We are honored to be working with Philippe Petit. Petit’s A Scent of Garmambrosia takes us into a dense, cinematic world that mixes acoustic instrumentation with digital filtering; swaying and unfolding amid the psycho-film-noir syntax of a Lynchean universe.
Fans of Kronos Quartet, Philip Jeck, and The Boxhead ensemble will no doubt appreciate Petit’s pioneering post-classical soundtrack.
A Scent of Garmambrosia is as much the work of Petit’s collaborators as of Petit himself. Over decades of being immersed in music, he has assembled a dream team of musicians, artists and thinkers without whom this album would not have been possible.
COLLABORATORS:
Bas Mantel (art)
Helena Espvall (cello)
Bela Emerson (cello)
Raphaelle Rinaudo (electric harp)
Maria Grigoryeva (violin)
James Johnston (violins)
Andy Diagram (trumpet/FX)
Richard Harrison (percussions)
Fred Lonberg-Holm: cello
Alexander Bruck (strohviol/viola)
Tom Heasley (tuba)
Hervé Vincenti (guitar)

WhiteHorsesInTechnicolorEverywhere (W-H-I-T-E) presents its debut album SUNNA , a blend of eerie pop melodies, meteoric noises, and gravitational rhythms.

SUNNA, the debut album from Cory Hanson's new project White Horses In Technicolor Everywhere presents artful pop melodies and experimental space sounds, not combined, but as one, in the vein of Panda Bear or Dan Deacon. It's like an expansive platform of sound falling from space and entering the stratosphere, where it burns and bends and twists and melts to reform as airy melodies and a beautiful voice, gravitational beat's and oceanic fluidity. The songs shift seamlessly from earthly musical conventions to floating spacial sounds, always culminating to present the experience of breaching the stratosphere in both directions. The result is an ethereal yet grounded album, something to listen to in both caverns and cars.

W-H-I-T-E is Cory Hanson, residing in Valencia, CA, has played with Magic Mountain, Blackagar Boltagon, Hellomynameischad, and yes, DEER.
Cory also recorded and produced OKIE DOKIE's s/t E.P.
SUNNA, will be released as CD/ Digital and as three 7" vinyl’s.Get your 7" s athttp://swillchildren.org/ and buy CD's right here at the Aagoo store.

It's flanked at one of its ends by the blissful bombast of a 20-plus person vocal chorus, and concludes some forty minutes later in the hushed strains of a wistful lullaby. Between these disparate bookends lies the staggering aesthetic expanse ofVerbs—the sophomore record from acclaimed Portland, OR. experimental pop collective Au—which, in its swirling depths and subtleties, promises to be one of this year's most satisfying surprises.

In the year's time since last leaving off with his self-titled, beautifully accomplished debut, Au (pronounced 'ay you') architect Luke Wyland has made tremendous strides beyond the warmly retiring sensibilities that marked so much of Au—stepping (wisely) outward, and into the less insular confines of community. In practical terms, this mostly meant acquiring a proper band—the core of which consisting of mutual multi-instrumentalists Johnathan Sielaff and Mark Kaylor—but in a vaguer sense, it meant opening up to Portland's considerable creative resources. Consequently, Verbs is padded out with contributions from nearly thirty collaborators, a list which includes featured vocalists Sarah Winchester (track 6; of Team Love recording artists A Weather) and Becky Dawson (tracks 2 and 4; of Ah Holly Fam'ly, Saw Whet), as well as members of Yellow Swans, Parenthetical Girls, and Evolutionary Jass Band, among many others—inadvertently resulting in a strange and singular snapshot of a very particular corner of the city's famously sprawling musical community.

The resulting record—recorded over three days at Portland's Type Foundry Studios and finished over a subsequent two-month period in Wyland's own attic studio—seamlessly segues through new and unlikely ecstatic extremes with an arresting economy. Breakout Pop jams like "RR vs. D" rub shoulders comfortably with retreating meditations ("Two Seasons", "Summer Heat")—the record's several distinct movements working at once with more autonomy and cohesion—with arrangements that stretch in longhand across the album's length.

Verbs is the elated realization of those many asymmetrical pop diamonds that shone so brightly throughout Au's artful debut (whose warm, Appalachia-informed gems found many favorable comparisons to the far-reaching likes of Arnold Dreyblatt, Animal Collective, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Grizzly Bear)—its many swift and unexpected evolutions shepherded confidently by Wyland's competent, classically-trained hand. As surprising as it is immediate, Verbs is infused with all of the earnest and palpable joy of its creation—the delightfully enveloping whole of which demands to be heard.

Some of the most brutal and epic noise-infused black metal sludge from Evan Pacewiz (Moth Drakula, Roman Torment) and Jay Howard (Circuit Wound). The city of angels has never seamed so dark.

pressed on single sided red vinyl with as silk screened b-side. Limited to 300 copies.

Los Angele's secret folk weapon is back, and better than ever on their sophomore record. Rather than sticking with the bedroom orchestra arrangements of their debut, Snaggle and Buck (Oedipus), with Trumpet they opt for a more traditional band arrangement. They round their song out with plenty of electric and acoustic guitars, stand up bass, drums, and a piano here and there. Although darker than it's predecessor, Trumpet finds them flirting with alt-rock and traditional country to find them sitting seamlessly on the Drag City roster between Silver Jews and Will Oldham without losing their California porch-country bliss.

Breaking a four year silence with her strongest album to date, Blevin Blectum's "Rapid Cooling" 12-inch ( a precursor to the full-length “Gular Flutter” CD) confirms her gift for making electronic music that is allergic to cliche. Blectum's new songs throb with swarms of transient surface details, but they never come off as haphazard. Asked about her title, Blevin notes that "Gular fluttering is the pulsation of the upper esophagus in some species of birds in response to heat-stress," an oblique reference from avian anatomy that stems from her recently completed training as a veterinary technician. It's a title that perfectly captures the mysteriously organic shifts that pulsate across this heavily processed music.

On Sife A, "Cygnet" bursts into action, as martial drum rolls and distant horns bend and recombine around keening runs of strings in a manner that cops moves from Middle Eastern music and darkstep jungle but takes them in a wholly other direction (happily, Blevin's background as a classically trained violinist does more hovering than smothering in the midst of such delicate maneuvers). "Foyer Fire" follows, and keeps things bumping with a stomping kick and a lasertag maze of chirping synth patterns. Blevin has said that "99% of my music is about trying to keep your head above water", and that mixture of liquidity, dread and endurance is at the heart of this release.

Side B contains the track "Avian Enamel", a remix of Bay Area band Ellul. Threading field recordings and conversation across a lattice of tightly edited rhythm, this tricksy, elastic assemblage provides an an emphatic finale to a work that demonstrates just how personal, brave and autonomous electronic music can still be. Some things are worth waiting for.
- Drew Daniel, 2/16/2008

It took me exactly six months from the day of its release to begin writing about Au’s self-titled “debut” album. Despite the crippling procrastination that plagues most Tiny Mix Tapes reviewers (okay, just me, but I am not averse to dragging my superior wordsmiths into my wading pool of incompetence), I am genuinely surprised at my lack of motivation and overall laxness in penning this one. It’s not like the album hasn’t gaily danced its way into my pleasure center and taken up residence in my hypothalamus during the past few months or anything!

u (“ay-yoo”) is primarily Luke Wyland, a musically promiscuous Portlander who in 2005 released peaofthesea under the simple handle “luc.” Some of Au will appeal tremendously to those longing for Sung Tongs-era Animal Collective. Opening track “Boute,” in particular, recalls that same exciting positive folk feel that Messrs. Tare and Bear practice when the mood strikes them. “Sum” is just as thrilling; after an intro of tinkles and strums, the song starts in earnest around 0:43 with a mix of banjo, Zoë Wright’s dreamy vocals, and then a full muddled arsenal of rattles and clangs as it quickly builds a sound drift of intoxicating proportions.

“Shelter” is a quiet dazzler that thrashes together two important sections of Wyland’s creative CV: his childhood classical piano education and his avant-garde work. It is a lovely piece of vocal-splicing and piano- and sleighbell-abetted drone that runs a course without any real end goal. In fact, it doesn’t really go anywhere at all, but it feels wonderful getting there. Elsewhere, without hinging on any major sensational events, Au reveals itself slowly, subtly, and satisfyingly. “Death,” which features vocal help from A Weather’s Sarah Winchester that actually sounds like creeping death, starts a dark troika from cleanup to sixth in Au’s batting order. After this bout of introspection comes the meditative exercise “Life” and “Ask the River,” closing the album with a discharge of freshly-plucked notes.

Maybe it is not entirely my fault that I sat on this album a little longer than I would have preferred. It would be easy to disregard this li’l slip of an album if it were not for the music it contains. With a non-descript, hand-drawn cover and very little fanfare trumpeted by my beloved Rolling Stone and Spin (joking), Au perhaps suffers from underexposure, which is a shame because it would take a malcontent of the highest order to find many faults with this superb example of modern songwriting. While comparisons can be made to other forward-thinking acts, Au genuinely feels like a blank slate record: it is devoid of many thoughts of the past, instead relying on painting little, unique pictures with sounds. It has the feel of a “graphic score” rather than an album. In musical notation, Au is all warm wingdings.

The whole album soundtracks a stimulating encounter between song and sound. At times haunting and morose, at other times uplifting, Au is a mixed bag with plenty of tasty tricks. Rather than patching things together like a weekend carpenter in a vain effort to make a million things “fit,” Wyland employs the skills of a seasoned curry cook, sprinkling in a measured variety of sonic concepts like garam masala into the finest of dishes. Wyland and his Au collaborators have produced an accomplished and commendable album. Dig in and dig often. -Tiny Mix Tapes

Drawing sounds from field recordings, to the inner creaks of paper towel rolls, or the subliminal textures of white noise; Tumbao unravels as an emergence, a projectile with infinite projections, each sounding a different call. An immersion in inner dialects, stretched and displayed like an entomologist's wet dream. Full of beats syncopated like an eight armed drummer and textures that ride a subconscious bed to lie in.

Before Au was one of the brightest lights in the modern indie-folk scene, Luke Wyland was simply luc. Best described as sketches of what would become Au, luc's debut "PeaoftheSea" was recorded in scattered locations across new england, soaking up the calm and beautiful landscapes with lush soft sounds and timid vocals. A definite for Au fans or anyone who wants to take a walk through snow covered hills.

Beautiful home made CD's from Phillip (Double Triple) limited to 500.

It's a bit like folk, a little bit like post punk math rock, a little avant noise, but stripped way down into something skeletal, they definitely sound a little bit like one of the new breed of freak folk psych folk cd-r outfits, but at the same time, they sound like NOTHING you've ever heard. Detuned guitar plod, spaced out rhythmic thump, lots of deep shimmery ambience and FX drenched drifts, wavery falsetto crooning, warbly organs, and the occasional bursts of feral yowling, wow. Unhinged, fractured, freaky, passionate, super intense and awesome. In discussing Father Murphy, other reviewers have mentioned Robert Wyatt, This Heat, Samla Mamas Manna, we also hear plenty of Marc Ribot in the guitars, all angular and off kilter, there's also some mysterious female vocals that surface here and there, field recordings, crickets, birds, all beneath weepy mournful Morricone-ish twang, a sound both woozy and ominous, dreamy and dense, a glorious deathlike dirge, part Dirty Three, part fluttery forest folk, a little wheezy organ dirge pop, some slooooooowed down Blonde Redhead, like we said this is super hard to describe. but what we do know is we love it. And you will do, if your tastes run toward the dark, the dolorous, the mysterious, the haunting, the dirgey and the deathlike."
Aquarius list

Okie Dokie is a power drill of top speed voodoo black magic. One growling guitar of battering directness and one thick burning muscle of walloping bass. No human drummer could supply the austere precision required, so they flinched off the fat and put the machine to work. Finally, a maniacal vocalist spins criptic riddles like dark spells in menacing rhyme to grip this beast together. This is what post-hardcore set out for but couldn't cut.

"Nareah" Israel M’s first album, transcribes a journey through a deeply introspective sonic desert. Presented as 5 mental landscapes, Nareah is a work in which Israel merges his primary sound source, field recordings, with synthesized and sampled instruments. Everything is then processed through the computer, generating a richly complex yet minimalist hypnotic music.

From 20 to 2, AU's new EP, Versions, builds joyously from the successes of it's previous LP, Verbs. Shifting from AU’s previous albums, which saw lengthy lists of friends helping out and a live act that could swell to 20 with a revolving door of players from Portland, OR, Versions marks the evolution of it’s sound into something more singular and uniquely it's own brand of experimental pop. From its start in 2005 as an art student’s bedroom recording project, it has become a road worn live act comprised of multi-instrumentalist/singer and founder Luke Wyland and percussionist Dana Valatka. Long time collaborators outside of this project, they are an accomplished live act that have been touring incessantly for the last year and a half throughout the US and Europe with great bands including Deerhoof, the Dodos and the Parenthetical Girls. Recorded in Vermont and New Hampshire through the winter of 2008-9, it stands as a document of their distinctive ability to reinterpret songs from their recorded form and the heightened energy of their live show. With Dana's virtuosic drumming spawned from a youth playing in heavy metal bands, Luke's ability to multitask on numerous instruments at once, and their “special one-on-one musical, almost telepathic connection,” it is a snap shot into their sprawling sets that find them deftly navigating between bombastic walls of sound (Ida Walked Away), lilting lyrical numbers (All Myself) and carnivalesque organ celebrations (Are Animals). Versions includes one new song, Ida Walked Away, and reworking of older songs from previous albums* It will be released as a limited edition of 500 on 10" vinyl, CD with digital download including extra tracks.