signalsundertests - “Live at Verbal Arts” - Beat Magazine Review

“Even though the Irish duo, consisting of Ricky Graham & John King, is actually still working behind the scenes on their first studio album with great attention to detail, this live recording sounds already stunningly mature and in no way like a test. Highly minimal sound grounds, with a high affinity for backward loops, are cut by glamorous jazz-specific guitars and extend up to eleven minutes as in dream time. The enigmatic cover by Walter Logeman congenially complements the music.”

Thanks to Uwe Lorenz for the translation

Download “Live at Verbal Arts”

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*this release has been revised

Beautiful Beginning (Self Released Single 2009)

1) Beautiful Beginning (2009 Edit)

2) Music Box (DJ Elemental Remix)

Buy “Beautiful Beginning” here

Listen to “Beautiful Beginning” here

All music by Ricky Graham. Music Box (DJ Elemental Remix) By Colin Cathcart. Vocals by Robbie Reid and Louise Sands on “Beautiful Beginning.” Trumpet by Andrew Kitchen on “Beautiful Beginning.” Mastered by Bernard Flanagan. Original Artwork by Ryan Locke. This release is dedicated to the memory of Patrick McGreevy.

The proceeds of this release will be donated to the Motor Neurones Disease Association of Northern Ireland. Due to the few cases of MND every year in the U.K, the research is underfunded and the care services are understaffed. To date, there is no known cure. By giving generously, you are helping researchers and carers for MND throughout the UK. There is more information on the organisation at www.mndani.com. You can make your own donations here! Thanks to everyone who have been involved in these releases over the last few years. Please share this blog entry via email, facebook, twitter, myspace, etc. and help spread awareness of MND.

Thank you,

Ricky

“According to some scientists, aesthetic perception is a combination of memory and neural interference - the mind being simultaneously massaged with images from the past and confronted with confounding new sensations. If this theory were indeed true, Signals under Tests have all the potential of turning into one of the top newcomers in the Sound Art category this year. Their debut album “Live at Verbal Arts” (released as a free download on the Hippocamp Netlabel) presents a style that is at the same time recognisable and refreshing. Performing with utmost delicacy, their freely drifting, warmly grooving soundscapes are both meditative and stimulating, precisely organised and propelled by a surreal kind of dream logic. Fans of the drone genre will love how their minimal Guitar motives coalesce into shimmering impulse-textures, with the band basing their technique on the observation that “the relatively short sustain of plucked notes on an Electric Guitar can present limited scope in multiple speaker array performances”. Friends of Ambient works and Soundscapes should fall head over heels for the sonorous qualities and organic breath of these up to twelve minute long compositions. Jazz aficionados, meanwhile, are bound to applaud as the band infuse their dizzying mood streams with tender licks of bluesy timbres. As if that weren’t enough, this colourful combination is bound together by a conceptual foundation based - at least partially - on Arnold Schoenberg’s “Klangfarbenmelodie” (”Melody of sound-colours”). Even though Signals under Tests were only formed late last year, they already sound as confident and mature as any established act. Which is probably because two experienced players from the Northern Irish scene are hiding behind this moniker: Ricky Graham has built a career as a solo artist and a curator, while John King has excelled as a DJ. The juxtaposition of their distinct ideas and musical visions has yielded the purest of aesthetic propositions: Prepare yourself to be thoroughly moved and pleasantly confounded.” Review by Tobias Fischer Click here to read the Interview at Tokafi.com>>