DAVID DANIELL

David Daniell is an American guitarist and sound artist originally from the rural flatlands of southern Georgia and currently residing in the mountains of North Carolina, after having spent the last twelve years living first in New York City then in Chicago, throughout this time developing and evolving towards his current sound. From his haunting improvised blues-drone guitar work with San Agustin through the shimmering electro-acoustic landscapes of his first solo release (2002's Sem) on to the multi-layered, emotive guitar constructions of his live performances and releases of the last several years, Daniell has combined a unique style of mercurial guitar playing with a sense of classic ambient and electronic influences to arrive at a singular sound-world in which John Fahey, Terry Riley, and Brian Eno share an orbit.

Alongside his extensive history of solo performance and nearly fifteen years as a member of San Agustin, Daniell has worked with a Who's Who of today's most progressive musicians - Loren Connors, Rhys Chatham, Tim Barnes, Jeph Jerman, Thurston Moore, Sean Meehan, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Tomas Korber, Ateleia, Greg Davis, Jonathan Kane, and others. Current active collaborations include a duo with Douglas McCombs (Brokeback, Tortoise), a trio with Christian Fennesz and Tony Buck (The Necks), and the quartet Apiary with Steven Hess (Pan American, Haptic, On), Jason Stein (Locksmith Isidore), and Joseph Clayton Mills (Haptic). He has recorded for several prominent labels including Thrill Jockey, Table of the Elements, and his own Antiopic imprint.



At the core of Daniell's music the buzzing of electric and acoustic strings dissolves into nebulous clouds of tone while thick drones constantly evolve to create hypnotic strobes of fluttering patterns; a finger-picked guitar motif springs to life, its spindly melody tethering the percolating soundscape to Earth. This music is intense and inviting, drawing on the rich traditions of American minimalism, blues guitar, and abstract electronic music, but with a focused eye to the future. Daniell is able to reference familiar structures and genres with no sense of pastiche, reaching out for entirely new forms. What results is an extremely unique take on guitar-based minimalism. David Daniell is currently exploring one of the most idiosyncratic paths in experimental guitar playing and abstract electronic composition.

"With his slow-moving, understated music, David Daniell makes a fine spokesman for the notion that anything worth doing is worth doing for a long, long time. Whether he's contributing moody strums and sculpted E-Bow drones to the guitar trio San Agustin or stringing computer-generated pings and bumps across gulfs of silence on Sem, his solo debut on his own Antiopic label, he develops his material patiently, the better to let you observe the sounds from every angle." -- Bill Meyer, Chicago Reader

daviddaniell.com

TIDAL

London-based Jimmy Billingham's Tidal project has been making waves within the tape-underground synth scene for the past couple of years, recently making his vinyl debut with a split LP on Aguirre Records. Tidal blends thick, wistful synth tones with obscured samples to create blissful, undulating drone-scapes. Also recording as Venn Rain among other projects, Jimmy has released on labels such as Digitalis Ltd., Hooker Vision and Chemical Tapes, with forthcoming releases on Under the Spire Ltd. and Further Records, as well as the launching of his own label, Sunk Series, co-run with artist Jennifer Crouch.

Jimmy also makes videos to accompany his music, as will be projected as part of this, his debut live performance as Tidal.

"the musical equivalent of soft sun rays streaming through tall trees in a forest glade on really good psychedelic drugs but with bits of wool soaked in olive oil stuck in your ears" - Norman Records

tidalsounds.blogspot.co.uk
tidal.bandcamp.com

Tidal - Sounds of the Future from Tidal VisION on Vimeo.

JOHN CHANTLER

“Hearing this music for the first time has a similar impact to the first exposure to Oval’s Systemisch from 1994, or the early Sähkö recordings like Ø’s Metri, in that it has a beauty partly derived from having travelled beyond the reach of human influence” Rob Young, The WIRE (on 'The Luminous Ground').

John Chantler is an omnivorous recording artist/musician based in London. Starting out as a drummer, John has spent the last few years loosely keeping time for Outshine Family (Black Maps) and The Balky Mule (Fat Cat) whilst exploring his own solo synthesizer works and occasionally convening the Organ Octet - a massed organ ensemble of eight reed/chord organs. He also plays synth in a trio with Tujiko Noriko and Lawrence English and his Holy Family duo with Lawrence English has dropped a tape on Digitalis with another on the way via Sanity Muffin.

He has also drummed for Tenniscoats and added 'warm noise' and electronic interventions to roving Japanese psych ensemble Maher Shalal Hash Baz.

In 2003, John relocated to his current base in London, playing regular live shows mixing guitar, laptop, and drums into increasingly rough-hewn and psychedelic shapes. He then started working with Carina Thorén on a series of uncategorisable sides that culminated in the duo’s ROOM40 LP ‘New Days’. His most recent solo work 'The Luminous Ground' was released via ROOM40 in 2011 and came in at #37 in The WIRE magazine's Top 50 records of the year chart. This was followed by a private press 12" entitled 'Automatic Music' that offered his own take on generative minimalism and surface stasis.

“Even during the sparser pieces, the music is void of anything concrete, and there’s something quite strange about being hypnotized by an album that distances itself so adamantly from stasis and constancy. Chantler captivates the listener in a limbo of ceaseless movement, leaving them dazed and somewhat disorientated by the eternal state of change.” 7.5/10 Jack Chuter, The Silent Ballet (on 'The Luminous Ground')

John Chantler from Gianmarco Del Re on Vimeo.