Saturday, May 28, 2011

Cloudland Canyon + MOOG=




Trailer for the new season of Moog Sound Lab on their website, which also includes the
version of our song "Krautwerk," that we played/taped at the factory back in March
which you can hear for the entire duration of the trailer. It's pretty awesome!
Thanks so much to Jason Daniello, Mike Adams & everyone else at Moog Musi

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Hey, So long time no communicate! I have posted a new review from Dusted Magazine's great "Still Single," column. ALSO, Cloudland Canyon has been asked to play at this yearsAustin Psych Fest which is curated by the insanely amazing, Black Angels. It's going to be amazing! Cloudland Canyon will be touring before and afterwards with more amazing bands!

The lineup, ticket info for PSYCH FEST etc. can be found;http://www.austinpsychfest.com/#/lineup/saturday

04/27/2011, Birmingham, AL, Bottle Tree w/ White Hills, Pontiak
04/28/2011, New Orleans, LA, Siberia w/ White Hills, Pontiak
04/29/2011, Houston, TX, Mink Backroom w/ Pontiak
04/30/2011, Austin, TX, Seaholm Power Plant - Austin Psych Fest w/ Spectrum, Fresh & Onlys, Black Moth Super Rainbow
05/02/2011, Santa Fe, NM, Corazon w/ Family Band
05/03/2011, Tempe, AZ, Sail Inn
05/04/2011, San Diego, CA, Soda Bar
05/05/2011, Los Angeles, CA, Silverlake Lounge w/ Jonas Reinhardt
05/07/2011, San Francisco, CA, Hemlock Tavern w/ Jonas Reinhardt
05/09/2011, Seattle, WA, Comet Tavern
05/10/2011, Portland, OR, The Woods
05/11/2011, Nampa, ID, Flying M Coffee
05/13/2011, Denver, CO, Quixote’s True Blue
05/14/2011, Kansas City, MO, venue TBD



Cloudland Canyon/Citay
split 7”
(Intercoastal Artists)

Galaxie 500 covers from what seems like a logical pairing of bands, both for the covers and a split, though I’ve heard just a little from either group. Citay take on “Tugboat” with great respect for the Galaxie vibe, a pretty straight tribute, and there’s a towering guitar solo that seals the deal. Cloudland Canyon get appropriately blissed out with their version of “Temperature’s Rising,” more abstract and smeared in a way that connects the dots over to MBV and Spacemen 3. Should be a fan pleaser, but first, for gosh sakes, go after those recent Galaxie reissues if you need to and haven’t already. (
http://www.intercoastalartists.com)
(Andy Tefft)


Sunday, January 23, 2011

Henry Rollins plays cloudland canyon on KCRW

Henry Rollins

KCRW Broadcast 99

SAT JAN 22, 2011

Fanatics!

We got a thing going on tonight! Check it out. This is an interesting show. It goes all over the place and even features a couple of songs that are pretty difficult to obtain.

The Welders track is from a 4 track EP coming out at some point, if it’s not out already. It’s an all girl band from Missouri I believe. They recorded the EP in 1979 and it’s only coming out now. I don’t know why. They sent it to me and I played it in my kitchen and knew immediately it had to be on our show. The Bloody Amateur is at this point, a one-man band in the form of Andy Comer of Teenbeat band Tel Aviv. I don’t know how many times I have played those albums. Anyway, Andy and I keep in touch and a few months ago, he told me he had started writing and recording again under this new heading. He sent me some new ideas the other day and I asked if I could play tonight’s track and he said yes. So, lucky us. Later on tonight, we will listen to one of my favorite Tel Aviv tracks.

Interesting Nick Cave track from the Le Peuple Migrateur Soundtrack CD. New Medications album on Dischord, perhaps my favorite of their three releases. Great stuff. New James Chance record gets an airing here tonight.

Another smasher from Stonehelm! Load your pipe and believe the hype! Cool track the Stark Reality album. It was just sent to me, I don’t know anything about them yet. I dug it and thought you all might want to check a track from it. Great archival release from Dischord with the Artificial Peace ’81 Sessions LP. It comes with a download card. That one’s at Dischord.com. I am loving this one.

Cool Re-issue Alert Dept.: Dr. Strange Records has re-issued all the Chiefs songs on limited edition LP. It sounds great!

http://www.drstrange.com/cart.php?m=music_search&xsubmit=Y&search=chiefs&go.x=0&go.y=0

Liza Richardson always plays cool jams on her show. She scooped me like a pail full of sand on this great Music Of Siam CD. I finally got my own after hearing her blasting cool tracks on her show. Now, we catch up. Great album!

I don’t know what else to tell you, Fanatic besides get close up on this show, dig the waves of jamaliciousness, it being Jamuaury and STAY FANATIC!!!

--Henry

E-mail address for Henry: Henryontheradio@gmail.com

01. Ween - Where'd The Cheese Go At? / Unreleased

02. The Dickies - Give It Back / The Incredible Shrinking Dickies

03. The Welders - Pervert / The Welders EP

04. Bloody Amateur - Companions 1.5 / Unreleased

05. Nick Cave - To Be By Your Side / Le Peuple Migrateur Soundtrack

06. Medications - We Could Be Others / Completely Removed

07. Swell Maps - Let's Build A Car (Single Version) / Jane From Occupied Europe

08. David Bowie - Running Gun Blues / The Man Who Sold The World

09. Cloudland Canyon - Clearlight Intry / Requiems Der Natur 2002-2004

10. James Chance & Terminal City - The Street With No Name / The Fix Is In

11. The Specials - Monkey Man / The Specials

12. Hawkwind - Orgone Accumulator / Space Ritual

13. Tel Aviv - We Got The Computers / The Shape Of Fiction

14. Stonehelm - Zombie Apocalypse / Stonehelm

15. Stark Reality - Rocket Ship / Now

16. Public Image Ltd. - Low Life / Public Image Ltd.

17. The Fall - Beatle Bones 'N' Smokin' Stones / Complete Peel Sessions

18. Comets On Fire - Holy Teeth / Avatar

19. Artificial Peace - Suburban Wasteland / Complete Session November 81

20. The Chiefs – Tower 18 / Holly-West Crisis

21. Various Artists - Cleaning This Highway / Prison Worksongs

22. The Ruts - West One (Shine On Me) / The Punk Singles Collection

23. Thin Lizzy - Black Boys On The Corner / Vagabonds, Kings, Warriors, Angels

24. Waipod Phetsuphan - Ding Ding Dong / The Sounds Of Siam 1964-1975

25. The Jesus & Mary Chain - Upside Down / The Power Of Negative Thinking

26. Butch Willis & The Rocks - I'll Never Be The Same Again / Repeats

27. Family Fodder - Don't Get Me High / Classical Music


Friday, December 10, 2010

Altered Zones Artist Profile:Cloudland Canyon


Artist Profile: Cloudland Canyon



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

Showing 2 comments

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

    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.