2008 Label Overview - October 3, 2008
Furthernoise has issued a label overview of GoS in a recent edition.
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Now available
gos 39: cllpss by stephen bishop
With the secret code of CLLPSS, Stephen Bishop allows the listener entry into two cavernous, wonderfully micro-detailed compositions. But this is more than sound for sound's sake. Bishop has forged for us a fully realized world that induces stunning visuals throughout the listening experience: uncoiling snakes, blazing sun and vast expanses of desert, cities of metal tumbling into a cold and bloodless ocean. The opener "Orch" is particularly stirring and full of depth charged plangent energies--slowly unfolding rattles, creaks, whispersm and hissing circuitry slowly are revealed atop an endless and alluring drone-siren. "Saphrealia (Or Ladders)" is more charged: a hypnotic roller coaster of moods forged in a sphere of splintered caterwaul, ghostly voices, and fractured metallic timbres. Both works create endless possibilities for exploration as Bishop expertly employs numerous sound sources he creates with an array of strange "instruments" (both intentionally musical or otherwise). The result is a refreshingly active and surprisingly subtle approach to sound. Through a careful layering and shifting of textures the audience, like an explorer lost in a strange and bloodless sea, is immersed in a haunting and ultimately boundless listening space.
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'UPDATE: Green & Cold' by Aidan Baker and 'Drifts' by Ben Fleury-Steiner are now officially out of print and soon to be re-released by other labels
Now available
gos 38: simple machines by asher
a striking work of minimal compositions from a rising voice in the atmospheric music world. we are ecstatic to have released this work on gears of sand recordings--it fits our minimalist ethos but also adds a haunting simplicity that has pricked our ears to something captivating and new. we listen to a lot of recordings around these parts and rarely does a work have that sublime energy that just gets under your skin: simple machines does so in spades.
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Read an exclusive interview with asher in the NEWS section.
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Purchase and Sound Samples Click the Image Below
Now available Suchness3: Seconds in Formaldehyde
The latest installment in our live, improvisational series is a work of three flowing drones by Seconds in Formaldehyde. A decadent work of aural escapism recorded live at last year's Auerworld Festival 28 July 2007. This release is limited to 100 hand numbered copies and presented in chipboard boxes with genuine letter pressed text and images by Matt Borghi of The Hand Work Press.
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Read an exclusive interview with Seconds in Formaldehyde conducted by Tobias Fischer in the NEWS section.
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Purchase and Sound Samples Click the Image Below
NOW AVAILABLE VRYASHN BY JEREMY BIBLE AND JASON HENRY
The unique talents of the constantly evolving Bible and Henry are on full display with Vryashn. For one, the well honed laptopist duo turn here to piano as their main medium. While the warmth, spacious piano movements of ambient pioneers Harld Budd and Brian Eno is often drawn upon for inspiration by other artists, few are able to use the instrument in ways heard on Vryashn. Rather than sparse notes played between silences, Bible and Henry use the piano as a launching pad into a sprawling world of minimal piano motifs that build tension and release given a depth through subtle laptop treatments. Vryashn is arguably a definitive statement of Bible and Henry's talents as composers on the cutting edge of an overflowing and arguably oversampled electronic scene. Beyond synthetic 'soundscapes' or 'interesting textures' Vryashn coalesces into an extraordinarily epic journey. Unfolding over two movements clocking in at just over 50 minutes, the work's addictive minimalist motifs pull the listener in only to be washed over--often unexpectedly--by subtle sonorities of breathy fibrillations, pulsing machinery, and radiant drones that intrigue but never serve to take Vryashn off its massive, radiant course. In a word, breathtaking.
To purchase and hear sound samples from VRYASHN click the image that appears after this exclusive interview with the artists on the inspiration behind Vryashn.
INTERVIEW WITH JEREMY BIBLE AND JASON HENRY
GOS: Where does the title 'vryashn' come from?
JBJH: The title Vryashn (which we personally pronounce as you would the word 'variation') is our alpha representation of the pieces. Throughout our body of work we attempt to redirect focus away from titles through misspelling, rearranging, and creating words that come closer aesthetically to representing the feel of the piece. Our focus as sound artists is the communication of emotion and experience which words, being a comparatively vague form of human expression, could never fully express. This method is used to strip the work of the influence a traditional title may have on the listener when approaching the piece. Leaving a blank slate open for interpretation while still allowing one to identify and differentiate the piece from others through its title. Where many use traditional titles to give a sound composition meaning....we prefer to let the sound of the composition give our invented words meaning. One may even conclude that the previous statements contradict the method.
GOS: And what were you and Jason's influences for this work?
JBJH: The common theme for this body of work is the sensation of dreams within dreams which is something we both experience. Specifically a dream of being surrounded by snow, becoming numb and falling asleep only to awake in the rain in another dream and location. Various phases of such an experience are represented throughout from euphoria to disorientation. In order to achieve this we used a variety eclectic sound sources, piano, recordings of water line pipes, wine glasses, rain on a window, and a garage lamp.
June 22, 2008: Now available "All of the True Things I'm About to Tell You Are Lies" by True Colour of Blood
One of the seminal figures in modern guitar drone music returns with this colossal masterpiece..Read the interview with the man himself (Eric Kesener aka TRUE COLOUR OF BLOOD) in the News section!
Purchase and Sound Samples Click the Image Below
NOW AVAILABLE MACHINA MUNDI BY GYDJA
The brilliant New Zealand sound sculptor Abby Helasdottir (aka Gydja) has crafted a complex lifeworld on Machina Mundi. As Abby describes "the original idea was based around Newton's clockwork universe." The listening experience brings to mind vast images of an entire floating planet-- translucent like a post-industrial snowglobe--revealing intricate machines, plant life, and weather systems moving apart, together, in a strange otherworldly ballet.
About the Artist:
Abby Helasdottir has been creating music since 1995 under the name Gydja (an Old Norse word for priestess). Initially, the aim of the project was to create music that could be used for magickal and shamanic purposes. Some of the earliest ideas involved using field recordings, and basing whole pieces on these sounds in a largely unprocessed way. This is still a concern of Gydja, but with more emphasis now being placed on abstracting these sounds so that, whilst they retain a sense of their original source, they become something else entirely. The current style of Gydja differs from the initial intentions of the project, with music of both a mundane and magickal nature being created. And whilst the music is usually linear and could be defined as a soundscape, it is also not necessarily always dark ambient in style, embracing electro-acoustic and experimental techniques. Works designed specifically for magickal use sit alongside explorations of sound for sound's sake; and in a third tier, some exploration of sound contain magickal themes, even if there is no practical magickal application intended.
To purchase and hear sound samples from MACHINA MUNDI click the image below
APRIL 9, 2008: Now available Special Suchness Reissue of "Leopard's Mouth" by Northern Valentine
Recorded primarily in an abandoned sanitarium this collection of melodic ambient fragments is special in its weaving of so many subgenres: Description is somewhat futile. Husband and wife team Amy and Bob Brown make it clear: They are serious listeners of many atmospheric musics. Years of dedicated listening, constant touring, and fearless experimentation has made for a truly unique sonic diary of ghosts; a spiritual paeon of many emotions to the dwellers of the lost sanitarium.
Special packaging done by Matt Borghi of the Hand Work Press. Limited to 100 hand numbered copies all of the text and images on the chipboard sleeves were created using hand engraved dies and a genuine letter press. Purchase and Sound Samples Click the Image Below
MARCH 28, 2008: Now available "Solemn Words for a Fabled Apparatus" by Christopher McFall
A truly unique and captivating release by Kansas City, MO artist, Christopher McFall. This is the first pure field-recording based release by Gears of Sand and we are hopeful that it will not be the last...We asked Christopher to shed some light on this sublime work that caught us pleasantly by surprise here at GoS HQ..Read the interview in the News section!
Purchase and Sound Samples Click the Image Below
MARCH 2008: NOW AVAILABLE "Himmelhvælv" by Rumsforskning
We are extremely proud to release this brand new work by one of our favorite groups out there, Rumforskning. Danny and Mads create the kind of sound of impermanence that strike to the core of the GoS aesthetic: minimal, haunting, but always evolving, however subtly....Check the news for more details and an interview with Rumforskning....
Purchase and Sound Samples Click the Image Below
JANUARY 2008
Limited copies of Fleury-Steiner's LIGHT OF SHIPWRECK disc released by Crucial Bliss available! Very special packaging in beautiful full color DVD sleeves and insane artwork.
Purchase and Sound Samples Click the Image Below
GOS CATALOG: CLICK ON INDIVIDUAL ALBUM COVERS BELOW
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October 3, 2008
Several new Gears of Sand releases due for release before the end of October
'cllpss' by stephen bishop
And four beautiful new guitar ambient drone records by artists lending their unique interpretations from the U.S., Australia, and Japan.
These include:
'f/m' by p.d. wilder (u.s.a.)
'self titled' by northern valentine & p.d. wilder (u.s.a.)
'unrefined' by zac keiller (australia)
'guitar' by saito koji (japan)
Soon thereafter, new releases that are all ready to go by:
Pholde
Mirkho Uhlig
Mathieu Ruhlmann