Vital Weekly review of Sub Loam - Excavated Relics

Thanks to Frans de Waard for reviewing Sub Loam's Excavated Relics cassette:

'Back in 2016, Thomas Shrubsole released 'The Portable archive' under his Sub Loam name (see Vital Weekly 1051), which was culled from material he already recorded in 2009 and 2010. It is something I enjoyed very much, as Sub Loam is something along the lines of lo-fi electronics, drones, ambience, and field recordings. Now there is a tape with "two recently rediscovered examples" from the same period, which Sub Loam feels they should be heard out there as well, and, sure, why not? This is something that could have also been surely been on the original release. On the first side, there is 'Soil Surface', a slow rhythm piece. Or perhaps something that is on a loop device but slowed down quite a bit. In sync we have a mild synth sound burping away. It is a very moody piece and almost a dub-like one at that; all bass but no dance riddim. This is a particularly great piece by Sub Loam. The B-side contains 'Stone Fragment', in which the guitar plays quite a big role, strummed in a really odd way, and set against a set of misty electronic backing, with an odd flanging effect on the strings. It seems like he's playing the guitar with a stick, creating odd timbres. Buried in the background there is a bit of percussion. It is a totally different kind of piece and a most enjoyable one at that as well. I sure can believe that if you found this after ten years you would want to release it.' (FdW)

Review from Vital Weekly issue number 1208

Buy a copy by emailing direct or from Boomkat

Sub Loam - Excavated Relics Cassette Now Available from Boomkat

Limited copies of Excavated Relics are now available from Boomkat (link below)

https://boomkat.com/products/excavated-relics


Here's what they have to say about it:

"Gauzy, low-key, organically textured dub and wizened folk explorations from Thomas Shrubsole, reviving his Sub Loam alias with two ‘Excavated Relics’ from the archive circa 2009-2010.

The A-side’s Soil Surface’ speaks to Shrubsole’s signature grasp of slow-moving sonic murk with nearly 10 minutes of endearingly weary dub chords perfused with acidic percolations that appear to mimic a sped-up (but still very slow) time-lapse image of soil dynamics, while the other side’s 11 minute piece ’Stone Fragment’ catches him picking out coruscating guitar strings and against peripheral percussion and distant vocal drones in a style murkily resonating with the mystic appeal of Zoviet France. Both are assuredly swaddled in layers of ferric tape hiss. Both humbly worth your time."

Sub Loam - The Portable Archive - Now Available at Boomkat

https://boomkat.com/products/the-portable-archive

Please note:  The Portable Archive is now sold out from Boomkat, the remaining few copies are now available by emailing directly.

"First and foremost it’s lovely to be immersed back into the project, whose naturally textured and decaying structures emerged as quietly as they dissolved back at the turn of this decade, finding good company amidst the rustle and hum of Cotton Goods and, in a way, could be said to preempt the focus of FIS’ research in similar, if noisier, rugged terrain on his From Patterns to Details album.
No mistake, though; Sub Loam’s music is endearingly tactile and better defined by its textured, nuanced fidelity: Shrubsole handles his material like an environmental researcher or botanist making sketches on his rambles, offering poetic observations on the interactions of organic matter with “ditches, hedgerows, alleys, pavements and hill tops” modelled with an electro-acoustic palette and tape loops that quietly represent his subject’s subterranean root systems and intuitive sprawl in a series of concentric spirals and microtonal whorls.
Within his chloro-centric weltanschauung, Sub Loam divines the music of “rhythmic footfall, creeping rootstock, vaporous billows, transformational marginalia” in an esoteric yet tangible way that should sweetly resonate with anyone who appreciates the ebb and flow or warp and weft of nature on the smaller scales, as well as its larger form landscapes, and who can appreciate the same within the parameters of ambient music.
A beautiful package."


Limited copies of previous Sub Loam releases are still available direct from Dissolving

Listen: https://soundcloud.com/dissolvingrecords/sub-loam-a-concise-dictionary

https://soundcloud.com/dissolvingrecords/sub-loam-ruderal-memory-henge

https://soundcloud.com/dissolvingrecords/sub-loam-ley-hunters-companion

Back catalogue items that are still available from Dissolving are The Ley Hunter's Companion and Ruderal Memory (both cost £9.00 each plus shipping to your location)

A Concise Dictionary of Plants and Their Uses is now sold out.

email dissolving (dot) records (at) yahoo (dot) co (dot) uk for any orders or enquiries or buy through discogs https://www.discogs.com/seller/dissolving/profile

The Portable Archive by Sub Loam, photos, sounds and pre-order information...

The Portable Archive is now available to pre-order, follow the link to the Sub Loam site with descriptions, pictures, sound clips and information on how to order:

http://subloam.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/the-portable-archive-limited-art.html

Sub Loam Portable Archive Soundcloud Preview

Sub Loam has posted a preview of the soon-to-be-released archive box-set containing his long out of print first trilogy of albums for Dissolving and Cotton Goods from 2009 and 2010.

http://subloam.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/the-portable-archive-audio-preview.html

Spooked, spiked, spoked, spooled; levitational and particuar rural, ruderal ambiences, be sure to lend them an ohr. The box set comes with risograph art prints, poems and a 20-page 'concrete guidebook' furher illuminating in flickering fragment Sub Loam's earlier explorations and classic day routes for meditative ramblings.

https://soundcloud.com/subloam/the-portable-archive-preview

Sub Loam re-issues and unreleased archival material announced

Ohr (originally released Cotton Goods, 2009), 2 (Originally released Dissolving, 2010) and Earthern Circle (orginally released Cotton Goods 2010)

+ 2 extra previously unreleased albums from the same era issued to be issued together and available soon in one package, The Portable Archive.

Announced here: http://subloam.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/the-portable-archive-sub-loam-re-issues.html