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LP
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FIELD 031LP
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Time bends for Imaginary Softwoods, the solo guise of producer, songwriter, and synthesist John Elliott. Though he's working on new recordings daily, Elliott's process for the construction of his albums moves at a much different interval, stretching out over months of considerate listening, revision, and waiting patiently for the right combinations and clashes of elemental forces to materialize on their own. The Notional Pastures of Imaginary Softwoods continues Elliott's practice of zeroing in on what he wants to say with an album over the course of countless sessions that span multiple years, this time paying even more attention to locating the emotional through-line that connects the various pieces. The eleven-piece album vibrates at a low, unbroken cycle through all of its articulations. The bubbling neon dots of "North of Roswell," double vision stumble of "Mr. Big Volume," underwater music box trickle of "Portable Void," and clear-headed Arctic daybreak drones of "Diagram of the Universe" are all linked by a gentle, fluid hum. The brief moments of anxiety and long stretches of calm both feedback into the same center of gravity, becoming conjoined reflections of one another as they cycle through. After bending to find this specific universal frequency, time evaporates altogether, and longer zones like the glimmering "Almond Branch" become indistinguishable from Elliott's signature miniatures, some of which stick around for less than a minute. The Notional Pastures of Imaginary Softwoods is a document of the universe as people comprehend it, designed to vanish as soon as it is felt.
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LP
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AS 026LP
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Green vinyl repress! "Time is absolute garbage . . . But here's the thing: given enough time, your friends are going to keep making records, you're going to keep listening to them, and if you're lucky, some of them are going to seep into the cracks of your day-to-day . . . Since its initial appearance as a private press double cassette in 2016, Annual Flowers in Color has been exactly this sort of talisman for me. More to the point, it's also the closest thing to a definitive statement in the twelve-year history of John Elliott's Imaginary Softwoods and a no-brainer on the thinking head's shortlist of Elliott's most essential releases, alongside Outer Space's Akashic Record (Events: 1986-1990) (SP 019LP, 2012), Emeralds' Solar Bridge (2008) and What Happened (EMEGO 109LP, 2010), Mist's House (SP 004CD/LP, 2011), Lilypad's Capacitor (2008), Colored Mushroom and the Medicine Rocks' self-titled LP (2010), and Quiet Light Water Gap's Live at the Delaware County VFW Hall (2010). While each of these projects draws from the same reservoir of glittering pinpoint riffcraft and homespun surrealism and each reflects in its own fashion the awareness that a certain undercurrent of lurid horror is essential to all authentically psychedelic music, Imaginary Softwoods has always been distinguished in its relationship to a particular decades-long chain of private press loner music, or chamber music for shut-ins. You wouldn't necessarily be wrong to call Annual Flowers in Color 'deeply personal,' but that almost misses the point . . . it's handmade, human-scale domestic ritual music the making of which is inseparable from the sense in which it's been 'lived in.' . . . Above all, Annual Flowers in Color is an absolutely gorgeous, perfectly weathered, subtly strange record. It's exactly the thing you're thinking of when you think 'I want to hear really killer polysynths and tape delay,' but it's also much more, glistening with distended reflections of Steve Roach and Stapleton, ringing with simultaneous sublimated echoes of the dorkiest and most expensive French mellotron prog and the most incandescent cheap heat from the $2 exotica bin, and dripping with the 'as above, so below' that characterizes synthesizer records at their best. It's both a welcoming point of entry for the uninitiated and a sticky, seductive cut deep enough to envelop any heads seeking a way station on the search for the apocryphal second volume of Cosmos Farm Sessions." --Chris Madak (Philadelphia, February 2020)
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CD
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AICD 003CD
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Archives Intérieures re-releases The Path of Spectrolite by John Elliott's Imaginary Softwoods project. The Path of Spectrolite is a gorgeous, light-emitting exploration into dazzling musical colors. Starting with the opener "Entrance Through Selenite Pillars," John Elliot takes the listener into a highly textural musical space. Synth melodies shift into drones, evoking shimmering rays of supernatural light. "Eye Color" opens the spectrum even more, allowing a glimpse into a musical universe where past psychedelic traditions team up with a contemporary approach to composition. John Elliott treats his sounds with the utmost care and dedication. He allows plenty of openings for the listener to join in and take the trip down the chosen path. Through their respective multi-colored lenses, "Rainbow Obsidian Key" and "Globe II" are compositions which succeed in existing perfectly in the present moment. In the second phase of the album we arrive at "Black Water and Ice," the first track which presents a vague hint of percussion. It slowly progresses into a lush, string-based texture. Finally, "Crystal Pond" leads us into the last part of the trip. Its swirling notes evoking a sense of elegant liberation, of final transcendence and arrival. Archives Intérieures decided to re-release The Path of Spectrolite because the label feels it is an absolutely essential album. As a work of art it is almost confrontational in its honesty. Elliott's approach to attain an absolutely clear and focused sense of natural beauty and spiritualism is breathtaking. As no other, he knows how music and sound connect us to a wider perspective. Therefore, Archives Intérieures feels it is essential to give this album another push after its initial vinyl release on Amethyst Sunset in 2011.
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LP
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AMETHYST 013LP
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Repressed. "The Path of Spectrolite is the latest full length recording from Imaginary Softwoods. Early comments have praised this album and state that while this recording retains some of the icy drone sound from some previous Softwoods releases, this is a great progression and a bit more active. An extremely beautiful album entirely of sounds created by synthesizer and voice, this is an essential piece of the Imaginary Softwoods discography that you are sure to love."
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2LP
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DIGI 060LP
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Warehouse find, last copies of this 2010 classic double-vinyl debut. In 2008, a triple cassette oddity appeared out of nowhere adorned in washed-out nature collages and zero information. Turns out that John Elliot of Emeralds was behind the madness, and after further dissection of the sounds enclosed, it all began to make sense. Those three tapes (one yellow, one blue, one red) were the first taste of something that felt like a lost private-press object from the early European electronic experimentations of the '60s and '70s. Each vignette is its own story, its own exploration. Synthesizers and other electronics are stripped to their bare bones, never drifting beyond a mere five minutes. It's the brevity that is the guiding hand, though. Every tone and every note is carefully considered and utilized as you're sucked into a world of washed-out colors and sullen landscapes. One thing that immediately stands out with these pieces is just how restrained Elliot is with them. It adds considerable tension, even if it's understated, giving the album a surprising amount of emotional depth. Each piece is its own miniature mountain, traversed and left behind all in a matter of minutes. As you interact with the subtlety changing harmonics and tonal shifts, you begin to float away into synthetic dreams. If all bedroom albums were this great, I'd never leave the house. A true gem. It doesn't get much better than this. Completely remastered for vinyl by James Plotkin and cut in Berlin by D+M. The deluxe vinyl edition is presented in full-color gatefold jackets with all new art from John Elliot in conjunction with the inimitable Witchbeam.
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