Helena Ford appreciation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helena Ford is a Chicago-based transgender musician whose work expands all over drone, improv, dungeon synth, dark ambient, industrial noise, electroacoustic, and microtonal deep listening ambient. Much of the themes on which she has based her music revolves around gender dysphoria, hormone replacement and psychotherapy. Really, her recordings are so multifaceted you should just devote two or three days listening to the whole shit, which is also free on her bandcamp here, but I'm just going to pick a few which really impressed the shit out of me. Also loving the corpsepaint and the Burzum-like skullcrasher bat thingy, guess Varg would be really pissed at! Links on titles. Goes without saying that this blog upholds difference and the challenge of gender/sex stereotypes along with fighting fascism, racism, capitalism, patriarchy and homophobia and is open to any non-binary/LGBTQI+-themed music that will be appealing to me.

Therapy Goals: revolving around psych/Eastern scale guitar meanderings and full-on Sunn O))) like power drone.

The Human Veil - s/t: holy fucking shit dungeon synth and organ vespers-like goodness

Examinations in Minimalism & Transgender Musicality: weird alternation between sine waves, modular drone, mellotrons and deep listening ambient

Larsen Symphonique + Organ Works: microtonal drone, organ holiness and avant-garde drone.

Elegy for 1992: bro this is soooo good. She's taken figures from John Cage's prepared piano Sonatas and added huge reverb to it.

Pieces for Electric Bass, Baritone, and Guitar: can't say how much I'm loving this, especially the second baritone track. Get it. Now. It's free.

Hemicrania: ambient noise wall discordant bliss.

Music for Bows and Rosin: this sounds quite a bit like post-reformation Skullflower, especially around the period Lee Stokoe was in. Great.

Κώστας Παντόπουλος - Κωστής Δρυγιανάκης – Ο Μύθος του Πενθέα (Costas Pantopoulos - Costis Drygiannakis - The Penteus Myth)

 

In the 1980s Costis Drygiannakis played in an electronics group called Optical Musics (check here). Costas Pantopoulos was another member of the group and this is a collaboration they recorded in 1989, which centers around heavily percussive MIDI electronics with big ethnic influences, which would probably make a good soundtrack to a documentary or something. 2019 cd on Hxoi Kato Apo To Spiti.

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Κωστής Δρυγιανάκης ‎– Ο Χονδρός Και Η Κατσιάνη Στο Βουνό (Costis Drygiannakis - Chondros and Katsiani on the Mountain)

 

Didn't plan to take me such a long time to get back to posting, but things haven't been exactly well. Probably had the worst summer of my life, I don't see life getting any better soon. Thanks to everyone who asked about me, sorry for not replying.I haven't heard to much music either, when I have the time I'd rather listen to ASMR videos on youtube (or even watch old NBA highlights).

Costis Drygiannakis is a top-class Greek avant-garde composer (I think Bleak Bliss has posted some of his other releases in the past) and this is a dizzying cello-weird electronics-fucked percussions electroacoustic masterpiece bordering Greek folk music at times, drone and everything in-between, with vocal contributions from Alexandra Katsiani and Thanasis Chondros (hence the title) from weirdo Greek band Dimosioypalliliko Retire. First released in 2006, this is the 2019 re-release on Rekem Records.

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Razen ‎– Reed Bombus LFO For Conrad Schnitzler

2014 pic-lp on Deep Distance.

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Razen ‎– The Xvoto Reels

Razen's weirdest album, this is their most electronic, with weird spacey sounds, old-school electronics and droney jams with Eastern instruments.

2017 LP on Three:four Records.

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Eric Glick Rieman / Lesli Dalaba / Stuart Dempster ‎– Lung Tree

Being a huge fan of the masterpiece Deep Listening where trombone player Stuart Dempster created sonic magic with Pauline Oliveros and Panaiotis, I bought this to check a little more into the rest of his work. This work with keyboardist Eric Glick Rieman and trumpetist Lesli Dalaba mixes free improvised jazz with electroacoustic elements and is a great success. At times playful and at other times greatly mournful it is an amazing listen that deserves close attention. Dempster signs both on the trombone and the didgeridoo, and so do the rest of the musicians. 2005 cd on ReR Megacorp.

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3/4 HadBeenEliminated ‎– Dimethyl Atonal Calcine 7"

Inspired by Bleak Bliss's post of this Italian group's album Oblivion, here's an 7". This is some weird shit, don't know how exactly to describe side 1; something like electroacoustic folk/indie with an endless lock groove at the end? Side 2 is a nice ambient/dub remix of one track from another album of theirs. Cool. 2006 self-released 7".

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House Of Low Culture - Edward's Lament!

On the previous Giant post, I made some mention of Isis' trajectory into hideous post-metal. I don't wanna be unfair to the guys - they were an incredibly important band both for the 2000s experimental metal and for my own formative years of musical taste. Their music up till Oceanic (and Panopticon to a lesser extent) is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. It's just that their choice to remove the sludge parts and to become a Tool-cum-post-rock thing led to mediocrity. I kind of suspect that the people who pushed them more into that direction were bassist Jeff Caxide, drummer Aaron Harris and guitar/keyboard player Clifford Meyer. I'm saying this as they later released that hideous Palms album with the singer of Deftones, which is very similar to latter-day Isis. Aaron Turner on the other hand continued releasing good music outside Isis, with Old Man Gloom, Split Cranium and Mamiffer (I haven't paid too much attention to Sumac, tbh). One of his best ventures, though, which was contemporaneous with the good times of Isis was House Of Low Culture, a solo drone/ambient project, which started out as a riff heavy Sunn O))) style-thing, but on this album he focused on electroacoustic compositions, robotic drones, guitar soundscapes that with a full band they would have definitely been included in the early OMG and Isis records, and spectral atmospheres. It's a decent companion to the Lotus Eaters project Turner maintained at that time with Stephen O' Malley and James Plotkin. 2003 cd on Neurot.

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Sindre Bjerga - Fabio Orsi - Faded Brown And Grey cd

Awesome electro-acoustic drone collaboration between Sindre Bjerga and Fabio Orsi without hesitating to delve into noisier, more levitating atmospheres. 2014 cd on Korm Plastics.

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Lotus Eaters - Wurmwulv

The second and last full-length (fourth release overall) of Lotus finds continuing their electro-acoustic drone improv experiments with a slightly noisier touch I'd say and a darker, more desolate feeling that is also similar to the Aethenor project O'Malley had started during that period. 2007 cd on Troubleman Unlimited.

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PS. There's another Lotus Eater release entitled Alienist On A Pale Horse. Opium Hum blog has uploaded it, so you can't find it there.

Lotus Eaters - Mind Control For Infants

First full-length for Lotus Eaters, and one of the very first drone/experimental albums I've ever heard. First two tracks focus on beautiful electro-acoustic guitar-based ambient sounds, while the following four tracks go further into more abstract/ musique concrete territory with found sounds, e-bows and some threatening bass sounds. The final track's drone static is just a liberating, glorious piece and I think that there's an underlying narrative approach through phases of sleeping here, or at least that's how I always perceived this album. A true masterpiece-if anyone could share the purported expanded lp version on Taiga Records I'd be more than grateful. 2002 cd on Neurot Recordings.

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Lotus Eaters - Lotus Eaters 7"

Lotus Eaters is a sadly now defunct project consisting of three of my high-school musical heroes, James Plotkin, Aaron Turner, and Stephen O' Malley. However, much to the consternation of most people who expected a mind-blowing sludge/doom monster, in this project they played immensely beautiful and dreamy drone/electro-acoustic improv music. There is excellent musicianship and production here, featuring both acoustic instruments like guitar and accordion and made sounds akin to a quiet form of musique concrete, and the whole thing revolves around a gorgeous acoustic guitar melody. More than highly recommended. 2002 7" on Drone Records.

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Zsolt Sőrés ‎– Ahad's Master's Garden III (2007 - 2009): The Harmonian Blues 2XCD

Multi-style experimental music by this Hungarian musician also known as Ahad, focusing on various approaches to electro-acoustic composition, with drones, nods to Eastern European and Middle East music, psychedelic sitars, and ambiences. 2011 double cd on Fourth Dimension Records and AudioTONG.

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Costinho - 3

Costinho is the solo moniker of Greek pianist/composer Costis Zouliatis, who played before in the art pop band Night on Earth, and is a researcher on the life of pioneering composer Jani Christou, about whom he has also directed a documentary if I'm not mistaken. This is his solo release (despite the deceptive title), and is a perfect work of electroacoustic and modern classical experiments (and with a touch of zeuhl and Shub Niggurath-like madness) played on piano, strings and guitar pedals. Fucking great music here. 2014 on the very good Athens-based Triple Bath label, which is really worth checking out for other releases.

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