http://virb.com/goldensores Bloodlust! ___________________________________________________________________________________ Chicago-based ecstatic drone duo The Golden Sores began as an exploratory collaboration between software engineer, visual artist, and composer Steve Fors (unseen|unknown, United Steelworkers Union, blstr) and schoolteacher, label proprietor, and experimental musician Chris Miller (Number None, Th’ Exceptional Child, REBIS) in 2007. Bound by a shared love of red wine, the Kranky aesthetic, and the eclectic recordings of off-beat Christian Rock visionaries Daniel Amos, the two began life as a musical entity as the “pop-drone” Flux Bouquet. After several well-received live shows, a CD-R EP entitled first, and a scrapped full-length, Miller and Fors began to indulge their more experimental impulses, giving birth to The Golden Sores. Utilizing a combination of electric and lap steel guitar, salvaged thrift store keyboards, pedals (both broken and boutique), obscure analogue synthesizers, and other obsolete noise-making esoterica, Fors and Miller have forged deep into the realms of drone—continuing to pursue the perfect marriage of harsh and beautiful sounds, simple melodies and song structures through spontaneous and ecstatic improvisation. Thus far, their efforts have produced one full-length CD-R, Ashdod to Ekron, released in a limited edition of 100 copies on Fors’ Drone Cowboy label to broad acclaim. ___________________________________________________________________________________ Reviews of A Peaceable Kingdom: Brainwashed.com Written by Creaig Dunton http://brainwashed.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7644&Itemid=64 Along with the likes of label mates (and fellow Chicagoans) Locrian, The Golden Sores have taken a modernized approach to drone, away from the traditional academia of La Monte Young and the like, but also diverging from the metal leanings of Sunn O))) into its own realm of ambience and electronic sensibilities. Like Locrian, The Golden Sores lean heavily on synthesizers and electronics, though the two projects are quite unique in their own way. For the most part, even with the occasionally harsher moments of this disc, it never leads into metal riffing, and when it does begin to encroach on harsher sounds, there is usually a softer ambient underpinning that keeps the dissonance reigned in. Opener "Double Gyres" begins with organ-like opening tones that slowly drift on, an opaque wall of sound that stays static as shrill guitar feedback cuts around. The guitar tone and texture is extremely raw, but not overly harsh or aggressive, but instead provides a great counterpoint to the otherwise peaceful electronic ambience. "The Awful Rowing Toward God" is similar in its presentation with the jagged guitar shrikes, though here with lower end buzzing amp noise and a simple, but buoyant bassline that keeps the song drifting along, occasionally resembling the more electronic dub oriented Main tracks, though here the guitar slides into raw noise territory about midway though before retreating back to a more purely ambient coda. Living up to its title, "Klonopin" is a more subdued affair. There is the cutting guitar buzz here, but it is more mellow and a bit lower in the mix. It never fully disappears or becomes ignored, but it definitely allows for more of the ambient textures to shine through, and is at its core a more subdued work than the previous two, but never falling into overly boring or mundane territory. "Ondine" also keeps the fuzzed out guitar noise reigned in, focusing instead on slower gentle notes and slow-motion sheets of sound. The closer, "A Vision," distills much of the album down for an appropriate conclusion, combining the brittle guitar shriek with drifting synthetic ambience, though here it remains a relatively sparse mix that, while not harsh, instead has a cold, dark sense of isolation about it. The guitar swells to a buzz-saw level of noise before retreating, closing the album on a somber, restrained note. This duo has created one of those kind of works that manages to maintain that tenuous balance between reflective ambient soundscapes and grinding, coarse guitar noise in a way that never feels like an unnecessary contrast, but instead mutually inclusive extremes that captivate for both the whisper and the roar that appear. The Ear-conditioned Nightmare http://earconditionednightmare.blogspot.com/2009/07/golden-sores-peaceable-kingdom.html Here's a disc I got a ways back but never got around to for whatever reason (i.e. general chaos) but that surely deserves some words. Sent to me by the group, this one is another fine example of the Bloodlust! imprint doing what they do best: long and languid affairs that tend toward the doom and gloom but always offer more in the way of general depth. Think Locrian, Prurient, Bloodyminded, etc. Well this one's no different, if even a bit more toward the light end of the spectrum, offering a nice sparkling drone work that's as well constructed as it is immersive. "Double Gyres" opens the disc on a shimmering note, offering some real cross-current glides with some heavy electronic atmospherics thrown in for good measure. Every line is treated with real care here, always moving if ultimately stagnant. Rather than just laying all the cards down and letting them get oggled though, the duo really constructs some fine and careful stuff. Steve Fors and Chris Miller really dabble on the edges of so many mediums with this piece alone, gliding along on a chasm, the darkness below and the sun above, and a hilltop meadow right beside. The whole disc is this good though, as the unit uses cheapo keyboards, synths, guitar (even lap steel), etc to create a sound that draws on hi and low fidelity. The Casio burnout opening "The Awful Rowing Toward God" turns into a total scorcher before charring itself out while "Klonopin" looms along some electric wire ariel currents. "We'll Wield Fire," another scorcher, sits on the crackling drones of cheapo keyboards while ultra crisp stutterings pulse ahead--the mix, recorded as well as it is here, really works to fill out the entire sound, allowing it to avoid the trappings of both aesthetics while pulling on each strength. This one really cooks too, occupying some Indiana Jones trudge ahead, grind your teeth and deal heroism. Following that with "Ondine" makes sense too, as it expands way out in a real lofty, halo fuzz that serves as a nice come down before the closing "A Vision" fades in only to scrape itself down some flood pipe with electric razors as handles. Beautiful, but a hell of a way to go out. Just sharp all around, real top notch stuff, and it looks to have been produced in some real numbers. Killer. And how bout that entangled sheep adorning the cover? memorywavetransmission http://memorywavetransmission.wordpress.com/2009/07/26/the-golden-sores-a-peaceable-kingdom/ From the opening moments of A Peaceable Kingdom’s first track, “Double Gyres,” it’s difficult to pinpoint just what will become of The Golden Sores’ new record. Will the droning organ discard its slow buzzing sustain for a more prominent melody? Will the tones that take the forefront become a lead-in to post-rock leanings? How many layers will they use, and will they combine together in an effervescent climax? As is soon apparent, though, The Golden Sores bring about an uplifting drone concept. Fuzzy, shifting, and pulsing layers push and pull, finally converging together in most songs to create a swell that is often magical and high-spirited. Oftentimes, drone can be a very dark genre, focusing more on the low end of the audial spectrum rather than higher notes. The Golden Sores prove that bleak, grim songs are not the only compositions to entrance a listener, however, as their hypnotic brand of peaceful (as the title suggests) and exultant drone is so effective in inducing trance-like qualities in the listener that it serves less as ambience and more as a sense of enlightenment. Most of the songs on this disc tend towards a simple setup – start with a slow-moving rhythm, preferably one with sustained chords, snake in a more melodic and generally louder layer, and gradually move towards a crescendo of shimmery bliss. But while almost every song on the album follows this format, it doesn’t get repetitive simply because of how varied each song becomes. There’s something to be said about Steve Fors’ and Chris Miller’s virtuosity with their keyboards and their push-pull duality. When the layers are apart, they are constantly thriving around and through each other, where the listener loses no focus on either part. When they are together, it feels rightfully so: an inevitable convergence of two patterns that creates a stronger whole. One may be thinking that The Golden Sores’ more upbeat, optimistic sound would lose their interest; part of the draw of some noise and drone is its confrontational demeanor. A Peaceable Kingdom may be peaceful as a whole, but a brooding tone encapsulates parts of the lengthy songs. “The Awful Rowing Toward God” starts out menacing with low bass-y notes, only to escalate into a more joyous eruption. “We’ll Wield Fire” begins with ominous buzzing, only to slowly work in a lulling organ. And most importantly, not all of the songs collide with each other into an ecstatic climax. “Klonopin” is content to hum away in aural bliss, acknowledging the fact that it needs no flashy conclusion. For those who like their music a tad harsher, The Golden Sores deliver as well. The mix for some of the songs’ crescendos can get very loud, a suitable dynamic for the album’s more triumphant heralds. There’s a lot to like and pick out here over repeated listens, mainly because some of the more subtle layers can hide their natural elegance on first listens.s A Peaceable Kingdom delivers its title with a grace and finesse that emphasizes the lamb that graces the album cover. Even the simple picture exudes the album’s main feature – a shimmering mass of pleasant drone that leads one to believe there’s a bright future ahead of the two artists, one that hopefully includes more of their brand of fresh, epiphanic sound to stand out in the dark wash of bleak drone. Foxy Digitalis P. Somniferum http://www.digitalisindustries.com/foxyd/reviews.php?which=4693 Labeled as drone, The Golden Sores really do not move me that way. Nor do they count as “experimental” as some would describe them in a carelessly offhand way. To these ears, I hear a beautifully lush, forever in flux crimson gush of monolithic sound and disintegrating bone. Some might call that drone, but these days, that descriptor is forever hammered into a blood-trodden path too often trod. Instead, what I hear here are some wonderfully throbbing explorations of both non-percussive rhythm and a rich appreciation of timbre and distortion via strings and keys. Rather than the above-mentioned drone, this insanely gorgeous psych is driven by an array of instrumentation both broken and new, and the results are often fearful, beatific and dazzling. To wit, the second track of the CD, “The Awful Rowing Toward God,” is a clear example that beauty results from anguish, and that seems to be an aesthetic constant throughout “A Peaceable Kingdom.” The entire recording maintains that bitter apex, dirty yet covered with a deceptively pearlescent varnish. Every track imparts both sublimity and dirt, divinity and disease—and that’s a wonderful duality. At first listen, I thought that this was merely another electric wannabe, but upon further attention, the 8-mile gaze rendered itself into an awful clarity of sincere catastrophe and completion. Where the Sores will soar next is anyone’s guess, however, I’m assuming their wings are already burned to a tasty crisp. For those who love dense and sunburned acid, then you can’t wrong with “A Peaceable Kingdom." Reviews of Ashdod to Ekron: We reviewed a record by a drone combo called Number None a while back. We didn't know too much about it or them, but what we did know was that the sound those guys produced was totally up our alley. Definitely drone based, but all over the map, wrapping various drones around all sorts of varied sonic elements, somehow creating a more cohesive whole than would seem possible. So now we have the debut from this Chicago duo, called Golden Sores, which just so happens to feature one of the guys from Number None, and in the Golden Sores, the focus is much more defined, and the two craft an incredible collection of heavy buzzing dronemusic. Each track here a sprawling ever expanding black cloud of sound, from grinding low end rumbles, to effulgent sun dappled shimmer, some tracks take the murk of Sunn 0))) but spread it out and blur it into something more soothing and tranquil, others channel the urdrone rituals of Sunroof! through their own dirt-smeared sonic filter. Some of the tracks slip into an almost late period Earth-like gospel Americana, but rendered in shades of grey and in smeared streaks of soft focus shimmer, and still others are swirling effects drenched expanses of outer space exploration. The closing track gets downright nasty, adding a layer of crumbling distortion to a drone that sound like it was assembled from chanted voices, the two elements wrestling against one another until finally finding stasis and allowing a lilting melody to surface amidst the grind and buzz. Totally gorgeous. If you like any of the above mentioned bands, or outfits like Tunnels, Svarte Greiner, Eternal Tapestry, Pussygutt, Half Makeshift, and other minimal cd-r dronelords, the Golden Sores will be your new favorite affliction.--Aquarius Records ___________________________________________________________________________________ Capturing both the spirit of summer and the just-in-time glory of home-recording and CDr technologies, 'Ashdod To Ekron' by The Golden Sores was recorded late last June, mixed in July, and released in August. Unfortunately, capturing the glory of the blogosphere and amateur music criticism, it has sat on my shelf ever since. Nevertheless, the sweltering glint of this Vaseline recording deposits the thick air of a Chicago summer without restricting the sonic excursions to an equally-seasonal relevance; what more, given the medieval Christian imagery of the cover and titles, the lazy escapism of a summer session is well placed, transporting just enough of the moment into a mythical drone epic in five parts. With a chorus of high frequency buzz and hazy guitar leads, "Arphaxad" walks backward to a pre-guitar space, allowing itself to be eaten in a wall of white noise like transport. We emerge on the other side to the two-part "Harlots of Ashkelon" - all tracks are skillfully, seamlessly blended together - a deep quavering bolsters the passing of washes like freight-trains in shape and weight. These interjections, while never breaking the rhythmic currency of the deep-wide drone, grow larger and larger, near-missing a collision of Stars of the Lid alien science and the mechanistic canvases of Machinefabriek. Totaling 25 minutes in length, these two tracks alone could fill a modest disc, as they construct a story from the heavy repression of lent to the sonorous riot of carnival located in the second half of part two: like singing knives, a chorus of sharp organ stabs kick drunkenly between each other, phasing a Riley-like dervish with the steady foundational drone. "Ur" hums an overcast cool in remarkably dynamic organ melody trapped in an icy resonance, the tonal peaks glinting like silver sunlight off the clouded bulk of the drone. Out of this, the sine-wave of "Gorgon Blues" cuts like a jet stream, a busy engine of hi-mid-lo swarms separated into distinct strata of unwavering intensity to the very end. What happened to the historical fiction I don't know, but I like where we ended up. CDr comes in a slim jewel case with thick, richly colored insert. Hand-numbered to 100 copies. Understated, esoteric, and very excellent.--AnimalPsi ___________________________________________________________________________________ Drone is at the core of my heart. I think life is only lived fully when one embraces the drone. Music with more drone is better than music with less. And going on that premise, The Golden Sores is one of the best bands out there. Ashdod To Ekron is an hour long densely layered drone epic that travels to all the right places and consistently takes your breath away. The instruments used are meaningless in this situation. It could be guitar, it could be a board of electronics, it could be coming from a hallucinating monk with visions of angels, or perhaps it’s a field recording of a haunted forest. The point is, it could be anything or everything. The sounds created on Ashdod are entirely unique to The Golden Sores. Drone records are a dime a dozen these days, I know. But The Golden Sores are special, partially because they were able to create this majestic masterpiece in one take. Ashdod To Ekron is a live album (”recorded in the basement”) and the music goes from shimmering tide pools to dank caverns. That, my friends, is a serious accomplishment. The Golden Sores, you get a gold star.--Justin Snow, diskant.net ___________________________________________________________________________________ This ensemble has an "I wish I had thought of that" name: culled from an obscure corner of the Bible, 1 Samuel 6:[various sub paragraphs]. Depending on which version of the Bible you read - (and I prefer the fire and brimstone bombast of the King James), golden sores are translated to emerods, hemorrhoids, tumors etc. These golden gores are part of a ritual offering of appeasement accompanying the Ark of Jehovah and the trials and tribulations of Israel and the Philistines and how the Ark was lost to the Philistines (1 Samuel 4). The album, Ashdod to Ekron. Achingly wonderful drones. Touching the same place as early period Popol Vuh, but bringing a sensibility of their own to bear--The Golden Sores' music moves at a ponderous, considered pace. A passage in a John Le Carre book I have just read gives a flavor of the space this music inhabits: "...the lucid unencompassable majesty of the mountains drew me upward." This music for me is a journey through landscapes assisted by and confounded in turn by capricious divine forces, with the biblical battles as a metaphor lurking in the background. Where redemption is a possibility, but not a certainty, but vengeance and punishment for transgression is always a threat. The symbolism in the name of the ensemble/album is not literally evident in the music, it is implicit in the architecture of the sound. Building, cacophonous, moving. As moving as a Victorian hymn, or a storm under trees. That it makes pictures in my mind is a reason for me to listen to it again and again.--Landschaft]]> Virb 2.0 (@goldensores) en http://virb.com/goldensores/videos/3728939 a 15-minute excerpt of our show.

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