The Process Records

By: Jordannah Elizabeth

The Prelude:

If there was ever one musician I would envy in the entire span of my career it would be Amazing Electronic Talking Cave.  I think I am probably the only reviewer to hear Felix Bondarev’s full length album before it is to be released on September 5, 2011, and I have to say it is one of the most important records of our shoegaze cult generation.

But this is not why I envy him.  I envy him because his mixes are so impressive, so clean that it leaves me wanting to hear the world the way he does.  His production ability was the first thing I noticed about his music many moons before Radio Psylence hit my inbox.  It is the one true thing that really sets him apart from, if not above many of us Lofi experimental musicians.

RADIO PSYLENCE:

The first track On Speed is a truly transcendental track that reminisces on the mood of Spiritualized’s “Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space”.  Frankly, you’ll want to reject it as an opening track because of its length (6 minutes and 31 seconds), and it’s also an instrumental. But once you move through the entire album, it makes perfect sense.  If you’re patient, and get to the next track “Tri Goda”, you are rewarded with sexy bassy pop anthem for the first few seconds of the song, and then eaten alive with Bondarev’s driving vocals that are similar to a dictator‘s political speech.  You feel like he’s forcing you into something, but if you don’t know Russian, you’re not sure what’s he’s on about.  Then the album moves onto Serdce, which is understandably the album’s most recognized single.  Listening to this track seems to give you a realistic feel for Bondarev as an artist and as a person.  As one of the shorter tracks on the record, Serdce is fairly moving and sympathetic which really doesn’t prepare you for my favorite song on the album, Kingisepp.  Hailing as Amazing Electronic Talking Cave’s hometown (Kingisepp, RU), the song is truly inspiring.  I am personally partial to African inspired drum beats and forward moving musical tones, and Kingisepp is everything you could possibly dream of when it comes to tribal inspired indie rock.  It’s a wonderfully creative and imaginative song.  There no vocals, but Bondarev’s superior musical instincts help you understand there’s not always a need for a voice.  The track just makes you move.

We Fucked Your Statutes is a strange piece that is well placed after percussion driven Kingisepp.  It’s a Middle Eastern inspired sound that really requires you to have a previous knowledge Bondarev’s art in order to sympathize with the work.  It’s a good song, but it is the odd ball of the album.  You wonder what AETC was listening to or thinking about when he threw this track in. Nonetheless, it does flow with the overall tone of the album.

The second half of Radio Psylence is kicked off by Uznat which really incorporates sounds from some of the heavier Brian Jonestown Massacre tracks like “One”, “Feel It , and “Bruttermainia”.  Uznat moves the album into a heavier Eastern European aesthetic for a moment, and then pushes you straight into Permanent Black Marker, which has a similar tone, but is softened, smoothed out, and touched with those short moments of sensitivity that Bondarev can sneak in and surprise you with. Black Permanent Marker makes you remember that AETC has the capacity to love and to recognize the beauty of existence. The next track Allisoneisll, seems to be inspired by Jon Saemundur’s Dead art and sound installations.  After Black Permanent Marker, Allisoneisall picks up the pace slightly, but not so much that you don’t lose the feel of the entire album.  And finally Not Your Name, kisses you on the forehead and says goodbye.  It’s a great final track that ties together this smooth, thought out, and well organized album. 

Radio Psylence impressed me.  I love AETC’s work, but I’ll have to admit that I was not expecting such a mature, professional, and tasteful record.  Felix Bondarev deserves a lot more respect than he gets…musically.

At 21 years old Amazing Electronic Talking Cave is already matching, and at times outshining his predecessors.  What our favorite psyche/shoegaze artists achieved at 30 years old, he’s already out produced them by a couple of miles.  This doesn’t mean he’s at a peak, but he’s definitely on the right track to become one of the most important producers in psyche rock.  This album is not just good, it’s really well done. Bondarev’s talent is on a level that should be recognized and respected.

http://www.amazingelectronictalkingcave.com/

Help AETC release Radio Psylence by donating what you can!

http://rockethub.com/projects/2626-get-radio-psylence-by-aetc-published-on-cd

By: Jordannah Elizabeth               

               I’ve been working in the rock and roll scene since I was 17 years old.  I remember walking around my small college campus in Southern Colorado and looking up, only to see three handsome long haired white boys approaching me.  They looked lost, they looked like they were searching for something, and I was searching to talk to them, so once I got close enough to ask them if I could help them with something, I did.  They told me they were looking for a young man by the name of Traemon McCabe because they wanted to audition him to play bass for their new band, Dugan Hos. He was a mutual friend of my boyfriend’s at the time and so I walked them through the campus to help them search for him.  We didn’t find Trae that day, but when they did he became a perfect fit for them and within months I was managing their band.  That was the first of many bands I’ve inadvertently had a hand in creating, managing, and almost disbanding.

                As I approach my 8^th year in the music scene in February 2012, I find myself to be tired daunted and completely annoyed with the very people who have made me who I am: 20 something male, white rock and roll musicians.  I’ve lived this co-dependent lifestyle with them where I end up giving these boys their first shows, putting out their records, giving them money for food and drugs, and having them utterly drain the hell out of my spirit and resources because…well, I let them.  It’s not their fault and it’s not mine.  I’m an A&R and a music manager, I’m made to put up with their shit and they are born to give the world shit.  But now that I’m at the ripe old age of 25, I can look back and express what I have learned.

                Hello, my name is Jordannah, I just broke up with yet another beautiful broken boy who’s music is brilliant, and his mind and soul are  fleeting and incomplete.  The sick thing about loving him is that I would have married him simply to get his music to the people.  When I meet these young men, and they come with a song, asking for bread it is hard for me to say no.  I mean, career wise it would be unwise to do so, but in life I feel a responsibility, a maternal instinct to hold them and make their dreams come true because it’s always clear that they are orphaned, heartbroken, and hungry.  Nonetheless, they have a gift that is so proper and pure that it makes me ill sometimes.  I get this illness in my gut and it makes me remember living on the streets with a dream and this little brilliant record I’d recorded in my pocket and how I survived that phase in my life.  And I dream of their success for them.  So, I tell them that I love them too. I mean it.  I just mean it on levels they don’t understand yet.  This was my third engagement.  He doesn’t know that.  No one does.  One of the men I’d agreed to marry died on September 9, 2009 of liver cancer. He wouldn’t stop drinking and I’d have to drag him out of restaurants because he would get shitfaced and would make a fool out of himself.  I met him at the end of his life.  I didn’t know how sick he was until later, but I thought, I’d spend time with him and love him until the end.  He was discovered by a member of KISS on the 70’s, toured with Joe Perry’s band in the 80’s and sold millions of records.  I wasn’t there when he died.  We lost touch.  He was moving to a hospice and I was 21 and trying to find myself.  But I think about him often.

I’ve seen a lot of them come and I’ve seen a lot of them go.  I guess when I see these young men who are 20 while I mourn over my lovers who were 60, I know how the story ends…and I just want to keep the inevitable from happening.  Young men don’t understand.  They think I’m just some girl.  I’m cute, I’ve got a lot of connections and I talk real wise, but they don’t understand that I’ve been to the mountain,  I’ve been to the end.  I’ve sat and read the Psalms to my lovers while they lay dying, next to a night table filled with their old album covers and CDs.  I’ve seen old men turn to God while young men turn to the studio. 

How do I explain to a young man that the drugs and the sex will only shorten their lives? They could end up dying alone and having no one.  Sure, I’m sure Steven Tyler was at my old lover’s funeral and everyone marched in and said their last words, but he was alone.  I know because for months, I was there alone with him, 21 years old and dying in a different way.  The only thing I had was time, and my boys, my lost boys, they still have time. 

The one thing I have learned from young musicians is that their hope and their egos carry them to great heights; great artistic heights that extend beyond space and time.  They fly away in their hearts and minds.  They have to search, they have to run, they have to get lost because if they don’t they’ll never find a way to the truth of rock and roll.  And the truth is, they’re going to die for it. I know I’m going to die for it.  They have just not accepted the fact that they’ll probably die young. 

I understand that there’s a great chance I won’t live past 45.  Maybe I’ll make it to 60.  I have dreams of having children and great grandchildren.  I dream of living until I’m 80 years old, tatted up and grumpy, smoking weed and yelling at my grandkids running around in my yard.  But I understand that may not happen.  I love that the lost boys of rock and roll have the passion to fight the inevitable.  They have the balls to fight my guidance and love.  I look for that.  I look for that strength and blindness because it allows me to ignore the death, the drugs, the molestation, lies, and manipulation I’ve experienced.  Maybe they’ll be ok.  Maybe they won’t have to go through the things I’ve seen time and time again.  I can dream their dreams and remember what it was like to be right.  Because now I know that I don’t know anything accept that there’s always going to be a young man who’s going to come to me with hopes.  They’re going to fall in love with me and ask me for money and a way to get into this club and that one.  I do not abuse my gifts and connections because I know I have the keys to a life of heartache and an eventual demise.  So, I love them as hard as I can before they leave and call me some tyrant because I did not give them the world.  I hold back because I know what’s best, and they just want to be seen and heard.  It is understandable.  But I’ve seen the beginning and the end of these young men a hundred times.  I’ve buried boys 22 and 23 years old time and time again.  It never gets easier.  In fact, it gets harder every time I lose another one.  I think maybe if I’d said something, or if I’d even noticed they were junkies instead of just thinking they were drunk or stoned.

My lost boys.  They will grow to be junkie men.  They’ll marry young blond girls who will abuse them and suck cock in bathrooms while they wait at the bar.  They’ll have children with a colored lover and hide them with alimony, psychologically abusing the mom’s so badly that they move to a different coast or country so that their secret will be safe.  I’ve seen the mountains and the valleys. 

And I just want to save them.  I want to marry them so I can be there to kill the demons that have plagued them from birth.  But I know I cannot do these things.  And I know they will leave me.  And it’s ok. It is life.  It is rock and roll life.  So, I wish them good luck, and I keep my door cracked open in case they need a place to hide.  I write these articles in case they feel lonely and need someone to understand and validate their pain.  It is all I can do… because being a woman who loves these men will only lead me to a life of loneliness.  I hope I’ll find one who will stick around.  But it is not likely so I bare the suffering of solitude.  I have sex once every two to three months.  I eat and smoke just to keep going without taking the time to consider nutrition, because my door is always open, so I can’t be off somewhere cooking a vegan four course meal when there are lost boys out there.  This is the rock and roll life.  Enter at your own risk, and if you do, make sure you enjoy every note you ever hear and love everyone man and woman who creates them with fervor and respect, even If they spit in your face.  Because this is life as you’ll know it.

And if there is hope, I’ll keep it in my mind and spirit.  But baby, I’d like to see a happy ending for me if not anyone else.  My true hope is that we gain awareness.  Maybe art cannot survive without suffering, or maybe we just have to change the way we think.

*I know my age and the time frame don’t seem to add up.  I met my fiance in Dec 2008, so I was 2 months into being 22…and I don’t officially turn 25 until October. 

By: Jordannah Elizabeth

Reykjavik, Iceland seems to have been experiencing an influx of attention from the International music scene since 2007.  Bands like Singapore Sling and the Dead Skeletons have been enjoying a bit of critical acclaim from all corners of the world; especially Europe and the United States.  The front runner and innovator of the Iceland’s psychedelic movement has been recording and touring for 10 years, while maintaining a sense of humility as the Iceland scene enjoys large numbers of fans on the internet and credible attention from the press.

Henrik Björnsson is one of the main a contributors behind Iceland’s most prominent bands like Singapore Sling, Go Go Darkness, and the Dead Skeletons. He has quietly yet feverishly been creating an impressively extensive catalog of music since 1996, when he began recording music on his a four track recorder.  It was also in 1996 when he started The Bang Gang with his friend, Barði Jóhannsson.  They released a two track surf rock record called “Listen Baby” on 7 inch vinyl.  In 2000, Henrik released a CD of the songs he’d been composing on his four track recorder. By 2001 he and another friend, Þorgeir Guðmundsson formed the band Hank and Tank. During that time, Henrik also wrote and recorded several songs that would end up becoming early tracks for Singapore Sling, his most critically acclaimed band.

Henrik has explained that he started Singapore Sling because he felt that there was need for rock and roll in Iceland.  As a result of that need he approached Einar Kristjánsson to start the band.  (Einer is the only other original band member in Singapore Sling).  They started by forging together a 6 piece band to play live shows. By 2002 (recording with a different band line up), The Curse of Singapore Sling was released in Iceland and in the United States the following year.  Singapore Sling also began to tour the States in ’03 with some success.  The band’s second album, Life is Killing My Rock and Roll was later released, and soon after the album was out, three of the members of Singapore Sling left the band.  By the third album, Taste the Blood of Singapore Sling, the members were replaced with the current band line-up: Ester Bíbí Ásgeirsdóttir on bass, Björn Viktorsson on drums, and Einar Kristjánsson, Hákon Aðalsteinsson and Hallberg Hallbergsson on guitar.

Between 2007 and 2010, Henrik Björnsson went on to form different musical projects, like Goddamn Skunks, Go Go Darkness, and The Dead Skeletons with visual artist and entrepreneur, Jón Sæmundur.  This year, he has released his newest Singapore Sling album Never Forever (2011, Outlier Records) and Dead Magick (2011, A Records) with The Dead Skeletons.

With all the musical projects Björnsson and his friends had been creating, he helped form a Reykjavik based music collective called Vebeth with Þórður Grímsson. Since the collective expressed no faith in record labels, they decided to take matters into their own hands and released their albums under Vebeth and sealing the logo on their albums.  They don’t only promote and support Iceland musical projects, but they have taken on releasing bands like The Meek from Los Angeles, CA in the United States.

Nonetheless, Vebeth and many Icelandic musical projects work closely Outlier Records, an independent record label based in the United Kingdom.  Outlier has released albums by Singapore Sling, Two Step Horror, and Go Go Darkness.  Their collaboration with Vebeth and the Icelandic psyche scene has proved to be invaluable.  Outlier and Vebeth have created an amazing support for Iceland and bands from around the world.

Singapore Sling and the Dead Skeletons have experienced much success in grabbing the attention of listeners.  Going on tour and collaborating with San Francisco’s The Brian Jonestown Massacre has also helped launch Singapore Sling and the Reykjavik psyche scene into the indie mainstream.  Even unlikely rock frontman, Jón Sæmundur has benefited from releasing music with Henrik and the BJM. 

Jón Sæmundur didn’t start making music until he participated in the recording of the track “Golden Frost” on The Brian Jonestown Massacre album My Bloody Underground.  Later, finding that he needed to produce some music for an installation he was making for an art opening, he called Henrik to help him create a song.  They recorded Dead Mantra with Ryan of Astroid #4, and The Dead Skeletons continued to record after the installation was complete. 

Jon worked on The Dead Skeletons first album Dead Magick (released by A Records) from September 2008- May 2011, recording half the record with Henrik and the second half with Ryan van Kriedt. Sæmundur seems to have a bit more of a private perspective than his friend and collaborator, Henrik when it comes to the impact of Iceland’s music scene.  Although he appreciates his success, he maintains that the music scene in Iceland is not as recognized as it is in the United States and Europe.  He has explained that none of the artists from Vebeth or The Dead Skeletons are really out for fame and fortune.  They are into making great art.

“We are simply the messengers/artists bringing forth the spiritual energy inside us. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” -Jón Sæmundur (Dead Skeletons, DEAD)

Jón’s music, art, and clothing designs have been shipped all over the world to many great artists, fans, and musicians alike.

Since Henrik Björnsson’s humble beginnings 15 years ago, he and his collective of fiercely talented and relatively unassuming musical artists have stolen the hearts and entranced the ears of a new psychedelic rock generation.  With all the attention and acclaim they have been enjoying from cities like New York City, Melbourne, and Berlin, they have been nothing but progressive, consistent, and persistent with sharing the breathtaking music and visual art they have been producing for so many years.

DEAD MAGICK will be released on double vinyl and CD on October 21, 2011.  It is already available digitally.

http://www.dead.is/deadskeletons.html

BUY SINGAPORE SLING’S NEW ALBUM NEVER FOREVER HERE!

http://www.outlierrecords.co.uk/store/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=21

*This story is based on commentary exclusively from Jón Sæmundur (Dead Skeletons), Henrik Bjornsson (Singapore Sling), Þórður Grímsson (Vebeth Records), and a summary from Lady Godiva.

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