belong “common era” long playing record

• come see (5:27)
  
• never came close (4:14)
  
• a walk (5:02)
  
• perfect life (4:29)
  
  
• keep still (4:39)
  
• different heart (5:29)
  
• make me return (4:33)
  
• common era (4:08)
  
• very careful (3:20)

belong “common era” compact disc

• come see (5:27)
  
• never came close (4:14)
  
• a walk (5:02)
  
• perfect life (4:29)
  
• keep still (4:39)
  
• different heart (5:29)
  
• make me return (4:33)
  
• common era (4:08)
  
• very careful (3:20)

kranky press release...

artist: belong title: common era catalog #: krank155 release date: march 21, 2011 it's been five years since the last belong long player, as the duo works slowly to organize their sound works. both the time invested, and the wait, have been well rewarded with this return. common era shows extraordinary progression from that first album of dense, scorched earth instrumentals, hints of a new direction having been revealed on the colorloss record ep from 2008 which contained covers of four should-have-been classics from the original psychedelic era. the new material has such common pop elements as "songs," vocals and drum machines, but the results could hardly be called conventional and are like little else happening on the current "scene." the songs themselves are akin to radio transmissions received from another time and place, just as likely to be the future as the past, or even from a contemporary alternate universe. they are both passionate and dispassionate, grey yet technicolor, ghostly and palpable, distant yet immediate, grainy and focused. upon listening these conceptual contradictions are dismissed with ease, as the recordings reveal that they fit all of these descriptors simultaneously, an extraordinary balancing act.

belong “same places (slow version) (green vinyl)” one-sided long playing record

• same places (slow version) (14:16)

table of the elements press release...

belong same places (slow version) table of the elements continues to celebrate its 15th anniversary with the fifth installment in its guitar series vols. 3 & 4. it’s a 12xlp romp of deviant fretnoise by some of experimental music’s most prominent players, including christian fennesz, thurston moore, and sunn o)))’s stephen o’malley. wafting, vaporously, from the suffocating heat of new orleans, belong shimmers like a mirage: vaguely discernable, yet always at the edge of an unobtainable horizon. collaborators mike jones and turk dietrich employ a singular and remarkably inscrutable studio technique (dietrich’s remix skills extend to nine inch nails’ “the frail”) to wholly liquefy source material – here electric guitars – into wave upon breaking wave of sound. comparisons are frequently made to william basinski’s notorious “disintegration loops,” and both efforts speak to intimate loss experienced on an epic, collective, and horrific scale: 9/11 and katrina, respectively. but while basinski’s self-destructing loops articulate a one-way road to oblivion, belong’s music is not only degenerative, it’s regenerative. with “same places (slow version),” belong evinces a slow-motion transformation – plate tectonics, wired for sound. aural mountains melt into seas; yet icy barrens yield to breathing jungles of detail. the single, sprawling track may evoke decay, dissolution and destruction, but underfoot are tendrils of inexplicable joy. belong sings a lullaby of obliteration, and the paradox it embodies would make both kevin shields and tony conrad proud: crushing melancholia and shuddering euphoria, inexorably intertwined.