Ian William Craig - A Turn Of Breath

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsOt54XLm4I

This was Cosmic Slop's favorite album of 2014; I just sent him this URL

brilliant record. i particularly like "either or".

Norman Records have copies, Scott (Not sure how painful that would be postage-wise).

https://www.normanrecords.com/records/156471-ian-william-craig-cradle-for-the-wanting-

I ordered the new album from someone here in the states. A Turn Of Breath is out of my price range online right now. Hopefully, the label will do another pressing. They have done 3 pressings of the album, but always in small numbers.

just an awesome record

love this!

new one is kinda more of the same, though that's no bad thing

^^ this. Maybe not quite as good, just because the originality of the first one was so striking.

Holy smokes, this guy is good.

Thanks for posting this!

aye, the album last year was amazing but couldnt find it to buy

maybe this doesn't need to be said, but if you'd buy vinyl, tell Recital. i left a message on their FB around this time last year expressing my hope for a repress and they did one not long after. granted that was right around the time he was showing up on year-end lists, but it can't hurt...

Id gladly have bought it on vinyl or cd. I ended up getting the files from bandcamp. Ordered the new one though

Quickest purchasing decision I've made in a long time. Loved the last one, love this.

Quickest delivery I've had in a long time: almost exactly 24 hours from ordering to arrival. Good work, Norman Records.

^ They're great, aren't they?

Anyway, I'd buy this on CD but don't want to pay £8 for a download or £16 for LP/download code.

Sorry. That was my most boring post ever.

mine hasnt come from them

pretty package...

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/12313862_10154363481742137_3494780636691606884_n.jpg?oh=39aaede3022760b1b02a0fe27bc0c06c&oe=56D68CD9

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/12279162_10154363482932137_9040354016184115405_n.jpg?oh=8394a9f68117bf566ed906b9185b2da7&oe=56E7221B

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/12310584_10154363483262137_7525313123922389455_n.jpg?oh=7a1508a3014eec3d947aa7c9f827ccc9&oe=56D765BF

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpt1/v/t1.0-9/12316545_10154363483387137_295635902805695390_n.jpg?oh=53ffc96e09f970e06e9c30eb0feb17df&oe=56E6B9EE

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfl1/v/t1.0-9/12295503_10154363483902137_7649986955350837638_n.jpg?oh=74afbb74184a1e006bda01e08a90df89&oe=56EE659C

sounds great too.

This just came up on my "Spotify discover" playlist and it's probably the first time I've actually "discovered" anything via that playlist.

someone post here when Recital re-presses the new album. i follow them on FB or whatever but that shit goes quick

Where are you? Norman Records (UK) still have it.

Haha, I literally ordered it from there 20 minutes ago (before seeing this). Thanks djh!

doh! just saw he has 3 other albums on bandcamp that i could have been listening to for years! all 5 on there are name your price

and when I say 3, i actually mean 5, because I can't count

new tape-only release. but you can listen to it online.

http://patientsounds.bandcamp.com/album/ps079-ian-william-craig-zugzwang-for-fostex

edition of 100. for some reason. why not just press 500 CDs at home? so that everyone gets one...damn hipsters.

sorry. that's neither here nor there. still kinda mad that i can't buy a physical copy of the first album. and now if i sleep in on the 20th of feb. i'll probably miss out on the stupid tape.

ooh this is great so far, ty

Anybody manage to snag the tape?

thanks for the reminder, i just bought one!

http://www.patient-sounds.com/#!shop/c1tr0

See, you could have slept in! :)

I got one, too. I just assumed they'd be gone when I woke up.

Postage from the US to UK is ... silly.

got my tape today. it is a lovely dying thing.

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/12800185_10154562897172137_5896573463691656376_n.jpg?oh=2f5914b870c9d9a440f164d330de0691&oe=57984AF7

Have no reliable tape player, so bought it from bandcamp. It really is a gorgeous, strange album.

Did the same (based on price rather than lack of tape player) and it is, isn't it?

i got mine yesterday it rules and i got a "patient sounds" button for my drone leather

i put track 3 on a mix recently

patient sounds is a great label

http://patientsoundswindow.blogspot.com/2016/01/dj-saturday-mage-presents-on-dublab.html

here's a mix that has some other ps stuff coming out in 2016

this is gonna be my summer jam! rockin' new tune from a new album:

https://soundcloud.com/fatcatrecords/ian-william-craig-a-single-hope#t=0:00

This is more of a "song" than I wanted it to be. I know that sounds ridiculous but...someone feel me?

i kinda like that about it.

no, don't think i like his singing here.

Ian William Craig is a trained operatic vocalist who combines his voice with analogue synthesizers, reel-to-reel machines, and faulty tape decks to create sublime cascades of unpredictable decay and beauty. His music engages with the operatic and orchestral, submerging them under a shifting palette of vocal improvisations, analogue tape hiss and billowing clouds of erasure. As well as a talented musician, Craig is an award-winning printmaker. Originally from Edmonton, he began playing live under his own name in 2010 in Vancouver, where he currently works at the University of British Columbia running the printmaking studio for the fine arts department. Though classically trained and grounded in the choral tradition, Craig’s early albums were concentrated predominantly around the piano, with his voice merely a marginal presence. In recent years, however, his practice has come to focus increasingly around his powerful voice, as can again be witnessed on Centres.

Ian's first release for FatCat’s pioneering 130701 imprint (Max Richter, Hauschka, Dustin O’Halloran, Jóhann Jóhannsson, etc) Centres is actually his ninth full-length album, the majority of which were self-released digitally or in limited cassette editions. His last two full lengths (‘A Turn of Breath’, 2014; and ‘Cradle for the Wanting’, 2015) were issued physically on the excellent California label, Recital Program and received glowing press and placements in numerous critics’ end of year lists (including Mojo / NY Times / Rolling Stone). The Guardian marveled how “to be both wildly experimental and fantastically listenable is a skill that precious few people possess, but Craig has it … truly brilliant,” whilst Mojo remarked on "a blissfully disquieting choral suite, moving from the corroded cries of counter-tenor ghosts to a kind of abstract Buckleyesque hearbreak, as if some lovelorn romantic troubadour had been summoned forth from the recording of séances on old shellac 78s."

About Centres:

Fundamentally distressed yet texturally lush, Centres is an immensely deep, rich and rewarding listen. It was recorded in an assortment of studio and other locations across his Vancouver hometown: in concert halls and classrooms; train-yards and live rooms, as well as Craig’s own home. It was created using a mixture of sources - synthesizer, Hammond organ, guitar, accordion, wire recorder, loop station, Craig’s array of re-purposed tape decks and “cassette choir”. The songs were created manipulating tape loops through two or three decks at once to create strange deteriorating delays with different colors. Craig would then circuit-bend the bias to create odd kinds of distortion, or bend the sound back into itself so it feeds back in unpredictable ways.

Continually honing and pushing this process, the album shows a quite brilliant attention to textural detail. Morphing, swirling, scouring, shimmering, it continually expands and contracts around you. Forging a harmonically gorgeous and utterly immersive listening experience, it pulls you from the rousing, slow-build of the opening ‘Contain (Astoria Version)’ through the standout ‘A Single Hope’, with its huge bass and Hammond organ swells, and through shifting cloud-zones of ‘Drifting to Void on All Sides’ or ‘Power Colour Spirit Animal’, the Nico-esque accordion opening of ‘The Nearness’, and back to the cyclical ending of ‘Contain (Cedar Version)’, one of the cleanest and sparest tracks here - pared back to the purity of a single voice and guitar.

Centres is an astounding album that stands with a similarly unique sense of vision and integrity as the likes of William Basinski or Colin Stetson.

Ian William Craig will also be heading out on his first ever UK / EU tour this August. Details to follow shortly.

LISTEN: Ian William Craig - "A Single Hope" -
https://soundcloud.com/fatcatrecords/ian-william-craig-a-single-hope/s-HFCsZ

PHYSICAL PRE-ORDER: Ian William Craig - Centres
http://store.fatcat-usa.com/products/centres

DIGITAL PRE-ORDER: Ian William Craig - Centres
https://ianwilliamcraig.bandcamp.com/album/centres

definitely moving in more of a song-based, Eluvium-ish direction. which is fine by me.

my pal marc is a superfan:

http://www.npr.org/2016/06/01/479450006/songs-we-love-ian-william-craig-the-nearness

He has a new LP of archival material coming soon on Aguirre Records:

http://aguirrecords.com/Shop/index.php?route=product/product&path=35&product_id=443

Forced Exposure usually stocks their stuff but it's not showing up there yet:

http://www.forcedexposure.com/Labels/AGUIRRE.RECORDS.BELGIUM.html

Turn of Breath was phenomenal; I had already preordered Centres but will gladly pick up a copy of Aguirre's reissue once I don't have to ship it from Europe.

album stream:

https://soundcloud.com/fatcatrecords/sets/ian-william-craig-centres-1?mc_cid=20155c60d7

Niiiice. odd having words I can make out, though.

Yes, the quavery campfire vocal ballads make it bearable, the quavery instrumental campfire strata, not so much. Either way, it's not like I need musical sources of emotional stasis, or basic sorrow-misery-tedium, esp. in the Summer of '16.

The new Mogwai was a much better companion the day after Orlando, and still is.

love the new mogwai, but I really do like this too. A Turn of Breath probably still my favourite, though.

still wish I could get that and Cradle on CD, because I live in the past

The people I just bought Centres from, plus a Wolves in the Throne Room CD and the most recent Tim Hecker album, have suggested that, based on these purchases, I might like Delta Goodrem and 'I Love the 80s'.

Have been enjoying this.

bcz it's brilliant

is the new Mogwai as good as Rave Tapes? turns out that's my favorite Mogwai record

Centres is really good

I like Centres a bunch (although A Turn Of Breath is considerably better IMO). Contain (Astoria Version) and A Single Hope make for one hell of a one-two opening combo!

https://soundcloud.com/fatcatrecords/ian-william-craig-contain-2

With all due respect, Craig's evolution from tape and sound artist into Bon Iver/early Grizzly Bear stuff is really unfortunate. The former was very special, the latter is commonplace.

^^^otm

Yeah, it's a tough and fast decline.

There's a live album:

http://www.recitalprogram.com/durbe/

It's up for NYP on Bandcamp now fyi

New collection:

https://www.tinymixtapes.com/chocolate-grinder/premiere-ian-william-craig-some-absolute-means

DJ Mag mix:

https://djmag.com/content/podcast-114-ian-william-craig

Have people gone cold on IWC?

I could have weeped playing "Contain" earlier. So beautiful. (Disclaimer: have got home from work, drank wine and decided that IWC should be the Xmas soundtrack).

He's Christmas-y, right?

people go cold on everything these days

Haven't heard the recent collection but thanks for the reminder

I think Threshholder is better than the last one.

I've got a lot of time for "Slow Vessels" and play it a lot, often in the middle of the night when I have insomnia. If it had been the only thing he'd done, I'd have been less interested ... but I don't mind that there is light and shade in his catalogue.

Have there been any decent interviews about his art rather than his music?

Minor Pieces:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=reH405dth3w

Just played a "live session" that felt a bit too sing-songy.

Having been listening to "Centres" at silly o'clock in the morning, when I've not been able to sleep. I'd forgotten that I've said similar before ("I've got a lot of time for "Slow Vessels" and play it a lot, often in the middle of the night when I have insomnia.")

I definitely own things since "Slow Vessels" but sort of lost track/not played them.

https://ianwilliamcraig.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-magnesium-173