Track listings
A Vision Of Lost Unity
MILK AND MOON
MILKMOON03
Not exactly your chirpy three minute pop song this, A VISION OF LOST UNITY being a twenty eight minute barrage of dissonant guitar rumbles, mournful cello swells and chilling proclamations on sin and death. 230 Divisadero are a band likely to give Nick Cave and the Aphex Twin bad dreams, creating dark, twisted, scorched earth music that slowly but surely gets under your skin and begins to itch.
As an Irish preacher begins his sermon with the words “the great first monarch is sin/verse 21/sin hath reamed unto death/sins ream is a universal ream/and it rules over a kingdom called death” against a swirling vortex of eerie sound effects and the hint of a violin, the tone is set for what is to follow. Guitars gradually rise into the mix and scrawl angst ridden in the background, the sound managing to make Glenn Branca or Lee Renaldo look like three chord upbeat popsters. A VISION OF LOST UNITY makes for desolate and unsettling listening, an eerie soundscape of surreal sound washes and pitch black ambient noise. 230 Divisadero come across like a dark, twisted version of Sigur Ros here, replacing all that hopefulness with a despair and sadness; loneliness and starkness.
An acquired taste perhaps, but if you like your music dark to the point of pitch black and desolate and your post-rock so apocalyptic it makes Godspeed! You Black Emperor seem like the Beatles then 230 Divisadero are for you. A bleak, unforgiving post-rock milestone.
BIOGRAPHY
230 Divisadero is a new project by Matt Shaw and Nick Grey : songs and music are written and recorded between the two of them by sending cdrs, ideas, concepts and thoughts to each other between England and Canada by electronic and good old fashioned mail services.
The name 230 Divisadero comes from an address in San Francisco that Neal Cassady hoped to move into with his 3rd wife Diana and their new born child.
There are many detailed descriptions of this in the collected letters of Neal Cassady, of how it was to be a place of great hope for the future, to settle down in and find long lasting happiness. This however never happened but the idea… the idea was there.
As the project’s name would suggest, the music of 230 Divisadero conveys a deep end-of-the-world / lost-at-sea feeling, a sense of sadness yet (perhaps unfulfilled) hope triggered by misty soundscapes, torpid arrangements and psychedelic electronics.
230 Divisadero’s first ep, A Vision Of Lost Unity is planned for release on Milk & moon recordings soon, and features the extra participation of Canadian cellist David Widmer. The ep features natural and electronic sounds and atmospheres that can bring to mind the drone music of Sunn O))) or the electronic pulses you might find in a track by coil, two amongst many, many different influences.
Additionally, Matt and Nick are currently working on a full-length release, to be expected late 2006.
UK-based singer / composer / producer Matt Shaw has released several beautifully received albums and Eps under the name Tex La Homa on labels such as Talitres, Acuarela and Moon Palace. His current projects involve new Tex La Homa recordings and live dates, also an EP is due for release in Japan by Knurb, a collaboration between Matt and Masayuki Miyoshi. Matt is also working on recordings for Mind Expansion records in Detroit USA and has recently completed a track for release on 7? vinyl for the Paris based Astro Lab label.
Nick Grey lives in France and Canada and has been releasing intriguing music since 2002. His projects for 2006 involve two new releases on Hand/eye and Barl-Fire Recordings, and collaborations with Richard Moult (Far Black Furlong), Kris Force (Amber Asylum) and more. He runs the specialty label Milk & moon recordings and is also a member of 48 Cameras (a collective featuring participations by well-known guests such as Gerard Malanga or Charlemagne Palestine) and °catlandgrey°.
LINE UP
Matt Shaw
Nick Grey
David Widmer
A VISION OF LOST UNITY EP (Milk And Moon>2006)
A Vision Of Lost Unity
FURTHER LISTENING
Godspeed! You Black Emperor
Mogwai
Sigur Ros
Mike Bond - UKmusicsearch 2006
