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Sceneslow: Lillnea
October Man

Bristle Weather: The Oblivion Seeker
October Man

As is typically the case with October Man releases, there's not a lot of information accompanying the release aside from clarifying that Sceneslow hails from Japan and that the EP's seven tracks are guitar-based. And, as is also par for the October Man course, the total run is low, in this case an almost absurd twenty copies. The artist himself, Shinji Tashiro, likens his music to “soft green, blue of water, the transparent sky, warm light, scenery of the quiet country” and it's a fair characterization of the bucolic scenery suggested by the half-hour of music (the opening song's title “Velvet Morning” also succinctly encapsulates his sound). Multi-layered lattices of six-strings shimmer tranquilly in “Rou” while the gentle waltz “Autumn Air” is even more peaceful. Tashiro cites Slowdive and Ride as influences, and the EP's material (e.g., “Easende,” “Kumo No Mukou”) occasionally migrates in the direction of shoegaze with murmuring voices and guitars massing into cloud-like formations.

The label's other new release, The Oblivion Seeker presents eighteen minutes of brooding IDM by twenty-year-old Russian musician Eugeny Trifonov under the Bristle Weather moniker. Trifonov's debut sounds like what you'd get if Christ., Traject, and Autechre were locked in a studio and told they couldn't leave until they'd spawned an EP's worth of tunes. Heavy on dystopic atmosphere, the typical Oblivion Seeker track pairs sweeping string tones and haunted synth lines with dense flurries of popping beats that sound as if they're struggling to wrest themselves free of a straitjacket. In “Yellow Air,” swirling string tones encircle clattering pulsations while “Nothing Came” ends the set on an equally epic though considerably more melancholic note. The three-inch is available in a mere thirty-copy run so get moving if you're interested.

June 2008