Browse by Label: BARGE RECORDINGS

Artist:	VA
Title:	Innature
Label:	BARGE RECORDINGS
Format:	CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	BRG 001CD

"Innature is the maiden voyage for Barge Recordings. This compilation brings together some of the finest artists who continually defy the concept of genre. Curated and sequenced in a cinematic fashion, Innature conjures thoughts and associations with one's journey though a day: waking, urgency, contemplation and dreaming. It has a dynamic quality that inspires repeat listens when a certain mood is sought. Independent music veterans placed alongside the lesser known offers the listener a taste of familiarity as well as mystery, producing a listen that is both ear-opening and fan pleasing. Electronic compositions cross paths and often intertwine with traditional instrumentation. Ranging from dark and brooding to lush and beautiful, Innature sustains sonic diversity throughout the course of the record." Artists include: The Fun Years, The Kallikak Family, Birdshow, Polmo Polpo, Tim Hecker, Loren Connors, Animal Hospital, Circle, Geoff Mullen and MGR.

Artist:	FUN YEARS, THE
Title:	Life-Sized Psychoses
Label:	BARGE RECORDINGS
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	BRG 002CD

"The Fun Years' new full length CD entitled Life-Sized Psychoses is a 50-minute composition combining drones, textures and stretched-out progressions. Split into five tracks (although we at Barge prefer listening all the way through), Life-Sized Psychoses is a perfect balance of soundscape meets song. A duo of turntable and baritone guitar, The Fun Years have disguised their instruments with atmospheric textures comprised of obscure samples and blissful repetition. The result is a stream of audio magma, filled with dreamy sound washes and subtle phrases that effortlessly tumble over one another. The Fun Years could be called experimental, but Life-Sized Psychoses is very well mapped out. As artists such as Stars of the Lid and William Basinski achieve, The Fun Years use time as a musical tool without pretense. They concoct thick layers of rich drone and underlying harmony that artfully conjure notions of memory, space and the subconscious. While Isaac Sparks' sampling creates a thick haze of pops and crackles from abstracted vinyl recordings, Ben Recht's guitar work of arpeggios and open tunings draws the listener into the world of The Fun Years."

Artist:	MULLEN, GEOFF
Title:	Armory Radio
Label:	BARGE RECORDINGS
Format:	2LP
Price:	$21.00
Catalog #:	BRG 003LP

"Referencing an old Providence armory in Geoff's neighborhood, Armory Radio is an ode to a specific chunk of time and space. Originally self-released as a double CDR in very small quantity, this limited double LP version features new material combined with reworkings of the original CDR version. Departing from last year's blues-influenced The Air In Pieces, Geoff surprises us once again with his creative diversity and his ongoing search for new sonic territory. At the start of the Armory Radio project in 2004, Geoff found a busted boombox in the trash with a barely-working short wave radio function on it. This roadside treasure was one of many found objects revived for unconventional reuse: handheld radios, cassette players and speakers which all play a role in structuring the album. This physical scavenging, along with other unplanned musical discoveries, led to the process-driven compositions on Armory Radio. Obsolete technology, found objects and a city's architecture are a few of the repeating themes embedded in Armory Radio's guitar-driven drones. Geoff's dramatic use of noise is prevalent as well, building thick fabrics of haze intertwined with fragmented feedback patterns that phase in and out with one another. Comparisons could be drawn to the ethereal short-wave recordings of William Basinski or Phil Niblock's massive drones, but Armory Radio is a more volatile work; no doubt influenced by the fertile noise underground in America (artists like Aaron Dilloway and Prurient come to mind, although not in too literal a way)."

Artist:	MGR/XELA
Title:	Shipping Gold/Calling For Vanished Faces
Label:	BARGE RECORDINGS
Format:	LP
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	BRG 004LP

"Barge Recordings is pleased to pair MGR and Xela on vinyl as the first in a series of split LPs. Shipping Gold/Calling For Vanished Faces treats the listener to two moving pieces that both compliment and contrast one another in style and compositional approach. Developed musically from two entirely different places, MGR's Mike Gallagher and Xela's John Twells respective careers have led them to this unique crossroad, a powerful recording capturing both artists at their creative primes. MGR / Shipping Gold: Hyper-slow development and dread-ridden tension building reveal themselves in Shipping Gold as in past MGR work, as well as the subtle swelling and closing of sonic space. Shipping Gold attracts our ears particularly due to its dramatic use of guitar in the foreground. Composed with both acoustic and electric guitar and effects, Mike's vigorous attack's and pitch-bent decay over a slowly morphing theme in a minor key behaves like some unknown light guiding us; its rays looming over an intense psychic landscape. Xela / Calling For Vanished Faces: Musically, it would be useless to categorize Calling For Vanished Faces as 'noise,' 'sound art' or anything aforementioned. In basic terms, every time we listen to this utterly mind-altering composition we discover something new; something to grab on to within its lush spectrum of dynamics. Bombarded with pulsating drumming, distant early-music inspired vocal harmonies, guitar distortion, morphing electronic buzzes and guitar feedback, Calling For Vanished Faces is a sonic arcade of sorts and delights the listener with each passing experience."

Artist:	FUN YEARS, THE
Title:	Baby, It's Cold Inside
Label:	BARGE RECORDINGS
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	BRG 005CD

"In 2007, The Fun Years released their first album with Barge Recordings. Life-Sized Psychoses was well-received by a diverse fan base of drone junkies, post-rock nostalgics and picky ambient collectors. It was clear that across the board, The Fun Years had struck a nerve; they were able to successfully reach different listeners while jeopardizing zero artistic merit. Audiversity.com put it well: "They understand the pros and cons of being at each polar end, inspired by both the classics and the unknown, and aim for a balance between idiosyncrasy, unpredictability and accessibility." True, yet their music is far from being crossover; more so a unique salient musical language which Ben and Isaac continue to utilize and a developed creative style that almost every type of underground music fan can find beauty in. Forged at the peak of The Fun Years' musical abilities and a significant broadening of raw musical sentiment, Baby, It's Cold Inside is not a record to be taken lightly. Once again 'exploring the pleasures of slow evolution, repetition and decay,' as music writer Susanna Bolle perfectly put it, but this time there is a much wider dynamic range, spanning from massive swells of guitar distortion to microscopic pulses, almost inaudible fragments. They harness compositional energy, focus it and release it in powerful blows, while exercising their innate sense for timing and restraint. The sense of artistic control achieved on Baby, It's Cold Inside is extraordinary, so much as to say The Fun Years have transcended the preconceptions of drone music as both a genre and scene."

Previous Page Index of Labels Next Page