Joh Chase - Solo - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The Ukrainian composer Thomas de Hartmann (1885-1956) had undertaken a classic musical training with Anton Arensky and then Nikolai Taneyev before the death of his mother in 1912 prompted him to begin searching for a spiritual teacher. Four years later he made the encounter that would change his life, with the Armenian philosopher and mystic George Gurdjieff (1877-1949). Gurdjieff had his own musical training, as well as a sharp ear and retentive memory for the folk melodies which he heard on his long travels through central Asia and the middle East. de Hartmann and his wife joined Gurdjieff's circle of followers, and the two men began to write music to accompany their spiritual exercises. This body of music eventually amounted to around 300 short pieces, of which the indefatigable Jeroen van Veen has recorded the entire published corpus of 170 divided into four volumes. During lockdown he found himself with the time to immerse himself in this music, which ranges across Asian, Arabic and European systems of rhythm, harmony and tuning, so that he could capture it's perfumed mysticism and improvisational character. There are solemn hymns of an Orthodox nobility, atmospheric tone poems such as the 'Night Procession', freely pianistic transcriptions of melodies from early-Christian sects such as the Essenes, modal-pentatonic melodies to accompany a 'Sacred Reading from the Koran' and to aid an awakening of consciousness in an elevated state of awareness, and then pieces simply titled after their date of composition. While overall meditative in mood, there is a tremendous variety to the Gurdjieff/De Hartmann collection, and Jeroen van Veen's new recording is an ideally comprehensive way to dive into it's riches.

What's the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions Thee Oh Sees? Probably their riot-sparking live show, right? Visions of a guitar-chewing, speaker-smothering, tongue-wagging John Dwyer careening across your cranium, chased by a wild-eyed wrecking crew that drives every last hook home like it's a nail in the coffin of what one thought it meant to make 21st century rock 'n' roll? Yeah, that sounds about right. But it misses a more important point-how impossible Thee Oh Sees have been been to pin down since Dwyer launched it in the late '90s as a solo break from such sorely missed underground bands as Pink and Brown and Coachwhips. That restlessness extends to everything from the towering, thirteen-minute title track of 2010's Warm Smile LP to the mercurial moods of 2008's the Master's Bedroom Is Worth Spending a Night In. And then there's the home-brewed symphonies of Castlemania and the high-wire hooks of Carrion Crawler / the Dream, which dropped a second drum set among sunburnt organs, dovetailing guitars and rail-jumping rhythms. If one prefers a slightly more subtle musical awakening, there's always Putrifiers II, the latest in a long line of Oh Sees albums that expands the group's sound well past your friendly neighborhood garage band. So while the space-odyssey nods of InchWax FaceInch actually sound like they're meant to melt one's ears straight off, the record's full of deviant detours, from the poison-tipped string parts and Eno-esque engineering of InchSo NiceInch to the groove-locked Krautrock inclinations of InchLupine Dominus.Inch the most noticeable element may be Dwyer's melodies, however, as they reveal a softer side to his songwriting, one that makes perfect sense considering just how disparate his dust-clearing influences are. Scott Walker, the Velvet Underground, the Zombies and the experimental Japanese act Les Rallizes Denudes are bu

2016 . Chapter Two We find our man stumbling through the darkness in the garden of illusion and fame. Chris Shaw smokes the microphone while Ty Segall and Charles Moothart trade lizardian licks and skin hits. Guest GØGGS include Cory Hanson, Mikal Cronin and Denée Petracek. Ten tracks of misanthropic noise to bring home to mom's house on fire. Boots to your face after the high speed chase, Then! A death trip down memory lane. The lead actor dies first and the shotgun shooter flashes chipped teeth. Created in Los Angeles in the middle of the summer of 2015 three years of planning, thirty days of writing, one week of ripping. A severed finger on the button, the player ends the game. Final notice has been served.