Artist: Rick Reed
Title: Dark Skies at Noon
Price: $13.00
Catalog #: eeaoa025
Released: 2005

 

Tracklisting and preview MP3s:

01 dark skies at noon
02 ceremony - parts 1 & 2
03 ghosts of energy

Rick Reed is a self-taught composer/improviser who has been working in the Austin underground music scene for the past 25 years. Dark Skies at Noon is his definitive statement. Over the years, Reed’s sound has taken on a life of its own – that of a magnificent monster capable of both ferocious intensity and lulling tranquility, yet perfectly controlled under Reed's masterful care.
Dark Skies at Noon's title track was utilized by legendary filmmaker Ken Jacobs as soundtrack to some of his recent works. And it is an apt accompaniment to Jacobs' surreal, otherworldly images (the Jacobs/Reed collaboration is ongoing). The second piece in this collection is a live recording (made by Tom Carter of Charalambides) featuring ex-AMM guitarist Keith Rowe in a stunning duet. The album's closing piece is pure Rick Reed, demonstrating his wholly unique sound and compositional style in an ear-bending, yet always restrained blur of sine waves, field recordings, short-wave radio, and Moog synthesizer.
Reed has defined his sound while performing solo and with various groups including Frequency Curtain and the Abrasion Ensemble. Since the mid 90s, Reed has released several LPs and CDs on labels such as Ecstatic Peace, Beta-lactam Ring, Pale Disc Japan and Elevator Bath.
Packaged inside two elegant printed sleeves of 100% recycled paper, this compact disc has been issued in an edition of 328 copies.

Artist: Adam Pacione
Title: Sisyphus
Price: $13.00
Catalog #: eeaoa023
Released: 2005

 

Tracklisting and preview MP3s:

01 testament
02 joelma’s burning
03 an evening’s pursuit
04 groves, springs and hilltops
05 trust my navigation
06 grey gardens
07 with wakened eyes
08 weeping cypress
09 the last five minutes of sleep
10 cicada lullaby
11 sisyphus

Adam Pacione’s debut album (following some beautiful limited edition CDRs) is Sisyphus, an organic and fluid collection of haunting ambience, brimming with warmth and emotion. The recordings have a contemplative, solitary air about them, and this is a stunningly gorgeous set - leading the listener through these sound-works in perfect succession, with each piece flowing effortlessly into the next.
Sisyphus has an aquatic or womblike feel, as if the composer were calmly observing and documenting his surroundings while completely submerged. And the weight of water has never been so meticulously described as within these sounds.
Much like the album’s mythical namesake, Sisyphus is largely concerned with repetition: Sounds and melodies are reiterated; Passages are looped with deliberate pacing. And there is beauty and ultimately reward to be found in these recurrences. The desired effect is flawlessly delivered, and the bliss of Sisyphus entangles.
Pacione takes cues from 70s ambient pioneers such as Brian Eno and artists on the Brain and Sky labels, as well as from current masters William Basinksi and those from the Touch label.
Packaged inside two elegant printed sleeves of 100% recycled paper, this compact disc has been issued in an edition of 329 copies.