(BEN030) - 5 TRACK VINYL EP - 2005
VINYL ONLY RELEASE ON EXPERIMENTAL ELECTRONIC LABEL BENBECULA
DOWNLOAD HERE
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"The
English Channel must generate a mighty fog, because Lawry Joseph
Tilbury's been lost in it for years. Luckily he brought along a dusty
four-track, some lost children, a nylon guitar, and an analogue synth or
two (maybe he pulled a red wagon behind?). This 12" EP—served up on the
heaviest vinyl I've held betwixt me fingers—starts off as unassuming
folktronica, nice but not drop-your-jaw-and-slap-your-cheek, before
diving headlong into psych stew experiments, circus noise tape collage,
and keyboard drone dirge.
Largely beatless, this EP certainly
doesn't step on Dan Snaith's or Keiran Hebdan's toes, eschewing the
entirety of folktronica clichés. Still the tag feels proper in part, for
the sweetheart-done-gone melodies and dusty bucolia suffusing the
tracks. Acid folk is a more useful referent: Comus deconstructed and
tied back together with bent circuits. Making this, dare I say, the
first relevant work of…freak-folktronica."
Bryan Berge, Stylus Magazine
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"As
a child, Lawry Joseph Tilbury stole into the forests surrounding his
home and, using a broken nylon guitar, a record player, and a couple of
scratchy records, created ramshackle serenades to the woodland creatures
and the moon. Though today an adult living in Brighton, he's never lost
that idiosyncratic sensibility and now, rejecting computers and digital
gear for the tape cassette, records under the name Birdengine uing a
4-track recorder, Dictaphones, home-made tape loops, and music boxes.
What results are creaky compositions realized with decrepit
instrumentation and steeped in scratchy hiss and rust, not so much from
some other universe but from some other era. Still, the first thing one
notices about this 12-inch-only release is the vinyl itself, a slab so
thick it could repel cannon fire, though the focus shifts immediately
the moment his surreal collages of mechanical noises and dusty keyboards
rise like ghosts from the grooves.
"Headache (Days 3, 7 and 9)"
perhaps best exemplifies his sound, with melismatic acoustic whorls
coalescing into wavering melancholia. The dirge-like "She Needs More
Memory" veers closest to a traditional electronic style with a weave of
high-pitched melodies and guttural tones underlaid by curdling beats.
The three remaining pieces pursue a more collage-oriented approach, with
what sounds like a chainsaw roaring alongside minimal piano sprinkles
in "What I Do Is Secret." Carnival melodies rub shoulders with noisy
blasts in "Let There Be Rope Tied Around Their Middles" while "Thoughts
of a Falling Glass Man" combines hydraulic clanks, rapidly picked
strings, and woozy orchestral samples in strange manner. Those looking
for kindred spirits might imagine Birdengine as an eccentric third
cousin to The Brothers Quay who likewise embrace a refreshingly
ancient-modern coupling in films like Street of Crocodiles and Institute
Benjamenta.
(Speaking of visual imagery, a remarkable animated
video of "Thoughts of a Falling Glass Man," produced by Sherbet using
considerably more current production methods, is available for viewing
at the Benbecula site.)"
Textura.com
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"This is my favourite Benbecula release so far"
Frog Pocket
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"It's
wonderful what can be done with some old tapes, a 4-track, and a bit of
imagination. When that imagination is as waywardly creative as Mr
Birdengine's we end up with five tracks such as these and everyone's a
winner. Weird? Mm, yes. A hit? No regrettably not probably. But very
good? Oh yes, and that's underselling it by quite a bit I'd venture.
Thank goodness for people like Birdengine and Benbecula."
Robots And Electronic Brains
