| "Touching Extreme"'s review of my "Strings, Locations" CD |
[Dec. 29th, 2011|10:04 am] |
| [ | music |
| | The Legendary Pink Dots - Synesthesia CD | ] |
"Mark Wilson’s array of guitars, pedals, urban field recordings, microphones placed on various objects and 'a keyboard' causes the imprisonment of the brain in the molasses of an inexorably escalating, horrendously captivating noise. Strings, Locations is one of those records for which the relinquishment of a critical sense is indispensable. It’s mostly transmitting an energizing type of raucous hypnosis, with harmonic halos all around; degenerate yet sublime recurrences that slowly but surely transcend the limit of structure, disseminating cathartic miasmas in the meantime. Normality progressively turning into a sickening un-cheerfulness, the eyes becoming glassy as the ruins of life come and go like signs on a highway’s tarmac. Conure’s violent affirmation of being against all possibilities is also refreshingly unpretentious: get exactly what you hear, without getting lost in the meanders of contorted “explanations” and absolutist theories. A dilapidated entity that still possesses enough beauty to shine under a weak sun, a rock-solid antidote in opposition to the deleterious patina of fakeness often perceived in analogous works."
-Massimo Ricci,
Touching Extremes |
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| new review of our 2008 CD... |
[Jun. 2nd, 2011|10:23 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Click Click - Wet Skin and Curious Eye CD | ] |
"Daniel Blomquist, Michael Addison Mersereau and Mark Wilson exercise an array of machines that includes analogue instruments – guitar and pedals, too – and digital expansions of those generators through laptop, samplers and a multitude of processing devices. 'Resting On A', third full-length CD of the trio, seems to have been conceived with two separate souls: the first three tracks – which comprise a 24’ 37” sinister reverie named '2.5' – are oriented towards the exploration of darkish abstractions, absorbing sound worlds where acoustic nebulousness hides both quiet menace and aural solace. Hints to Lustmord, drones lacking hackneyed inflections, inherent movements within an only apparent composure distancing the sonic essence from inconsequential immobility. The second half tends instead to the embodiment of mirages via an increased utilization of tangible secretions and more delineated structures, taped voices even appearing at the start of a track. Those scents might partially justify the press blurb’s labelling of the group as 'electronic industrial', an otherwise rather disorienting classification. Overall, a good enough album that works OK at medium-to-subliminal volume. Still, distracted ears won’t catch the subtle nuances; this is not a one-off, it needs several stabs."
-Touching Extremes,
http://touchingextremes.wordpress.com/ |
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| Absolute Zero Media's review of Conure's "Strings, Locations" CD |
[Apr. 17th, 2011|02:29 pm] |
"Experimental noise comes in all shapes and Sizes . With Conure we have Drones, Feedback Loops, Electro Noise and Waves of Pedal/ Effected power. Conure live is an event in itself an with his new album this is a warmer and harsher side then I've heard in a while. I miss this style of Harsher Drone Noise which labels like Groundfault, Truculent, RRRecords, Freak Animal use to infect us with. There is so much going then it mellows down to a static or rumble just to come back again to kick you in the teeth. Strings, Locations reminds me of bands like Sickness, Immaculate Grotesque and Goat to man a few.. Conure sound like its on the brink of total sonic failure and I could not be more proud to have this in my collection. Mark you have made me proud.. Get this release..."
-Clint Listing,
Absolute Zero Media
http://azm.thedoorwayto.com/ |
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| my new collaboration release with Thomas Park is now available... |
[Apr. 12th, 2011|01:24 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Current 93 - Honeysuckle Aeons CD | ] |
Thomas Park and Conure team up to deliver this new collection of experimental works. Known for their rather different approaches to ambient and experimental noise, they have managed to create a richly woven tapestry of sound and emotion. These dense and atmospheric pieces journey through the abandoned industrial backdrops of our society. The audio, mastered by Darin Sullivan of Shadow Sound Design, is at the same time delicate and deeply moving, gently blurring the lines between the ambient and noise genres.
http://auricularrecords.bandcamp.com/album/fragments-and-connections |
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| Foxy Digitalis' review of Conure's "Strings, Locations" CD |
[Mar. 22nd, 2011|11:39 pm] |
"Claustrophobia and disorienting guitar distortion have long been arrows in Conure’s quiver. The songs on Strings, Locations become progressively longer and louder, until we are in a space of total chaos. As usual with Conure, that space is a satisfying howl of power and subtlety, however monolithic and impenetrable the sound.
The key song is 'Feedback Location String', which takes the formless industrial brooding of the opening 'Amsterdam And 81st: A Reverie', and picks at it until it reveals its heavier center. This songs slowly builds to the massive wave that fuels 'Ribbon Implementation' and the twenty -minute 'Steel, Nylon, and Foil: Oxidation Paintings' finale. Therein lies the real meat of this 53-minute progression: cathartic, majestic noise, done as well as anyone does it.
Conure can’t help but deliver the goods. Strings, Locations is just the latest in a growing series of events in which his guitar, tape recorder and pedals create sonic beauty amid both deliberate and found chaos.
9/10"
-Mike Wood,
Foxy Digitalis
http://www.foxydigitalis.com/ |
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| The One True Dead Angel's review of Conure's "Strings, Locations" CD |
[Feb. 27th, 2011|07:21 pm] |
"Mark Wilson's latest venture into the exploration of pure sound is a series of location recordings featuring guitars, field recordings, efx pedals, found sound, and keyboards. Across four lengthy tracks ranging from eight to twenty minutes each, he pits processed sound against different architectural spaces with varying results. 'Amsterdam and 81st: A Reverie' is a dark, droning soundscape dominated by a baritone amp hum; over that basic sound, a dynamic range of noises, processed sounds, and field recordings are combined in deliberately uneven layers of density and sonic violence. 'Feedback Location String' is very much what its name implies: lots of stuttering, high-frequency feedback interspersed with enigmatic beeps like a satellite transmission against a background of increasingly chaotic white noise. 'Ribbon Implementation' is more spacious, using sounds that are more rhythmically oriented and subjected to heavy processing; sheets of white noise come and go, along with a wide variety of textural sounds, but the circular rhythms, like the sound of a slow-moving centrifuge, remain the predominant musical theme. The final track, 'Steel, Nylon and Foil: Oxidation Paintings' is the culmination of the album's progressively harsh tone, sounding like cement blocks being crushed into powder in a tunnel filled with gusting wind. It would be interesting to know more details about the locations for each recording, but that knowledge is not necessary to appreciate the many layers of sound and texture encrusted in each of these soundscapes."
-The One True Dead Angel,
http://theonetruedeadangel.blogspot.com/ |
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| Vital Weekly's review of Conure's "Strings, Locations" |
[Feb. 23rd, 2011|06:45 am] |
| [ | music |
| | Godspeed You Black Emperor! - F♯ A♯ ∞ LP | ] |
"Conure is a project of Mark Wilson who lives in San Francisco. In May 2000, he started this project after a period of being a music consumer. He released a lot of CDRs at different labels. Strings, Locations is the third CD at Edgetone Records. In the beginning, he used more electronics and software to create noise. For now he uses guitars, field-recordings, pedals, mic'ed sounds and objects, and keyboard. The CD has four compositions which are recorded and mixed from February to August 2010. The CD is full of noise, but in an slow way. Not as a smash in the face, but as a constant tone and as a pressure to make an ambiance of filthy sounds. The music is intense and ends with some repeating dark tones in a drony way. The first track is my favorite, cause of the mix of recognizable field-recordings and added electronic sounds. The artwork is great, with beautiful pictures of the city. Especially the inner-sleeve is great, by sixties-alike black and white photography of nightlife. Great release of the noise-maker from the States."
-JKH,
Vital Weekly
http://www.vitalweekly.net/ |
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| Conure/Kenji Siratori collab downloadable free release now available |
[Feb. 13th, 2011|12:15 pm] |
For "Heteromania", recorded in 2006 and 2007, Kenji Siratori supplied recorded spoken word and vocal files, and Conure manipulated Kenji's vocals in addition to supplying layers of noise and other audio. The original release plans having fallen through, this EP is now available for free as a download through Conure in both FLAC and 320KB3 MP3 versions.
Recorded in the midst of recordings for Conure's "The Generation of Our Grandfathers", "Heteromania" shows a definite progression towards the harsher, almost power electronics style that appears in places on Conure's later releases "Stream" and "Strings, Locations".
To download (along with artwork):
FLAC (236 MB): http://conure.crunchpod.com/audio/Heteromania_flac.zip
320KBS MP3 (99.8 MB): http://conure.crunchpod.com/audio/Heteromania_mp3.zip |
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| free Conure net release now available from Connexion Bizarre |
[Feb. 6th, 2011|07:30 am] |
| [ | music |
| | Fetisch Park - Feuersaat LP | ] |
Conure CDs are usually created as one whole unit before being divided into a few, long tracks. Running a total of 20 minutes, “Hidden Blinds” is an anomaly in that it consists of seven separate tracks recorded at various times from May, 2009 to November, 2010. Tracks 2-5 were originally recorded for other releases, but after deciding to put them together for this EP, the intro, outro, and track 6 were then recorded to tie everything together. Although an anomaly, “Hidden Blinds” still remains a cohesive whole.
"Hidden Blinds" can be downloaded for free from:
http://www.connexionbizarre.net/conure-hidden-blinds
Also available is a pro-printed audio-quality CDR version with full color artwork with all sales proceeds being donated to Amnesty International. |
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