21:00
3" CD-R
Edition or 100
2007
Tracks
1. Melody to Maelstrom
Description
Dragon's Eye Recordings is pleased to release the third installment in its 3" CD-R series, Long Distance. This volume features a collaboration between Yann Novak and Kev Rolfe (Brittle Stars). Recorded during Novak’s stay in Manchester, this installment of Long Distance continues the previous volumes theme of two artists that have never met collaborating in person. Beginning with a rippling mantra-like melody that slowly distorts into a complex and rhythmic play, the single track, “Melody to Maelstrom,” works to maintain the structure of the original melody. The slight hint of rhythm leads to a hypnotic state as the tones become more distorted; and eventually everything bleeds into complete abstraction. The piece comes full-circle in the end, commenting on the transition from simplicity to complexity, and back again.
Published by Dragon's Eye Recordings (de2711)
Reviews
The Long Distance project, which combines two artists who have never met before collaborating in person, continues with Dragon’s Eye label owner Yann Novak teaming up with Brittle Stars (Kev Rolfe). Rolfe has spent the last four years recording under the Brittle stars monika and experiments with detuned guitar, rewiring, differing harmonics and claims influence of ‘Indonesian Music, Indian Ragas and artists like Glen Branca’. He has recently had tracks of his included in Bruce La Bruce’s Otto: Up with the dead.
Melody to Maelstrom, is the lone track on this limited edition (100) 3” CD, an epic build of hypnotic rhythm building to complete abstraction. Crisp digital processing and marked tonal control is shown by Yann Novak who manipulates and enhances the soundscape, a ‘mantra like melody, that slowly distorts into a complex and rhythmic play’.
Clearly this music has the hallmarks of connoisseurs of extreme noise; it would attract keen listeners who have an ear for guitar noise and the sound of digital noise. Yann Novak’s experiments in environmental sound are quite evident in the piece and this would go down a treat at experimental noise festivals. It brandishes sharp edged control of the sound palette like a weapon. It is also clear that the textural noise will play well within brooding and introspective soundtrack work.
– Cyclic Defrost Magazine
In this 3-inch CD a basic, unhurried melody is repeated on and on, increasingly transformed by a cycle of laptop modifications, until its spirit - although somehow remaining observable - falls to bits, practically lost in numberless different combinations of harshness and deformation. The very title of the only track is a self-explanatory "Melody to Maelstrom". According to the above description, it would be easy to dismiss this outing as one among similar hundreds; still, there's a measure of attraction in the music that made me want to play it again before the ultimate verdict. Which hasn't come yet. The jury is still out, but I'll keep listening to this. A sleeper? Who knows. Meaningful in some incomprehensible way, the plainness of the model notwithstanding.
– Touching Extremes
Brittle Stars (aka Kev Rolfe) and chief Dragon Yann Novak get together for Long Distance Vol. 3, a single 21-minute sojourn into (e)lapsed time that blossoms, blooms, and collapses in a splendid display of composition trumpeting over-indulgence. Proof that ideas, when properly edited, yield dividends, both Rolfe and Novak (never having performed together before) turn an impromptu collaboration into a marvelously patterned dronefest, illustrated by their tone poem’s abundant yield, the buffeted winds of their electronics, the cool blue surface of their digital atmospheres—less can indeed be more.
– Signal to Noise
Flowing, defiantly beautiful and completely hypnotic. This limited CDr from Kev Rolfe and Yann Novak is an object lesson in how to make drone-based deliciousness. A simple guitar and electronic loop is morphed slowly and surely over the course of 21 minutes and I've got to say it really captures you. Check out the snippet and then imagine a subtly shifting sound that works around you, enveloping you. Seriously good and another very fine release indeed from this brilliant label. Recommended.
– Smallfish
This a new collaboration between Yann Novak and UK’s Kev Rolfe aka Brittle Stars that took place in Manchester during a visit that Novak did to this city.‘Long Distance Vol.3’ is a series of 3” CD’s releases that consists in a single track called ‘Melody to Maelstrom’ of 21 minutes long. This is an ambient piece very delicate that creates a warm atmosphere with a digital frame of keyboards and a subtle distortion.
– Loop
Third installment of Yann Novak´s "Long Distance" series of three-inch CDRs - the first two have been reviewed here http://sonomu.net/text/~heavy-lids-thing/ - wherein he pays a visit to Manchester with his laptop to collaborat with someone he has never met before, experimental bedroom musician Kev Rolfe aka Brittle Stars. The single track, "Melody to Maelstrom", pulses with fragile life, delicate and lovely and almost soundless, like watching a flower open without the benefit of time-lapse photography. Subtle, incremental distortion serves only to draw the ear closer, the better to enjoy this effort of great beauty writ small.
– Sonomu
’s Eye’s Long Distance series on 8cm formats, that pairs up artists who have never before met or worked together, igniting interesting and engaging projects, and fuelling a scene impoverished of fresh approaches. The single, long form track, Melody to Maelstrom emerges from a series of collaborations undertaken by the duo on Novak’s recent visit to Manchester, UK . This is very much a multi-layered excursion utilising a serialist melody formed around a rich, resonant keyboard theme, that gradually spirals into a grainy, abstracted textural wave. The title says it all really, and what occurs over the course of this 21 minute fusion, is a gradual erosion of melody, like a piece of shining steel, that gradually corrodes, accumulating grit and oxidation, bearing the scars of time as it slowly breaks down. The central theme, remains throughout, a haunting presence towards the end, that hints at the processes of the life cycle, from order to chaos, and back again, new life fuelled from decay. This is a fascinating, and obviously fruitful collaboration that more than hints at a future meeting of these two creative minds. Highly recommended.
– White_Line