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Nathaniel Rasmussen
| Nathaniel breathes his way around Deep Water hq--the limestone and hemlock fed air of the North Appalacians. He enjoys tinkering with the fast and bulbous cogs behind this site. He also responds favorably to a wide array of music, and similar types of learning. | 
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Mats Gustafsson
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Mats Gustafsson is an urban planner, father/husband and ”music journalist” ("I use that term loosely here") based in the picturesque town of Trosa, Sweden. He loves his family, all sorts of peripheral sounds and the forest more than anything else. |
Son of Nailing Smoke to the Wall - 2007 in Review (part 1)
KM kicks things off
It seems like just last week we were putting the finishing touches on our "Best of 06" columns, yet here we are again trying to make sense of another four seasons of musical output. In retrospect, it seems like I didn't really come across a lot of new music that was breathtakingly new this year, but I did hear plenty of stuff that pleased my ears just fine. Like my friend Tony Dale (below), I'll call it a year of consolidation and expansion rather than revolutionary advance, but I don't think that's a bad thing at all; refining and extending are worthwhile steps that easily can be forgotten in the midst of today's constant mania for novelty.
Son of Nailing Smoke to the Wall - 2007 in Review (part 2)
Round 2, Lee Jackson takes the lead
2008? Still haven't caught up; in fact I probably fell even further behind. 2007 was definitely a good year, with vets like San Francisco's Holy Mountain and North Carolinas's Three Lobed Recordings unleashing some of their most varied and unique slabs to date. And there were dozens of fine records on Not Not Fun, Important, Kranky, Digitalis, Soft Abuse, Locust, Drag City, Sublime Frequencies and on down the line that helped make '07 a little brighter. Speaking of Sublime Frequencies, must acknowledge the untimely passing of Charles Gocher due to complications from cancer in late February. Gocher played drums and sung some pretty messed up lounge songs for Sun City Girls, whose bassist Al Bishop co-owns and operates Sublime Frequencies. Needless to say, Sun City
"I Wanted Weird Sounds!" - Elektronavn's Spiritual Culture Clash
I have to admit that it's
pretty much impossible to keep up with everything great that is popping out of
the CD-R underground these days. Given the amount of discs that come this way I
am sure there's a whole bunch of great stuff passing by without me paying
attention. Luckily, I didn't miss Elektronavn's Songs of Impermanence on
the consistently great Ikuisuus label out of the land of lakes (Finland), as
it's easily one of
last year's most impressive discoveries. Elektronavn, AKA Magnus Olsen Majmon,
is a Danish sound sculptor that shapes a claustrophobic, almost physical
experience with haunting drones constructed from an arsenal of instruments such
as clarinet, voice, guitar, organ, flute, gong, harp, field recordings and
percussion. The music is pretty much impossible to lump into any particular
genre but there is a strong folk vibe that runs through a lot of the music,
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