There’s no wrong in having the word “cloud” be a part of your name, numerous examples have proved to walk down a red carpet into my heart; there’s Cloud Cult, Cloud Strife, cLOUDDEAD, cloud., and who I’d like to introduce to the FMLY blog today, Cloudland Canyon. When clouds are in the sky, the light embracing our bodies is an abstracted form of what has entered our atmosphere. What began as a beam, a ray, an object is now subject to haze and unclarity, but for those who wish to make the trek towards understanding this phenomenon there will always be new information to discover and grasp. It’s impossible to separate the layers on 2008’s Lie In Light, but this production creates an organic element to the music in that all sound stems from a common seed, but the motive behind the music certainly lies elsewhere.
Spanning three years of studio work, Cloudland Canyon was born when Uhlhorn, touring Europe with Panthers in 2002, met up with German multi-instrumentalist Simon Wojan. Tapes were exchanged, and a handful of improv performances across the Atlantic forged a promising creative pairing, one that would take shape when Wojan made the trek to Brooklyn later that year. Through a week’s worth of 12 hour days in the recording studio, armed with as many instruments and computers as they could find, the two assembled the basic tracks for Requiems der Natur 2002 Ð 2004: rattling, sprawling experiments that fused their musical discoveries, which take the shape of its container, then rapidly spill out and fill whatever size of space they’re given. Within, strictures of German new age and electronic music of the 70s haze into field recordings mottled with analog burble and echoes of woodwinds. [via]
Whether in the right mindset, on the right drug or just a great appreciator of sound, Cloudland Canyon holds a religious experience for any listener – it just needs to be dug out. Oddly enough, Simon is a part of King Khan & The Shrines and Eden Express (who release via Holy Mountain, a personal favorite). “Krautwerk”, the first track off of Lie In Light is below as well as “Dambala” from 2007’s Silver Tongued Sisyphus.
Cloudland Canyon – Krautwerk
Cloudland Canyon – Dambala
When I was in Los Angeles in January an old friend of mine said that he was introduced to Air France via FMLY and they have now become one of his favorite groups. That single comment has meant so much to me, and along those lines is where I find Cloudland Canyon. Highly recommended, it’s difficult to pick single tracks and take an album out of context, so go pick up physical copies! Lastly, a huge thanks to Play It As It Lays, I’m having trouble uploading tracks onto our server and if PIAIL hadn’t blogged about Cloudland back in August then I’d have no tunes to offer you.
Also, if Holy Mountain catches this post – I love everything that you put out and I will become a press whore for all of your material…in good taste, of course. You’ve got FMLY support.
