"Multifarious Visions from the Sonic Margins"

Thursday 11 April 2013

Ruderal Memory now out @ Boomkat.com

Sub Loam's limited edition Ruderal Memory album is now available from Boomkat:

http://boomkat.com/cds/700917-sub-loam-ruderal-memory

" Ghostly, longform electro-acoustic invocation from Sub Loam, the character also known as Thomas Shrubsole and Jesus On Mars. Via soprano saxophone fed through multi-cassette, twin-reel-to-reel set up, 'Ruderal Memory' manifests 45 minutes of seancé-like atmosphere with patiently unfolding arrangement informed by yoga breathing techniques and conducted from an anti-anthropocentric stance in key with Sub Loam's themes of elemental interplay and chlorophyllic consciousness. Aesthetically we're reminded of Robin The Fog's spectral experiments on 'The Ghosts Of Bush' or the quivering microtones yielded in William Basinski's 'Disintegration Loops', yet as with all of Shrubsole's output, there's a deeply individual spirit at work, following his own quiet path to personal enlightenment. "
 



Tuesday 2 April 2013

Frans de Waard on Ruderal Memory

Frans de Waard has published a lovely review of Sub Loam's Ruderal Memory in this weeks Vital Weekly...


SUB LOAM - RUDERAL MEMORY (CDR by Dissolving Records)
Quite an obscure release here, but it's apparently released for the Vernal Quinox, which happened here without noticing it. Behind Sub Loam we find Thomas Shrubsole, and if I am not wrong it has been a while since I last heard his music; his '2' was reviewed in Vital Weekly 732. At the very foundation of this work there is the soprano saxophone playing, along with a 'multi-cassette, twin reel-to-reel set up' to do some further manipulation. With a reel-to-reel you can easily slow down things, going from 19cm/per second to 4,5cm/per second, and perhaps that's something that Shrubbsole does here, but in a clever way. He slows down his sounds but not all of them and not all the way. Just a few, and keeps other running at regular speed. His saxophone playing reminds me occasionally more of a trumpet actually. While the whole thing sounds at times a bit crude - which may be because it is recorded live in one take - it also has a fine orchestral feel to it. Glissandi appear out of nowhere, together with a low rumble of slowed down tapes and throughout it's perhaps heavy but also in a way zen like like. Somewhere in the middle of you would find drones and improvised music, all with a classical touch, certainly in the last ten minutes. Dense meditation music, and perhaps not that spring like yet, more like a farewell for the winter season. Raw and intense, but never noise based. Very nice!


Full issue here: http://www.vitalweekly.net/876.html

Thanks, Frans!

Ruderal Memory available in shops from later this week

Sub Loam's limited edition Ruderal Memory album will be available to buy from boomkat.com this week.
Keep your eyes peeled if you want to grab a copy and haven't already...