Tag: Swordfish Blog

Swordfish Review of Inside The Kingdom Of Splendor And Madness

Posted by JUSTIN VELLUCCI on 

The cello weeps and sows and soars, and so it goes with Randall Holt and his Inside The Kingdom of Splendor and Madness, which gets the CD/cassette re-release treatment April 20 from Self Sabotage Records.

Holt, an accomplished cellist, traffics in the kind of moody, cinematic, classical soundscapes that oft define Godspeed You! Black Emperor, which is appropriate, given the fact that the Austin-ian has collaborated with the Montreal-based collective. But while GY!BE’s song-suites also depend on Efrim Menuck’s saw-buzzing guitars or epic, throttling crescendos, Holt’s compositions on Kingdom are trembling, naked things – cello snapshots where even the percussion, if it could be called that, is provided by strings.

Holt is no experimentalist, however, in the vein of Alder & Ash, whose addictive, pedal looped strings belie angst and penitence. Holt is mournful, somber, to a T – ethereal, funereal. His compositions would do justice to a black-and-white film exploring the underbelly of the open road, or an abandoned mill, or a scorched forest. His work is melancholy and steeped in a longing kind of nostalgia, with the occasional Romanticism giving way to the nuanced post-classical flourishes explored by the likes of the violist Christian Frederickson, whose work fits alongside this well.

The songs themselves show a great range of narratives, even if their palate is drawn from similar shapes and colors. “What Hope We Have, What Hope We Haven’t” is slow, meditative and struck with dread, and all-too-perfectly titled. “Labyrinths (and other writings),” on the other hand, has moments that are mathier, more Calculus-minded. Think the b/Bridges of High Plains and you’ll see what I mean.

The real gem on the nine-track disc, though, is most definitely its opener, the gray “I felt safe again and was at home,” which, in addition to swelling tides of timed, moaning cello, has a leading “solo” and harmonic language that are simply devastating. Like Schnittke’s string quartets, it speaks to the heart as much as the head, but, when it speaks to the heart, it simply destroys it. An excellent point of entry for an inviting journey, one I hope we travel together again. – Justin Vellucci, Popdose, April 11, 2018

Swordfish Blog Review of Debut Little Mazarn Album

Review: Little Mazarn – S/T

Posted by JUSTINVELLUCCI on 

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Little Mazarn Album Cover

I’ve always considered Curtis Eller to be the prototypical underground banjo player. He crafts song-stories about history (or more appropriately, history through a warped contemporary lens) with an Americana flare and P.J. Barnum hucksterism; his banjo, as vibrant as a ringing electric guitar, drives the compositions front and center. Little Mazarn, whose self-titled outing will be released next week via Self-Sabotage Records, plants itself firmly on the other side of the spectrum, making filmy ballads that place spare, reverb-drenched banjo measures alongside Lindsey Verrill’s tender, longing voice. In other words: this is slowcore, even dreadcore, folk that sounds, at times, like it was recorded at a slower speed than you’re used to hearing a banjo.

Verrill, for sure, does some amazing things on the too-short debut. The opening “In Dreams,” where Verrill’s ghostly banjo measures are accented by what sounds like a musical saw, echoes Black Heart Procession but is somehow more resolute, less dirge-ish, more adept at creating drama without the drama.

The murder ballad “Rain and Snow” is haunted, ephemeral .“White Fang” is devastatingly fragile to a fault. Even when Verrill tips her hat at lusher moments – the reach-for-the-clouds voices on “Love Is All Around You” are carefully multi-tracked during the chorus – the landscape still is pretty barren. (I mean that lovingly.) This is the music Sam Beam or Damien Jurado make when they’re sad-drunk and alone.

What you think of Little Mazarn will depend, largely, on how you view loneliness. From the banjo echoing, a bell unanswered, to the plaintive singing or the spare accompaniment here and there, the record is assuredly a solitary affair. Instead of referencing Eller, consider fellow antique-gardist Robin Aigner at her most melancholy: strip her bare, remove a layer of skin so every emotion seeps more quickly into your system, and you’ll get an idea of Verrill’s M.O.

All in all, a fine outing.