{"title":"Rvng Intl.","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"visible-cloaks-paradessence","title":"Visible Cloaks 'Paradessence'","description":"\u003cp\u003eParadessence, Visible Cloaks’ third full length, is a work of emergence and illusion. The album’s fourteen songs shift, heave, and shimmer against a faintly luminous backdrop of night, a cavernous space shaped by sparse hyperreal representations of the natural world. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe arrangements are simultaneously grandiose and fragile, both an inversion and culmination of what came before and as adventurous as anything they’ve produced so far.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSince transforming from Cloaks to Visible Cloaks in 2014, Spencer Doran and Ryan Carlile have mapped a complex matrix of oppositional concepts: organic and artificial, chance and deliberate, authentic and replicated. The album title itself, drawn from author Alex Shakar’s satirical portmanteau of “paradoxical” and “essence,” reflects these tensions directly: the paradessence of consumer product is the “schismatic core” that gives rise to its desirability (in Shakar’s example, coffee is desired because it is both relaxing and stimulating simultaneously). The balancing act of Paradessence brings these strains into greater urgency as life in the 21st century is reordered by these same tensions.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSilence is an important character in Paradessence, felt not only in the sculpting of sound but in the pressure it exerts on everything and what emerges. The group took influence from architectural theorist Christopher Alexander’s concept of “positive space,” an idea that the same degree of care can be given to the shape of the void around an object as the construction of the object itself. We hear how sounds carry their own silence, oscillating in and out of existence, running through life cycles like a microorganism.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is a collectivity to the instruments that underpin Paradessence. They move like a herd, as when wind drifts over a field of leaves and the air becomes visible in the absence of motion; multiple species cohabit the same song, protruding, receding, and transforming over the course of several minutes. “Instead of creating pieces that function horizontally as environments,” says Doran, “we wanted to conceptualize them as living material changing in space, continually in flux.” Song-forms steer away from ambience towards pure abstraction. Utopianism hovers at the edges; a relationship to imagined futures which is neither naïve, cynical, nor nostalgic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe world Visible Cloaks have built over time is often rendered physical by collaborators, a familiar cast of whom return for Paradessence. Motion Graphics (Joe Williams) makes an appearance on “synthetic woodwinds” and also co-mixed the album, contouring its shapes with his signature sheen. Interlinked pieces “Shapes” and “Thinking” were developed with environmental music innovators Yoshio Ojima and Satsuki Shibano, who also worked with the duo on the intergenerational FRKWYS collaboration serenitatem. The latter piece features a spoken text written by Ojima, read in Japanese by Shibano and in French by composer and longtime friend Félicia Atkinson.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eComponium Ensemble, Doran’s “indeterminate chamber music” project of self-playing software instruments, provides the infrastructure for “System” in a moment of Pessoa-ian heteronymity. The album also features Ioana ?elaru, a Romanian composer and violinist who lends her voice and string playing to “Intarsia.” Doran describes their collaboration as “an exercise in illusionary presence” which they jointly developed from “the idea of juxtaposing her real instrument playing with virtual instruments to blur the boundaries between synthetic string instruments and those existing in reality.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e?elaru’s charged performance on “Intarsia” is a clear demonstration of the dramatic core of Paradessence: an urgent sculptural undertaking, an instrument and a human voice modulated by a sea of synthetic growth. Doran describes how for him “this slippage between the real and the virtual captures something else entirely, something strange and ineffable that is an inherent aspect of life in digital modernity, both online and in real life.” It is electronic music which not only conjures an abstract representation of our current dream reality through its shifting forms but builds imagined spaces which are emotionally nuanced and rise to moments of grace.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTracklisting:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA1. Apsis \u003cbr\u003eA2. Skylight \u003cbr\u003eA3. Disque (ft. Motion Graphics) \u003cbr\u003eA4. Balloon \u003cbr\u003eA5. Slippage \u003cbr\u003eA6. Zinna \u003cbr\u003eA7. Telescoping (Lockgroove Version) \u003cbr\u003eB1. Shapes (ft. Yoshio Ojima and Satsuki Shibano) \u003cbr\u003eB2. Thinking (ft. Félicia Atkinson, Yoshio Ojima and Satsuki Shibano) \u003cbr\u003eB3. Swirl \u003cbr\u003eB4. Steel \u003cbr\u003eB5. Intarsia (ft. Ioana ?elaru) \u003cbr\u003eB6. System (ft. Componium Ensemble)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rvng Intl.","offers":[{"title":"Vinyl LP - Silver","offer_id":56785284006265,"sku":"RVNGNL128LP-C1","price":20.49,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Vinyl LP","offer_id":56785284039033,"sku":"RVNGNL128LP","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":56785284071801,"sku":"RVNGNL128CD","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0238\/8053\/files\/VisibleCloaks-Paradessence.jpg?v=1776445068"},{"product_id":"horse-lords-demand-to-be-taken-to-heaven-alive","title":"Horse Lords 'Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive!'","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe music on Horse Lords’ Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive! feels both impossibly detailed and eminently human. The twelve pieces assembled are layered, interwoven, tonally and rhythmically complex––moiré-like patterns of interaction and tessellation that play out for both mind and body, full of sonic warrens with an inescapable groove. Artists aren’t necessarily scientists, logicians, or spiritual leaders, but through their personal understanding of order and experience, they provide experiential access to heightened states of both materiality and immateriality. \u003cbr\u003e\nHorse Lords were founded in Baltimore in 2010; they evolved from another group called Teeth Mountain and began as a trio with guitarist Owen Gardner, bassist Max Eilbacher, drummer Sam Haberman, soon adding alto saxophonist Andrew Bernstein to the core ensemble. Though the quartet grew out of a fertile noise and experimental rock scene, a storied environment for artists and weirdos that has nurtured many an influential outsider band (Lungfish, Matmos), their approach across six albums, various collaborations and as a celebrated live act has been more omnivorous than the stippled rhythms of instrumental electric rock would indicate. For this outing, they are augmented by bass clarinetist Madison Greenstone, trombonist Weston Olencki, and in a first for Horse Lords, vocals courtesy Nina Guo and Evelyn Saylor. \u003cbr\u003e\nThe process of constructing D2BT2HA! involved geographic hurdles, as the unit’s four members have lived in different cities since 2021. Given sixteen years as a working band, their shared language transcends locale. German transplants Gardner, Eilbacher, and Bernstein met in Berlin for tracking sessions while Haberman put together drum parts in Baltimore. One would not necessarily know this from listening, nor is it rare these days to collectively create remotely. The band notes that “trusting each other’s concepts and visions was more important than repeatedly playing a section to see if the music worked, although this trust was only made possible through working very closely together.” \u003cbr\u003e\nWhile D2BT2HA! isn’t a suite per se, the music influences and interacts with itself in complex linkages. Horse Lords observe that “we like the idea of art as a tool for changing your perspective, being able to rotate ideas and see\/hear\/feel them from a different vantage point.” Or to use a phrase attributed to Swami Satchidananda Saraswati, “understanding is standing under where you are already standing.” The opening piece, “Eureka 378-B,” is an arrangement of 19th century sacred harp music, lead by Guo and Saylor’s vocals; its melody flowers outward, setting a tonal launching pad for much of the music that follows. There are the brief “Rotations,” which isolate fragments from other pieces; and “a transformation algorithm was used to structure the title track, ‘Brain of the Firm,’ and part of ‘Second Galactic Utopia.’ This lends itself to a recursive approach where… the compositional scale becomes more ambiguous.” \u003cbr\u003e\nThere’s clearly a lot of weight in the language used to title pieces, and D2BTA2H! is no exception––transcendence and uplift are inherent in the music’s operation and if all art is political, Horse Lords’ leanings are optimistic and community-centered. Transformation and re-viewing are not just a compositional strategy but a philosophical outlook, given such themes as “A City Yet To Come,” the title track, or utopic references. As they put it, “we try to make music that challenges the status quo and offers a path toward liberation for the listener. The study and exploration of sound and music has a spiritual and ecstatic dimension, and we have a great reverence for its impact on the individual and the world.” \u003cbr\u003e\nThe tension between striving for something beyond and what constitutes our lived reality is not lost, either, as “After the Last Sky” draws from poet Mahmoud Darwish’s “The Earth Is Closing in on Us,” which “uses the Palestinian case to problematize our utopian quest, acknowledging that this rests on a sense of security that is out of reach for many.” There are numerous sonic and conceptual layers in D2BTA2H!, but given the music’s undeniable power and humanity, the process of unpacking them is enthusiastic and deeply rewarding. Rare indeed is the record that grabs one by the lapels yet lands utterly anew on each hearing.\u003c\/p\u003e \n\n\u003cp\u003eTracklisting:\u003cbr\u003e\nA1. Eureka 378-B \u003cbr\u003e\nA2. Brain of the Firm \u003cbr\u003e\nA3. Rotation I \u003cbr\u003e\nA4. Playing and Reality \u003cbr\u003e\nA5. Rotation II \u003cbr\u003e\nA6. First Galactic Utopia \u003cbr\u003e\nA7. Rotation III \u003cbr\u003e\nA8. Before the Law \u003cbr\u003e\nA9. After the Last Sky \u003cbr\u003e\nB1. A City Yet to Come \u003cbr\u003e\nB2. Second Galactic Utopia \u003cbr\u003e\nB3. Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive!\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rvng Intl.","offers":[{"title":"Vinyl LP - White","offer_id":56914925683065,"sku":"RVNGNL136LP-C2","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Vinyl LP","offer_id":56914925715833,"sku":"RVNGNL136LP","price":21.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":56914925748601,"sku":"RVNGNL136CD","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0238\/8053\/files\/HorseLords-DemandtoBeTakentoHeavenAlive.png?v=1775048503"},{"product_id":"discovery-zone-library-copy-do-not-remove","title":"Discovery Zone 'Library Copy Do Not Remove'","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn Library Copy Do Not Remove, Discovery Zone’s JJ Weihl presents a digital enchantment of reality, braiding together the material and non-material to reveal that they are, in fact, two aspects of one and the same thing. In Weihl’s world, Nature and technology are not enemies, but instead create each other in an infinite dance of meaning and reflection.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOriginally created in spatial sound for the Zeiss- Groß Planetarium in Berlin, Library Copy Do Not Remove is a creation mythology for the simulated universe. However, this is not some dry, Bostromian, masculine fantasy of a digital reality devoid of nature’s mysteries. Instead, Weihl insists that the listener allow space for the awesome reality of the natural world within the framework of a simulation. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf our world is simulated, then the simulation has to be capable of creating the beauty and splendor of Nature. In this way, Weihl engages an ambient alchemy, calling for a grand reconciliation of Nature and the technological, while asking us to consider how and where the experience of transcendent human consciousness might exist between them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWritten while Weihl was simultaneously completing her sophomore album Quantum Web, the songs on Library Copy Do Not Remove reflect an expansive, inspirational state of both excitement and anxiety at the task of composing music for such a unique space. The songs themselves were shaped through Ambisonics, a specific format of spatial audio that is directional instead of being channel-based (like stereo), and were transmitted through a mosaic of 49 speakers. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBecause it was written for live performance, Library Copy Do Not Remove was never conceived as an album per se, but instead as a three-dimensional event. In this way the sonic staging mirrored how we perceive sound in our everyday lives: surrounding us from all directions. For this album release, Weihl mixed all of the songs again from the ground up with long time producer E\/T, reimagining and reworking the constellation of tracks for a stereo experience.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInspired by the work of James Gleick, LD Deutsch, Johannes Kepler and Jorges Luis Borges, Library Copy Do Not Remove explores the creative tension between reality and perception, information and mythology, harmony and disorder. Throughout the album, Weihl asks how we as humans come to understand the universe around us and the underlying code which animates it. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat emerges is a sonic mythos that tells of spiraling digital universes, each nested within each other, in which every participatory agent is both a part, and the whole, of reality, at once. In this way, Library Copy Do Not Remove is a cyber- expression of perennial wisdom: instead of “as above, so below,” Weihl might suggest, “as with input, so with output.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEach track on Library Copy Do Not Remove reflects the larger themes in question. An audio representation of the Big Bang created by a physics professor is run through a vocoder, translating an astronomical origin story into a digital cosmogony: A universe born in a dial-up tone. Infinite libraries are conjured and reinforced by true mirrors and cosmic projections. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOceans of data create looped architectures that blur the line between the posthuman and the divine. Human consciousness reaches its upper limits, and then ascends even further. A tapestry of nature sounds is woven into an electronic field, infusing an aspect of intelligent hope back into the digital. A middle way opens up: natural, spiritual, technological. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll songs on the album were written by Weihl, and co-written and c0produced by Lucas Chantre. Timo Bittner, who designed and installed the spatial audio sound system at the Zeiss-Groß Planetarium, and his colleague Andrew Rahman, provided Weihl with tutorials and support on how to compose for the unique sound system, guiding her through the process of composing with Ambisonics. Bittner and Rahman arranged the material for live interpretation, while Rahman mixed the album in spatial audio for the 2023 performance, and for wider release in Dolby Atmos.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLibrary Copy Do Not Remove tells an ancient secret in futuristic language: our perception of reality is the very thing that shapes it. Weihl reminds us that any understanding of Nature as a simulation must invert upon itself to recognize that even a simulated universe is contained within a larger Nature. And in much the same way, Weihl discloses that we too are catalogued, symbiotically, within a larger reality. Like copies within a library, mutually dependent on each other for our very existence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTracklisting:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSide A\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1. Big Bang \u003cbr\u003e2. Dusk \u003cbr\u003e3. Library Copy Do Not Remove \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSide B\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1. Habitat \u003cbr\u003e2. Arp Angels \u003cbr\u003e3. 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