KTL [STEPHEN O'MALLEY & PETER REHBERG] — 2
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"Stephen O'Malley: strings, fx, amps, tube osc. Peter Rehberg: digital osc, apps, drives. Written, recorded & mixed by Stephen O'Malley & Peter Rehberg at Studio Abattoir, Angers & Manoir Kéroual, Guilers, December 2006 - February 2007. Mastered at Piethopraxis, Köln, March 2007. Devastatingly beautiful four part follow up to the acclaimed debut CD recorded in a former abattoir in Angers, as well as a 16th Century manor in the extreme west of France. Taking the blueprint that was laid out on the first record even further, with the ecstatic build up of "Theme", the near psychedelic "Abattoir", and closing with the twisted romanticism of the closing "Snow 2". An upgrade both artistically and emotionaly. As with the first CD elements appeared in the finished version of the theatre piece Kindertotenlieder' by Gisele Vienne and Dennis Cooper, which was premiered in Brest, France, March 2007." [label info]
"...Not a year later, and KTL are back, with another sprawling
journey, trawling through the bottomless depths of some hellish
underworld and drifting weightless through a starless black sky. A
bleak, but occasionally jarring landscape of sonic mystery rife with
plenty of drone and buzz.
The opener is a bleak expanse of claustrophobic sound, the
sound of waking up in pitch blackness, wet, cold and alone, wandering
blindly, feeling your way, hands rubbed raw from sliding along rough
stone, the tiniest sounds magnified into some lurking beast ready to
pounce, gusts of warm wind rush past, as do strange slithery shapes
underfoot, you can hear the wide open space towering overhead, but
you can feel the walls closing in, suffocating. Gorgeously dark and
bleak, ominous and so creepy. The perfect music for being buried
alive, miles below the surface of the Earth. As the first track
dissipates, a strange percussive thump gradually surfaces, a
heartbeat maybe... a dense layered backdrop of shimmering low end and muted pulses undulates beneath the murky throb, very slowly building in intensity, as streaks of high end grit and buzzing glitch, and
strange high pitched melodic fragments begin to materialize all
around, like suddenly finding yourself inside a lightning storm, it's
almost pretty, but still sharp and jagged. As the upper register
peals intensify, they suddenly coalesce into some sort of deafening
angelic chorus, a gorgeous layered textural wall of dreamlike skree,
some demonic string section, surprisingly melodic beneath all the
sonic barbs and white hot buzz. Hard to describe other than to say
it's a bit like Nadja or Jesu, run through a bank of alien FX pedals
and broadcast through a million tweeters. So intense and gloriously
blown out.
The next step in the journey involves visiting the "Abattoir" (much of this disc was in fact recorded in an actual French Abattoir) , and it sounds just like you'd imagine. A bit like O'Malley's Sunn 0))), with layer upon layer of constantly shifting coruscating guitars, a drone metal Niblock maybe, stretched out and hypnotic, the texture of the guitar constantly ever changing, going from smooth and washed out to rough and sharp, a bit like Spacemen 3 or Loop at it's most propulsive, a sort of churning distorted chordal whir, and a lot like Sunn 0))) at its most static. But all throughout, the rough raw shimmer is disrupted by all manner of textural disturbances, bits of grit and muted glitch and subtle
shards of fragmented melody.
Finally, the record winds down with an extended coda, thick
shards of glistening guitar suspended in gauzy clouds of electronic
flutter and swirls of soft sonic snow. Eventually the sharp edges are
worn away leaving a strangely haunting slightly degraded Basinski- esque drift that is smoothed even further out, into shimmery spacey
synths and sweet chordal swells that drift away leaving nothing but
static." [Aquarius Records]
www.editionsmego.com
"...Not a year later, and KTL are back, with another sprawling
journey, trawling through the bottomless depths of some hellish
underworld and drifting weightless through a starless black sky. A
bleak, but occasionally jarring landscape of sonic mystery rife with
plenty of drone and buzz.
The opener is a bleak expanse of claustrophobic sound, the
sound of waking up in pitch blackness, wet, cold and alone, wandering
blindly, feeling your way, hands rubbed raw from sliding along rough
stone, the tiniest sounds magnified into some lurking beast ready to
pounce, gusts of warm wind rush past, as do strange slithery shapes
underfoot, you can hear the wide open space towering overhead, but
you can feel the walls closing in, suffocating. Gorgeously dark and
bleak, ominous and so creepy. The perfect music for being buried
alive, miles below the surface of the Earth. As the first track
dissipates, a strange percussive thump gradually surfaces, a
heartbeat maybe... a dense layered backdrop of shimmering low end and muted pulses undulates beneath the murky throb, very slowly building in intensity, as streaks of high end grit and buzzing glitch, and
strange high pitched melodic fragments begin to materialize all
around, like suddenly finding yourself inside a lightning storm, it's
almost pretty, but still sharp and jagged. As the upper register
peals intensify, they suddenly coalesce into some sort of deafening
angelic chorus, a gorgeous layered textural wall of dreamlike skree,
some demonic string section, surprisingly melodic beneath all the
sonic barbs and white hot buzz. Hard to describe other than to say
it's a bit like Nadja or Jesu, run through a bank of alien FX pedals
and broadcast through a million tweeters. So intense and gloriously
blown out.
The next step in the journey involves visiting the "Abattoir" (much of this disc was in fact recorded in an actual French Abattoir) , and it sounds just like you'd imagine. A bit like O'Malley's Sunn 0))), with layer upon layer of constantly shifting coruscating guitars, a drone metal Niblock maybe, stretched out and hypnotic, the texture of the guitar constantly ever changing, going from smooth and washed out to rough and sharp, a bit like Spacemen 3 or Loop at it's most propulsive, a sort of churning distorted chordal whir, and a lot like Sunn 0))) at its most static. But all throughout, the rough raw shimmer is disrupted by all manner of textural disturbances, bits of grit and muted glitch and subtle
shards of fragmented melody.
Finally, the record winds down with an extended coda, thick
shards of glistening guitar suspended in gauzy clouds of electronic
flutter and swirls of soft sonic snow. Eventually the sharp edges are
worn away leaving a strangely haunting slightly degraded Basinski- esque drift that is smoothed even further out, into shimmery spacey
synths and sweet chordal swells that drift away leaving nothing but
static." [Aquarius Records]
www.editionsmego.com