Loscil

Loscil

Clara

Kranky

The latest collection by Cascadian resident loscil aka Scott Morgan is a stunning meditation on light, shade, and decay, sourced from a single three-minute composition performed by a 22-piece string orchestra in Budapest. The subsequent recording was lathe-cut on to a 7-inch, then “scratched and abused to add texture and color,” from which the entirety of Clara was sampled, shape-shifted, and sculpted. Despite their limited palette, the compositions summon a sense of the infinite, swelling and swimming through luminous depths. Certain tracks percolate over narcoleptic metronomes while others slowdive in shimmering shadowplay, sounding at times like some noir music of the spheres. Although Morgan’s compositional premise for Clara was quite defined, the resultant work is wonderfully opaque and spatial, equal parts lush and lurking, traced in fine-grained gradients and radiant silences. The album’s title comes from the Latin for ‘bright’: a fitting muse for this masterpiece of celestial electric currents and interstitial ether, where “shadows are amplified and bright spots dimmed.”

Loscil

Coast/ Range/ Arc//

Kranky

Named after the geographic formations of the seismically volatile Cascadian coastal mountains, loscil’s coast/range/arc// reissue features new artwork and an additional track. Remastered by James Plotkin and available on vinyl for the first time. “coast/range/arc// represents a solid and compelling expansion of loscil’s sound.” —Dusted  “Vancouver-based sound sculptor Scott Morgan doesn’t make bad albums.” —Exclaim!  “This is ambient music in the classic sense.” — Boomkat  “It’s not hard to hear a parallel between the slow-motion developments within Morgan’s pieces and the shifts that occur imperceptibly in natural phenomena.” —Texture

Loscil

Equivalents

Kranky

CHECK STOCK!!!  Received a 7.0 rating from Pitchfork.  Canadian composer Scott Morgan’s 12th long-player as loscil takes its title from an influential series of early 20th century photographs by Alfred Stieglitz, abstracting clouds into miasmic, painterly canvases of smoke and shadowplay. It’s a deeply fitting analog for Morgan’s own musical process across the past two decades, fraying forms and tones into widescreen mirages of opaque texture and negative space. The name Equivalents referred to Stieglitz’s notion of the photographs as being equivalent to his “philosophical or emotional states of mind;” the same could be said of these eight weighty, shivering chiaroscuros of sound. Each piece unfolds and evolves enigmatically, adrift in low oxygen atmospheres, shifting dramatically from pockets of density to dissipated streaks of moonlit vapor. The entirety of the record was created specifically for the album with the exception of “Equivalent 7,” which began as a dance score for frequent collaborator Vanessa Goodman. The album version of this track was reworked with Vancouver musician Amir Abbey aka Secret Pyramid. Cloud photographs taken by Scott Morgan at various locations throughout Cascadia in 2018.

Loscil

Monument Builders

Kranky

***NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! Recieved a 7.4 rating from Pitchfork. Monument Builders is the new album from loscil, the ambient/electronic project of prolific composer Scott Morgan. It was primarily created on sample-based instruments in Morgan’s century old Vancouver home. Like that aged space, this music is also rough-hewn, with rickety samples of boiling kettles and resonant moving air. Recordings from a vintage micro-cassette recorder contribute distortion, rattles and textures that serve as both percussion and abstract aural color. According to Morgan, the genesis for the album may have begun as he viewed an old VHS copy of the American experimental film Koyaanisqatsi. “Something about the time-tarnished visuals and the pitch warble on Philip Glass’s epic score added a new layer of intrigue for me,” says Morgan. “Glass has always been an influence but lo-fi Glass felt like a minor revelation, as if the decay was actually enhancing the impact of the film’s message.” The investigations on Monument Builders also took inspiration from the anti-humanist writings of influential philosopher John Gray, as well as photographer Edward Burtynsky’s iconic aerial photographs of pollution and environmental destruction. “Gray’s writing, particularly his book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals, reinforced a bleak notion I had that we humans don’t have much say in how it all turns out,” says Morgan. “With Burtynsky, I was struck by the fact that something so strikingly beautiful could be the result of large-scale waste and exploitation.” Monument Builders was composed during a period in which the...

Loscil

Sea Island

Kranky

BACK IN STOCK!!***Sea Island is a collection of new material composed and recorded over the past two years. While many of these compositions were performed live extensively prior to recording, others were constructed in the studio and are being heard for the first time here. Musically, the album represents a range of compositional approaches. Murky, densely textured depths of sound are explored with subtle pulses and pings woven within, contrasted with composed or improvised moments of acoustic instrumentation making a move into the foreground. Certain tracks on Sea Island such as album opener “Ahul”l make rhythm their focus by exploring subtle polyrhythms and investigating colliding moments of repetition and variation. Though staunchly electronic at its core, instruments such as vibraphone and piano make appearances, and layers of live musicality, improvisation and detail appear in the looped and layered beds of manipulated sound recordings. A varied cast of players appear in the loscil “ensemble”, some familiar collaborators from the past such as JASON ZUMPANO on Rhodes and JOSH LINDSTROM on vibraphone, and others new to the mix such as FILEDHEAD’s ELAINE REYNOLDS, who provides layered violin on “Catalina 1943,” and ASHLEY PITRE contributing vocals on “Bleeding Ink.” Seattle pianist KELLY WYSE, who collaborated with LOSCIL on his 2013 edition of piano-centric reworks Intervalo, performs on the tracks “Sea Island Murders” and “En Masse.” (STREET DATE - 11/18/2014)

Loscil

Sketches From New Brighton

Kranky

***BACK IN STOCK!!! From SCOTT MORGAN: “This album gets its name from an odd little ocean side park that borders industry and the Vancouver port authority and lays claim to being the birthplace of the city. In a way, Sketches from New Brighton it is a continuation of a dialogue with my environment that started with First Narrows (kranky 2004) and continued with the Strathcona Variations EP (Ghostly International 2009). It is not a rigorous ‘study’ per se, but more a series of sketches, loose interpretations of the spaces I inhabit as well as an acknowledgement of their influence on my practice. These are my impressions, a kind of sketch of New Brighton and the surrounding area in an abstract form.” This sixth full length album from kranky mainstay Scott Morgan sees his pulsing compositions gently unfolding in the understated fashion that has become his trademark. He designs a sonic architecture, slowly constructing, making subtle additions and subtractions, until an almost tactile virtual space is formed. Inside these spaces an aural feng shui is achieved, where less is more, where every element is in its place, and where maximum harmony is attained through the masterly placement of sound.

Loscil

Endless Falls

Kranky

***CHECK STOCK!!! The fifth full-length release by SCOTT MORGAN under the LOSCIL moniker. The album begins and ends with the sound of rain recorded by Scott in his back yard, precipitation being a constant presence in his home city of Vancouver. Many of the other sounds on the album are derived from these same recordings, processed and combined with other harmonic sounds to create the textures and drones. Something completely new to this release would be vocals, of a sort, a first for any loscil composition, contributed by DANIEL BEJAR on the final track. JASON ZUMPANO is the only returning performer from past collaborations, he is responsible for the piano parts. KIM KOCH and ROBERT SPARKS make appearances on violin and bass recorder. The cover photos for the album were taken from the backseat of the family car by Scott's newest collaborator, his 4 year old daughter SADIE. Received a 7.5 rating from Pitchfork.

Loscil

Plume

Kranky

***NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL FOR THE FIRST TIME!!! The fourth full-length album from Vancouver-based sound artist SCOTT MORGAN under his LOSCIL banner. Eight tracks that continue to refine his atmospheric soundscapes with new experimentation and less editing than before.

Loscil

First Narrows

Kranky

***The third album from Vancouver-based sound composer and sampler, synth, effects, and computer maestro SCOTT MORGAN, and his first to feature real instruments and input from other musicians. Using sound sources that range from sampled instruments to miscellaneous lo-fi mini-cassette recordings, Morgan generates music on computer by custom programming, sequencing and processing designed so no two performances of the patches would be exactly the same. JASON ZUMPANO (Fender Rhodes piano), TIM LOEWEN (guitar), and NYLA RANY (cello) improvised over the electronic sequences, which Morgan then edited and mixed.

Loscil

Submers

Kranky

Scott Morgan’s second Loscil full-length, Submers, took inspiration from salvaged Time Life classical music albums and “the indelible mystery of submarines and the deep sea.” Composed using a custom-built Max / MSP sequencer—with no external samplers, synthesizers, or acoustic instruments involved—the limitations of the process shaped these masterful, minimal compositions. Each piece was produced as a live mix, direct to disk, with no separated tracks. Originally issued in November of 2002 on compact disc, Kranky is now making these timeless recordings available on vinyl for the first time. All of these tracks are named after submarines, the final cut being a requiem for the crew of the ill fated Russian nuclear vessel Kursk. Recorded at home using only samples as sound sources, the album is rife with sourceless echoes, steely surfaces and ominous melodic and rhythmic undertows. The sifted melodies are layered over muffled, clicking and pulsing rhythm tracks with an appropriately aquatic feel to the tracks.  “This is seriously gorgeous stuff that just happens to be the right sort of thing for drifting into another consciousness. A tuned-out heaven perfect for dreaming.” —Pitchfork