Mix #101. A special number and a special collection of songs. One of the strongest selections I have done so far. I Love every single one of these songs to death.

About ‘The Sea is Never Full’

The origin of this collaboration began two months prior to the Fukushima disaster in Japan. Dakota Suite had been touring Japan with their friends from the Japanese band called Vampillia and had been in several coastal locations in Wakayama as well as places near to Fukushima. The tsunami was very upsetting for Chris Hooson and David Buxton from Dakota Suite who then set about making music to reflect this overwhelming sadness and loss for Japan.

They approached Vampillia to work on these somber reflective songs for the sea. Vampillia is next-alternative music from Osaka. Guitar, Noise guitar, Bass, Piano, Classical Strings, Velladon on Opera, Mongoloid on the dark metal vocals alongside twin drummers Talow the Tornado (Nice View, Turtle Island) and Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins).

From this lineup of 10 (sometimes more) comes experimental and beautiful dark music. Besides the new work with Dakota Suite, they have previously collaborated with acts such as µ-Ziq, Merzbow, Nadja and Lustmord. Their intense experimental style is the perfect fusion with the Dakota Suite aesthetic.

The songs came from a desire to reflect the phases of the disaster, the rising violent seas, the destructive power and loss preceding sorrow at the devastation which followed. Chris Hooson was haunted by images of floating pieces of wood which had once been someone’s ancient dwelling. The music Dakota Suite & Vampillia have recorded on ‘The Sea is Never Full’ seeks to provide a mechanism to deal with this pain cathartically.

Various short pieces were passed between Dakota Suite and Vampillia, who added strings and the distinctive throat singing of ‘mongoloid’ from Vampillia. Japanese throat singing speaks to an ancient method, called ‘rekukkara’. It is tonal rather than melodic. As Hooson says “It seemed an appropriate way to convey the sadness we felt at the horror of Fukushima, which knows no words to express it accurately.”

After basic recording had been completed, David Buxton, in an act of pure genius, took apart every note of the music and created a two-part suite. It is hard to convey the seismic shift in this project after David presented this music in the form that it now stands. Hooson on his Dakota Suite band colleague Buxton “It has been the highlight of my recording career so far and David would not like the attention I give him, but I believe that this work in particular deserves to be heard as it is a work of beautiful and tragic choreography, it is a tribute to his mastery of music.”

This type of art cannot be written or envisaged, it can only be received and interpreted. Listening to this project continues to engender enormous sorrow in the listener, but the true beauty of such art is that it can take this sorrow as a cathartic force to help one manage these feelings. ‘The Sea Is Never Full’ marks another momentous release for Karaoke Kalk. Together with Vampillia they have sculpted a truly epic record spanning musical styles from ambient and experimental to post-rock and neo-classical. Suffice to say, the result has nothing short if a breathtaking emotional impact.

About ‘Yanqui U.X.O.’

U.X.O. is unexploded ordnance is landmines is cluster bombs. Yanqui is post-colonial imperialism is international police state is multinational corporate oligarchy. Godspeed You! Black Emperor is complicit is guilty is resisting. The new album is just raw, angry, dissonant, epic instrumental rock. Recorded by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio in Chicago and mixed by Howard Bilerman and Godspeed You! Black Emperor at the original Hotel2Tango in Montreal.

Stubborn tiny lights vs. clustering darkness forever ok?

About ‘Horses In The Sky’

“We recorded some of it next to a campfire by the river, and the sleepy birds even chirped a little there beneath the moonlit trees; “yes we are oh yes we are thee silver mt. zion memorial orchestra and tra-la-la band”… troubled fingers strive to knit upward ladders, joyously; THESE SONGS ARE STICKY, WORRIED KNOTS – everyone sang and handclapped too – (we learned to play these songs on the road mostly …)

“THIS IS OUR TORCHED ESTATES” = 6 busted “waltzes” for world wars 4 thru 6, or the sound of our nervous unit collapsing across sing-song eruptions of anxious light and clumsy heat, “mystery and wonder, messy hearts made of thunder,” tape recorded at thee mighty hotel2tango for all the GENTLE dreamers to cradle or discard… the politics of it is just love thy neighbour mostly, or heartbroken temper tantrums for grumpy refusers, or saucy anthems for all the stubborn dumbass resistance cadres maybe … (first song’s about war and drug addiction, fourth song’s about Kanada, and the rest of it is all love songs truly truly truly …) the indignant critics amongst us should note that as usual there’s more questions than answers here, more complaints than solutions, and at times the group singing is a little out of tune; the name of the record is “Horses in the Sky”, and we thank you all for still listening”.

About ‘Hymn To The Immortal Wind’

Just in time for their 10-year anniversary, MONO return with their fifth studio album, the absolutely massive ‘Hymn To The Immortal Wind’. The music is naturally majestic, with MONO’s trademark wall of noise crashing beautifully against the largest chamber orchestra the band has ever enlisted. The instrumentation is vast, incorporating strings, flutes, organ, piano, glockenspiel and tympani into their standard face-melting set-up. While Hymn continues to mine the cinematic drama inherent in all of MONO’s music, the dynamic shifts now come more from dark-to-light instead of quiet-to-loud. The maturity to balance these elements so masterfully has become MONO’s strongest virtue – save for perhaps their uncanny ability to sound every bit like a plane crashing into a Beethoven concert.

About ‘Do Make Say Think’

Do Make Say Think self-released this debut album in Toronto in 1997, and we heard it the following spring. The band’s infectious spacerock-cum-swing approach to sweeping instrumentals, and their brilliant realisation of the potentials of 8-track recording, hooked us instantly. Rhythm syncopation, reverb-soaked guitar, the occasional horn, and some of the finest saturated synth tones we’ve ever heard – this record conjures up rainy streets and wet cigarettes with the best of them. A classic modern lounge album that also shreds, with widescreen breakbeat blissouts driven by punk-rock guitars. An exuberant debut, containing all the building blocks DMST has been transforming into sublime music architectures ever since.