Silver Mt. Zion news

[bill hicks]

Heads up for the Godspeed fans among the brethren.

A new EP by Thee Silver Mountain Reveries (basically A Silver Mt. Zion...) is due in May 2004.

It's called Pretty Little Lightning Paw and it's really rather good.

Clicky

[Borboski]

Woo Woo!

[Borboski]

I did worry that that following Xanqui, although it's the great, Godspeed were starting to fall into a fairly repetitive pattern. So I'm much happier that they're keeping busy with this side project using a lot more vocals.

Can anyone recommend other Godspeed-esque bands?

I really like Explosions In The Sky
I'm tempted to order some Rachels as I can't find in either the shops or the 'shops'
I've just been lent some Six by Seven to listen to tonight.
What else? Post-rock reccomendations please!

[bill hicks]

Loads of good bands out there.

If you want a one stop shop, try www.epitonic.com and try typing in Godspeed. Along the side of the band's page is a list of similar bands with samples from each. A real gold mine of quality stuff. My own recommendations would be:

Rachel's - Beautiful instrumental classical themed 'chamber pop'. Also check out their Southern Records site for a shitload of mp3s. I especially recommend 'A French Galleasse' from Selenography.

Tarentel - A truly amazing band. Signed to Neurot (Neurosis' label), they fit right in to the Godspeed canon. Gorgeous strings and tape loops, aching, melancholy. Try the track 'Popol Vuh' on the site and fall in love.

Telegraph Melts - More classical stuff. This band has Amy Domingues (also of Threnody Ensemble) on Amplified Cello. 'Cantus for Theodore N.' is exceptional.

Physics - Quite Kraut in places. Very highbrow stuff (all about single chord development and that sort of thing), but lot's of groove (well as close as this stuff gets to groove). Try '+ or -' on the site. Great sample.

Don Caballero - The don's. Absolutely insane musicianship moving from a sort of proto-Instrumental hardcore sound early on to  quieter dynamics based records later.

Labradford - Everyone should know them. Awesome band mixing simple melodious guitars and atmospheric samples and keys. Anything by this band is great by law.

Hilkka - Slint squared and as good as that sounds.

Zoviet France - Like one of the huge delayed drones that Godspeed always does (Deathkamp Drone etc.) but turned into a band. Nothing ever seems to happen with this lot but before you know it you've spent three hours with it on repeat.

Vivid Low Sky - Solo project by the guy who runs Plastique Records (plus guests...sort of a quiet Probot). 'Music for Movies Unmade' is a great record if less experimental than others on this list. Great indie rock without annoying vocals.

Storey/Ayers/Grief - Three man 'supergroup'. One of them was in Zoviet France and it's mostly the same sort of thing. Long, long drones and repetitions.

Also not on the site I can heartily recommend getting into:

Billy Mahonie - London band who never seem to get anywhere and are constantly getting dropped from labels. Great band though, Dusseldorf is magnificent and search for a track called 'Less Flagiolettes' from the 1000 Years of Billy Mahonie EP. It has Luke Sutherland on it I think.

Immense - I assume they've split since I've been waiting about 5 years for their second LP to come out and heard nothing. Lead by a stupidly young Philosophy student from Bristol and featuring a bloke who played session for Genesis once (not talked about), the NME said the guitarist was the new Mozart and they promptly vanished. Try 'Death To The Gremlins' (you can guess who that's about) and 'E-flat Sonic Boom' from their only album Evil Ones and Zeros.

Meanwhile Back In Communist Russia - Still not sure about this lot. Heard from several people they're a bunch of pretentious cunts, never actually seen their records in a shop and yet the Peel Session they did a while back was quite good. Arab Strap with a girl basically.

Hanged Up - Great band from Constellation. Field recordings and s*****c drums and strings. Miraculously for a canadian band DOESN'T feature a member of Godspeed at all.

Noxagt - Norwegian (I think). More metal than anything here really. Drums, bass, Viola...but real Black Flag spirit. Thier record 'Turning It Down Since 2001' is fierce and very, very loud. The Wire loved them (even if they were po-faced about liking a metal band....stuck up cunts they're the same with Khanate now).

Oh and check out Isis. Your life depends on it. 'Weight' is the greatest song ever written.

Oh and you do know about the other Godspeed related bands I take it (Esmerine, Set Fire to Flames)?

If you fancy more just give us the nod or keep going from band to band on the Epitonic site. You can waste hours doing that.

[Borboski]

Oh yes my friend - excellent stuff, come payday I shall make a few purchases.

I've got most of the stuff on the constellation label. Really do like Frankie Sparo at the moment. I have a labradford album - let me see its 'fixed context', very ambient and sparse. A friend once made me a tape that had one of their songs that was much more melodic and uplifting - any idea if there other albums are like that?

I shall sample a load of this stuff and report back!

Still listening to the Explosions In The Sky album - and was chuffed to bits it lived up to expectations - usually I ruin new albums by expecting too much.

[Sam]

Try "In the Woods..." and "Green Carnation". Here's some reviews from http://www.ssmt-reviews.com/db/

Omnio

When first listening to In the Woods' Omnio, don't expect instant gratification or to even really grasp what the heck these people are creating. All at once heavy, orchestrated, operatic, epic and etherial, Omnio is a long winding road down a musical landscape that hasn't been touched fully by anyone else that I can recall. Possibly the closest relative to the music is what Arcturus did on La Masquerade Infernale without that band's tendencies to simply run amuck in chaos. Or maybe I'm just thinking that because I've been listening to a lot of that disc as well. Omnio is an album one must experience as a whole. The five long tracks are truly cohesive as a singular entity and require your full play. The music builds, crashes, fades and builds all over again as with any well composed piece of music. In the Woods utilizes a lot of various techniques that make other bands look clumsy: excellent soprano vocals, violins and carefully crafted synth sections. Moreover, the band still retains a good sense of heaviness executed in a very strong fashion, neither overwhelming or acting as a distraction. Yup. This is one powerful album intended for "Mature Audiences Only" but fully worth the mental investment into the fray.

Review by John Chedsey

Light of Day, Day of Darkness


And you were thinking In the Woods was epic.

Hot on the heels of last year's debut effort, Journey to the End of Night, Green Carnation has resurfaced with an ambitious project that may redefine the terms "epic" and "grandiose" in regard to heavy metal. Gone are the ten to twenty minute songs of the first album as Light of Day, Day of Darkness is a single song, sixty minute affair. Step aside, Edge of Sanity! Green Carnation has taken the mantle as the world's best ultra-epic song makers.

As with any sixty minute song that acts as the lone track on a CD, there are concerns that the song won't sustain interest in listeners past the ten minute mark. Green Carnation, though some exceptionally brilliant songwriting, has created a song that magically flows from beginning to end as a resolute journey and completely seamless transitions between passages and movements. The album boasts of using one hundred and fifty tracks as well as six hundred separate samples in the studio. The production of the album is fantastic. Everything is crystal clear and still retains an organic, cozy feel. One could say it employs the ambience of some of the best progressive rock records of the past with a completely modern feel for technology. Choirs, classical orchestration and many other elements are included to flesh out the basic ideas. Unlike some contemporaries, which paste together various elements in a rough collage, Green Carnation weaves everything together like a fine tapestry. There are segments of quiet atmospherics with a lone female voice to heavy, crunch sections that use warm keyboard sounds of yesteryear. Most importantly, Green Carnation understands the power of creating music that goes through climaxes, builds and dropoffs to heighten the overall effect.

Needless to say, this CD has something for fans of modern doom, In the Woods junkies and people who wish to discover a truly progressive record. Light of Day, Day of Darkness will find scant few peers to which it can be compared because it truly breaks the mold. This CD utterly blows away the band's promising debut record and will stand as an enchanting, mesmerizing record for years to come.

Review by John Chedsey