Four years on and they're still going strong, true to their mission to "support, promote and preserve innovative audio culture in NZ". What's even better is that they've recently relaunched with a new a vastly superior website.
Check out the seht page; there's audio and everything. I am committed to regularly uploading new tunes and sketches on an ongoing basis. Sweet.
My new seht CDdead bees ((the((quiet)earth))suite) has been out for a couple of months, and I've finally scared up a review! Gayle Brogan, a Scot of note and who runs the Boa Melody Bar music shop/distribution, said:
It's a while since we've had anything from Stephen Clover and this new album delivers with an opening monolithic drone masterpiece. It begins with an ebbing and flowing synth drone with ominous undertow; as the piece progressed the undertow starts to win out and it feels like the dark waves are overwhelming you. The second track is not quite drone-based but is a utterly focussed repetition of some jerky cinema-organ notes until they are submerged in an icy hiss. No-one else does this quite like Seht.
Yeah, yeah I know, one review and a small one at that -- whoop-de-shit. But that's just the way that it goes sometimes. I always enjoy reading what Gayle thinks of my stuff, though. In time, this page is where you'll be able to read other stuff about the album. And, you can still hear a sample from the album here.
I've (finally!) got a new seht CD out which is the follow-up to The Green Morning. It's out on the PseudoArcana label, and it's called dead bees ((the((quiet)earth))suite).
On the PseudoArcana site, the label-boss Antony wrote:
Campbell Kneale once explained that to describe Wellington's seht as drone music is much the same as describing Antarctica as white. Where as many of us utilise the drone as an ingredient, a point of departure, Stephen Clover's seht project distills drones to craft something very like a fine liquor.
One Moment, the 35-minute first track on dead bees is Clover's somnambulist ambient drone masterpiece, a famous insomniac's grand fantasy of sleep. Setting sail with the gentle sound of submerged bells one sinks deeper as lush rich tones gradually merge into a swell of dream-scape waves. Deeper still and one finds oneself glowing in a deep warm golden molasses that shimmers and sways until time somehow folds in upon itself and loses all meaning as ones consciousness shifts into angel gear for the lonnnng coast out.
But Clover is also agent provocateur -- a wry and acerbic wit. To say that there are surprises to follow is an understatement...
That was nice, wasn't it! In time, this page is where you'll be able to read other stuff about the album. And, you can hear a sample from the album here.
Before getting up on stage at a club in Oslo, 50 Cent gave an interview. In it he denied taking coke on live TV in Zagreb and then dropped a file-sharing bombshell: "What is important for the music industry to understand is that this really doesn't hurt the artists!" Wow. No-one cares about the coke now.
Howard Stelzer is not just my friend and collaborateur in this particular musical endeavour, he runs the label that put it out on (a very nicely put-together, if I may say so myself) CD last year. So when he writes, as he did in the comments on the blog...
Hi, I'm Howard Stelzer. You must take this down. I am trying to sell the CD! It's very much in print and available for $10 to $12 from Forced Exposure, Mimaroglu Music Sales, RRRecords, Revolver, Aquarius, Metamkine... PLEASE support independant music and independant record labels by BUYING the CDs! I put so much money and time and years of effort into each of my releases, it kills me (and my little label) to have them available on blogs for free. Honestly... $12 is not a lot of money. You can do it.
That said, I appreciate the kind review. This particular album took Seht and I a long time to finish. Mike Shiflet designed the sleeve, which looks beautiful and compliments the music nicely. The photos were taken by Seht. You can see them when you hold the booklet in your actual hands, and open its pages.
... you get to see the argument from the exact opposite point-of-view.
The waters get even murkier when you consider that for every album that is helpfully uploaded "for preview purposes only" (read: free download), some dodgy Russian mp3 harvester and on-seller is going to grab it and offer it for sale. For actual money. Not that -- for example, in this case -- I nor the label that released the album are going to see any of it.
These sites are everywhere now. There's no point trying to contact them with any kind of "cease and desist" request/order. I wouldn't expect to hear back from them unless the possibility of their not being able to sell your tracks would cause a serious bump in their income streams. No one here is selling on that kind of scale, so.... welcome to the future. And if I take my label-owner hat off for a minute I say just encourage the pirates (the mp3 blogs, the file-sharers, the fans, and so on) and kill the mercenaries (the goddam Russians).
Anyway, anyone buying this is pretty stupid since they could get it from here for nothing. Although $0.45 is pretty good for an entire album.
The gig went really well; I did a sorta minimal dub-remix -- using a laptop, mixer, and a whole slew of guitar effects boxes -- of some tracks I have been working on for an album that is hopefully gonna come out on Digitalis late late this year, or early the next.
Well at least, most of the show went well. Near the end, I totally overloaded the PA with some serious subsonic low-end, and the sound turned to shit but hey -- whatever.
I'm doing a solo gig as Seht on Sunday night. I'm playing in support of Jason Kahn, from Switzerland.
Jason Kahn is a sound and visual artist based in Zürich whose work includes drawing, sound installation, performance and composition. He was born in New York, grew up in Los Angeles and relocated to Europe in 1990. Kahn has been exhibiting his sound and visual works since the late 1990's, and has had solo and group exhibitions in museums, galleries and arts spaces pretty much everywhere in the damn world.
Originally a percussionist, Kahn later began integrating live electronics into his playing. He currently performs with different combinations of percussion, analogue synthesizer or computer. As a composer, Kahn's work addresses the entity of sound as both a physical and psychological factor shaping our consciousness; his sound installations seek to enhance spatial awareness through sonic intervention, focusing on expanding our perception to other dimensions of seeing, hearing and feeling a space.
(For more information about Jason and his work, see his site.)
JASON KAHN with SEHT and JEFF HENDERSON HAPPY SUNDAY SEPT 23
PLUS
The Stumps are playing at the White Fungus issue #8 launch on Wednesday night. This is also at Happy. Also appearing are FERTILITY FESTIVAL. Keep an eye on the White Fungus News blog for more information.
My recent CD The Green Morning was made #3 on the Top 10 Albums of 2006 in Portugese music 'zine Trinta de Fevereiro, and also got a really good review here in PopMatters.
Four years on and they're still going strong, true to their mission to "support, promote and preserve innovative audio culture in NZ". What's even better is that they've recently relaunched with a new a vastly superior website.
My new seht CD dead bees ((the((quiet)earth))suite) has been out for a couple of months, and I've finally scared up a review! Gayle Brogan, a Scot of note and who runs the Boa Melody Bar music shop/distribution, said:
Via Jamie at Duck And Cover I found some interesting chat from 50 Cent (no, really!) about -- well, basically, about the future of music distribution:
Howard Stelzer is not just my friend and collaborateur in this particular musical endeavour, he runs the label that put it out on (a very nicely put-together, if I may say so myself) CD last year. So when he writes, as he did in the comments on the blog...
In case anyone's interested, here's an excerpt from my live show the other night, at Happy.
Jason Kahn is a sound and visual artist based in Zürich whose work includes drawing, sound installation, performance and composition. He was born in New York, grew up in Los Angeles and relocated to Europe in 1990. Kahn has been exhibiting his sound and visual works since the late 1990's, and has had solo and group exhibitions in museums, galleries and arts spaces pretty much everywhere in the damn world.
My recent CD The Green Morning was made #3 on the Top 10 Albums of 2006 in Portugese music 'zine Trinta de Fevereiro, and also got a really good review here in PopMatters.
