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previous artist: keenan lawler		there are 6 titles featuring r. keenan lawler in stock. they are listed below.		next artist: tom lax

$14.35

new to stock as of
december 10th, 2003

file under:
contemporary-electronic
reckank-related
rock-etc...

matador (usa) #ole 590 cd

matmos “the civil war” compact disc

regicide (2:47)
zealous order of candied knights (4:36)
reconstruction (9:13)
y. t. t. e. (9:07)
for the trees (3:31)
the stars and stripes forever (2:07)
pelt and holler (4:17)
the struggle against unreality begins (5:30)
for the trees (return) (4:18)

fourth (fifth?) matmos full-length album. it’s awesome. ‘nuff said. own it...

matador press release...

'the civil war' is the new album by san francisco electronic duo matmos. a hallucinatory double exposure of medieval english folk and 19th century americana, the civil war finds matmos experimenting with a dramatically different palette from their critically acclaimed exploration of medical technology 'a chance to cut is a chance to cure'. though there's nary a scalpel in sight, their humorous cut-up sensibility and willingness to take risks remains intact. in a time when most electronic artists seem desperate to ape the sounds of 1983 as closely as possible, matmos have tried to make the 2003 version of the 1990 version of the 1968 version of the 1860 version of the 1590s. across the nine tracks on 'the civil war', production styles and instrumentation keep telescoping backwards and projecting forwards, producing weirdly anachronistic dialogues: medieval jigs and reels joust against country and western twang, and pastoral acoustic folk gets pistolwhipped by crisp digital editing techniques.

a guerilla assault on rock, folk, and country maneuvers, 'the civil war' keeps lines of communication open across genres and periods. if the opener "regicide"'s keening hurdy gurdy recalls the incredible string band's psychedelic medievalism,the ambling piano line of "for the trees" sounds like a distant cousin of honky tonk pianist floyd cramer's swooning instrumentals. songs mutate and reverse direction: "y.t.t.e" starts with tumbling big band drums that recall iggy pop's "lust for life", gatecrashes a boredoms drumcircle, lilts into chet atkins twang, and finally scuttles to a close in minimalist soundfile manipulation. deceptively "pretty" on the surface, it's music that struggles against itself and occasionally collapses, breaking down into amorphous skeins of noise, dissolving into raw field recordings of cicadas in the trees and fourth of july fireworks, and, in "pelt and holler", unexpectedly jump-cutting to total silence. while much of this album's focus on untreated and close mic-ed acoustic instruments suggest a pickin' session on a southern porch, the mellowness is peppered with peaks of scaldingly bright and extreme sonics. on this recording m. c. schmidt and guest member keith fullterton whitman (aka hrvatski) had the opportunity to use one of the original serge modular synthesizers built by ivan tcherepnin; its piercing squeals ricochet across the military drumrolls of "reconstruction".

as their compositional appetite grew more ambitious and expansive, matmos decided to bring in more musically gifted reinforcements from across america. among others, steve goodfriend and jim putnam of radar bros. sit in on drums and guitar respectively, jay lesser plucked the dobro, tim barnes offered drum source samples, improv guitar manipulator keenan lawler ventured into the sewer pipes of louisville, kentucky for a subterranean steel guitar recording, fellow louisville alumnus david grubbs contributed piano, with a little coaxing blevin blectum added violin, and, providing the lion's share of guest contributions, mark lightcap (formerly of acetone, now playing with hope sandoval) played tuba, peck horn, banjo, and heaps of electric and acoustic guitar. that said, matmos' trademark ear for highly unorthodox sample sources endures: "pelt and holler" is made almost entirely out of the sound of a rabbit pelt, while "the struggle against unreality begins" features the sound of the blood in m. c. schmidt's carotid artery.

balancing baroquely detailed production against passages of stark single-instrument simplicity, matmos have pushed themselves in an unexpected, and surprisingly tuneful, new direction. part canterbury tale and part southern gothic, 'the civil war' eludes easy categories but rewards careful listening, responding to present tensions with historical imagination and sly wit.

$12.01

new to stock as of
may 14th, 2007

threads:
minimalism-drones
folk
guitar-themed

music fellowship (usa) #mf 25 cd
new american folk hero (united states) #nafh 11 cd

r. keenan lawler “ghost of a plane of air” compact disc

a plane of air
coffee’s bad books
the colonies
birds of prey types 1&2
grace period
airship
what you thought was lost forever
a suspension in dreamtime

click the play button to hear an excerpt of "plane of air"

music fellowship press release...

keenan lawler
ghost of a plane of air cd [mf25]

r.keenan lawler has spent the last 25 years developing his own personal sound world, constantly pushing himself in new directions and developing new techniques, while remaining completely focused on his vision. his experiments on 1930 national resonator guitar are the stuff of legend you sometimes hear from town to town by someone who may have had the good fortune to witness one of his performances. words such as cosmic, monolithic and deeply american have been used to describe the experience of his music. he has worked with other like-minded musicians such as matmos, pelt, rhys chatham, john butcher, charalambides, ignaz schick, philip samartzis, my morning jacket, david watson and lukas ligeti.

in 1999 he self released ghost of a plane of air, it quickly went out of print and has since been heralded by many as a minimalist masterpiece. it is now available for a larger audience. lawler here pushes the bounds and very definition of the resonator guitar: bowing, picking, scraping, knocking and combining it with electro-acoustic manipulations and on site recordings. the sound that pours from the speakers is dense, affecting, cavernous and like no other, often delving from delicate picking into a flurry of notes and ecstatic drones.

ghost of a plane of air is the sound of a man looking deep into his soul and coming out the other side changed, scarred and poetic. this reissue has been remastered, and includes a previously unreleased song recorded during the same time period.

$12.01

new to stock as of
may 14th, 2007

threads:
modern-psych

music fellowship (usa) #mf 15 cd

spiderwebs / mike tamburo / matthew mcdowell / r. keenan lawler “strands formerly braided” compact disc

spiderwebs - new zodiac powder finger
mike tamburo & matthew mcdowell - uncontrollable mr. lechte
keenan lawler - life expectancy of a rose

click the play button to hear an excerpt of "spiderwebs - new zodiac powder finger"

music fellowship press release...

spiderwebs / mike tamburo & matthew mcdowell / keenan lawler
strands formerly braided cd [mf15]

when you unbraid your hair, the strands remain curled and contorted for some time. the act of braiding the strands together affects the structure and fibers of the hair, taking days or even weeks for the hair to relax back into its natural position. this relationship between strands in a braid is similar to relationships between people. each interaction, especially ones with close friends, affects and influences the interactions you have later on. thus, strands formerly braided is a fitting title for this edition of the music fellowship's triptych series because the three featured artists have a long history of improvisation and collaboration.

spiderwebs is the duo of tom carter and sandy ewen. carter is best known for his work with the landmark drone group charalambides, which he formed with longtime creative partner christina carter. since 2002, carter has begun collaborating with a wide range of other artists, from his work with 60’s australian folk poet and songwriter, pip proud, to his improvisations with psychedelic stoner rock band bardo pond. for this release, he teams with sandy ewen who has a long history of improvisation as well, from her membership in houston's meca improvisational ensemble to her performances in the nameless sound collective concert series and austin's no idea festival.

mike tamburo has been a member of the pittsburgh avant garde music scene as an integral part of crystalline drumless drone rock structures of meisha and the more-free flowing ethnic apocalypse music of arco flute foundation, as well as countless spontaneous performances and post-gathering improv sessions. for this recording, we present one the best efforts of these spontaneous performances, reteaming tamburo with matthew mcdowell of arco flute foundation for a minimalist, pacific 23-minute drone.

for over a decade, louisville's r. keenan lawler has been quietly evolving a highly personal and exploratory language on the resonator guitar which has been called "cosmic, monolithic and deeply american". his music is informed by sources ranging from carnatic classical, charles ives, albert ayler, blues, minimalism and non western trance musics. although primarily a solo performer he is best known for his collaborative work. the keyhole ii album he recorded with pelt and metal worker eric clark is one of pelt's most beautiful and memorable recordings, and the recording of his guitar playing in a sewer pipe in louisville is featured on matmos' the civil war. he has also performed or collaborated with a wide range of musicians including rhys chatham, john butcher, charalambides, my morning jacket, kevin drumm, and lukas ligeti. for this release, we present an exclusive recording from lawler, featuring his trademark national steel resonator guitar and his unique method of playing with sound.

$13.91

back in stock as of
january 17th, 2008

first in stock on
october 24th, 2006

threads:
guitar-themed
minimalism-drones

xeric (usa) #xer 108 cd

r. keenan lawler “music for the bluegrass states” compact disc

that train has already left the station
wall climbing spirit
1930
the air on mars is hard to breathe - we'll just have to stay in louisville
a universal rose
one of these days
our prayer

click the play button to hear an excerpt of "one of these days"

nice. listening to this disc takes me back to that lazy autumn day in louisville that i spent with keenan, driving around looking for a 3-amp fuse to fix joseph suchy’s ailing step-down transformer. we found it too, in the nick of time in the local electronics-guru’s living room, and made it back to the gallery just in time for a rollicking duo between the two.

it’s actually kind of insane that this is keenan’s first mass-market album; he’s been on the scene down there for as long as i’ve been conscious of it, rattling off his trademark dobro and electronic sets in multiple configurations. this set covers much ground, from the partch-esque opening cut to the more straight-ahead lap-steep/dobro pieces in the middle to the glorious bowed guitar pieces at the end of the record.

xeric press release...

native kentuckian r. keenan lawler speaks a private, fundamental language via his trademark metal-bodied resonator guitar. with an intensely focused technique, he sets bluegrass- and blues-inflected tonalities against dense masses of harmonic overtones and sustained textures. it is a mesmerizing sound, one that conjures the effect of various global trance-musics and has beguiled a series of collaborators including pelt, matmos, charalambides and my morning jacket. inhabiting the mysterious string-space between tony conrad and john fahey, lawler's is a wholly original idiom of music that brims with near-religious exhaltation and spectral, gothic dread — a daring plunge through the darkened brambles of a particularly raw americana.

$15.75

back in stock as of
august 14th, 2007

first in stock on
november 3rd, 2006

threads:
minimalism-drones
electro-acoustic-composition
field-recordings
guitar-themed
doom
modern-psych

rebis (usa) #rebis 008 cd

“lead into gold : long-form works” double compact disc set

two discs of excellent extended work!!

disc one (54 minutes)

isa's ball by the zoo wheel
the rocks will open by of...ohv
cherubim wheels by the gray field recordings
the finesse of limitation by son of earth
burning bright ember by birds of delay

disc two (60 minutes)

monadnock by white/light
time subjugator by keenan lawler
{(music=time)=(time=music)}3 by bruce russell
goldener hour by bird show / lichens
inverted house by the opera glove sinks in the sea

click the play button to hear an excerpt of "monadnock"

superb compilation of “long-form works” from folks such as loren chasse, bruce russell, ben vida & rob lowe, etc...

the pinnacle of the rebis catalogue, and the best place to start.

rebis press release...

top artists from the spiritual, minimalist, folk, psychedelic and noise undergrounds come together to contribute long-form pieces based on the theme of alchemical transmutation.

includes exclusive tracks from birds of delay, son of earth, keenan lawler, the zoo wheel, the opera glove sinks in the sea, bird show + lichens, bruce russell, the gray field recordings, white/light, and of...ohv (loren chasse + christine boepple).

released april 2006.

$13.91

back in stock as of
january 17th, 2008

first in stock on
june 14th, 2007

threads:
guitar-themed
folk
modern-psych
minimalism-drones

table of the elements (usa) #toe 091 cd

“the great koonaklaster speaks: a john fahey celebration” compact disc

jack rose "since i've been a man full grown" (11:08)
greg malcolm "spanish flang dang" 5:13
ben vida "exorcise/intone" 7:24
sir richard bishop "hood river lap dance" 4:25
michael hurley "my babe, my babe" 3:00
no neck blues band w/ john fahey and coach fingers "overcome" 3:46
lichens "escapisms in a comedic forum" 3:27
badgerlore "red apple" 5:31
r. keenan lawler "i used to strive for a tree; now i thrive on a mountain" 4:06
pumice "ceremonial knives" 4:53
david daniell "crossing the susquehanna river bridge" 11:31

click the play button to hear an excerpt of "crossing the susquehanna ..."

very nice collection of table of the elements-relatable artists & friends paying homage to john fahey in song. standout tracks by sir richard bishop (an eerie/distant psych-out with harmonizer-fx), david daniell (an 11+ minute epic that begins as a crisp travis-picked ditty, then evolves into a huge, harsh drone cloud before descending down into a memphis-tinged coda of slide guitar & ambience - awesome...)

table of the elements press release...

the great koonaklaster speaks: a john fahey celebration

john fahey's death is shrouded in confusion and camouflage. he is believed to have died in the explosion of a house during the filming of michelangelo antonioni's zabriskie point in 1969. his remains were never found, and the question remains: did fahey purposely stage his own death for his own occlusive purposes?

a collusion of folk, blues, ethnic and modern classical methods, fahey's music suggests both the trickster and the shaman, and has attracted a cult of musician followers over the years, ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime. his unsolved disappearance has inspired another cult that worships count saint germain, a rosicrucian adept who is said to have never died and assumed various identities over the centuries. disciples of this sect, heard on this record, believe fahey, "the great koonaklaster," to be the most recent incarnation of saint germain. they view fahey's music as a synthesis of saint germain's abilities as a classical composer and skills as an alchemist, and have absorbed his guitar style in order to pay homage to him.

there is much to be gleaned from the koonaklasterians' rites contained within; whether or not you choose to accept this "immortal motherf#cker of the 20th century" as saint germain is up to you.

previous artist:
keenan lawler

...and that's everything in stock featuring r. keenan lawler.
(why not take a look at the previous and next artists?)

next artist:
tom lax