that I keep repeating this advice in too many occasions. Still, take advantage of quietness when you have a chance: barely hinted keyboard clusters and echoing resonant waves can work wonders together with the hiss of the wind, a distant barking dog or the faraway cars accelerating for a quicker return to home. Everything seems to fall in place, our soul finally distracted from preoccupations but, at the same time, conscious that another difficult tomorrow is knocking at the door. We all know that music (meaning the essential vibration, not Mozart or Madonna) is not what prevents mankind from getting nerve-wrecked; unfortunately, this depends on the absence of an actual cerebral evolution, because instead it could. Working on such a subliminal level, this stuff goes well beyond the surface of a distract judgement. Remember: whispering volume in a peaceful environment, otherwise it won't help. - Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
Normally, Ian Holloway records under the name of Psychic Space Invasion, but for this release, actually the first official Quiet World release, he uses his own name. This is, in a way, appropriate, for Walking Through Fireflies is quite different from the PSI releases so far; both more dark and more personal, I feel. It is dedicated to Vic Golightly, a deceased friend, and a lot of feeling went into this tribute.
All the same, this Welsh artist stays within his genre: dark drones and ambiences. And as always, he knows what he's doing. The tracks on this album are quite minimalistic, making use of sparse settings of synth waves, slow melodies, occasional samples, and the like. It's a slowly drifting series of bleak sounds, suitable for dark and rainy days like the ones we're having now right here.
The major parts of the album crawls along in this fashion, and though it's atmospheric, I don't find it as exciting as some of Ian's other works. This changes in the last two tracks though, which are more than excellent. "Tower of Winds" is one of the darkest ambient tracks I've heard in a while, with a solid, low droning base, and layered effects providing the melody. It's hard to describe, but this is one hell of a track: scary, oppressive, heavy. Equally impressive is "Sunnyshine", a deceiving name if there ever was one. No happy-happy-joy-joy here, but just one gloomy mass of melancholic synth waves.
So, while the first part of the album is OK, but not incredible, the last two tracks surely make up for that. As a whole, this album is a bleak exercise in ambient electronics, and it shows some of the more darker sides of the expression of mourning - a fitting tribute for a lost friend, in any case. This is a recommended album for drone and dark ambient enthusiasts, and another well done release by Holloway. A good start for Quiet World. - Oscar, Evening of Light
A Lonely Place
Drifting grey clouds that, for once, do not imply obscure presages but seem to perfectly fit in the momentary lapse of consciousness that one experiences while not exactly concentrated on something. This is the principal sensation that listening to this album causes. "A lonely place" sounds warm in a way, putting us at a complete ease through a long sequence of morphing resonances and wavering drones. Ian Holloway has by now shown to all the hungry experts of the dark ambient scene that he is for real: the consistency of this artist’s presentations is tangible and I can’t remember ever having thought about any of his CDs as not satisfactory. Impossible to say what Holloway used for this 38-minute piece, as the sources could very well be potentially compared to whatever can be subjected to alteration by heavy processing - wind to motors, didjeridoo to voices. Keyboards, guitars maybe? Heaven knows. The fact is that the outcome is next to splendid, an electronic release that definitely doesn’t weigh on the listener’s patience. It’s a perfect example of that kind of sound art that does not actually "invent", yet is so beautifully made that we just don’t need anything else to feel good. And good I felt throughout the whole program. Another high mark for Quiet World’s boss. - Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
Gauges what lies behind the precipice: Holloway transforms shapeless allusions into emotional forms.
In my opinion, there are a lot of musicians out there who could learn a bit from Ian Holloway. Founder of the now defunt Elvis Coffee label, running the new Quiet World imprint, releasing under the Psychic Space Invasion moniker and, slightly more recently, under his real name as well as publishing reviews of some of his favourite artists in the wonderful Wonderful Wooden Reasons WebZine, Holloway is the kind of artist who only publishes music when he really feels he has something to say and produces it in quantities that display both his appreciation for the collector's aspect of experimental music and a realistic estimation of his tracks' chances of entering the UK charts any time soon.
In short, Holloway is the epitomisation of a genuinely honest composer. Of course, he craves for feedback, for recognition and, ultimately, for selling a few copies of his albums. But never ever does one get the impression that he could ever find himself in the situation of cluttering online stores with his releases, simply because he could. "A lonely place" is a great case in point, all the way from digging out the CD from the heavy-paper fold-out package, which opens into a psychedelic redly orange skyscape lit by a delirious sun, to listening to the music contained within.
Compared to predecessor "Walking on Fireflies", "A lonely place" is much more of a drastic and experimental offering. While the former's pieces were concise, poignant, melodic and filled with a romantic desire of undoing the past (essentially, this was an electronic requiem for a friend), the latter's single, 38-minute piece gauges what lies behind the precipice: A vortex-like fall from great heights into an uncertain void, filled with whispering sheets of scraping sound, barely touching the borders of audibility and suggesting there could be more hidden in its silent rump, like the hidden body of the floe that hit the Titanic.
Essentially, then, this is a drone work – and, quite frankly, one of frightening proportions and haunting intensity. There are artists who have gone down a similar path over the last couple of months – Jan-M Iversen springs to mind, with his terrifying "Drone 1.05" on Triple Bath- and yet, Holloway's language here extends beyond that of his colleagues, aiming for an expressiveness capable of transforming these shapeless allusions into concrete and emotional forms, of rendering its dark clay into a malleable musical substance.
This musicality is why "A lonely place" is not just timbre and vague harmony, but a composition with a distinct arrangement, with moments of beauty and of horror, of tension and relaxation, of inhaling and exhaling. After its gradual ascent to a solid state of threedimensional plasticity, it moulds its tonal threads into warm clouds, dissolving into cold Wah-Wah stutters and icey ambiances. Towards the end, the piece seems to build into a comforting finale before opting to slowly die down instead like a candle in an otherwhise empty cellar, fading out with a couple of loosely strummed guitar strings.
Needless to say this album is highly limited and all but unavailable already. In a suprising proposition, however, Ian Holloway has announced that his sold-out items can be downloaded for free from the Quiet World webpage. It is another move which shows his love for the arts, rather than to the business aspect of producing music - and an honesty others could greatly benefit from as well. - Tobias Fischer, Tokafi
Earlier in 2008, we received a fantastic collaborative project from Darren Tate, Ian Holloway, and Banks Bailey. At the time, we were well acquainted with the work of Darren Tate, thanks to his ongoing British drone eccentricities as Monos and his former Ora project with Andrew Chalk, Colin Potter, and others; but Ian Holloway and Banks Bailey were two whose work we didn't know anything about. Thanks to a suggestion from a long time customer here at the shop, we looked into the solo projects from Mr. Holloway; and damn if that tip didn't pay off with this fantastic cd-r (with more to come from Holloway in the coming weeks!). Self-released in a tiny edition of 50 copies, A Lonely Place is a breathtaking composition for time-stop dronemusik, achieving a similar stasis and similar dark beauty as Andrew Chalk did on his masterpiece East Of The Sun. It's hard to say what Holloway used as a source material for the album -- maybe guitar, maybe long-thin wire constructions, maybe field recordings, or maybe not. Like plenty of dronemusik before, it's the production that guides Holloway's success, as his deft manipulation of acoustics and electronics generates smoke, fog, and mirrors through sound that result in this amazing piece of long-form drone-smear. There's billowing swells of deep architectural space. Kosmiche electronics, rasping gong tones stretched toward infinity, and subharmonic thrumb swaddled in soft focus reverb. Think Expo '70 gone ashen black or Aidan Baker's ambient work at his most somber. Altogether wonderful, altogether very limited. - Aquarius Records
Ian Holloway’s aural signature is a dark ambience more windswept than processed. In their immanence and immediacy, the works are generally closed to the listener, and their full, uninterrupted flow draws out an intimacy that keeps vigil in us.
Certainly there are separations, limits, attractive and repellant phenomena that arrive and traverse the sound field, creating diverse situations, but an awareness of the situation as such never appears to surface. More often than not, there is simply a dim, droning halo of sound, characterized by a fleet evocativeness and slight changes in momentum and breadth, all of which are achieved with some dexterity.
Regardless, one doesn’t simply sink into the proceedings. The sound is warm, but also ambiguous, with particular places especially marked by opaque aggregates that inspire some trepidation. In rare, well-timed moments, additional layers create a jarring sense of depth and perspective; and as the odd field recording gleams through the material, elements of the profane world do subtle yet strange violence to the long-form sustained tonalities. - Max Schaefer, Cyclic Defrost
On Holloway's solo release 'A Lonely Place' he continues his previous releases of drone music, but here too a small shift can be noted. Holloway plays guitar here and mixes them with manipulated sounds thereof into a single piece of thirty-nine minutes of music. Here too a certain element of improvisation seems to leap it, making this is a little bit - but only marginally I'd say - different than the other work that is available under the banner of 'ambient drone' music, even when this comes closer to it than the release with Tate and Banks. Certainly it seems to me that Holloway is somebody who looks beyond the horizon and is eager to make small but necessary changes in ambient drone music - and it's about time, I'd say. - FdW, Vital
Transitions
Thus Ian Holloway, aka Psychic Space Invasion: "I want people to lose the boundaries between the sounds on the record and the sounds in the real world". End of the review (wait a minute, just kidding). A question arises: where did this man listen to "real world" manifestations even vaguely analogous to the ones comprised by this casing? I'd love living in that district. The piece starts with a farfetched slow swelling, a bottomless hum that, little by little, collects the vestiges of our resolve and scatters them all over the place, getting us ready for a tantalizing experience. As the time runs unstoppable, the timbral formation becomes beefy and, at the same time, confusing as assorted misshapen sources are observed at once in the stereo field: not a decipherable one in sight, except perhaps for a chronic "something" that resembles a disembowelled rhythmic chant by a Gregorian choir pulverized by atomic radiations. This lasts quite a while, until the music is completely established and the body has at long last adapted. Now we could go on and on, comfortably and optimistically thrilled; instead the whole ends, 41 minutes flown away like a nightingale. A brilliantly conceived CD needing perseverance, efficient in its scarcity of transitional phases. Might teach a couple of things to many operators in the congested sector of transcendence, a definition that in this particular case implies the existence of a gist, not only gormless words. - Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
Ian Holloway, the man behind Psychic Space Invasion, started the Elvis Coffee Records label, then Quiet World, and now is perhaps behind Persepolis Records. It may seem confusing, all this label work, but ’Transitions’, the new release by his own Psychic Space Invasion, is on a ’real’ CD, as opposed to the previous releases, which were all on CDR. That is perhaps the only break, since the music is a continuation from what we know and heard before. At the bottom of the music there is a drone. That’s however in a constant movement, a flux, a flow. On top Holloway waves together sounds, clearly divided into various parts. There is a part with humming, chanting voices and towards the end there is a long passage with loops of piano playing. Loaded with effects this release, mainly in the area of delay and reverb, which gives the music a somewhat muddy character, whereas it could have been more open. That’s perhaps the only thing that is a bit less about this release, but otherwise I thought this release, while offering more of the same, is quite a nice release, and should appeal to those who love the Uk drone scene of Monos, Ora, Mirror, Andrew Chalk, Colin Potter and Paul Bradley. - FdW, Vital
Like listening to sounds from inside a shell or the wind in the trees, "Transitions" The latest album from Psychic Space Invasions is an epic 40 minute drone, that becomes part of the space it inhabits, the faraway bells and distant vocals merely shadows and spectres. Deeply introspective and filled with melancholy beauty, this album is easy to get lost in, everything ceasing as the final chords drift away. - Simon Lewis, Rumbles
Jebus - The Ants Are Eating My Head
Irritating cover design. Do they really expect me to read all that text? Probably. Well, bolox to it, I say. States on the press blurb that Jebus had previously been working by him/her/itself but that this is a collaboration featuring members of Psychic Space Invasion (who we all rather like, don't we?), Green End Listening Station & Directive 2 (Sheesh, these names!). This is the first Jebus session, all fully improvised, created in 6 hours with guitars, pedals, samples, a theremin & other electronical gadgetry. Can't wait. Into my getting-on-in-years "big one" it goes and... yeah, all very calm & soothing & trance inducing & minimal drones & scrapes & shuffles & snuffles & chimes & sirens & buzzes & whirrs & whirls & peeps & pops... alas it doesn't work anywhere near as well as Book of Dreams. If you tried to get it on (bang a gong) with a cadaver to this, you'd only end up being laughed at in the face, and quite rightly so. It's too much in one go & I just get the feeling that our "collaborators" wanted to squeeze in as much smarty-pantyness as they possibly could for the session's duration. It uncharacteristically, unsatisfied. I'm not into 'sound effects' albums &, unfortunately, a lot of this CD tends to play just like one. Having said that, the last track does indeed start to patch things up immensly, so all is not lost. In fact, on the 2nd listen, this 3rd & final piece does start to sound rather superb... love the "trick" ending too! - Gary Simmons, GIAG
Jebus are a trio featuring members of Psychic Space Invasion, Green End Listening Station and Directive 4: all of them swapped guitars, pedals, samplers, etc. during a 6-hour improvised session, and this 3-song cdr is the final result. A great trippy start with throbbing, melodic swirls, and there are definitely some excellent intimistic moments throughout which would have been wonderful if further developed. Unfortunately, this suffers from the improvised session syndrome: it was surely fun to play and record, but what about the listener? It comes down to personal tastes, I guess, but I've found many passages of their extreme/psychedelic/delayed jamming (and it's 90% of the record) pretty dull. It's loud, but it's not interesting. Again, this could have A LOT of potential, but needs some skimming and cropping - 66 minutes of this are just too much. - Eugenio Maggi, Chain DLK
With Jebus, Holloway and his collaborators take it one step further. Ranging in length from 14 to 36 minutes, these are long, exploratory pieces that shift and change through numerous dimensions. Whilst it retains the spacey textures and shivering glitches of what Holloway does in Psychic Space Invasion, added into the mix are occasional minimalist rhythms fading in and out, and often much harsher textures, even parts where the sound shrieks out of the speakers like some kind of demon orgy. This is definitely music for adventurous listeners. A deep, dark journey through both inner and outerspace, The Ants Are Eating My Head hints at the madness its title suggests. But the origins of the madness are left for the listener to explore. - Jeff Fitzgerald, Aural Innovations
JEBUS is a collaboration involving members of PSI (no links to the American trio on the ‘Evolving Ear’ label), Directive 4 and Green End Listening Station. With their heads full of sci-fi themery/NWW and the timeless possibilities of dronescaping, they entered an anonymous studio in Feb ’04 for their first improv session. The results of this 6-hour meeting of the minds can be found on “The Ants are Eating my Head”. The four untitled pieces are cyber-tooled with murky throbbings, zero grav oscillations and arrhythmic metallic skritching. Theirs is a sound that is surely more than a sum of their influences and one as spicily alien as modernist taste decrees. Steve Prescott - Rumbles
Jebus is made by members of Psychic Space Invasion, Green End Listening Station and Directive 4. This record is the outcome of a 6-hour session where the musicians exchanged roles amidst an array of instruments including guitars, samplers and theremin bathed in effects and assorted "electrical gadgetry". Three long improvised tracks containing noise, drones and surprises in large doses; these psychedelic pastiches of incorporeal abrasions have their own character, yet they function best as filling material for your head to forget about life's troubles. Nevertheless, the partially menacing environment surrounding the atmosphere is enough to keep an eye open, even when concentration starts dwindling. Like all Elvis Coffee releases, this CD is sold at postage cost only. What a class! - Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
The Elvis Coffee Records label from Wales releases small editions of works by people from the South Wales area, but not exclusive to that area. Most of these artists are new to me, people like Jebus. It features members of Psychic Space Invasion, Green End Listening Station and Directive 4 (all never heard of, but surely so when I finished this review). Jebus plays around with a battery of guitars, pedals, samplers, theremin and electronics and all of the tracks on 'The Ants Are Eating My Head' are from the first session as Jebus. Sometimes drone related, sometimes glitchy and scratchy, the sound of guitars seem far away here, most of the time. But it's spacious character makes this into quite a nice, atmospherical release. Underground psych music. - FDW, Vital
And I feel like the ants are eating MY head after reviewing all of these CDs. Don’t get me wrong, this stuff is GOOD, I DO like it, but it IS a little much to digest all in one or two sittings. I like to hear VOCALS now and again. Anyway, back to the task in hand. Jebus (I take it the name is meant to be a cross between Jesus and Judas.. oh no, that would make Jedas, wouldn’t it!? Seems like I’ve got the wrong end of the stick AGAIN! Is it a pun on Rebus, the fictional Edinburgh detective, I wonder? Answers on a postcard) offer no song titles AGAIN, just lots and lots of confusing noise and something that LOOKS like a lyric sheet but, guess what? There are NO LYRICS!! HA ha HA! Those WAGS! Track one started to give me a headache after the first FIVE minutes, so I skipped to track two.. and THAT didn’t make me feel much better so, after only about ONE minute, I skipped to track THREE, which seemed like a better bet, being a bit peaceful and nice to listen to while looking out the window at the twinkling Christmas tree lights in the neighbour’s garden.. Yes, jolly nice. Track three can come back and stay AGAIN, especially as it has what sounds like a THEREMIN on it and you don’t hear THEM everyday! Shame it degenerates into more headache-inducing mania in the middle. Sometimes, it’s good to know when to SHUT UP. But then, they DO shut up, as there IS no track four. Phew! Think I’ll stick on some easy listening now. - Mark Ritchie, Sniper Glue
Itto - Sound On An Empty Road
Itto is the combined efforts of Ian Holloway and Neil Rowling, who together produce tense and subtle drone work of the highest caliber. "Sound on an Empty Road," released on a label that has since changed name to Quiet World, has a very limited run of fifty copies.
A little shy of thirty-nine minutes in duration, the stand-alone drone-ambient piece is everything its title implies and more. Comprised mainly of tonal modulations and effects-laden guitar and synth work, the music gently grinds and hovers over a road that is indeed quite desolate. Soft and melancholy piano notes are interjected through a wide portion of the track, fragile moments of color that swim just out of focus underneath a placid surface of flowing drones. Pitch-shifted ripples wash over this misty, forgotten pond, situated as it is alongside a path less traveled. The edges of Itto's lonely landscape of sound are vague and blurred, rather than sharply defined. As "Sound on an Empty Road" progresses, its elements shifting gradually, it develops an enchanting timelessness, and a paradoxically calming sense of nowhere. The atmosphere it invokes has a certain nervous and haunting quality, bolstered in no small part by the piercing, high-pitched tones that occasionally cut through the track for extended minutes.
"Sound on an Empty Road" is a constant guessing game of paranoia and movement, where half-seen forms lurk and breathe just beyond the limits of perception - and call into question their very existence. -- Dutton Hauhart. Connexion Bizarre
Itto is a project of Neil Rowling (Goatboy) and Ian Holloway (Psychic Space Invasion). This album is one long track of dark droning ambient, with some field recordings and instruments thrown in. I found this album a bit tough to get into, but it turns out to contain a subtle beauty that does show itself after attentive listening.
The track starts with some very deep layered drones, and this continues on during the first third of the length. More and more sounds of different frequencies drift in during this section, providing variation. About halfway, a soft guitar melody breaks through the drones, which creates a more peaceful atmosphere than the rather dark beginning. Towards the last quarter of the track, nighttime atmospheres and slightly noisy waves take over the lead, sending the track back into cold darkness.
This album requires a quiet environment, headphones and attentive listening, otherwise it won't be able to show its merits. That makes it perhaps a bit limited in its scope, because its not as interesting as background music as some other ambient. However, if you're a patient listener and a lover of deep obscure soundscapes, this is a very fine release. The real sound of an empty road can be interesting enough in the right circumstances, but this musical interpretation is surely worth your attention. - Oscar, Evening of Light
Itto is the collaboration between Ian Holloway and Neil Rowling respectively from Psychic Space Invasion and Directive 4. A long drone that shifts in pitches is just a prelude for the unexpected core of the work where field recordings of various sources intertwine with a dismal guitar plucking. Maybe the only point against this one is that when you start to get comfortable with the difference it suddenly ends leaving you longing for more. Sound On An Empty Road is surely at its best when it's at its gloomiest. A good display of creative verve, worth checking out for both the Die Stadt & co. fanatics and the lovers of the darker side of the Kranky label out there. - Andrea Vercesi, Chain DLK
Another interesting outing from this Welsh label, which releases very good music in limited editions charging only the postage fee, "Sound on an empty road" was assembled by Ian Holloway (Psychic Space Invasion) and Neil Rowling. Indeed everything seems to begin with muffled car sounds, but very soon those humming, murmuring noises are submerged by processed ambiences, infinite low frequencies (I wouldn't be surprised if they were treated motor sounds too) and harsher timbres, similar to the continuous whirr of high-tension lines. The scene changes several times in the 38+ minutes of the piece; one remains puzzled in front of this gloomy atmosphere, yet there are also more piercing emissions that sound like held feedback and - when less expected - a very slow hint of "melody", possibly coming from a keyboard. The arc of this soundscape is pretty smooth, the whole remaining unpretentious and very pleasing in its pretty sad character. Nice alternative ambient with (very few) touches of Zoviet France, Lull and the most obscure Roedelius, just to give you some vague reference point. Definitely praiseworthy stuff. And, should you want to check the good level of ECR's productions, get a copy of their very nice compilation "The eternal present", where seven different artists unveil their graces guaranteeing many nice moments of bliss and fun.
Very honestly the man from the Elvis Coffee House Recordings admits that writing press releases drive him insane, so he didn't do one for Itto. Fair enough, but it limits the length of the review also a bit. I think Itto are Ian Holloway and Neil Rowling, as the are credited with 'sound' on the cover, and they play just one long, thirty-eight minute piece of drone music on 'Sound On An Empty Road'. It's not the sustaining of a couple of notes, but throughout this piece things move about considerably, from the low end rumble by which it starts, to a higher pitched section somewhere in the middle and more mid range tones towards the end. There are some suggestions of field recordings, most notably cars on a road (even when the title suggests something else) and throughout this is more abstract and experimental drone music than 'just' drone music. At times the frequencies used are a bit too nasty and mean to get classified as pure drone music, but this more adventurous road is certainly one of the things that make this one of the better ones in it's genre. - FdW, Vital
Recently released on ecr Records, “Sound On An Empty Road” is an earthy, ghost filled drone that slowly evolves over 38 minutes creating a fragile archaic ritual that fills the room and pulls the listener in. Working under the name Itto, Ian Holloway and Neil Rowling have succeeded in producing a beautifully complete work that has a rich vibrant quality allowing the music room to breathe. - Simon, Rumbles
I played the Itto disc first and within a few minutes my nose started to bleed, which is really weird because I never get nosebleeds...wasn't because of any sort of harsh noise fury though. Au contraire. "Sound on an Empty Road" is a single 38-minute piece that's largely guitar oriented, although there are the occasional rumbling effects and grey cloud style ominousity. It really never goes anywhere and that's the best thing about it - Holloway and Rowling have constructed a piece that really seems to exist outside the boundaries of time. It's prehistoric music inasmuch as it's 41st century music and it feels like the two somehow plucked it out of the atmosphere, set it to tape, and called it a day. The soft tones that either one or the other coax from their guitar are pushed straight out into the rolling tide created by the synth/effects-heavy miasma, with the two mediums locking and unlocking to generate a beautiful, gentle, pensive track that I could see myself falling asleep to forever. Even though they take a basic approach to drone music as it is, they're still pretty tough to nail down...Aidan Baker would probably be a decent approximation, with a little bit of Black Boned Angel and Charlemagne Palestine's "Strumming Music" thrown in...I enjoyed it though, minus the nosebleed. That was an inconvenience. - Outer SpaceGamelan
Darren Tate & Ian Holloway - The Moon As A Hole
While everybody by now should know who Darren Tate is, you could even be forgiven (certainly not by me) if not remembering that Ian Holloway is both the mastermind after the ever-intriguing Psychic Space Invasion project and the boss of great little labels like Elvis Coffee and Quiet World. This, their very first collaboration on disc, is a perfect showcase of their talents and styles, mixing elements from both artists’ aesthetic views in a gorgeous collection of highly engrossing subterranean prophecies. This kind of music should be reserved for special occasions, which of course one can’t really foresee; but something can be done with a little patience. The first necessity is solitude, because just thinking of ruining the regular pulse of these subdued, low-frequency based electronic landscapes with the noise of neighbours watching TV or children running around the house is like swearing against your favourite god. Then, a pinch of luck; when you’re a good enough boy it happens sometimes. While the pre-recorded birds, the blurred repetitions or that imaginary muted choir (in the fabulous second track) were meshing with the surrounding circumstances, the August sun suddenly disappeared - just like eclipsed - because of giant clouds that had arrived without being noticed. Right then and there, the first “abstract variations” appeared: steady synthetic waves shifting in the stereo field, airy currents of uncertain origin, vaguely extraneous melodies hinted by disembodied keyboards and what sounds like a decaying cello. The third movement is a little more impenetrable and slightly dissonant, being also crossed by more irregular emissions - just to add that Dada touch so important for Tate - and metalloid improvisations. But the slow chordal transition heard in the background places every detail in its right context, transforming the whole in a delightful quandary from which one would never get out. The glissandos that cause our lungs to lose steam in the last section nominate “The moon as a hole” for the masterpiece status. Electronic investigations with huge quantities of humanity, containing the sound of a hundred ideas, not a hundred sounds hiding half an idea. - Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes
New album from Darren Tate of Ora/Andrew Chalk fame with new collaborator Ian Holloway. A psychedelic set from this pair that blends underwater sonorities with chattering birdcall sounds, slowly erupting tones, episodes of cold electronic paralysis that feel a little heavier than usual and the kind of bedroom hermeticism that lines up nicely alongside fellow loners like Ian Middleton, Scott Foust et al. - David Keenan, Volcanic Tongue
The Moon as a Hole is a collaboration of two ambient/drone veterans from the UK, Ian Holloway (Psychic Space Invasion) and Darren Tate (Ora). It was released by Tate's own Fungal label, in a limited edition of 120. The presentation of this album is somewhat unremarkable (only a printed CD-R and a glittery paper in a sleeve), which is a pity, because this is actually a very interesting album, full of excellent dark ambiences and drones.
The four untitled tracks span over almost an hour worth of detailed soundscapes, filled with subtle sounds and samples. The first and longest track mixes a deep drone with bright bird samples, chimes and other scintillating sounds. The result is something like a mixture of more traditional waving dark ambient and the more organic works of projects like Alphane Moon and Blodeuedd. The subtle development makes it constant yet varied throughout its length. The same goes for the second track, which is slightly darker than the first, combining a sad, repetitive dark wave (which reminds me of Kammarheit's style) with various sounds, such as wooden chimes and manipulated spacy effects. The third track is relatively short, but it consists of a very interesting and dense blend of chimes, bells, drones, guitar and noisy outbursts. The final track is based upon a flowing, mid-tone drone, interspersed with various tones, sounds and strange effects, lending the whole a surreal effect.
Thus, despite a rather unimpressive look, this release holds some very fine dark ambient music, that combines elements from various areas of the genre (organic, spacy, minimalist) into an excellent whole. So good that I actually believe a more ambitious presentation and release would do this album a lot of good, and might have pushed the mark a bit higher, too. These top-notch soundscapes are deserving of an extensive visual accompanyment and broader audience. One of the best new ambient releases I've heard this year, surely. - Oscar, Evening of Light
Banks Bailey, Darren Tate & Ian Holloway - Summerland
Very nice collaboration,where Ian expertly adds to & blends Darrens guitar improvisations with Banks’ vivid field recordings.Highly recommended. - Colin Potter, ICR
New trio recordings from three avant soundists with connections to the whole Monos/ICR/Andrew Chalk circle. Here Tate plays treated guitar, Bailey contributes field recordings and Holloway adds ‘sounds’ plus final mix. As with many of the releases from this particular cabal there are long sections of spare, exactingly-detailed environmental sounds and the combinations of hyper-real nature and lonesome peals of sonically-obliterated guitar gives it a melancholy out-of-space feel that is comparable to William Basinski, Organum and even MEV, albeit on a more specifically bedroom scale. A really good one from these three. - David Keenan, Volcanic Tongue
Label owner Ian Holloway has two releases. The first one is a work he created with Darren Tate (of Ora fame) playing guitar and one Banks Bailey providing him with field recordings. They don't play together as such but Holloway uses recordings of both to create five pieces of ambient drone music, even when the opening piece has a glitch like rhythm. Don't let this fool you, as this disc is mostly made of ambient drones, duck recordings and, perhaps a second surprise and one that fits the scope, a more improvised guitar playing by Tate occasionally. Quite a nice release, with some surprises and stepping away, even just a little bit, from the world of 'just' drone music. That's something I always like. - FdW, Vital
We're not all that sure who Banks Bailey or Ian Holloway are, but Darren Tate has long proved to be a reliable source for long-form dronemusik thanks to his previous collaboration with Andrew Chalk as Ora and his ongoing work with Colin Potter in Monos. Not to mention the multitude of self-released cd-rs under his own name. Tate's aesthetic for sculpted drones through field recordings, pedal manipulation, and occluded processing is central to Summerland, as it has been noted that Tate proved the treated guitar drones with Bailey contributing some of the field recordings and Holloway reconfiguring everything at the end. Thick shadowy tones hover ominously alongside fluctuations of tactile crackle, sounding more like some of the earlier Ora recordings than anything that Tate has produced recently. Elsewhere, tinstrung guitars splutter with atonal resonance, which stretch, elongate, and blur into drifting dark ambience. - Aquarius Records
'Quite possibly sold out by now Summerlands is a calm and drifting mix of guitar and field recordings created by Banks Bailey, Darren Tate and Ian Holloway. Like watching the clouds drift past this is for fans of Pink Floyd circa "UmmaGumma", a highly inventive and playful collection the sounds of bees, birds and water taking the listener out into the hills. . - Simon, Rumbles
The Breath Of Forgotten Places
There was a time in the near past when you had to buy something from the label to get this seven tracks sampler CD. But now that they're giving their whole stock away, you can get free CDs and ask for this one too. It's a free for all. They'll all be gone by the time you read this, but you can tell your grandkids that when you were a lad labels would give you stuff for free.
Psychic Space Invasion are the biggy on here and they do the 'hum and blop' thing very well, creating a soft tonal moodiness that resonates with memories of early ‘90s industrial-ambience while remaining a thoroughly modern Millie. Others on here are Jebus, Directive 4, Green End Listening Station, Swn (it's always a pleasure to hear anything by them), Ulysees Girelle, and The Buff Monkey Ensemble. Loops, scraped strings and samples play a large part of their collective work and, put bluntly, it sounds ineffectual. But I'm being overly picky. It's a freebie and useful to introduce you to new artists you haven't heard before. -HM, Adverse Effect vol 3/3
Here comes a weird and interesting label, a visit on their website is recommended: just give a look at their link section to know a bit more about what I mean with "weirdness" (or I'd better say "open-mindness"?). Let me say both the music and the cover of this sampler give you the feeling you're dealing with a bunch of visionaries; without any doubt the most of these cyclic loops may induce to a state of trance: Jebus, Green End Listening Station can be good examples of it. Some other songs have a strongest "space-ambient" feeling (Distinctive 4, Ulysses Girelle, The Buff Monkey Ensemble), while let's label the last category of tracks as the "deep-space-with-no-light" one (Swn, Psychic Space Invasion). If what we have is visions: here it is! A deserted lunar landscape far away from home, another dimension based on odd feelings and no words. This sampler is somehow homogeneous except for a couple of tracks and notwithstanding the fact not all of the musicians have the same "modus operandi", probably the thread joining the most of the songs included in "The breath of forgotten places" is the celebration of the new "Utopia". The fellow countrymen of sir. Thomas Moore are not less mystic, or at least that's the impression you get while experimenting "The breath of forgotten places". - Andrea Ferraris, Chain DLK
A journey into the psychedelic, experimental and ambient is this compilation, Earthman. It sounds like Jebus caught a Voyager space probe, recorded the sounds therein and chopped the whole bunch of Sounds Of Humankind in a tremolo. Like Directive 4 recorded the sounds of their own dark and ill-tempered planet. Like Green End Listening Station turned your Human guitars into dervilish (that is half-devil, half-dervish, Earthman) hypnotic devices. Like SWN made melodies with a broken toy piano, beats with whatever analogue was left in the toxic waste and drones with 1-an amphibian Mesozoic heart 2-lots of reversed metallic sounds 3-glassy synths. Like Ulysses Girelle sugarcoated their surround stereo effects with high-pitched textures. Like The Buff Monkey Ensemble psychopomped the mind of a long-dead Wendy Carlos dreaming of guitars. Like Psychic Space Invasion recording the music of Dromers in the alkali whirlwinds of Jupiter in a Simak novel. This compilation gives but a glimpse of the excellence contained in Elvis Coffee Records, Earthman, and you should rush visit their website and buy their stuff. - DDN, Empty
If this is all too much to handle, then the compilation 'The Breath Of Forgotten Places' might be the place to start. It has the aforementioned Jebus and Psychic Space Invasion, but also Directive 4, Green End Listening Station, Swn, Ulysses Girelle and The Buff Monkey Ensemble. Various angles of experimental music, including a Glenn Branca wall of guitars by Green End Listening Station, ambient music by Swn, garbled computer noise by Ulysses Girelle and drone-rock from The Buff Monkey Ensemble. A fine selection of underground music with no particular stand out tracks, but also no bad ones. One to investigate. - FdW, Vital
7 projects for 7 tracks merging ambient and experimental ideas all together. Projects like Jebus, Directive 4, Green and Listening Station, Swn, Ulysses Girelle, The Buff Monkey ensemble and Psychic Space Invasion didn’t exactly sound familiar to me and I’m afraid only one had been able to really catch my attention. The dark crystal-like ambient style of Swn contains a part of mystery and hidden secrets I simply enjoyed, but that’s not enough for an entire album! The other pieces are rather insignificant, thinking to the ambient experiment of Jebus, the flamenco-like experiment of Green End Listening Station or the ambient fields of Psychic space Invasion where less things happen. That’s definitely not enough to incite you to purchase this album. Cedric, Sideline
This seven track compilation kicks off with Jebus’s ‘Hole in the Wall’ – it’s noise, Jim, but not as we know it. Tinklings and whooshings and bleepings. Leaping into a lake of ice cold Um Bongo. WHAT does it all mean?! Directive 4’s ‘Neijfk 1’ is like being lost in an underground cave, with bats stalking your every desperate move. You can shout for help and hear it echo forever. No one’s coming. Green End Listening Station’s ‘DD2’ actually features a GUITAR! Wow! It’s an acoustically strummed going-round-and-round-in-circles affair with odd, unsettling sounds creeping up behind, so you don’t get TOO cosy round the campfire. Swn’s ‘Exponent 13132’ (do these titles actually have any significance or are they just there to be arty and weird, I wonder?) has the ambient gift of the non-gab. It flounces around the house in it’s silken nightie, dropping cigarette ash on the stairs. An icy piano weeps in the other room. Ulysses Girelle offer up ‘Sugarcoated’, which entertains us with confusing logic puzzles and silly hats. Actually, it’s a rather nice ambient track, as is the BEST track here, The Buff Monkey Ensemble’s ‘Pheonix Ninety Six’. It ALSO has an acoustic guitar providing the heartfelt strums and – gasp – even some VOCALS, coming in all ‘Songs of Praise’ like near the end. The early fade out to all this gorgeousness comes as a shock. I could have done with ANOTHER five minutes of THAT! Finally, it’s those crazy Psychic Space Invasion kids again. Their tune, ‘Drowning in Heavy Water’, pours the ambience over hot coals and finishes the compilation off with the recorded sound of the heart murmurs of a dying cat. Probably. - Mark Ritchie, Sniper Glue
The Eternal Present
Down in the Welsh valleys something stirs. And it’s not the sound of Tom Jones being hit with another paternity case or the Manic Street Preachers waking up to the realisation they are shit. It be the sound of free enterprise in full flow. Which is the only way to explain the modus operandi of Elvis Coffee Records. They don’t want your money… not yet anyway… they just want to bring to your ears the latest sounds from artists they themselves admire. Postage costs is all they ask in return. They aren’t rich enough to do that but I bet if they were they would. And to think I used to take the piss out of the Welsh. Well no more. I’ll stick to an easier target from now on. The fucking English. Cunts one and all.* And if I’ve said that before in any other reviews… good. I’m not losing my touch.
This latest, oh so limited, release from the label features 7 acts. A compilation it is then. Starring… in no particular order… Psychic Space Invasion and Ghoul Detail who have already been covered (Mr Ghoul frequently) in AP before and Kiss My Farkyn, Les 7 Mondes, Analgeek, Swn and The Buff Monkey Ensemble. Although SWN and The Buff Monkey Ensemble were reviewed on the last Elvis Coffee Records compilation "The Breath of Forgotten Places" [read review here]. Best keep things factual. Record labels appreciate you more if you do that. And just like that last compilation there is much to admire on here. And one to shrug the shoulders and go ‘so what’ to. It all boils down to personal taste. I’m sure some readers actually think the Manics are a great band. See what I mean? In order then. Kiss my Farkyn: Experimental electronica. Almost verging on Japanese weird shit noise. Different. SWN: Kind of glitch based experimental electronics. Must be having a good day because I quite liked this. Funny old game this reviewing lark. Les 7 Mondes: Loud (ish) electronics patterned thing that made my shoulders go… slump. Ghoul Detail: My main man. Great to hear his stuff once more. Can do no wrong. Dark ambience be thine forte. A highlight. Analgeek: wanted to love them just for their name. Electronically fused with some other instruments not of this planet stuff… with voice added… a slow burner that was a genuine surprise. Psychic Space Invasion: A dreamy pastoral excursion that lived up to the ongoing hype surrounding the artist Ian Holloway. The Buff Monkey Ensemble: A fitting climax. More dream like structures that floated around in a very pleasing manner.
The thing is. What I think highly of, you’ll disagree with. With 41 minutes of music to choose from there will be something on here to make you sit up and take note. It might even make you want to contact the artists involved (details included on the insert) and say ‘Thanks for that. Great music dude’. For exactly £1.50... which covers up to 2 CDRs… what have you got to lose? You’ll waste a fraction of that amount sticking money into the one armed bandit down your local chippie. My love affair with the Welsh just keeps growing. - ANM, Aural Pressure
This' the second sampler of Elvis Coffee records I review and as I've said the last time this' a strange kind of label. The most of the music they put on their sampler creates a really uniform collage and nothing better than a collage epitomizes the approach of many modern/contemporary artists, uh?!. Drone music? Space music? Probably both of them...at last England is the cradle of many different genres of music one of which is psychedelia? (…bye bye Syd!!). When it's not “drone-odd” music, it indirectly (or directly who knows) pays tribute to people like early isolationists or to beautiful/degenerated minds like Nurse With Wound, weirdest Current 93 or something in the vein but everything here is more softly . Sideral music for odd people? Maybe…even if I don't know much about the most of the bands (apart those included in the first compilation) I'm sure some of them are definitely mature for some official release. Relaxing? Acid? Probably I'm writing this for the second time reviewing Elvis Coffee releases but that's acid music for modern fre-e-aks. Weird and interesting. - Andrea Ferraris, Chain DLK
Welsh label Elvis Coffee Records offers an updated sampling of their offerings on this brand new label sampler. This time we are up for a droning and atmospheric ride, but not lacking in variation.
The record is opened by Kiss My Farkyn´s space-jazz jippo Electrified Pleasures, which is not bad, but not too impressive either. Swn´s Bossa Eliptyca no.8 is an annoying piece: it starts out with really irritating looping rhythms which give me nothing but a good start for a headache, until they open into a very beautiful and serene sequence with electric whirrs and peaceful chimes, which I would love to sink into a bit longer. However, at the end those annoying rhythms get it on again. Les 7 Mondes´ Impromondes 1: Ghost Track is an entertaining track where doom-laden analog synths mix with brizzling space sounds – putting me in a mood of 60´s sci-fi movies.
Ghoul Detail offers multi-layered drones – quite good, but not that remarkable, unlike Analgeek´s truly beautiful Undergrind, which really encompasses the listener with a concrete atmosphere. A truly charged aural space where oppressive and peaceful feelings constantly brush into each other. Psychic Space Invasion partakes with a wavy, dynamic organ drone (notably better than on All God´s Children Got Space). Finally, The Buff Monkey Ensemble takes us to moist forests with Black Narbeth Money Tree, with a predominantly warm, serene and even melodic sound.
Elvis Coffee Records prove once again their ability to bring out interesting and varied experimental music, especially for drone friends – part of it is very successful, part less so. Especially worth getting for highlights like Analgeek, The Buff Monkey Ensemble and definitely also Les 7 Mondes. - -john björkman, kuolleenmusiikinyhdistys
This CD compilation features 7 bands from the record label Elvis Coffee. Kiss my Farkyn starts off with Electrified Pleasures. This is a strange 2½ minute electronic soundscape. Next up is Swn with Bossa eliptyco no. 8. This track is 8 minutes and begins with all electronic sounds that slowly goes almost nowhere until some like bells and stuff mix in and then the buzzing stops and the sound becomes more clear. Les I Mondes is next with Ghost Track, a 2½ minute pretty spacey soundscape. Ghost Detail is next with 3 long days in the Pipe. This is like strange sounds you would hear in a Sci Fi movie out in space, while being scared like hell… Very effective. Analgeek is next with Undergrind. This is a strange and mysterious one. I like the way the bass sort of just comes in every now and then while the sound of creaking pipes or what ever the hell it is makes for a freaky backdrop. Psychic Space Invasion is next with Dust comes from Saturn. It is a dark ambient soundscape. It is totally drifting as sounds of all sorts sort of meld together. The Buff Monkey Ensemble close the CD with Black Narbeth Monkey Tree.
If you like dark, strange ambient soundscapes, you should check out the bands on this label. And remember this is a very special record label in which all the releases are free, you only pay the postage! £1.5 for 1 CD or £3 for 3-4 CDs depending where you live in the world. - Scott, Aural Innovations
Working out of Wales, Elvis Coffee Records have adopted the policy of giving away their releases for the cost of postage rather than have them remain unheard on a shelf. A great place to start is with “The Eternal Present” a 7 track compilation which showcases the labels roster and features some fine drone/electronica within it’s 41 minutes, including the scratch and crackle of Swn, whose “Bossa Eliptyco no 8” is one of the highlights, as is Les 7 Mondes, whose “Impromondes 1: Ghost Track” is an expansive slice of electronic noise, whilst the perfectly named Analgeek have a ritualistic feel with “Undergrind”, the sound of meditating in a cave, the darkness slowly enveloping you. - Simon Lewis, Rumbles
7 projects for this compilation full of minimal music and wafting atmospheres. This is pure ambient stuff, like moving in other galaxies and distant stars. Some of the tracks remind me to the work of Wim Mertens in this familiar and pure soundtrack style. This sampler sounds as a soundtrack. The bands are Kiss My Farkyn, Swn, Les 7 Mondes, Ghoul Detail, Analgeek, Psychic Space Invasion and The Buff Monkey Ensemble. An album full of evasion and freedom! - Sideline
On the same label we have 'The Eternal Present', the second label compilation of bands on The Elvis Coffee Records label. Other than Psychic Space Invasion, none of the names mean much to me. Kiss My Farkin, Swn, Les 7 Mondes, Ghoul Detail, Analgeek and The Buff Monkey Ensemble for those who want to know. They all play some kind of music that is best classified as 'experimental' in whatever capacity. A bit of drones, computer generated time stretching or just a bunch of beats. Much of the material is rather lo-fi and consist more of ideas than of worked out pieces of music, but it's a nice collection. At least for those who want to seek out something really new. - FdW, Vital
