Birchville Cat Motel - White Ground Elder (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, 2002)

*** sorry no cover art ***

1-01 White Ground Elder 31:36
1-02 Mounted Archers Fortress 25:11
2-01 Lamplight Devotions 32:13
2-02 The Romance Of Certain Old Clothes 21:24

Tour double DCr

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Birchville Cat Motel & Anla Courtis - Three Sparkling Echoes (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, 2007)

1 First Sparkling Echo 12:23
2 Second Sparkling Echo 12:13
3 Third Sparkling Echo 14:13


We're sort of surprised this match up hadn't already happened before. Pretty much a no brainer. Campbell Kneale, aka Birchville Cat Motel, and Anla Courtis, from the now defunct Reynols. While it most definitely seems like a match made in noise rock heaven, there was definitely the potential for a very chaotic mess, but the two most definitely brought out the best in each other, and the result might just be one of our favorite releases from either of these guys.
Three looooong tracks, each a gorgeous and languorous slow build, minimal, but dense and heavily layered, simple propulsive rhythms, and all sorts of warm rich sonic textures. The opener, is maybe one of the most beautiful 'noise rock' tracks EVER. Swirling, beautiful cello-like melodies, low and lumbering, moan and croon, a deep, resonant, cavernous, creeping minor key dirge, lurking mysteriously beneath a swirling cloud of metallic cicadas and oscillating whirs and flutters. One of those tracks that should go on forever. Building gradually in intensity, but never exploding into full on heaviness, instead just drifting dreamlike, until the various sounds peel back leaving just a gorgeous soundscape of simulated nature sounds and abstract ambience. The first time we threw this on we ended up listening to this track 3 or 4 times in a row. But as soon as we could tear ourselves away, we realized that the other two tracks were darn near just as beautiful.
The second track is a spacious and spare expanse of tinkling music box chimes, strange percussive thumps, guttural vocalizations, and a warm melodic whir, heavily panned, swooping dramatically from speaker to speaker. Those swoops eventually transforming into thick slabs of guitar whir, a gorgeously glacial epic, rife with muted melodies, and dense with sonic subtleties...
The closer pretty much seals the deal. Simple tribal drums, clattery junkyard percussion, over warbly warped FX drenched guitars and a loping dirge-like rhythm building in intensity until the guitars become a huge tangly squall above that static mesmerizing rhythm. It's almost like a noise rock Tom Waits.... like the Black Rider performed by Sunroof! Or a super blissed out take on old Swans. Guitars so thick and warm you just want to curl up and climb under, letting that clattery motorik rhythm just carry you away...
Aquarius Records

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Slow Listener - Only On My Own Am I Truly Loved (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, 2007)

1 One Coffee Short Of Intelligence
2 Bad Santanna
3 Sarcasm My Old Friend
4 Random Harvest
5 "..............Of Water And Salt"

First in a new batch of releases from Campbell Kneale and his Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label. This one from some mysterious UK outfit called Slow Listener. Kneale has dubbed them slumberpunk which is as good a descriptor as any. Five tracks, the shortest 7 minutes, the longest 14, each an expansive sonic sprawl, from distantly drifting soft fuzzy warbles, to silvery slivers of high end twinkle and glimmer, from full on lo-fi vacuum cleaner hum, to crumbling soundscapes of muted melody and mumbled industrial clatter, from cavernous scrape and shriek, to effulgent streaks of white hot guitar grind, from gauzy soft focus melodic whir, to thick swirling shimmer, from dense blistering abstract space psych blow outs, to upper register sun dappled ur-drones, a gorgeous and utterly dreamy cacophony of sound.
Birchville, Skaters, Yellow Swans, Quetzolcoatl, Bonecloud, Bonus, Ghosting, you can now add Slow Listener to that ever growing list...
Aquarius Records

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Tony Conrad , Tim Barnes & Mattin - Untitled (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, 2006)

1 Untitled (60:48)

La légende vivante du drone Tony Conrad, le bruitiste Mattin et les gongs de Tim Barnes réunis pour une performance live en avril 2005 à Buffalo, et tout ça sorti sur le label de Campbell Kneale: du bruit qui part dans tous les sens...

Face-flattening trio generating walls of pure steel drone, puckering shaved-string assault and all-out heavy gravity. Featuring Tony Conrad, Tim Barnes (Tower Recordings et al) and 'anti-copyright' laptop artist and conceptualist Mattin. "Time to dig out that old crash-helmet from the back of the wardrobe to meet the challenge of this head-wrecker. No folks, this recording will not go down in history for its subtlety. The obligatory chair-shuffling intro quickly gives way to the most withering scree-ee-ech and grubby microtonal shudder in a near-Stalinist attempt for total mind control. I can see the audience now... blubbering and gripping the chair in front like some kinda airliner catastrophe! A twenty storey Hoover gobbles the entire North East of the USA... pausing only briefly to empty the bag and replace smoldering fuse wire. Hard, harmful, full of choking dust... toasters are shorted out all over the northern hemispere and cassettes are erased in car stereos. Electricity decides upon a new master and casts off its cumbersome rubber shackles... free and burning... singing hallelujah to the great cosmic soundcheck in the sky." - Campbell Kneale.

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Birchville Cat Motel - Creeping Frost Onset (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, 2002)

1 Creeping Frost Onset (54:18)

Quand Campbell Kneale aidé de deux membres de sa famille se met aux toy instruments...

We at AQ have long been fans of Campbell Kneale and his project Birchville Cat Motel who along with the Dead C, Omit, Gate and a handful of others have helped to define one of the richest free-rock-noise-drone scenes in the world. For years Kneale has been releasing cds, lps and cassettes (most of them quite limited) of noisy electronic soundscapes and gorgeous organic drones. So when we discovered Kneale also ran a label, we figured it was definitely worth checking out. And how right we were. Not only is all of the music on Celebrate Psi Phenomena amazing, but the packaging is perfectly and stunningly designed as well (quite nice considering this is a cd-r label. See our crappy cd-r packaging rants in the last three or four lists) with each cd in a plastic sleeve nestled between two sheets of old fashioned textured wallpaper, printed, and sealed with a gold star.
Another slab of prime drone from CPP main man Campbell Kneale, this time enlisting the help of two Kneale family members and utilising oscillators, turntables, clarinet, violin, motorized acoustic guitar, bowed roof (!) and various toy instruments. Starting with a dog whistle range sine wave that wavers and flutters on its way to your eardrum, it's soon joined by complementary (but no less piercing) harmonics as well as a barely audible low end pulse. You gotta be patient with this one. After about ten minutes, the high end shimmer becomes the foundation for a cacophony of clang and strum and feedback and clatter eventually breaking down into what sounds like a primitive preschool free jazz jam session. Toy pianos, caveman percussion, with spurts of beeping and squeaking and lots of noodling that eventually works its way back up to a shrieking, skronky free jazz drone ending in a meditative jazzy free rock shimmer...Nice.
Aquarius Records

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Birchville Cat Motel - September (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, 2002)

1 September (59:03)

Japanese tour CDr, limited to 100 copies.

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Taiga Remains - Unfamiliar Sphere, Thin As Light (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, 2007)

1 Upon Reflection On Thing Language (Live) (8:36)
2 Blown Ash Firmament (8:14)
3 On Waves, This Traverse (10:17)
4 Endless Collapse (Live) (9:01)

Drones allant de la stridulation d'insectes à la guitare acoustique...

Fabulous concentric circles have been emanating out from Alex Cobbs own splosh in the pond for quite some time now. Judge, jury, and executioner of the rather good Student of Decay label and his own smokin' box of audio-tricks, Taiga Remains, have seen the good Mr Cobb accepted into many a loving home... and rightly so. In spite of the all-acoustic nature of this latest instalment of greatness, 'Unfamiliar Sphere...' may be one of the most electrifying releases to wrap itself in the magic Celebrate Psi Phenomenon wallpaper. Oceans and oceans of shimmer. An engrossing musical sensation very much akin swimming in a lake of luke warm brass. Or being chained to a mile-high gong. Awesome in every respect.
Celebrate Psi Phenomenon

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Birchville Cat Motel - Firepower Fragrant Cloud (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, 2005)

1 Gigantic Planetary Collapse (29:34)
2 Firepower Fragrant Cloud (32:14)

Tour CD de 2005, deux longs drones...

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Birchville Cat Motel - Blankangelspace (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, 1999)

1 Untitled (18:18)
2 Untitled (39:46)

Deux documents en live...

Two live documents....

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Birchville Cat Motel & Bruce Russell - Untitled (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, 2000)

1 Aropax
2 Playing With Fire
3 Pylon Conquests
4 The Makrocosmical Adam
5 Sugar Grey Paper
6 Absinthe

Drones bruitistes par Birchville Cat Motel et Bruce Russell....

Noisy drones by Birchville Cat Motel and Bruce Russell...

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Seht - Dronemusic (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, 2001)

1 Nil Music 1 2:02
2 The Dark Room 16:17
3 110 kV 3:11
4 Waste Water Drain 4:04
5 Nil Music 2 4:03
6 Jet Raga 4:08
7 Chimnon 2:41
8 Nil Music 3 1:56
9 All Quiet On Howth Now 4:28
10 Live At The Space 11:57
11 Bury Yr Dead 1:49

Onze drones variés évoluant de la free folk au minimalisme...

We at AQ have long been fans of Campbell Kneale and his project Birchville Cat Motel who along with the Dead C, Omit, Gate and a handful of others have helped to define one of the richest free-rock-noise-drone scenes in the world. For years Kneale has been releasing cds, lps and cassettes (most of them quite limited) of noisy electronic soundscapes and gorgeous organic drones. So when we discovered Kneale also ran a label, we figured it was definitely worth checking out. And how right we were. Not only is all of the music on Celebrate Psi Phenomena amazing, but the packaging is perfectly and stunningly designed as well (quite nice considering this is a cd-r label. See our crappy cd-r packaging rants in the last three or four lists) with each cd in a plastic sleeve nestled between two sheets of old fashioned textured wallpaper, printed, and sealed with a gold star.
Dronemusic indeed. Seht is one Steven Clover, who has released a handful of limited lathe cuts under different names. On 'Dronemusic' Clover crafts deep, rich sonorous drone music, seemingly simple but lush with harmonic overtones. As the record progresses, the drone becomes less and less obvious, from looped guitars and spastic rhythmic guitars to vaccuum cleaner drones and distorted woofer rumble to super austere almost Bernard Gunter-esque minimal dronescapes.
Aquarius Records

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Birchville Cat Motel - Astro Catastrophies (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, 2007)

1-1 Sublime Prince Of The Royal Secret (17:24)
1-2 Driving Golden Dopamine (14:08)
1-3 Divinity Soldiers (16:58)
2-1 Damn Infinity Hairtie II (4:47)
2-2 Cast Iron Bling Bling (19:55)
2-3 Driving Black Seratonin (15:03)
2-4 Four Freckle Constellation (9:35)
3-1 We Flare Into Scarlet (16:38)
3-2 Hells Silver Titans (16:12)
3-3 Damn Infinity Hairtie (17:03)

Du drone, et du bien lourd...

The opening track on Astro Catastrophies, this brand new triple disc set from Birchville Cat Motel, finds BCM tackling the RIFF, the static drone and blurred soundscape of past releases converted into a sort of druggy stoner rock, a hypnotic metallic krautrock. Think some minimal blissed out version of Kyuss, Circle, Pharoah Overlord, Gore, and Skullflower at their riffiest. In fact the sound here is similar to the transformation Skullflower went through when they released Exquisite Fucking Boredom. Harnessing all that free noise into churning spaced out riffage.
"Sublime Prince Of The Royal Secret" begins like any other BCM record, drifting black clouds of low end churn, leaning toward the more overt heaviness of BCM offshoot Black Boned Angel, but then the drums drop, and the riff unfurls, a huge sun baked, blown out, glacial crush, looped and mesmerizing, repeated and robotic, the drums pounding, a gorgeously heavy and hypnotic dirge. In the background though is an epic expanse of grinding murk, and glistening shimmer, keening coruscating sheets of bassy rrrroooaaar, haunting chimes, and howling feedback, building until the riff and the rhythms are swallowed up completely.
The rest of disc one follows a similar pattern, long drawn out smears of processed guitar, dense and roiling, muddy percussion and downtuned melodies, that seems as if they might drift on and on forever, before once again, the rhythm and the riff kick in, on "Driving Golden Dopamine", it's some unlikely splatter of clapping, that gives way to a strange stuttering Spacemen Three like riff over a motorik drum machine rhythm, and on "Divinity Soldiers", the washed out high end ur-drone becomes a chugging Hawkwind style doper up outer space exploration, relentless and intense, once again wreathed in glistening, glimmering shimmers of sound.
The other two discs are just as heavy, and riffy and kick ass, each track subverting the riff, turning it into some blissed out BCM cloud of sound, but rocking in a way Birchville never really did before. Andee had been bugging Kneale to record a record next time he was in SF, with him playing BIG LOUD drums, thinking it would be an amazing combo, a crushing rhythm section sunk into a dense black hole of buzz and drone, and damn if this doesn't come pretty close.
From stuttering single notes peppering a shuffling rhythm, the whole thing processed into machinelike loops, to almost My Bloody Valentine style blown out metallic bliss pop, to almost choral sounding streaks of glimmering high end sparkles over blurred guitars and fluttering melodies, to super chaotic kitchen sink clatter demarcated by a blooping bleeping drum machine, to the truly bizarre "Hells Silver Titans", that begins as a glorious chime flecked drone, but suddenly erupts into straight up AC/DC riffage (so much so that we're still not entirely convince It's not just a sample, and actually, after more listens we're convinced it absolutely is, a single riff, the clicking hi-hat, chopped and looped into a simple, head nodding jam, like Philip Glass composing with classic rock riffs, and finally, "Damn Infinity Hairtie", which closes the set with a slab of buzzing black noise, going from grim funereal low end, to amp destroying FX drenched stun guitar psychnoise freakout.
As with all Celebrate Psi Phenomenon releases, packaged in that immediately recognizable wall paper sleeve, with three printed inserts, one for each disc...
Aquarius Records

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Pumice - I'll Take No Chance Near A Volcano (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, 2001)

1 Vacinity Facility
2 Blood On My Cock
3 Inflected By Devils
4 Vacinity Facility Two
5 Withdrawal
6 The Thing
7 Mullet Mask Replicunt
8 I Could Not Get High
9 I Could Not Get High Two

experimental lo-fi....

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RST - Other Machines (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, 2007)

01 Worlds
02 Ages
03 Earth

Drones majestueux de guitare...

Remember rst? In my mind at least this hopelessly under-monikered giantcrusher was responsible for one of the sweeeetest Corpus Hermeticum releases to see daylight... fabulously deep, warm pools of demagnetising guitar brilliance. Andrew Moon seemed to disapparate as smoothly as he had appeared in the first place and many of us record-goobers wondered what had become of him. Well, lie awake no more! If 'Other Machines' doesnt qualify as a triumphant return then Im selling my domain-name on eBay and emigrating to Norway. With straightfaced titles like 'Worlds', 'Earth', and 'Ages' you know you are in for an earthquake of quite some magnitude. Each disc a slow-motion exhalation through the everlasting nothingness of the national grid. Without destination or purpose. An electrical godhead in waiting for its copper-wire coronation. So majestic.
Celebrate Psi Phenomenon

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