Textured Bird Transmission
Singing Through Trees
FORMAT: 3" CDR
LIMITED EDITION: 50
RUNNING TIME: 20:49
CATALOGUE NUMBER: DirtyCDR 021
RELEASE DATE: August 2007
excerpt
about
Singing Through Trees is the second release from Dorset based Textured Bird Transmission. Here we are treated to 4 fluid tracks of drone noir.
Dense waves of low fluctuating frequencies crash with sheets of textured mysticals. beautiful and haunting.
reviews
"Limited edition of 50 3" CDRís housed in a purple velvety pouch. A kind of deep listening experience that floats just around the threshold of the barely audible revealing aerospace atmospherics and cloud bursting dynamics that punctuate the near-silence."
- Ant, Norman Records
"My first encounter with Textured Bird Transmission, who had a CDR release on their own Dead Sea Liner last year. No further information is given here, so we have to purely the music, which is exactly quite a surprise. I had Dirty Demos not as a noise label in my little book, but one that released music of a somewhat louder spirit.
With Textured Bird Transmission we are all wrong as the four pieces are best pinned down as ambient, with a big A. Heavily and heavenly processed field recordings, bells and voices, music with a slow curve. Something that Brian Eno could be proud of, as this comes close to his first ambient record, but with even more sonic depth. Great but too short release."
- Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly
"From Dorset in the U.K. comes this second release by ambient soundscape enthusiasts Textured Bird Transmission. The label describes it as 'drone noir' and I certainly can't argue with that. Buried within said drones, however, is a lot of subtle sonic activity. Itís often hard to decipher what the actual sound sources are, but for this 3" CDrEP that is ultimately irrelevant.
The opening track achieves a lot in a mere three minutes. It paints the image of a landscape engulfed in fog, much like this morning here in North Carolina, with mysterious crashing waves and the wind...well, singing through the trees. The periodicity provided by a quietly looped clicking sound is absolutely mesmerizing. The graceful and glacial pace of this accompanies well the melting snow dripping from the trees outside my window.
'The Purple Housing On A Plastic Cat' with its cryptic title, continues this general vibe with the introduction of a gently plucked string instrument, perhaps some sort of zither. Waves of high and low drones (bowed?) slowly pulsate in and out of the mix around it. About three minutes in some delicate percussives enter the scene and suggest some element of ritual to the work. From here the drones swell and become even more prominent and remain so for the next minute or two before receding back into the ether. This is absolutely gorgeous and not unlike something you may find on an early-90s Zoviet France recording which is never a bad thing. Sounds are processed only so much as to enhance the sources and never to completely obscure them.
'One Swallow Does Not A Summer Make' begins with a sublime rumble that you can feel before you actually hear it. The density is increased with some thunderous eruptions off in the distance that gradually become more frequent. This accumulation results in some closely-mic'd crackling that could easily be the amplified crumpling of a piece of paper. These rich textures are joined, throughout most of the piece, by a barely perceptible higher pitched whistle-like tone that serves to balance out the frequency spectrum. The final track washes over like a warm gel-like substance and is the most ambient of all the pieces here. It virtually goes nowhere. Like the others though, there is a depth and substance in the stasis that removes the notion of mere passive listening. In fact, I think I'll listen to it again.
Suffice it to say, I like everything about this little disk; from the track titles to the packaging. It comes housed in a purple velvet pouch with a cardstock insert in an edition of only fifty copies. If you have an aversion to the term 'ambient,' I suggest you check this out and you may change your attitude. Although I'd prefer a full-length, this is concise enough not to tire the listener and is plenty rich with sonic rewards. If youíre looking to get into drone music, then this is an excellent place to start, along with dirty demos' 3" release by Sindre Bjerga. A+"