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| 2009:
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PILL
- S2
Brian Grainger - O Cold Bones Of Lucifer
Brian's farewell to 2009
comes in the form of a psychedelic chorus-drenched raga
in A major. Played in a trancelike repetition, this
movement will burrow into your consciousness and light
up your insides like the spheres of the cosmos
themselves.
LISTEN |
PILL
-
S1
David Tagg - The Falcon Star
David's
guitar playing on "The Falcon Star" could be some of his
most monolithic yet. You can almost hear galaxies
forming in the giant pools of warmth left behind by his
trailing tones. This is the music of pure creation.
LISTEN |
PILL
- R2
Brian Grainger - Puncturing Sacred Cloth
A
lonesome slide guitar plays the sleeping pill blues. If
you've been following the series for this long, you
should know what that sounds like. Twisting chords sadly
weave into and around each other, before disappearing
into dust and decay.
LISTEN |
PILL
-
R1
David Tagg -
The Fullness
Of Ivy
Majestic
columns standing in front of a white stone cathedral in
the forest. A shadowy line stretching over a sundial. An
ornate fountain with no water in it. The echoes of time
passed. The fullness of ivy.
LISTEN |
PILL - Q2
Brian Grainger - Swept
Brian's
"Swept" continues in an aquatic fashion, with the aural
equivalent of blurred lights bobbing through murky blue
fog. Played entirely on organ and pedalbass.
LISTEN |
PILL
- Q1
David Tagg - Ocean Division
Taking
literal cues from its name, "Ocean Division" sounds as
if you're inside a submarine, hearing and feeling the
rumbling pressure of the water beyond the vessel's
walls. Sounds from the deepest depths.
LISTEN |
PILL
- P2
Brian Grainger - Millions Of Glowing Eyes White With
Devotion
"White
With Devotion" sees Brian returning to monochrome
pastures to mine woodsy, warped tones that swell in and
out, bending ever so slightly, like a ripple in a neon
pool.
LISTEN |
PILL
- P1
David Tagg
- Keys To
The Kingdom
"Keys To
The Kingdom" paints a vivid picture of swirling orange
and yellow cloud formations. Ascending to seemingly
infinite heights, translucent guitars chime like giant
bells in some sweeping heavenly plane. Tectonic plates
of lava shift under a gaseous construct where glory
awaits.
LISTEN |
PILL
- O2
Brian Grainger - Sunken Swamp Wisdoms
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.
LISTEN |
PILL
- O1
David Tagg - Carolina Allspice
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.
LISTEN |
PILL
- N2
Brian Grainger - Winter Triptych
PILL-N2 is Brian Grainger's first pill disc of the year:
"Winter Triptych" is a procedurally generated piece
built around loops in varying states of decay. Warbled
patches of two-note pad sounds play in and out of phase,
as more layers of bent loops eventually surround the
stereo field. A warped tonality emerges like excess
pressure emanating from an unstable pipe, and for 20
minutes you can almost see the air thinning out.
Burbling drones grow out of a gaseous cloud weakly,
giving the impression that nothing is stable enough to
repeat for too long. A very dark piece, and a totally
unique one for Brian to start 2009 with, bearing little
to no similarity to anything else he's released at SSR
before.
LISTEN |
PILL
- N1
David Tagg - A Spindle Of Regret
PILL-N1 starts 2009 right with David Tagg playing some
incredibly minimal drone guitar. "A Spindle Of Regret"
is twenty minutes of a sleeper ship floating through
space...the intense silence of space somehow mutes the
humming sound of a large engine, and you feel as if your
body is contained in a stasis chamber of some kind, in
suspended animation, in a warehouse-sized room filled
with a hundred other sleep chambers...all empty. The
singularity and loneliness inherited from "No One Came
Out Last Night" is quite present here, yet something
feels different. We can't help but feel that 2009 will
be yet another totally different chapter in the 21MG
Series.
LISTEN |
|
| 2008:
|
PILL
- M2
Brian Grainger - 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 bass
line 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.
LISTEN |
PILL
- M1
David Tagg - Deception From The Mountain
David Tagg's muted guitar improvisation "Deception From
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.
LISTEN |
PILL
- L2
Brian Grainger - Tenth Glowing Arch
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.
LISTEN |
PILL
- L1
David Tagg - A Kingdom Of Dusk
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.
LISTEN |
PILL
- K2
Brian Grainger - Painted Green
This
guitar piece coincidentally goes very hand-in-hand with
Nine Billion Names, melodically and texturally, even
though they were recorded separately. A sort of an ode
to Summer, waving goodbye to the glowing heat and the
wet urban lawns that overtook the last 4 months, while
welcoming a new season of vibrant colors, festive smells
and cooler weather.
LISTEN |
PILL
- K1
David Tagg - Under The Dirigible
A synth-monolith titled Under The Dirigible. A massive
20 minute piece done in a similar vein as David's
EEDCD-07 album, this dream state fog occasionally gives
way to padlike harmonies and muted chords. Bathed in
reverb that sounds like it's channeling an uninhabited
planet, and totally perfect for winding down after a
long day.
LISTEN |
PILL
- J2
Brian Grainger - Kerguelen Plateau
Kerguelen Plateau, named for a continent-size landmass
that remains completely underwater, embodies the perfect
complement to David's Bathymetry piece. Melodic guitars
weave in and out of a warm-water drone, and a bit of Roy
Montgomery influence can be traced here. This piece is
filled with bright blue and orange tones and accurately
conveys the over-100-degree temperatures active in
Brian's southern home this summer.
LISTEN |
PILL
- J1
David Tagg - Bathymetry
What was originally an outtake from the Waist Deep Seas
Of Milk sessions has gathered some dust and matured into
May's 21MG Series release from David Tagg. Over eighteen
minutes of sloping guitar notes that sound like a foggy
weathered rock-beach in another uninhabited dimension.
The water there is still too, and stretches out into a
flat vanishing point on an endless horizon. Everything
is white and perfect and motionless, and this echo of
David's beautiful album is yet another melodic addition
to the 21MG Series.
LISTEN |
PILL
- I2
Brain Grainger - Guided By Leaves
Guided By Leaves is a moody wash of crackly drones
surfacing from some distant space-ether. Recorded
entirely with Brian's voice, this piece begins
tonally but eventually warps into a warm haunted fog.
Lonesome ghosts of trees along an empty highway, singing
to no one.
LISTEN |
PILL
- I1
David Tagg - The Bearded Dragon
Brilliant and bright improvisation called The Bearded
Dragon. Composed using only a snake charmer and
manipulated reel-to-reels, this release sees David at
his most Eastern-sounding yet. Shimmering oranges and
reds pulse in a foggy opium-den haze, and you'll find
yourself floating on a bamboo raft through exotic
Pacific waters with the smell of incense all over your
clothes. Sun-baked and hot, The Bearded Dragon is a
perfect aural companion to your sunny Spring days.
LISTEN |
PILL
- H2
Brian Grainger - Sun Trails
Quite possibly the most melodic pill-disc yet, Sun
Trails is a warm solitary guitar improvisation that
depicts a cool blue landscape being gradually covered
with pure orange heat and light. A pretty swell of
chords that is eventually taken over by the longing
drones of sadness, where you can almost hear Spring
calling after Old Man Winter has passed out asleep in
the woods.
LISTEN |
PILL
- H1
David Tagg - Thawed In Low Light
Improvised on dulcimer and reel-to-reel tape to build a
slowly warming wall of light that will erode the cold
outside and massage your inner-ear with the most
comfortable tones you can imagine.
LISTEN |
|
| 2007:
|
PILL
- G2
Brian Grainger - Milk Plus
Milk Plus is also an improvised ambient counterpart to
Brian's track "Milk" from his Silver Surfaces Washed
White album at Install. As the title might indicate, you
can expect soft tonal guitar-drones that will warm your
ears before sending you to sleep like a steady drug, of
course keeping in line with Brian's style of subtle
sound-evolving over twenty minutes.
LISTEN |
PILL
- G1
David Tagg - White Opium
Blissed out and calmer than ever, David narrates with
his guitar a scene of slow-motion snowfall on bluish
fields that extend as far as you can tell. Warm and cozy
and unobtrusive, White Opium is what happens when time
stops and for a few incoherent minutes, all is well in
the universe.
LISTEN |
PILL
- F2
Brian Grainger - Chrominance
A buzzing, vibrating wall of feedback, drowned under
slabs of subtly pitch shifting delays. What could be an
incidental soundtrack to a submarine visiting underwater
cathedrals, Chrominance is yet another 21 minute
fuzzed-sidetrack for your day.
LISTEN |
PILL
- F1
David Tagg - Fluorescence
Smooth, harmonic guitar laid out in an unbroken,
straight line across 21 minutes. Continuing in a similar
direction as Metal Box Requiem (or even Brian's
"Deserted Lifeboats" disc), this is perfect music for
the later hours and another perfect chapter in the 21MG
Series.
LISTEN |
PILL
- E2
Brian Grainger - One Four Nine
Written and performed entirely on solo electric bass,
One Four Nine is a deep watery drone meditation that
thickens as you progress further into it. Fattened
harmonies slowly emerge from blurry chords and once
again you're lulled out of reality for 21minutes.
LISTEN |
PILL
- E1
David Tagg - Metal Box Requiem
This disc is a real treat for fans of minimal drone, as
it's quite possibly David's most minimal release yet.
Bringing to mind images of slight condensation on silver
metal from the cool northern air creeping in at night,
Metal Box is tonally similar to some of David's drones
on No One Came Out Last Night. Simple, still and
beautiful.
LISTEN |
PILL
- D2
Brian Grainger - Raindrop Organ
a smooth sonic accompaniment to a drizzly rural
afternoon. Velvet-soft organ melodies are draped over a
lush chordal drone that moves at the speed of honey, and
sounds just as sweet. Add to that a sub-bass foundation
filled with perfect imperfections like an old crackly
paperback. Music for a damp summer day.
LISTEN |
PILL
- D1
David Tagg - Song For Sabra
David coaxes delicate soft tones out of his guitar,
rounding out buried progressions with patient erosion.
Elegant and pretty, yet somehow full of loss and
sadness.
LISTEN |
PILL
- B2
Brian Grainger - Deserted Lifeboats
collapsed melancholy of stranded feedback, muffled
through waves and wind on a bleak, open sea. Brian
Grainger continues to mangle his guitar into
unintelligible poems of solitude.
LISTEN |
PILL
- B1
David Tagg - Bell Island
Stretched drone-tones, this time translated through
various bell sounds instead of Tagg's staple guitar
playing. Very meditative, singular and spacious, Bell
Island really takes us to a wide open expanse where we
are alone and everything is calm.
LISTEN |
|
PILL - A2
Brian
Grainger - In a Silver Marsh
"Silver Marsh" is a drone odyssey composed entirely on
acoustic guitars.
LISTEN |
PILL
- A1
David Tagg - The History of the Merchant Marines
David Tagg's beautiful guitar-drone epic "The History Of
The Merchant Marines". 21 minutes of soothing
pillow-soft guitar drones with little hints of melodies
and chordal changes buried within.
LISTEN |
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