mwvm

With icy blasts of condensation, Context. Where? has been charging across the stereo field of my hifi for tha past few days. Michael Walton has been here before under his mwvm moniker, drawing long glissando drones from his customized guitar-based effects set-up. Last year's debut self-titled EP opened a door to a more interesting breed of guitar instrumental. Taking his lead from luminaries such as Adam Wiltzie and Brian McBride (both collectively and individually), Walton runs with these ideas and electrifies them. This particular track has been available on the mwvm myspace page for a little bit, but released from the myspace player it has been buffed and polished until it shines.

Too often, so-called drone ambient artists ignore the grand romantic sweep in favor of micro-dynamics, the random scratch of a radio dial, the bluster of white noise feedback, but Walton steers a refreshingly different course whereby distinct guitar resonances are built, layer upon layer, frequency band upon frequency band creating distinct and delicate melodies. Never once relying to cliché (of course completely unlike this reviewer), his first full-length release, Rotations, is set for release on September 25th by Silber Records.

This is music to be listened to and, as such, to categorize this as ambient is dangerous. This album cannot be ignored and therefore immediately breaks Eno's first law of ambient. Nevertheless, it drifts with intent, at first lulling the listener then pummeling them with sound. There have always been albums that have incited listeners to play them loud. Here we have one that really does need it. To listen to it quietly removes its sheer physicality.

Rather than the occasionally polite but floating drone of William Basinski, mwvm slams into the target. You don't float with Rotations, you drown in it, twisting and writhing. The immediacy of each melodic and harmonic theme enveloping the listener within each track and the album as a whole.

mwvm - Context. Where? MP3 from Rotations (Silber Records, 2007)

Edit: The album is available from here and here.

Stars of the Lid

Stars of the Lid, the divine post-ambient pairing of Adam Wiltzie and Brian McBride, are readying their latest long player, Stars of the Lid and Their Refinement of the Decline, a typically monumental 3LP/double CD release through Kranky and scheduled to appear on April 2.

Following up on their last slab of drone/ambient released nearly 6 years ago, The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid, they are refining the sound of tectonic plates moving. Apreludes (In C Sharp Minor) is a typically dense miasma of drones dripping in beautiful melancholy and is a teaser for the album to come.

While most albums of this length would be considered a marathon at best, SOTL are one of the few contemporary groups who can create such a consistently enthralling series of sonambulant resonances ... the soundtrack to a film yet to me made.

Apreludes (In C Sharp Minor) on Kranky