[GIG] Stars Of The Lid (Kranky) + Remember Remember (Rock Action) + Glissando (Gizeh)

[Panda Strong]

PUMPED FOR THIS.

I've not got my ticket yet, though. Or my Caribou. I should probably get round to picking them up.

Looking forward to seeing Remember Remember again. Fountain Mountain is my revision music just now.

[offramp]

Here's that Pitchfork review in full...

Stars of the Lid: And Their Refinement of the Decline: Pitchfork Record Review

Stars of the Lid

And Their Refinement of the Decline

[Kranky; 2007]

Rating: 8.6

The vanishing-point music created by drone elders Phil Niblock and, especially, LaMonte Young is what happens when a fixation on held tones reaches a tipping point. Timbre is reduced to either a single clear instrument or a sine wave, silence disappears completely, and the base-level interaction between small clusters of "pure" tone becomes the music's content. This kind of work takes what typically helps us to distinguish "music" from "sound," discards nearly all of it, and then starts over again from scratch.

Drone legends Stars of the Lid find their music drifting toward this rarefied place on their first album after an almost six-year absence. On first listen, And Their Refinement of the Decline seems a continuation of its beloved precursor, 2001's The Tired Sounds of... It is again a double CD with about two hours of music; it uses a similar palette of violin, cello, and Stuart Dempster-inspired horns to augment the electronically generated drones. Song titles again refer to brain chemistry ("Dopamine Clouds Over Craven Cottage"), altered states ("Another Ballad for Heavy Lids"), and the nuts and bolts of the music's creation (Apreludes (in C sharp major)"). And yet, upon putting on Tired Sounds of... again for comparison, I see Adam Wiltzie and Brian McBride have actually come some distance in the last half-decade. And the place they're moving to is starker, quieter, somehow even more subtle, where the tiniest amount of sound information is put upon to do the greatest amount of work. Where Tired Sounds of... sounded genteel and stately next to the raw four-track feedback fests they'd started with ("Tape Hiss Makes Me Happy" summed up their debut nicely), it now sounds about halfway between their genesis and this album; "refinement" turns out to be the perfect word.

The first thing that becomes apparent is that there's less discernible guitar here. The acoustic instruments once served as foils to the channeled electricity, but now they've taken center stage, and the horns and strings are often used in a curious way. Rather than being stretched out to push against silence with drone music proper, on tracks like "Dungtitled (in A Major)" and "The Evil that Never Arrived", flugelhorn, cello, and violin are used in short, slowly decaying bursts, keeping skeletal tunes aloft by bumping them with a chord every few seconds. The added space between the notes makes the pieces seem less forward and pervasive, like they might vanish into the air at any moment. It also cuts the drama and leaves the music more open to interpretation.

While SOTL will always be tagged as "cinematic," the music here rarely leads. You get the sense that this it could be used to color a wide array of images. The brief "Hiberner Toujours" on the second disc is a three-note phrase played on a cello with an intense vibrato and heavy reverb, first alone, then doubled, with muted electronic treatments lurking just behind. I could just as easily see it soundtracking a morning-after newsreel of a WWII firebombing or a stop-motion blooming of a flower. And then "Humectez La Mouture" extends an idea developed by the sorely missed Labradford and perfected by the Books: A deceptively simple and spacious bit of music with a neutral emotional cast is presented without additional cues and allowed to live or die on its own. Here SOTL take a couple of piano chords lightly kissed with electronics and let the progression play with small bits of shading, including what sounds like manipulated pedal steel and the dialog track from a French film. It doesn't "go" anywhere, really, and it's hard to say what it projects; the music could be crushingly sad, lightly melancholic, or even uplifting, depending on the state of mind of the hearer. It becomes a sound divorced from intention and its ambiguity is its strength.

This stripping down and moving away from easily definable mood makes And Their Refinement of the Decline a bit harder to grasp initially than any previous SOTL record. The less pronounced changes and more sparing use of dynamic range means that the music can easily slip into the background when something else requires attention. That's par for the course with ambient music, of course, but I get the sense this music is shortchanged by being functional. There's too much focus on the careful layering of sounds, and too many small but still important tweaks happening from moment to moment to let everything slide by in an undifferentiated blob of sound.

It's the rare moment when SOTL tip their hand and let more expressionistic feelings seep into the music that you understand how well the album works as a whole. The brilliant "Even if You're Never Awake (Deuxime)" is one such place, as its surges of strings are gradually cut with curled shavings of backward guitar, and some almost sub-sonic bass halfway through its 9 minutes announces an even wearier turn into the lament's final section. It "develops" in the conventional sense, as does "December Hunting for Vegetarian Fuckface", the album's final track.

After almost two hours we arrive at perhaps the most playful title ever from a band known for playful titles, and also what could be SOTL's defining statement. "December Hunting" is like the band's entire history playing out in a single piece, all the tensions in their music-- acoustic vs. electric, cryptic vs. obvious, joyous vs. sorrowful-- are articulated and probed in 17 heavenly minutes of drone without a tedious moment. It's the final and greatest example of that special thing that happens, with all due respect to their fine solo material, only when these two get together.

-Mark Richardson, April 03, 2007

[chilli]

these are the kind of events we'd really like to do more often & have some great ideas for future events*, however the SoTL night is a tester to see if audience will turn out in numbers & see a show from an artist who hasn't played here b4 & very unlikely to do so again.

*of a similar standing & musical eclectica to SoTL!!!

those that come along will not be disappointed in a number of special ways......

[offramp]

Here's a review from Slow Secret, capturing two of the bands on Friday night's bill...

What better venue for an evening of ambient music that Holy Trinity Church? Though it may not have the best sound for a concert in Leeds I would doubt anybody's claim for a venue with better ambience. The phrase 'pull up a pew' has never been more apt than tonight as the church fills to the brim with a crowd that knows it made the right choice in braving the cold weather to be here, with or without canned lager in hand.

Due to a train delayed by an undisclosed object hitting it as it left Burley-in-Wharfedale Station we miss the majority of opening act Pausal, though catching the end, minimal is the key and the group make the use of projectors and visuals as much they do notes and chords. They could be described as a kind of English Sigur Ros, perhaps though without the originality and class.

Leeds duo Glissando takes the stage, the brooding vocals of Ellie May Irving casting shadows over sombre atmospheres and piano movements. The sound is lonesome yet never heartfelt. Richard Knox is one minute directing the sound from an Apple Mac, the next to his guitar, then to a vocal call. Though the voice is the real star tonight, Glissando are a very special Leeds band indeed.

Stars Of The Lid are a difficult band to capture in words, they make their way to the stage to a choir of Disney-esque ambience, and from then on you know that this show will be out of the ordinary. Adam Wiltzie & Brian Edward McBride direct the beautiful orchestra-lite, and they play through cuttings of their 'Tired Sounds' and more recent 'Refinement of the Decline' albums. It's a wash of sound, a couple of violins have never sounded so big especially when the cello grinds up from the deep to create a roar of noise, you're listening for the distortion but it's not there. Sombre tones build and the projections on the church walls echo it, from green primordial swamps to the creation of the universe in its celestial magnitude, it's all painted on the ceiling tonight. This is one amazing show. There is real majesty here, so much so that a crowd that only dares to squeak open beer cans between songs demands an encore and still wants more once it's gone. It would be futile to name what songs are played tonight and it's one of those shows where everybody who was there will remember for years into the future.

www.slowsecret.com

[stuartmaxwell]

the BioDundee BP event has put paid to any aspirations I had of attending this

gah

[chilli]

bump for Frid, those not heading for the sell out elsewhere could do fantically well by coming along to this stupendous evening of music. We promise something quite special in terms of venue ambience as well!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Panda Strong]

Paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling plz!

[KarmaTsunami]

Are there many tickets left in One Up? Going to get mine tomorrow when I'm in town.

[Alkaline]

Still be fine to buy on the door?

Oh My God!!!!! I'm so excited

[chilli]

Still be fine to buy on the door?

Oh My God!!!!! I'm so excited

still tickets in 1UP cash on the door

lovely preview in tonights EE with one of the Piccy's above

(all systems go now for Caribou which will with no doubt be utterly brilliant

& tomorrow will have to go some to rival)

Caribou cash on the door available till late

[TR!ΔNGL€ T€€TH]

Still be fine to buy on the door?

Oh My God!!!!! I'm so excited

I'm hoping to buy one on the door too, unless I'm struck down by a dose of the AIDs.

[kirsten]

I'm annoyed this is tomorrow, clashes with Futureheads. Someone buy Gronald, Remember Remember a drink. He's lovely.

[chilli]

I'm annoyed this is tomorrow, clashes with Futureheads. Someone buy Gronald, Remember Remember a drink. He's lovely.

Actually Futureheads clashes with this, (this was announced way b4 FH)

[chilli]

I thought my last post would cause a response = good or bad, so instead all i'll say is:-

Bump TONIGHT

[kirsten]

Actually Futureheads clashes with this, (this was announced way b4 FH)

Oh shush True as that may be, there is mutual clashing!

Sentiment remains. RememberRemember: Good.

[Guest idol_wild]

I thought my last post would cause a response = good or bad, so instead all i'll say is:-

Bump TONIGHT

The Futureheads aren't worth their salt anymore anyway.

Bump.

[chilli]

Oh shush Sentiment remains. RememberRemember: Good.

there you go folks, from somone going elsewhere tonight

[Graeme]

The Futureheads aren't worth their salt anymore anyway.

Bump.

I'd say that's open to debate. They've survived the dreaded music business rejection which is admirable.

[offramp]

I wonder who will receive the first yellow card?

[Graeme]

I wonder who will receive the first yellow card?

Are there incentives?

[offramp]

Are there incentives?

for keeping quiet or getting carded?

[Jarvis]

SotL were pretty damn good at ATP, the live strings really, REALLY add a whole new dimension to the proceedings. Ticket in hand, roll on tonight!

[chilli]

just saw their visuals b4 I left phew will be fantastic if thats to go by

[Panda Strong]

!!!!!!!!!!!!

[chilli]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!

i agree!!!!!!!!!!!!!