SONIC MASALA: Top Ten Albums of 2010

SONIC MASALA: Paul Masala's Top Ten Albums of 2010

Altered Zones Artist Profile:Cloudland Canyon

Artist Profile: Cloudland Canyon

By Kenny Bloggins

MP3: Cloudland Canyon: "Yellow Echoesz"

MP3: Cloudland Canyon: "No One Else Around"

You can't assume much about Cloudland Canyon. The malleable Memphis collective, founded in 2002 by Kip Uhlhorn and Simon Wojan, sprouted from hardcore/punk roots rather than Can-style art rock. Their echo-laden explorations are as sprawling and majestic as, say, a scenic state park in Georgia, but the moniker sprung purely from happenstance. And despite its origins in personal tragedy, the band’s latest LP, Fin Eaves, is their most pop-oriented effort to date. It’s a huge-sounding record, even though its songs are about “how small you are in the grand scheme,” as Ulhorn put it. Altered Zones' Kenny Bloggins phoned Kip to discuss these contradictions, along with Cloudland Canyon’s new line-up, which includes his wife Kelly Winkler.

AZ: Does the name Cloudland Canyon actually reference the park?

Kip: Honestly, we were driving by there at some point, and it was kind of a joke because at the time it sounded like some hippie band in the '60s. I've gone through periods of either loving or hating [the name], but it doesn't have any huge significance. I think just saying those two words together almost makes you think about certain things-- without the whole band aspect. And I'm always a fan of liking how words look aesthetically.

AZ: How did Cloudland Canyon come about, particularly considering how different it is from your previous stuff, like Panthers?

Kip: Panthers was something more laid-back. We were all friends and there wasn't a ton of common ground musically. It was a fun thing that got serious later on, but it wasn't anything we expected. I was in a hardcore band on Troubleman for a while, The Red Scare, and I see a continuity between the stuff I did with them [and the stuff I do] now, but Panthers was more of a one-off. Maybe the common thread for me is sonic density. I tend to gravitate toward things that are heavy or dense, which can be accomplished in a lot of different ways.

AZ: Was Simon Wojan part of the line-up when you recorded Fin Eaves?

Kip: No. I started recording what became Fin Eaves around September 2008, and Simon went to Germany after we played out. I started recording, knowing it was going to be a while before Simon was able to do anything, calling it a solo project. At the same time, Kelly had Eden Express, and we started playing music together, in our minds, as that. I ended up recording 60 songs for Fin Eaves, and along the line, Kranky was pushing me to use the Cloudland name for whatever I was doing. Kelly and I were trying really hard to write songs together, and it occurred to me, “Why don't we just play the songs I'm recording for this record?” I finally, somewhere in '09, decided to call everything [I did] Cloudland Canyon, which required me to talk to Simon and make sure it was cool. It was the first thing I'd done without him.

AZ: To me, Fin Eaves feels a lot sunnier than Lie in Light. Does that difference stem from the new personnel, or something else entirely?

Kip: It's funny actually. I understand how you'd think Fin Eaves was sunnier. I mean, it's the most pop-oriented thing I've ever done, but, without sounding dramatic, the two years that I was recording Fin Eaves were probably the worst time in my life. Our drummer, Jerry Fuchs, died. My grandfather, whom I moved back to Memphis to be closer to, because he was more like my dad than my own father, died during it. And a lot of other factors I won't even go into. I literally was working on that thing every day, to the point where I just felt… I don't think I've ever been so intense about something. Lie in Light is kind of a celebration of life, especially right about the time when you turn 30-- which is corny, I know. I think there are a lot of changes and unanswered questions during this time. Fin Eaves is really about loss, and existential and actual crises.

AZ: Listening to Fin Eaves, I find it hard to distinguish between sampled or electronic sounds and traditional rock instrumentation. How much do you rely on electronic instruments over acoustic?

Kip: Recorded, it's about half synthesizers and half guitars, processed in a strange way so they don’t sound like guitars. I’m definitely more into synthesizers now, and just stopped playing guitar live. I lived with this record for so long that I almost needed somebody to be like, "This is the line-up for who's playing what,” because it's impossible to recreate that shit. It would require, like, 10 dudes with laptops or something. So someone suggested that I do a kind of "guitar army". Just super loud, don't worry about the electronics that much. I'm glad we tried it [during our tour with Bear In Heaven], but what we're doing now sounds awesome. It required me accepting that [our live show] wasn't going to sound exactly like the record, so I think once I let that go, everything got better. My friend that died, Jerry… you can't replace him. So I thought, I have an 808 drum machine, let's just use that. When you put it through a preamp, it sounds super loud. We still have someone on guitar, but I would say it's mostly heavy on the electronic aspect. We've always had to figure out how to play our songs live after they were recorded, which I wouldn't advise, but that's more, I guess, how people are doing things. It just took us longer to figure out how to do it this time, and I'm finally comfortable with it.

AZ: Do you go to guitar or synth when writing songs?

Kip: It just recently occurred to me that the guitar is a kind of trap for me. I always revert back to it, like, “Oh, I'm gonna write a song, I must go get the guitar.” I've been playing guitar for so many years that it feels limited. Right now, it's just more fun when I'm by myself to say, “You can go write a song with a synth or a sampler.” It makes things fun again; I think guitar is a really rigid way of doing things sometimes.

AZ: That seems to be a trend: bands starting out with a traditional set-up, veering off into the electronic world, then returning to rock with a new understanding. It’s as though you need to escape it to make it feel less "rigid", as you say.

Kip: I'm old enough that I've been through that cycle a couple times. [Laughs] I should stop referring to myself as old all the time.

Fin Eaves is out now on Holy Mountain in CD and LP formats

2 Comments

Showing 2 comments

BULLDOZr 2 days ago

“You can go write a song with a synth or a sampler. It makes things fun again; I think guitar is a really rigid way of doing things sometimes."

Well said.

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Scott D. Mackie 2 days ago

thanks for this!! fin eaves is surely one of the best releases of 2010....

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the nomadic subject: Best 50 Albums of 2010...Plain and Simple...

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Best 50 Albums of 2010...Plain and Simple...

50) Warpaint - The Fool
49) Cloudland Canyon - Fin Eaves
48) Best Coast - Crazy for You
47) Woven Hand - The Thrashing Floor
46) Javelin - No Mas
45) Soundpool - Mirrors in Your Eyes
44) Koen Holtkemp - Gravity / Bees
43) Future Islands - In Evening Air
42) Barn Owl - Ancestral Star
41) Crocodiles - Sleep Forever
40) Jonas Reinhardt - Powers of Audition
39) Sleepy Sun - Fever
38) Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest
37) Nurse with Wound and Larsen - Erroneous: a selection of Errors
36) Twin Sister Moon - Then Fell the Ashes
35) The Fall - Your Future, Our Clutter
34) Ceremony - Rocket Fire
33) Xela - The Devine
32) Sun City Girls - Funeral Mariarchi
31) Gary War - Police Water
30) U.S. Christmas - Run Thick in the Night
29) Wild Nothing - Gemini
28) Morton Feldman - For Phillip Guston
27) Rangda - False Flag
26) Mugstar - Lime
25) The Vandermark 5 - The Horse Jumps / The Ship is Gone
24) Flying Lotus - Cosmagramma
23) Chrome - Blood on the Moon
22) Wooden Shjips - Volume 2
21) Wolvserpent - Blood Seed
20) Villages - The Last Whole Earth
19) Boduf Songs - This Alone Above All Else in Spite of Everything
18) Wadada Leo Smith and Ed Blackwell - The Blue Mountain's Sun Drummer
17) Eddie Current Suppression Ring - Rush to Relax
16) Four Tet - There is Love in You
15) Legendary Pink Dots - Seconds Late for the Brighton Line
14) Grinderman - 2
13) Agalloch - Marrow of the Spirit
12) Locrian - The Crystal World
11) Magda - From the Fallen Page
10) Coil - Colour Sound Oblivion
09) J.G. Thirlwell - Manorexia
07) The Soft Moon - S/T
06) Swans - My Father Will Guide Me up a Rope to the Sky
05) Umberto - Prophecy of the Black Widow
04) Zola Jesus - Stridulum
03) Emeralds - Does it Look Like I'm Here?
02) Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today
01) Blessure Grave - Judged by Twelve, Carried by Six

Watch Blessure Grave "Open or Shut" Video

Please comment! I want feedback... good or bad. Thanks.

CLIKITAT IKATOWI live 1994 in Chapel Hill, NC at the Cat's Cradle

Antioch Arrow - Live in Columbia, SC at Senseless Beauty (2)

AQUARIUS RECORD OF THE WEEK!

CLOUDLAND CANYON

Fin Eaves (Holy Mountain) lp

Last week's Record Of The Week, now arrives on vinyl!!

Cloudland Canyon always seemed like some impossible classic krautrock / noise rock hybrid, their records equal parts German Oak, Faust, Amon Duul, My Bloody Valentine and the Dead C, a washed out sonic world of gritty hypnotic haze, of lumbering psychedelic grooves, of twisted FX drenched drift and looped druggy ambience, as likely to explode into a super rocking fuzzed out dronejam as they were to emit thick billowing clouds of swirling blurred psychdrone shimmer, but always, at the core of their sound was pop. Little hooks buried in the murk and the mire, catchiness subtly woven into the fabric of every bit of spaced out crush or raga-like skree, the thread that held their sound together was spun from melody and harmony, no matter how much those elemental forces were obscured.

Recently CC shared a split with Citay, both bands paying homage to fuzzy dream poppers Galaxie 500, CC's version was especially fantastic, drugged out and hypnotic, somehow transforming the original into what could have been a proper Cloudland Canyon jam, and in the process, revealing, more explicitly than ever, the warm glowing pop heart, that beat inside the buzzing, lysergic krautrock chest of Cloudland Canyon. Which it seems, lead to this, Fin Eaves, a fully realized exploration of pop music, filtered through CC's gloriously cracked kraut/drone/noise filter, the result, one of the fuzziest, most washed out, dreamiest noise pop / dream pop records in recent memory.

Every track a swirling morass of druggy effects, of muted melodies, of buried reverbed vox, of subverted jangle, muddy grooves, subtle hooks, a soft focus collision between My Bloody Valentine, Teenage Filmstars and Galaxie 500, a three way pileup where the various elements simply sink into one another, blurring and smearing into fantastically new shapes, a little bit of looped hypnotic Spacemen 3 style drug rock here, a little super distorted minimal Jesus and Mary Chain stomp there, slipping seamlessly from gauzy soft pop shuffle, to dense crumbling popnoise damage, to hushed loping slowcore haze, to soaring prismatic space psych bliss, each and every track is dense and spacious and layered, the various sounds constantly shifting, transforming, pealing melodies sloughing off only to reveal even more subtle melodies beneath, streaks of electronic glitch and clouds of warm whirling hiss drift amidst deep thrummed bass, and simple motorik rhythms, gorgeously out of focus vocal harmonies, and all manner of texture and timbre, a rare record as much about song as sound, strip away the sound, and you'd have a surprisingly perfect pop record, take away the songs, and you'd still have some fantastically abstract sonic earcandy, but combine the two, and you have this, an utterly gorgeous disc of otherworldly noise drenched lysergic dream pop. Fans of Teenage Filmstars, Beach House, Jesus & Mary Chain, Flaming Lips, Galaxie 500, Spacemen 3, Candy Claws, Mercury Rev, School Of The Seven Bells, and other psychedelic dream poppers, this is your new favorite record.

NOISEZILLA

'

Fin Eaves, Cloudland Canyon’s third proper album, is a cosmic exploration that swims in melody without sacrificing some of their best experimental instincts. In fact, Fin Eaves bears striking similarities to recent noise pop albums from Lotus Plaza and/or certainly Atlas Sound. And for all the pageantry surrounding those works, and others similar to them, Fin Eaves feels more raw, spacious, and liberating than anything in recent memory.

Cloudland Canyon:

"No One Else Around"

It may seem contrived, but Cloudland Canyon practically describes the bands sound, within its name. One is practically emulsified in the songs on their newest musical contribution, Fin Eaves. The first song off the record is "No One Else Around," a relaxed but nebulous track where the instruments are invisible and the vocals lounge their way through the track-- all landing closer toSpacemen 3 and Isn't Anything than the modern trends. (via Weekly Tape Deck)

MP3: Cloudland Canyon: "No One Else Around"

Fin Eaves CD and LP is available now via Holy Mountain

Love and Mathematics blog post

Cloudland Canyon are Kip and Kelly Uhlhorn and their various associates. The band has a myriad of influences, which reveal themselves in a number of ways. One of their first records was released on vinyl only, in Germany. A couple of their more recent releases came out on Kranky Records, and one of them features a track called “Krautwerk.” Their new full-length, Fin Eaves, is from Holy Mountain Records, home as well to Wooden Shjips, who likewise bring a machine-like Germanic groove to their otherwise heavy psych sound. Finally, Cloudland Canyon named themselves after a state park in Georgia with a big waterfall in it.

All of these elements can be found across the nine tracks on “Fin Eaves,” but here the band also makes a small nod towards accessibility, which serves the music well. It’s interesting that one of the best songs on the lp is called “Sister,” since that’s exactly what Sonic Youth did on their album of that name. A great video for another great track, “Mothlight Pt 2,” appears below.

Stereogum on CC

Cloudland Canyon – “Mothlight Part 2″ (Stereogum Premiere)

Jul 9th '10 by brandon @ 1:59pmComment Share20

Kip Uhlhorn used to play guitar in Panthers. Before that he sang and played guitar in Red Scare. In September his psychedelic drone project Cloudland Canyon — currently Uhlhorn, his wife Kelly Winkler, and a revolving cast of players — is releasing Fin Eaves. The band formed in 2002 and it’s the third full-length since 2005, so people likely don’t need to be reminded of past musical identities — I just like keeping track of ex-hardcore dudes currently experimenting with electronics, spaciousness, dance floors, synthesizers, and/or the Siltbreeze sections of their early ’90s record collections. There are tons. It’s nice when they succeed. Uhlhorn has: Fin Eaves is definitely Cloudland Canyon’s most successful outing to date. I don’t usually like quoting one-sheets, but whoever wrote the one for Fin Eaves got the sound right: “Imagine, if you will, a Flying Saucer Attack foundation and a level of noise on par with the first two Iran albums, or maybe even Jesu every now and then.” You may also want to toss early Lilys into the mix. (Or sometime Cloudland collaborator, Rob Lowe, aka Lichens, aka a onetime post-hardcore guy.) Get started with the propulsive, Kraut-stepping “Mothlight Pt. 2.”

• Cloudland Canyon – “Mothlight Pt. 2″Download

Fin Eaves is out 9/7 via Holy Mountain.

Cloudland Canyon – Fin Eaves

Posted by musicbleep in ALBUM REVIEWS | 2 comments

Sep 17, 2010

I do not believe Cloudland Canyon could have picked a better band name to describe their sound. Their incredibly atmospheric, dreamy sound features beats and synths similar to some of Phoenix and Beach Houses’ works. Yet, they also feature some nintendo video game sorts of sounds as on their album opener “No One Else Around”.

Fin Eaves is tight album fully showcasing the sound that sets Cloudland Canyon apart. Layered vocals, laser-like sounds, bass as guitar, and a slowness to use any percussion, apart from the tambourine, on a low-fi sound creates this incredible heady sound unlike anything I’ve ever really listened to before.

This band creates a dream-like fantasy and invites you in. It’s hard to find any one thing to say about any one song because they are so similar and going from one track to the next is almost like moment between breathing in and breathing out, the switch is so natural you almost fail to notice.

“Gracious Hearts” is perhaps the most remarkable single on the album. Its heady introduction lulls you quietly along until they introduce the steady beat of the drums, then your heart gets a spike. If you’re going to be driving through the clouds anytime soon, spin Cloudland Canyon’s album Fin Eaves. I promise it will complete the experience.

- KATIE BUNTSMA

Jester Jay: music and other essential thoughts: CD review - Cloudland Canyon, Fin Eaves (2010)

fRIDAY, JUNE 18, 2010

CD review - Cloudland Canyon, Fin Eaves (2010)

Like a Polaroid picture slowly developing,Cloudland Canyon's Fin Eaves coalesces grudgingly from a white (noise) palette. It starts off in a thickly shimmering haze. A fog of sound, where shapes begin to emerge, then recede, only half recognized. The tracksslowly become more song-like, taking on some of the outlines of more structured music, but even that fades back down.

No One Else Around begins hesitantly, then becomes a dreamy wall of guitar and vocal echo. There's a pop underpinning. It's like standing outside the club smoking a cigarette, ears ringing from the big indie/prog rock band still playing inside. Or maybe a bit like forcing yourself to stay awake after taking an Ambien, as your surroundings become more dreamlike and incomprehensible.

Pinklike sounds a bit like the David Bowie/Brian Eno work on Low(Warszawa, maybe), but it's really truer to the older krautrock band,Can. Atmospheric noise and simple, repetitive chords abound. Electronic elements contribute a crystalline under-texture until, about 2/3 through, the song seems to complete and shift to a slightly cleaner electronica groove. Then the two parts meld together to wrap it up.

This is drifty music, where one songs melts into another. The vocals are all sleeptalking sound, wordless and hard to pin down, buried in the mix. Cloudland Canyon has created a Rorschach album: each song means whatever a listener wants and reveals some hidden truth. Sip some absinthe and take the test. Fin Eaves is due out on July 29.
LABELS: CD, KRAUTROCK, MUSIC, REVIEW, TRIPPY

eden is neon

cloudland canyon - fin eaves

cloudland canyon's current lineup: kip uhlhorn, kelly winkler and aaron worcester. kip and former member/part-time member simon wojan began collaborating under the moniker cloudland canyon in 2000. both have toiled in various music scenes (hardcore, psych and punk) since the last century.

i did not know anything about this band before last weekend, when a friend told me to listen to it. i am being honest... at first i just thought... "oh no, not another drone-psych-shoegaze thing", but after listening to the whole album a several times, i gotta say.... yes please, more of it. it's not the typical drone-psychedelic-shoegaze mix.... it's more of a "dronadelicpop" album. the noise is swinging with the harmonies in the background. if i had to decide between drone-pop and dream-pop i'd rather label it as dream-pop. the album spreads positive vibes. at some parts it reminds me of my bloody valentine's glider ep.... then again it reminds me of candy claws. probably not everyone's taste, since the song structures seem to fade in walls of noise and distorted harmonies... but if you have a thing for such stuff.... you'll definitely love it.

7.5/10 (fk)

Sun on the Sand Review

Cloudland Canyon – Fin Eaves

by Vinh on October 11th, 2010

Cloudland Canyon – Fin Eaves
September 7th, 2010
Holy Mountain
Score: 8.4

For fear of the great unknown, many of us aspire to frame our lives within habitual contexts, rote locations and faces which generate a misguided notion of control amid rigorous modern life. Coffee and the paper in the morning, a certain lunch at a certain establishment, a recurring television program at night, routine is comforting. It’s also woefully stifling. It perpetuates the daily grind, tightening our manacles and cutting into the stable of sensations at our disposal. Cloudland Canyon has suffered from this self-imposed plight over the past 4 years, penning two snug full-lengths so indebted to experimental German acts of the 70s they’re left feeling too familiar. Mundane. On its third release and first for Holy Mountain, the band ditches its shackles of kraut-inspired song in favor of phenomenally blurry dream-pop. Opener ‘No One Else Around’ sets the stage as silly keyboards are thwarted by a mammoth deluge of fuzz. At the surface, it’s jarring in its density, but when a dip in the water becomes a plunge off a high cliff into the ocean, striking harmonies are uncovered beneath the din — this is a brilliant pop tune navigating through a veritable maelstrom of glimmering noise. Drums are present, they’re just barely heard. The anchor has been claimed by the voracious waves as Cloudland Canyon hasn’t merely let loose on Fin Eaves, it has finally let go. ‘Sister’ and ‘Gracious Hearts’ are equally enthralling in their liberated grainy grandeur, with throbbing bass lines, synth blasts, and multi-tracked vocals populating the clamorous setting, acting as passionate albeit playful calls from the depths. Lightening the sprawl are ‘Mothlight, Pt. 2′ and ‘Hope Sounds Dry’, upbeat numbers which are beachier than they are aquatic. More conventionally rock than their counterparts, they mark a sprightly return to shore, a brief chance to catch our breath before resuming the dive. ‘Pinklike/Version’ then sweeps us to the heart of the album’s torrid gyres, accented by fervent tambourines, drum machine beats, keyboard effects bearing an uncanny resemblance to the merry chirps of birds, and woozy, spectral melodies. With roughly 2 minutes remaining, the track’s fog dissipates to reveal a beaming state of limbo, eerie and exhilarating in its quietude. Kip Uhlhorn’s latest is a remarkable journey, a cohesive suite of underwater pop songs floating in suspended animation as rays of light flicker and frolic overhead. Instead of grounding Fin Eaves‘ flight, the fuzz on hand submerges the album thousands of miles below ground in untapped pools of texture and abandon. Cloudland Canyon’s rigid lifelines have been tossed overboard. Drifting out into a sea of unscripted motion and shapeless majesty, this is going with the flow at long last.

Vinh Cao