petak, 31. svibnja 2013.

Moon Zero - Tombs EP (2013)











Dok su bile analogne, grobnice - zemlja, kosti, prah... - bile su romantične i zastrašujuće, no otkad se otkrilo da su cijelo vrijeme bile digitalna simulacija, raspadanje je postalo vječno a smrt trenutna.

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Recorded onto an 8-track at St George In The East Church in Shadwell, London last October, 'Tombs' is the debut release for Tim Garratt under his Moon Zero moniker. This four track EP introduces Tim's approach to noise-drone, incorporating melody and structure, delivered through processed instrumentation and filtered electronics.

'Tombs' is, especially for a debut, a bold and confident musical statement, which reimagines the possibilities of processed organ and laptop sounds in a live context. EP-opener 'Dalyan' builds from slowly wavering layers of sound into a crumbling, decaying wall of fuzzed-out, peaking noise, which in turn builds again into ever-moving blocks of chopped loops and feedback, absorbing the listener completely into Moon Zero's musical space. 

Yet the real power of the EP is in the fact that Moon Zero's compositions include all of the elements included above, without ever attempting to sound 'like' other noise / ambient / drone artists - the entire EP flows seamlessly from form to form, constituting of some of the most unashamed and fresh takes on musical ideas that are so often presented as tired, genre-defining clichés. A remarkable listen.
Confined inside a tomb, breathing out centuries of fine dust, Tombs awakens. Luckily, it’s not the Tombs we know of from The X-Files, but it does hold just as menacing a lair as the one featured in the show.
Dusty, dry winds drive the music of Tombs forward, placing the music somewhere deep in the abyss of noise-drone, electronic experimentation and feedback-annihilated loops, yet it’s a sound that, up to this point, has remained relatively unheard. Plumbing the depths of what is possible, Tombs is haunted by the people that haven’t left and crypts lying in ruin, lacking any kind of light.
Using an 8-track, Tombs was recorded as one entity at St George In The East Church in Shadwell, London. Yet, the imagined church that awaits you inside the music isn’t an entirely healthy one. It does, however, make Tombs what it is, and the live setting of the Church allows an unbelievably dense atmosphere to creep in and eventually resurrect this crumbling tomb. The influences of the Church, and the acoustics surrounding it, seep into the drones, and drag a distorted, anguished blade all over the crumbling atmosphere as if the drone had been previously tortured. The music reveals a kind of Church centuries old, dating way back and in need of some desperate repair and renovation. Spirits are the only orbs of light, save for the already lit candles; they’ve been expecting you.
Cold, chilling winds enter through the gaps, where the unsteady white light of a candle offers the only real sanctuary of safety. As the atmosphere develops, the drones start to creak, and then crank up to a roar, distorted beyond their original state like an indistinct, mummified sermon. Opener “Dalyan” sets the appropriate mood, a dim light illuminating the first few pews of scratched wood and echoes falling far behind. The first loop, reminiscent of shushed footsteps, sounds as if they walk through the very wall. Hauntology this isn’t, but a rush of whooshing wind isn’t alone in creating the chills, especially when the track dissects in two, splitting slowly in the mix and then dividing completely like a silk spider-web struck by a recoiling face.
Tombs is the underbelly that lies forgotten inside dank cathedrals; past the creaking doors and unused corridors, and down the flight of stairs that give you a venomous sensation just by setting foot on the highest step. As a piece of music, it’s a pretty amazing feat. As a debut, it’s even more of an amazing feat. These atmospheres still hold onto terrible acts, unable to separate from the past, almost as if the very loops were slices of past decades and past incidents cycling back into the present. It’s an effortless slab of dark ambient that does just enough to strike a balance between fear and curiosity. And in the space of only four tracks, Tombs is never rushed or prolonged (you probably wouldn’t want to spend too long down here, for your own sake). Only the lightest of electronic influences can be heard; the treble-rich oscillations and cycles of noise-harmony create a foreboding and unsettling image of fallen archangels and weeping statues charcoal in stone. Unlike many apparitions of noise-drone, the music of Tombs places melody at the altar, where voices shriek out plumes of dust as mummified sermons.
“Endless Palms” feels like it could fall at any point, lost in a labyrinth of tunnels that still cling to the oily sin of their past. Despite this, the drones seem to squeal and sing at the same time, and it is this imbalance that tilts the mind one way and another; we’re never sure where this tunnel is leading. Loops are used to cycle and progress the atmosphere, clanking and grinding at intervals, but remaining firm to the voices that continue to haunt the space.
Coda “Winter Dreams” is the ultimate sonic force that abides in the deep corners of the underground; the distortion-heavy bass growls like an angry beast left in an ancient, disused chamber. Not quite noise, and not quite drone, Tombs is a moulding of styles, united by a common black shroud of lively decay and dusty chills where organ-deep reverberations create unfathomable crypts of subterranean sound. Moon Zero has created a special record that deserves a lot of attention; descend those steps, one at a time, into the Tombs.
You may never come back out. (James Catchpole) 


Digital decay, ambiance, darkness, bright moments, solitude, openness, courage, analog warmth and soul searching are just a few phrases and words that describe the emotional complexity and depth I feel from London’s Moon Zero and his debut album Tombs on Futuresequence Records. In October of 2012, Moon Zero captured these cathartic tapestries of sound onto 8-track at St George In The East Church in Shadwell, London to ethereal and other-worldly affect. It’s like looking into a water that casts a reflection of your image where faint traces of movement are abound in abundance and the remembrance of what once was is still intact. Tombs represents this delicacy in a weighty essence of timbres and pitches that floats the minds imagination into suspended dream states.
Tombs is mood music for those who love to fall into every crevasse and corridor of sound possible. Textures are intertwined with one another for statements of sonic penetration and pitfall breaking sections. This is as exploratory and honest as you get in the culture of ambient music. Pressed on limited edition cassette and offered digitally as well, it’s a release that takes me to a very special place devoid of the music industries diluted sense of movement where viral ads and other auspicious meanderings of ones art are an accepted standard for greatness. Moon Zero exemplified greatness before anyone ever heard Tombs and now it’s the worlds job to care for this creation the way it deserves to be loved. Music is alive and well in 2013 and Moon Zero is an artist who plans to take us far into the future. I live for music this submerged and expressive without the confinements of pop structures. -Erik Otis
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Lost Trail - Pages From The Alamance Hymnal, 2011​-​2013 (2013)



Kao da sama stvarnost ima dimnjak. A iz dimnjaka se diže ----  Ili su spaljeni samo ljudi, a ostatak svijeta je ostavljen netaknut?
U rangu Caretakera.

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losttraildrone.bandcamp.com/
www.losttraildrone.com/home.cfm
Reading through the Pages From The Alamance Hymnal, tragic memories start to converge. Riffling through the pages of Lost Trail’s impressive discography, created between 2011 and 2013, Pages From The Alamance Hymnal breathes with life and decay. Clouds of ancient dust rise out from the crumpled pages as the book is opened, and the musty scent of worn paper lingers in the turning atmosphere. It’s a cathedral that has fallen into ruin, a state that was once a thriving area of opportunity; instead, the decay set in, and the industrial beating heart beats no more. This side of America is fatigued, leaving nature to claim back at least some of the mechanical rust so prevalent to the 20th century. It’s a place where melodies fuse with the natural environment – in the parks, in the woodland – but there is decay here, too. Silence echoes out of forgotten abbeys. Leather-bound, stained with black, these pages echo out melancholic incantations for lost hearts. If you’ve ever seen The Evil Dead, you’ll know too well that the reading aloud of ancient inscription is never a good thing, but here the reading is a subtle one, uncovering an open invitation to the spiritual; the other, unseen side. The afterlife enters into the present, replaying some horrific tragedy, enacted out over and over again due to shock and the prospect of letting go. Lost Trail conduct a séance, comunicating through the ghost box of ambience, consoling survivors who left loved ones too early, or grieving couples wanting just one more touch.
Tombs are clothed in a static of drone from beyond, as indistinct voices filter through the ambience, as thin as a wounded, blood-dried vein, spilling stains of red over the black Hymnal. It isn’t just the life that drains away; it is hope. It was once a hope that resembled The American Dream, only now, in this corner of America, the emphasis has been placed firmly on the word ‘dream’.
It’s beautiful music, almost serene, and it’s the ethereal aura that makes it beautiful. The music flirts with unseen frequencies other than human. Ghost boxes continue to tune into and pick up static, but the atmosphere is tired, a town that is past caring, dialed into a permanent frequency that is at times beautifully lit by spectral beings and at others electrically charged with fierce terror.
Lost Trail, the project of Zachary Corsa and Denny Corsa, here open up a deeply reflective, lo-fi style of ambient music that is rooted deeply within suburban America, and, more specifically, North Carolina. The hymnal’s pages are ripped straight out of the forests, taken from trees that absorb the substance of slaughtered suffering, a culled environment that echoes its dark history out of nature’s woodland and into the pebble-strewn roads leading into the townships of human design.
Signals continue to drip into the radio band, but the residents are trapped in one dimension, unable to see that the melancholia is littered throughout the distance of the past and yet caught up in the present day, like a poltergeist condemned to one room (normally taking up residency in the cold confines of an attic or a basement), haunting the very same suburban street decade after decade.
Suburban ghosts breathe once more, where the stacks of books are left to decay on the floor, some ripped and with pages missing, and smashed plates litter the side of the wall; the sign of a broken home, or of paranormal activity. Abandoned houses on the other side of the street loom from the safe distance of the sidewalk, with paint-faded facades and a creaking porch revealing bare, untouched floorboards. ‘Spiritual Warfare/Fuck Satan’ faces this supernatural element head-on, a beautiful track where a lighter, major melody struggles with its own belief system, somehow distorted and suppressed by a thickening drone with unknown, murky intent.
‘Distant Sprawl Halogens And Snow On Car Windshields’ drifts down the highway on the outskirts of town, past a melancholic scene, where perhaps a car crash has claimed another victim, where floral tributes litter the side of the road and the fluorescent lights of an evening rush hour leave a never ending trail of white-coloured orbs, running down the roads like a constant stream of rain, teardrops with destinations. The artificial light that emanates from the high mast lighting, itself glowing an eerie and unnatural light, is only a recurring, vague corona rebounding against the windshield.
You can’t escape the past, and there’s a sense that Lost Trail aren’t trying to escape it at all. If anything, they long to return.
Diluted voices, echoing as if through a tunnel of thin, frail memories, fragile and left hanging on connected strands of long ago, trail over a weary drone. Looping thoughts and worn out melodies linger in the atmosphere, unable to let go. A distorted presence walks through the susceptible drone, possessing the music with a static-heavy plea for release. It’s a sound that is grounded to the gravitational force of reality, but is incredibly open to the supernatural.
Just floating.
The radio recalls another victim, losing control of her car on ‘Out Here The Maps Go White And Pale’. Tragedy is something that Lost Trail return to again and again; it is everywhere, looping in the subconscious mind, in the local newspapers and onto the streets. You can almost feel it breathing heavily on the chest. A recorded conversation about the precious nature of life ensues, as thin as the trail of drone just above the radio broadcast. Safety can be an illusion; really, we’re all just driving along, with no seatbelts for company.
Out here, loitering in the streets, the youth are a fallen generation; our pale ghosts ashen with past promise, itself fading away, with nothing good to say and nothing to do on the afternoon streets. These are the real ghosts. A white, somewhat familiar figure drapes itself in static; turning the air cool, erasing the steam on a mug of cold coffee. Broken loops solemnly circle, gorgeous in their failure. On ‘White Faces Greyed Out’, a melody desperately tries to push through the static. A once-loved pop song, now only disintegrated ashes, becomes choked with the scent of October; burning autumn leaves and the charring of paper. The Alamance Hymnal hangs suspended in the air, even after the pages have been torn apart.
- James Catchpole for Fluid Radio

 To be honest, I actually am appreciating this post-post-rock vibe Lost Trail is freshing with Pages From The Alamance Hymnal. I mean, the husband and wife duo (Zachary and Denny Corsa) didn’t really bring any new sound to music, considering the release was recorded between 2011-2013, but on a dreary Monday like today, it’s really crushing it. What I think they really do is just progress the sounds that Mono, Godspeed, Yellow Swans, and Explosions in the Sky did: posted rock in the post-sense. Mayyyybe even that one dude who did them tape loops while the twin towers were burning down and just sat and watched. Only Lost Trail goes for the gold, seemingly including elements from all these artists and cramming them into the 16-track sound-tome that is Pages From The Alamance Hymnal.
People call Lost Trail disintegrated/disembodied/ethereal Americana, but I’m more about what I come up with myself. To a degree, at least. And as I had said, this music is perfect if you really gotta sit down and crack out some work. Thus, to me, this is REAL working music. I came in today and had to finish like eight website copy materials, and have finished five since listening to Pages From The Alamance Hymnal. Thankfully, I’m not even done with the release. For my dollar, Pages From The Alamance Hymnal is worth way more than that digitally, though it’s free via their Bandcamp and here. However, Lost Trail is selling a DIY CD of Pages From The Alamance Hymnal for eight wampum (really, USD) too. Again, worth way more than that, but what can ya do? IMO this entire release would be the NASTY on a booklet of 7-inches. Anyone down? @Ghostly International @KRAAK @Weird Forest - C MONSTER
"It’s beautiful music, almost serene, and it’s the ethereal aura that makes it beautiful. The music flirts with unseen frequencies other than human. Ghost boxes continue to tune into and pick up static, but the atmosphere is tired, a town that is past caring, dialed into a permanent frequency that is at times beautifully lit by spectral beings and at others electrically charged with fierce terror." - Fluid Radio 

Further investigation revealed an outfit whose audiovisual aesthetic, encompassing music, films, writing and photography, was complete, self-contained, and utterly absorbing. We’ve been toying with the term ‘Disembodied Americana’ as a means of describing husband and wife Zachary and Denny Corsa’s spectral tape explorations. In truth, seeking or inventing the ‘correct’ category for this music is considerably less rewarding than surrendering to its distressed drift, tuning in to the disconnected voices beckoning through the fog." - The Outer Church 

"Music dug out from the ruins of some total global catastrophe, when all that's left is a couple of half-busted tape recorders and a microphone. Warm and melancholy, bleak and beautiful." - Drowned In Sound forums 

"Take a hike along the Lost Trail, experience the moments of sadness and isolation, expressed through dusted ambience and slowcore-ish melodies lost in the sea of digital distortion. Bleak, half-remembered autumnal impressions with a hint of field recording and found sound experimentation. For the melancholic ones." - Weed Temple 

"Lost Trail will get you wistful…comes off very eerie and dreamlike, one of those third-person shooter POVs where you're watching the back of your head saunter past the wreckage that is the follies of your youth…" - Impose Magazine 

"Corsa is an active ambient composer, synthesizing his songs out of what sound like found-sounds, field recordings, and a highly textural repertoire of loops and samples." - DECODER Magazine 

"Zachary Corsa and Denny Wilkerson Corsa create delicate soundscapes…full of nostalgic guitar drones and old de-tuned piano keys, layered over obscure samples and field recordings. Some of the compositions remind me a bit of the softer side of Godspeed You! Black Emperor - the tracks where a melody slowly soars over an apocalyptic message heard through an old radio…a collage of avant-garde patches stitched together into a fuzzy blanket for a restless ghost. These monochrome sounds float in the air like the confetti of an abstract painting, until they settle down on the creaking wooden floor, and as if by magic, arrange themselves into one solid piece." - Headphone Commute 

"Lost Trail is a project to kind of sit back and take in on a rainy day; the atmosphere of the music is dense and during times like that it just soaks in more…it has that blend of genres that I love so much…the field recordings and drone grace our ears filled with nostalgic beauty…really gives the listener something to do with its density." - Prog Archives 

"Folk, drone and humming crackle are all elements that they use to conjure inner visions of abandoned rural zones of entropy. I humbly suggest you dive into their extensive catalogue and bathe in it like a moonlit pool." - The War On Mediocrity 

"Lost Trail's music marries the aesthetics of the woods with industrial processes, sounding both organic and mechanic. Corsa approaches music thoughtfully and rather unconventionally, like a writer composing an imagist poem with sound. Each track is a stand-alone poem, though thematically they all form a narrative." - SSG Music 

"Cinematic ambient music, in the vein of Budd and Eno as well as tons of millennial drama/horror films, Lost Trail is not to be missed." - The Nightlight



MUSIC RECORDED ON OBSOLETE TECHNOLOGY / MUSIC RECORDED AS SPONTANEOUSLY IMPROVISED / MUSIC DAMAGED AND DECAYED / MUSIC SLIPPING OUT OF SYNC / MUSIC FULL OF NOTES INTERACTING BY CHANCE / MUSIC FULL OF THE SOUNDS OF TAPE SLIPPING THROUGH THE HEADS / MUSIC FULL OF BLOWN-OUT VOLUME AND CUT-OUTS AND STATIC AND HISS AND UNCORRECTED, BEAUTIFUL ERRORS / MUSIC MUDDIED OR FEEDING BACK OR IN GENERAL ACTING FUCKED-UP / MUSIC SHIFTING PITCH AS IT FLUTTERS AND WARBLES / MUSIC THAT SOUNDS LIKE IT WAS CARVED OUT OF THE FOREST FLOOR AFTER TWENTY YEARS' NEGLECT / MUSIC RECORDED WITH LIMITED TECHNICAL SKILL OR ELECTRONIC KNOW-HOW / MUSIC RECORDED BY FEELING MORE THAN THOUGHT / MUSIC RECORDED WITH THE HEART, NOT THE BRAIN / MUSIC AS BROKEN AND TWISTED AND LOST AND CONFUSED AND FILLED WITH HEARTACHE AS WE ALL ARE / MUSIC FOR A BROKEN AND TARNISHED HOME / MUSIC FOR REDEMPTION FROM CONSUMING AND DESTROYING WITHOUT REGRET / MUSIC FOR ESCAPING SUBURBAN CUL-DE-SAC HELL / MUSIC FOR ESCAPING CORPORATE FLUORESCENT-LIT WAGE SLAVERY / MUSIC FOR ESCAPING BLAND AND EMPTY MATERIAL PURSUIT / MUSIC FOR THE WOODS AND FIELDS MORE THAN FOR THE CITY / MUSIC FOR FIGHTING PERFECTION / MUSIC FOR RESISTING HOLLOW DIGITAL ARTIFICE / MUSIC FOR THE NAMELESS EMOTIONS / MUSIC FOR DETERMINATION / MUSIC FOR CATHARSIS / MUSIC OUR TIRED FREEDOM / MUSIC OUR LOVE / MUSIC OUR HOPE / MUSIC OUR RUSTED VOICES / NOTHING IS FUCKED FOREVER.........................................................................................................................................................LOST TRAIL.
 
We are part of the Living Room Visions family of experimental musicians, artists and labels - www.livingroomvisions.tumblr.com

Our cassette label, Wood Thrush Tapes, here - www.woodthrushtapes.tumblr.com
WTT's catalog thusfar, including a free compilation, here - www.woodthrushtapes.bandcamp.com 

Wood Thrush Tapes demos can be sent here.

We hold the occasional house show here at Staycation (Burlington, NC) -  www.facebook.com/staycationburlington / Please email Zach at the above address for booking.

Zach's personal sort of catchall blog - www.laforetdeflammes.blogspot.com

Zach also writes a cassette-related blog, www.warbleandflutter.tumblr.com, and writes music criticism for MTYMNHKA - www.mtymnhka.blogspot.com, Beats Per Minute - www.beatsperminute.com, Decoder Magazine - www.secretdecoder.net and A Closer Listen - www.acloserlisten.comAvailable works:
Via Bandcamp (www.losttraildrone.bandcamp.com) - 

-'House and Shadow', digital-only special EP via Ailanthus Recordings - http://ailanthusrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/house-and-shadow
-'October Mountain', sixty-minute cassette release via Felt Cat (www.lation.org/feltcat)
-'A Stained August For The Jetcrash', sixty-minute cassette release via Sunup Recordings (tape ordering via http://sunuprecordings.bandcamp.com/album/a-stained-august-for-the-jetcrash)
-'Covered Mirrors: A Collection Of Lost Trail Juvenilia', a Wood Thrush Tapes compilation of the best of our early material - http://losttraildrone.bandcamp.com/album/covered-mirrors-a-collection-of-lost-trail-juvenilia-'Intersecting Lines Of Power', a split C60 with Native Prairie via Wood Thrush Tapes - www.woodthrushtapes.bandcamp.com-'Music From Traumatic Attachments', digital only via Illuminated Paths
-'The Haunting On Fisher Street', digital only
-'Lost Trail/TMRO split' via Sarcastic Magician - http://theosmysticrobotorchestra.bandcamp.com/album/lost-trail-tmro-split
-'In Gray and Leaden Air', split EP w/ FAVRTSM via Sunup Recordings - http://sunuprecordings.bandcamp.com/album/in-gray-and-leaden-air-'Lost Trail/ZZZ Top And The Dumb Drums split' via Sarcastic Magician - http://theosmysticrobotorchestra.bandcamp.com/album/lost-trail-zzz-top-and-the-dumb-drums-'Nothing Is Fucked Forever', C58 via Wood Thrush Tapes - http://losttraildrone.bandcamp.com/album/nothing-is-fucked-forever
-'Mortimer, North Carolina', cassette via Birch Grove Recordings - http://birchgroverecordings.bandcamp.com/album/mortimer-north-carolina-'Gapland', CD split w/ Charles Swan via Travin Systems - http://travinsystemsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/gapland-2-'Fox', cassette EP split w/ NYKDLN via Benadrone Tapes - http://benadrone-tapes.bandcamp.com/album/fox-'Hunted Through Gray and Barren Hills', EP, You Are Already Dead - http://youarealreadydeadrecords.bandcamp.com/album/hunted-through-gray-and-barren-hills-yaad003-'Pages From The Alamance Hymnal', a compilation, from Wood Thrush Tapes - http://losttraildrone.bandcamp.com/album/pages-from-the-alamance-hymnal-2011-2013

Early and B-Side material is available via our former Bandcamp page - (www.losttrail.bandcamp.com)
The fight against North Carolina Amendment One - http://www.change.org/petitions/1-million-against-amendment-1

A Stained August For The Jetcrash
Lost Trail

Nothing Is Fucked Forever
Lost Trail

October Mountain
Lost Trail

Music From 'Traumatic Attachments'
Lost Trail

Mortimer, North Carolina
Lost Trail

The Haunting On Fisher Street
Lost Trail

Fox
NYKDLN & Lost Trail

House and Shadow
Lost Trail

In Gray and Leaden Air
Lost Trail/FAVRTSM

Intersecting Lines Of Power
Lost Trail

Lost Trail/TMRO Split
Lost Trail & TMRO

Covered Mirrors: A Collection Of Lost Trail Juvenilia
Lost Trail

Hunted Through Gray and Barren Hills
Lost Trail

The Leaf and the Branch PREVIEW
Lost Trail

Lost Trail/ZZZ Top And The Dumb Drums Split
Lost Trail/ZZZ Top And The Dumb Drums

Gapland
Lost Trail & Charles Swain


REVIEWS AND INTERVIEWS (Note - These links don't always work properly because Bandzoogle's formatting is Teh Suck): 

http://www.tinymixtapes.com/chocolate-grinder/listen-lost-trail-pages-from-the-alamance-hymnal

http://theoriginalouterchurch.tumblr.com/post/39415666338
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