Back to Earth from Black to Comm

Has it really been 3 years since the last full album from Black to Comm (#1, Drone/Ambient 2009)?



Strangely enough, we ended up listening to Alphabet 1968 in Vegas. Yeah, it got a little weird. And now coming up is EARTH (2012).



"Water" from EARTH (2009)

I know very little about it, but it's not on Dekorder (the label run by BTC).

From at Forced Exposure (US $12/$18):

EARTH is a 2009 silent film by Ho Tzu Nyen, one of Singapore's foremost artists. The visually arresting film has been live-soundtracked by a number of artists (including Oren Ambarchi) in several locales, and after Black to Comm, a.k.a. Marc Richter's accompaniment at Berlin's Asian Film Festival and the Unsound Festival in Krakow (both in 2010), he decided to commit it to record.

Actually, I think this is all from De Stijl Records itself (US $12/$16): In Marc's own words: "Most of the music was composed under the influence of heavy pain killers while recovering from a broken leg. The music (like the film) is about slowness and decay, states of unconsciousness, sleeping and waking up, dying and being reborn. The film basically is a post-apocalyptic collage based on paintings by classical European painters (Caravaggio, Delacroix, Rembrandt, Gericault) -- the music tries to translate that concept employing similar collage-based sampling techniques using loops made from vintage vinyl and shellac records combined with acoustic and electronic instrumentation and voice." Et cetera...



"Mirror" from EARTH (2012)

And you know that Boomkat (UK £12/£15) will have some choice words...

Astonishing new album from Marc Richter aka Black To Comm on Minneapolis's ever-reliable De Stijl, featuring vocals from the fascinating Vindicatrix... The long-awaited follow-up to 2009's Alphabet 1968 LP on Type, this new album is based on an original score he created for Ho Tzu Nyen's film EARTH. There's no doubt that it's his most ambitious work to date, with deliciously woozy, woe-stricken vocals courtesy of Vindicatrix - impossible to hear without thinking of Scott Walker, David Sylvian or Antony Hegarty - at the fore of minimalist, electronics-daubed drone-folk arrangements that occupy a hallowed space somewhere between Talk Talk and Fennesz. It's really that good, conjuring a truly epic sadness but providing enough sonic nourishment that the tears feel like a good thing. The second half of the record heads deeper into loop-based abstraction, climaxing on the 15-minute "The Children" but those lachrymose vocals remain - and the combination is just sublime.

I'm already there!