Cristal Swedish Child b/w Trial
Homegoing
The strands of cello that begin "Yoke" mark Homegoing and it's companion seven inch single as a move by Cristal into new depths of beauty and expressiveness. The Richmond, VA trio of sound processors have long been masters of austerity and restraint, now their skills have been devoted to extended melodies and small gestures that add up to a truly moving recording.
The artwork was painted by Joseph C. Mills of Haptic.
Like the tiny flowers blooming during a brief arctic summer on the permafrost, the songs on Homegoing are memorable in their delicacy and contrast to the dappled granite surrounding them and the constant lapping of waves from a cold sea onto a gleaming black rocky beach. FSS has pressed 500 copies of a seven inch single containing two vinyl-only tracks, "Swedish Child" and "Trial". The single comes with a download code for the 40 minute Homegoing album. The digital album is also available separately.
7" Track Listing
1) Swedish Child
2) Trial
Digital Album Track Listing
1) Yoke 2) Streaming Wisdom 3) Mirror 4) Herrevad 5) Homegoing 6) Dead Bird
Seismic bummer drones for staring contests.#9
Chris Weingarten 100TimesYes Nov. 15, 2010
One's attention is immediately caught when Burton's cello groans against smoke trails of blurry bluster in "Yoke". The trio practices the art of brevity in "Streaming Wisdom", whose deep rumbles and epic swathes of sound check in at two minutes, but also stretches out in the album-closing "Dead Bird" for eleven ethereal minutes of sweeping cloud formations and clangorous industrial machinations. The seething dronescape "Mirror" suggests an immense storm passing overhead, its expanse so great it occupies the entire visual field. While an undercurrent of threat also runs through "Herrevad" - it could, after all, be the heaving of dungeon doors processed into reverb-heavy exhalations - it also brings the intensity down until it's little more than a whisper, and a similar restraint infuses the haunted, even sorrowful ambient of the titular dreamscape.
Textura July 2010
This trio originate from Richmond, VA and feature a line-up of Jimmy Anthony, Greg Darden and Bobby Donne (of Labradford and Aix Em Klemm). The band's sound tinges their blinged-up moniker with a healthy dose of irony, encroaching as it does upon the world of dark ambience and phantasmic soundscapes occupied by the kind of artists you'd hear on labels like Type and Miasmah. Homegoing is a wonderful set, proportioned perfectly in its spread of track durations - ranging from tantalising widescreen drone miniatures like 'Streaming Wisdom' to full on epic meditations, as is the case with closer 'Dead Bird'. Along the way you'll hear the wrenching cello soliloquies of 'Yoke' and the deathly atmospheres of 'Mirror' - each unfolding measure bringing new variations on the kind of sounds you might hear from the likes of Lustmord, Deathprod and Svarte Greiner.
Boomkat July 26 2010
"Yoke" introduces the album with a deep, resounding drone that is at once austere and reassuring, a touch like my spinster great aunt. "Streaming Wisdom" lightens the atmosphere up a shade or two, but still has definite overtones of Deaf Center. The third track "Mirror" positions itself somewhere between the roar of a jet engine, the harsh rush of an Antarctic blizzard, and the muted squeal of a theremin. Title track "Homegoing" has a lightness of touch that would feel at home on Johann Johannsson's albums for the Touch label, or the less liturgical moments of Arvo Part. The album reaches its creeping-dread-atmospheric conclusion with "Dead Bird"; swelling drones and distorted guitar pulses slowly unfurl into a blackened majesty.
Cyclic Defrost August 17, 2010
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