A few nice reviews and write ups:
From: A Future In Noise
http://www.afutureinnoise.com/2009/06/independent-music-discoveries-issue-12.html
Friday, June 12, 2009
Independent Music Discoveries, Issue #12
Another line-up of independent artists who are putting out brilliant music; this may very well be one of our best Independent Music Discoveries series posts yet. As per-usual, recommend your favourite indie artists in the comments!
The Golden Sores - Drone / Experimental / Noise - Illinois, USA
Every once and awhile, music arrives in my inbox (and in the case of the Golden Sores, in my mailbox, too!) that is exactly the kind of music I’m questing after. After becoming immersed in Natural Snow Buildings, I was recently investigating the music of La Monte Young and the Theatre of Eternal Music, and here come the Golden Sores, a duo comprised of Steve Fors and Chris Miller, who “utilizing a combination of electric and lap steel guitar, salvaged thrift store keyboards, pedals (both broken and boutique), obscure analogue synthesizers, and other obsolete noise-making esoterica…have forged deep into the realms of drone”. Indeed- this is the very science of what drone is at work, the ‘quintessence’. The six tracks of A Peaceable Kingdom (streamable in part on Last.fm and and Virb) may all be upwards of 5 minutes, though time just slips on by without notice throughout, from glittering surrealism (“Double Gyres”), what it might sound like if Wooden Shjips and Sun O))) collaborated on an instrumental track (“The Awful Rowing Toward God”), to channeling some nearly-spiritual energy (“We’ll Wield Fire” and “Ondine”)- very, very much recommended (see also BloodLust! album/ordering information for the Golden Sores)! Their previous release Ashdod to Ekron is available for free download in full on Last.fm (have a listen to “Arphaxad”).
From: Landschaft
http://www.landschaft.co.uk/other_pages/reviews/GoldenSores_reviews.htm
The Golden Sores: 16 June 2009
website (artist): http://virb.com/goldensores
The Artist: This ensemble have an “I wish I had thought of that” name: culled from an obscure corner of the bible, 1 Samuel 6:[various sub paragraphs].
Depending on which version of the bible you read - (and I prefer the fire and brimstone bombast of the King James), the Golden Sores translated variously as emerods, hemorrhoids, tumours etc relate to an invasion of mice that bought with it a plague (possibly bubonic) to the Israelites. The Israelites emerge from a dark spiritual place, in the (previous) book of Judges to emerge under a more enlightened regime, a kingship in Samuel. The plague then could be seen as a punishment on the Israelites for their impure ways, though the reinforcement of the punishment is not accompanied by an overt message to reprent, rather, the text implies the Israelites needed to find this out for themselves, aided by their evolving wisdom. The medium for relating the lesson, the journey of the Ark of the Covenant between Israel and the Philistines (who get rid of it back to the Israelites after bad things happen) Thus the scene is set. A message of reflection, repentance and learning encapsulated in music. The definitive commentary - and it is VERY extensive is at: Samuel
http://kukis.org/Samuel/1Sam_Intro.htm
Album: Asdod to Ekron
The Album, Asdod to Ekron. ... This message is conveyed in achingly wonderful drones, the most visceral, primal form of communication; pre-verbal and from the soul. Touching the same place as early period Popol Vuh, but bringing a sensibility of their own to bear - The Golden Sores’ music moves at a ponderous, considered pace. A passage in a John Le Carre book I have just read gives a flavour of the space this music inhabits: “...the lucid unencompassable majesty of the mountains drew me upward.” This music for me is a journey through landscapes assisted by and confounded in turn by capricious devine forces, with the biblical battles as a metaphor lurking in the background. Where redemption is a possibility, but not a certainty, but vengence and punishment for transgression is always a threat. The symbolism in the name of the ensemble/album is not literally evident in the music, it is implicit in the architecture of the sound. Building, cacophonous, moving. As moving as a Victorian hymn, or a storm under trees. That it makes pictures in my mind is a reason for me to listen to it again and again.
Album: A Peaceable Kingdom
Towers of considered noise, shards of upward pointing glass bisecting the clouds. Think the fractured cathedrals of Lionel Fieninger. Repitition is TGS’s modus operandi, a device they employ to wondrous effect, with a pulsing living throb counterbalancing the higher pitches. I put the album on in the rain, thunder and lightning beating up the sky, a perfect moment for the pages of the music to enfold me. The tones shimmer and glide with fragile harmonics cutting across the darker, warmer tones. As with Ashdod, the Old Testament references hang over this work; a knife over the sacrificial lamb’s throat, each piece scratching and clawing it’s way into ones senses, and achieving a rare success from a wholly instrumental work – dialogue; a dialogue of texture, architecture and culture. The album is released on the highly respected Bloodlust label (catalogue reference Bloodlust 126). Buy this album here:
http://bloodlust.blogspot.com/2009/05/b126-golden-sores-peaceable-kingdom-cd.html
From: Noisenoisenoise
http://noisenoisenoise.wordpress.com/
The Golden Sores – A Peaceable Kingdom (Bloodlust!) 2009
Sometimes the problem with many drone records is that there can be a lack of, well, much at all really. Take Birchville Cat Motel’s Seventh ruined Hex. That CD almost stood still there was so little going on. When drone is done right it is a pretty awesome thing to behold. So here I introduce you to the Golden Sores, a duo of Chicago drone scenesters and mates of the better known Locrian. What The Golden Sores have done on A Peaceable Kingdom is to make drone not only transcendent but also remarkably interesting. There is a fair bit crammed into the repetitive drone landscapes that the duo create. My particular favourite is the awesome We’ll Wield Fire which is founded on a bedrock of droning noise much akin to a cello being played by a robot but made somehow beautiful. But is is also the top layer of the music which sets Golden Sores apart from many thinking they do this stuff well. There is texture in the sound created by several layers of drone effects and compositional tweaks. I mean this is just awesome and if you have been a sucker for Kevin Drumm’s unbelievably majestic Imperial Distortion (I’ll post on that soon) then I suggest that you would be wise to track this down. We all need beauty in our lives and although the Golden Sores may be the most inappropriately named band I’ve heard of in some time, they certainly create beuatiful music. I’m not sure if it is readily available yet but A Peaceable Kingdom can be ordered from Bloodlust!.
From Aquarius Records
http://www.aquariusrecords.org/
Record number two from these Midwestern dronelords, with some loose connection to black ambient soundscapers Locrian, even if it doesn’t go much beyond playing together and living in the same city. That said, if you dug the Locrian record from a few lists back, odds are you’ll dig this to.
There’s no black metal woven into the Golden Sores’ sound, instead they offer up more of a spaced out krautdrone, ethereral, ephemeral, but somehow still dense and thick and HEAVY. Not sure what the instrumentation is, we’d like to think there are some guitars in there, but it hardly matters, it’s what comes out of the speakers that matters, not what goes onto the tape. And what is coming out of our speakers right now is some gloriously heavy, throbbing, pulsating buzzing psychedelic dronemusick. The first track is just some totally divine spaced out new age kosmiche drone, the second is a wall of crumbling blown out distorted buzz, like taking the primordial ooze of Earth or Sunn, and hurling it into the heart of a dying star. The tracks shift after that from deep cavernous rumbles, to billowing clouds of blackened shimmer, to muted snarling buzzscapes, to glimmering outer space druggy drifts, and finally, to a gorgeously sprawling expanse of low end throb, crank the bass on your stereo and you’ll have things vibrating right off your shelves, a sound so phsyical, after it’s over, merely hearing music without actually feeling it, barely seems like enough.
Definitive deep drone listening for sure, recommended for those of you who gravitate toward the heavier, spacier side of the low end spectrum, as previously explored by the likes of Expo 70, Locrian, Vulture Club, Fear Falls Burning, RST, To Blacken The Pages, Karl Bosmann, Pussygutt and the like.
