The purpose of this page is to provide added exposure to musicians I respect. The bar is set high. To pass Landschaft quality control, the music must be of a quality that meets or surpasses the standard that would secure them a commercial recording release, and/or that I feel an itch to do a Landschaft mix of. I do not review everything they produce - see the band's own websites for complete chronologies - what I review is what I encounter, when I encounter it.
website (artist): http://virb.com/goldensores
The Artist: This ensemble have an "I wish I had thought of that" name: culled from an obscure corner of the bible, 1 Samuel 6:[various sub paragraphs].
Depending on which version of the bible you read - (and I prefer the fire and brimstone bombast of the King James), the Golden Sores translated variously as emerods, hemorrhoids, tumours etc relate to an invasion of mice that bought with it a plague (possibly bubonic) to the Israelites. The Israelites emerge from a dark spiritual place, in the (previous) book of Judges to emerge under a more enlightened regime, a kingship in Samuel. The plague then could be seen as a punishment on the Israelites for their impure ways, though the reinforcement of the punishment is not accompanied by an overt message to reprent, rather, the text implies the Israelites needed to find this out for themselves, aided by their evolving wisdom. The medium for relating the lesson, the journey of the Ark of the Covenant between Israel and the Philistines (who get rid of it back to the Israelites after bad things happen) Thus the scene is set. A message of reflection, repentance and learning encapsulated in music. The definitive commentary - and it is VERY extensive is at: Samuel
The Album, Asdod to Ekron. ... This message is conveyed in achingly wonderful drones, the most visceral, primal form of communication; pre-verbal and from the soul. Touching the same place as early period Popol Vuh, but bringing a sensibility of their own to bear - The Golden Sores' music moves at a ponderous, considered pace. A passage in a John Le Carre book I have just read gives a flavour of the space this music inhabits: "...the lucid unencompassable majesty of the mountains drew me upward." This music for me is a journey through landscapes assisted by and confounded in turn by capricious devine forces, with the biblical battles as a metaphor lurking in the background. Where redemption is a possibility, but not a certainty, but vengence and punishment for transgression is always a threat. The symbolism in the name of the ensemble/album is not literally evident in the music, it is implicit in the architecture of the sound. Building, cacophonous, moving. As moving as a Victorian hymn, or a storm under trees. That it makes pictures in my mind is a reason for me to listen to it again and again.