|
REVIEWS
THE
WIRE
Aptly subtitled "A Concerto
For Piano And Reverberation In Four
Movements", The Dying Submariner
is a hypnotically simple album from
occasional Nurse With Wound collaborator
Andrew Liles. While there is no spoken
narrative, the sequence of events is
perfectly clear: the nautical protagonist
finds his bathysphere cast free from
its tether to the surface world, and
eventually plunges into the ocean's
depths. Liles guides this grim tale
through numerous different moods, using
polyphonous tone clusters and arpeggiated
hammerings to connote the shift from
dreamy weightlessness into noirish tension,
slowly pushing towards a forbidding
chill. The final piano notes of the
album emerge from cavernous reverb and
leaden sustain, both curiously playful
and drunkenly stumbling - a comedic
twist of fate for the luckless submariner,
or his final thoughts flashing before
his eyes as he nears his demise? Jim
Haynes
BRAINWASHED
Written by Lucas Schleicher
Monday, 31 July 2006
Andrew Liles continues to take the familiar
and turn it into something warped, something
weird. Now, however, he's doing it in
a perhaps unexpected way. Concertos
normally have three movements and are
typically composed for a solo instrument
and an orchestra; the piano is the only
proper instrument on this record. Liles,
however, makes sense of it all plays
the piano in a way that has me looking
at the instrument in a whole new light.
A dying submariner, lost in some dismal
cinema of murky water, frightening aquatic
life, and the weight of death literally
on his shoulders is all the artwork
for this release sugggests to me. The
blind eyes, exposed teeth, and pale
complexion on the cover are supposed
to say a little something about the
dive suit seen inside the packaging.
When those first hidden piano notes
begin to rumble like a monster rising
from the depths, it is easy to think
that the rest of this album is going
to be a dark ride, the first and last
adventure of someone who is unaware
of the danger lurking below.
The Dying Submariner..., however, reminds
me more of a classical fantasia, a whimsical
adventure worthy of far more color and
infused with a life equally as complex
as the zoology of creatures suggested
by the artwork. There are minor chords
struck by Liles' piano playing, but
there is also a flurry of activity that
skips about in the music, very noticeable
in the closing moments of the first
movement and readily apparent at other
times in each of the other pieces. This
could be contributed to how naked much
of Liles' performance is. While there
is no orchestra to make this a concerto
proper, the reverb of the title does
add a sense of accompaniment. By itself,
however, is Liles' beautiful writing
and performance, standing above the
simple reverb and feeding off of it
simultaneously: eloquent and poetic
at times, it conjures a sense of depth
and emotional content, and then harsh
and invigorating other times with the
full range of fear, anger, and confusion
instilled in Liles' heavy handed strikes
and melancholic strokes.
Each track brings a different thrill
despite the monochromatic possibilities
inherent in arranging for a single instrument
and effect. Liles makes beautiful use
of the piano's voice, letting it ring
out and sing in a way that reminds of
Claude Debussy's work at times. Despite
the crushing weight of the water, of
depression, of doubt, there is a sense
of hope and happiness in the way the
instrument is played upon. There can
be no doubt of the darkness surrounding
this piece, however. So, at other times,
Liles exposes the instrument as a rotten
beast, coughing and hacking into tunnels
so deep and dangerous that man hasn't
dared to touch their mysteries. Liles
continues to outdo himself over and
over again. I know he's played with
Nurse with Wound, but comparisons between
him and Steven Stapleton make as much
as sense as comparisons between Salvador
Dalí and Georges Bataille do
(that is to say that comparison is becoming
null and void, the result of a genre's
name moreso than a result of any musical
similarity). Liles voice continues to
grow more unique and more diverse with
time. This album should not be missed.
MUSIQUE
MACHINE
The Dying Submariner enchantingly
submerges the listener in underwater
landscapes, that drifting with dead
bodies, and lost ships. But also of
mystical cities of coral and pearl in
the deeperist cannons of the sea, never
before seen by human eyes.
Andrew Liles has managed to cokes from
his piano and echo effects, such exquisite
and often darkly rimed ambient tones.
Though out the four tracks he drifts
from almost blinding beauty to octopus
ink dark tones. Using what may seem
such a simple thing as piano to paint
such, a level of audio detail, it really
is a celebration of the pianos many
voices, and of course Mr Liles apt ear
for rich sound weaving. Part one finds
a man in an copper driving suit twisting
over and over falling though, dark choppy
seas, is frame just twisting and twisting,
we keep glancing his paniced face through,
his glass viewing portal, Liles stretch
out deep tones from the piano. As the
track goes on the tone seem to lighten,
or possible it’s just acceptance
of the driver to his inevitable death.
All of the tracks have similar feeling,
but there is variation as Liles experiments
with the tones, making each track into
its own drifting sound tale.
A rewarding and lush watery sound treat.
As usual with Beta-lactam ring records
releases, the artwork is wonderfully.
A sturdy cardboard gate fold, with a
bizarre picture of a deep sea fish on
the cover, it’s blind eyes starting
out at you, and inside a eerier shot
of a driver been swallowed up by darkness.
Roger Batty
SMOTHER
MAGAZINE
Dark foreboding ambience that
twists knives deep into your cortex
with wraith-like disgust, “The
Dying Submariner” is a twist conceptual
nightmare of slowed down agony. Layering
faint sounds onto chilling experimental
surreal firestorms, Andrew Liles knows
that music filled with this much dread
not only tingles spines but chills them
with fierce abandon. Psychologically
a bit of an undertaking when listened
to in complete darkness, the album fills
your head with disturbing images as
you let your mind wander in the droning
collage of sonic textures and elongated
sound waves. Beautiful, frightening,
eerie, intelligent: all of these adjectives
and so much more sum up the truly disheartening
experience of listening to this album.
And I love it! - J-Sin
MORPHEUS
MUSIC
Subtitled - A Concerto for
Piano and Reverberation in Four Movements
- this CD is self-descriptive. Ominous
drones, muted and dark open the album,
turning in slow turbulence, rumbling
with depth - initially minimal in melodic
structure, but increasingly harmonious
as the piano origins of the sounds gradually
become increasingly apparent. The Dying
Submariner is not a comfortable composition
though, almost as soon as musical clarity
is established Liles introduces strongly
dissonant notes, disrupting the harmony.
At times reverberation is all encompassing,
thunderous in places or a thick sonic
smog in others. Emergent piano tones
run the full range of the keyboard from
simple, bold low tolls to tinkling complexity
and rippling scales - at times almost
free of the ambience of echoes, then
once again enshrouded in a blanket of
softening sustain.
This appealing package is presented
in the fashion of vinyl LPs from a few
decades back. A card gatefold opens
out to reveal a double panel image of
a deep sea diver emerging from green
murk - no plastic CD holder to mar the
effect. The disc in fact is pocketed
in the card sleeve and protected in
a plastic wallet. The front cover image
of a fish pulled from the ocean depths
- dead and eyes and crinkling, transparent
skin afloat on an infinity of blackness
- hints at the musical tone often explored
on the CD. Text is minimal providing
little more than contact and label details
- a track list appearing only on the
disc itself.
Andrew Liles has built up a substantial
body of work since the mid 1980s and
has collaborated with numerous other
artists. Here he presents here a powerful,
experimental composition that explores
obscure liquid aural bodies of sound
and the imaginary contents of such;
tenebrous, amorphous, neo-classical,
like nothing you've ever heard. The
Dying Submariner is released on Beta-Lactam
Ring Records and will appeal primarily
to fans of dark ambient music looking
for something different.
PROGRESSIVE
& PSYCHEDELIC MUSIC
Although this is a release without words,
I can easily imagine a small story with
the music.The first movement starts
as a dark soundtrack, as if from the
deep (sea), with slow bass sounds (which
are stretched piano sounds I guess)
penetrating into wider spaces, mixed
with its overtones. This sounds still
like a composition, which is almost
like electronic music but without using
electronic keyboards or equipment. In
its evolution it starts to give the
impression of a ghost piano concerto
in a sunken ship, unreachable for real
contact, but not for a listener, who
might be afraid this could work as sounds
from evil elks seeking a new victim
to drawn them, to share their doomed
destiny. After another clearer (underwater)
pianopiece, the third part sound more
like drunk and drown, also in the nature
of its composition, where the echoing
layers and oscillations are a bit destroying
the composition ship, showing a more
destructive than a constructive nature.
After a while it becomes a bit into
a sleepy moodiness, keeping the piano
piece melodic layers close to the hillocky
ground level of the sea. The latest,
quietest piano piece with some echoes
is just like a calmed down nature of
the wreck itself which is no longer
making up any new story. Never the less
in the end of this piece, a slightly
dancing piano melody ends the whole
composition, just like friendly moss
or plants on top of the wreck.. So in
the end the story still did find a surprising
concluding turning point which is pleasant
like a waving hand, calmly pulsating
on the deeper waves and water movements,
life after death.
FAKE
JAZZ
What is the enduring draw in
music about sinking ships? Gavin Bryars's
The Sinking of the Titanic, Nurse With
Wound's Salt Marie Celeste, and the
Shipwreck Radio series. And now Andrew
Liles' new work The Dying Submariner.
Perhaps it’s a fascination with
the land mammal's return to the primordial
soup that drowning in a cold unforgiving
sea symbolizes. Perhaps it’s a
socioeconomic statement about the inevitable
demise of the "ship of state."
Or maybe it’s the appropriateness
of a burial at sea as a modern compositional
twist on that old genre warhorse the
funeral mass. Whatever it is, the "sinking
ship" genre appears unsinkable.
That being said, The Dying Submariner
is hardly a rehash of the existing canon.
While it is likely to earn comparisons
to the earlier entries mentioned above,
there's a crucial difference here. While
Bryars focused on a famous catastrophe
affecting hundreds of lives, Liles'
subject is so anonymous he is known
only by his occupation. And even though
the genre demands slow evolution and
repetition of themes, the NWW entries
are more eerily creepy than somber.
And let's face it, while it's also kind
of creepy, not much is more somber than
contemplating dying alone at the bottom
of the ocean. It practically defines
somber.
This is deep water music. Even the cover
is adorned by the sort of hideously
deformed bulging eyeballed, razor fanged
fishes that only live at depths where
the atmospheric pressure is an order
of magnitude greater than that on the
surface of the earth. The sounds that
comprise The Dying Submariner’s
four part concerto will be immediately
familiar to anyone who ever put a brick
on the sustain pedal of their grandparents'
piano to create enough mobility to go
nuts on the leftmost keys. Part I balances
between unearthly bass rumblings and
reverberant sheets of the fleeting sonic
afterimage of a descending melody, the
piece flutters steadily downward away
from the light of the surface; the audio
equivalent of the submarine’s
weak headlamp growing dimmer as it plunges
further into the abyss. Did I mention
this was somber?
Part II offers some brief respite from
the inexorable spiral in the form of
a slowly coalescing chord sequence that
ends up sounding more like the intro
to a Mogwai post-rock opus than the
grim farewell that preceded it. Maybe
this is the point where the submariner
is tempted to swim “towards the
light”, but if so, the branch
of hope that is extended is short-lived
because the claustrophobia returns in
the tightly wound cascading arpeggios
of Part III. Part IV is clearly the
point where our hero bites it. Its spare,
lingering notes are easily the most
funereal of the whole disc.
This is not one of those records I’m
going to pull out to listen to again
that often. Even the admittedly subtle
musical variations on the basic theme
Liles presents early on are not likely
to make me brave the intensity and frankly
depressing prospect of such a death
documented over an hour plus. But there
are definitely moments of fragile beauty
here as well as a compelling (if morbid)
narrative and those willing to travel
to the depths with Liles and his submariner
may find the trip worthwhile.
FISHCOM
COLLECTIVE
Subtitled (appropriately) “A
Concerto for Piano and Reverberation
in Four Movements,” Lile’s
“Dying Submariner” is a
masterful, absorbing and thoroughly
meditative (not to mention emotional
on a tenebrous, deep, profound level,
if you can imagine that) work. Using
the piano to create ultra-moody atmosphere
and virtual audio darkness, Lile’s
sometimes utilizes instantly recognizable
piano strokes that move with intent
deliberation, slow but certain. At other
times, the music is elongated into ambient
miasmas that are not readily identifiable
as piano, though in hindsight you can
see how the pressure on a piano key
was manipulated to such a point. Liles’
work is not just aptly subtitled but
aptly titled, as well, providing a dark
journey into alien places at the bottom
of the world.
TERRASCOPE
ON LINE
Experimental musician/sound artist Andrew
Liles has a long history as a collaborator
with the likes of Steven Stapleton,
The Hafler Trio, and Daniel Padden,
but here he conjures a bathyspheric
solo work from the elements of piano
and reverberation. In fact, the release
is subtitled 'A Concerto for Piano and
Reverberation in Four Movements', though
I always understood a concerto to have
three movements and be for a solo instrument
and orchestra of some kind. Pedantry
aside, it's a concerto in spirit, with
the core elements of piano forming the
solo part, and reverberation the orchestration.
From its outset, it is clear that Liles
needs no words to establish narrative:
the listener is instantly under the
waves, experiencing the deep, muffled
wavelengths of sound through water.
A world of fear and mystery is evoked,
and it's a dark, cold place that is
barely aware of humanity, let alone
welcoming of it. Occasional shafts of
light penetrate, through differently
shaded tone-clusters and subtle arpeggios,
but the direction is overwhelmingly
toward Neptune's darkness, and His throne
of sodden drones. Liles uses the piano
is ways that are rarely heard, and had
one not known the genesis of the sounds
here, electronics would have been assumed.
The end of the first movement is extraordinary,
with carillon crescendos suggesting
ascent, fighting against the downward
pull of deep bass reverberations. At
times it's as if Liles is tearing out
piano-strings by the fistful. Despite
the potential for such releases to be
one-dimensional, Liles creates distinct
variations between the movements. The
second movement is more clearly piano-generated,
solemn chords and hesitant counterpoints
suggesting a troubled internal dialogue.
In narrative terms, it's easy to imagine
the submariner bargaining for his life
as the clock runs down. Halfway through
the movement, the tempo and tonality
change, and caverns of light are suggested
as if a reprieve has been granted, or
at least hoped for. It's a beautiful,
weightless sequence that balances the
foreboding elsewhere. Delirium perhaps.
Lightness and eloquence characterise
the start of the third movement; ghost
arpeggios echoing along a tunnel of
light indicating perhaps that our imagined
protagonist has began to cross over
into death. But the pitch increases
through the movement in an odd and unsettling
way, and the overall mood suggested
by its middle section is the anxiety
of a soul trapped between two states
of being, before some kind of resolution
takes place in the final third. The
fourth movement returns initially to
doom-chords and flashes of light of
the second movement, almost as though
the overall work has transitioned from
being about a submariner to being about
the sea that swallows all, and especially
about the life of its unknowable trenches
and rifts. A constantly shifting series
of tone clusters and reverberations
then follows, across the spectrum of
hearing from depth charges of bass to
shimmering neutrino particle accelerations
of high frequency. Oddly, a stumbling
jazz pattern finishes it all off, suggesting
maybe a cosmic joke is being played
on the listener. It doesn't quite work
as a conclusion, but there is no denying
the magnificent work elsewhere. More
varied than a pure drone work, but still
minimalist in execution, 'The Dying
Submariner' stands as one of the most
fully realised experimental recording
of recent years.
SLUG
MAGAZINE
Andrew Liles = Gavin Byers + Samuel
Coleridge + Harold Budd
What happens when you add Rime of the
Ancient Mariner and Iron Maiden but
hold the Maiden and insert underwater
tableaux’s? What you don’t
get is your aquarium screen saver complete
with sunken ship and incidental fish
noises. Andrew Liles, instead, has created
a lurching moaning composition that
is equally frightening for its tight
chilling style as it is for its sustained
notes. The Dying Submariner takes off
where Maiden failed (actually making
a song about the Coleridge’s Ancient
Mariner); it shimmers and shakes, pitches
and rolls as one part harmonizes with
another and echoes and reverbs off yet
another pair or chord of notes. You
would think that with each track being
20 minutes (give or take a minute) that
it would bring on the boring but instead
it is delicately balanced enough to
sustain interest the same way that staring
at an aquarium is alluring. While Coleridge
did The Rime in seven parts Liles was
able to do it aurally in four! Boo Ya,
Coleridge! – Erik Lopez
MIRGILUS
SICULORUM
Andrew
Liles egyike korunk millionyi kiserletezo
underground muveszei kozul. Andrew azert
nem tegnap kezdte el a billentyuket
nyomogatni, hiszen mar a 80-as evekben
is adott ki lemezeket, turnezott, stb.
Az idok soran - tobbek kozott - olyan
neves muveszekkel kollaboralt, mint
Edward Ka-Spel (The Legendary Pink Dots),
Steve Stapleton (Nurse With Wound),
vagy Steven Wilson (Bass Communion,
Porcupine Tree). A huzos diszkografiaval
rendelkezo Andrew minden anyagan megprobal
valami ujat, valami masat alkotni, ezuttal
sincs ez maskepp, a Haldoklo Tengeralattjaro
egy 4 dalbol allo 72 perces alkotas,
a CD alcime pedig - A Concerto for Piano
and Reverberation in Four Moments -
mar elarulhat egy par dolgot a koncepciorol.
Termeszetesen nem egy "live"
felvetelrol van szo, viszont a hangszer,
amin elovan adva a "koncert",
az mar a zongora. Nem kell persze teadelutanokon
eloadott klasszikus szonatakra gondolni,
ez itt a feneketlen melysegek es a tengeralattjarok
zeneje, egy haldoklo buvar utolso pillanatainak
monoton megzenesitese. Andrew zeneje
ezen a lemezen kizarolag zongoran eloadott
komor hangzatokbol, illetve ezeknek
reverberacioibol all. A visszhangositott
temak toltik be a hatterszerepet, majd
ezekre jatszik ra Andris tovabbi, nem
reverberalt zongoratemakat. Az eredmeny
egy rendkivul nyomaszto, klausztrofobias
hangulatu zenefolyam. A szimplan part
I - part IV - re keresztelt dalok egybefolynak,
a temak eszrevetlenul csusznak at egymasba,
megtartva mindvegig a disszonans, baratsagtalan
jelleget. Bar az ambient-el rokon zene
ez, megsem neveznem annak, talan az
experimentalis kortars zenekhez all
kozelebb Mr. Liles produkcioja. Bar
ismerek nehany regebbi AL kiadvanyt,
engem is meglepett az uj lemez komorsaga,
ridegsege, hiszen Andrew-nak vannak
ettol sokkal baratsagosabb hangvetelu
anyagai is. Ha esetleg bejonne a The
Dying Submariner, akkor probalkozz meg
a specialis 2 CD-s verzioval is, amely
tartalmaz egy The Dead Submariner nevu
korongot is. - Robert Sun
TOUCHING
EXTREMES
Andrew Liles pumps out CDs by the dozen
and it's just obvious that I am not
able to keep his pace, that's why I
listened to "The dying submariner"
- subtitled "A concerto for piano
and reverberation" - with a lot
of delay (no pun intended). It's one
of those cases in which I bought the
CD out of the many positive reviews
I read, and let it be known that they
were right. The composition is divided
into four movements, more or less similar
as a general concept but slightly different
as far as little nuances and colours
are concerned. The activity is mostly
centred around the low-frequency range
of the piano at first, then the nebulous
figurations and long-distance echoes
elicited by Liles' hands shift all over
the keyboard in grey-tinged snapshots
of solitude, at times sounding more
like a silent movie soundtrack than
a marine landscape. The sea is nevertheless
evoked, thanks to hundreds of overlapping
chords which - in the haze generated
by the infinite reverbs - mesh and gently
clash, giving birth to even more extraneous
shades, all of them perfectly acceptable
to these ears, which every once in a
while need a little relief after hours
upon hours of relentless attacks (and
not always by good musicians). Only
at the end of the album the piano morphs
into a metallic entity, then Liles closes
the show with uncertain muffled articulations
that look like a signature of sorts.
Another considerable effort by this
talented artist. - Massimo Ricci
|
