THURSDAY AUG 04, 2016
Al Lover
In short, Al Lover is a producer from San Francisco, but there's more layers to his wall of sound then meets the ear. Over the last few years he has gained much notoriety for his melding of contemporary and past garage and psychedelic rock into harsh yet spacey abrasive beats. Influenced as much by The 13th Floor Elevators as DJ Shadow, Al Combines crunchy drums, shaky percussion, chopped samples and layers of textured effects to create an unexplored path for psychedelic music, offering an earthy and loose approach that sounds more like you're listening to a DMT fueled psych band than a beat made on an MPC.
In short, Al Lover is a producer from San Francisco, but there's more layers to his wall of sound then meets the ear. Over the last few years he has gained much notoriety for his melding of contemporary and past garage and psychedelic rock into harsh yet spacey abrasive beats. Influenced as much by The 13th Floor Elevators as DJ Shadow, Al Combines crunchy drums, shaky percussion, chopped samples and layers of textured effects to create an unexplored path for psychedelic music, offering an earthy and loose approach that sounds more like you're listening to a DMT fueled psych band than a beat made on an MPC.
Where.Are.We
2 decades of tinkering with musical instruments can go a lot of different ways and that's exactly where Christopher Ian Brooker went and is going with Where.Are.We. He wistfully combines elements of ambient electronica, afro beat, and hip hop and stews it with the heat of raw psychedelic rock and roll. Live he lets the material stew a bit more; bringing in moments of improvisation and raw emotion, followed by somber lulls of fading outros. He has graced the stage with the likes of Tobacco, Wax Tailor, and Jel (of Anticon fame) and has worked on countless sessions across Atlanta and the country. The first full length And.Who.Are.All.These.Mystics was named one of the top 10 albums of 2012 by Ohmpark and the new EP Engineer's Handbook Vol. 1 was honored in Creative Loafing's Best of Atlanta 2013 and voted Best Trip-Hop Krautrock Pysch-Pop Underdog in Creative Loafing's Best of Atlanta 2014.
2 decades of tinkering with musical instruments can go a lot of different ways and that's exactly where Christopher Ian Brooker went and is going with Where.Are.We. He wistfully combines elements of ambient electronica, afro beat, and hip hop and stews it with the heat of raw psychedelic rock and roll. Live he lets the material stew a bit more; bringing in moments of improvisation and raw emotion, followed by somber lulls of fading outros. He has graced the stage with the likes of Tobacco, Wax Tailor, and Jel (of Anticon fame) and has worked on countless sessions across Atlanta and the country. The first full length And.Who.Are.All.These.Mystics was named one of the top 10 albums of 2012 by Ohmpark and the new EP Engineer's Handbook Vol. 1 was honored in Creative Loafing's Best of Atlanta 2013 and voted Best Trip-Hop Krautrock Pysch-Pop Underdog in Creative Loafing's Best of Atlanta 2014.
Dr. Conspiracy
Sister Sai
"There’s an amorphous spiritual quality driving Sister Sai’s latest offering, Extempore. From song titles such as “Devotional” and “Glossolalia” to “Wanderer” and “Incarnate,” the album taps into a deeply mystical musical trajectory that reveals itself through the sounds she makes, and the seamless motion of each song drifting into the next. The album is comprised mostly of a one-take, largely unedited session of mind-melting cello loops that, with each listen, reveals layers of depth at work within cellist Saira Raza’s natural musical instincts. Embracing her unorthodox sense of repetition is key to zeroing in on the zoned-out head space that each of these songs occupy. “Glossolalia” is the first immediately arresting number here. Sounds bend and swoop as though they’re being pulled down a drain, moving deeper into her unseen, subconscious mind. The album requires a heady, meditative concentration, as Extempore is more an exercise in automatic writing than it is a collection of composed works. Musically, this is Raza’s equivalent of speaking in tongues. The results are a somewhat convoluted journey into minimalism. Song structures change with each passing listen as the recording moves forever forward, drifting at a dreamlike pace. This is a much different approach from the style on display throughout previous works such as 2016’s Inertia, and 2014’s First Flight EP. This is the unrestrained and unrefined product of what happens when her mind is left to wander — left with nothing more than her musical devices. As such, it’s an experimental album. It’s not the easiest point of entry into Raza’s work, but it’s certainly the most revealing of her musical reflexes, her instincts, and the insights she has to offer." -Creative Loafing Atlanta
"There’s an amorphous spiritual quality driving Sister Sai’s latest offering, Extempore. From song titles such as “Devotional” and “Glossolalia” to “Wanderer” and “Incarnate,” the album taps into a deeply mystical musical trajectory that reveals itself through the sounds she makes, and the seamless motion of each song drifting into the next. The album is comprised mostly of a one-take, largely unedited session of mind-melting cello loops that, with each listen, reveals layers of depth at work within cellist Saira Raza’s natural musical instincts. Embracing her unorthodox sense of repetition is key to zeroing in on the zoned-out head space that each of these songs occupy. “Glossolalia” is the first immediately arresting number here. Sounds bend and swoop as though they’re being pulled down a drain, moving deeper into her unseen, subconscious mind. The album requires a heady, meditative concentration, as Extempore is more an exercise in automatic writing than it is a collection of composed works. Musically, this is Raza’s equivalent of speaking in tongues. The results are a somewhat convoluted journey into minimalism. Song structures change with each passing listen as the recording moves forever forward, drifting at a dreamlike pace. This is a much different approach from the style on display throughout previous works such as 2016’s Inertia, and 2014’s First Flight EP. This is the unrestrained and unrefined product of what happens when her mind is left to wander — left with nothing more than her musical devices. As such, it’s an experimental album. It’s not the easiest point of entry into Raza’s work, but it’s certainly the most revealing of her musical reflexes, her instincts, and the insights she has to offer." -Creative Loafing Atlanta