VISUAL | CATALOG | PRESS

havens

1. lunaire
2. sanctuary
3. jasli
 
2005 - Crucialblast

This disc contains three exquisite new driftworks from ENCOMIAST, entitled Havens. Formed from vaporous clouds of guitar, gamelan, shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute), violin, vina, voice, flute, and field recordings, Ross Hagen and Megan Garland have stretched these sounds into infinite ribbons of metallic shimmer, twisting and swirling into gorgeous hum. The three tracks on this disc are extended works that range from eleven to twenty-five minutes in length, and drifts within the angelic regions between Andrew Chalk's minimalist explorations, the dream music of Troum (and their predecessor, Maeror Tri), and the bleary melodic smear of My Bloody Valentine. Havens distills the bliss of deep dreams and early morning haze into captured hymns, and is one of ENCOMIAST's finest drone offerings to date.Packaged in a hand-assembled, full-color cardsleeve in a resealable plastic sleeve. Presented in an edition of 250 copies.

Reviews
 
Touching Extremes
 
Don't let Megan Garland's initial flute evolutions fool you into thinking about some sort of improvised 20th-century chamber music: after a few moments, Ross Hagen's creature materializes to take you right into the glorious death of your senses in a furnace of gloomy dreams and textural oxidification. Reportedly generated by modifying the timbre of various sources (guitar, gamelan, shakuhachi, violin, vina, voice, flute and field recordings) until they become virtually unrecognizable, "Havens" is an enticing desolated landscape that brings right back to a time when this kind of music still had a meaning; Hagen explores the most obscure corners of those states of mind in which everything converges to a single desire, that of being completely alone in delusion. From a thick haze of condensed views, a giant wall of echoes from a visionary world slowly rises: their refractions are better enjoyed without headphones, in order to have your room's natural reverberation contributing to this evocative blur of removed - but still scary - memories.
 
Vital Weekly 508
Let's start with Encomiast, the duo of Ross Hagen and Megan Garland (as opposed to the previous release which was made just Ross Hagen), who play a wide variety of instruments (including violin, voice, flute, guitar, gamelan and shakuhachi besides the usual field recordings), but they create quite dense clouds of ambient drones. Three long pieces here of slowly developing, but highly organic music. It's not demanding music at all, gently flowing. More Mirror than Maeror Tri, I'd say. Certainly a different release than the previous, and one that truly enjoyable from beginning to end.
 
Aquarius Records
 "Crucial Blast has supplied us with plenty of head melting, ear shredding pummel over the last few years, Skullflower, Genghis Tron, The Mass, the Goslings, but they have a soft side as well, not really 'soft' exactly, but a little bit more, well, blissful. Thus we have Crucial Bliss, a sublabel dedicated to more blissed out drones and dense dark ambience. We had never heard Encomiast before, but this release most definitely has us kicking ourselves.
Beginning with some drifting flute passages, these forest flutters are soon consumed by a thick churning wall of white noise, before everything suddenly blissed out into a dense drone, rife with deep reverberations, and grinding industrial ambience. Where as most drone records fine a sound, and just let it drift on and on and on, the tracks on Havens never stop shifting, sounds morph into other sounds, murkiness becomes crystal clear, before slipping into lo-fi hiss again, metallic sounds soften, dreamy fluffy smears harden and become spikey and dangerous. It's always dreamy and droney and moody and gorgeous, but each track is so dense with subtle shadings and is an exhaustive journey through an endlessly shifting soundworld. Equal parts Andrew Chalk, Troum, My Bloody Valentine, Jonathan Coleclough and Wolf Eyes, the duo of Ross Hagen and Megan Garland weave programmed rhythms, field recordings, guitars, flute and vocals into completely immersive and endlessly fascinating soundscapes. Delicate and beautiful, but at the same time harsh and threatening.
Definitely one of our new favorite 'drone' records. Absolutely recommended.

Heathen Harvest

"A solo flute plays us in, its voice evoking images of dusk lit wood land and moonlight beginning to filter through the almost nude branches of autumn, before being joined by a shimmering orb or gently rotating electronics, a gradual hum building and folding in on itself whilst spreading slowly to fill all available space with its spectral presence.

So begins Lunaire, the opening track on Havens. The bell like clatter of metal on metal begins to filter through the mist, at first almost subliminally, but eventually joining the sweeping drone, adding substance to the so far ethereal soundscape taking shape before us. I already like this release a lot, and this only half way through the first of three tracks. A thought inducing construction, Lunaire is constructed from minimal component parts, but all the parts compliment each other to perfection, the manipulation of each element only adds to the overall feeling unity as the pieces continue to meld together, taking us through the fading twilight and into the approaching darkness.

Sanctuary continues in a similar fashion, a distant drone riding alongside a subtle bass, both swelling in size and becoming a gently pulsating rhythm which reaches out to envelope us in its mists. This is a slightly darker creature than Lunaire, a fact emphasized by the introduction of a vocal which is lowly teased out of shape as it drifts back and forth. The overall effect here is as if standing at the entrance to a tunnel and hearing a ceremony of sorts taking place at the distant far end, occasionally being permitted to approach almost close enough to identify the individual elements, before being gently led back out again. From almost blissful serenity into a dark place of mists, barely seen shapes and forms, Sanctuary is a journey that I will be taking again.

Jasli is the last of the tracks on offer here, and at a little over eleven minutes in duration is the shortest of the three. Lunaire started us, Sanctuary led us, and now Jasli takes its place in the scheme to bring us back home. Starting with Muted vocals overlaid with a stringed accompaniment, riding on a distant bass, drone the track undulates gently before rising and changing, becoming a lighter affair, sparkling percussive elements illuminating the scene. A familiar flute sound joins in and takes centre stage, the focus of our attention as the remainder of the track fades slowly to silence, a perfect ending to a perfect release.

Thoroughly enjoyable and highly recommended. Sonic constructions such as this should find a home with any discerning music fan, but Dark Ambient fans and fans of Drone based and experimental music should make locating this a high priority. Music for meditation, contemplation or just for relaxing and unwinding with. A solid, professional and polished offering."