TRACKS:
1. CONCRETE DUSK
2. OBSCURED OUT
3. SALT AND STEEL
4. DRAGGLE
5. SUNSTORM
6. STONE RETURN
7. UNDERMASS
8. SCAVENGER
9. INDUS-MARSALL COMPOSITIONS E. KESSEL 2009
CD AND MP3----COMING SOON
Listen To Caaldruun Live On WNYU’s Didjilution Show 11/18/09
TRACKS:
1. HAWAN
2. URUBAMBA-RHINE PT.1
3. RATUKAMA
4. WITH SILVER
5. TUKACHINA
6. URUBAMBA-RHINE PT.2
7. TUTAMANTAALL COMPOSITIONS E. KESSEL 2008
Reviews:
CHAIN D.L.K.
Seven tracks of buzzy, droney, broken sounds, tones, sonic mayhem and subtle beats by one Eric Kessel using “ burnt-wire synthesizer, circuit-bent voice, black box, last-man-on-earth guitar & minidisc sound recovery.” According to the artist web site “Drawing from a background in Cultural Anthropology, works for caaldruun are concerned with constructing compositions which are based on reconstructed memories from travels to and within other zones of experience. The unstable nature of memories is exploited for its creative potential in creating original “auditory myths”.” The artist makes his claim to South American inspiration here and one can see it; or perhaps hear it, is more accurate. It’s as if he were trying to tap into something “primitive” if that word may be used without pejorative connotation. He succeeds. Regardless of all the anthropological verbiage this is still an enjoyable journey into the heart and soul of the electron, of which we are all made, after all.
Review by: John Gore (4.5)HEATHEN HARVEST
After a series of travels over South America Erik Kessel, an American sound sculptor and visual artist resided in New York and the main character behind Caaldruun received a special inspiration to create the album we have here called “Cloudface Mountainhead”. The record, self released by own label Fox Den Music condense diverse compositions that saw the light of the day through the years 2007 to 2008 and are now gathered in this debut. The music has a very experimental edge that sums its projection on partial insights from Post Industrials, Concrete Music and some subtleties from electro acoustics that adds to its form this particular surreal tonality and mysterious aura at the same time, a character that often reveals very influenced by certain ethnic insights that more than certainly share ground with its aural study on the cultural idiosyncrasy and strong mythical component that he perceives and tries to transmit through this sonic experimentation. I see this work as a very serious effort directed in this regard, as the author itself claims this is kind of a ceremonial and very introspective enthronization on his anthropological perceptions over his travels around South America, music that tries to symbolically connote all the grace contained in the clouded realms of inspiration and where experimentation plays a major role in this demonstration.Comparatively we could find some distant similarities or perhaps influences on Caaldruum that could link some works from Zoviet France or Nurse with Wound, portraying this aural world marked by subtle ethnic influences on the electronic formations as they are surrounded by an exotic ambient full of a complement of mechanical sequences juxtaposed with organic ones and bizarre effects. Most tracks will present this singular context of fixed and closed loops expanding through a cascade of twisted sounds and pulsations, the rhythms are generally marked by the relentless repetition from the loops, often joined with successive layers of other loops and effects transmitting a sense of progression and continuity that results trance inducing and somehow psychedelic at times. The tracks oscillate between industrial based rhythms, settled on the sampler usage joining successive structures one over another. Good example on this are the opener track “Hawan” that suggest a very moving and mesmeric transition covering organic sounds combined with a subdued metallic procession of loops, this is perhaps the more rhythmic track you will find in the work, as the waves of loops comes forming a cascade of opaqued like rhythms.
The rest of the tracks guard more a preference for texture and vibration, where the continuation of sampler effects adds a cadence that results the vector for its direction. This aspect gives the work a certain ritual feel at times, as the subjacent rhythm and continuity projects on the listener the trance like ceremony, all eerie and encompassing such as the track “Tukachina” with its buzzing textures and opaqued blurbs while a mantra repeats itself in fading waves. Things get weirder when some electro acoustic elements, mainly spacey and undulating as well as electrically reminiscent are aggregated as the tracks transmute in a sort of astral travel on the listener, the “Urabamba-Rhine Pt.1” and 2 are good examples on this procedure. Another great track in this regard is “With silver”, perhaps my favourite one from the whole album that gorgeously plays with sort of a metallic bell, all subdued and echoed in a very deep and mysterious elongation accompanied by some electro acoustic bursts that results magically suggestive and mind bogging. The electro acoustics play perhaps the role of texture, gloaming around with its buzzing, vibrant, electronic squeaks while the atmospheric element ever transforming in succession and movement is relegated to the sequences that similar to layers are juxtaposed to each other, often echoed to create this particular magnetic resonance that is partly abstract and partly trance like inducing.
Caaldruun plays in the league of the unknown, following the doctrine of the mythical. Each track comes as a summoning of a singular momentum of spiritual importance that submerges the listener in its powerful meaning and inductive status. I’d say the music has a strong element of introspection that shares ground with ritualism and trance like cults, the sequences and effects comes as repetitive electronic mantras while the strange atmosphere half organic and electronic along with the magnetic textures grabs the listener in its escapade and never leaves him until the last track finally comes to an end. Interesting study work that considers sound experimentation, mix of structures, styles and hypnotic concretions that leaves a trace of an exotic travel through a strange region of the mind.
Reviewed by: Jack The Ripper
© 2009 FOX DEN RECORDINGS
