The brilliant New Zealand sound sculptor Abby Helasdottir (aka Gydja) has crafted a complex lifeworld on Machina Mundi. As Abby describes "the original idea was based around Newton's clockwork universe." The listening experience brings to mind vast images of an entire floating planet-- translucent like a post-industrial snowglobe--revealing intricate machines, plant life, and weather systems moving apart, together, in a strange otherworldly ballet.
About the Artist:
Abby Helasdottir has been creating music since 1995 under the name Gydja (an Old Norse word for priestess). Initially, the aim of the project was to create music that could be used for magickal and shamanic purposes. Some of the earliest ideas involved using field recordings, and basing whole pieces on these sounds in a largely unprocessed way. This is still a concern of Gydja, but with more emphasis now being placed on abstracting these sounds so that, whilst they retain a sense of their original source, they become something else entirely. The current style of Gydja differs from the initial intentions of the project, with music of both a mundane and magickal nature being created. And whilst the music is usually linear and could be defined as a soundscape, it is also not necessarily always dark ambient in style, embracing electro-acoustic and experimental techniques. Works designed specifically for magickal use sit alongside explorations of sound for sound's sake; and in a third tier, some exploration of sound contain magickal themes, even if there is no practical magickal application intended.
To purchase and hear sound samples from MACHINA MUNDI click the image below
Recorded primarily in an abandoned sanitarium this collection of melodic ambient fragments is special in its weaving of so many subgenres: Description is somewhat futile. Husband and wife team Amy and Bob Brown make it clear: They are serious listeners of many atmospheric musics. Years of dedicated listening, constant touring, and fearless experimentation has made for a truly unique sonic diary of ghosts; a spiritual paeon of many emotions to the dwellers of the lost sanitarium.
Special packaging done by Matt Borghi of the Hand Work Press. Limited to 100 hand numbered copies all of the text and images on the chipboard sleeves were created using hand engraved dies and a genuine letter press. Purchase and Sound Samples Click the Image Below
A truly unique and captivating release by Kansas City, MO artist, Christopher McFall. This is the first pure field-recording based release by Gears of Sand and we are hopeful that it will not be the last...We asked Christopher to shed some light on this sublime work that caught us pleasantly by surprise here at GoS HQ..Read the interview in the News section!
Purchase and Sound Samples Click the Image Below
We are extremely proud to release this brand new work by one of our favorite groups out there, Rumforskning. Danny and Mads create the kind of sound of impermanence that strike to the core of the GoS aesthetic: minimal, haunting, but always evolving, however subtly....Check the news for more details and an interview with Rumforskning....
Purchase and Sound Samples Click the Image Below
Limited copies of Fleury-Steiner's LIGHT OF SHIPWRECK disc released by Crucial Bliss available! Very special packaging in beautiful full color DVD sleeves and insane artwork.
Purchase and Sound Samples Click the Image Below
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Suchness Limited to 100 Series:
SECONDS IN FORMALDEHYDE
ENCOMIAST
DRONAEMENT
GoS Releases:
TRUE COLOUR OF BLOOD
GYDJA
JEREMY BIBLE AND JASON
HENRY
ZAC KEILLER
STEPHEN BISHOP
SAITO KOJI
ELUDER
P.D. WILDER
MIRKO UHLIG
ASHER
Christopher McFall on the inspiration behind 'Solemn Words':
"This series of works was created between late winter and early fall of 2007 from treated analog tape and digital field recordings. My focus for this series of workings was relatively unfocused, to be quite honest. Some of these pieces were worked and reworked many times before I was satisfied with the work and yet others came out very quickly. During the time in which I was recording these works, I was contending with a series of abrupt transitions in my life, so I spent some time wondering through the city, recording endlessly, searching for answers. I've since found that I have no answers or philosophies to provide. The outcome has yielded only these recordings and they have served as documentation for me in an attempt to preserve the memories of this time. Given that these works were constructed from the city, itself, I am hopeful that they should exhibit themselves as a sort of urban reverie."
Purchase and Sound Samples Click the Image Below
Purchase and Sound Samples Click the Image Below