The last of the offerings I received from Kyle & Jon of Ouzel. Beautiful music in full. “Sappers” features that tremolo guitar sound (Dead Man soundtrack, etc.) but it stays in the background while the higher pitched guitars that are slow on the attack and usually just background filler are the piece’s angelic voices, floating above and away from the point of audition. Sparse minimalism with depth that you can visualize - this is Ouzel’s lovely trick often found in the five tracks of theirs I’ve featured. If you like what you hear and want to discover more of their sound, visit Ouzel’s myspace for more streaming listening!
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Ouzel / “Sappers” / stereo / 6:15
“Divide” from Ouzel - Quality downtempo that makes me think of the first time I listened to Music has the Right to Children or Meddle. The bass carries you on its back - morning stroll on a cold beach-like - High resonating tones with that tempered analog compression. This is a great tune! Turns out there is another factor in the Ouzel equation I had not accounted for - Jon Adams - so that would make Ouzel a dapper duo. Reminder: You can check out what they are up to at their myspace page.
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Ouzel / “Divide” / stereo / 03:46
One of my favorites from the Ouzel series. Begins really quiet with electric guitar and builds in resonance without really amping up the volume. Aptly titled for repetition and - yeah - variations!
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Ouzel / “Variations” / stereo / 06:08
Lots of textures occurring in this piece with rhythmic, distorted stabs and very clean, beautiful feedback. Everything else you’ll hear is really wild.
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Ouzel / “Eos” / stereo / 07:23
Kyle Beck left Rochester, NY after graduating from the Rochester Institute of Technology - a place where a ton of avant-garde musicians go to earn degrees in something unrelated that will hopefully make them money. ;) Mr. Beck now resides in Portland, OR and he recently got in touch with Color Sounds about some music he had been working on. Needless to say, his music warrants much praise for embodying the kind of quality of material this blog wishes to provide you. Ouzel employs electric guitar feedback to craft a wonderfully deep sound - one that swings back and forth from a palpable tension and a deathly calm. “Yeon” is the first of several Ouzel tracks in the queue to be featured on Color Sounds with original artwork provided by Kyle Beck himself.
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Ouzel / “Yeon” / stereo / 05:31
Joey McIntosh / “Lights Out!” / stereo / 05:25
Joey McIntosh - or Joey Mac - was a resident of Rochester’s East End for a short while after finishing school in ‘06. He lived in a house with a spacious attic. Lots of people would crash the attic and jam during parties & roommate atticabasement would use the attic to record music - very innovative rock and post-rock jams to be specific. Joey, who was also involved in a metal band, The Council, used his attic’s low-fidelity recording setup to create his own short-lived personal project… He named it with a 24-bit string of binary code “011011000111001101100100” (which was fitting because it was only made available to hear over the internet)
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Joey recently sent me a few recordings after I told him I wanted to post them up on Color Sounds. Although this particular music is not noise-driven anarchy, it is worthy of another listen and a life beyond an obscure myspace page. There are many rock influences in this track, “resistance is futile,” but the droney quality and rubato tempo (well, more or less) really push everything over the edge. The pop nuance of the first minute and a half is taken over by a sloppy crunchy fuzz that is incredibly pleasing (to me… anyway) and so here it is.
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“resistance is futile” / stereo / 07:40
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also check out < “Lights Out!” >
