Kg.IX | COMAOCEAN
CDI.0: CALIBRATION SEQUENCE
CDI.I: SHIVER, SIGNAL
CDII.II: ARID SEA, SILENCE
CDIII.III: PROXIMATE DAWN
173'/III
Hammond organ, amplifiers, Serge modular system, shortwave, voices, plate and spring reverbs, analogue treatments
at The Pines Recording (RIP), Montreal, 2017-2020; The Restoration Wing, Montreal, 2020-2023; EMS, Stockholm, 2023.
Mixed at EMS and The Restoration Wing, October - November 2023.
Mastered by Michael Lawrence.
Manufactured by Monotype Pressing.
3CD | 2024.IV.8
Thanks to Henrik & Gabrielle at EMS, Love Rosenström, Marta Szewczyk, Michael, Maria and the Creatures.
Available here.
Or here.
“Deeply amazing stuff. Nothing else out there, takes you here...”
— Obladada, 2024.IV.02— read the entire review here.
“‘I haven't included an artist name or credit on the CD sleeve but if you do write about it, you can credit to my name. It's not that I'm avoiding responsibility for all this, just prefer the music to exist independently of any sort of person or personality’. Hence this 3CD set is listed by - on Bandcamp. The previous releases I reviewed by - or the same label were credited to James Hamilton (Vital Weekly 1082) and JH (Vital Weekly 1331), so there is a gradual removal of personality already. Hamilton's primary instrument is the Hammond organ and the three discs use recordings from various places, The Pines Recording, The Restoration Wing (both in Montreal) and EMS in Stockholm. In the latter place, he fed the Hammond recordings to the Serge modular and Various outboard devices (EMT plate and AKG spring reverbs principally). There is also shortwave and voice material, none of which I easily recognised in the music. But then, also not the Hammond organ, as another technique used is amplification. Without being very specific about how this works, I imagine speaker systems and microphones in all sorts of nooks and crannies of the studio, picking up curved emissions of sound. The first disc starts with three minutes of near silence, followed by a piece of more than an hour. Disc two is 33 minutes, disc three 70. The music covers a wide dynamic range; from near silence and for some considerable time to extremely loud, also without any holding back. As said, I didn't recognise any of the instruments, and if anything, I would have thought this was just a massive amount of digitally processed sounds, along the lines of Francisco Lopez. No such thing is mentioned, but I'm sure 'play loud' is a recommendation Hamilton would give us. It's not something I can easily do in this old house, and with headphones, I found the experience quite claustrophobic. Think of The Hafler Trio's drones being taken to the conveyor belt noise of industrial music, interspersed with moments of quietness and contemplation — the quiet before or after the storm. At 173 minutes this is all too much to be taking at once, but I imagine this is precisely what Hamilton is looking for. To bring the listener to the point of exhaustion, without stopping at that point, Hamilton continues. In this case, he succeeded very well.”
— Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly #1435, 2024.IV.30
