THE DEAD TEXAN - THE DEAD TEXAN (2004)

BEAUTIFUL, SLUMBERING COMPOSITIONS
ARTIST``````````````THE DEAD TEXAN
ALBUM``````````````THE DEAD TEXAN
GENRE``````````````SPACE ROCK/MINIMAL
YEAR````````````````2004

MY VIEW:
If you like Stars of the Lid as much as I do you should get yourself this fine album. Adam Waltzie (The Dead Texan in question) made only a slight departure from that famous Stars of Lid's drone minimal sound. A bit more guitars here and there and a tiny portion of recognizible voice layers make this album different enough.

A solid, wave riding piece of solo work.

ALBUM REVIEW:
The solo entry from Adam Wiltzie -- best known as one-half of Stars of the Lid -- comes under the nom de rock the Dead Texan and exists as less of a song cycle than an imaginary movie score. Accompanied with a DVD of seven videos made by filmmaker Christina Vantzos only asserts this notion, but Wiltzie's guitar-based art is equally if not better suited to stand on its own. Beautiful, slumbering compositions get peculiar titles like "The 6 Million Dollar Sandwich" and "A Chronicle of Early Failures." If the lush, piano-flushed "La Ballade d'Alain Georges" is the finest of the instrumental tracks, Wiltzie's two intimate vocal pieces (the organ-bolstered "Glenn's Goo" and the ambient shoegazer-ish "The Struggle") are easily the disc's highlights.

DOWNLOAD

STARS OF THE LID - AVEC LAUDENUM (1999)

MY FAVOURITE ALBUM BY THIS LEGENDARY DRONE MINIMALIST DUO.
ARTIST`````````````STARS OF THE LID
ALBUM`````````````AVEC LAUDENUM
GENRE`````````````SPACE/INDIE ROCK/AMBIENT
YEAR```````````````1999

















MY VIEW:
This is definetly my favourite Stars of the Lid album. Soft, minimalist pullsating waves of pure emotional energy. Sound that just puts a beautiful vibration into your living space. If you could live on a cloud above the city, this would be your album of choice.

ALBUM REVIEW:
Avec Laudenum moves at a glacier's pace and, slowly yet surely, calls to mind the glazed eye, vacant trance, and pure (temporary) euphoria of the heavy laudanum user. "The Atomium," a three-part work, takes all of 16 minutes to gradually build from a series of softened drones into the exquisite ambience of an orchestra lulling heaven itself to sleep, only to halt the reverie by (just as gradually) introducing ominous backmasked guitars. Of the other two pieces, "Dust Breeding" has much the same effect and feeling of transcendence, while "I Will Surround You" has slightly more of a Technicolor feel. Reportedly recorded by mail between SotL members Adam Wiltzie and Brian McBride, Avec Laudenum is a magnificent piece of minimalist ambience.

DOWNLOAD