NEWS:

VCV - HD 98618 OUT NOW  12:32pm EST 2010/02/28

Recorded live during David's visit to South Carolina in May, 2007 and sufficiently aged like a dry red wine in the SSR cellars since then, HD 98618 is VCV singing in the deep southern Summer. Open windows, palm trees and humidity, VCV have never sounded this warm or inviting before. Where you could say the first three records were transmissions from a distant planet, light years away, HD 98618 is the sound of a band in a room next door, playing towering tributes to the trees and the night air. This record is also a more diversified sound for VCV, as Brian played more organ and bass than guitar, and David utilized a more stripped-down guitar setup as well. Woodshop droning and water-tower bass, covered in the textural airy production sound from Brian's Eight Thousander album, which was recorded at the same time. Packaged in a similar style as David's Wind Blown Guitar album and limited to 100 copies.

For samples click here. To order proceed to the shop.

PILL BOX 2009 OUT NOW  3:23pm EST 2010/01/03

After a long season of silence, waiting and darkness, SSR returns once again, in new clothes, dressed for a new year. You will find, among other things, that we have finally completed the missing eight 21Mg Series pill-discs. Please visit our new 21Mg series website for more info and samples. Click Here.

To order please proceed to the SSR Shop.

*For those of you that already ordered pills this year please get in contact with us HERE so we can give you a special deal to complete your 2009 series.

WIND BLOWN GUITAR 5:32pm EST 2009/06/02


David Tagg's long-awaited follow-up to last year's Fundamentals Of Orchid Biology has finally arrived. Wind Blown Guitar carries solemn white hymns of warped wooden harmonies through cobwebbed hallways and down porch steps, into the open air of a hot summer. The whir and hum of aged reel-to-reel tapes bathes David's guitar in a humid shroud, and pools of raw reverb steam his amp like a hot bath in a cavern. Musically similar to things like "A Kingdom Of Dusk" from the 21MG Series or even Skin Diagram at times, Wind Blown Guitar contains some of David's most straightforward guitar playing yet, presented over a stately backdrop of loops and drones and woven together like an old family scrapbook. This release also features the track "Nautical Dusk", which was originally featured on Attacknine's "13 Weeks Of Summer" compilation. The definitive summer album from us at SSR, and limited to 100 copies with beautiful photography and design by David.

Order Here.



 
NEW PILLS AND ONLINE RELEASES 1:18pm EST 2009/05/30

It's been a long time since we've updated SSR, surely you thought we were dead. We're happy to say we were merely in hibernation and we now have lots of new music to share! With this update, we have four new 21MG Series pill-discs and the first new webreleases in well over a year.

Starting the 2009-chapter of the 21MG Series off with PILL-N1 is David Tagg's contemplative drone "A Spindle Of Regret". At times sounding melodic and familiar, and other times completely disembodied, this 21-minute trip would definitely appeal to fans of David's darker ambient works within VCV or his releases at Install. Frail and horizontal tonalities stretched across an uneven, unending landscape. Light and heavy all at once.

Order Here.

Continuing on with PILL-N2 is Brian Grainger's "Winter Triptych", a hazy cloud of seemingly dissonant loops that actually yield monochromatic harmonies as the piece swells up. This piece focuses primarily on the procedural generation of decayed bass loops in the style of something like Eight Thousander, only much darker, and with minimal droning improvisations over the top. A gaseous accumulation of gloom.

Order Here.

PILL-O1 offers a much lighter atmosphere, titled "Carolina Allspice". David builds a very open and friendly mood with wobbly flutters of lead guitar and reel-to-reel looping. Using this as a backdrop he plays the occasional lazy guitar line to mesmerizing effect. This is the sound of Spring in limbo, or a very humid climate with birdlike melodies floating through the air like smoke.

Order Here.

PILL-O2 brings the dark back with Brian's "Sunken Swamp Widsoms". A heavy, pregnant bass drone creaks and groans in the belly of a warped wooden container. The chord's muffled joints bend like wet dinosaur bones and eerie archs of humming midrange tower above your head. Deep, murky and almost slightly scary, and a very dynamic companion piece to PILL-O1.

Order Here.

Bringing it back to the beginning, we have sorely neglected our online catalog of free releases. With lots more still unreleased in this catalog, we hope you like our two newest offerings:

David's "Angry Weekend" is an Obscurist-document that feels so empty it almost sounds sad. This was the last field recording David did at his previous home, eight months before he moved. The air is filled with birdsong and the occasional sound of nails dropping, though the atmosphere is tense, as if two people are ignoring each other while in the same room. As if on cue, thunderstorms and rain break the piercing silence and bear down on the listener with a different kind of weight.

Download Here.

Brian's "Naked Sound Seven" is the seventh volume of his ongoing Naked Sound series of found sound, field recordings and musique-concrete experiments. Four 10-minute pieces creating using only numerical frequencies of sine tones to create mathematically-harmonic chord drones. Very warm and bassy, but incredibly monochromatic, and probably better suited to a "room listening" presentation where the sound is allowed to merely color the physical environment rather than surround it. This is incredibly minimal, dissonance-free ambience that would be best enjoyed in the evening as the listener relaxes with other activities such as reading a book or taking a warm bath.

Download Here.

Though this may seem like a lot, we're not planning on taking another extended break anytime soon - next month you can look forward to David Tagg's brand new album Wind Blown Guitar and the much anticipated second album by the White Star Line!
 

 

PILL BOX H-M OUT NOW 5:21pm EST 2009/01/31

Pill Series Box H-M is now available. We have a limit of about 50 of these which are sure to go fast. Orders will ship on or around February 16th.

Order Here.

NEW PILLS & 2008 PILL BOX INFO 11:23am EST 2008/12/26

So it's dead-center of the Winter season, and you just want to sleep your way out of 2008 and into the new year you say? We can relate. Giving you the last two doses of the 21MG Series in the 2008 year, this should be just enough to keep you in your toasty bed for forty more minutes...

PILL-M1 is David Tagg's muted guitar improvisation "Deception On The Mountain". Bearing immediate resemblance to his Skin Diagram EP, this could almost be old-school David Tagg. Deep and warm like a steaming clear bath in a dimly lit cavern, so quiet that you can actually hear yourself think. It is the sound of absolute reflection, both physical and mental. David's craft continues an inward path that charts almost painfully sad waters like these, but it's difficult not to get lulled in to the warmth. This is a beautiful year-ender for David, and a longing glance back at the smiles and sorrows of the past.

Order Here.

The last Pill of the year is Brian Grainger's "Wind Speech", a cozy acoustic guitar piece that carries a similar sadness to David's previous Pill. Wispy, bedroom string tones fill with musty air and Winter solitude, forming a pillar of pure gaseous melancholy. A three-note bassline eventually makes itself audible, and small sections of ringing loops cascade in and out of the mix. Almost a bookend piece with Brian's first Pill of 2008, "Sun Trails", and a stately finale to this year's twelve Pills.

Order Here.

*IMPORTANT* A small word of advice - these two Pills, while brand new, will only be available for individual purchase until the end of January 2009. After that, you will ONLY be able to buy them as part of the 2008 PILL BOX (H-M). We're aware that some of you have purchased the Pills individually throughout the year and so this is your deadline for filling out your collections, should you decide to do so. We apologize for any inconveniences this causes, but please understand we are unable to continually manufacture all twelve discs on top of our regular catalog items and the 2009 Pills.

For those seeking the PILL BOX - look for the 2008 PILL BOX to become available in January, either filled with all 12 Pills (H-M) or empty. These boxes will be limited in number as well, so as always watch this space for updates. See you next year!

*REPRESS* Finally, David Tagg's first full length album 'No One Came Out Last Night' is back in stock for a limited time.

Order Here.

 

21MG SERIES 12:12am EST 2008/11/09

So it's finally November, and here at SSR we've been pretty silent since "Nine Billion Names" was released. We're sure some of you are wondering where September's 21MG Series installment is, and, in short, we've decided to release the Pill-discs in bi-monthly batches. That is to say, couples of coinciding Pills, such as this months L1 and L2, will hereafter be released at the same time. This will make it easier for us, as far as updating the site goes, and probably easier for those of you who would rather buy them that way too.

September's Pill-L1 is a wonderful musty 20 minute walk through Autumn, guided by none other than David Tagg. A murky wobbly tape surface transparently wraps David's ebbing drones, and the effect is a beautiful phased out piece that is both colorful and gracefully aged. Possibly David's most low-fi recording yet, and a little bit of a precursor to his next album, "Wind Blown Guitar". This piece is titled "A Kingdom Of Dusk" and your Autumn wouldn't be the same without it.

October's 21MG-installment is a mountainous, granite-thick drone by Brian Grainger named "Tenth Glowing Arch". The title is refers to this being Brian's tenth contribution to this series, and an epic one at that. Conceived and improvised in the vein of his recent 3CD album "Porous Variations", this piece is twenty minutes of humming hallway-tonalities, buzzing ever so slightly, like an endless fluorescent overhead light in a corridor ten miles long. Muted movements inside the drone subtly shift it from its otherwise straight-lined path, while a sub bassline manages to warm up the stereo field. Perfect isolationist listening for the colder months.

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