Brian Lavelle

I’m delighted to announce that the debut Space Weather album is now available on the group’s own label, Space Weather Recordings. The group, which consists of Alistair Crosbie (electric guitar), Andrew Paine (bass guitar) and me (synthesizer), play a kind of improvised experimental krautrock/space rock. You might enjoy it…

There are a number of excerpts from the album on our MySpace page and you can buy the album from me on the Shop page.

Further recordings are in the works. More on those soon.

Ian Holloway’s wonderful online experimental music review Wonderful Wooden Reasons has a new review of Ustrina in its latest online edition:

At almost 70 minutes in length Ustrina from Scots dronist Lavelle is a significant investment of time and focus on both the part of the composer and the listener. Lavelle operates predominantly in the realms of warm and slightly fuzzy drone music. Narcotic tones and washes that gently shroud the audience with a vaguely clammy sense of unease. You’ve got to admit that’s an enticing prospect especially as Lavelle is very, and I do mean very, accomplished at this sort of thing. Like a darker version of Chalk & Heeman’s Mirror project, Ustrina is one of the best things I’ve heard from this side of Lavelle (the other side specialises in superbly forceful psychedelic cosmic-drone) and should be sought out without delay.

Thanks Ian!

Here’s an interesting review that appeared this month on the Heathen Harvest website:

Brian Lavelle is a project that is easily said to be hard to define. Desperation inevitably leads one to coin the experimental / avant-garde electronics tag but what I hear is something more deep and sensual than a simple frolic around the world of strange sounds and experimentation. Brian’s music isn’t a simple recording of jabbed buttons and crossed wires. There’s an apparent, intriguing skill and masterful art put into this release. The production follows a distinct flowing nature and does more to emphasize the fact that a great deal of time was spent on this recording than just about anything. It’s not dull and drab, overly compressed, or flat in any way. Supernaturalist sings to you in fragrant Earthly tongues without ever having or needing the presence of a vocalist. It breathes the tonal intricacy of our planet and has as much to do with the world through its field recordings as it does through its experimentation through manipulation and electronics. Strange and wonderful it is.

EE Tapes has seen quite a transformation over the years. From a modest tape label that saw its beginnings far back in the late 80′s, it grew towards the acceptance of at least the CD-R medium in the late 90′s, only to finally accept CD’s as a whole in in 2002-2003 (as well as changing its catalogue numbers from “ET##” to “EE##”. This release is an actual CD without the presence of a jewel case or typical CD artwork. Instead, the band / label opted for a white paper/plastic sleeve inside a folded 7”-styled artwork encasing. The paper is high-quality (recycled?) and has a natural graininess to it that suits the eerie artwork that was meant for a title such as Supernaturalist (though a pun on words may be intended here.) Brian Lavelle himself has done all of the photography and layout for this release so there is indeed a further artistic experience meant for the listener here simply beyond the music.

To whom I owe the leaping delight
That quickens my senses in our wakingtime
And the rhythm that governs the repose of our sleepingtime,
The breathing in unison

Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other
Who think the same thoughts without need of speech
And babble the same speech without need of meaning.

No peevish winter wind shall chill
No sullen tropic sun shall wither
The roses in the rose-garden which is ours and ours only

But this dedication is for others to read:
These are private words addressed to you in public.

—T.S. Eliot, A Dedication to my Wife

There’s a nice review of ‘Ustrina’ on the Chain D.L.K. site, written by Andrea Ferraris:

I think many of you out there have already Brian Lavelle for this or that release, but in case you’re absolutely new to his works you’ve to know between 1996 and today Lavelle has recorded for labels such as Bake, Diophantine, Freek, Staalplaat, Elsie and Jack etc. This drone based long track shows the incredible strength of proportions and the importance of balance, infact this sixty eighty minutes circa suite could be dead boring but ends being absorbing and fascinating instead. While being a little bit darker than many of the Lavelle’s output I’ve heard so far, it has nothing to do with dark ambient, it’s lulling and someway narcoleptic and summed up with a couple of other characteristics it brings to my mind DJ Olive’s “sleep” work on Room40, I’m tented to say the two releases are similar and equally as catchy. From what I’ve read inside the press sheet this english artist has reshaped some old sounds that probably has been collecting dust inside some rough recording and inside a black corner of Lavelle’s mind, but he managed to give it all such a good new definition I’d say this blast from the past has been damn successful. I can exactly say which were the exact sound sources/instruments for this recording, waves and the layers would suggest some keyboard/old synth sources twisted and renewed for good but with today’s technology it’s really hard for me to be one hundred percent sure. The pictures and the whole layout are great and I think from the front cover to the last page they give the impression of this environment Lavelle wanted to re-create. So the question is if we have to cross or not the bridge we see on the front cover?…by the way from the dead leaves it’s easy to imagine an autumnal landscape if you add the melancholic atmosphere of this work it’s hard to deny that’s not a joyful marriage.

Thanks to Andrea for looking to the whole release, at every aspect of it, as I’d hoped people would.

William Gardiner
29.VIII.1920 – 23.II.2009

Excellent online experimental music review Wonderful Wooden Reasons has a great little review of The Petrified Forest in its latest online edition:

There are two Brian Lavelles. There’s the Brian Lavelle that creates mature and mannered ambient compositions that slowly reveal themselves like a flower unfolding to greet the sun. Then there’s the Brian Lavelle that creates head mangling, massively psychedelic, cosmic drones. I like the first Lavelle but his music has a tendency to become just a little too nice for my palette. I love the second Lavelle! When he fires that tone at you there’s no escape. You’re along for the ride and the ride is always good.
Well, I’m happy to report that this 2 track, 20 minute set is definitely from the latter and it’s cracking stuff. The amorphous bloops and swoops mean it’s just sci-fi sounding enough to make my inner geek giggle with delight and it’s soaring fluid composition is ‘out there’ enough to make my outer space-cadet groan with psychedelic ecstasy.
A fine recording from an artist working at the top of his game.

Thank you Ian!

Well, I promised at the start of the year that I’d post more often about tea, which was really one of the reasons I started this blog in the first place. So here we are, just one tiny month later, with a post about tea: it’s almost unbelievable…

The tea in question is slightly mysterious. It’s a very generous free sample from Nada – my thanks go to him for this experience. I got this a few months ago, but haven’t had the right opportunity to try it. Today it’s a cold Sunday, the start of February; Jill is “recovering” from her hen night yesterday; I’m on holiday tomorrow; and so this afternoon is a free (and guiltlessly free) one, almost designed for a serious tea session.

The handwritten insert with this small sample simply says “60s loose leaf sheng”: essentially it’s an aged Chinese puerh tea, without artificial fermentation, although I’m assuming from the description that it was always loose leaf and has never been compressed into a cake or brick. The dry leaves certainly don’t look as though they have, although after at least 40 years, it’s probably difficult to tell. It’s quite humbling to have this tea which is older than I am, perhaps by several years. That is one of the pleasures of exploring a tea like puerh which lasts.

There’s about 4g of leaf, so I used a small (100ml) pot, the smallest I have. The aroma of the dry leaf in the pre-heated pot is interesting: damp earth mustiness, with faint hints of spice or cinnamon. A curious mix.

After a first flash rinse (not drunk) of the leaves, the aroma is more mushroom-like, with that same damp earthiness. The first drinkable rinse of 10 seconds gives a resultant liquor of a glorious deep-amber colour, verging on ruby red.

The taste is smooth, earthy and relatively “creamy”, for want of a better word. Hard to describe.

I’ve enjoyed young, green puerh for a while now. It has a crisp, refreshing and biting taste that I really like, particularly if you can find a good quality tea. On the other hand, I’ve yet to taste an aged puerh, and moreso any fermented (shu) puerh, that I really like. MarshalN posted a great piece on his blog recently about what it is we may actually be tasting in the first few infusions of an older tea: those infusions of an aged puerh which I have trouble getting through. The initial taste might be effect of how the tea has been stored.

Given the age of this tea, and based on MarshalN’s observations, I wondered if I would start to taste a difference round about the fifth infusion and thereafter. The infusions had been: 10s, 7s, 12s, 15s and 20s up to that point. From that fifth infusion, and the next (30s), I didn’t notice any perceptible difference. Perhaps it was slightly less earthy and more drinkable, but that could have been that I was used to the taste. I felt the tea liquor coating my mouth, in a not unpleasant way. I didn’t notice any massive qi with this tea, but I generally don’t for some reason. Perhaps I’ve never had good enough puerh!

I kept going with seventh and eighth infusions (45s and 75s) but again didn’t notice any change in the tea. It certainly kept going too! As the infusions went on, I got a slightly fishy note in the aroma, which wasn’t pleasant. I’ve read about people experiencing that before – I hadn’t up to this point.

The session with this tea was an unusual one for me. I don’t know how much of that is born of disappointment based on my own desire for this tea—after all, a 1960s sheng, for goodness sake—to be delicious. I am going to keep it until tomorrow and try longer infusions to see where that takes it.

I’m grateful to Nada for this experience – I just don’t know what to make of it! Did I actually enjoy it? Possibly not, but it gave my some interesting insights into what I like in tea and what I know I don’t. I just hope no one thinks it’s a lack of respect for my elders!

I’d like to wish a happy and healthy new year to all my family and friends, and to everyone else who stumbles upon this blog. One of my resolutions for 2009 (one of many…) is to post more often, and to post more often on tea.

It’s a big year for us: Jill and I will be married on 21 March, the vernal equinox, and I’m a month into a new job which is going very well.

Hope to see you all in 2009!