Aethenor

Aethenor

Hazel

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Hazel is the fifth record from Æthenor, the group of eclectic travelers that includes Stephen O’Malley (SunnO))), KTL), Daniel O’Sullivan (Ulver, This is Not This Heat, Grumbling Fur, etc), Kristoffer Rygg (Ulver), and Steve Noble (Brötzmann Trio, N.E.W.). Together they bring their considerable pedigrees into play with unexpected and original results. Contradicting expectations of a massive blow-out of sound, everyone plays with remarkable, effective restraint. Atmospheric and layered, this latest release features bits and pieces of identifiable rock-moves peeking out from under a thick blanket of hard-to-identify drift.Based on live recordings made on a lengthy tour of Italy in 2010, Hazel has been extensively edited and supplemented, but without losing the elemental sound of a group playing live together. Though there’s plenty of weird ambient sound to be heard, this isn’t a soundeffects / “pedalboard” record. Like the previous En Form for Bla, Noble’s drums anchor the music with spare and considered playing, sometimes lashing out with abstract punctuation, and other times laying out a Can-like groove. O’Malley’s guitar is also restrained, providing a bed for O’Sullivan’s constantly morphing Rhodes, synths and electronic effects. Kristoffer Rygg contributes a rousing vocal incantation to “Ermanna” and peppers the mix with ghostly modular details. Æthenor’s catalog continues to be not like anything else out there right now. Sleeve designed by Stephen O’Malley.

Aethenor

En Form For Bla

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Aethenor is comprised of Stephen O'Malley (Sunn0))), KTL), Daniel O'Sullivan (Ulver, Mothlite, Guapo), Kristoffer Rygg (Ulver) and Steve Noble (N.E.W., Company, etc.). En Form For Bla documents the continued evolution of this unlikely collective, a collision of players from various avant, improv, metal, and "other" threads who together make a unique and arresting sound. Documenting three gigs in Oslo recorded in 2010, the album is deep and weird, with liquid sounds juddering around the occasionally identifiable percussion or Rhodes motif. In the evolution from a side project / studio group to a frequently working live act, Aethenor kept their sound intact, taking the musique-concrete-style transitions and "what's that sound" ethos of their three previous efforts directly to the stage. Noble, having spent a couple of decades playing drums with Derek Bailey and other well-known UK improvisers, moves the music along subtly, keeping much of the focus on the burbling sound mass. O'Malley's guitar, an instrument of extreme viscera in Sunn0))), is used with restraint, providing occasional low menace but mostly mixing it up with O'Sullivan's thematic lines and Rygg's sound treatments. The overall effect is atmospheric rather than sedate--something like a modern, small group version of Miles Davis' classic "He Loved Him Madly" or Nurse with Wound's Spiral Insana. Other than perhaps Supersilent, no one else is working this sonic vocabulary today. Designed by O'Malley, the deluxe double-LP version is pressed on white vinyl and packaged with printed inner sleeves; the CD is in a card folio. Aethenor will continue to tour...

Aethenor

Faking Gold And Murder

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Faking Gold and Murder is the third Earth-shattering full-length by Vincent De Roguin (Shora), Stephen O'Malley (Sunn0))), KTL) and Daniel O'Sullivan (Guapo). This time, the core trio is joined by percussionists Nicolas Field and Alex Babel, as well as renowned guitarist Alexander Tucker and the inimitable David Tibet.   AEthenor's heaviest outing yes is driven by a weighty low-end and the full fury of Babel and Field's free-wheeling drums. The band's electronics, guitar, Rhodes, and organ ride waves of sound in a tightly-controlled blare, leaving plenty of space for Tibet's declarations of the mystical and supernatural. Tibet is in top form, rising out of the tempest at just the right moment, almost plain-spoken in places--grounding the squall at times, voicing the apocalypse at others.  Faking Gold and Murder features another elegant cover by Vincent de Rougin and Nicola Todeschini, letterpressed by Stumptown Printers.  "Brooding, primeval, dark, alchemical epics are full of a ferocious intensity, sounding more like a starlit night being ripped open by lightning than a musical group. Intelligent and primal, like a daemonic workshop, battering up Pandemoniums and dreaming of gold and murder, AEthenor are spectacular." --David Tibet

Aethenor

Betimes Black Cloudmasses

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Betimes Black Cloudmasses is the highly-anticipated second album from Vincent De Roguin (Shora), Stephen O'Malley (SUNN0))), KTL), and Daniel O'Sullivan (Guapo). Like their genre- and audience-confounding debut Deep In Ocean Sunk the Lamp of Light, Betimes is an atmospheric, constantly changing piece that encompasses a mind-boggling array of different performance and processing techniques. The deeply psychedelic and moving results present a soundstage that is continually evolving, with new elements entering and leaving the fray every couple of seconds.   Betimes includes significant contributions from free percussionists Nicolas Field and Alex Babel, who sprinkle the sound field with an almost FMP-style rush of splattering drum sound, raising the intensity of the music (without resorting to bashing). The album also features a brief but affecting vocal from Ulver mastermind Kristoffer Rygg, who will make his first live appearance in over a decade when Aethenor plays the Roadburn Festival in April 2008. Aethenor's third LP, featuring vocals and lyrics by David Tibet, will be released in Autumn 2008.  "Musically, Aethenor summon the most somnolent examples of Bernard Parmegiani, Organum, Nurse with Wound, Klaus Schulze, Igor Wakhevitch, Coil, Iancu Dumitrescu, and Charlemagne Palestine. Acousmatic drones ebb and flow into crackling and bubbling sonic clusters. Lulling piano motifs and lamenting chants shimmer into distant lunar horizons while oscillators spin and drove serenely into unchartered audial regions. Sometimes as calm as a silvery sea, so that every gentle cat's-paw and lapping wave is deafening. Sometimes as tempestuous as a fuming lava beach, spitting and popping at the surface." --Daniel...

Aethenor

Deep In Ocean Sunk The Lamp Of Light

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Deep In Ocean Sunk The Lamp Of Light is the debut release from the trio of Stephen O'Malley (Sunn0))))), Daniel O'Sullivan (Guapo), and Vincent de Roguin (Shora). Taking its title from The Iliad, the music is deep, cosmic, and equally epic, completely unlike anything you'd expect from three such heavyweights. More in the tradition of Nurse With Wound's Spiral Insana or Klaus Schulze's Cyborg than any contemporary trend, the tracks float along in a masterful collage of activity, where careful scene changes highlight O'Sullivan's classic but artfully placed Rhodes bombs, de Roguin's organ, and O'Malley's guitar. Extraordinary effort has gone into editing, mastering, and shaping these pieces--they are not tossed off improvisations or "side-project" orphans. The group recently completed a small European tour with Jackie-O-Motherfucker's Alexander Tucker, playing dates with with Ulan Bator, The No Neck Blues Band and Netwerk. Both CD and LP editions are housed in beautiful, custom jackets hand-printed by Alan Sherry of SIWA.