Contribution to latest DWJ Mackenzie release, now available.

Available this week is the latest solo release from Daniel W J Mackenzie (Ekca Liena, Plurals, etc). I contributed samples to tracks 2 and 6.

"Daniel W J Mackenzie is perhaps best known for his work as Ekca Liena, a droning guitar and electronic mesh of ambience, electronica and hints of doom. This alias has carved it’s place in the UK ambient underground. In addition, Daniel also records and performs with psychedelic drone outfit Plurals. Under his real name Daniel explores styles that are more intimate - his well received debut self-release Teeth Sleep Under Winking Black Eyelid is a melancholic and cinematic close focus study of the humble piano - and, in this case, rather more calculated conceptual works.


The core of Return Written Arrange uses input from a variety of musicians who were asked to provide sound recordings of their choice from a selection of musical pitches and durations of Mackenzie's own design. These were arranged in the order of when they were sent back and the resulting sequence was duplicated in a way that corresponded with the Fibonacci sequence, subjected to minimal production and compositional enhancements and left as semi-aleatoric pieces, as much constructed by chance and choice as they are bound by the rigidity of the sequence.


Surrounding the two main conceptual pieces (Return Written Arrange i and ii) are a series of shorter tracks intended to provide much more human counterparts. These feature the kind of sombre improvised piano that runs through Teeth Sleep... tinkering amid atmospheres drawn from the other tracks and words from Irish poet P. Scanlan. Together the different elements form a mysterious, enchanted and possibly unsettling release that speaks as much for the soul's significance in musical composition as it does the mind's.


Contributing Artists: Duncan Harrison, Jack Turquand, Andy Cartwright, Jannick Schou, Dave Hamilton-Smith, Kevin Ingham, Anne Hennies, Brian Grainger, Mass Roman, Andrew Mills, Michael Neaves, Ihor Dawidiuk."

You can stream this release via Bandcamp, where there are also links to buy it physically or digitally. Please give it a listen, I think it's beautiful. Thanks to Dan.

Cymophane is also coming very very soon, maybe a couple weeks later than planned (the 1st/2nd week of January I'd guess now), but it is definitely coming soon. I'm just tweaking the master now and the artwork is also reaching completion!

Keep listening.

Cymophane is complete!

Just a quick progress post to let you know that all that's left to do before the Cymophane album is released is purely administrative now. The music is complete; the mix is complete; mastering has begun (which should be quite a simple job considering how strong the mix is) and the artwork is very nearly finished too. Release is set to be before Xmas as I want to finish 2011 on a massive high after a great year for my music projects. There's little else to say; Cymophane has hugely exceeded my expectations and I am so incredibly excited to see it released into the world.

Soon. So, very very soon.

Gnod - Vatican [Pupilar Dub] streaming on-line now!

A new Pupilar remix for y'all to hear!!

Those lovely folk in Gnod have posted the remix I did of their stonking track Vatican to their SoundCloud, so go listen to the monster I created from their crashing Krautrocking grooves:

Vatican [Pupilar Dub] by GNOD

I am so incredibly happy with how this came out; this remix was the perfect opportunity for me to unleash my inner beast and really get that evil and heavy-as-fuck vibe seething through my veins! Hey, I don't have to talk about my music when you can crank it (and I really mean CRANK it) and let the apocalyptic beats and bass do the talking for me. I hope you like it!

Also, here's Gnod's original dance-floor version from their InGnodWeTrust LP:

Vatican by GNOD

... and, to complete the line-up, here is the sister Vatican Remix to mine, executed by the superb DrumCunt:

GNOD 'Vatican' (DrumCunt remix) by DRMCNT

Gnod's plan is to get a Pupilar/DrumCunt - Vatican Remixes 12" pressed by someone, somehow. Obviously, this would rule if it could happen, but until then, enjoy them both on SoundCloud and leave your comments if you dig what we did!

Also, massive Cymophane news coming very very soon... the excitement and anticipation is near killing me!!

Cymophane album completion imminent.

Second post of the day is to update you all on Cymophane.

The Cymophane album (the collaboration between Pupilar and SDZH) is falling into place extremely rapidly at the moment. After finishing the recent Pupilar remix for Gnod, I've had some time off work and have been devoting all my time to Cymophane again. There is only about 1/3rd of the final track to finish, then, after final mix tweaks, the whole album will be complete! This project has been ongoing for about 3 years now and I personally have contributed many hundreds of hours; epic doesn't even begin to describe it! The tracks we previewed with the CymoMix last year have been tweaked further (and changed dramatically in some cases) and everything is sounding really really good. Over the next month I will finish the music, tweak the mixes, master and then release it. The plan for releasing it is to go with Bandcamp. I sent out a lot of promos earlier this year and even though the feedback I recieved was really positive, I couldn't find a suitable label to work with in releasing this. To be honest, I'm not precious about physical releases, all I want is for as many people as possible to hear my music. So, inspired by the success people like Cloudkicker have had with this, I'm going to go with the pay what you want (or pay if you want) release model. Of course, this won't merely amount to sticking some MP3s on-line as we want all aspects of this release to shine, so I have asked the immensely talented Paul Clavé to work with us in conjuring visually stunning artwork for this release. I intend for Paul's artwork to be included with the album release as a high resolution PDF attachment and possibly also available as physical art prints too.

Maybe as soon as next month this will all start to form a cohesive whole. More updates as it all comes together; I am so excited about this, I can't even begin to describe how happy I am with it in it's near completed state.

Post Altitude [Pupilar Dub] streaming on-line now.

OK, first blog update of the day is about Pupilar.

As I've mentioned a bunch of times already (I hope you've been listening) the Ekca Liena début album reissue is released, on-sale and on-line. Listen to it or buy it whichever way you prefer! Also, as of this week, Dead Pilot Records have put the remix CD tracks on-line for you all to stream too, so for those who haven't heard it yet, here is my Pupilar remix of Post Altitude in it's entirety!

03 Post Altitude (Remix by Pupilar) by Dead Pilot records

I hope you like it, I've been aching for people to hear my most recent Pupilar tracks, I'm really pleased with how they came out. Hopefully the Gnod remix I completed recently can be unleashed soon unto the world too.

That's the Pupilar news, a big update about Cymophane is coming next...

Ekca Liena reissue on sale & new remix for Gnod complete.

A few pieces of activity to update you with. Firstly, the long awaited reissue of Ekca Liena's "Slow Music for Rapid Eye Movement" is today officially on sale and shipping from Dead Pilot Records. As you know, I worked with Dan Ekca Liena to strip the album down to component level, re-mixed the whole thing from scratch, mastered it, contributed a Pupilar remix to the accompanying bonus CD (with other contributions from Aidan Baker, Clem Leek and others) and mastered that CD too! A massive project which turned out incredibly well, I'm really proud of this one. Please go listen to the album on either Soundcloud or Bandcamp and if you like what you hear and also want to hear the remixes on the second CD, please buy it from the Dead Pilot store.

Second bit of exciting news is that I'm just finalising the master for a remix I've done for the Manchester band, Gnod. It's a remix of the track Vatican from their new album, InGnodWeTrust, which has just been released on sexy white vinyl via Rocket Recordings. The original is a monster of a track and my remix has dragged it into a whole new world of spiralling madness, this could possibly be the best Pupilar yet! Gnod plan to release a remix album of InGnodWeTrust sometime in the near future with some other amazing artists (I'm keeping quiet of who right now, but trust me, there are some amazing people doing incredible remixes for this project!). I'll post more info about what's happening with this as/when I know more, but I'm well excited for people to hear this remix as, I reckon, it proper ROCKS!

Ekca Liena - "Slow Music..." now on SoundCloud

Ekca Liena's "Slow Music for Rapid Eye Movement" début album reissue, mixed and mastered by Pupilar, is now on SoundCloud in its entirety for you all to stream!

 

Ekca Liena - Slow Music for Rapid Eye Movement by Dead Pilot records

The double CD version of the album is also available to pre-order from the Dead Pilot Records webstore, which includes the second CD of remixes of tracks from the album, including the devastating remix of Post Altitude, also by Pupilar!