CC011: jffstnhs ‘Broken’, 3” CD
Formed from the remains of Listening Mirror, jffstnhs is the solo project of LM’s co-founder Jeff Stonehouse. jffstnhs will visit darker places than Listening Mirror dared to tread.
“His biggest misgiving came from his concern about the loud crash that was bound to occur and would probably create, if not terror, at least anxiety behind all the doors. But that would have to be risked.” - Franz Kafka, the Metamorphosis
Edition of 50 handmade, numbered copies
£5.00
“A haunting and slowly intensifying drone.” - Ambientblog
“The adventure starts with a voice. Coming in over what sounds like a loudspeaker, only muffled, lost in translation. Maybe it’s Houston calling, calmly going over last-minute instructions to the cockpit of a space shuttle that’s about to try out warp speed for the first time in history. Whoever it is, whatever they have to say won’t help now. It’s begun, the low end and ebbing synth cluster in the upper register setting the pace with an unrelenting forward motion. It is super-slo-mo and fast-forward at the same time, mounting with a calculated intensity and extreme velocity. If things were to stop suddenly, the results would be catastrophic. Injuries would mount. Our intrepid pilot might die. This doesn’t happen, but our hero isn’t out of the woods yet… The bass starts to throb. There is a malfunction. It is terrifying.” - Tiny Mix Tapes
“… right from the off it’s clear jffstnhs (or stnhs, if you will) is going to present an altogether heavier sound and one with increased immediacy. No longer is there any feeling of otherness or seperation – the waves of noise envelope you straight away and don’t really let up until the single track’s twenty-two minute running time has elapsed. It’s not vicious or abrasive, it’s just consuming – a mass of muffled voices swirling in a hurricane and slowly dying out as the winds take hold. As it progresses it gets harder to bear; when turned up loud the higher-pitched tones scream through the drones like comets entering the atmosphere. It’s a real thrill ride with a submerged grumble of a beat emerging to propel, challenging the listener to stick to his or her guns or shout that you want to get off. The cover image of what appears to be a fighter pilot preparing for take-off is wholly appropriate, as Broken seems to be made up of everything flying a jet would expose you to, from the roasting hum of the engines to the deafening growl of take-off and headlong into the sonic boom as you break through the sound barrier. It’s powerful stuff, compounded with stunning effect towards the end when a sudden thunk and its rumbling aftermath replicates an airborne pressure drop in your ears.” - Fluid Radio
“It’s one long 22-minute track of throbbing dark drones. It’s considerably darker than anything I’ve heard from him before. It’s practically doom laden and it’s making me wish I’d brought my spare pants into work. It’s a dark journey into barren industrial wastelands where the weather is bleak and all around everyone looks grey and poorly.” - Norman Records
“Gradually the intensity level subsides, a move that allows a cycling flow of convulsions to become more dominant, until the hazy mass returns, this time swelling into a crackling cloud and surrendering to madness all the more. Crank that stereo as loudly as it can go, and then lie back and strap yourself in for this haunted trip to the outermost reaches.” - Textura
“Gone completely are the pastoral utopias of Listening Mirror, this is more a soundtrack to becoming lost in fog. jffstnhs is now firmly positioned alongside the likes of Colin Potter, Michael Begg and Robert Hampson as a first class crafter of strange, dystopian dreams in sound.” -Was Ist Das!
Written and produced by Jeff Stonehouse / Cover image courtesy of Lee Noble
jffstnhs on the web: facebook / twitter // soundcloud
CC006, #007, and #008 all feature art and design by Russian artist, Anya Kuts. This is the first batch in a series of 7”s that will feature the artistic vision of a single artist. Later batches will feature art by Grant Evans, and Lee Noble. The first edition of Anya’s batch is ‘Flux Boundaries’ by Widesky. The second and third editions are a ‘witness the conflagrations of these, the last days’ by a death cinematic, and ‘Ask 1 2 B 1’ by Love Cult. To view more of Anya’s work visit her website: http://anya.lovecult.net/
CC006: Widesky ‘Flux Boundaries’, 7” Lathe
Looped field recordings and processed, pitched down instrumentation undulating from the Pacific Northwest. Widesky presents two ambient compositions that embrace notions of noise, only to subtly subvert them into transcendental drones. Limited edition of 25.
US$17 - Post inclusive / Worldwide (Shipping date: 07/03/13)
SOLD OUT
“Though Chrisman’s Widesky is pitched as a noise/drone project, Flux Boundaries is more restrained and controlled than such a description might imply. Yes, there are noises and drones aplenty in the A-side’s “Disembodied,” but the tune swells in a patient and measured manner instead of bludgeoning the listener with an eviscerating attack. If anything, the piece is more molten rumination than anything else, while the shorter B-side “Sublimate” situates itself at an even deeper and thus quieter level of somnambulant.” - Textura
Recorded by Seth Chrisman / Art direction by Anya Kuts
CC005: birds of passage ‘The Brave Man with a Sword b/w In Heaven’, C10
birds of passage unveils a mysterious new piece of cryptic drone, in the form of a limited edition cassingle. The A-side — The Brave Man with a Sword — features muted piano loops, that swirl beneath a sea of distortion and aleatoric noise. Disintegration ensues, as a muffled and mysterious siren’s call laments: “The Brave Man with a Sword”. This is a single from birds of passage’s forthcoming EP, ‘1890 Story’: her side of ‘Taxidermy of Unicorns’ (Watery Starve) — a four-way split cassette with Aloonaluna, Motion Sickness of Time Travel, and Je Suis Le Petit Chevalier. The B-side of this cassingle is an homage to ‘In Heaven’, the song sung by The Lady in the Radiator in David Lynch’s cult classic, Eraserhead — with echoes of Arvo Pärt’s Für Alina. This is haunted ambient-folk channeled from a strange yet beautiful place, and committed to tape, for the first in a series of limited edition releases from birds of passage. - Cooper Cult
US$16 - Post inclusive / Worldwide (Shipping date: 22/02/13)
SOLD OUT / Download via BANDCAMP
“Birds of Passage provides the feminine pool with an utterly intelligent drone, suitably entitled ‘The Brave Man with a Sword’. Wrapped up in a pool of distortion, a series of drowned piano loops conquer the cross-grained landscape, slowly dissolving into a sacred atmosphere over the New Zealandish land.” - No Fear Of Pop
“Echoing through solitary areas of shadiness, ‘The Brave Man With A Sword’ assembles a condition of introversion, leaning towards smooth drone layers of haunting depictions. - Mystic Groove
“Ccracked, distant drone, with Alicia’s hovering, ethereal vocals threatening to disappear in smoke and hiss.” - Rose Quartz
“Merz’s evocatively titled opener cloaks an elegant piano lilt in dense folds of distortion and grime until the piano all but vanishes, its fragile voice reduced to a faint and ever-receding whisper—until her soft voice rises from the ashes like some spirit lamenting the dead.” - Textura
Recorded by Alicia Merz in the Waikato wetlands in November 2012 / Art direction by CJ Parahi
CC005 Reissue - edition of 1: birds of passage ‘The Brave Man with a Sword’ C10, white shell + original collage on handmade paper embedded w/ New Zealand wild flowers.
This is a home-dubbed reissue of one white cassette (the first pressing was limited to 80, w/ clear shells). The collage is the original from which the j-card art of the first pressing was based on.
US$80
SOLD OUT
