ANDREW LILES

BLACK HOLE
Forming part of 'The Vortex Vault' a mail-order only series of 12 CDs.

TRACK LISTING
Humiliated
Fading
I Have Made a Decision
Midnight Gardener
Hello Pharaoh
Pillow Voice
Root Canal
Sequential Dreaming
Tea Tree Part 2
Without Anaesthesia
An Unspoken Narrative Regarding Institutional Abuse
Bad Vibes Waiting Room
An Uneventful Afternoon

REVIEWS

Vital Weekly
Black Hole has Liles all on his own. Much more contemplative by nature, this 14 track CD is less outspoken than Black Paper. The 40+ minutes of Liles-material, full of loops, found sounds and strange effects, will surely please his ever-growing army of fans. In fact, interest so far in the Andrew Liles' Vortex Vault series has been so high, that BLRR has made it possible to buy the whole set in one go at a reduced price. Highly recommended!

RE:GEN Magazine
Part Two of The Vortex Vault series of random and archival tracks from experimental composer Andrew Liles, Black Hole features a little bit of everything. For fans of ambient and drone music, "An Uneventful Afternoon" is a gentle drift on warm analog tones, and "Humiliated" is a strange but enjoyable bit of '70s-style space rock synths. "Midnight Gardener" is quite interesting too; its core consists of distant church bells ringing through a thickened bank of sustain, while muffled conversations playing back and forth across the stereo channels conjure the feeling of waking up from a winter nap to the sound of passersby talking as they pass your window. For slightly more industrial-tinged fare, try the echoing clanks of "Pillow Voice" or the panning buzzes and muffled percussion of "Root Canal," which—perhaps thanks to the Novocaine haze of the coolly droning background effects—is far less painful than its title suggests. Alternately, "Without Anaesthesia" is aptly sadistic, thanks to a shrieking noise that may be metal on metal but may in fact be actual shrieking, but not without its funky charm, thanks to a mellow tribal rhythm. While a lot of this is playful but somewhat inaccessible, actual melodies do make the occasional appearance as well. "Hello Pharaoh" sets a man's voice humming absentmindedly in harmony with a lovely wordless soprano, and "Bad Vibes Waiting Room" pairs buzzing upright bass with tinkling vibraphone, like some coffeehouse jazz duo filtered through post-industrial surrealism. It's a good collection of tracks, all things considered; Liles' devoted fans will enjoy the variety of course, but perhaps more importantly, newcomers will get a chance to sample a variety of his unconventional flavors in small, easily-digested chunks.
Posted: Wednesday, July 25, 2007
By: Matthew Johnson
Associate Editor

Bizarre Magazine
Consisting of 12 individually released CDs, this is, in part, a collection of unreleased material from one of the UK's finest electronic experimentalists' studio archives. A collaborator with similar sound envelope-pushers such as Nurse With Wound and The Hafler Trio, Liles' music mixes minimalist drones with antique instrumentation and natural noise for a sonically surreal sound. This is dark ambience in its most eclectic form - sublime, sinister and visually spectacular.
By Billy Chainsaw