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2LP
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MIA 033LP
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One of the most amazing things about the group B/B/S/ is that even though it does sound like the logical sum of its parts, listening to their output is like devoting yourself to an emotional haze of interaction. All based on improvisations recorded within two sessions at Golden Retriever Studios in Berlin, the ten new tracks, spanning almost 80 minutes total, are so fluid and natural that they abandon separating the musicians' individual contribution for a soundscape that is overwhelming in the best possible way. However, the place B/B/S/ puts you in is not a gleaming one: It could be imagined as an empty room with just a chair to sit on to be surrounded and pervaded by flickering guitars, effects and drums - a scenery that is as murky as it is gripping and best digested without further distraction. Making you feel comfortable might not be their main intention but Aidan Baker, Andrea Belfi and Erik Skodvin know all the tricks to turn this into an exciting atmospheric experience with plenty of vigor and hope shining through the duskiness. Their second album, Palace, for Miasmah masters in tension that is building up like a blueprint, maybe starting in one room but revealing many doors, corridors and passages to explore. There are no dead ends in their Palace: It's a dark territory and sparse in light but each turn is a success and each glance a revelation. Gatefold Sleeve. Limited to 500 copies. Includes download code.
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CD
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MIA 022CD
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Berlin might be known as the home of modernist minimal techno, but beneath the Teutonic shuffle of Berghain and the Panorama Bar, there's something darker happening in the continental artistic hot-bed. Here is where Miasmah boss Erik Skodvin (Svarte Greiner) came in contact with experimental don Andrea Belfi and drone metal stalwart Aidan Baker (of Nadja), and before long, they were holed up in a studio, distilling their influences into one dense cloud of instrumental bleakness. With Skodvin manning the guitar, Belfi on percussion, and Baker on bass and guitar, we have the makings of a traditional band, but the result is anything but. Brick Mask is the sound of each artist pushing each other past their regular comfort zones; Skodvin's signature bowed guitar sounds perfectly matched against Baker's rolling basses and Belfi's unpredictable, collapsing percussion. The best comparison might be Supersilent, but where the Norwegian super-group hinge their sound on the fringes of jazz, B/B/S/ is rooted in metal, and Baker's doom expertise is occasionally allowed to reveal itself as his distorted guitar and bass tones erupt over the wrangled clatter of his two companions. Dark and gleefully theatrical, Brick Mask is an album that revels in its influences and never gets bogged down in the past, and in that never ceases to be captivating.
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LP
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MIA 022LP
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LP version with download code.
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7"
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MIA 022-7
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A three-song 7" EP from B/B/S/, the trio of Miasmah label boss Erik Skodvin (Svarte Greiner), experimental don Andrea Belfi, and metal stalwart Aidan Baker. Tracks are exclusive to this release and not on their full-length.
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