L.M. Dupli-cation

A Hawk And A Hacksaw

Forest Bathing

L.M. Dupli-cation

Forest Bathing, or Shinrin-yoku, is a term that means “taking in the forest atmosphere.” It was developed in Japan during the 1980s and has become a cornerstone of preventive health care and healing in Japanese medicine. “Taking in the forest atmosphere” became the inspiration for A Hawk and A Hacksaw’s newest album. Their forest bath of choice is the Valle De Oro National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. This new album features ten original compositions by Heather Trost and Jeremy Barnes. The opening track “Alexandria” features Barnes on the Persian Santur, an ancient hammer struck dulcimer, and Trost’s string and woodwind melodies. The composition evokes the long trader’s route between what is now Bulgaria and the wealthy cities of Istanbul and Alexandria.  The band has always had a bird’s eye view of this part the world—looking for the connections between places and even eras: a belief in the power of music to reach across borders and unite. The band is based on the idea of collecting music and inspiration through travel. They are not of a place, but their music evokes places along a route. This is not urban music. It’s rural: songs of the woods and roads where there are no sidewalks or street lamps to light your way.  While the bulk of the music heard on this record is played by Barnes and Trost, they do have some incredible guest performances, namely the clarinet virtouso Cüneyt Sepetçi, from Istanbul, Hungarian cimbalom master Unger Balász, and closer...

Thor & Friends

The Subversive Nature Of Kindness

L.M. Dupli-cation

The Subversive Nature of Kindness is the sophomore effort from Thor & Friends, the avant-chamber ensemble formed by its namesake, polymath percussionist Thor Harris. The album was recorded in Albuquerque, New Mexico, produced by Jeremy Barnes from A Hawk & A Hacksaw and engineered by Barnes and Deerhoof’s John Dietrich. It is hoped that the melodic meditations offered up will ease some of the terror of living in these uncertain times. The three primary members of the band are Peggy Ghorbani on marimba, Sarah “Goat” Gautier on marimba, vibraphone, xylophone, organ, voice, mellotron and piano, and Harris on sundry percussion and wind instruments, including some of his own devising.  The band has toured extensively over the past year and have performed live with many guest musicians. All these players have influenced the way the group hears its music and this had a significant impact on this new album. On this recording voice plays a more prominent role with the core trio being joined by several guest singers who provide wordless vocals: Stine Janvin Motland, an opera singer from Oslo, Norway; Michael Gira from Swans; Enrique Soriah, a throat singer from Oregon. It features more fully developed string arrangements by Barnes and Heather Trost. There are also contributions from similarly adventurous musicians including Jhno Delicateer on Armenian Duduk, violin improvisationist Aisha Burn, and Adam Torres, who provides finger-picked guitar. The band draws on classic Minimalist composers including Terry Riley and Steve Reich, but also amalgamateS such diverse influences as Brian...

Sepetçi, Cüneyt

Bulgar Gaydasi

L.M. Dupli-cation

The second album by Istanbul’s clarinet virtuoso Cüneyt Sepetçi is an intense trip into modern Turkish wedding and party music. The foundations go deep into Turkey and the surrounding regions’ history, which each generation innovates and develops. These days, no wedding or circumcision party is complete without the sound of the micro-tonal keyboard. A new addition, these Turkish keyboardists can play between notes, and supply banging club rhythms in wide variety of time signatures.  Sepetçi uses the bedrock of Volkan Sever’s synth insanity as a jumping off point for some truly crazy solos. His fluttering sheets of notes tie knots around the pulsating, fried synthesizer. For this recording session, Sepetçi brought in two drummers, Fatih Özden (tapan) and Samet Sertol (darabouka), to play along with the Turkish drum machine. A dense nest of rhythmic complexity is the result. And to further connect to this music’s rich past, the ancient double reed zurna of Ahmet Özden and Yaşar Uçar’s European violin weave ancient melodies and incredible solos throughout. These musicians are some of the best in Istanbul, and all of these songs are first takes, recorded live with very little planning. Sepetçi essentially leads the band through these complex arrangements as they play them.  In Istanbul, one may see Sepetçi playing for change on Istiklal Caddesi, the famous Turkish walking street at the center of the city. Or one may see him on one of the TV stations, playing Anatolian songs in his inimitable style. He’s even begun touring...

Trost, Heather

Agistri

L.M. Dupli-cation

Heather Trost is best known for her work composing and performing as one half of A Hawk And A Hacksaw. She has also played with Neutral Milk Hotel, Beirut, Josephine Foster, and most recently Thor Harris of Swans. She has arranged and performed with the BBC Concert Orchestra, as well as conductor Andre De Ridder and his Stargaze Orchestra, and toured throughout the world. In 2014 she released her first solo project, a 7-inch on Ba Da Bing Records, followed in 2015 by Ourobouros, a limited edition cassette of expansive electronic ambient compositions influenced by Basil Kirchin, Terry Riley and Angelo Badalamenti on Cimiotti Recordings. These two projects propelled a full length album: named after a Greek Island, Agistri is a song cycle of freely formed pop songs touching upon soul, samba, and pop music of the ’60s and ’70s, with a subtle shade of psychedelia. Ambient and melancholic sounds interweave with hammond organs and ’70s Italian synthesizers, reflecting the desert landscapes of New Mexico, and the sparse shrubbery and turquoise water of the Aegean sea and its islands. Bolstered by contributions from Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeremy Barnes on drums and bass, Deerhoof’s John Dieterich on guitar, and Drake Hardin and Rosie Hutchinson of cult New Mexico band Mammal Eggs, Trost’s talents as a songwriter and arranger explode on this wonderful, often surreal album.

Lone Piñon

Días Felices

L.M. Dupli-cation

Lone Piñon is an acoustic trio from New Mexico whose music celebrates their region’s cultural roots. Using violin, accordion, guitar, guitarrón, upright bass and harmony vocals in Spanish, English, and Nahuatl, the group has revived and updated the Chicano string band style that once flourished in New Mexico, bringing a devoted and explosive musicianship to Northern New Mexican polkas and chotes, virtuosic Mexican huapango and son calentano, and classic borderlands conjunto. The musical landscape of New Mexico, like its culture, is beautiful and complicated. Lone Piñon is the first of their generation of musicians to embrace the full scope of that complexity. Onstage, they cluster around a single microphone and play with a fiery intensity, moving seamlessly through several dozen of the dance forms that resonate in their home state. The result is a new sound, rooted in a deep respect for the past and undeniably alive. “Lone Piñon is easily the best band in New Mexico right now. They have tapped into an almost forgotten vein of rich Chicano folk music, learning from some of the great elders of the tradition like Antonia Apodaca and revitalizing the Southwestern string trio with a wonderful virtuosity.” —Jeremy Barnes (A Hawk And A Hacksaw, Neutral Milk Hotel, New Mexico native)

Amor, Naïm & John Convertino

The Western Suite And Siesta Songs

L.M. Dupli-cation

The Western Suite and Siesta Songs, the first release by newly formed duo Naïm Amor & John Convertino, is the perfect soundtrack to a drive through the desert Southwest. The thin, straight line of the road, unending to the horizon; dark, distant rainclouds hovering far ahead and above; the feel of the heat on the asphalt; and most of all the space... Space and time have come together here to create an environment unequaled elsewhere in elegance and beauty. This duo have created a classic record matching those desert roads and views of Arizona, New Mexico and West Texas. John Convertino recorded the initial tracks in a big room, alone, direct to four track, managing with very simple equipment to capture piano, accordion, and incredible analog drum sounds Those master cassette tapes were mailed to Amor, who added arrangements and his signature guitar style. Each musician needed each other to finish these works—Amor’s brittle electric guitar stabs, lyrical acoustic guitar playing, and cirrus cloud lap steel combine with the hovering space echoes and rattlesnake hiss / thunderous boom of Convertino’s drums to create an epic sequence of themes and variations. These compositions conjure up not only vivid scenes and vistas, but also characters, and moments in lives. The Western Suite And Siesta Songs is a masterpiece of Southwestern music, an album that could be the soundtrack to the best Western film since Once Upon a Time in the West.

Thor & Friends

S/t

L.M. Dupli-cation

Thor & Friends is the eponymous full length debut from the avant-chamber ensemble formed by polymath percussionist Thor Harris. It was recorded in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and produced by Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost from A Hawk & A Hacksaw and Deerhoof’s John Dieterich. The three core members of the band are Peggy Ghorbani on marimba, Sarah “Goat” Gautier on marimba, vibraphone, xylophone, organ, voice, mellotron and piano, and Harris on sundry percussion and wind instruments including some of his own devising. They are joined Jeremy Barnes on accordion, drum, and mellotron; Heather Trost on violin, voice & marimba; John Dieterich on guitar, bass, castanets and special effects; and Raven on bone flute, and electronic sounds. The band was inaugurated after Harris toured for five years as the percussionist of iconic avant-rock ensemble Swans. As a vehicle for experimentation with American Minimalism with a rotating cast of Austin-based musicians, Harris draws on composers including Terry Riley and Steve Reich, but also such diverse influences as Brian Eno, Aphex Twin, Moondog and The Necks; the album centers around a polyrhythmic core of mallet-struck instruments—primarily marimba, xylophone and vibraphone. Circling these core motifs are shifting streams of everything from processed pedal steel and analog synthesizer to violin, viola, stand-up bass, clarinet, duduk and oboe. By rooting their art in both improvisation and the involvement of neighbors and friends in their process, Thor & Friends embody utopian optimism, making use of what and whom is around at any given moment to make music...

Dieterich & Barnes

The Coral Casino

L.M. Dupli-cation

John Dieterich and Jeremy Barnes began The Coral Casino as an attempt to understand one another. They met one day and the next they were in a blank room with unfamiliar instruments in their hands and zero expectations, each agreeing to do his utmost to ignore the other—to improvise in a rhythmic manner while not listening to what the other was doing. This idiosyncratic process proved to be the unlikely genesis of songs like “Special Questions,” “Sandwild” and “The Frost Pocket.” Their shared love of melody and pop provided the anchor for wild performances and deep, rich textures, laying the groundwork for many more moods: the euphoric “Out and About,” the stirring tribute to the satellite Philae (“Philae Lands on Comet 67p_Churyumov-Gerasimenko”), the first satellite to land on a comet, and so on.Expansive, unafraid of complexity yet wide-eyed with elation, their sound embodies risk that genuinely rewards. While flirtations with danger and darkness occasionally appear, in the end everything becomes a laughing pile on the floor. An optimistic homage to a possible future, The Coral Casino is both childish and sophisticated, seemingly tossed off yet at the same time exhibiting a depth that reveals itself on each subsequent listen; an exploration of friendship and the pure joy of ecstatic communication.Take a trip to The Coral Casino: the perfect destination, where everything is topsy-turvy, no one is in control and yet all are mysteriously spirited to their beds before dawn.

Bahto Delo Delo

Tagoi

L.M. Dupli-cation

Marin “Tagoi” Sandu, bandleader of Bahto Delo Delo, is a Romani virtuoso accordion player and singer of the traditional lautari style in Romania. With guidance from his late father, Nicolae Neacsu, who was one of the founders of Taraf De Haidouks and a very respected violinist of his time, Tagoi started learning music from the age of eight. At 64, he plays and sings a large repertoire of Romani and lautari tunes. Tagoi still lives in the legendary village of Clejani in southern Romania with his wife. While he has dedicated his entire life to music, he has never toured outside of Europe or released an album.  His band Bahto Delo Delo consists of upright bass, violin and cimbalom, a stringed instrument struck with sticks. “Bahto Delo Delo” means “may God give you luck” in the Roma language. The songs often look back to the golden era of Romanian music—when Bucharest radio stations tuned into the sounds of Aurel and Victor Gore, Romica Puceanu, and Toni Iordache—and are performed in a virtousic style that has all but been lost.

V/a

Mountains Of Tongues: Musical Dialects of The Caucasus

L.M. Dupli-cation

Because of its unique geography—situated at the borders of Europe and Asia, between the Caspian and Black seas—the Caucasus has been at the crossroads of multiple empires as well as home to an exceptionally diverse population, resulting in a rich mosaic of history, culture, religion and language. Early Arab travelers referred to the region as the “Mountains of Tongues,” a term that reflected both the geographic and linguistic variety. An incredible number of languages and traditions still exist, but many have yet to be thoroughly documented and are close to disappearing completely.  Since the fall of the Soviet Union the majority of attention the Caucasus has received from the outside world has been as a result of wars in Chechnya, Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The countries of this region have also struggled to forge national identities, a process that has often resulted in the exclusion of smaller folk cultures (ethnic Azeris from Georgia, Kurds from Tbilisi, Avars and Lezgis from Azerbaijan, or Molokans in the South Caucasus, all groups that don’t fit the category of “national” folk music).  Mountains of Tongues: Musical Dialects from the Caucasus includes recordings of songs in languages that have rarely been caught on tape (Lezgi and Batsbi), instruments that only exist in extremely small numbers (the Tushetian chianuri, of which there are only two, and the agach komuz from the remote territory of Dagestan) and performances from a variety of underrepresented ethnic minority communities. These musicians, whether they recognize it or not, are guardians...

Sepetci, Cuneyt & Orchestra Dolapdere

Bahriye Ciftetellisi

L.M. Dupli-cation

In Istanbul, close to the city center, lies a district not often visited by tourists. It’s called Dolapdere, and it is populated by the Roma of the city, many of whom are originally from Thrace. They supply the music for the city’s weddings, circumcisions, parades and parties. Dolapdere is the home of clarinet virtuoso Cüneyt Sepetçi and the Orchestra Dolapdere—some of the greatest musicians of Istanbul. They specialize in a modern take on classic Turkish Roma (gypsy) music, as well as folk songs from Albania, Macedonia, Spain and elsewhere that they have adapted to their own inimitable style. On days when Sepetçi is not working, one can find him in the café, drinking chai and waiting for the highest bidder to hire him for the night’s concert. In the summer of 2012, he met American musicians A Hawk and A Hacksaw, who agreed to get the under-recorded master into a studio and release his first album. Sepetçi has chosen all the tracks; many are hits from the Turkish Roma repertoire, but many have not been heard in the West.

A Hawk And A Hacksaw

You Have Already Gone To The Other World

L.M. Dupli-cation

A Hawk and A Hacksaw, the duo of Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost, known for performing traditional and original music steeped in Eastern European folk traditions, present their sixth album You Have Already Gone to the Other World: Music Inspired by Paradjanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. The sixteen tracks feature seven originals along with nine Ukrainian, Hungarian and Romanian traditional songs re-imagined and arranged with inspiration taken from the legendary 1964 film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Russian filmmaker Sergey Paradjanov.  Taking their cues from the surreal folk magic of Forgotten Ancestors, Barnes (of Neutral Milk Hotel) and Trost (who lends vocals and violin on Josephine Foster’s latest album) began composing new music to perform along with the film and, in 2012, took the project on tour, accompanying the movie live in cinemas and theaters internationally. The new album is the product of those tours and the evolution of the music into something that can stand on its own. Produced by John Dieterich of Deerhoof, this is the first A Hawk and A Hacksaw album for some time to feature only its two primary members (with the exception of two tracks where Dietrich lends guitar) but the instrumentation is not minimal. Dieterich’s sense of musical experimentation has driven the group into new territories of folk psychedelia that explodes with rich ornamentation. It’s also the band’s most dynamic album since they began their Eastern European adventure, with the thundering percussion and dramatic arcs of violin on the title track counterpointed by majestic solo pieces for Persian Santur, and...

Niles, John Jacob

Boone-Tolliver Recordings

L.M. Dupli-cation

“Niles was otherworldly and his voice raged with strange incantations.” —Bob Dylan In the 1950s, while audio recording was still an astronomically expensive art, limited to the laboratory-like environment of the professional studio, a few forward-thinking artists began to experiment with the idea of home recording. Sun Ra in Chicago and Les Paul in New York made history away from the studios. And deep in Appalachia, folk singer John Jacob Niles recorded a series of EPs in the place where he was most comfortable singing—his living room. Niles’s decision may have seemed strange to people around him; he was internationally known, had released music on RCA Victor, played Carnegie Hall, toured extensively in the US and been to England. But to Niles, it must have been a natural choice, as his life was a direct product of the things he made—he built his own dulcimers, farmed his land, carved the big doors at his Boot Hill farm. Niles then went one step further, and started his own label, Boone-Tolliver, literally a mom-and-pop affair (his wife Rena was in charge of mail order). The label released two EPs: John Jacob Niles: American Folk Love Songs and Ballads by Niles, before larger folk labels, like Tradition, came calling. While an independent, artist-owned label in the 1950s proved too difficult for Niles to run, by shying away from the studio and surrounding himself by family and friends, he succeeded in producing some of the best recordings of his career. Until now, these recordings...

A Hawk And A Hacksaw

Cervantine

L.M. Dupli-cation

Following a series of albums exploring Eastern European folk music influence that have thrilled indie and world audiences alike, Albuquerque, New Mexico's A Hawk and A Hacksaw present Cervantine, their first release on their own new label, LM Dupli-cation, a record that gloriously connects their deep fascination with the folk and gypsy groups of former Yugoslavia, Greece and Romania with their actual home in the desert plains of the American Southwest. The group's natural blend of diverse global musical styles with their indie rock background lends them the kind of cross-audience appeal enjoyed by bands including Fools Gold, Beirut and Calexico, while their strong sense of musicality and cultural context draws more left-field listeners to them as well.  Recorded live at their studio in Albuquerque between two US tours, Cervantine is the vibrant sound of an American band whose geographical and cultural travels bear on their already distinctive music. The 20th century brought the influence of Spanish and Mexican music to Eastern European gypsy folk, and Cervantine celebrates the reflected resonance of this influence in modern-day New Mexico. Alongside the core duo of Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost, the album features key contributions from the immensely talented Hladowski siblings--Stephanie (vocals) and her brother Chris (bouzouki)--from Bradford, England, via Poland, who can be heard on album standouts "Mana Thelo Enan Andra," "Cervantine" and the Turkish classic "Uskudar." The original composition "Espanola Kolo" probably best represents the Spanish / Mexican impression on Serbian brass music that A Hawk and A Hacksaw have embraced--an...

A Hawk And A Hacksaw

S/t

L.M. Dupli-cation

A Hawk And A Hacksaw was conceived and performed by genre-defying one-man orchestra Jeremy Barnes of Bablicon and Neutral Milk Hotel. The album features intricate piano-based compositions layered with accordion, percussion, horns, bells, a chicken, geese, gongs, cats, a duck, spoons, and pieces of tin. It was recorded over the course of 15 months in the Loire Valley (Saumur, France) with a variety of guest performers. Recalling Kurt Weill’s orchestrations, Carl Stalling’s visionary cartoon soundtracks and Tom Waits’s more whimsical works, Barnes creates a playfully gothic atmosphere with his multi-layered, frantic compositions. Mixing field recordings with accordion, piano and bursts of drunken choruses, he generates a singular and unnerving orchestral whole. A song’s direction can hinge on a dog’s bark or a phone ringing, while cacophony and sweet, hymn-like harmonies cohabit in entertainingly unexpected passages. Influenced by everything from Eastern European folk music to Pierre Schaeffer to Spike Jones & His City Slickers, there’s a healthy disregard for boundaries at play. A Hawk And A Hacksaw is a soundtrack for PT Barnum deceits and backwoods carnivals, top hats and curly moustaches, but maybe gone a little more screwy. What’s more, everything is live-to-tape.