Heavy Lids, Things Are Happening at the Same Time (CDR Dragon´s Eye Recordings)

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Dragon´s Eye Recordings is a label that seems to put as much thought and care into the packaging of its music as into the music itself. And why not? While you cannot tell the proverbial book from its cover, it is in fact the cover that the music will be spending most of its life in, either on your shelf or in your hand. Why shouldn´t it be as attractive as possible? Each release, regardless of size, is an appealingly austere masterpiece.

The label is run out of Seattle by Yann Novak and has previously showcased two tiny, perfect pieces of collaborative experimental ambient on three-inch CDRs (a third volume has yet to be released since the right packaging has still to be decided upon) under the collective rubrik "Long Distance". The first is reputed to be a collaboration between Novak and Eno On (whom I presume is from the land of Erewhon). This is an eminently minimal, spacey investigation of, well, space, with pulsars of analogue-sounding synth resonating into deep emptiness, like signals being sent out there at random and sometimes, improbably, being answered.

The second (or first actual) collaboration involves the talents of Marc Manning (aka Heavy Lids) from nearby Portland. This short work is similarly minimal, a slow, remorseless trek across nearly featureless geography. An absolutely gorgeous whisper and hum flecked with small incidents in sound, stretched out over exactly twenty minutes.

Very recently, Dragon´s Eye celebrated the release of Heavy Lids´ first solo recording for the label, a 36-minute drone that explores "scale, change and relativity". Things are Happening at the Same Time opens tentatively with monotonal notes being struck on electric guitar, gradually becoming overlaid and eventually evolving into a soundscape reminiscent of a summer meadow shimmering and juddering with life. Slowly a background rumble also becomes discernable, providing the higher-pitched focal point of the music with more heft as it continues to evolve.

Eventually, this all congeals into an armada of quivering, reedy sounds rising monolithically while shooting off odds riffs from the mass on irregular occasions, until the piece finally subsides. Really, really very nice.
http://www.dragonseyerecordings.com