“The Vine and Vein Collection” CD Hand/Eye h/e035

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Jessica Constable sings written texts or stream-of-consciousness lyrics that she uses to explore resonance and texture, sometimes using electronic filters, echoes and modulation to transform her voice. Jessica also plays as a duo with New York sound artist Andrea Parkins; tours regularly with Ellery Eskelin, Andrea Parkins and Jim Black (with whom she has also recorded two critically acclaimed cd’s: ten which also included guests Marc Ribot and Melvin Gibbs and Quiet Music). She has composed for dance and theatre and performed in recent years with French Jazz Patriarch Francois Jeanneau’s Pandemonium big band, has recorded albums and/or toured with amoungst others Jeff Sharel, Soulreactive, The Flow, Tellemake.

Philippe Gelda prepares upright piano using everyday objects like beer mats and clothes pegs or uses other keyboards such as organ, toy piano, or melodica to create percussive and harmonic soundcapes reminiscent of some contempory composers and sound artists, French popular song, and rock. He plays solo, in various bands and composes extensively for theatre and dance, especially with choreographer Patricia Ferrara. He also collaborates regularly with visual artist Benoit Bonnemaison-Fitte who did the artwork for this release.

Jessica Constable and Philippe Gelda have been composing, improvising and performing together since 1991. Their suites for voice and piano (or organ) have been performed in venues ranging from theatres to a shepherds cabin. Constable and Gelda consider The Vine and Vein Collection to be a turning point in the evolution of their duo, when years of striving relaxed and became instead gratefulness for their unique working relationship.

track listing:
1• Trembling Bass Introduction
2• Bitter
3• Caillou Tremblant
4• Fishes
5• Wonder
6• Box
7• Shawl
8• Cool Thing 3
9• Cool Things 1 & 2
10• Cool Thing 4
11• Minor Changes
12• Caristoi / Classical Bla Bla
13• Major Changes
14• Hymn
15• Overflow
16• Trembling Bass Conclusion

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Shane Speal

"Stealing the Fire" CD Hand/Eye h/e028

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It could be a modern incarnation of the old blues scenario: A man sits in his single-wide mobile home with a primitive guitar (made from a cigar box, stick and 3 guitar strings) and belts out mean murder ballads and dark spirituals thruough a rusty harmonica mic. But it's not a "scenario." This is the real shit. Speal was living in the middle of a Pennsylvania trailer park. He plays a cigar box guitar. And he recorded this album on a simple 4-track cassette recorder..

“ Stealing the Fire” features stark homemade recordings of Speal performing the works of Timothy Renner on a primitive cigar box guitar. It was a simple premis in the beginning. Speal just wanted to know what Renner's dark folk music would sound like if were soaked in Delta blues.

"You shouldn't ever perform Blind Willie Johnson songs until you realize those damning lyrics could send one of the audience members to hell," says Speal, the self-proclaimed King of the Cigar Box Guitar. "In the same regard, you don't dare attempt Timothy Renner's music unless you first realize that you may be sending yourself through hell."

Speal covers Renner's work from Stone Breath, Spectral Light and Moonshine Firefly Jamboree and other recordings, along with Tara VanFlower's "Whore" and an original piece, "The Claw."

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Skye Klad

"Skye Klad Plays the Musick of Cupid's Orkustra Asleep in the Magick Powerhouse of Oz" CD h/e013

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Skye Klad has always been known for working without a net, and this latest effort is no exception. After nearly eight years pushing the envelope of the darkest psychedelic/occultic noise rock imaginable, the group has once again confounded the faithful by returning from the cocoon of a long hiatus with a new album stemming from an approach most unexpected by anyone who has followed them in the past, and sure to intrigue and entice new listeners as well.

Their fascination with the ancient and the esoteric has not waned in the slightest, but the approach and instrumentation is utterly different from past efforts, while maintaining their adventurous and singular vision. Where past efforts pushed listeners through the sonic vortex and past the threshold of pain via dense, fuzzy, post-apocalyptic metallic sheen and pulsing, flowing rhythm, "Skye Klad Plays the Musick of Cupid's Orkustra Asleep in the Magick Powerhouse of Oz" seeks to reach the same end by much more meditative and organic means. Acoustic instrumentation is at the fore, augmented by field recordings, french horn, tribal percussion and a mantric sensibility. There are guitars and basses of course, but there are also more exotic stringed instruments such as saz and the custom, sitar-like "witchfynder" as well as flutes and a variety of unsettling found sound and echo effects. Not willing to completely eschew the loves of the past, there is still the occasional transcendent fuzz guitar, but in a much subtler fashion. Group leader Jason Kesselring's vocal style and lyrical sensibility have matured considerably since past efforts, and the lyrical motifs that he explores will certainly appeal to the shuttered bibliophiles among us; those who know the risks of their interest and forge ahead despite the consequences of their actions.

Musically, Skye Klad have always shown a knack for wearing their influences on their sleeves while amalgamating them successfully into a unique and modern aesthetic. Listeners to this latest effort will detect the influence of Bert Jansch and the ghosts of Davey Graham and Robbie Basho, as well as more modern influences such as early Cure and Echo and the Bunnymen, AntiGroup and others. In short, another adventurous album by this unique group, delivering the unexpected once again. Welcome to the new dawn.

Track listing:
1• The Wolf that Follows the Faun that Flies
2• The Cross of Lorraine
3• Fleeting Faunus and the Prophecy of the Fields
4• Mary Magdalene
5• Beyond the Ice and Storm
6• The Sleeper
7• Wildes Heer
8• When the Hounds of Spring are on Winter’s Traces
9• Rex Mundi
10• The Windy Tree
11• They Will Come from the North

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the does / Breathe Stone

"Sleep Deprivation Blues" / "Crow Omens" CDep Hand/Eye h/e012

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the does (as in female deer, pl.) play music that is dirty, dark, and hazy. Singer Carol Anne and guitar player Neddal were brought together by their shared love of sleaze, sloppy rock ‘n’ roll, and feedback. Originally, the idea was to sound “something like a cross between the Rolling Stones and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.” Things didn’t work out as planned. Carol couldn’t quite shake her goth background. (She refers to herself as a “recovering goth.” Neddal says there’s no such thing.) Neddal couldn’t quite get the sludge out of his system. They wrote some songs. They went into the studio. When they came out they had three songs that didn’t sound anything the songs they’d been rehearsing. On the way to the studio they’d shanghaied Carol’s band mate Jim (Carol and Jim play in Toronto’s Nice Cat. Check them out, they’re sludgilicious!) to sit in on drums. What started out as moody, minimal blues/punk ended up as a brooding, psychedelic, not-quite-so-minimal mix of Pussy Galore, ZZ Top, the Melvins, and My Bloody Valentine.

Breathe Stone come with an impressive pedigree. Formed on October 31, 2002 by Mr. Timothy Renner, Breathe Stone is an extension of well-known acid/psych/wyrd-folks Stone Breath. Breathe Stone’s mandate is to take the dark, haunting, acoustic folk of Stone Breath in a more electric (literally), experimental direction. Timothy is joined on these recordings by his Stone Breath band mate Sarada, Alicia of Funeral, and guitarist RA Campbell. Using such instruments as electric banjo, slide banjo, glasstamboura, dumbek, and squeezebox, along with the electric guitar, Breathe Stone conjure images of crumbling farmhouses, empty glades, overgrown paths, and lonely silhouettes in the moonlight.

Track listing:
the does
1. four am
2. five over three
3. sleep deprivation blues
Breathe Stone
4. Rara Avis
5. Crow Omens
6. Maria Walks Amid The Thorn

specially priced - double ep! 2eps on 1 CD!

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Barlow / Petersen / Wivinus

"The Transparent World" CD Hand/Eye h/e011

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Hand/Eye is pleased to announce the release of "The Transparent World" by the Minneapolis-based instrumental improv trio Barlow/Petersen/Wivinus. "The Transparent World" is effectively the group's first proper release (aside from a live-to-cassette, self-titled CDR limited to 100 copies and released last year on Stick It To The Man/Asymmetry to good responses on both sides of the Atlantic), and contains ten tracks encompassing a wide range of mood, texture and instrumentation. Whereas their earlier disc explored the ether via electric guitars, feedback and the multitude of sounds that can be derived from a variety of effects pedals, "The Transparent World" finds the group working exclusively with acoustic instrumentation to achieve a sonic landscape that is at turns lush and austere, meditative and menacing. All tracks on the disc are improvised at their core and utilize a wide variety of instruments and techniques, creating many sounds not normally associated with "acoustic" recordings. Of course there are guitars (both six- and twelve-string), but often unusually tuned and occasionally bowed. Piano, dulcimer, mandolin (occasionally augmented by e-bow and slide) bowed cymbals, the Freeman Monostring (played with a ballpeen hammer) the "rattletrap," bagpipe chanter and various other peripheral devices are all used to create a very singular and evocative whole.

Musically, the disc ranges across a wide variety of styles and influences, but still retains a unified vision and a cohesive sound. Any number of genres can be seen in fleeting glimpses throughout the recordings: menacing blues from the deepest edges of a swamp swimming with spirits and psychosis (as seen in the opening cut, "Buried Under Crows"), avant soundscapes conjuring images of a creaking old house with a will all its own and possible ill intent (the chillingly abrasive "That Night"), long and languid soundtracks toward the horizon at the end of a lengthy and perhaps lucid dream (as exemplified by the echoing piano-laden closing track, "Retribution"). This release rests somewhere between the experimental avant-garde, the darkest psychedelic folk music and the epic 360 degree horizons of pure drone/dream music. Fans of Third Ear Band, Makoto Kawabata's "Inui" project, Six Organs of Admittance and select movie soundtracks will surely find something to appreciate here.

Rich Barlow is a prolific musician and acclaimed visual artist in the Minneapolis area. He has released several recordings (mostly under his own Stick It To The Man imprint) with his amazing Eno-influenced psychedelic pop group The Pins over most of the last decade to a good amount of critical acclaim. In addition to the Pins and B/P/W, he is half of the art/soundscape duo Molloy (also released by Stick It To The Man) and is actively involved in local fringe theater via his sound design/soundtrack work and his partnership in Flaneur Productions, whose efforts help bring much-needed exposure to the wealth of excellent experimental theater in the Minneapolis area.

Jesse Petersen is something of an institution in Minneapolis' wide-ranging and sprawling avant garde scene, known for his jaw-dropping solo performances (as well as his involvement with the group Viaticum) which range from the quietly percussive to the most extreme redline noise imaginable. His extraordinary approach to the guitar and the sounds he manages to coax out of his instrument have caused many witnesses to simply stand and stare wide eyed and slack-jawed, earning him favorable comparisons to the likes of Derek Bailey, and Rudolph Grey. He has shared the stage with such groups as Sonic Youth and Kinski, and has also released a fantastic LP of guitar solos entitled "I Just Collided With A Tricky Shade Of Dark," a united release between Jesse's Asymmetry label and the well known underground labels SunShip and Freedom From.

Erik Wivinus is involved with several prominent Twin Cities psychedelic and Space Rock bands, notably Salamander and Gentle Tasaday (both of which have released several albums on the Australian label Camera Obscura to considerable critical acclaim in Italy, the UK, Belgium, Sweden, Japan, Brazil and the USA), as well as the heavy space rock group Skye Klad, whose high decibel sounds and visual onslaughts have garnered the group considerable notice both locally and internationally. Skye Klad is currently recording the followup to its debut CD from last year on Mutant Music, and their bombastic live reputation has led to opening slots for many prominent acts, including High Rise, Spectrum and The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Erik can also occasionally be seen sitting in on a live set with his friends in Stone Breath.

track listing:
1• Buried Under Crows
2• Boatman
3• An Unmarked Trail
4• Husk
5• Death's Door
6• Flintlock Tincture
7• That Night
8• Creation Myth
9• Ray of Daylight
10• Retribution