Seaworthy

It's a new day and Hollow Press is back online. After weeks of crazy deadlines and adventures the musical spelunking can once again commence. We're kicking things off with three releases by Australia's Cameron Webb aka Seaworthy, a maestro of guitar and electronic minimalism.

First up is "Codes Adrift." Released in an edition of 100 CD-Rs, placed in hand made envelopes, and sealed with wax by the now tragically defunct Sound&Fury records, "Codes Adrift" is two untitled tracks sprawling out over just under half an hour. The two pieces could almost be one, a quietly pulsing and sublimely peaceful journey comprised entirely of looped and layered guitar tone and feedback. The sensation of listening to this record is of one sitting on a small boat in the middle of an absolutely endless sea but being completely at peace with this fact. A wistfully lulling siren call shifts and lows, an almost organ-like thrum, while Webb picks and plucks his guitar quietly around this softly swirling ebb and flow. Although some new elements creep into the track 2 - bits of static and softly glitchy pulses rattle and whisper, lonely and nostalgic; the volume and intensity picks up - the sonic journey "Codes Adrift" takes listeners on is essentially without interruption. The two pieces feed into one another and, like the tides they seem to draw inspiration from, could pulse inward and outward forever. It's a powerful yet delicate piece of music, decidedly minimal but incredibly deep.

Codes Adrift
Codes Adrift is long out of print and probably can't be purchased anywhere. Sorry!

Next there's "1897," an album recorded entirely in an old ammunition depot from the titular year. Once again Webb's guitar playing is at the fore here although meditative electronic thrum and lovely field recordings of wind, birds, rain, and running water are woven throughout, creating a fully realized sonic world, one that drifts through haunted corners of dusty attics and over rainswept meadows, mournful and brimming with melancholy. One of the most impressive parts of this album is the timbre of Webb's guitar, at times reminiscent of Loren Connors, which picks up a huge amount of natural reverb from the physical space in which the album was recorded. But some tracks are far more electronic heavy than others, eschewing traditional guitar sounds altogether. Sparse, glowering drone pieces crop up amongst the rippling guitar and delicate sigh of wind and rain through leaves. Stark and chilly, this isn't happy listening but it's perhaps Webb's best to date.

1897
Buy or go here

Finally there's "Map in Hand," a rather different album from the last couple but still definitely part of the Seaworthy oeuvre. "Map in Hand" is more hopeful, a warmer and overall more involved production. Electronics play a bigger role, the guitar is less prevalent, at least in it's traditional state. While many songs on "1897" are just Webb improvising on guitar with little to no significant processing, "Map in Hand" is more concerned with creating glowing, densely layered soundscapes. Rather than stark and mournful, these are more transportive, crackling with analog buzz and thrumming with strange energy. The result is soft and languid and beautiful. It's not a very easy album and will bore some but for those with the patience it's wonderful and rewarding, a perfect soundtrack to a late night summer drive through the country, surrounded by dark fields but warm and secure and speeding into the unknown.

Map in Hand
Buy or go here

Upcoming

So for the past month or so I've been finishing my senior thesis and finals and all that good stuff hence the total lack of posts. That's going to continue for the next couple weeks. BUT I have good stuff planned for the future. More mixes are in the works and posts of rare and out of print albums from Seaworthy, The North Sea, The Ghost of 29 Megacycles, Svarte Greiner, Liz Harris, Christopher McFall, and Sundrips plus some cool concert bootlegs are all in the works. Come mid-June(ish) things will pick up, promise!

In the meantime go here and listen to two new songs written and performed by the immensely talented Jo Warren aka sTiCkLiPs: http://asarchives.bandcamp.com/album/sticklips-asarchives-session

First Third 2011 Mixtape

It's April and that means 2011 is one third over. To celebrate here's a mixtape featuring 17 songs from albums released in the past four months. This was thrown together rather quickly and is in lieu of an actual update so there are some admittedly imperfect transitions on display but this mix does highlight some of the best music we at Hollow Press have heard this year so far.

Mogwai kicks things off with "Rano Piano" from their latest, Hardcore Will Never Die but You Will. An awesomely powerful and catchy guitar riff pulls the song along, anchored by propulsive drums and a whole mess of electronic noise. "Glass Deers" by Braids follows and features a gently picked guitar and gorgeous female vocals (both clean and chopped up and stuttering) along with shuffling drums, electro-pop that's catchy without being irritating, sad and gripping without being melodramatic or banal. Mark Templeton's wonderful "At Your Feet" is layers of electric guitar with percussion from drums and a lot of shaker. The guitar plays a simple refrain throughout with a rising tide of delayed guitar squall building up over it.

These first three tracks should more or less tell you what to expect. This mix goes a lot of places and explores a lot of ground. Deaf Center's "Close Forever Watching" is dark and deep, a very heavy, very waterlogged sonic journey. On the other hand  Matthew Cooper, better known as Eluvium, offers a bright but wistful piece for piano and strummed, delayed guitar along with murmuring, whispering electronics from his original soundtrack for the film Some Days are Better Than Others. Meanwhile Dirty Beaches' "A Hundred Highways" sounds like someone took a 1950s rock and roll LP, rubbed it with dirt and gravel, and threw it on a turntable with an ancient cartridge. It's scuzzy as hell.

Then there's Grouper, Julianne Barwick, and Motion Sickness of Time Travel - three female solo artists - who make their voices - looped, delayed, layered, distorted - into a primary component of their pieces. Barwick's "Envelope" is more or less just her voice, a tremendously affecting track of layered and looped wordless vocals swaying and cascading and folding into one another. Rachel Evens of MSoTT uses her trademark spacey synths and haunted, murmuring vocals to take the listener on a drifting, meditative journey from one of her newest tapes, A Disembodied Voice in the Darkness. Liz Harris aka Grouper absolutely stuns with "Vapor Trails," one of her most powerful tracks yet off of Alien Observer, itself one half of a two album release called A I A (the other half is Dream Loss). Her trembling keyboard, thick with reverb, and softly glowing guitar complement layers of wonderfully soft and ghostly voice, a terribly sad song that sounds like it's drifting up from the bottom of the sea.

Also in the mix, Colin Stetson's undeniable genius on the baritone sax is here for all to hear. Somehow Stetson manages to vocalize in tremendously engaging ways, transforming his instrument into something wholly new in the process, a fact that's true for the entirety of his New History Warfare Volume 2: Judges. This sounds like a heavily processed piece but it's recorded live with no overdubs. It's a thrilling and original piece of music. A Hawk and a Hacksaw offer up a hymn for strings, a mournful, lovely tune dominated by an emotionally bowed violin. Evenings' "Still Young" is a catchy bit of electro instrumentalism with syncopated drum machines and keyboards, a definite must for fans of The Album Leaf. Electronic music master Tim Hecker's piece "No Drums" from the awesomely titled Ravedeath 1972 is drifting, guazy, and contemplative, soft and pulsing, reminiscent of German producer Gas. Ending it all is "Postcards from 1952" off of Explosions in the Sky's latest. It's true that this Texas based band is still doing the whole "post-rock" thing that is arguably derivative and old hat by now but they do it so well that it's impossible to really complain. Their newest is a gorgeous, elating piece of work and this track is one of the most intense of the bunch, a fantastic, stirring piece of music.

Hopefully there's something for everyone here. As always, thoughts are appreciated. Enjoy.

The First-Third-of-2011 Mix

1. Mogwai - Rano Piano
2. Braids - Glass Deers
3. Mark Templeton - At Your Feet
4. Grails - Future Primative
5. Deaf Center - Close Forever Watching
6. Matthew Cooper - Some Days are Better than Others
7. Tape - Dust and Light
8. Rene Hell - Detuned Clarinet
9. Motion Sickness of Time Travel - Vision of Bliss and Peace
10. Evenings - Still Young
11. Dirty Beaches - A Hundred Highways
12. Julianna Barwick - Envelope
13. A Hawk and a Hacksaw - Lazslo Lassu
14. Tim Hecker - No Drums
15. Grouper - Vapor Trails
16. Colin Stetson - In Love and in Justice
17. Explosions in the Sky - Postcards from 1952

Total Runtime: 1:33:27

Download

edit: just noticed the "album title" on the tracks calls this a "first quarter" mix rather than first third. Change as you are wont.

Golden Retriever

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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Golden Retriever Bandcamp

Massive Japan Relief Compilation

Antiopic has just released a downloadable Japan relief benefit compilation and it's a doozy, featuring 64 tracks, over 5 hours of music, all exclusive to this compilation. At only $15, it's a real steal and 100% of sales go to Civic Force, a Japanese non-profit helping with the relief effort from the recent earthquake and tsunami disaster. There's tons of amazing drone, noise, psychedelic, ambient, and otherwise experimental music, with artists include Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Grouper, C Spencer Yeh, Fennesz, Akron/Family, Ben Frost, Bear in Heaven, and Tim Hecker contributing among many, many others.

Buy it here: http://fina-music.com/catalog/index.html?id=105344

Full track listing:


Part One:
1. Fennesz: “Fearless”
2. Helado Negro: “Cabeza Bella”
3. Stephan Mathieu: “(Excerpt from) The Floating World”
4. School of Seven Bells: “Midnight Sun”
5. Lawrence English: “Hotaru”
6. Noveller: “Darkheart”
7. Zeena Parkins: “The Letter”
8. Tom Carter (of Charalambides): “Mended”
9. Akron/Family: “Deep Kazoo”
10. The Ex: “Cold Weather Is Back”
11. Shinji Masuko (of Boredoms/DMBQ): “Botsuon”
12. Oneohtrix Point Never: “The Inside World”
13. Tokimonsta: “Sound Caves”
14. Joshua Abrams: “Jackdaws”
15. Keith Fullerton Whitman: “Anzac #3″
16. Ben Frost: “Snæugla”
17. David Daniell: “Shiho-hiru-tama”
18. Grouper: “Cassiopeia”
19. Tape: “Mirrors”
20. Jefre Cantu-Ledesma: “Moon in a Dewdrop”
21. D. Charles Speer: “Steel Infant”
22. Evan Caminiti (of Barn Owl): “Blue Veil”
23. Blackshaw, Wood, Wood & Tomlinson (James Blackshaw & Hush Arbors): “Are You Alright? (Chump Change)”
24. Nat Baldwin (of Dirty Projectors): “In the Hollows”
25. Chris Forsyth & Shawn Edward Hansen: “Dirty Pool Blues”
26. Zelienople: “Stone Faced About It”
27. Elm (Jon Porras of Barn Owl): “Diamond Dust”
28. Lobisomem: “Kusha”
29. Stabbing Eastwood (Tunde Adebimpe & Ryan Sawyer): “Thundersnow Mountain”
30. Alan Licht & Greg Malcolm: “Natasha Utting Reporting”
31. Scott Tuma: “To: Hasty”
32. Rhys Chatham: “Prayer for the People of Fukushima”

Part Two:
33. Prefuse 73: “The Only Climactic Dissonant Hums”
34. Growing: “Untitled”
35. James Plotkin (of Khanate): “Broken ’96″
36. Totem Test: “Pulse Prayer for Japan”
37. Marcus Schmickler (of Pluramon): “2.71828 Up”
38. Tim Hecker: “Hatred of Music (Double Gate Mix)”
39. Sylvain Chauveau: “Colours in Darkness”
40. Bear In Heaven: “The Days We Have”
41. Spires That In The Sunset Rise with Michael Zerang: “Collision Theory”
42. C. Spencer Yeh: “Solo Violin March 13th 2011″
43. Lau Nau: “Oi Kuolema”
44. Oren Ambarchi: “Merely A Portmanteau”
45. Warm Ghost: “Uncut Diamond (Dripping Pollen Mix)”
46. Bradley & Geofrey (Atlas Sound + White Rainbow): “Mr. Stephen’s Private Service”
47. Peter’s House Music: “Half Step”
48. Leb Laze: “Da Plane Da Plane”
49. Matthewdavid: “Stop Laughing / Be Honest”
50. Sam Prekop: “Lakes River”
51. Simon Scott: “Of You (Before 2082)”
52. Tetuzi Akiyama/Jon Mueller/Jim Schoenecker: “Untitled”
53. Shelley Burgon: “Let It Be New”
54. Giant Sand: “Recovery Mission”
55. William Tyler: “Tears and Saints”
56. Mountains: “Still Life”
57. Ben Vida: “Quadsweep +2 (snkglazz iii)”
58. Maria Chavez: “Natural Disaster #2_2011″
59. Cleared: “Nova”
60. Neptune: “FIG IV”
61. Water Fai: “Tokitomori”
62. Parts & Labor: “Dokonimonai”
63. Jackie-O Motherfucker: “Blood of Life”
64. Greg Davis: “Sho Sai Myo Kichijo Dharani”

again, here's the link to buy: http://fina-music.com/catalog/index.html?id=105344

Motion Sickness of Time Travel - A Disembodied Voice in the Darkness

One of our current favorites here at Hollow Press, Motion Sickness of Time Travel, has put put out a new limited cassette on Teosinte. Buy it here: http://teosinterecords.blogspot.com/2011/03/motion-sickness-of-time-travel.html but act sharpish, there are only 47 copies and it will sell out quickly.

Listen 


Will probably share the music here once it's gone so check back. Also be sure to keep tabs on MSoTT's website for updates on all sorts of good stuff coming up soon: http://motionsicknessoftimetravel.blogspot.com/

Good Stuff House

Good Stuff House is Matt Christensen and Mike Weis of Zelienople in collaboration with former Souled America guitarist Scott Tuma. Here we have their only two albums to date, "Good Stuff House" and "Endless Bummer." On both, Tuma leads the way, spinning out vast, bottomless guitar nocturnes. Weis and Christensen add complex atmospherics, decayed percussion, hidden vocals, all taking Tuma's guitar drone down dark corridors and out into sun drenched deserts. In some ways GSH is a haunted continuation of Souled America, a fog drenched, smoke filled take on Americana.  Think of these as crumbling, droning country albums washed out almost to oblivion. At times this influence is more pronounced than others. On the band's first, self-titled album the opening track is propelled forward by an almost jauntily strummed banjo with layers of pulsing atmospherics in the background. Both albums here are culled from various tapes of improvised live sets and supplemented by studio work and it shows: both feel like explorations into far off places, acoustic guitars and banjos and piano and snarled percussion consumed and overwhelmed by vast undulations of white noise, oceanic echos, caverns of reverb, lost voices swimming out of the ether. And yet, despite how nearly annihilated it is, the Americana influence is undeniably there, sometimes lost altogether to the crumbling static and decomposing reverb but at others rearing up out of the welter. Haunting, fantastic stuff.


Good Stuff House

Endless Bummer
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Birchville Cat Motel: Two Variations

Here we have two albums by New Zealand's legendary Birchville Cat Motel aka Campbell Kneale (now known as Our Love Will Destroy the World) representing two very different sides of the same artist.

First is the two disc "Beautiful Speck Triumph," a drifting cosmic journey over two hours long. The album starts with a dark hum drifting beneath crackling, clicking machine noise and grimy static and whining feedback which swells until it suddenly cuts away and the original hum, grumbling and decaying, spins out the rest of the track, leading into the second piece, an 18-minute excursion that begins with clattering wind chimes and field recordings and spindly static skree, all of which is slowly consumed by a nefarious static blast which in turn is devoured and blotted out by creaking electro-decay and, seemingly out of nowhere, a droning organ which dominates in the third and final track of disc 1, almost an homage of sorts to Star of the Lid, a drifting, glowing soundscape with rustling percussion and a whistful tendril of crackling static seeping through for the first several minutes before surrendering to the organ and a mournful, lowing violin.

The second disc also begins darkly, a constant, resonant organ line with other organs, whispering feedback, and electronic bleeps, a very deep, organic sound piece of drone. This leads into the second track, built on the same single organ note but this time with layers of dense, wordless vocal haze and crunching, grinding percussion, the same static crackle ever present. Finally the music falls away altogether and we're left with a field recording - perhaps taken in a crowded restaurant - and analog decay. This in turn bleeds into the final, 36-minute track in which that organ drone rears its head once more, bigger and angrier than ever, almost roaring as it builds on top of itself, layer upon gauzy, thrumming layer, a giant wash of noise, percussion plodding and a guitar squalling throughout. The final ten minutes are a serene coda, chirping birds sing along with a delicately plucked guitar until it all fades into silence. The whole album is massive and beautiful, an enveloping sonic experience.

Disc 1
Disc 2

Next is "Bird Sister Blasphemy." Where "Beautiful Speck Triumph" was a paean to drone, a shimmering ocean of noise, "Bird Sister Blasphemy" is ungodly loud, absolutely unrelenting in its analog chaos. Track 1 is wildly shredding guitar, woozy, galloping feedback, crashing drums, vocals screaming beneath the muck, an evil sounding, grimy mess of noise, totally for the headbanger crowd. Things only get more chaotic from there, blackened vocals screaming luridly beneath an a torrent of buzzsawing feedback and a ferocious avalanche of drums, almost kosmiche but run through a sonic meat grinder, ultra heavy,  psychedelic metal meets total noise doom. It's ear shattering, deafening, an absolute blizzard of squalling feedback and guitar murk and reeling drums. Brutal, essential listening (at the highest possible volume).

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Gavin Bryars' "Sinking of the Titanic" (1969)

"Sinking of the Titanic" was Gavin Bryars' first major piece and it remains one of his best, a rarely performed, beautiful and original minimalist multi-media piece for orchestra. The germ of the composition comes from the story that the band on the Titanic went down with the ship playing the Episcopal hymn "Autumn." With this piece, that hymn is performed by the strings and echoed gorgeously and hauntingly in drifting waves throughout the rest of the orchestra. The piece evolves slowly, taking us quietly down with the ship to the ocean floor and then, many years later bringing the ship back up again as it is discovered and explored. Woodblocks ping out sonar beams, a bass clarinet weaves a warm and whirling journey beneath the waves, a crackling recording of an old woman recalling the evacuation of the ship swims up out of crumbling static now and again. The piece ends serenely beneath the ocean, winding through the halls of the decaying ship, faint, melancholy reminiscences of when it was full of life and music whispering beneath a thrumming pulse and snarled static. The hymn remains thematically present throughout, reemerging in full near the end through a glowing pulse of sound. Wonderfully evocative, this recording is gorgeously forlorn and haunting. Not positive which orchestra is performing here but they do a fantastic job in any case. The link is for the full performance, 1:12:35 in length.

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Top 10 of 2010 #5-1

5. Grasslung - Sincere Void (Root Strata)

On his first real CD release, Jonas Asher aka Grasslung has created a real stunner, a fantastic drone album that strikes a perfect balance between a pure soundscape and something more organic and tangible. "Roland Park Noose" washes over the listener in graceful waves of noise with a gritty static pulsating throughout, almost rhythmic. "Tired of Remembering" is beautiful and nostalgic, two plaintive piano chords beneath creaking static, like a record player left on as the side plays out in an abandoned house. "Scarred Hands We Drift" is the breathtaking opener, a lush dronescape of delayed notes that creates an almost choral effect over a pulsing sea of warm sound and a high end reverberation like a siren lost in the mist. Each track is its own mini-masterpiece; taken as a whole they form a spectacular, cohesive package.

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4. Yellow Swans - Going Places (Type)

Yellow Swans are no more. One of the most exciting duos in noise music has left the scene but Going Places, their final offering, is perhaps their best yet, a searing kosmiche masterpiece, propulsive, haunting, unhinged yet far more constrained and considered than much of their ultra-abrasive earlier work. There's still a hell of a lot of squalling static and glowering, brutal noise to be sure though. Going Places is immensely cacophonous and the louder you listen to it (through the best stereo headphone you can find) the more powerful it becomes. This is the kind of noise album that truly envelopes you, that overwhelms and buries and pummels. But somehow Yellow Swans have made Going Places something wondrous and beautiful as well. Going Places is an apt title: it sounds like the soundtrack to some great cosmic journey and is the perfect end to a long and admirable career.

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3. Eluvium - Static Nocturne (Watership Sounds)

In early 2010, ambient maestro Matthew Cooper aka Eluvium released his latest album, Similes. For the first time, Cooper sang on several tracks and added in percussive elements, making his first real "songs." Cooper's voice was dry and laconic, drawing not completely unwarranted aesthetic comparisons to Ian Curtis. But the best parts of that album were the soundscapes over which Cooper sang and while the addition of vocals was interesting and Similes still ended up being a pretty great album it ultimately didn't completely succeed. Enter Static Nocturne several months later, a single 50-minute long track self released by Cooper in an edition of 200 copies on CD in handmade and hand numbered cases. The album long track is stunning, some of the best work Cooper has ever done under any moniker. Cooper created Static Nocturne as an homage to white noise and static - the kind from the world of music as well as the natural world - and it shows. Static Nocturne is transporting, a wonderful, undulating, glowingly calm ocean of sound. Deep, glorious dronescapes shift and roll as the piece moves through its stages. Organs and pianos appear from grainy static fragments, field recordings blear almost to the point and often beyond of recognition, white noise washes - at time thunderously at others with the utmost serenity - over the listener. There's never a dull moment and in the rare moments when Static Nocturne hovers on that line it adds something new or veers off - albeit with sublime composure - in a different direction to recapture the attention of the listener. A truly wonderful album to fall asleep to - and I mean that in the best possible way - Static Nocturne also rewards careful, concentrated listening. So much is going on beneath the crackling, thrumming surface. Cooper has outdone himself here, making one of the finest pieces of ambient music this year.

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Buy (hard copies sold out, digital still available)

2. Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Love is a Stream (Type)

For the first time with his monumental Love is a Stream, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma makes a full foray into the world of blissed-out shoegaze - something he only hinted at at times before - leaving the haunting, glacial drone of his earlier work aside almost entirely. This is gorgeous, elating music, a torrent of immense, blissful noise, textures blown out with dreamy haze, shimmering walls of sound with buried harmonies humming beneath. It's often summery and hopeful but also incredibly loud and dense, chaotic and harsh, in some ways akin to both My Bloody Valentine and Tim Hecker's "Harmony in Ultraviolet" (fans of both will be very happy with what they hear in any case) but more abstracted, a stunning sort of synthesis of the two which manages to make these references while maintaining a distinctly original sound. There's still a hell of a lot of grit and mountains of harsh white noise static, and droning guitars and synthesizers and washed out, buried vocals all of which come together to make this something all its own. Somehow Cantu-Ledesma managed to do all this and still fill the album with what can almost be described as pop hooks albeit ones nearly lost altogether in the noise. There's melodies here for sure even if it does take a whole lot of digging beneath the gauze of glowing sound to find them. Hugely listenable yet layered and complex, this is a unique, amazing piece of music and the best yet from one of the most exciting artists around.

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1. Daniel Bjarnason - Processions (Bedroom Community)

Processions is the debut release of Icelandic composer Daniel Bjarnason and it is without a doubt one of the finest entries in the modern classical genre in some time. Although not dissimilar to his contemporaries - names like Max Richter, Olafur Arnalds, and Johann Johannsson come to mind - Bjarnason eschews the glitchy electronics and computerized flourishes of the latter two and pursues grander, more ambitious compositions than all three. Processions is a wonder, a consistently startling pleasure. Comprised of two three-movement pieces and a stand alone piece, Processions careens and gallops, tugs at the heart and causes it to race, utilizing a full orchestra to beautiful, jarring, and often surprising effect. The first piece opens with a thrilling crescendo of buzzsawing violins, kerthunking pizzicato and crumpling percussion before settling into a quiet serenity. The third movement is a mournful affair, a lone violin weaving a melancholy path over other murmuring strings before flickering into silence. The second piece is far more epic than the first, with spiraling, ferocious piano, a full brass section which blasts and glowers mightily, booming percussion, and monumental crescendos and builds. Still, Bjarnason never lets his compositions become too grandiose or cinematic. There's a remarkable sense of restraint even while Bjarnason takes us to the very edge of the precipice. Processions closes quietly, with a stand along piece for harp ushering us out, allowing us to contemplate the sublime sonic journey we just took. An absolutely essential album and one I happily call Best of 2010.

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