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viewing 1 To 7 of 7 items
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LP
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HTRA 045LP
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Toronto-based musician and producer David Psutka aka ACT! presents his latest project Face to Face, Day by Day for his own Halocline Trance imprint. This is Psutka's third album proper as ACT! following the release of the "sonic mixtape" Universalist in 2018 and the augmented reality soundtrack Grey Matter AR Snapchat Compositions in 2021 (HTRA 015LP). "Everything on Face to Face, Day by Day began as an improvisation," Psutka says. "Openness to accidents and the emotional complexity that comes from centering them in composition has become important to my work, and helps the music go beyond the possibility of what is playable, imaginable. I also wanted to channel adventurous solo pop records of the 1970s and '80s, like Yasuaki Shimizu, Jon + Vangelis, and Stevie Wonder. These came from an interesting era in commercial music as studio production techniques became increasingly formalized as compositional devices, like AMS RMX16 percussion sounds and early digital stereo effects." In addition to ACT!, Psutka has released music with numerous projects including Anamai, Egyptrixx, and Ceramic TL, and he has collaborated widely with artists such as Junior Boys, Ipek Gorgun, and Kuedo, as well as Jessy Lanza (2016) and an official remix for Massive Attack's Hymn of the Big Wheel (2012). The contributions on this album, from Robin Dann and Ben Gunning, reflect the deeply collaborative nature of the Halocline Trance label and the Toronto creative scene more broadly. In 2015, Psutka launched Halocline Trance as a home for his various sound projects, events and collaborations. Now a creative collective and label, it has grown to include a diverse array of artists including Casey MQ, Xuan Ye, Myst Milano, Colin Fisher, and others. The label is described as "genre-agnostic" and conceptually open, supporting work across a wide spectrum of creative fields including soundtrack recording, AR design and traditional artist albums. Their impeccable roster also includes, theorist/improviser Eldritch Priest, and AR/VR artist Karen Vanderborght.
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2LP
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HTRA 026LP
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It might seem tongue-in-cheek on the surface, but the fact that the title of Eldritch Priest's sprawling debut vinyl release, Omphaloskepsis, is the Greek translation for "navel-gazing" unlocks something essential to the Vancouver-based composer and writer's singular outlook. Perhaps even more telling is the title of Priest's 2013 book Boring Formless Nonsense: Experimental Music and the Aesthetics of Failure (Bloomsbury), whose 300-odd pages read as though you've been dosed with potent hallucinogens. Throughout the text Priest addresses -- celebrates, even -- the titular elements via various musical examples, including that of his peers. The restless stasis of Omphaloskepsis could be regarded as an extension of this book's wayward spirit. Things unfold fairly slowly and consistently but it'd be a stretch to describe it as properly contemplative. Like attempting to meditate with a high fever, any sense of tranquility is constantly derailed as one succumbs to queasy agitation. The piece's foundation is a seemingly endless guitar melody; an organic meander that neither seems to repeat or offer any concessions to narrative directionality. Priest unfurls this rambling cantus firmus in a rich, clean, jazz-like tone, but as it's played, it's repeatedly tangled with snarls of dense digital processing and shadowed by stumbling virtual "band." These strident interjections blatantly contrast with the guitar, yet they aren't so violent as to offer more than a faint itch of distraction. As such, the distinctive amorphousness that this piece asks us to inhabit for its 54-minute duration leaves a strong impression, but also feels utterly intangible. In addition to his recorded forays, Priest's disorienting music has also been performed by top-tier interpreters such as the Arditti Quartet, Quatuor Bozzini, Philip Thomas, Anton Lukoszevieze, and Continuum. While living in Toronto he co-founded the collective neither/nor with John Mark Sherlock, which featured a cross section of musician-composers playing each other's work including Eric Chenaux, Doug Tielli, Eric KM Clark, Heather Roche, and Rob Clutton. In 2021, when Eric Chenaux and Martin Arnold relaunched their neither/nor-adjacent Rat-drifting imprint, an album by Priest, Many Traceries, was among the first to be released. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Priest was a student at the University of Victoria, a school that's come to be known for fostering such staunch individualists as Arnold, Linda Catlin Smith, Allison Cameron, and Anna Höstman. As a scholar, Priest writes from a pataphysical perspective and deals with topics such as sonic culture, experimental aesthetics and the philosophy of experience. In addition to Omphaloskepsis, his new book, Earworm and Event: Music, Daydreams and Other Imaginary Refrains, was recently published by Duke University Press.
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LP
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HTRA 017LP
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Even if you're well-acquainted with composer and multi-instrumentalist Colin Fisher's richly varied output, his gentle fifth solo album, Reflections of the Invisible World may come as a surprise. Psychedelic lyricism has always been a fundamental aspect of his sonic signature, but his second collaboration with producer Jeremy Greenspan (Junior Boys, Jessy Lanza, Morgan Geist) finds the Toronto native luxuriating in expansive atmospherics for its full duration. That's not to downplay the eclecticism he finds within this ethereal landscape. Each track tills its own discrete sonic acreage, and while everyone emanates from a clear focal point, the spontaneous impulse that drives Fisher's more audibly improvisational music always remains close at hand. Some pieces unfold rippling aquatic vistas or delight in prismatic guitar arpeggiation, elsewhere his plaintive, blues-infected tenor saxophone wafts like some strange jazz apparition, or becomes a chorus of cosmic murmurs. The presence of electronics is undeniable, but equally irrefutable is the organic instrumental sources of these disparate hues. In fact, he's discovered a rare balance: no matter how effects-saturated, every gesture on the record feels palpably sculpted by Fisher's hands and breath. As such, Reflections of the Invisible World carries a sense of intimacy at the heart of its diffuse, dream-like sonics. Fisher has a been a major presence in Canada's music community for more than twenty years -- particularly in more experimental and improvisational circles. Nothing short of a guitar virtuoso, he also wields saxophone, drums, and various other instruments with similarly refined musicality, vivid textural imagination, and sometimes feral abandon. He joined a partnership with Nick Millevoi's trio Many Arms on Suspended Defnition (Tzadik) and later engaged the band's bassist, Johnny DeBlase, to team up with him and Kid Millions (Oneida, Man Forever) as Monas. As an ongoing collaborator to introspective dance music auteur Caribou, Fisher first appeared in offshoot project Caribou Vibration Ensemble, and subsequently on acclaimed albums Swim and Suddenly. He's also made two duo albums with celebrated Nova Scotian jaw harp innovator chik white.
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LP
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HTRA 015LP
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Grey Matter is a series of Snapchat filters created by artist Karen Vanderborght that explores the poetic and existential potential of AR (Augmented Reality) and social media -- suggesting selfies as self-reflective mirrors informed by the wisdom of our elders. These filters, soundtracked by ACT!, were released exclusively to Snapchat in 2019 and are here now on vinyl. Beginning in 2018 -- Karen filmed and interviewed ten seniors who brought diverse and universal wisdom to some of life's biggest questions. Andrew; an Ojibwe leader who lived through the residential school program, Alf; a church organist who publicly came out as gay at 80, Anne; the first black Senator in Canada -- all the seniors provide unique and profound perspectives on life and aging. See their words, thoughts, and appearances transpose and intersect with your selfie in an edifying engagement on themes of age, memory, time, regret, and resilience.
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LP
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HTRA 013LP
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babycasey is the debut album from composer, producer, artist Casey MQ. Across 13 songs, the record is an examination of identity formation through the prism of pop. Punctuated by original songs Casey recorded as a child, the album examines pop archetypes while reveling in the pure catharsis of the medium. babycasey is a radiant, deft statement from a crucial new talent -- a gorgeous reckoning, and an honest reconciliation of ambition, queerness, and artistry.
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LP
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HTRA 008LP
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Universalist is the first album by ACT! Baroque, kaleidoscope electronics; material sound for a disembodied world. The energy is optimistic and positive -- even naive -- a statement of unity in the age of psychic dislocation. Ten tracks of phosphorus MIDI and brittle digital textures feel indebted in spirit to the masters of psychic jazz as much as the physical euphoria of the club. Above all, this album belongs to the catalog of Halocline Trance, yet subtle references connect it to a larger lineage of free sound. The empty, divine heaviness of songs like "Ecstatica / On Patrol" invokes Yusef Lateef's Little Symphony (1987), while the computerized spontaneity of "Lava Valley" feels somehow connected to Yasuaki Shimizu's Music For Commercials (1987). Non-musical sounds and evocative melodies sit side-by-side -- new psychedelia for love and life in the digital jet stream. ACT! is a project from Toronto-based musician David Psutka. Building on a diverse body of releases as Egyptrixx, Ceramic TL, Anamai, and various other collaborations, ACT! denotes a new chapter of creative output from Psutka and the Halocline Trance label. Universalist follows a prolific string of releases in 2017 with Anamai's What Mountain; Ceramic TL + Ipek Gorgun's Perfect Lung; and Egyptrixx's Pure, Beyond Reproach, and synthesizes recurring themes of materiality and the unifying potential of sound.
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LP
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HTRA 007LP
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The third and final release from Halocline Trance for 2017 is Perfect Lung, a collaborative album from Istanbul-based composer Ipek Gorgun and Ceramic TL, aka David Psutka (Egyptrixx, ANAMAI, LIMIT). A decadent yet durable offering of material sound, recorded remotely during 2016 and 2017 in Toronto, Ankara, and Istanbul. Seven songs of original, accidental music that span color and feeling; the petroleum psychedelia of Ceramic TL framed by Gorgun's precise and emotional landscapes. Inhaling/exhaling full-register slabs hint at the multi-dimensionality of optimism and voicelessness... multiple things in multiple ways. Chill melodies plod then dissolve entirely like a casual toil. Whatever you like. All creative output is eco-political in nature but this record avoids directive and cliché. Moments of clarity glint through piles of junk; total quantity mimics eruptions of precious material -- an unrealistic examination of the concept of material value as defined by its relative scarcity... this album is a lot. A fixation with excess contrasts the corporeal impermanence of humans with the material half-life of their consumer existence. Our legacy is trash -- stray objects inside the perfect lung. Features original artwork by Marlen Keller; Design by Olenka Szymonski. Mastered by James Plotkin at Plotkinworks.
Ceramic TL is a project of material sound and concrete emotion -- tranquil, concussive electronics from Toronto-based musician David Psutka (Egyptrixx, ANAMAI, LIMIT). Ipek Gorgun is an electronic music composer currently enrolled in the doctoral program of Sonic Arts at Istanbul Technical University's Center for Advanced Studies in Music. Her debut album Aphelion was released in 2016 and subsequently reissued by Touch. Enthusiastic critical praise for the album's textural landscapes and exquisite sound design followed; The Quietus compared Gorgun's solo works to "choreographed chemical reactions on a macro scale."
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