For our first actual update in quite some time, we have Golden Retriever's self-titled debut, a drifting cosmic journey for synthesizers and clarinet released in an edition of only 100 cd-rs by Root Strata in 2009. Golden Retriever is the duo of Matt Carlson and Jonathan Sielaff and for their first release they crafted a gorgeous yet sinister set of tracks that could perhaps best be described as the long-lost alternative soundtrack to Blade Runner. This is music for a midnight hovercar drive through the slums of some seedy, neon filled dystopian metropolis. Synthesizers thrum and undulate, glower and crumble, scattering bleeps and bloops off into the stratosphere like archaic, room sized computers communicating with deep space communes. Sielaff's clarinet soars out mournful and clarion clear, looping and layering into a shifting wash of sound at times, and in other moments exploring the more abstract boundaries of jazz. At other times the duo brings the sound down almost into the realms of minimal sound exploration, high end whispers like intercepted phone frequencies, spattering metallic gurgles, dull, lowing buzzes all weave into spooky, mysterious sonic trips through long forgotten laboratories and empty streets. All told, this self-titled debut is fantastic and unique, an amazing excursion that stands head and shoulders above nearly all of the recent glut of synthesizer albums clogging the airwaves. Definitely not to be missed.
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I thought you were talking about my uncle's joke band (by the same name)!
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