MYSTERY SEA 67 | jeremy bible & jason henry| [vowl]
ARTWORK 
front 
back
Frozen ghosts of labor, mute screams
of the past
Long disfiguring ribbons of rust
Corroded times
Floods bristling with debris
Haze inside, glazed sun
Frictions of surfaces
Grinding echoes
From dust & dissolution to revelation...
~
A stranded
vessel with eroded walls, "vowl" questions,
going beyond notions of abandon & decrepitude, drowning us in a
heavy fog
to better fish us out with a taste of the depths, a sense of powerful
re-emergence...
From nowhere to somewhere else, stumbling along an open endless dream...
- daniel crokaert (texts based on jason henry's initial words for "vowl"), February 2011
PRESS RELEASE
Well-oiled
duo of Ohio based artists Jeremy Bible & Jason
Henry have honed their tools along installation works for Art
galleries & museums, performances, and their already quite populated
catalog of releases for such labels as Gears Of Sand, Resting Bell,
Experimedia, Gruenrekorder, and Abgurd, to name but a few...
Interested in a plethora of media mainly affiliated with visual arts,
and in Nature, their combined approach is both synesthesic & textural...
They blend field recordings, musique concrete, acoustic, & electronic
forms, moulding their sound figures by means of conceptual and algorithmic
recording and processing techniques...
"vowl" was initially intended to appear as
a digital release on the ever fine and/Oar label, but finally taken
on MS board after a preview listening opportunity...Based on the same
sound sources, an LP titled "Vryashn" is to be published imminently
on Infraction in a ltd edition of 500 copies - it can be seen as companion
audio-material...
From
winter circumvolutions
and its deeper recesses
Along the debris waltz,
a new moor breaks through...
Everyday
objects chink,
rusted days creak...
Moments of chaos border on those of redemptive grace...
Like
lingering trails of smoke,
"vowl" slips away,
and out of its haze,
sketch elusive contours...
Fragmented
landscape,
heterogenous truth,
A dazzle on a grey day,
A half-open curtain...
"vowl"
is a serpentine flow,
reshaped ground,
a jetty on a somewhere else...
01. - 
02. -
LENGTH
67'42
FORMAT
CDR ltd to 120 numbered copies
VITAL WEEKLY 762|Frans
De Waard
---
NEW !
Although they run their own label,
Experimedia, the duo of Jeremy Bible and Jason
Henry (and both of them solo as well), release music on other
labels, such as Gruenrekorder, Resting Bell and Gears Of Sand, and and
now have a work on Mystery Sea. Much of the work uses field recordings
and electronics. The field recordings seem to have been made in a restaurant
or something like that. The basic material of this release is also used
on a LP to be released shortly on Infraction. The aquatic theme that
runs through a lot of the releases on Mystery Sea is something that
is missing here I think. No bubbling down under electronics, rusty shipwrecks
or seas washing ashore, but a rather decent, not spectacular, work of
drone music mixed with the great book of field recordings. Nothing new
as such under that particular sun, but certainly not bad either. But
both pieces of 'Vowl', lasting each over thirty-three minutes, are also
a bit long I think, also since there are large chunks in which there
doesn't seem to be happening much, static rather than moving music.
The whole thing could have been a third shorter and gain more power
on basis of that. But throughout also not a bad a release either. One
that left me with mixed feelings.
vital weekly
FURTHERNOISE|Alan
Lockett
--- NEW !
'Frozen ghosts
of labor, mute screams of the past, Long disfiguring ribbons of rust,
Corroded times, Floods bristling with debris, Haze inside, glazed sun,
Frictions of surfaces, Grinding echoes, From dust & dissolution
to revelation...' Liner note poetics inspired by Jeremy Bible
& Jason Henry, who have cut their experimental teeth via
installation works and performances, building a back-catalogue of releases
on Gears Of Sand, Abgurd, Resting Bell, Gruenrekorder and Infraction,
as well as their own Experimedia. Blending field recordings, musique
concrète, acoustic and electronic forms, moulding sound figures
via conceptual and algorithmic recording and processing techniques.
Vowl illustrates the duo's multi-modal interests, strong
visual elements and Nature undercurrents combining in a kind of audio-textural
synaesthesia. Initially bound for the kindred spirit and/Oar label,
before being taken on MS board, it can be seen as companion audio-material
to their Infraction LP, Vryashn, a more conventionally musically-inclined
work on which the basic material was also used. MS’s signature
aquatic theme is not immediately evident - shorter on electronic currents
and seaspray sonics, and long on rusted scrapyard relics; still a rather
decent, if unspectacular, work of drone and field effluvia. Both "vowl
01" and "vowl 02" are extended tracts mainly populated
with smears of atonal figure stretched across ambiguous evacuated ground
edged with rustling and fibrillating field matter. Vowl
is an affair of gritty atmospheric driftzones, granular swathes washed
in mercury, residing in an interzone between sound art and music. Paradigms
of indeterminacy and structure contend for dominance, with the former
seeming to win on this occasion. Metaphorically, it feels like stills
rather than motion, that some might prefer to have commune with a more
fluid tonal other half, as it does on Vryashn (original issue reviewed
here, later here).
furthernoise
WONDERFUL
WOODEN REASONS|Ian
Holloway
--- NEW !
The latest offering from Belgium's
finest label Mystery Sea brings us this pairing of Ohioans.
Bible and Henry, according to the press release,
have amassed an eye-opening resume spread across some mighty fine labels
but I must admit both these fellas are new to me so first impressions
count.
The opening of this two track album is very much in the MS vein.
Processed field recordings drenched in reverb creating ghostly atmospheres
thick with palpable trepidation. It's very well done and is easy
to lose oneself within but it's nothing that we haven't heard before.
The second track sees them open themselves to wider horizons and the
drawn out, wavering tones and gentle flutters of melodic flash see them
engage in a staring contest into the sun before harsher, earthier, mustier
drones force their way through the light and take the music in an altogether
more arid and dark direction before everything slowly comes to rest
amidst crystalline ambience.
It's this second track that really makes this release for me.
Track 1 has much to recommend it and I liked it much but track 2 was
a far more adventurous composition whose exploratory nature was utterly
compelling.
wonderful wooden reasons
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