The Refractors - 8 Year Sleep (Dynamophone)

I first discovered The Refractors through their hand packaged and physically painted copy of All Colors Run EP, which they self released in 2008 and were kind enough to send over. I say "discovered" not because I want to take any credit for finding them before they got picked up by San Francisco based Dynamophone Records, but because stumbling upon this duo was a real pleasure, as it is whenever one uncovers a previously unheard artist. My initial reaction to the sound is worth repeating once again, and so I quote my previous review: The Refractors are Joseph and Kayline Martinez of Pacifica, California, who turn running colors, abandoned sounds, and loose threads back into art. The sixteen minute All Colors Run EP is a collection of vignettes and gentle sketches feeding analog instruments and field recordings into cold machines. The sound is described by the artists as "vegetation coming up through the cracks of man-made structures." On this debut full length album, 8 Year Sleep, The Refractors catalog their musical journal entries beginning with the year 2001. Eight years, eight memories, eight movements. Each track represents a collection of dreams, grievances and flashbacks, woven with the accompanied instruments, field recordings, and silence. With a nod towards political events taking place in the last eight years of American history (the first track, for example, is titled A Fall Disguised as a Rise), the duo captures emotions with a surreal juxtaposition of abandoned fragments. The album is made up of dying dusty microphones, acoustic attic guitars, kitchen drawer percussion, splattering water, scratched voices, and lost pieces of home. It is also worthwhile to mention that the tracks Lull and Inherit include contributions from a guitarist Clayton McEvoy, who has been recently signed to another favorite label of mine, Hidden Shoal. Watch for his upcoming release under the alias of Sleeping Me titled Cradlesongs (Hidden Shoal, 2009) in May. This is a great catch for Dynamophone Records, who snatched the Refractors and released this album in their Parcel Series - a limited edition 3" CDr, packaged in a beautiful compact box, with artwork by Eric Lacombe. Previous releases in the Parcel Series include The Lullaby League's Filia Melusine, Fjordne's Last 3 Days of Time, and A Lily's I Dress my Ankles in God's Sweetest Words, among the many others. And one more thing! The Refractors' 8 Year Sleep will be the first release on Dynamophone's new Lilian Series format, which will be released on a tiny 1G USB flash drive held in a slide-top tin with a tiny neodyne magnet. How cool is that? This version will come with six extended tracks, images, lyrics and additional information behind each track, like this little fact about Farewell Sister: "She was assassinated two months after retuning to Pakistan from exile". A great collector's item breathing life into the meaning behind a musical album as a concept.

myspace.com/therefractors | dynamophone.com

Fjordne - The Last 3 Days Of Time (Dynamophone Records)

Here's everything I love about modern classical and experimental ambient. Tiny sprinkles of noise and artifacts. Glitchy digital errors across strummed guitars. Chopped up echoes of piano. Timeless bliss... All making up some jigsaw puzzle of a melody that reveals itself only if you unfocus your mind, unplug the brain, and blur your vision. Let the sound saturate your thoughts, swirling forwards and back in time, seeking lost data across corrupted volumes of memories. Ah, there it is, that moment. Nope, gone again. Tokyo based Shunichiro Fujimoto's solo project under Fjordne moniker is a feat of subliminal time slippage consumed by the inevitable force of a black hole. Sourcing only acoustic instruments and some voice, Fujimoto digitally warps and processes the sounds into The Last 3 Days Of Time which gets picked up by a San Francisco based Dynamophone Records. And here's where owning a physical copy of this album really pays off: the 250 limited and numbered compact disk has a black lining (maybe that's what reminded me of black hole) and arrives in a small round tin container with a matted imprint of a bird sitting on a branch, revealing tiny mechanical gears beneath its feathers. A wind-up bird of time, approaching its last three days... And the clock ticks... It is no coincidence that the cover art resembles the theme behind The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by my _all_time_favorite_ Japanese author, Haruki Murakami. Fujimoto's music is inspired by this and other Murakami works (which you absolutely _must_ read if you read fiction at all!). Highly recommended for fans of Fennesz, Alvo Noto, Oval, Marsen Jules and Deaf Center. Also, make sure to pick up The Abbasi Brothers' Something Like Nostalgia, now that Dynamophone has officially released the album - you can get your Dynamophone copies at a growing n5MD store, which you can always leave with a cart full of goodies. [*UPDATE* - Looks like Mr. Fujimoto released his third album, Stories Aparat From The World, on Japanese based Ryoondo-Tea label in July of 2008]



myspace.com/fjordne
myspace.com/dynamophone | dynamophone.com

The Abbasi Brothers - Something Like Nostalgia (Dynamophone)

Dynamophone Records is an independent label from San Francisco, with a roster of artists whose output ranges from experimental to ambient and euphoric electronica. I first got introduced to the label through James Vella’s release, Wake:Sleep, under his A Lily moniker (Vella is also a member of a post-rock group Yndi Halda). It’s no surprise then, that Dynamophone is the label to pick up the Abbasi Brothers as the purveyors of atmospheric, epic, and cinematic music. Yousuf and Amman Abbasi create "sound-scenes" that immediately fill the void left by your daily mundane routines with an intricate, dreamy, and nostalgic sound. Closing my eyes I can’t help but see moving images of nostalgic events that took place somewhere in another life. This is the music for the waving hands on the platform of a leaving train; music for the hopeless bolts through endless cornfields; music for the fallen tears on a park bench erstwhile drenched in rain. The fifteen scenes split into tracks defy the genre classification. Yet the album, two years in the making, clings tightly to the nomination as the modern classical soundtrack of my life. I could also see the Abbasi Brothers fighting for my Best of 2008 list, when the time comes [something I felt from the very first track]. Something Like Nostalgia is scheduled for a release the summer of ’08 worldwide. Highly recommended if you like Skyphone, Deaf Center, Elegi, Marsen Jules, and of course, Clint Mansell. Every track is a gem.

myspace.com/abbasibros | virb.com/abbasibros
myspace.com/dynamophone | dynamophone.com