22 January 2008

Gown - For the Maples


Many thanks to the great Three Lobed Recordings for sending me a preview copy of Gown's latest grammaphone record, For The Maples . It's pretty impressive stuff, with Gown tag teaming up with the Sunburned Hand Of The Man girls and boys to create an album that lurches seamlessly (is that even possible? perhaps lurching negates seamlessness...) from almost pastoral guitar textures to roaring Raccoo-oo-oon rumbles. At times, this sounds like a better recorded early Sonic Youth but it's a little more far-reaching than this, makes more sense played straight through; letting the air fizz, letting the guitars breathe.

Worth checking out the rest of the Three Lobed Catalogue, I think; it seems like they have a real style and, well, ethic about them. This release comes in chunky vinyl with a glass mastered CD (okay, no idea what glass mastered might mean) and a silkscreened cover. I have a few of their releases, including the excellent l'un marquer contre la moissonneuse by wooden wand and the vanishing voice, which I think Kek gave me as well as my favourite Sunburned release The Mylar Tantrum. If you have any, give these people some money; these kind of labels ought to make you feel warm inside and, one day, your post-angular psycheDelia derbyguitar scrawl might find it's way to their door, begging for entry (and begging for etching)onto one of their slabs. Or else, if you're that way inclined, pretty much all these mostly limited releases are destined to shed tears on eBay a few years from now when people just like you suddently come into money and start scrabbling for a little piece of early 21st century history.

Here's a preview of For The Maples:

"Taylor's Jam"

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