[BLM059] MILD MAYNYRD - HILLS RUN RED

Mild Maynyrd’s third full-length is an Electronic / Hip-Hop trip through the American West. Equal parts complex instrumentation and old-school breakbeats, the album takes the idea of the narrative-driven LP to new places, both desolate and developed. Fervently coherent and thoughtfully presented, HILLS RUN RED is a tall tale filled with cattle rustling, capitalism, war, and vengeance.

“The idea for the album came about through the last record I did, The Parallel,” says Mild Maynyrd. “I wanted to tell a story with that album, a kind-of Depression-era trek through my homeland, eventually ending in St. Paul along the Mississippi River. I wrote a piece of flash-fiction for the release, embedding the song titles into it, as a companion piece to the album. The idea was you would listen and casually read along to get this imagery in your head so the album told somewhat of a story. I don’t know if I succeeded. Ha. 

When I started thinking about my next record I wanted to take that idea to its furthest possible limits: to make a record with a narrative arc and a story itself, without the supplementation of written word. I started looking into storytelling. At some point I stumbled upon a page about dramatic structure on some college’s website. And it clicked: three-part dramatic structure adapted to musical form. Adapted to the album. While brainstorming how to do that I figured I needed something with A) a whole ton of material to get the exact quotes I want, and B) something that has enough of a percentage of public-domain material. The Western thing seemed to fit perfectly (although I toyed with the idea of a Noir). Not only that, but it would be very surreal to make a Western themed Electronic album, and unique. So I went with it. I drafted a rough outline of a story while starting on the music itself. I cherry picked any movies I thought I could use based on their plot synopses. Then I dubbed and dubbed and dubbed. 

I had a file in my production program littered with quotes. When the music was all done (I tried to make it clear to myself the music was still the most important part) I went through and put them into the tracks. I’m not sure the narrative turned out to be as clear as I’d thought in my head. But it’s certainly there.”

(Source: blacklanternmusic.com)

[BLM057] TEXTURE - NEUROLEPTICA

Black Lantern’s 57th release is a deluxe, remastered and repackaged collection of tracks by TEXTURE, collecting the 3 EPs released on Black Lantern Music between 2009 and 2011, featuring collaborations with Morphamish, Harlequinade, dustmotes, Monkeytribe and many more, plus exclusive remixes from Mild Maynyrd, Asthmatic Astronaut, I†† and THEFT // OBJECTIVE aka p.WRECKS.

Available as a CDR with deluxe fold-out artwork by D. Miranda Pole, or as a digital download in the format of your choice (CDR also includes immediate download), NEUROLEPTICA represents the culmination of four years’ worth of collaborations betwen TEXTURE and a selection of the most exciting leftfield electronica and hip-hop producers from Scotland and around the world.

“My vision of hip-hop is non-traditional, and pretty fucking bleak,” explains Texture. “I’m not talking about the bleakness of schemes and unemployment, of guns and gangs, because that would be disengenuous. That wasn’t my life. My lyrics are about the imagined dystopias of cyberpunk. The philosophical alienation caused by modern life and society; by failed relationships and doomed, psychologically fucked perspectives. I use my music to purge, and hopefully to reveal a few chinks of light coming through the boarded-up windows of abandoned buildings in the grim meathook future. Goth-swag anthems.”

……

CDR & DIGITAL DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE HERE

texture.bandcamp.com

soundcloud.com/texture

texturemusick.tumblr.com

facebook.com/pages/Texture/274372843294

OFFICIAL VIDEO FOR ‘ASSASINS CREED’ COMING SOON…

UPCOMING LAUNCH GIGS:

30th June @ Bloc, Glasgow
with Asthmatic Astronaut, Tickle & Monkeytribe DJs.

20th July @ The Art School, Glasgow
with Hordes Of Unstoppable Skeletons, Giro Babies, and Roscoe Variant & The Gantin’ Schriechs


PRESS FOR TEXTURE:

“This. Shxt. Slapz. Brooding poetic flow over nocturnal productions.”
- Blam Blam Fever

“A dark urban feel combining aspects of hip-hop, dubstep and post-modern electronica… Foreboding but hypnotically attractive… A good bet for the nihilists in the crowd.”
- Free Albums Galore

“The atmosphere generated is immense and mind consuming… The entry of fluid, rapid-fire vocals works brilliantly as a mere sonic compliment to everything else, but the lyrics are phenomenal: dropping glittering turns of phrase, confrontational wordplay and above all a complex, ideas led viewpoint.”
- Brainleak Station

“Listen to it on the train as the graffiti-ed factories with broken windows fly by… The woman to your left is e-mailing her partner how she thinks they should “take a break”… Someone else is jotting down hand-written scribbles ahead of you into a leather-bound notebook… The lyrics are bouncing around in your head, unable to get out, they’ll become a part of you, and you will make your own stories.”
-Dan Black, The Sonny Wilkins Chronicle

“Proof of the city’s ever emergent hip-hop undercurrent. Synaesthesia makes for a promising release… indicative of greater things to come.”
- Martin Skivington, The Skinny

“Melodic yet densely packed delivery which demands more than a single listen…”
- Enough Records Blog

“Echo Boomers is a beaut – fantastic verses well delivered alongside sweet production from Morphamish.”
- Mark Scanlan, aka Kobra Audio Labs

“An immersive listening experience, heavy beats deftly drawing you in… Luscious, hypnotic… Tortuously deep flows.”
- Dylan Orchard, for The Creative Uncommons

“A shimmering slick of cyberpunk hip-hop.”
- Thanks Tom Hanks

(Source: blacklanternmusic.com)

Black Lantern Music proudly presents our 48th release, the new album by Mild Maynyrd: ‘The Parallel.’ An enthralling, complex, dusted collectionof songs inspired by blues, hip-hop and turntablism, this 15 track album is a tour-de-force.

»DOWNLOAD ‘THE PARALLEL’«

To get you acquainted with the feel of ‘The Parallel,’ Mild Maynyrd, also known as prolific experimental writer and artist Dan Black, has concocted a piece of Flash Fiction, interleaved with the track titles. It follows after the playlist album playlist!

THE PARALLEL by DAN BLACK (aka MILD MAYNYRD)

The dust bowl got us moving. I’ll never forget that billowing monster looming on the horizon, inching closer hour by hour, tumbling over itself and infecting all it touched. Sometimes I still see it: a black cloud, spitting venom and creeping into the boundaries of my consciousness. It shouldn’t happen to a dream. We cultivated all we could and got out. The road crumbled underfoot, weary old expansion. Millions of stars played tag in the sky. Summers at Itasca were just memories. Flashes of moonlight, Lakeshore, tiny little rocks in my hand. A signpost outside Pipestone read hash-mark, N, G. We set up camp outside town and scavenged for wood. We were sleeping in our tents when the Earth cracked apart and something terrifying emerged from the unknown. The glow of smoldering embers lit the creature’s face orange. Horns dripping sticky waste, wounds all over. Minotaure of the Beyond. It receded after it saw nothing to fear. The next morning we came to a train yard sprinkled with rust and tags. A teenage boy with a guitar and little more lay hungry amongst the cargo. His case was covered in a story written in white paint. Words, pictures, symbols. The story of his life. We left him with a can of beans and hopped the switchbacks west. A couple days later we came to a taconite mine and managed to flee without being seen. The sound of dynamite blasts echoed through the Range. An aging ship captain let us rest in his home for a day and night. His wife took a shining to Maria, gave her a crushed velvet dress and some pearl earrings to boot. We hadn’t eaten so well in days. They sent us on our way to St. Paul to meet a 7th St. swing dancer who, they said, could help us in our travels. The road became grey as the season changed over. Frost came and went. Tunnel passage. The map shifted again and again. Smoke signals emanated from the valley to the east. Ancient beacon. We huddled around the fire, singing ‘Carryin’ On’ until our voices ceased. Our last day on the road led us to a farm knee deep in repairs; it had encountered a devastating tornado weeks prior. The fields were cloaked in splintered wood and uprooted crops. The farmhands never stopped working. A photographer from out east photographed a migrant mother with the pea pickers. The negative reached out to me, I reached back. The sharecroppers gave us a jug of their moonshine for lending a hand. It was brown, bitter, and reeked of rotten tree bark. That night we passed it around and stumbled into the city’s outer limits. A bluesman repeated a lick on the corner, while a stranger dressed in all white improvised to the chaos. Blurs like long-form exposure. We woke to one of our party lying dead on his back, the concoction poisoned him. That was one gloomy Sunday. Blast furnace… wondering why. I broke bottles all day in an alley behind the depot. Entry static resonated through the brick. I ran away through the broken glass, cuts in my palms. Trail of blood down St. Peter cobblestone. I ran into a bearded plainsman with a hatchet and a pocketwatch; he clutched me tight, smearing ashes across my face. Light embedded eyes blinded me. I tried to squirm free but it was no use. The traffic stopped and we walked across River Road, down to the embankment. On an island I saw my traveling party, my family. They smiled and waved and yelled for me to join them. The plainsman heaved me into the river. I flailed, unable to swim, desperately kicking. The water started to fill my mouth, I began sinking. I touched down to the muddy river bottom. As all hope ceased, I saw their faces emerging from the darkness. They carried me to the surface; I coughed and rolled over on the island shore… Closed my eyes under a full moon and dreamt of the parallel.

Cover art by Kevin Gallagher, for the forthcoming album Dead Herring by Mild Maynyrd on Black Lantern Music.

From MM’s bio:

Mild Maynyrd was born as a coping mechanism with death all around him. He completed his first album as MM out of necessity. The ‘Nordic Rust EP’ was a lo-fi, dreamy album with Hip-Hop influenced beats and grimy Industrial sounds, an aural translation of his mind during the scariest point of his life. He learned and grew. Months later the accidental discovery of 50-some Notorious B.I.G. acapellas led to an obsession with remixes and alternates. Now armed with turntables and an MPC, Maynyrd completed ‘MM vs. BIG’: a Biggie remix album combining his brand of Industrial / Electro with hard-hitting beats and lyrics. When it came time to tackle a second ‘solo’ album, he took aim at the throat of the music industry itself, crafting an album of abrasive and experimental sounds (‘Broadcast AM’). His friends convinced him to do another Biggie album (‘MM vs. BIG: Volume II’); which matured his production a little more, to the point of somehow combining Bob Dylan and Biggie.

[posted by T3XTUR3]