Tuesday 12 February 2013

Dylan Nyoukis - The Acrylic Widow LP out now

"Nyoukis excells at turning what could just be duck impressions & growls into a whole that's a narrative, and piano & organ give a haunting harmonic undertow to a sound effect journey here. Whiney creaks & little ghostly feet stamp their way along. You end at a bathtub drain, where you gurgle your way down to a sewer and meet a scraggly haired troll who speaks an unintelligible language. When you come up the manhole, a guy with an accordion starts following you around, pumping maniacally. You then visit an orchestra tune-up and strike up a conversation with a bumblebee in the next chair." - Weirdo Records

"Coloured vinyl LP in an edition of only 250 copies: this is a great, strategy-spanning set from Dylan w/a creepy/melancholy low-key vibe that is quite unlike anything in his back catalogue. Compiled from various actions and recordings from across the globe, this has all of the occult sonic appeal of the best of the Biota or Mnemonist sides, with a feel for submerged narrative that is uniquely compulsive. When the moody organ drone kicks in halfway through the opening “The Dog Lady Dream With Pedal Underfoot (For Mike Collino)” it feels as unearthly as Meredith Monk's keyboard work on Key, providing a mesmerising counterpoint to the laminal application of field recordings, street chatter and small instrument abuse. It's genuinely beautiful and very affecting, easily one of Dylan's most perfectly realised works. The rest of the LP ain't no slouch either, moving from huffing accordion drones over bonging springs in a kind of simultaneous homage to the brothers Bohman and Rupenus through to some great tectonic drone work via a fuzz of ghostly microtonal chatter and a final time tunnel into the thundering tonsils that would give Alan Bishop 'the willies'. Hands-down Dylan's best side to date and, dare we say it, his most 'musical' long-form statement since, uh, well, just since. Comes with a great colour insert and extensive sleevenotes by Seymour Glass of Bananafish. This is a monster - highly recommended!" - Volcanic Tongue

"1. Dry coughs and outta-wack piano chords play into Boy Scout bike repairs, ‘test the bell, spin the wheel!’ Hot air leaks from a perished rubber hose. With knuckles like hazelnuts, these sounds shine like delicately laid cobblestones, laid end-to-end without no fuss or haste, they are tram tracks. Late night thumps, ‘boof, baff’ and a lousy Soft Machine organ solo talks a Brighton raver down from gritted jaw oblivion.
2. Ideas are put through the wringer in stereo effect. The domestic bric-a-brac builds up: a motorcycle revving, the dry crunch of gravel underfoot…a jumble sale of sweaty woollens, singing out through pinched throat to make un-sense of the phrase ‘iss, sum bear-lae-um’. An unexpected kitchen sink gamelan makes for a feverish listen. Tension is introduced via leathery lunged accordion but there’s no crass crescendo. Fading out like pinched guts.
3. Euro voices abound in tangled syntax. Verbs sounds & nouns renamed. Sure, there’s blubber and chunder…’you, you, you and me’ that’s slam-up-bang to babby titter-chat for starters. Then the downs come in, re-directed by taut tape loops making the ecstatic, grooving on the surface of bubble. The proclamation, ‘I’m right here’ leaves us in no doubt who you are sharing your damp bedsit with tonight, slurping up the old wine as red as pooled blood.
4. Another take on the stretched ritual. A parrot squawks underwater struggling for fresh O2. Furious eraser scurrying action is met with the stony silence of a 14 year old girl while apples crunch between strong white teeth. Our old friends, words, are worried and fretted in a dark experiment; turned over looking for new seams and valves to shuck and prise open like ripe clams until mucus-like muscle slips free and falls to the flagstones below.
This is a living séance with The Acrylic Widow. Wisdom from the Old Ones, the thin Venn diagram slice between frantic scuttling & sweet Miskatonic stoned." - Posset

'Special Edition' limited to 50 copies which comes with CDr of bonus material and screenprinted poster available from HERE