Dissonant Plane

TONIGHT!!!
FREE IN STORE PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY, AUGUST 28, 2009
7:00 PM
MOOD ORGAN
COLIN ANDREW SHEFFIELD
from this week’s issue of The Stranger:The Score
Rejections and Emerald City Debacles
by Christopher Delaurenti
I still feel guilty for peering over his shoulder, but I had to look. Musicians usually launch their work into the world from onstage, yet here he was, doing one of the bravest things any artist can do: waiting in line at the post office to mail a stack of demo discs to various labels.
It’s an anonymous act that compels musicians to wonder at the fate of their work. Someone either says yes and agrees to champion the music, or the uncertain, uneasy void—few labels take the time or have the courtesy to send rejection letters anymore—continues and maybe grows.
Peering over Timm Mason’s shoulder, I espied his moniker, Mood Organ, affixed to packages bound for labels famous and unknown. Every artist gets rejected; by the time we find them, the ones we know and love have been ignored, rebuffed, and rejected countless times. Yet Mason seemed calm, as if mailing Christmas cards. The pensive, gloaming tones of the disc, Visiting a Burning Museum (Debacle), reflect this confidence. Mason inscribes his music with poetic details that reward headphone listening: lonesome guitar, rustles of wind, swelling tones, and keyboards that sound like they’re underwater, blurred by shivering eddies and ripples.
Mood Organ celebrates the release of the excellent Burning with an in-store show (Fri Aug 28, Dissonant Plane, 5459 Leary Ave NW, 784-5163, 7 pm, free). Previous performances have ranged from a set on solo electric bass to pieces for prepared piano and harmonium; expect an approach that explores a continuum from the visibly instrumental to abstract, unseen sound.
Another local sound artist, Colin Andrew Sheffield, shares the bill. Sheffield performs too infrequently; but when he does (full disclosure: I’ve only had three short conversations with him, but I opened for his duo performance with James Eck Rippie in 2007), he hews glacial, heaving drones from a turntable and an old-school sampler. Released earlier this year, Sheffield’s gorgeous Signatures (Invisible Birds) processes bird recordings, freezing skyward shrieks and swooping wings, into drones that refract hidden, shimmering harmonies.
Burning is another installment in “The Emerald City Debacle Vol. II,” an ongoing series by Debacle Records devoted to documenting local experimental music. From scabrous electronics such as on the eponymous Summon Thrull to charmingly perverted plunderphonics, most notably Fuck Rockin’ in American Airspace by the Broken Penis Orchestra, this series testifies to a gradual revival of the avant scene in Seattle. Be warned that Emerald City Debacle follows the current (and probably permanent) trend of avant CDs toward limited-run (usually 100 or less) discs that can get hard to find quickly. If you want it, get it. My list of discs I’ve missed gets frustratingly longer every week!
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/the-score/Content?oid=2120557

• Ash Castles on the Ghost Coast CD  (Fleece Records / Wholly Other)  USED  $8  - Heather Murray (ex-Charalambides) & Shawn McMillen
• Bishop, Richard  ”God Damn Religion”  DVD + CD  (Locust Music)  USED  $12  - CD & DVD set, no guitar here, just dark experimental
• Cage, John  ”Variations IV”  CD  (Legacy International)  USED  $6  - fantastic sound collages, reissue of 2 LPs from 1965
• Cluster  ”71″  CD  (Water)  USED  $9  - early dark & cosmic electronics from Germany
• Cluster  ”II”  CD  (Spalax)  USED  $9  - really good!  like good spacey TG, but years earlier
• Crass  ”Christ the Album”  2 x CD  (Crass Records)  USED  $9  - 1982 album of anarcho-peace punk
• Culver C90  ((oTo))  USED  $2  - droney noises, 1 side only, C90,  ltd 50
• Doc Wör Mirran  ”Power of Positive Obscurity, The”  C60  (Old Europa Cafe)  USED  $2  - spacey lo-fi creations from Germany on Italian label C60
• Faust with Conrad, Tony  ”Live:  London - Queen Elisabeth Hall - February 1995″  C60  (Klangbad)  USED  $2  - live concert recording released by the band, C60
• Fennesz  ”Fennesz Plays”  CD EP  (Moikai)  USED  $4  - instrumental electronic glitch covers of Stones, 7 mins
• German Oak CD  (Radioactive)  USED  $9  - obscure Krautrock instrumentals from 1972
• Godz  ”Contact High”  CD  (ESP Disc / XYZ Music)  USED  $9  - drop out folk weirdness from 1966
• Harvester  ”Hemat”  CD  USED  $9  - great trance psychedelic rock w/folk touches from 1969
• Jackie-O Motherfucker  ”Europe 2002″  2 x CD  (Cast Exotic Archives)  USED  $12  - out of sight collective weirdness
• Kawabata Makoto  ”You Are The Moonshine”  CD  (Mar/Ino / Elsie & Jack Recordings)  USED  $15  - beautiful ambient sounds, ltd 150, long out of print
• Knaack, Donald  ”Dance Music”  CD  (RRRecords)  $8  - contemplative & creative experimental
• Kubli, Thom  ”Mondok Spots”  CD  (BMB Lab)  USED  $7  - very beautiful subtle drones like Rafael Toral, ltd 300
• L’infonie  ”Volume 333″  2 x CD  (Mucho Gusto)  USED  $12  - bizarre jazz, rock, experimental, classical mixture
• Lacy, Steve  ”Saxophone Special +”  CD  (Emanem)  USED  $9  - very free playing with some of the greats of the day
• Limbus 4  ”Mandalas”  CD  (Spalax)  USED  $9  - one of the greats of early free music w/ acoustic instrs.
• Lost in Translation  ”Wednesday Tapes, The”  C90  (Black Velvet Fuckere Recordings)  USED  $2  - old school cosmic electronics, C90
• Malanga, Gerard  ”Up From The Archives”  CD  (Sub Rosa)  USED  $8  - from the archives of this Warhol collaborator
• McLean Mix, The  ”Golden Age of Electronic Music, The”  CD  (CRI)  USED  $10  - great early analog electronics, out of print
• Miller, Donald  ”A Little Treatise on Morals”  CD  (Audible Hiss)  USED  $8  - solo pieces from Borbetomagus guitarist from 1982
• MNortham  ”Breathing Towers”  CD EP  (Dorobo)  USED  $8  - ltd 400, OOP, 22 minutes, lovely drone
• Moondog and his Friends CD  (Moondog’s Corner)  USED  $8  - reissue of 1953 material using tape overdubbing
• Möslang, Norbert / Guhl, Andy  ”Deep Voices”  CD  (Urthona)  USED  $9  - 1978 FMP debut of the duo that became Voice Crack
• Musica Elettronica Viva  ”The Sound Pool”  CD  (Spalax)  USED  $9  - 1969 large ensemble free for all, originally LP on BYG
• Nath, Pandit Pran  ”Raga Cycle”  CD  (Sri Moonshine)  USED  $9  - contemplative Indian classical w/La Monte Young
• Of  ”Rocks Will Open”  CD  (Digitalis)  USED  $8  - delicate acoustic sounds, Thuja member, ltd 500
• Oliveros, Pauline  ”Primordial Lift”  CD  (Table of the Elements)  USED  $9  - with guests Tony Conrad and David Grubbs
• Romero, Damion  ”Feedback in a Lover’s Telegraph”  CD  (Harbinger Sound)  USED  $7  - gentle and warm self-sustaining feedback drone
• Screamin’ Mee-Mees & Hot Scott Fischer  ”You’re Now In Our World: Warp Sessions ‘72″  CDR  (Slippy Town)  USED  $6  - lo-fi primitive “Godz meets Amon Düül”, CDR, ltd 125
• Smegma  ”Ism”  CD  (Tim/Kerr Records)  USED  $10  - long out of print 1993 album by these Portland weirdos
• Speare, Jed  ”Sound Works 1982-1987″  2 x CD  (Family Vineyard)  USED  $12  - great unreleased musique concrete from the 1980’s
• Throbbing Gristle  ”Live Volume 1, 1976-1978″  CD  (Mute Records / The Grey Area)  USED  $12  - out of print, early murky Industrial sounds, vellum cover
• Ya Ho Wha 13  ”Penetration, An Aquarian Symphony”  CD  (Cold Sweat)  USED  $9  - reissue of 1974 LP, acid-mantra psychedelic death trip

FREE IN STORE PERFORMANCEFRIDAY, AUGUST 28, 2009

7:00 PM

MOOD ORGAN

COLIN ANDREW SHEFFIELD

Mood Organ is the solo project of Seattle-based musician Timm Mason. Timm is best known as the bass player for diverse acts including funk juggernaut Eldridge Gravy & the Court Supreme, psych-rock supergroup Midday Veil, and instrumental hip-hop cover band Hamburger Pimp. Mood Organ is a platform for exploring different modes of listening and intersections between musical (& non-musical) genres. Each Mood Organ performance is unique; recent performances have included a solo performance on electric bass, a duet between saxophone and amplified objects, and a solo composition for harmonium and prepared piano. The first full-length album “Visiting a Burning Museum” has just been released on Debacle Records. Begun over 9 years ago, it is a meditation on memory and abstraction. The album folds instrumental performances, treated field recordings, and evolving drones into a towering block of sound that evokes power and sadness all at once. for fans of Drone, Charlambides, Gregg Kowalsky, Greg Davis.

http://www.myspace.com/moodorgan

Colin Andrew Sheffield was born in El Paso in 1976 and lived in various cities in Texas prior to 2004, when he relocated to the Seattle area. He is a self-taught drummer, playing in various collaborative situations in his home state before eventually making a total transition to electronic music. After initially working with exclusively digital sources, in recent years, Sheffield has refined his approach and now focuses on the strict re-contextualization of other commercially available recordings. His aim is to distill the essential qualities of these works and to then utilize that essence for new recordings. Usually only very brief sections of the original works are selected. These raw components are then contracted, expanded, layered, and/or otherwise processed until something new is forged. The resultant music is an atmospheric soundscape, gradually shifting and unfolding, offering subtle nuance and quiet restraint. His recordings often seem to have much in common with ambient electronic music, though are equally akin to “plunderphonic” audio collage. In 1998 Sheffield founded the Elevator Bath Recording label which has continually issued experimental works from a variety of artists from the United States and abroad. Sheffield has released a number of solo recordings since 1998, including 2005’s ‘First Thus,’ his debut long-player. His collaboration with turntablist James Eck Rippie is ongoing. 2009 will saw the release of Sheffield’s sophomore full-length solo release, ‘Signatures,’ via the Invisible Birds label.

http://www.myspace.com/colinandrewsheffield

Hjarnidaudi’s “Pain:Noise:March” is some sick shit if you’re into lo-fi, dark, depressive Doom (with the occasional appearance of what seems to be a Kaoss Pad). This is a mixture of Industrial and Funeral at it’s finest. Made of ex Hildolf and Koldbrann member Vidar Ermesjø with a little Shining, it combines the crushing sound of old Swans or Skullflower, with the haunting weirdness of Leviathan/Lurker of Chalice, along with the friendly (and fiendy) fun loving lo-fi sound of my old Ov Salthl stuff. Which is really weird. I’m not one to toot my own horn but it’s really bizarre. I just think that the sound of the quality is similar to my old stuff. Although I always found that sound to be utter crap, this band (believe it of not) managed to make it work. Those Norwegians have a special way with that kind of stuff (i.e. MoHa!)…This is Tanith, signing out.

Dissonant Plane will be open late for the Ballard Art Walk on Saturday August 8th.  To celebrate, Sparkle Girl (Jim) will be making fun noises to mix with the sounds of the space.  Jim is moving away in less than two weeks, so this might be one of your last chances to catch him for a good while!