Social scientists say that our attention spans are getting smaller with each successive generation. TV and the male obsession with the controller constantly flipping through stations trying to find something interesting to watch on 200 plus channels is the prime example of this behavior. So is Ladera Verdi which is the project of one Daniel Covert. This disc contains 23 tracks in just over 30 minutes. With a track to time ratio like that you would expect lots of short bits of sonic detritus and you’d be right in that assumption. Guitar seems to be instrument of choice for most the tracks although we get snippets of location recording, electronic ambience, and manipulated vocal experiments. On the whole most of tracks are interesting in themselves and make us wish for more development, and that may be the point. This disk would be a good choice for a remix album with artists taking the short tracks and making a whole new disk full of music out of all the little bits and pieces.

This has been classified as ambient psychfolk by the label and I guess I can see why. There are quite definitely elements of ambient soundscapes, attempts at perceptual expansion by means of altered location recordings and electronic tones, and folk, in the form of vocal stylings. The project is the collaboration between Susan DeLeo and Lauri des Marais, who work mainly in a live performance mode. "Sun Rushing In is a hybrid of Lauri's musique concrête sound design and Susan's acoustic guitar and vocals, creating an atmospheric melancholy and joy. Along with Susan's almost post-rock folk/country stylings on the six-string goes Lauri's progressively textured soundscapes, a haze of quiet low frequency aura projecting the listener into a state of neither/nor Zen. Lauri has also integrated a form of slow movement which she terms Movement So Still With Sound (similar in many respects to Butoh dance), fleshing the act out as an avant performance art session. While Sun Rushing In is mainly performance-based, Postdawn Nurseries Music also has the honor of offering the backing tracks to their performance as an exclusive CD, Sound Collage for Live Performance, making for a perfect listen for homesick or distant memory moods." (from the label site) I think this works best used on the level of background music, not in the sense of being ignored but just under the aural radar, quietly but still audible. Just loud enough to fill the silence with slight vibration.

Here we have artists that are trying very hard to be trippy. But some strange effects on vocals and some strange sounds don’t make one trippy. The mumbling vocals need some work with the lyrics being all but unintelligible. I know, I know, remember those early REM albums? But there is such a thing as trying too hard. Oh well, everyone with a computer and a guitar should be allowed to make whatever music they want. I’m not saying this is horrible, but not my cup of tea. Maybe it’s the fact that there are only two musicians. It wouldn’t hurt them to have a few more instruments in the mix, and drums even, to break up the sameness of the songs, especially when it comes to the guitar. No distortion or effects whatsoever, just the same thin strummy sound over and over again.

What we have here are 12 tracks of avant-pop cut-up re-mix gratification. Scott Solter (who engineered Pattern is Movement's last record "Stowaway" in 2005 at San Francisco studios Tiny Telephone as well as records for Spoon, Mountain Goats, Two Gallants, John Vanderslice, etc.) took the tapes from that album and with razor in hand re-mixed and molded another disc of experimental tracks full of noise and surprise, rhythms, loops and vocal experimentation. Very few real songs here in the traditional sense of the word, just a spasmodic exercise in the playground of the absurd. A psychedelic treat worthy of any neo-hippie looking for something to help him break on through. I liked it.

KNO is Peter Nystrom of Megaptera/Negru Voda fame and Kristoffer Oustad of V:28, recorded in 2005.

biTer (deep cut edit)

machine music, all the factory sounds are here, squealing noise, beats, the underlying hum of electricity giving the track a tonal grounding, scary metallic voices and string synth pads appear and disappear, a minor chord apocalyptic mood abounds throughout



high_level_input-slow_speed_ouput (well done)

more emphasis on the factory noise this time, the beats are reverberant to within an inch of their lives, tapers off to let the distant music through, filtered by running water and the sound of machines and humans in tandem, almost sad in a way


extenDEAD konnektion (shortened diskonnekted version)

at 19:30 this is considered the short version, swirling clouds of dirty humming air accentuated by mechanical sonic detritus clogging the ears and the brain with its slag, the sonic equivalent of industrial metallic waste


asphalt flowers (kontinentalische norswedeische ordnungsverkriftung mix)

aural meditation on terrorism meant to make you uncomfortable and not as secure as you thought you were, and it succeeds