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AF03: Amanda Feery & Michael Tanner - To Run The Easting Down

by Amanda Feery & Michael Tanner

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1.
2.
Sidhe 08:29
3.
Svartedauen 16:27

about

but we do not die in our dreams. The Grand-Saint-Antoine, a month out from Beirut, comes in to Caligari freighted with the fruit of the Orient and the viceroy turns us off, already plagued in his sleep. We do not know the cargo we carry - not yet - not until our cracked lips blacken and the pestilence pushes out of us in lumps, first red, then dark, and by then it is too late for us, now that death is the captain of our ship. Broken-backed and slack, lolling like stooks of corn under the wet lash of the storm, drawn toward annihilation, boiling with the fever, wailing like the bean sidhe warning of the doom that we are bringing. None of this has happened when the viceroy turns us back from Caligari, but his dream has seeded in us, and is growing as we run the easting down, bound for Marseille.

Composed between 2012-2015 in Princeton, US and Dorset/Lewes UK

Mastering by Antony Ryan for RedRedPaw Mastering

credits

released September 20, 2015

Amanda Feery - Vocals, Piano, Strohviol, Clarinet
Michael Tanner - Piano, Bowed Dulcimer, Strohviol, Kemenche, Hand Bells, Prepared Drum, Cymbals

with:

The Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble
Alison Cotton - Viola

from Rockerilla:
Che Michael Tanner sia il Brian Eno del nostro tempo lo avevamo già capito. Quello che non riusciamo a capire è come faccia a sorprenderci a ogni sua uscita con un capolavoro sempre più intenso.

Lavorando con febbrile e instancabile devozione verso la sua amata Inghilterra rurale, partendo da un folk primordiale, lunare, condiviso, antropologicamente consapevole, che regali gemme a tiratura limitata a proprio nome, Plinth, The Cloisters o quant’altro poco importa.

Questo nuovo lavoro registrato in duo con Amanda Feery, giovane e talentuosa compositrice irlandese, tocca fondali profondissimi grazie a pattern vocali che rimandano alla raccolta spiritualità del John Cage di Litany for the Whal, verso un sincretismo linguistico di evocativa bellezza: una rapsodia notturna dalle mille voci sussurrate nelle quali strumenti strani come lo Strohviolin (strumento valacco a metà strada tra un corno e un violino) si insinuano rifrangendo armoniche arcane, stillando gocce di rugiada dal pianoforte, come rintocchi di campanili sepolti da incontenibili acque fluviali.

Tre brani di impressionante intelligenza e densa comunicativa emozionale.

Un album melanconico, di struggente bellezza. Un omaggio silvano e crepuscolare, un capolavoro straordinario che spaccherà il cuore degli ascoltatori sensibili alla poetica del suono.

from Radio Free Midwich:
Due to a problem at the plant (the curse of Record Store Day – a side note: this clever marketing idea has screwed up so many of my friends’ album releases. I love the idea of supporting independent record shops but folks should just go nip into the shop and buy an album on payday, that’ll help independent music far more) I’m not sure if this album has a release date yet but I do know that it’s coming out on a label called Awkward Formats as soon as it’s possible.

Three long tracks composed over three years, Feery and Tanner stitched a lot of this release together using transatlantic delivery methods (boats?) but you really can’t tell. The production on this release is so slick – at times you are tricked into thinking Feery’s beautiful voice must have been split into several pieces or that the duo hired in voice doubles. The layered vocals on the first piece, ‘Squarepushers’, come across as a wonderful choral effect with enough reverb to make the listener feel as though they have come to church to hear this. Which church would that be? The Church of Drone, of course! Following on from the choral vocals are massive, dark, murky drones offset with light bell sounds and an emotional solo violin. I felt weirdly sentimental on hearing this first piece but not sure what for.

A similar feel carries on throughout the other two pieces, a combination of light and dark contrasts between drones and additional instruments. There’s a lovely piano part played on the second track with buckets of reverb added creating a serene aural landscape, a muted pallet of sounds. Lie back and relax, let your thoughts go where they want to go, listen to this album if you need to escape into the drone zone for a while.

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