Saturday, June 12, 2010

Foxes In Fiction Swung From The Branches (Orchid Tapes)


Warren Hildebrand, an youngster from Toronto has gradually beefed up his position in the powerful (post-rock/ experimental folk/experimental indie/ambient) music scene in the North America. His debut album Swung From The Branches - the talk of which will be coming about now - will be soon released under the label Moongadget which is better known by the artists of such as Hella, Casino Versus Japan, Benoit Pioulard, Praveen, Dykehouse (though, the last three names are related through some compilations). However, he bears the course, and the indie bible Pitchfork dedicated an relatively lengthy introduction to the forthcoming event.

Swung From The Branches was firstly published by the Canadian`s own tape label Orchid Tapes. What makes his sound special? Certainly one of the (technical) premises is a dense blending of analogue and digital technology. Indeed, the sounds are recorded onto tapes , on the other hand, the use of digital reverb machines gives it another dimension. Having integrated different sonic waves into an organic whole it can only hints at a musician`s cleverness. The album of 19 tracks can be divided into two parts. First section is introduced by hilarious ambient/atmospheric post-rock numbers, in which you can hear tape hisses in a positive way, sometimes even pastoral primitivism evoking from somethere. Above all, it reminds me of the Fort Collins scene`s doings, especially M. Pyres` ambient experiments in some albums. However, the middle tempo rhythms, spoken word/storytelling, but first and foremost giving to the soundscape faster move, and the new phase started. The musique concrete-embedded items are subtly added to open-felt electro-acoustic environments, there are also viewable some experiments with pitch-effects, and various volume intensities. New Panic Cure is the first indie number demonstrating instantly, why the great hopes are set upon him; Jimi Bleachball does recall My Bloody Valentine, in particular, through Hildebrand` s vocal manner and timbre, which is getting really close to Kevin Shields himself (compare it to Off Your Face, and Moon Song). The title song is opened window/door laptop folk, which contains a lot of tape manipulations, and psychedelic vowel textures. Though Shields was mentioned herein, the closest of Hildebrand`s contemporaries is obviously Bradford Cox. In the same context one of the highlights of the album is 15 Ativan (Song for Erika). Dynamic indietronica/poptronica simply pushes the serotonine to flow to higher levels. One of the masterpieces of the year!

Download it from here

10.0