Artist : Mandible Chatter
Album : Of Foreign Lands and People
Year : 2003
Genre : Ambient
Source : CD
Label : Release Entertainment
Catalog : RR 6581-2
Rls.Date : 2010-04-24
Bitrate : VBRkbps
Size : 83.98MB
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1. Swans and Ponds 1:41
2. On the Needles of These Days 5:47
3. Man Bites Spoon 8:01
4. Intraference (The Hums Do Not Intrude) 5:53
5. Tangle in Delirium 3:22
6. Seven are the Stars That Shine 4:37
7. A Sun to Lift Sleep from the Weary 11:52
8. Knight of Coins Reversed 8:20
9. Dweller on the Threshold 4:30
10. Delphinium Blue 5:22
11. Griogal Cridhe 4:05
12. Von Fremden Landern und Menschen 1:29
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64:59
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Mandible Chatter was formed in the autumn of 1991 by San Francisco Bay area
guitarists Neville Harson and Grant Miller. Grant knew immediately that there
was something fatalistic about their meeting when Neville idly remarked that
he had moved from Pennsylvania to be closer to The Residents.
Both musicians had roots in experimental music and their earliest efforts as
a newly formed duo took shape as improvised ambient electric guitar pieces
not entirely unlike the works of Fripp & Eno. In retrospect, as strangers to
one another they were clearly playing it safe. Over the course of their first
year, however, their guard slowly came down and the two began incorporating
harsher textures into their music.
Sometime in the spring of 1992, when, as chance would have it, one of the
members actually found himself living directly across the street from Church
of Satan founder Anton LaVey, the guys decided there was no choice but to
open wide the windows and "serenade" their newfound neighbor. No one is
certain whether this performance was actually received by the late Mr. LaVey
(or if it might have somehow contributed to his death), but the affair was
recorded for posterity and saw light of day as Mandible Chatter's first
release, a cassette suitably titled Serenade for Anton.
This period also saw the first significant change in Mandible Chatter's
approach. Perhaps feeling stifled or just eager for growth the guitars were
dropped in favor of less conventional sound sources. Microphones, springs,
grinding wheels, baby monitors, and shoes (everything and anything they could
find) were all used to make the music which appeared on the band's first
full-length release, 1993's lo-fi but charming CD, Drinking Out the
Hourglass. Alan Splet would have been proud...
Soonafter, the group moved its experimentation to a dank and gadget-filled
garage down in lovely East Palo Alto. Its former resident, a mysterious
figure named Juergen, had perished while attempting a climb of Yosemite's
Half Dome, leaving behind a wonderful assortment of oddities from Pompeiian
art prints and diaries in German to jam jars and metal objects indiscernible
in origin to this day. A Metal Tree was constructed, fellow musicians
invited, and creativity allowed to run riot for the next couple of years.
In 1994, the group released its second CD, Hair Hair Lock & Lore, their dark
ambient statement, which in turn caught the attention of Manifold Records in
Memphis. Mandible Chatter's first disc for Manifold, Grace, marked a high
point for the group. They had found label support at last and their garage
endeavors were reaching their peak. Having taken a shine toward a more
uplifting sound overall, the band was now producing its most realized
material. The guitars had returned and into the mix came cello, vocal drones,
and piano, to name but a few. Amorphic ambience was being slowly infused with
more thoughtful structure. This merging of ambient-industrial textures with
more traditional styles caught the interest of radio and press folk alike,
not to mention their fans.
Through 1995 and 1996, Mandible Chatter could be found in assorted venues
providing musical accompaniment to San Francisco butoh dance troupe
Collapsing Silence. In 1997, they worked simultaneously on soundtrack music
for the Marijoh Danztheatre production of Pierre Riviere and their fourth CD,
Food for the Moon. This second release on Manifold was a continuation of what
the group had begun with Grace, but with a few notable differences. Having
left the garage, both for better and for worse, Mandible Chatter was now
dividing its time between home recording and a proper recording studio. They
had grown tired of making noise for noise's sake and were looking to their
earliest influences for guidance. Accessible songs like the band's own "Sad
Tree Song" or the Spacemen 3 cover "So Hot" must have come as somewhat of a
shock to many of the group's fans, but those with an astute ear had heard it
coming.
In the early months of 1998, after a brief hiatus, Mandible Chatter regrouped
to plan their next move. With only guitars in hand (much like at their start)
they soon found themselves strumming folk tunes. It seemed to make perfect
sense that the next record be an amalgam of their earliest musical influences
- British pop and folk - with some of the experimental textures they had
honed through their years together. In 1999, Measuring the Marigolds was
released.
By the time of Marigolds' release, Mandible Chatter had become a bicoastal
partnership with Neville relocating, first to Boston and then to Boulder two
years later. The band was effectively in hiatus, but kept active by promoting
their latest release and conducting interviews. There was never any question
about working together on future projects, though the process would need to
be different living apart.
For three weeks, starting at Christmas 2001 and continuing into the earliest
days of the new year, Neville and Grant reconvened in San Francisco to work
on a new ambient-experimental project. Ideas that had been gathering apart
for two years were brought together that first week. Then the studio was
moved up to Portland for a reunion with longtime MC collaborators from years
past. Days and nights were spent improvising and cultivating new sounds. In
the summer of 2002, Mandible Chatter worked with Robert Rich to distill and
mix twelve new finished pieces for release as the upcoming Mandible Chatter
CD.
In twelve years, Mandible Chatter has covered more musical territory than
most enduring groups cover in a lifetime. If there were a single attribute
that all Mandible Chatter releases could be said to have in common, it would
be the ability to surprise the listener. Textures, even genres, are often
blended, exploiting contrasts to their fullest, yet always retaining the
cohesive thread. Much like navigating Hampton Court's maze by night, with
Mandible Chatter one can never be quite sure what lies around the corner...
http://www.discogs.com/release/291486