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LP
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FIELD 032LP
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Field Records takes a look into the vast catalogue of Celer, the prolific ambient project from Tokyo-based artist Will Long. Perfectly Beneath Us was originally released in 2012 as a CD-R on Still*Sleep, and now it's being presented as a vinyl release remastered by Stephan Mathieu. Celer began in California as a collaborative project in 2005 between Long and Danielle Baquet, resulting in reams of self-released work up until Baquet passed away in 2009. Long opted to keep their project going, and Celer has continued to grow as an expansive exploration of purest ambient. Meanwhile Long's solo work under his own name has been equally accomplished, with scores of releases on DJ Sprinkles' Comatonse Recordings and respected Norwegian leftfield label Smalltown Supersound. With such a sizable library of sounds to explore, the reissue of Perfectly Beneath Us serves as an ideal entry point into the Celer catalogue, presenting four pieces of sustained, glacial movement wreaking profound emotional impact from the subtlest methods. Long exercises the utmost patience from the shorter "Distressing Sensations" and "Ultra-terrestrial Yearning" through to the ten-minutes-plus stretches of "Slightly Apart, Almost Touching" and "Absolute Receptivity Of All The Senses." It's truly immersive, captivating drone music that rewards the attentive listener as much as it soothes the casual drifter. Originally limited to just 100 copies in 2012, it's now beautifully framed on a carefully considered reissue which adds to Field's own repertoire of evocative, subliminal electronics.
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CD
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RM 4233CD
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As Celer, Will Long and Danielle Baquet laid out a framework for extended exercises in ambience, texture and atmosphere. Their work, much of which was initially circulated through collectors, traders and fanatics, went on to become a blueprint for an approach to sound that was equal parts patient, generous and drifting. Cursory Asperses collects a unique set of shorter form works that typify the pairs interested in warmth and subtle density. Recorded between 2007 and 2008, it captures a culminate step -- an introduction to minute detail, revolved ideas, and fragile structural ideas. A truly unique offering that soaks deeply into their variations in sound. A note from Will Long: "Recorded in 2007 and 2008, Cursory Asperses was created with cassette tape recordings of water sounds from various rivers, streams, lakes, beaches, and pools, combined with direct to tape instrument recordings from synthesizers, an organ, cello, piano, and bowed instruments. Instead of traditionally mixing these, at the time we were interested in software, using free Mac OS Classic programs such as Audiosculpt and Soundhack. Before we had a DAW, before VSTs, we used non-realtime convolution processing through software, using the water recordings as an impulse for the instrument sounds. The instrument sounds were 'arranged' (by adding silence before, during, or after) in layered, visual swathes, to create an audio interpretation of the movement of water and waves, slowly evolving and shifting, for a meditation on deep and focused listening. Opposed to passivity, where sounds become lost in distant tones and layers upon layers are misinterpreted as single, meaningless tones. Or, it's just as meaningless as the passing of water, the flow of rivers -- the crashes of sparkling ocean waves, all those sounds that we recognize. The tones are unpolished, left in their fuzzy form, with the high noise crushed into the deep. Behind the swells, and under the depths is a longing, or a lack thereof. It's passing by, no different than it was years before."
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CD
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RM 4130CD
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Will Long's work as Celer traverses a nebulous and morphing galaxy of sound that centers around textured ambience and extended durational pieces. A long-time resident in Tokyo, his work explores the way in which sound can operate in an evolving atmosphere, coalescing with everything, and everyone, around it. With In Light Of Blues, Long pivots away from long-form works to create a series of vignettes that capture the essence of his aesthetics interests. The record condenses and refines his compositional methodologies forming each piece as an acoustic miniature speckled in hazy harmony and evocative tonality.
From Will Long: "It was months ago, but it could have been weeks, days, or even hours since then. I stopped wanting to hear loops, I wanted to stop it. I added brass; trumpets, trombones, and more horns. I cut it out like words from a book, and sewed it back together. Burroughs. These movements are merely to stay alive, to stay moving. You wake up from a truck horn passing in the early morning hours on the nearby freeway, or from a dream that you can't tell was a nightmare or a loving memory. Someone walks by on the street wearing the same perfume. I drew out each place, each scene, and put the story there. It might have been with you, or without you. All I know is that you were there some-how the whole time, even if you weren't. I saw rainbows from under the bridge by the river, and the sun shot up through the clouds of the golden hour. It didn't help, and there was no one around. Your chest is even with your knees, and you're sitting in the dirt. The sun keeps going down, and eventually you make your way home. It's not very much the same as it was anymore. The horns are deafening, but after, the echoes let me see the way away. The light keeps coming, and it keeps going. Songs of surroundings, the silent, the heartbeats, the tears. We've all had them, and we'll never be rid of them."
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2LP
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STREAM 1034LP
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"We made a box of tape loops in the Malibu Motel, from strings and pianos, and an old reel to reel tape of Sinatra. From the top of the cliffs, the view was completely clear, and even in a completely black and starless night, nothing stirred. A few stories, put together with no previous purpose, than having their own place and time. In being put together, something new is formed. This was the basis for I, Anatomy. There wasn't any intention, it was just a diary. These things happened, and became the source material, finding their directions from what was before directionless, and become the whole. Going back to these moments and memories, I, Anatomy isn't a story, it's one hundred stories. The original I, Anatomy also included the EPs All At Once Is What Eternity Is and The Die That's Caste, now together in a single edition as they were originally intended, with artwork by Christoph Heemann."
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CD
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AND 038CD
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"Originally self-published as a very limited triple 3" CDR release in May, 2009, Celer's Levitation and Breaking Points is now available again on CD -- this time limited to 300 copies. Surely one of Celer's most subtly beautiful and uplifting albums out of an already beautiful, highly prolific and much celebrated discography of work."
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2CD
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INFX 050CD
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"'In February of 2008, Dani and I recorded, mixed, and completed the music for Salvaged Violets. The words came as the subject line of a short poem, sent to me over email, included with an unrelated question. During these weekdays, our working schedules were almost the opposite, but we spoke over email constantly. Until recently, I did not notice how similar this was to our beginnings, sending letters as we were on different sides of the country. With no conceptual idea in mind, and since we were apart for so much time during the weekdays, we decided to begin Salvaged Violets, and see what came of it. Every night when I returned home, before sleeping, I would spend time working on the music that Dani had worked on through the afternoon, and had left on the desk. Every afternoon, she would find a different version to work on that I had left, and this continued for some time. When together, we would sip our tea, laugh at silly jokes, cook, watch television, and so on. There was no need for longing while we were together. There was always laughing, pots and pans clanging, or a muttering television. In forming Salvaged Violets, we did not mix it in a particular arranged order. It was mixed simply by the order it was first played, compiling many miniature sections rolled into one. In this case, they were rolled into two. Nothing was discarded, nothing was rearranged. As the sound changed over time, the original form did not. When it was finally complete, we listened together, for the first time. I remember how familiar it seemed, yet I also felt that so much of it was unknown, and undefined. More than a year later, in September of 2009, I revisited the recordings for the first time since 2008. At this time, it was being mastered by our good friend Corey Fuller, so I was still listening to the original. Riding my bike through the endless suburban subdivisions, through the busy downtown streets, I listened repeatedly, for days, over and over. Something was familiar, but so much I was unable to recall, and yet I was able to relate. I returned home, put my bike against the door, and took my headphones off. There, in the still silence, I think I understood finally what it was about.' -- Will Thomas Long, December 2009. 998 copies, stoughton mini-LP gatefold CD sleeve. Twelve art prints and photographs by Peter Lograsso."
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