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LP
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STSLJN 423LP
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Carmen Villain follows 2022's Only Love From Now On with this new full-length exploration of soporific, slow-moving ambience and disemboweled dub, a score she composed for a contemporary dance performance by acclaimed Choreographer Eszter Salamon. Simply put, it's one of the most captivating things we've heard this year; all luxurious texture-cycles in possession of a delirious, dreamlike quality that hits a rarified spot somewhere between Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Vol.II, classic Chain Reaction and Jim O'Rourke's meditative electronic recordings. Music from the Living Monument was written for choreographer Eszter Salamon's dance performance of the same name, a lavish and sculptural show for 14 performers dressed in ornamental fabrics (which you can see on the album art) while surrounded by slowly shifting environments. Carmen reflects the measured gestures of the dancers, ruminating on slowness and burying instrumentation in sensual abstraction. Edited down from almost three hours of music, the album opens with "Multicolor" and triggers the same sense of suspended animation you get from Selected Ambient Works Vol.II, its brooding mix of glacial gestures and fizzing pads suggestive of fuzzed, liminal states. From here it only gets deeper and more disorienting, peaking with the frankly majestic "Silver", deployed at a pace that makes Rhythm & Sound's beatless dub abstractions seem almost giddy by comparison. Villain locks us into infinitesimal movements with a slow, heartbeat-thud of a bass drum crumbling around choral pads that grow in intensity over its nine-minute duration. It's one of those pieces you could get lost in for hours, such is the power of its swirling, meditative vibrations. "Pink" ends the set by flexing more angular muscle, contorting what sounds like glassy clangs into electroacoustic pulses in a way that feels effortlessly engrossing, harmonizing with Jim O'Rourke's stunning Hands That Bind OST. Microtonality is an overused buzzword right now, but Carmen penetrates the essence of its magic, emphasizing sensuality and mysticism in a way that feels like someone whispering softly into your ear as you pass from the waking world into a deep, dreamless sleep.
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CD
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STS 238CD
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"Let's get this out of the way 1st -- Carmen Villain used to be a very successful model. Her face has appeared on the covers of Vogue & Nylon, & high profile cosmetic ad campaigns. It turns out Carmen Hillestad (Carmen Villain) has been a spy in the house of fashion. Behind the scenes, she was channeling her frustrations into a set of songs with a defiantly DIY underground free-rock sound. Now at last, she's stepping off the glossy page & emerging as a major new songwriting voice & multi-instrumentalist. Behind the angelic face lurks a villain. With acid in her airbrush, she reminds us of This Heat, Bikini Kill, Sonic Youth, and Royal Trux."
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LP
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STS 238LP
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LP version. "Let's get this out of the way 1st -- Carmen Villain used to be a very successful model. Her face has appeared on the covers of Vogue & Nylon, & high profile cosmetic ad campaigns. It turns out Carmen Hillestad (Carmen Villain) has been a spy in the house of fashion. Behind the scenes, she was channeling her frustrations into a set of songs with a defiantly DIY underground free-rock sound. Now at last, she's stepping off the glossy page & emerging as a major new songwriting voice & multi-instrumentalist. Behind the angelic face lurks a villain. With acid in her airbrush, she reminds us of This Heat, Bikini Kill, Sonic Youth, and Royal Trux."
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12"
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STS 22712EP
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"1st single from Carmen Villain's Sleeper (with remix by Prins Thomas on the flip). Villain draws on a lineage of sprawling, taboo-busting lo-fi rock: Sonic Youth, Royal Trux, Broadcast, Bikini Kill & The Stooges, while she equally admires the cut 'n' paste productions of J Dilla, Wu-Tang Clan & avant garde post-punkers This Heat."
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