-=- SHGZ -=-
* Shoegaze * Indie * Post-Rock * Grunge * Dream Pop * Psych-Rock * Ethereal *
ARTIST..: Hotel Neon
ALBUM...: Hotel Neon
GENRE...: Electronic
STYLE...: Ambient, Drone
YEAR....: 2015
LABEL...: Home Normal
COUNTRY.: USA
FORMED..: April 2013, Philadelphia, PA
ENCODER.: LAME 3.100 -V0
BITRATE.: 252 kbps avg
QUALITY.: 44.1kHz / Joint Stereo
SOURCE..: CD
TRACKS..: 7
SIZE....: 102.18 MB
URL..: https://www.facebook.com/hotelneonmusic
https://hotelneonmusic.com
https://hotelneon.bandcamp.com/music
https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/hotel_neon/hotel_neon_f1
http://ambientexotica.squarespace.com/ambrev410_hotelneon_st/;jsessionid=249A426B710C7F82CBEFB2ABC2E93988.v5-web008
- TRACKLIST
1 A Lament 7:26
2 Dust And Drag 8:40
3 The Crushing Weight 10:15
4 The Eye's Mind 9:13
5 Deprivation 7:19
6 Confines 6:47
7 Lowly 6:35
Total Playtime: 56:15
The debut self-titled album Hotel Neon (56'17") exhibits this trio's sonic,
sensuous interaction with the world. Guitarists Michael Tasselmyer, Andrew
Tasselmyer and Steven Kemner capture the languorous ebb and flow of life in
seven vignettes structured and strung together based on instinct rather than
any overt narrative concerns. Everything here is so perfectly in tune with
itself. The tracks seem to wander and ruminate, collecting stray moments and
fleeting impressions which gradually fit together to avow a possessing
pattern of emotion. In the interaction of head, hand and heart Hotel Neon use
their electric guitars and processing devices to produce subtle ambient zones
and distinctive atmospheres. Breathing chords build and repeat - moving the
listener gently across a range of warm, soft textures. Yet, the music may
just as easily lead us into subterranean caverns - with lithe timbres and
rushing tones reverberating off into unseen corners. While we may believe
that most of this album originates in electronic sound, Hotel Neon does
respectfully make known their work's stringed origins - in the occasional
buzzing and humming associated with an electric guitar. Their outside somber
darkness seems best suited for the hours of the dusk - where daybreak may not
find them. Hotel Neon offers a place apart from the realms of ordinary
existence - a place where music approaches the sacred through the silent
avenues of the heart. But the space created by their music is really no
different from anywhere else - since beauty and meaning are everywhere,
provided we know how to look.
*
In the summer of 2013, brothers Andrew and Michael Tasselmyer released their
first album under the name Hotel Neon. While it embraced the same thoughtful,
unobtrusive minimalism of some of their earlier work as The Sound of Rescue,
especially Furniture Music, it had a distinctive enough focus to warrant
being inaugurated as a new project. And, with the release of the expansively
dynamic Forms by the band as well as the recent addition of 4th member, it
seems perhaps that the Tasselmyers now have two well defined canvases on
which to continue rendering their creations going forward - one steeped in
immersive drones and another near the summit of elegant, melodic post rock.
Early 2015 marks the reissue of the self-titled Hotel Neon debut on the Home
Normal label, remastered by none other than Ian Hawgood himself. He explains
what drew him to the album as well and how he both preserved the intent of
the original recording, which was created simply with a 2-track USB recording
device and inexpensive equipment, while drawing out some of its hidden
treasures.
Much like the music, Michael and Andrew are wonderfully understated when
noting the album came about through simple means: a usb recording device,
cheap guitars, effects processors, and a computer. Yet the result is really
quite something, as a good few people have now started to notice...When we
heard it, apart from enjoying it solidly for a good few days, we decided to
play around with twin decks to focus on the beautiful lows that were hidden
within. Through tape saturation the lows became beautifully transparent
giving us a deeper focus to the work, and hopefully an album that contains
with it that stirring element of something glorious yet hidden within the
recesses of the mind's eye.
The difference remains subtle in "A Lament", the achingly melancholic opener,
but becomes increasingly apparent as the album becomes more sonically
subaqueous, particularly the grainy textures and mechanized rhythms of "Dust
and Drag", the subterranean pulses of "The Eye's Mind", and the distant
thundercloud rumblings that permeate "Lowly". The effect is not unlike the
way the right matte and frame can flush out the deeper hues and enhance the
composition of a painting.
The mantra of the project is "Restraint over haste, Perception over
presumption, Awareness over intent", a perspective that is born out in the
music and maintained consistently throughout the record. If you have not
heard Hotel Neon and appreciate well crafted ambient drones, you owe it to
yourself to check it out. If you are familiar with the original recording,
you owe it to yourself to hear this lovingly remastered version. Either way,
it's a very rewarding and immersive listening experience.
-=- SHGZ -=-
-=-=-==-=-=-
Post-rock
is a subgenre of experimental rock
characterized by the exploration of textures and
timbres as well as non-rock styles, often with minimal or
no vocals, placing less emphasis on conventional song structures
or riffs than on atmosphere for musically evocative purposes.
Post-rock artists can often combine rock instrumentation
and rock stylings with electronics and digital
production as a means of enabling the
exploration of textures, timbres
and different
styles.
---==--==---