Landerim is a band named after a word made up by Robert Wyatt on his album
“Rock Bottom,” featuring Larry Demellier (drums, keyboards, vocals), Derek
Knott (guitar, bass, keyboards) and John McGuire (keyboards, guitar,
atmospherics). Jessica Bailiff sings duet and backing vocals, and
Producer/Shimmy-Disc Founder Kramer played bass, flute and sang backing
vocals on a couple of songs.
The band was formed by Larry Demellier who asked a couple friends to help
out with some ideas and song sketches. Influences include Robert Wyatt,
Brian Eno, Jon Hassell, Harold Budd, John Cale, Gene Clark and the Byrds,
Love, Nick Drake, Talk Talk, Scott Walker, Big Star and Pink Floyd.
Most of the pieces were worked up very quickly and recorded immediately to
capture the ideas that geled the most before they became stale and
rehearsed. The emphasis is mostly on the spaces in a piece of music: very
minimal, sparing and quiet arrangements with long flowing chords and few
notes. There are some pieces with vocals and some instrumental sections;
all created to be fleeting vignettes.
I am a solo performer/producer from a little Village called Tollard Royal. I produce all my music from my bedroom recording on a zoom H4 and putting all the sounds together on my laptop. Away from studio work I also have a live setup. I use an MPC, Kaoss Pad 3, Boss RC-50 looper and a wide variety of instruments that I bring in and out of soundscapes and loop based melodies.
I love making music. It would probably drown me If it could, but I try and keep my head above the flow. Just to keep myself in control of time. If I don’t I find myself surrounded by instruments but not able to record because the dawn corus is too loud and the fact that the sun is rising makes my feel ill. I get lost in another world when I am making music, sometimes I stay there for hours on end. Untill eventually I am forced back into reality by a sound that wasnt made by me. I dont feel these hours are wasted. If anything there some of the best hours of my life. But there also the shortest. The world is an incredible place and has so much to offer. I realised a few years ago that I don’t think I could ever be truly sad because there is always something far bigger and more incredible than anything I could be sad about. My life is quite pleasant though. So I could understand if you can’t relate. Its just, trees, to me are enough to keep me smiling forever. When I make a piece of music that I think matches what I think about trees, I will have got as far as I can get musically. Please enjoy my explorartion untill that point.
My website: www.memotonemusic.blogspot.com
My myspace: http://www.myspace.com/williamyatesmusic.
[Edit: memotone is James' (our support engineer) favourite artist on RouteNote after the Bloody Tentacles (his own band)]
Jangly, jarring tunes over uncomfortable electronic backgrounds somehow come together as a coherent and listenable whole, and then give way to slow, gentle guitars and violins and spoken samples. Something like Modest Mouse making an album with Boards Of Canada when they were feeling nice and relaxed one weekend round at Lemon Jelly’s house. Despite the awkward bits in this album, I somehow get the feeling that someone nearby was making a blackberry and apple crumble they were all going to enjoy once the recording session was over. Especially on this track:
Memotone is somewhere between Lemon Jelly and the Cinematic Orchestra, which for a one man act, recording on an 8 track and a laptop is a pretty incredible achievement. William Yates has put together a bewilderingly large array of instruments into a really crystal clear, deep and textured soundscape, blending live instruments, samples, glitchy computer noises and sound effects like air raid sirens, lairy kids arguing in corridors and canned laughter. There are odd moments of humour and unease, drifting clouds of sound, sharp beats that bring you back to your senses and then drop away again to let warm, live double bass lines pour into your ears and build into complex little sonic poems that wrap back to the beats. I really like it. If I wasn’t already listening to it, I would buy a copy. In fact, petition him to get vinyl pressed, so I can buy a copy.
Ambient/Psychedelic/Folk, Brooklyn, New York
Genre:Alternative Minimal Electronica
<– Buy it on iTunes
<–buy it on iTunes