Archive for 2011
Tour diary: Lorne
More photos here:
‘Turkey Decoy’ by Chubby Wolf out now
Available to order from Digitalis and Boomkat
‘Turkey Decoy’ in Zen Effects
Each release from the late, great Dani Baquet-Long- one half of the fascinating, ethereal ambient duo Celer- carries with it a terrific amount of emotion and intensity. It’s as is her recordings have always existed in the depths of your memory but only begin to surface as she performs them. What’s brilliant about Baquet-Long’s works is that, throughout her powerful and intimate music, her sly sense of humor always shines through (see: song titles like “Cantankerous Baby” and “Cruel Sausage, Gentle Fingers”/her recording alias is “Chubby Wolf”).Turkey Decoy – a brand new record which compiles some of her final works- might be the most uplifting and joyful glimpse into the world of Chubby Wolf, sonically and texturally, to emerge yet. Just an absolute joy from start to finish – essential stuff.
Alioth vol.6 ~Autumn~
Alioth vol.6 ~Autumn~
2011.10.09 sun open 17:30 / start 18:30
charge : ¥1,500 + 1drink order
place : ongakunojikan / Mitaka
Live :
Celer http://www.thesingularwe.org/
Masahito Mannen http://soundcloud.com/
Tsutomu Satachi http://www.tsutomusatachi.com/
Junji Koyanagi http://koyanagi.celescape.org
Installation :
Kuroki Akira
Shingo Sasaki http://kamio-kamichi.com
Yuki Shimbo
Chelsea Maika http://chelsea.jugem.ne.jp/
Junji Koyanagi
Food :
bahha http://d.hatena.ne.jp/bahha4u/
information :
Alioth http://alioth.celescape.org/
event info http://bar.towntone.com/2011/
ongakunojikan http://bar.towntone.com/
‘Levitation and Breaking Points’ review by Norman Records
Ooh I like a bit of Celer in the evening. Daytime it doesn’t work for me but come the evening I’m all ready to be pulverized into a fluffy Phil of calmness and tranquility. Always a pleasure, never a chore. This was originally released in 2009 as a triple 3” CD set and is now well rocking horse. So and/OAR have done a slightly more fan-base friendly edition of 300 in a digipack with a flying chair on. Celer are really rather good at creating warm sounding drone music and this three track album (each track twenty minutes plus) cements this. There’s no mass variation from their palette here but you’re probably not expecting that. You get three very long tracks which ebb and flow, throb and pulse with the gentlest of variations and somewhat rarely for drone music they have that bit of feeling about them which makes ‘em all warm sounding. You know what you’re getting with Celer and if you’re after the drone badge of quality then this gets it.
Tour diary: Great Ocean Road
More photos here:
Tour diary: Gold Coast
‘Foolish Causes of Fail and Ruin’
Available for pre-order – the second in the self-released black vinyl series.
*Please note that the records will not be pressed until I have received the first 30 orders.
Limited edition of 100 copies, on black vinyl, in a black matte sleeve, with handwritten credits. It is available to pre-order immediately from the Celer Bandcamp page, and upon order of a physical copy, you will receive an instantaneous download in any format you choose. Thank you for your support!
Chubby Wolf’s ‘Turkey Decoy’ review by Fluid Radio
“I wish somebody would sprinkle me all over with talcum powder”. Not the usual sampledelia, surely you’ll agree. But for Chubby Wolf, the late moniker of Dani Baquet-Long, one half of Ambient cult duo Celer, she has succor off to a tee; developmental stasis counterbalance, slightly tipped hour glass for your seconds and minutes to slip through. Chimes and piano are distributed like butter in turkey sandwiches: the drone being strong garnish inside the layers (guitar, synth) and slices (car wheels spinning to a halt on “Cantankerous Baby”; wolf cries on “Intrusively Coexisting” as bookend field recordings).
Boy I adore albums like Chubby Wolf’s. It’s so good I touched five plays in the first day. From the grounded nature of the elegant, peaceful “Birthday Suit” and “Short Dick”, spare-worded epilogues of humble human form, to the repetition-pleated leftovers: “Rattling Mandibles” / “Cruel Sausage Gentle Fingers”, there’s safe auditory wombs to participate in, and Dani has successfully managed chemistry with accessibility, synthetically washing Stars Of The Lid grandeur against rawer, paler shades, said to constitute her voice.
Now, as a huge fan of Grouper, you could strategise to ignore Dani’s vocal appropriation. Her tones are barely there, in a sense that you’ll have to look to make them out, and Liz Harris was criticised for this pre-”Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill”. Nonetheless to much for it, I wager she’s done a job that has values in quiet desire, and the internal consistency of harmonisation works wonders for the record’s integrity as a whole. To put it another way: survival (hearing, processing, deciding to keep, or move on) that’s an upper-lip-stiffening exercise grants little longevity in response to sultry pleasures of the not-so-crooning kind.
Battles of attention over distraction has been a recurrent ghostwriting for Ambient LPs, causing fracture to the genre’s many offshoots since 80s “Apollo” soundtrack tranquilised ambience as art. Where Chubby Wolf’s debut could have been a crucible to inadequacy, then, instead it’s decidedly solid and flexible at core, a “hang in there” clothes peg. The great design of Dani’s first full-length, assembled with help of husband Will Long, draws out the resonances as a helix, where upon re-listening you reach the same point but at a higher level. This is pragmatic for labels including
Digitalis, who pride themselves on releasing some of the finest, emotionally challenging, and at the same time, soothing material, and Dani Baquet-Long, as with Will, have only contributed to the trend. Essential!