BABEL Heurter EP

27:32 mins // Pro CD-R, thermal print // Spray painted white digipak // Numbered edition of 25

Three track EP of avant electric guitar improvisations. A prepared Fender Telecaster thwacked with mallets and layered with loop and delay effects. Recorded live, direct to two-track in late 2012 by Jakob Rehlinger.

Announcements January 2013

A couple digital releases. BABEL’s new EP Heurter is available as PWYC on Bandcamp leading up to its physical release.

MOONWOOD put up a new rehearsal session on their Soundcloud.

It was recorded on Christmas Even in preparation for a Dec 28th show in Montreal and Jan 3rd in Toronto (captured by Mechanical Forest Sound).

A similar set will be recreated  on Sat, Jan 26 @Placebo Space (2877 Lake Shore Blvd W., Toronto).

MOONWOOD (cosmic-tribal psych-rock)
BLACK WALLS (sweet doom balladeer)
LORDE AWESOME (Toronto’s krautful dead)
End of night jam?

More details to follow.

TWO NEW BABEL ALBUMS: GLOCKENGEISTER and ALPHABETA

BABEL // GLOCKENGEISTER

79 mins // Pro-duped CD-R // Full colour 6-panel wallet // Edition of 50.

Sixteen beautiful, serene and often unsettling pieces for electronically manipulated glockenspiel, bells, mixing bowls,drums, wood block and ornamental gongs. Resonant tones weave and drift through ambient, limnal spaces.

“There’s a real feeling of exploration … it’s a very soft, spiritual atmosphere that should be your next soundtrack for falling asleep into lucid dreaming.” ~ Offerings / Hippie Cult

BABEL // ALPHABETA 

56 mins // Pro-duped CD-R // Full colour 6-panel wallet // Edition of 50.

A conceptual work where the pieces are composed from notes corresponding to the letters in their titles. Ranging from white noise freak-outs to measured, melodic themes, the 17-part suite covers the history of modern compostion from the 20th century minimalists such as Cage or Reich through Miles Davis’ jazz-fusion to maximalist post-rockers like Godspeed! and Tortoise.

SPECIAL LIMITED TIME COMBO DEAL:

Both albums for $16 (CAD, shipping included). Click HERE.

New Reviews at Foxy Digitalis

Andy Futreal/Babel, “7/8″ split tape 

Reviewed by Anthony D’Amico.

On the Andy Futreal side: “That is as conventionally musical as it gets too, as the fragile piano motif is quickly consumed by massed overlapping voices of newscasters and a deep and cavernous rumble.   The piano returns near the end, but much darker and more broken-sounding.  It kind of reminds me of some of Morton Feldman’s work a bit, forming a gently dissonant and uneasy lattice of twinkling single notes that bleed together.  Very impressive.“

On the Babel  side: “Part of Rehlinger’s distinctiveness is certainly due to his prominent use of atypical instrumentation (like metal bowls and woodblocks), but his aberrence runs pretty deep stylistically too, as he seems to draw inspiration equally from brooding post-rock, classical minimalism, Harold Budd (particularly his love of heavily reverb-ed piano), and probably even Martin Denny-style exotica ….  delicately melancholy piano motifs, but the many curious and sudden dynamic shifts and detours make Morpheum feel more like the soundtrack to a film than a stand-alone suite.  I think it’d be a pretty compelling film though.”

Moonwood, “River Ghosts” LP

Reviewed by Nicholas Zettel

“…the subtle layers and shimmering dynamics between the sparse folk elements might not be apparent on a first, glancing listen. Jakob Rehlinger… provides a stunning experimental guitar approach, a surprisingly “organic” electric guitar sound. The buzzing drones and scorched swells sound like they are produced by a cranked, clean amplifier, and the chiming reverb and tremolo naturally follow the signal’s original dynamic …. alternate between oscillating gourd flute and ringing, deceptively simple guitar lines. Alternate instrumentation and percussion enter the background from time to time, building the intensity and providing phantom noises: choirs, gurus, spiritual awakenings. I cannot emphasize enough the sparse composition of the elements throughout this side, rendering each set of simultaneous percussion, flute, and guitar swells more intense for each occurrence …. Over multiple listens, themes of deserted landscapes, rituals, and awakening vibe through the overtones and drones. Moonwood’s experimental folk might not grab you at first listen, but the textured sounds definitely reward multiple listens.“

BABEL : Limbus / Morpheum

Separate physical versions available here: http://arachnidiscs.wordpress.com/music

Mixes complete

It looks like the final mixes for both Moonwood Coal Aberrations and Babel Zahlreiche have been completed and mastered. The artwork needs to be finalized and then Arachnidiscs will finally release something (in physical form) after what must be a almost a year.

Until then, here’s two new tracks by The Metrics: A Weed By Any Other Name… and 11:11.

Return to BABEL

Jakob Rehlinger is bringing his BABEL moniker back.

The project started out as darkly experimental, post-ambient/neo-classical then evolved, by way of dub, into the psyche-folk he now records as Moonwood.

His newest album, Zahlreiche, is the closest to what BABEL was always intended to be— Cage/Glass/Reich as informed by Neubauten/Branca/Chatham.

This is the third movement from a cycle for prepared guitars called Schnurvorbereitung.