Fadensonnen - Badlands (FR011 - MAY 2014)

MACHETE / BLIGHT GOSPEL / TAKE NO PRISONERS - 30:24

3 Blistering Tracks of Guitar Overload - High Energy Descents Into The Amphetamine Fueled Central Nervous System

DIGITAL DOWNLOADS - INDIVIDUAL TRACKS + ALBUM DOWNLOAD or HANDMADE DIGIPAK ART EDITION CD - EDITION OF 100

BANDCAMP

ART EDITION VINYL - EDITION OF 150 COPIES - RELEASED BY ONE HAND RECORDS

http://onehand.bigcartel.com

BADLANDS REVIEWS

VIA Christopher Stigliano's Excellent BlogToComm: 

" Outta (practically) nowhere and onto your turntable comes this dandy art/rock package from none other'n one of our favorite modern-day practitioners of the scronk form, Fadensonnen! If you're interested in something successful in the way of avant-energy musings that wasn't recorded forty-eight years ago this be thee reel deel, and as I've told you many a time these limited-edition releases (this one only 250 vinyl-wise via the can't -believe-they're-even-allowed-to-exist One Hand label) dwell into soundscapading areas that definitely would upset more'n a few prim and proper rock applecarts out there in prissyland. As usual, hearing this on vinyl comes off as such a delight with those warn drones sounding even warmer...if such a term can be applied to the total guitar distorto/electronic rock that Fadensonnen has been releasing for quite a few years now already.

One that might just snuggle into your album collection a lot more comfier than you think, if you slip it in between METAL MACHINE MUSIC and VINCEBUS ERUPTUM."

VIA DAVID KEENAN at VOLCANIC TONGUE:

" Staggering psychedelic guitar excess in a gorgeous private press edition of only 150 hand-numbered copies from the same people who brought us last year’s ass-flattening Dark Sunny Land LP: Fadensonnen – aka the Vermont-based duo of ‘PD’ and ‘RD’ on guitars, drums, ‘machete harmonic’, ‘feral wah’ and ‘echo disaster leads’ – take the raggedy black psychedelic blueprint of IIIRD Gatekeeper-era Skullflower and the UK experiments in American guitar blitz of Ascension, JfK et al and marry it to an all-in-the-red, soloing-all-the-time wipeout style that would build eternal plateaus of ecstasy sound ala Rallizes Denudes circa France Demo Tapes. The pair trill on grandstanding lead guitar histrionics before deforming the whole thing with nightmarish bottom-end bass dunts that could almost be Yasushi Ozawa and moments of pure, clear glissing space that push amplifier worship to the point of The Savage Resurrection play Hell Is Now Love. The insert pic featuring Lou Reed flipping the bird is just so much gravy and makes this a mandatory purchase for serious VT heads. Seriously; this is the best guitar-as-guitar side of the year that doesn’t have some kind of relationship to Nick Mitchell or Heather Leigh, just wild six string excess at a newly deformed and bloody-minded apex of high. The packaging is stunning too, with a fold around b&w sleeve that comes with a thick hard card insert w/paste on photo and credits and a stickered bag. US guitar album of the year? Just ridiculously good, but at 150 copies you better make it quick! Very highly recommended. "

VIA DOUG MOSUOCK'S  STILL-SINGLE TUMBLR:

"RECOMMENDED

Outstanding puncture wound guitar/drums-guitar/guitar duo, apparently of a busy nature with a bunch of self-released CD-Rs under their really-just-a-length-of-extension-cord belts, practicing the kind of high-velocity, pressurized instrumental torture that in this idea-soft yet hyper-aware era might make the weak of mind or hyphen-averse wither under the midday sun. Triangulated between Brooklyn, Vermont and Cambridge, UK, the three tracks here illustrate the sort of rock/noise-based improvisation that one always hopes to find under the layers of hyperbole coughed up by so-and-so’s like myself just to get you outta bed and through the door these days. Everyone else (well, both of them) said Skullflower and Ascension, which makes sense, but goddamn, do these pieces sound driven, heavy and immense yet grounded to the poisoned soil of the outer boroughs, two of the tracks doing the deed (opening sprint “Machete” and explosive sidelonger “Take No Prisoners”), while another prepares the mixture (the thick, tumultuous droner “Blight Gospel”). We’re in an era where this sort of exploration usually falls into one of three buckets: the one where sound takes the backseat to whatever transgressions the performers want to impart; the one where everything gets lost in some sort of mindless Hawkwind-style moron jam under the guise of “heavy psych”; and the truly progressive, new-language bent of a slim few (Dead C., Sightings, Oneida). Something like Fadensonnen is then far more preservationist than it is transformative, but all the same it’s been far too long since this sort of action darkened my doorstep – all the danger and violence that accompanied these shapeless exercises of rage back in the ‘90s is dragged out of the canal to inspire your malevolence. Edition of 150 copies, handmade heavy card insert with wraparound black-and-white print indebted to Nick Blinko … for once, the cost seems to justify the effort put into making a record like this. " (DOUG MOSUROCK)

VIA GRANT 'GUMSHOE' PURDUM AT TINY MIX TAPES:

"Fadensonnen represent the absolute cream of the improv guitar-noise crop, so to hear them hit vinyl with a resounding CRACK should be a priority if you read this column. Badlands bristles with post-no wave energy, all-instrumental and poised to break the record for most circuits broken in a single sit-down. The ear has so many points to find purchase it’s impossible to pick one. That’s what so impressive about the whole maelstrom of Side A: Each element is blended together, yet set apart just enough to trick the ear into believing (save for the theatrics of the guitarist). I don’t hear drums but I sense them deep in the thicket of hot, wet sick. Side B turns the ship around. We get readily apparent, half-flailing, cymbal-worshiping drums, droning bass, more of that singular, exceptional guitar abuse, and a psych-noise brew not unlike portions of AMT offerings and/or all-out Matta Gawa jamz. But Fadensonnen’s sense of clinical cool and restraint undercuts the gestures toward instrumental excess and psych. It’s an exercise in blown-out precision and repetition that sucks all into its orbit. Whole sections of pure feedback-doused frenzy tend to do that, too, and we’ve got a hair-clump mess of it closing out the record. There are 150 copies of Badlandsin existence, and they’re handmade, so find a way to make your dreams happen soon or you’ll end up drinking the dirt of denial. "

VIA BOB SMITH'S PROCUREMENT RECORD REVIEWS:

"What initially turned me on to Fadensonnen was their ruckus.  Bands like them and Aufgehoben know how to skirt that fine line between a wall of noise and aggressive, progressive rock music.

With Fadensonnen's newest release,Badlands, the sound remains the same, but the feeling is much different.  For the first two tracks, gone is the rush of intensity reminiscent of Guitar Wolf.  Instead,Badlands places the listener into a static-filled, psychedelic sound.  Yes, the guitars still feel overrun by delay and reverb, and the drums still keep a fast pace, but even turned up to full blast, the underlying energy seems different.  That isn't to say that this is a bad thing, it just wasn't what I expected, and possibly not even what the band had in mind going in to record.

A great example can be found in the final moments of the opening track, "Machete".  As all the feedback fades out, the listener is left with a chopping guitar similar to something out of Boredoms' Vision Creation Newsun or Guardian Alien's body of work.  It is this sound that I hear through both the first tracks, simply buried beneath the relentless wall of noise.

The final track feels much more like Fadensonnen's White Night album and is about where my initial expectations put the sound of this record to be; the type of sound that would make Air Conditioning want to get back in the studio. 

While overall the album is different than I expected, it still sounds great.  Badlands can be streamed Here, and do yourself a favor and pick up a copy on record while you still can."

VIA DAN SHEA @ BOSTON HASSLE:

"Free form guitar and drums train wreck / (mass) slaughter / destruction, blasted free from NYC and Vermont, or something close to that. The first recording I’ve heard by these persons united to formFADENSONNEN (PD & RD) is their most recent, and it is called BADLANDS*. PD on “Echo Disaster Lead Guitars” among other things, and RD on “Feral Wah” and yes, other things. And what they craft is desolation, end of the world scenarios, and impossible dankness. This is filthy and fried music for people who need such in their life (this includes me).

FUSHITSUSHA-like sound wreckage is what you should be thinking about. Grisly psych. Washes of uncontrolled liquid sonics. BADLANDS is 3 tracks, in total clocking in @ 30+ minutes. The closer on this monster pile of boiling screech, “Take No Prisoners”, is half of the album all by itself (@ 15+ minutes). A continuously texturally shifting fireball of undulating noise-psych, this track manages to make raw as fuck guitar noise that by the 11 minute mark could be mistaken for deeply heady and texturally alive electronic noise ebullience. Just absolutely, freakishly ripping. When guitars and drums stir it up like this it is a victory for us all. Recorded in Brooklyn, and Burlington, VT. Without fail loud and / or gnarly, asked them to play the NEU MF 14′ in September, but it didn’t work out. Stick THIS in your ear / pipe.

* According to their website the band has a plethora of recordings stretching back to 2007."