a native hundred - coming soon

probably the most enjoyable task i have attended to over these long winter months has been my mixing and production work on the forthcoming album from the majestic a native hundred, soon to emerge via our beloved decorative stamp, in but two weeks in fact. for those of you not yet familiar with the name, might i take this opportunity to shed a little light on the subject, whilst also giving myself a chance to outline some of the most pertinent facts in the case.

a native hundred is the solo project from my dear friend rhys jon baker, perhaps better known as the lead vocalist, guitarist and joint-composer within the awesome wild dogs in winter, who are without a shadow of a doubt my favourite uk band, if not my current favourite band full stop. rhys and i met back in the days of the fbcfabric & reindeer live band, and how thankfully, our paths have had many a good chance to cross since then, and so this collaboration can really be seen as a beautiful inevitability more than anything.

last summer i believe, i happened to drop rhys a line to catch up with him and see what he was up to, and to quiz him on two loose native hundred songs i had discovered on his bandcamp page, and whether there were any more in the pipeline and, as if by magic, some weeks later a package arrived at the decorative stamp safehouse with a copy of the first native hundred release, rhys' beautiful book of poetry and a cd-r filled with a whole, seriously good, album's worth of new songs.

naturally, i was somewhat beside myself with excitement and quickly attempted to twist rhys' arm into releasing them on the stamp, and how he was gladly more than willing to get involved. so, some time passed as the organisational cogs slowly turned, and windows of opportunity were opened, til at last i found myself holed-up in the studio with all the stems for all these beautiful songs ready to begin making the mixes. not only that, but we had reached out to the masterful jamie romain who had blessed us with a host of remarkable cello additions to boot. glory days indeed.

still, since rhys is a damned-good sport, and since i simply couldn't resist, he kindly gave me carte blanche to have more than the mildest tinkerings with the songs, allowing me to expand on his original arrangements, introduce additional instrumentation, field recordings, clatterings and bangings et al, in order to turn his wonderful selection of eight songs into the most epic monster album i possibly could, and all in the space of six short weeks. it was a hectic and intense period but one which has certainly yielded such magnificent results.

so now, here we are, all poised to receive the final mastered version back from the exceptional hands of stephen baxter, aka beatoven, aka the electronics-guy in wild dogs in winter, and shall soon be on our way to making it available to the world at large via the mighty stamp. all i shall say is expect something truly amazing indeed; a staggeringly beautiful album where post-rock meets shoegaze, meets indie-folk, meets electronica. without a doubt already one of my favourite albums of 2012. so, be sure to start letting your excitement build, i wholeheartedly assure you, it shall be very much worth it.

keep warm, take care

jamesreindeer

shadows of reindeer - part two

so, in continuing to cast further light upon the facts in the case of 'shadows of reindeer', might i present to you the complete lyrics transcription of the song, replete with extensive hyperlinks to all of the various images, places and times contained therein, that you might get to discover the layers of detail which i attempted to capture in creating a written accompaniment to the astonishing musical composition which AbSUrd assembled for the track. so, sit back, put on your reading glasses, and prepare to journey into a strange, compelling world of myriad paths through psychedelic lands.

shadows of reindeer - text by jamesreindeer

sunken salt plain basilica silhouette tone poem snake bite hazard tundra. marbelled and tiled, baked in kilns. live from the jordanian bedouin triclinium lamb feast doused in hookah smoke and moroccan mint tea paraphanalia. 

head of david. isfahan. mυστικός δείπνος. samarkand. 

clark-nova's clattering. martinelli's clattering. 

watching sunset from the dome of the petran monastry of the masculine dead facing west at sunset. burning incense for hatshepsut. pork bones discovered underneath  the archeological digsite at masada. bradley tanks shooting fire into the west bank death valley kibbutz jonestown compound. 1098. hagia sofia. centipede ingests masonic host in seven day ritual bathed in oil lamp glowing parade, insect grin masquerade polaroid session. shadows of reindeer hang upon the ballustrade.  venetian pirouette and chasse step in ancient trade-route textile luxury. 

high yield junk bond medeci tomb swansong, canto octo. basic face mask transplant, tribal dance. ethiopian rock cut george cross holiest of holys, kerosene soaked ark of the covenant. swampland DDT bi-plane toltec complex, mayan codices calendar senders programme the machine to self destruct. financial district board members black magic cloaks and hats in flames levitate over the grave site of the world trade.

nomadic yemenese wedding ceremony under endless desert skies. ra and set in nile delta, unification of the two lands. heliocentric world view, maize and mead, despotic paths of tamerlane. crawl five hundred miles to die in bethlehem. the elite at play in the twilight of empire. orixa rhythms echo damascus backstreets in the steady half-light of the christian district. remote ministries, outpost and citadel, bees making honey under azure light. yage root hanging dense in mesoamerican cortés viral epicentre under a sinking deep red and amber sky. coca leaf tea in a zurich apartment amidst springs gentle haze. el tio, miners dynamite and fuse wire cyanide air, blood sacrifice to the mountain god and pachamama. geotagging zapatista gravesites, pick axe in the kitchen.

under the setting sun watching the snow melt back in the surrey hills. old world pagan island hand-print standing stones winter solstice festival pyre conflagration. holy lands dead sea hebron, jesrusalem and tiberias gallilee. algebra, algorythm, the shape of the world, ancient islamic scholar archives preserving written history. wolf doctrine blood parasites iraqi programme lets fires rage in the vaults of the worlds heritage in massively public display of total devil man based ignorance and sustained brutality. campires by lakes under lush green forest canopies.

clark-nova's clattering. martinelli's clattering.

so, there we have it. part considered attempt at putting words to the worlds which AbSUrd's music creates, part stream-of-consciouness / automatic writing under the influence of the material. i sincerely hope that this text might offer you a clearer view of  the words themselves , and that it might enable you to better enjoy the psychedelic spiral that is 'shadows of reindeer'. thank you kindly for your time and interest.

keep safe and warm

jamesreindeer 

shadows of reindeer - part one

so, to begin my efforts in detailing the various strands that have occupied my time these past two moons, might i begin with turning attention towards the wonderful new video which bhopal created for the 'shadows of reindeer' song collaboration between myself and the mighty AbSUrd for his debut album 'close to distantly', which we released on decorative stamp last autumn. the video is something of an astonishing psychedelic treat indeed, perfectly capturing the feel and strangeness of the song itself. do be sure to have repeated viewings to catch all of the wonderful layers of detail which bhopal has assembled for this marvelous project.

however. since we are here, might i also take a moment to make further discourse surrounding this piece, or at least the musical aspect, of which i can consider myself to be a co-authority. working with AbSUrd is always something of a ritualistic experience for me. since first hearing his work, specifically since first hearing 'bird irony sleeps' from the debut murmur breeze release, i have felt myself regularly swept up in the beautifully psychedelic meditative space he creates with his work, and how in continual waves the music helps take the mind to strange alternate lands, to such vivid degrees that all one needs to do is put pen to paper and how the words come with such ease. automatic writing at the hand of his music.

still, even by AbSUrd's standards 'shadows of reindeer' was a strange beast indeed. its curiously awkward instrumentation, its heavy lumbering beat, the irregular timing of the drops, the wonderfully enigmatic string lines, that feeling that it might perhaps come apart in one hands under close scrutiny; a wonderfully peculiar piece which lead the mind into a dark spiral of imagery, like burroughs' penny arcade peepshow, projections on four walls of increasingly more surreal and bizarre imagery, with the instrument set painting images of middle-eastern and far eastern lands. my motivation for this track simply to put into words the images which swamped my conscious with each new listen.

another wonderful aspect i find to AbSUrd's work is the perfect sense of freedom in feeling that anything and everything goes, both in turns of AbSUrd's own wonderful trust he bestows on his writers to take the words in any direction they wish, but also in knowing that any listener who is eagerly digesting his music will surely be an adept listener enough to digest so very much more than a few sixteen bars verses and a chorus too on the sermon of simple hip hop. to that end, the lyric sheet for this track is completely uncensored, as i allowed myself the joy of not editing a single line for fear of being too esoteric or simply too 'out there'. to that end, it is perhaps currently the most abstracted song in my humble catalogue, but one that i think thrives rather than suffers for it.

so, before i conclude this small piece, might i again strongly suggest that you allow yourself the time to digest this video once more, and that you investigate or continue to investigate the 'close to distantly' album in its entirety, not to mention both the first and second murmur breeze outings, and that you keenly anticipate future releases from the mighty AbSUrd, including his production work for the forthcoming coffin cutters album as well as the almost still secret talks of our own collaboratory album together. much strange and beautiful music on the horizon indeed.

keep warm, take care

jamesreindeer