NOISEAR Holy ambient!!! This is the first release from the label Dead Sea Liner and Jesus Fucking Christ is it good. It’s a short 28 minutes but holy hell this is some of the best ambient noise you will hear. You ever listen to the Bladerunner soundtrack or something from Tangerine Dream, well; this should be included in that list and put in a movie somehow. It’s that good. I have never heard of the band to be honest but I will perform a seek and hunt now because of this release. It takes about 4 minutes for the sounds to start to pick up and then the greatness begins. Within the tonal musical bliss there is this low synth held down in the background that I just love to death. It sounds much like those creepy 80’s horror movies that used those synths a lot. Listening to this put me in a fucking trance and it was in large part to the held down tone. About half way through it varies a bit and picks up in intensity, still perfect. Holy shit, my head is going to explode. Like massive waves crashing on my head, but viewed in 100 times slow motion. The splashes and water drops twinkle from the crash and spread through the air to create the fog that blankets my mind. Yeah, I’ll say anything, I’m fucking in a trance and this is my new favorite release of 2006. I am such a lucky guy to have gotten this for free, seriously. You now must by it. I can’t recommend it enough over anything else. It cost 2 pounds which is about $4 American so it’s yours for that cheap. The artwork is simply a red paper slipped in a plastic sleeve. It’s printed nice and I think it suits this release perfectly. If you can’t dream at nights, this release well help. Get it!

the one true dead angel
Dead Sea Liner is a new cd-r label on the other side of the ocean who apparently aim to be one of the new transmission routes for heavy drone action, celestial or otherwise. This particular cd-r is not only the debut release from the label, but (I think) the debut by Textured Bird Transmission, and I sure hope it is, because this is brilliant shit, like that live One Inch of Shadow stuff I raved about many moons ago, but darker and more forbidding without invoking any of the traditional / cliche "dark" motifs, if you get my drift. The album is one long piece that unfolds over nearly thirty minutes, like a series of icebreakers crawling slowly through deeper and thicker slabs of ice as they creep up on the mother of all glaciers. I don't know what it is they're doing or how they're getting their "motive power" (I'm guessing lots of powerful drugs, but I'll freely admit that is purely conjecture), but whatever it is, they're doing it right and we need more of it. I'll bet when they send off the flies that have been swatted, this is the music they play at the funerals. Or something like that. Buzz, buzz, buzz goes the powerful, endless drone of doom....

bloodties webzine
This is the first release on Deadsealiner recordings and it is also the personal project of the label owner. The packaging follows the consistent simple style of D.I.Y. aesthetic that the rest of the releases have followed as well. Simple black print on red colored paper in a plastic bag with a blank CDR. This is a release consisting of one long track running almost 30 minutes long with the first half being droning synth ambient and the second half being a barrage of potent noisy ambient drones. The first half uses pretty standard synth sounds that are kind of plain but they are well put together and aren’t exploited to the point of sounding cheesy synth ambient. There is enough manipulation to keep me interested and listening but the atmosphere remains familiar with these sounds that any electronic musician or fan will be aware of. The really interesting part begins swelling in around the 10 min. mark where subtle clattering cymbals rattle into plenty of distorted synth textures. Once the crossover has occurred this becomes a different piece, not much resembling what has come before. I would have liked to actually seen this broken into two tracks because there isn’t much reference to the first part after the second part has overcome. Either way what follows is some excellent ambient noise soundscapes with foreboding heavy drones peeling away at my existence: purple weighted pellets of despair to be exact. The production quality of this release is sounding quite nice with all frequencies being represented fully but the fade in that starts it is too slow and the first part a bit too quiet for my taste. Especially with the already contrasting parts the difference in dynamics kind of fails. Overall this is a release that is offered for a mere 2 euro and it is definitely worth it. The first part being very Eno-esque but the second being an intelligent mixture of synth textures, noisy drones, and some very subtle percussion meandering in the distance. Nice work and I see potential for this artist in the future.

Outer Space Gamelan
I received an impossibly slim package in the mail the other day from an address I didn't recognize, and thought maybe I was getting a courtesy shipment of a looseleaf sheet from somebody. Turns out it was even better than looseleaf - it was three CD-Rs from the newly minted U.K.-based Dead Sea Liner label. At present time they have five releases available (the two I'm missing are by Cel and Another Enough Chairs) with jams from Mutant Ape, R.S.R., Release Helen Rytka and Deep Sea Creature in the on-deck circle. And they all cost a tawdry 2 pounds, which is like $4 American or so. The CD-Rs are all uniformly packaged, with the disc envelopped in a heavy cardstock paper kinda reminiscent of the Double Leopards' "official bootleg" skull CD-R series. Of the albums I received, there's one artist I know, one I don't, and one I'm vaguely familiar with. The first ever Dead Sea Liner release is under a name I've neve come across: Textured Bird Transmission, with the album title being "Purple Weighted Pellets of Despair". It turns out that this is the nom de plume of DSL honcho Allan Upton. His disc begins with the kind of slow-motion fade in that would have Francisco Lopez reaching for the fast forward button. I thought it was total silence when I played it on my stereo, but listening now through headphones it turns out there was actually a low-key ambient drone going on the whole time. Around the four minute mark the rumble starts taking an even larger shape, gathering tiny flecks of detritus as it floats weightlessly through the cosmos. This is very, very reminiscent of Hermann Nitsch's "Harmoniumwerk", although with a bit of a 21st century update. I'm also reminded of that Warner Herzog film I saw, Wild Blue Yonder...not just the soundtrack but the numerous wide-open other-planet deep blue sea scenes. As the piece wears on it gets more rough and frazzled, but still follows a pretty impeccable trajectory culminating with a rather head-expanding finish that sees a bright lasery supernova implosive finish. Very nice! And at close to half an hour, it doesn't drag.

Aural Pressure
Regular readers / visitors to the Aural Pressure website will know of my feelings towards MySpace.com and all who sail in her. In case you are unawares here's a clue... I have come to call it My waste of fucking Space.com... and with good reason. In my humble, totally unbiased in any way, opinion 99.9999% of the people who have a presence on that website are a sad "look at me and all my so called friends that I've amassed" sack of shit. Read my blog. Read about my uneventful and unfulfilling life. Listen to my new music release. I'm great. Buy my CDR. Love me. Love me. Here's my picture. Am I not cute and cuddly? No, no, no. Get a fucking life. Stop wasting your time and smell the fucking coffee. No-one cares about you. Not even your own family. You are a subject of ridicule. I laugh at your insecurities. You all make me puke. Mind you... that is only my opinion. Occasionally, very occasionally, I find the odd 0.0001% reason to actually thank the Gods that MySpace.com exists. Here is one such reason. Actually more than one reason... as you'll see elsewhere on these very pages. Allan Upton is that reason. Allan Upton from the black heart of the South coast of England. The man behind Dead Sea Liner records and Textured Bird Transmission. A visionary (well I like to think so) who has set up his own record label to bring an extraordinary variety of different music genres to the masses for a mere pittance in monetary terms. £2.00, including postage, a pop per CDR to you sir. A bargain. A steal. Bite the hand and get out fast. You can find out more at www.deadsealiner.co.uk. "Purple Weighted Pellets of Despair" is, appropriately enough, the first CDR release from Allan and his new record label. The packaging is on the plain side, as reflected in the price to pay, but even I won't grumble at that. It's all about the music man. The music. And what a glorious heavenly racket this one tracked 28+ minute opus is. A combination of drones and all out adventurous noise that has the spectre of blackest / darkest ambient surrounding it. Like a Sirens call it beckons unto you. Come. Come. Hear our song. Luring you with a sweet serenity that is slowly built up... a pathway / gateway to the stars... before crashing you into the rocks of utter desolate despair. A life terminated in an aural profusion of electronic nastiness. What at first appears as an act of minimal ambience grows in structure as it shape shifts in a multitude of directions before performing the coup de grace of feedback and electronic drenched cacophony. A wholly intense and wondrous creation that has been forged by a highly creative hand. The effects are electrifying and quietly unsettling. In other words - shit hot. Or even... hot shit. Scatological references aside... you must investigate this release. It does not disappoint one iota. I‚m even willing to forgive his presence on MySpace.com if it gets his label and his music a higher profile which, on this example, I sincerely hope it does.

Terrascope
Adding their own voice to the improvised noise party Textured Bird Transmission offer a slow moving arctic drone on “Purple Weighted Pellets Of Despairs”, the piece slowly changing as it moves to its inevitable conclusion, the sounds howling around the room, lowering the temperatures until lethargy and numbness creep in.

Feral Debris
Don't be mislead by the minimal packaging - the music on this CD-R (Dead Sea Liner's first release) is an ornate mess that scoops you up and suspends you in mid air surrounded by a happy storm of electronic atmospherics. Textured Bird Transmission is a one-man operation that bridges a gap between screeching white noise and tender ambience. After about 10 minutes of build up with more loops and more feedback being added step by step, I was left thinking about some of Iannis Xenakis's compositions - in that it feels like huge solid shapes were being formed in the air around me whilst I listened. Musical architecture. And although it adheres to the tried and tested route of most noise pieces - in that it starts with a quiet hiss and ends in an unruly cacaphony - the pleaseres involved far outweigh the formal structure of the music. There are some overwhelming moments of beauty contained in this 30 minute piece. Grab them while you can.