a r t i s t : MGR vs Xela
t i t l e : Barge Split Series Vol. I
d a t e : 2008
l a b e l : Barge Recordings
c a t : BRG 004
s o u r c e : Vinyl
g e n r e : Psychedelic/Drone/Experimental/Avant-garde
r l s. d a t e : Jun/2008
t r a c k s : 02
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 54,9 MB
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Ltd. edition of 350 LPs; hand-screened by Neil Burke.
Reviews:
////AQUARIUS RECORDS
This long in the works split finally sees the light of day.
Two aQ faves together on one super limited lp. MGR, the solo
project of Mike Gallagher from the mighty Isis, and Xela, the
project of John Twells, who also runs the kick ass Type label.
We've yet to get around to reviewing the new MGR full length,
but this track is definitely whetting our appetite. Simple
finger picked guitar over, shimmering streaks of sound, layers
of glimmering gossamer whir, loping and laid back, eventually
some BIG guitar comes in, huge crashing chords, allowed to
ring out and slowly fade away, the notes pulsing and beating
against each other, building to an epic coda, all majestic and
intense, like a stripped down Isis, the original guitar
slipping into the ether, the huge chords crashing further and
further apart, eventually stopping all together, leaving murky
blurs of guitar cacophony, smoothed into dense swells, still
intense and almost heavy, but more blurred and washed out, the
notes and chords and harmonics swirling in a roiling sonic
sea.
The Xela track begins with a squall of feedback and squiggly
distorted electronics, harsh and jagged, eventually drums
surface, the electronics are reigned in a bit, angelic voices
drift in, everything bathed in some ethereal shimmer, the
drums stumble and skitter, cymbals crash and sizzle, the
electronics flit and flutter like clouds of lightning bugs,
the sound gradually grows heavier and more dense, a low end
gathering beneath the surface, the sound is almost like some
free noise Arvo Part, haunting and choral, but those
electronics continue to squelch and glitch, the drums
skittering chaotically, the vocals wreathed in effects that
turn them into shadowy blurs, the track becoming blurrier by
the minute, more tranquil, the vocals smeared into glistening
chords, the whole track like the soundtrack to staring into a
dying sun. Really amazing, and unlike anything we've heard
from Xela before.
SUPER LIMITED! ONLY 350 COPIES!!! All hand screened with some
seriously creepy cover art. We only got 30 copies, and will
not be able to get more!
////BOOMKAT
If the sleeve is anything to go by, our John is currently
restyling himself as the 'strawberry blonde' George Michael of
noise (circa 'Jesus To A Child'), and accordingly, the music
takes on a wholly more digestible aesthetic to the decayed,
black metal influenced sounds that populated the recent
cassette release on Digitalis. Heck, John's even restored a
bit of low frequency presence since we last heard from him,
resulting in a far more contoured, more evenly proportioned
assault on the ears. The primitive analogue synth oscillations
set the tone early on, underscoring the deluge of scuzz with a
biting, penetrative edge, and some suggestion of an underlying
contrapuntal sheen to offset all that muck. Quite
unexpectedly, John cleans up his act altogether and introduces
a network of harmonised, falsetto vocal layers, sailing
through a euphoric freetime drum solo and disruptive synth
tones only to arrive at something that sounds perversely
ecclesiastical. This might well be the most unreservedly
pretty din John's ever made - the escalating grandeur of the
piece is definitely something new in the Xela repertoire, and
that contrast between the cool, evenness of the vocal and the
tumultuous backdrop works a treat. Isis guitarist Mike
Gallagher assumes his MGR moniker on the flipside, laying down
spooked post-metal textures on the darkly atmospheric
'Shipping Gold', setting crunched up guitar drones against
brooding fingerpicking and shards of feedback. It takes a
while before the piece reaches that point however, and the
build-up is half the fun, pensively climbing towards a
fearsome, monolithic crescendo. MGR's acoustic guitar lines
might be likened to one of the clean, arpeggiated passages
you'd hear on a Metallica album now and then (there's
definitely a 'Nothing Else Matters' feel to a lot of this) but
when Gallagher steps on the gas (or more pertinently, his
distortion pedal) there's a far more contemporary, far
gloomier kind of heaviness to his sound. Two great sides, one
hilarious sleeve. You know what to do...
URL's:
http://www.bargerecordings.com/index.html
http://www.myspace.com/bargerecordings
http://www.mgrsounds.com/
http://www.myspace.com/learnwithxela
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01-MGR - Shipping Gold [16:15]
02-Xela - Calling For Vanished Faces [23:29]
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39:44 min