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2LP
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BLACKEST 051LP
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Includes MP3/FLAC download. House Number 44 is the first volume of The Composite Moods Collection, a cycle of Dalhous recordings that examines the relationship between two individuals cohabiting in a confined space -- their interactions, their sense of self and of each other, and the pregnant space between. One of these people, perhaps the protagonist of House Number 44, is (or at least feels) in fine mental health. The other appears distinctly unwell -- detached, isolated, often feeling helpless and unable to influence the world; at other times prone to committing acts of extraordinary aggression and manipulation. The title of The Composite Moods Collection nods to the world of film and library cues, riffing on the utilitarian idea of music "to suit the mood" and the appealing if archaic notion that a "mood" can be a discrete or fixed thing, a unit of feeling. Dalhous's Marc Dall takes this notion and runs with it, attempting to convey a bipolarity of mood, with each movement contradicting or erasing what came before. And so, while a finely crafted and very deliberate narrative connects each cue to the next, it is not a smooth or a linear path. On the contrary it is jarring, complex, subject to severe and sudden modulations. Though Dalhous's R. D. Laing trilogy -- An Ambassador For Laing (BLACKEST 003CD/LP, 2013), Visibility Is A Trap (BLACKEST 029EP, 2014), and Will To Be Well (BLACKEST 007CD/LP, 2014) -- is now complete, Laing remains a spectral presence in their work, and The Composite Moods Collection ultimately cleaves closely to recurring Dalhous themes of identity, behavioral modification, and self-help. Longtime followers of Dalhous will observe that House Number 44 contains some of their sparsest, most malevolent-sounding work to date (see especially the brooding synthesizer throb of "Response To Stimuli" and "End Of Each Analysis") but some of their most disarmingly beautiful too, with indelible melodies and atmospheres as deep as thought, including "Methods of Élan," "On A Level," and the elegiac "Lines To Border." Dall's enduring affection for neo-noir film scores of the '80s and early '90s, with their gleaming electronics and submerged existential torment, is more palpable here than ever, and you may also hear echoes of Klaus Schulze, Pete Namlook, or Eno's The Shutov Assembly -- but Dalhous continue to plot their own course, obsessively and meticulously, oblivious to contemporary trends and unconstrained by historical influence; driven, indeed, by their own demons.
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2LP
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BLACKEST 007LP
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Gatefold double LP version with mp3 download. Will to Be Well is the new studio album by Dalhous, their second for Blackest Ever Black. This double LP reflects writer-producer Marc Dall's continued interest in the life and arcana of R.D. Laing, but also alludes to more universal and enduring mysteries: the relationships between body and mind, illness and wellness, the physical and the metaphysical. The 15 tracks assembled here also showcase the maturation of a uniquely gifted and expressive composer: Dall's stirring, efflorescent melodies and stately harmonic architectures, with their grievously honed simplicity, are a delight: lucid, lyrical, immediate. For all the modernity of Dalhous' approach, the album recalls a bygone era in synthesized and sample-based music, a time when its practitioners were not just set-designers but storytellers, too. Will to Be Well arrives just one year on from the Edinburgh-based project's tenebrous debut, An Ambassador for Laing (BLACKEST 003CD/LP), which was released to widespread acclaim in Spring 2013: The Wire praised "a frequently beautiful music, whose often calm surface belies the powerful currents moving beneath it," while FACT called the LP a "wonderfully compelling head-scratcher... opaque, elusive ... and fascinating." Nonetheless, a notable shift in tone has occurred in the 14 months that have elapsed. If Ambassador was a tussle between darkness and light that ended in stalemate, with Will to Be Well it seems the light might just be winning. Pieces like "Transference" and "Her Mind Was a Blank" project a rapturous psychedelic intensity; "To Be Universal You Must Be Specific" and "Entertain the Idea" adopt the serene ambient register of recent Dalhous EP Visibility Is a Trap; while "Sensitised to This Area" goes about its business with an almost Balearic swagger. But light, too, can be oppressive: the sun that gives life can also burn, and bleach, and blind. And even amid the endorphin rush of the album's most ebullient passages, there is the sense of a greater melancholy, an intractable doubt, lurking beneath the surface. Dalhous' music is suitably paradoxical, managing to sound at once futuristic and folkloric, both technologically advanced and avowedly pastoral. The elegiac repetitions of "A Communion With These People" and the pagan drones of "Lovers of the Highlands" speak of Dall and his studio partner Alex Ander's deep connection to the rugged contours of their native Scottish landscape, while on "Four Daughters by Four Women" and "Thoughts Out of Season" convulsive post-rave rhythms are employed to evoke ancient natural cycles. Though Will to Be Well is a less obviously eerie album than its predecessor, Dalhous' nose for the uncanny remains. A defining album from a major young artist.
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CD
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BLACKEST 007CD
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Will to Be Well is the new studio album by Dalhous, their second for Blackest Ever Black. This double LP reflects writer-producer Marc Dall's continued interest in the life and arcana of R.D. Laing, but also alludes to more universal and enduring mysteries: the relationships between body and mind, illness and wellness, the physical and the metaphysical. The 15 tracks assembled here also showcase the maturation of a uniquely gifted and expressive composer: Dall's stirring, efflorescent melodies and stately harmonic architectures, with their grievously honed simplicity, are a delight: lucid, lyrical, immediate. For all the modernity of Dalhous' approach, the album recalls a bygone era in synthesized and sample-based music, a time when its practitioners were not just set-designers but storytellers, too. Will to Be Well arrives just one year on from the Edinburgh-based project's tenebrous debut, An Ambassador for Laing (BLACKEST 003CD/LP), which was released to widespread acclaim in Spring 2013: The Wire praised "a frequently beautiful music, whose often calm surface belies the powerful currents moving beneath it," while FACT called the LP a "wonderfully compelling head-scratcher... opaque, elusive ... and fascinating." Nonetheless, a notable shift in tone has occurred in the 14 months that have elapsed. If Ambassador was a tussle between darkness and light that ended in stalemate, with Will to Be Well it seems the light might just be winning. Pieces like "Transference" and "Her Mind Was a Blank" project a rapturous psychedelic intensity; "To Be Universal You Must Be Specific" and "Entertain the Idea" adopt the serene ambient register of recent Dalhous EP Visibility Is a Trap; while "Sensitised to This Area" goes about its business with an almost Balearic swagger. But light, too, can be oppressive: the sun that gives life can also burn, and bleach, and blind. And even amid the endorphin rush of the album's most ebullient passages, there is the sense of a greater melancholy, an intractable doubt, lurking beneath the surface. Dalhous' music is suitably paradoxical, managing to sound at once futuristic and folkloric, both technologically advanced and avowedly pastoral. The elegiac repetitions of "A Communion With These People" and the pagan drones of "Lovers of the Highlands" speak of Dall and his studio partner Alex Ander's deep connection to the rugged contours of their native Scottish landscape, while on "Four Daughters by Four Women" and "Thoughts Out of Season" convulsive post-rave rhythms are employed to evoke ancient natural cycles. Though Will to Be Well is a less obviously eerie album than its predecessor, Dalhous' nose for the uncanny remains. A defining album from a major young artist.
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12"
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BLACKEST 029EP
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Visibility Is a Trap is the new EP by Dalhous, comprised of four originals together with a masterfully understated Regis remix. Though recorded after Will to be Well, the tracks on Visibility Is a Trap at first appear to have more in common with the blue ethereal drift of Ambassador. While "Information Is Forever" and "A Change of Attitude" are firmly in the ambient mode, "Active Discovering" fizzes with arpeggiated energy and a battery of percussion disrupts the calm surface of "Sight of Hirta." Something is up. All is not as it seems.
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CD
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BLACKEST 003CD
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Debut album from the Edinburgh-based duo of Marc Dall and Alex Ander, who work with intricately-stacked percussion, dub-wise bass and a rich harmonic tapestry of processed voices, keys, harp, vibraphone, guitar, woodwind, strings and synthesizer -- every sound re-sampled to the nth degree then subjected to subtle automation and rigorously fine-tuned over a period of many months. From the mesmerizing, pastoral drift of "Anger Sees Red" and "Dwelling by the Meadow" to agitated arabesques like "The Physical Body" and the self-titled "Dalhous," the resulting pieces explore dream-like but treacherous terrain. Eleven questions in a world of blue.
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LP
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BLACKEST 003LP
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LP version. Debut album from the Edinburgh-based duo of Marc Dall and Alex Ander, who work with intricately-stacked percussion, dub-wise bass and a rich harmonic tapestry of processed voices, keys, harp, vibraphone, guitar, woodwind, strings and synthesizer -- every sound re-sampled to the nth degree then subjected to subtle automation and rigorously fine-tuned over a period of many months. From the mesmerizing, pastoral drift of "Anger Sees Red" and "Dwelling by the Meadow" to agitated arabesques like "The Physical Body" and the self-titled "Dalhous," the resulting pieces explore dream-like but treacherous terrain. Eleven questions in a world of blue.
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