Áine O’Dwyer "Anything Bright or Startling" & "Safely Adrift"

Reviewed by Grey Malkin (The Hare & The Moon)

Áine O’Dwyer is perhaps best known for her work with wyrd chamber folk act United Bible Studies, acid folk legend Mark Fry, Piano Magic and as a musician in demand on countless albums by luminaries such as Richard Moult and Michael Tanner (both Tanner and O’Dwyer record as Cloisters). Áine’s spectral and sometimes stormy harp playing has added texture and colour to many an album that could be found in an Active Listener reader’s record collection. Yet she is also an established solo artist in her own right; last years "Anything Bright or Startling" was a revelation. Now the limited accompanying album, "Safely Adrift", that was available with limited copies of "Anything.." has been given a release in its own right and it proves to be equally, if perhaps differently, majestic. And as 'Anything.." has not previously been reviewed here this is the perfect opportunity to reflect on both albums and the music therein.

Following Áine’s debut album "Music for Church Cleaners", 2013’s "Anything Bright or Startling" was her first release to contain vocals and is in general a much more layered and diverse recording. Indeed, it is a veritable milestone; lyrics written by Scottish painter RWM Hunt and borrowed from Art Bear’s Chris Cutler (Albion Awake) combine with Áine’s harp, piano and organ to create something truly unique and timeless. In opener "Falcon/Egress/Coiled Eyes" Áine’s harp flows like water in a stream, at once a thing of both joy and delicate melancholy. Her native Ireland can be heard in the blood of this track; the rolling, lonely hilled landscapes bleed into the music adding a deep yearning quality that is truly moving. "Hyperbolia/Boatwoman" is more troubling; discordant piano rumbles and drones pass like storm clouds over harp, xylophone and Áine’s vocals declaring the coming of something both ominous and filled with dread. This piece reminds one of Nico’s classic "Marble Index" in its use of spare but effective tonal textures to suggest mood and intent. Dwyer’s music is utterly unique yet it still feels like it fits into a rich canon of outsider music from Art Bears "Winter Songs" to Robert Wyatt’s "Rock Bottom", Meredith Monk to Richard Skelton. Driven and intense harp pedals Áine’s searching and keening vocals forward, occasionally playful and Syd Barrett-like, then at turns sombre. Again, disturbing piano bass notes break the delicacy with dark intentions. What sounds like chanter leads the song off on an ancient path, echoing the sound of gulls across crashing waves. Speaking of Art Bears, "Albion Awake" begins gently, the quiet and calm after the storm, harp glistening star like and shining. It picks up pace steadily, with chilling and choral vocals intoning "Albion Awake!/Tumble you seeders/ Owls begone!/Beaks, tear the fabric of the night to sparks". Bowed strings and accordion add tension and dread to the ever building whirlwind of nature, this is the sound of the earth trembling. "Silent O Moyle/Truant Crier" is a lament sitting on top of descending and waterfalling harp; a moonlit paean that is both intoxicating and haunting. Drones of pipe organ darken the mood as Áine’s chants and plaintive cries evoke Nico’s disturbing and dissonant "Evening of Light" to finish the album. It is an incredible piece and leaves one feeling as alive and spooked as when standing in the heart of a thunderstorm.

"Safely Adrift" accompanied "Anything.." for subscribers to the splendid Second Language label. It is only fitting that this incredible work is given a release now in its own right; for this record to have gone unnoticed by everyone else would have been a significant loss. Different in feel to its sister album "Safely Adrift" contains shorter, more varied pieces and is less of a tapestry and more of a series of vignettes. "A Truant Melody" begins the album, immediately setting a sacred and ethereal tone. Effectively an improvisation in an abandoned friary in Limerick, the pipe organ creates a sombre and atmosphere. The ghosts of the friary are present in this recording; it is ageless and affecting. "Underbuilding", an improvised piano piece, again in an empty space – this time recorded in an underground basement car park in London during the night, brings to mind some of Richard Moult’s work as notes cascade waterfall-like upon each other. Again the mood is a melancholy one, perhaps aided by the desolate circumstances of the recording. "A Calling", described as ‘music for a prayer film’ is a chanted hymnal; choral voices accompanied solely by a hand drum. This piece would not be out of place on an alternate Wicker Man soundtrack or on a classic Popol Vuh album. At once beautiful and profound yet also ancient and unsettling, this processionary piece is, to this listener’s ears, the highpoint of an already impressive record. "Shane on Flute" closes the album, a piano and vocal improvisation in a Colchester church. The echoing reverb in the empty space of the church creates a drone like contemplation as the piece builds to a crescendo of startling beauty. This is an album of deserted, abandoned and haunted places and sounds. It consequently has an air of cobwebbed sadness but it is also quietly alive and pulsing; Áine’s instinctive playing leading each piece to an ever building and heart rending finale.

"Anything Bright or Startling" is No.3 in the Second Language Library Series (available here) - a highly collectable catalogue of hardback CD albums designed to be stored in your bookcase. It is a thing of beauty and quickly has become one of this listener's favourite albums. "Safely Adrift" is available on Bandcamp (below) with plans for a potential vinyl release.
These albums come highly recommended; you will not hear anything else quite like them.

Dead Horse One "Without Love We Perish"

Reviewed by Nathan Ford

Following on from a couple of well received (and rather good) E.Ps (bits of which are still available here), French shoegaze champions Dead Horse One have really taken their time to get their debut full length just right, and the attention to detail, and level of care that have gone into "Without Love We Perish" has paid off in droves with an album that is light years ahead of anything the band have released before.

Easily brushing aside the work of other imitators, it's easy to see why Ride's Mark Gardener was impressed enough with what he heard to agree to produce an album that would not have been particularly lucrative for him financially, but artistically would have been a very attractive prospect. Gardner's mix is warm, spacious and enveloping - this is a much cleaner, and less heavy Dead Horse One than that which appeared on those early E.Ps, and the resulting clarity really allows these memorably tuneful songs the opportunity to shine.

If we're looking at Ride comparisons (and few other shoegazers - from the original wave or the current one could withstand such a comparison without withering), "Without Love We Perish" is like the mellow cousin of "Going Blank Again" with only the occasional glimpse of the squall of "Nowhere".

Dead Horse One's guiding light Olivier Debard is both a scholar of the original shoegaze movement, and an innovative writer himself, allowing the evocatively titled "Without Love We Perish" the opportunity to establish itself as both a reverent loveletter to the albums that were most important to him in his formative musical years, and as a very personal, unique statement of his own.

Highlights are hard to extract from an album that has such a sense of unity and completeness, but Debard elects opener "Hopper" as the ultimate Dead Horse One experience (so far), and that's as good a place to start as any, but with no misteps you can rest assured that you can dive in anywhere within "Without Love We Perish"s playing time and come up with gold.

"Without Love We Perish" is available on vinyl, CD and digital formats directly from A Quick One Records here.

"Blackwood" is available as a free download as part of The Active Listener New Shoegaze Sampler here.

Olivier Debard was interviewed by When The Sun Hits Blog recently. We've cross-posted that interview here.

Full album stream is available here:

Fleeting Joys (+The Black Ryder + BJM) – The Laurels = Modern Shoegaze: An Interview with Olivier Debard of Dead Horse One

This article has been cross posted from "When the Sun Hits", where it was originally published - great shoegaze blog, check it out.

Only Dead Horse One’s singular songwriter and front person Olivier Debard could come up with a precise mathematical equation defining modern shoegaze, as he does in this new interview. Just what that equation actually means will surely be a topic of profound speculation and earnest debate among academics and stoners alike for decades to come, so remember—you heard it here first!

The band’s debut full-length Without Love We Perish is now available (you can buy it here). Produced by Mark Gardener of the classic shoegaze band Ride, it’s a truly masterful expression of the hazy, fertile boundary where shoegaze and psychedelia overlap.

Olivier, who hails from southern France, comes across in our abundant electronic correspondence with him as warm and individualistic with a compactly enigmatic wit. He projects both confidence and humility, knowing full well what his strengths are and just how far they reach. Olivier writes songs of depth and poignancy that he sings beautifully and that Dead Horse One performs and records with exquisite results. Without Love We Perish immediately struck us as brilliant, our first listen giving us goosebumps and moistening our eyes in the wonderful way of music that we love. We expect it to be one of the most significant releases of the year in the musical zones covered by When The Sun Hits. Please give Without Love We Perish a listen here and enjoy Olivier’s distinctive perspectives in this interview.

Do you consider your music to be part of the current shoegaze/psychedelia scene, or any scene? Do you feel that Dead Horse One identifies closely with any genre? How do you feel about genres in music in a general sense?

Musical genres? This only serves to put music in boxes, to better sell, no? I think the structure of the songs, the mode of composition, remains unchanged. Only technology has evolved. Look at the path traveled since the ‘50s until our time! Only songs remain.

What do you think of modern shoegaze/dream pop/psychedelia artists, any favorites?

Fleeting Joys (+The Black Ryder + BJM) – The Laurels = modern shoegaze.

What is the most important piece of gear for your sound? Any particular guitars/pedals/amps that you prefer?

Semi-hollow body! That's the secret! And a lot of other things that I can't mention here! Ahah! More seriously, we use much twelve string, Jazzmaster and Coronado. We also use ‘80s keyboards. This is an old recipe.

Do you prefer vinyl, CD, cassette tape or MP3 format when listening to music? Do you have any strong feelings toward any of them?

Whatever, as Jean-Jacques Goldman, a famous French singer, said in a song: "When the music is good! When she does not cheat." Ahah! Regardless of the medium.

What artists have most influenced your work?

At the risk of being very original, I say JAMC, Anton Newcombe, Ride and, more recently, The Warlocks.

Can you tell us a little about what you are currently into (books, films, art, bands, etc.)?

Marcel Conche, a French philosopher. I love listening to these sermons! Regarding music, I am into all our buddies in the French collective “nøthing”.

If you had to choose one track that was the ultimate definition of your sound, which would it be and why?

“Hopper” definitely! Everything is there!



We understand you are the songwriter for Dead Horse One. Can you tell us a little about the band and its process?

Jérome Simonian is the guitar hero, Antoine Pinet is the drumer, Ludovic Naud is the bass player, Ivan Tziboulsky plays keyboards and 12-string. I am left alone much of the year away from my family (because of my work). I have a lot of free time with myself! This is when the songs get written. I think about the music, then I show the other band members their different parts and the color of sounds (except for the guitar solos, which Jérome develops). Generally I make a demo that I send to them. After, they play for the recording session, much better than me. They don't have the same influences as me; we're not from the same generation. Sometimes music they play sounds too “ROCK” for me and we yell. And sometimes it works.

Could you tell us how you managed to get Mark Gardener on board to produce Without Love We Perish? Would you like to comment on the working process with Mark?

I followed Mark for a long time. I saw the bands with which he was involved such as The Morning After Girls, and the number of shows he performed in the United States with all its new neo-psych bands like Asteroid #4 or The Black Ryder. We had made our tracks recording by ourselves and we were facing a mountain of tracks to mix…So I had the idea to contact Mark. I started by sending him an email to which he responded two months later! We sent him a pre-mix of “Hopper”. This was the first song he mixed. We gave him carte blanche to do what he wanted with the tracks. He never sent us more than three mixes of a particular track. It was incredibly simple to work with him. We were lucky he agreed to put his name on the project because one thing is certain, he didn't do that only for money given the budget we had.

Can you tell us what the band has been working on and what you've got forthcoming in the near future (new releases, tour, etc.)?

We have ten new songs for Season of Mist, our next album. John Loring from Fleeting Joys will do the mix and Craig Walker will perform a song! I'm very happy, Craig is one of the most beautiful voices I’ve heard so far. He invited us to play with his new band Mineral in Marseille last March. That was an awesome night! We should be recording early next year. We will do some dates in France in early November, although it is very difficult to find shows in our country. We recorded an original track mixed by Yan from Venera 4. The first physical compilation (vinyl) of the nøthing Music Art Collective will arrive really soon. All eleven French bands of the collective have recorded a special track for it! I've seen the cover art and it's beautiful!

What is your philosophy (on life), if any, that you live by?

“Sans amour nous perissons.” It’s an old saying of French soldiers that means “without love we perish.”

The Electric Magpie "Begins"

Reviewed by Nathan Ford

More excellence from the Lolipop Records stable here after yesterday's Mystic Braves review.

A good fit for the Lolipop label, The Electric Magpie are apparently well known in the local San Francisco garage / psych scene, but not so much to those of us further afield. That turns out to be our loss, as "Begins" is a pretty great debut.

Like their avian namesakes, The Electric Magpie like to pick up shiny things and make them their own, with "Begins" bathed in a warm, comfortable early seventies glow that acknowledges lots of the psychedelic masters, but also makes concessions towards more straightforward classic rock fare too. Case in point is possible album stand out "Friends" which kicks into life with a splendid New York coke-cool rhodes intro which is pure Donald Fagen, before going all "I Am The Walrus" and getting moody and psychedelic. Not your usual approach, but the ease with which these guys traverse genres is commendable and results in an album that sounds like it exists outside of the confines of time.

There's a whole lot of silliness and fun to be had here too, with tracks like "Mourning Gloria", "Birds in the Trees" and "Hold On (Hannah)" sporting choruses that are infectious and memorable and grooves that will inevitably lead to more than their fair share of irresistible, get-down choogling.

Eclectic and a whole heap of fun, with a great live-sounding vibe that I bet makes them rule on stage.

CD, cassette and digital available here with vinyl to follow soon:

Mystic Braves "Desert Island"

Reviewed by Nathan Ford

L.A independent Lolipop Records' release schedule has been increasingly busy and increasingly interesting of late, with two recent releases I'm going to highlight over the next few days upping the ante considerably.

First up we have the sophomore release from Cali-psych poppers Mystic Braves, which performs a considerable feat in bettering its predecessor, which was a pretty top album that this writer thinks could perhaps have received a little of the attention that the Allah La's album took the lion's share of.

"Desert Island" continues to expand upon the sounds found on that debut, effortlessly merging reverb laden Cali-cool with the urgent r&b of British invasion bands like the Animals and Them, with more Farfisa organ than you'll find on almost any album recorded after 1967.

The first side peaks with gonzo spaghetti western epic "Coyote Blood", forging a perfect alliance between windswept, desert melancholia and raucous garage rock. The flipside is even better though, with scorching mariachi brass joining the fray and on "In the Past", a memorable, jittery guitar figure snaking its way around the Farfisa line in a seizure-inducing frenzy.

Pretty great.

Vinyl & digital both available here:

The Cryan' Shames "A Scratch in the Sky" Deluxe Expanded Mono Edition.

Reviewed by Nathan Ford

In a move that shows their expertise, the folks at Now Sounds have opted not for a full reissue program of the Cryan' Shames three albums, but dived straight in with their second album "A Scratch In The Sky" which is their masterpiece to this listener's ears.

While debut "Sugar & Spice" showed this Chicago based band finding their feet with a set of good jangly garage folk tunes, and third album "Synthesis" saw them entering harder rock territory (which they didn't always sound comfortable with), "A Scratch In The Sky" saw everything converge in the right place at the right time to the point where it's a small wonder that this wasn't a pretty big hit back in 1967 when it saw its original release.

Initial plays had me thinking that a good half of this was reasonably lightweight sunshine pop, but subsequent listens have revealed these songs to be some of the best of their type with faultless songcraft and an easy appeal that's likely to win over those not normally impressed by this genre (it sure worked on me).

The other half is where the real treasure lies for the psychedelic collector though. Heavily influenced by the Beatles "Revolver" (and it's contemporary single "Rain"), these tracks are fabulous examples of how unique an Americanised approach to the British Invasion can sound.

"The Sailing Ship" is a trippy masterpiece, with a kitchen sink arrangement that includes backwards guitars and bagpipes, and an atmosphere among the most evocative of U.S psych. "Mr Unreliable" is a great rocker with some fabulous Ringo style drum fills, a killer chorus, and clever spiraling guitar parts. "I Was Lonely When" is memorably jazz tinged, and extremely moody, while the more acoustic based "Cobblestone Road" anticipates the rural charm of early solo McCartney. Even the blatant Byrds steal of "Sunshine Psalm" is so well integrated into their sound that after several plays it feels entirely natural.

Now Sounds expanded mono edition meets the high standards one expects from Cherry Red's associated reissue, with the punchy mono mix especially valuable on "Mr Unreliable" and "Dennis Dupree From Danville", with its memorable George Harrison inspired guitar solo.

A recommended purchase, and easily a match for any of the Buckinghams' more lauded albums from this period.

Available here at the bargain price of 7.93 (at the time of writing). Essential.

The Fast Camels “Dead Rooms and Butterfly Dreams”

Reviewed by Nathan Ford

Glaswegians The Fast Camels return with their second album "Dead Rooms & Butterfly Dreams", and with a much different line up than their first album.

"Dead Rooms..." is an album that obviously benefits from the time and care that has been put into its creation, and despite many obvious touchstones and influences, is a confident statement that never sounds derivative no matter which influence is being channeled at any given moment.

With a sound that comfortably embraces the psychedelia and freakbeat of yesteryear, with more recent strands of U.K alternative music, opener "Bruisy Bedlock" does a great job of straddling eras, with a vintage sounding R&B vamp (think Them), converging with some delicious jangly harmonies (ala The Coral), while also finding room for some brooding early Verve style psychedelia. This ADHD approach might sound quite jarring on paper, but the actuality is perfection, with all of the diverse bits and pieces slotting together perfectly in a way that would make Pete Townshend (who is also often evoked here) proud.

"Penny Pinching Debt Collector" continues this eclectic approach starting out as a twisted, intimate acoustic vignette before piling on huge layers of freakbeat guitars of the most gorgeous tone, with some marvelously controlled feedback creating an ethereal outro, confidently stepping into psychedelic territory.

Elsewhere you'll find huge anthemic choruses delivered with conviction ("Park Day"), timeless songcraft ("The Ballad of Berty & Johann"), and huge windmilling guitars that alternate between Townshend style recklessness, and the moody Barretesque tinge of standout "The Camera Assassin", which drags "Astronomy Domine" back into the light and gives it a sound seeing to.

We like.

Available direct from The Fast Camels here.

Download from iTunes or sample tracks here.

Thomas Edisun's Electric Light Bulb Band "The Red Day Album"

Reviewed by Nathan Ford

Adventurous readers may be familiar with Thomas Edisun's Electric Light Bulb Band from the appearance of their "Common Attitude" 45 on the excellent "Aliens, Psychos & Wild Things" comp a few years back, but few will realise that they recorded an entire albums worth of material that didn't see the light of day until recently, courtesy of a Gear Fab CD reissue.  Now Guerssen have come to the vinyl lover's rescue with this lovely vinyl pressing of the album - as close to how it was originally intended as we're likely to ever get.

After being blown away by "Sgt Peppers", TEELBB (as we will call them from now) resolved to make their own album length psychedelic statement and entered the studio in 1967, recording the contents of "The Red Day Album" over a single weekend.

The tape loop trickery of opening track "I'm Here Right Here" picks up right where Lennon's looped outro at the tail of "Sgt Peppers" left off - as bold a statement of intent as you're likely to find anywhere.

Naturally the rudimentary studio production available to TEELBB means that "The Red Day Album" is less overtly psychedelic than it's direct influence, but strangely enough manages to foreshadow the sound of the later studio work of the Beatles, the early solo works of Lennon and (particularly) McCartney and the legion of followers that spawned the powerpop genre in the seventies. I'd be tempted to claim this as a major inspiration for a number of these seventies power pop artists if I wasn't so sure that they couldn't have heard this at the time, so clearly ahead of their time, if not actually influential.

And it's not just the sound that they've captured so effectively here - the songs themselves are harmony drenched marvels that range from clear stand out "Red Day" (a perfect piece of Macca / Emitt Rhodes style piano pop with an affecting winsomeness) to the more advanced and hard rocking "Champion" (sort of Rockin' Horse meets the Beatles Twickenham sessions), to the Ringo-esque "I'll Join The Army".

Also includes a repro of their rare “Common Attitude” / “No one’s been here for weeks” 45.

A miraculous feat of crate digging and an essential purchase that will stand proudly alongside albums from the likes of Emitt Rhodes, Colours, Lazy Smoke and Rockin' Horse in your Beatlesque collection.

Available here, from the fine folks at Norman Records.

None of the standout tracks from "The Red Day Album" are available to stream unfortunately, but you can check out "Common Attitude" below - it'll give you a rough idea, but in my opinion there are much higher peaks to be scaled on the album itself.

Balduin "Post From Mars"

The Active Listener is thrilled to announce that we have a new release on our Active Listener Records imprint from the Swiss Alchemist of Music, Balduin.
Chances are good that you've heard quite a bit about Balduin as a result of his excellent 7" E.P "The Glamour Forest" which Sunstone Records released earlier on this year (they also have a new full length due from Balduin later on this year too!), but the truth is Balduin has been recording for much longer than this.
"Post From Mars" brings together the best material from his pre "Glamour Forest" recordings, including plenty of the U.K psych influenced baroque pop that made "The Glamour Forest" so magical, but with detours into other more proggy, krauty and electronic realms as well.
Opener "Everything" is the song that made us fall in love with the Balduin sound in the first place, and the eleven accompanying tracks here are just as strong.
Thanks for reading, now get your listening apparatus ready and stream or download right here:

The Love Explosion "Mood Processor"

Reviewed by Nathan Ford

There's not much I can tell you about the Love Explosion, but their new album "Mood Processor" is a worthy enough attraction to not let trivialities like that get in the way of making sure you all have the chance to hear it.

Discovered recently via Valis's always on the money "Trip Inside This House" blog, The Love Explosion is largely the work of one Tom C - a resident of Sydney Australia (so Valis tells us). "Mood Processor" is his second album, following 2011's "The Perverse Caress of Satan" which Tom describes as "the Brian Jonestown Massacre making out with DJ Shadow on the couch watching Hammer films" - obviously I'm going to have to work back and listen to that too, but back to the task at hand for now.

"Mood Processor" is a well studied piece of psychedelia that is impressively diverse in its scope, and open about its influences.  Opener "You Think You Are" has the airy pastoral tinge of Ride's vastly underrated "Carnival of Light" with added mellotron and lush psychedelic guitar treatments.  "Hairy Holiday" on the other hand is an exploitation classic with a cheeky dialogue lift from "Horror Hospital", and music to match, complete with over the top wah guitar, a Neu! rhythm section and layers of sitar.

Only the extremely catchy "Mushroom" sounds like it could do with a little more muscle, although the overly clean verses are largely made up for by a visceral slab of e-bowed guitar mayhem towards the end that sets the scene for an even better second half of the album that embraces hypnotic acoustic drone ("Beauty and Wonder"), and an infectious Kraftwerk homage ("Eternally Recurring"), among other things.

It all adds up to a strangely cohesive album that shouldn't slot together quite this easily considering how many pieces it's made up of. And it's free (as is the debut) - totally recommended, sample track below:

Available as a free download directly from their own blog here.