January 5th, 2012
-Ever hear of Nameless Coyote? You probably haven't. They're a pretty new project from parts unknown, but if you're like me and you diligently follow the underbelly of the whole "Blackgaze" thing you'd more than likely heard some rumbling about Nameless Coyote and their FANTASTIC debut EP from December titled "Devoured by the swirling night". I was impressed enough with Nameless Coyote's brand of melodic and trippy black metal/shoegaze that I asked them to join our hive and so they did. More info to follow, in the meantime go to their Bandcamp and consider sending 'em a few $$$ for a download of the fabulous "Devoured by the swirling night". You won't be disappointed!
-Happy New Year everyone!
December 24st, 2011
-Merry Christmas!
-Here's a funny video sent to us from Abbas of Necktarium. The video, a brief explanation and translations are below. ;-p
"these are my friends..we were off at the mountainous north areas.. people there are super nice and simple.
friend: where can i find some necktarium around here?
guy: what ? sir?
friend: necktarium!!
guy: what's that ?
friend: a medical store??maybe?
guy: oh, medical store!! why didn't you say so! I'm not very educated sir! go straight and take a left..
friend: is necktarium available there??
guy: yes, probably!! lots of them."
November 1st, 2011
KOROUVA NEWS!!!
I finally received the .wavs to all three of these wonderful albums. :-)
"Shipwrecks & Russian Roulette"
"Sleepwalker"
"Unbearable Romance"
In the coming days I will sit down and prepare everything to go to press. :-)
Here's what we decided to do:
The LPs will be cut in to red translucent wax, most likely 180 gram, tucked in to 24 pt. ultra heavy retro grade jackets with the original artwork and limited to 100 copies each. We haven't figured out what we're going to do for inserts yet but we dearly want to sink our teeth in to each record and make them all something really pleasing for the Korouva fans. We feel you deserve it!
Furthermore, all three records will be sent to press at once. If I have everything sent to press this first week of November I anticipate I will receive the finished LPs by January.
More info is forthcoming. You can visit the Korouva Facebook page for constant updates: Little Korouva Milk Bar
October 5th, 2011
Aquarius just added their complete Khrysanthoney / Starlight Temple Society / Loveswirls page so everything related to those three labels can now be found easily by clicking here: Khrysanthoney order page A lot of stuff is sold out, a lot of stuff will be added soon! :-)
September 21st, 2011
The first two releases by Khrysanthoney sister label "Loveswirls" are available now! Check 'em out. :-)
Visit the website by clicking here : LOVESWIRLSSeptember 11th, 2011
Check out this lovely video Abbas made for his Necktarium song "Tangelina".
"Tangelina" was recorded shortly after "Dreamblur" so it's not exactly new, but plans are being made to re-record it for a future album. Enjoy.
September 1st, 2011
Sleepwalker featuring Mike from Fell Voices has agreed to work with us on some future projects! The first will be a re-release of Sleepwalker's two glorious demos on compact disc, followed by a few EPs and hopefully the debut album. The details are a bit sketchy at the moment but as always with time things will ripen and then we'll have something more substantial to post about. For now you can visit the Fell Voices blog which has a little info about Sleepwalker, but not much : Official Site
August 30th, 2011
The regular edition of "Luxury Absolute" is out now on 10" vinyl! 100 copies dropped in black silk screened envelopes with olive green artwork. Hand numbered. Comes with a 10"x10" heavy cardstock insert.
Distributed exclusively by Aquarius Records (search "Clair Cassis").
July 16th, 2011
-San Francisco's legendary Aquarius Records will be handling all of Khrysanthoney's distribution from this point forward. Expect Khrysanthoney stock to begin filtering in to Aquarius' shop within the next few weeks (the stock will include all past, present and *future releases* [*as they're available]). As some of you know, packaging and sending stuff out is a real pain in the ass; quite frankly I just don't have the time or interest anymore to lock myself away in my room to fill out order after order while I could be doing something that involves a bit of sunlight. But Aquarius has been an operational distributor since 1970 so they're MUCH more well oiled at this than I could ever hope to be. Anyhow we're extremely pleased with this partnership. Aquarius has shown us unconditional support since the start. I honestly cannot think of another record shop with whom I would rather have partnered with!
- We just got our copies of "Luxury Absolute" on wax from the press.
These 10" discs turned out very, very nice! The regular edition (limited to 100 copies with antique green dust sleeve) is tucked with a double sided insert inside a silk screened black envelopes with olive green print, while the test press (limited to 4 copies with white dust sleeve) comes with an insert, a note hand written in gold and a black envelope silk screened with purple ink. Both editions are hand numbered. The regular version will be available from Aquarius records in 10-14 days while the test press can be purchased from here: Store. Only 2 copies of the test have been made available to the public (one went to Josh, the other to yours truly) so if you want one, hurry up and order it. ;-)
June 8th, 2011
-Petrychor's outstanding debut album and the latest Clair Cassis EP are now available! I am very, very happy with the outcome of these releases and feel that you will be too. (pictures below):
-The long delayed "Dextronaut" and "CCII" vinyls have finally arrived at our door step. The wait was worth it - they are simply GORGEOUS! We printed up 250 copies of each (100 coloured, 150 black) and had them tucked in ultra heavy wrap around jackets which are about 6x as thick as your ordinary LP sleeves for maximum quality & presentation! We know you'll be pleased with these gems. European customers will have to purchase them through Doomentia records directly: Doomentia Records, everyone else can order from us. Check out the pictures below:
May 16th, 2011
We just finished a brief interview with Petrychor which has been posted live right here: INTERVIEW. As far as I know this is the very first Tad has ever done. Enjoy!
May 13th, 2011
Check out this fan video made for Petrychor!:
April 5th, 2011
Here's a great new review of "Ghosts, and other things" written by Gavin from A Forest of Stars!:
Sleeping Peonies - Ghosts & Other Things. (9/10 - 93%)
A fantastic little DIY effort here, released by US label Khrysanthoney (a fresh innovative label who seem to engage bands that create dreamy epic atmospheres, which turns out to be a lot of post-rock/shoegaze, punk and pop (yes pop) inspired black metal). However, this is from the mind of a young talent who dwells upon our fair shores (and the British Coast line is of massive importance to the Sleeping Peonies sound)! What do we have here then? Well, it's a very successful continuation of the completely unique sound crafted for the first demo, 'Rose curl, sea swirl' (one of my favourite releases of 2010 (what a year it was) ). The music itself is immensely descriptive and colourful... I'll try dissect it, and what it means to me based on what I know about this projects visionary creator -
First of all, Thick harmonic, rumbling, yearning saw-tooth guitar drones with a distant and nautical sound, almost like brass horns, fill and fog the majority of the frequential space and help begin to create the picture of a seaside town in its off season. This voice feels to me to be the body for the majority of these complex compositions. At times it offers a basso continuo-like drone, but others it offers a very wide melodic wall which paints something 'schematically vast' in the listeners mind, to me it's almost certainly the expanse of the sea...
Meanwhile tremolo picked, delay-saturated guitar melodies take the lead voice. This is completely epic! Prepare yourself for some hair raising-clenched teeth-eyes watering moments. The melodies themselves are not the rising predictable aeolian mode melodies of most generic post-rock. There's a prevalence of a real sense for notes that relate to each other in an almost abstract attempt to communicate something more. To me, this instrument is painting the skies, the clouds, the weather and the birds. All the little details I suppose.
The Bass here is slick, just like on the Demo. It's a very poppy 80's goth bass sound and it's immensely charming! This plays a big part in the nostalgic, 'waking from a dream sensation' people have all related to this band. The drums are programmed, but treat with so many effects that they sit really comfortably in the mix without taking away from the organic sound. The beats and rhythms feel tidal, tumbling up from little fills on the cymbals into blastbeats and then tumbling back down into nothing. It's not just a unique programmed-drum sound, It's also apparent the beats themselves are quite atypical and a signature part of why Sleeping Peonies are an entity of its very own.
The vocals are shouted/screamed and are performed with passion, giving this EP the raw, emotional energy black metal needs to become successful. Some describe these vocals as screamo... something I'm not too familiar with and probably wouldn't listen to if isolated away from the black metal element, but the stylistic marriage works really well for me. The vocals place the composer behind Sleeping Peonies as a character in the setting which is painted by the rest of the instruments. Spoken word sections are delivered by a female voice, adding a certain mystique and narrative to the discourse of the journey.
Other various instruments come into play such as a piano sound with very short accents put on the notes, but treated with a lot of reverb and delay. This is the most melodic and 'pop' part of the band and perhaps the most attractive element to first time listeners, as it's avant-garde and dreamy melody lines which contain no dissonance create the huge contrast when the waves of drums and guitars come crashing back in. Sigur Ros would be a fair comparison. No really.
There's also a big slab of pad sounds filling out the chords, which works really well in the sense that the previously mentioned guitar has such a thick and brutal sound, it helps discern the voicing of the chords and increases the already vast detail to the ensemble of sounds.
The production is completely suitable for the job at hand, and mainly I should mention the use of DELAY! Yes, this record is full of it. Somewhere in all the swirling rhythmical milliseconds of decaying sounds, little accidental esoteric worlds are made which in the most atmospheric and powerful sections, seem to dissolve and metamorphosize into other strange and beautiful galaxies. This is a more emotive and abstract part of the atmosphere, although in one sense it's visual as it creates an accoustic, like the sounds are bouncing off a cliff face, or within a cave, or a hollow abandoned lighthouse - but mainly it's just creating a sort of spontaneous, aleatoric event which induces a subconscious wonderment.
I've been excited about this release for a while and it exceeded expectations. There's so much to get your head around when experiencing this music and it's rewarding to let your focus shift through the different voices in the composition, as well as just zoning out to let this creation wash over you! Looking forward to seeing this perfomed live, hopefully in the not too distant future.
Gavin - A Forest Of Stars
More reviews can be read here: "Ghosts...." reviews
March 25th, 2011
Check out this fan video of "Wicklewood Haze" by Sleeping Peonies!
March 19th, 2011
-To our Japanese friends: our thoughts & well wishes are with you at this time of crisis. Little do we take such matters seriously until they actually happen, and then, we discover to our horror how delicate creatures we truly are. But be as it may, we also have the strength to overcome the greatest of adversity, and it is such resolve which makes us great.
-Good news! We received the new packaging today (see below and check honey005 for details) and will be sending out orders promptly. Once again, thanks to everbody who ordered the new Sleeping Peonies EP and supported the band and the label directly. And thanks for having faith in us despite this troubling delay.
March 4th, 2011
We recently discovered that nearly every unit of honey005 has been damaged/scratched beyond repair. Instead of sending you guys something that is unsatisfactory we've decided to reprint new inserts for a jewel case edition of this EP, which will take about 7-10 business days before we have them in our hands. We are very truly sorry about this. We are working quickly now to remedy this issue and get your packages out as quickly as we can. In the meantime there will be a delay, so hold tight.
February 28th, 2011
-Finally after some awful delays we're happy to tell you all the good news of the arrival of Sleeping Peonies'second EP "Ghosts, and other things". "Ghosts...." is the follow up to Peonies' critically acclaimed first demo "Rose curl, Sea swirl" and by all accounts takes everything that made "Rose curl...." so special and makes it even more delicious. There's less black metal this time around as Nic and crew take a dive into the shoegaze end of shoegazed black metal to explore the lush under belly of 80's styled underground pop and dreampunk music. We decided to make this very special recording limited to a mere 150 copies housed in high quality digipacks complete with a 16 page booklet filled with lyrics. 30 "Ambrosia" editions will come inside a 6"x6" black envelope with a hand written sheet of lyrics from Nic all bound up by lace. To order this jewel you'll need to visit our store by clicking on "Treats".
-Clair Cassis recently surprised everyone with this neat little EP here: Luxury Absolute. Khrysanthoney is in talks with CC about putting the new tracks on a tangible format. Keep checking back here to see what happens.
February 14th, 2011
Korouva's "Unbearable Romance" sees its digital version available on this Valentine's Day. CLICK HERE to order and download the album and support the artists!
February 3rd, 2011
Khrysanthoney is working with Portland's urban haunts Korouva to release their upcoming album "Unbearable Romance" on CD and LP, followed later by reissues of "Shipwrecks & Russian Roulette" and "Sleepwalker".
These packages will be very limited, exquisite and full of neat surprises.
More info coming soon.
January 14th, 2011
-"Harpsichords from the Honey Aethyr" is a forthcoming musical-art project from Khrysanthoney. The idea is to collect original tunes from our artists to present to you on limited edition wax disc housed in some kind of lovely hand designed packaging. We'll provide you with more details when that time comes.
-Lately I've been toying around with the idea of printing books!
These books would be very limited in number - around 30-50 copies of each will be printed. They'll feature a variety of subject matter, art, poetry and various thoughts and reflections from people associated with Khrysanthoney.
I want these books to be pleasant to the eyes and pleasant to the touch. I plan on printing them in hardback in the dimensions of your common coffee table art book.
More info and more ideas will be shared with you soon.
January 1st, 2011
New review of the Necktarium demo take from Aquarius records posted below. Thanks to Andee for his support!
Review posted by Aquarius records:
"From the same label that brought us the most recent Clair Cassis ep, and the Velvet Cacoon Dextronaut reissue, comes this, the gorgeous hazy, shoegazey depressive black drone pop debut from Pakistani one man band Necktarium, whose sound is just barely black metal, sure, there's plenty of buzz, and some hellish vokills, but those elements are buried in billowy layers of gauzey fuzz, and washed out shimmer, woozy melancholy melodies, and tinkling pianos, all cloaked in blurry Burzumic thrum, the tempos lazy and laid back and a little waltzy, the sound lush and warm and rife with clean spidery guitars, whirling chordal swells and lovely field recordings. Burbling brooks and bird calls drift beneath a haze of translucent glimmer, soon buried beneath an avalanche of blasting blackness, but that blackness is burnished and glows with a strange warmth, wrapped in tendrils of swoonsome melody, everything indistinct and otherworldly, even at its fiercest, Dreamblur manages to be both, dreamy and blurry, like an even more washed out and druggy Velvet Cacoon, Necktarium paints gorgeous landscapes of abstract sonic drift, black metal rendered in shades of blues and greys, moon lit and obscured by flickering shadows, the sound shifting from murky muddy churn, to hushed chiming ambience, from melancholy lullaby to creeping, lumbering sorrowful blackdoomdrift, from gorgeous crystalline atmospheric minimalism, to lo-fi in-the-red blackblur bliss.
Totally fantastic, and absolutely recommended for anyone into dreamy depressive blackness, washed out shoegazey buzz and dreamy droney blurred and bleary blissiness, and tragically LIMITED TO ONLY 50 COPIES!!!!!"
December 28th, 2010
Check out this video review of "Rose curl, Sea swirl". We approve!:
December 26th, 2010
-Merry day after Christmas. Sleeping Peonies has a new tumblr page if you didn't know that already: tumblr
-The release of Peonies' new EP "Ghosts and other things" is going a bit more slow than anticipated. The printer is closed until the first week of January so until then we're doing the final touches on the art and making sure everything is ready before they open.
December 18th, 2010
Necktarium's debut demo "Dreamblur" is finally available from Khrysanthoney. This first offering from West Asia's young and talented underground band is a dream filled 20 minutes of raw and sugary shoegazed black metal that evokes a feeling similar to Velvet Cacoon's masterpieces "Genevieve" and "P aa opal poere pr. 33". "Dreamblur" was pressed in 50 CDrs only so if you want a copy hurry on over to our store front.
November 30th, 2010
Velvet Cacoon "Dextronaut" CD reissue and Clair Cassis "EP" CD are out now! Visit the new Khrysanthoney store for details on how to order these two discs. I'm really happy to finally have "Dextronaut" in its original form on a physical format. This 2010 reissue comes complete with the original recording from 2001 including two tracks that were left off of the first reissue. This edition is uncut and unmastered!
November 28th, 2010
-The last copies of Sleeping Peonies' "Rose curl..." CD seem to be in stock here: Sounds For Enema. They have few left so order from them now before you lose your chance.
-Here's the first interview done with Necktarium: CLICK HERE to read.
November 25th, 2010
The front page has a new look! Thanks to J.M.A. of Bird From The Abyss for creating the wonderful flash animation.
November 19th, 2010
We're about ready to do a small scale release for a new band from Western Asia called Necktarium. Their debut demo "Dreamblur" will be out through Khrysanthoney in the next couple of weeks. More info coming soon.
October 29th, 2010
We have a new "Downloads" section which will contain .zip files of our release complete with images, album info and the highest quality mp3s. These .zips are free to grab and spread as you like. For now you can check out Sleeping Peonies' first demo by clicking here: Sleeping Peonies download. Unlike the downloads from most blogs this contains the full 7 songs (some files only contain 5) as featured on the original disc. Enjoy.
September 26th, 2010
A new Sleeping Peonies EP is being finished and will be released by Khrysanthoney this November. 6 songs have been recorded for it, which are the following:
1) In rain we disappear
2) Autumnbloom and lavender
3) Wicklewood haze
4) Black lanterns
5) Lisps and candyfloss wisps
6) Anomie
According to Nic, the new EP will be more shoegazy and spacious as he's added a few more tricks to the production process. Where ever Nic takes this we can only guess that it will be another beautifully crafted gem like was "Rose curl....".
For now you can hear a rough version of "Candyfloss" by clicking HERE.
September 24th, 2010
The Velvet Cacoon album and Clair Cassis EP are going out to press in the next few days. Here's a few pics of the cover art.:
Thanks to D.Inoxia of Void of Reveries for helping with the art design and layout!
September 3rd, 2010
-Khrysanthoney will soon release Velvet Cacoon's legendary debut "Dextronaut" and the very last Clair Cassis ep on both CD and LP format. For those of you who don't already know Clair Cassis arose from the ashes of Velvet Cacoon and perform music in a similar way though it's more raw and "poppy". Clair Cassis has also broken up as we reported elsewhere, so this EP will be the band's farewell. More info coming soon.
-Check out this brand new review of "Rose curl, Sea swirl". The band and myself want to extend our gratitude to everyone who has give us support!
SOURCE
What is it about 2010 that seems to invite the releasing of so many beautiful albums? First we get Alcest and Les Discrets, then Year of No Light, and now Sleeping Peonies. Sleeping Peonies is a UK band that is part of the shoegaze/black metal trend that Alcest pretty much kicked off. It’s been interesting watching this trend grow, with the die-hard black metal purists vehemently rejecting it, while pretty much everyone else either embraces it or at least tolerates it. It raises a question in my mind of whether genre purity is a bad thing. Purity within a genre has its place, as it is the pure bands that provide a genre with a solid foundation and give it its basic identity. But there comes a point where strict adherence to the requirements of purity hurt the genre, and cause stagnation. Without change, a genre will eventually wither and die. The knee-jerk reaction of many purists to the changes taking place within black metal strikes me as profoundly stupid. Doubly so as much of this reaction seems to be based on a perceived violation of a non-existent philosophy that is often projected onto bands more often than not.
Looking back at what I’ve written so far, this seems more like a Wintermoon Wednesday post than a review, so I should probably get back on track. So Sleeping Peonies takes a huge chunk of their sound from Alcest’s early work, particularly Le Secret and Tristesse Hivernale. The sound is much rougher than Alcest’s though, and not sickeningly pleasant (I use the word sickeningly even though I enjoy Alcest). This roughness helps give Sleeping Peonies their own character, and it makes them stand out from a lot of the Alcest clones out there.
Really, there’s not much to say about this album other than to compare it to Alcest. Even though this might seem like the sign of a bad album, it’s not. Alcest is a great band, and Sleeping Peonies takes much of that greatness and makes it their own. Rose Curl, Sea Swirl is achingly beautiful, poetic, and romantic. An absolute must-listen and one of the best albums of 2010.
August 21st, 2010
We're happy to report the addition of a great new band called Petrychor to the Khrysanthoney hive. Petrychor releaded their highly acclaimed "Dryad" EP earlier this year and will now record
August 14th, 2010
The Sleeping Peonies demo is completely sold out! Thanks to all those who bought the disc and supported the band and the label directly. Sleeping Peonies is in the process of writing material for a split EP with experimental band "Life in the Dark", as well as a forthcoming EP or album to be released by Khrysanthoney late 2010 or early 2011.
Meanwhile, copies of the demo are available from Crucial Blast, Aquarius records, Sounds for Enema and Monotonestudio records (see "Field" for links).
August 1st, 2010
-Clair Cassis is dead, according to Josh:
"Oh and fwiw, clair cassis is now a dead project too. vc/cc both, just lost interest in creating the music (still love listening to certain groups though). Thanks for listening."
What's left is this free download of their final ep:
1. Aged French Absolute (2:35)
2. Concord Ambergris (2:05)
3. Praline Civet (2:05)
4. Bronzed Ash (1:35)
5. Snowstar Gunpowder (1:30)
6. Coumarin Currant (1:55)
7. Luxury Crypt (3:47)
8. Innocence is the Last Casualty (1:45)
FREE DOWNLOAD
July 31st, 2010
-We finally have a practical mailing list set up so you can receive all the latest Khrysanthoney news and updates. Either click on "Mailing List" or insert your info into the box below to subscribe.
-Monotonstudio Records and Sounds for an Enema will be stocking copies of Sleeping Peonies' CD in Europe! You can visit the websites of these two distros by clicking here: LINKS.
July 15th, 2010
-Thanks to all who ordered the Sleeping Peonies demo "Rose curl, Sea swirl"! :-) Sales have been brisk and now the disc is nearly sold out (if you want one, you better order quick). We'll continue working with this amazing band, so expect to see some new Peonies material by the end of 2010.
June 15th, 2010
-Here's another nicely done review for "Rose curl, Sea swirl":
Rose Curl review, June 14th
June 9th, 2010
-Here's a nice review we found posted on sputnik.com of "Rose curl, Sea swirl"!
Rose Curl review
-New tracks are up on Clair Cassis' official website. These will be featured on the second full length album due out via Khrysanthoney sometime in the coming months.
Clair Cassis official site
May 12th, 2010
The wonderful first demo of Norfolk band Sleeping Peonies has been released by Khrysanthoney!
Our "Treats" tab will shuttle you to the right place if you wish to buy yourself a copy. :-)
April 30th, 2010
-This website is still under construction! Check back for frequent updates.
-The first release from Khrysanthoney will be a demo CD from English black metal/dreampop group Sleeping Peonies. The CD, entitled "Rose curl, Sea swirl", is the bands debut. We expect this tasty treat to be ready for consumption mid-May of 2010. In the meantime you can dip your fingers HERE and HERE for a taste. :-)
