Artist : COH
Title : Seasons
Genre : Avantgarde
Year : 2002
Date : 10/11/2007
Bitrate : VBR kbps
Tracks : 04
Label : IDEA
Source : Vinyl
Encoder : Lame 3.97
Length : 42:25 min
Size : 55,1 MB
Tracklist:
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01.The Colour of Beauty, Summer is Red 10:06
02.As Ripe as Autumn's Tears 11:42
03.Winter Brooding Underneath 10:30
04.Springs Come Shooting: Make Love, 10:07
Make War
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42:25 min
From Idea records comes Seasons, a 2x12" set of 180 gram, 45rpm vinyl packaged in a high UV gloss
gatefold cover, printed in matte metallic inks. Luckily, the music on the records lives up to the elegant
packaging, and Seasons proves to be much more than titillation for packaging fetishists. Russian born Ivan
Pavlov provides Seasons music, his wife Nadja the artwork. The album explores each season of the year
with a painted representation and a piece of music recorded during the month in question. "The Color of
Beauty, Summer is Red" opens the set with an eerie painting of tree with hands for branches, some
drooping and others fallen to the ground. Pavlov's music offers an equally dark, but rich picture through a
dense soundscape of Janesse Stewart's "suffering" violin warped and augmented by Pavlov's computer
effects. Dark, foreboding tones ebb and flow, almost in mimicry of the Doppler Effect, before erupting into
fluttering electronic modulation. Untreated violin, all scratching and scraping lies underneath the deep,
ominous tones, whose swells and fades begin and end severely, creating a palpable sense of tension. "As
Ripe as Autumn's Tears" features Pavlov alone, on grand piano, over a quiet field recording of "November"
rain (get it? get it?) made by Peter Christopherson. High notes from the piano's upper register are struck
plaintively; like the corresponding painting, this side hints at more beauty, but it is muffled, obscured.
There's an abundance of space, and occasionally Pavlov's computer effects lengthen the notes' sustain or
add a rougher, jagged edge to the softy struck notes. Winter's artwork depicts a barren grove of trees,
white upon a dark background, devoid of greenery or adornment. "Winter Brooding Underneath" is a dense,
slow drone, a deep electronic purr similar to summer's mournful tone, but more relentless. Stewart's cello,
again in the background, supplements the drone with slow bowing that arcs gently with Pavlov's mass of
sound. "Spring Comes Shooting: Make Love, Make War" echoes the bright painting of two red trees,
twisting in a coil that could imply copulation or violence. Pavlov's guitar, processed by someone quizzically
called tin-y, is treated by all manners of electronic effects, creating through the use of delay and modulation
a quickened pulse of shifting pitch, a rapid electronic heartbeat that could signify the passion of love or
hate. The percussive, almost cyber-tribal beat soon decays into growing layers of static, only resurfacing in
a far more cut-up, convoluted form, which is repeatedly ingested by the noisier drones.
Seasons is a well-done piece of musical/visual art, a work that doesn't compromise, and allows the
beautiful to mix openly with the ugly, or, more precisely, constructs both in the same sounds, irrevocably
linked. It's a duality that makes Seasons an alluring statement, and fully worthy of its elegant design and
costly packaging.
Limited edition of 400 pieces.
http://www.idearecords.com/