- : info@dual.co.uk
|
|
Dual - Keimar
Sty (CD)
Supremely confident
follow up to the excellent Caste CD. This takes a trip into the darker
realms of ambient electronics, bringing to mind some of Pete Namlooks
early experiments in sound manipulation. At other times you could quite
easily be floating underwater with the beautifully reduced sounds and
textures. Brilliant material.
|
: smallfish
february
2002 |
Dual - Keimar
Sty (CD)
More drone induced
music, this time from UK's Dual. The curiously titled CD ' Keimar Sty'
is the follow up to 2000's 'Caste'. Dual plays ambient music on guitars.
That's it. They bow the instrument, put stuff on the strings and use
other odd methods to get those strings vibrating. It sounds all so relatively
simple, guitar, bow, strings, but Dual produces five lengthy pieces
of weightless space. Pieces evolve slowly, majestically, sometimes with
a dash of rhythm (in the form of a continuos stream of sampled sounds
- not in the form of a rhythm machine). Nothing new under the sun, where
we find Main, Stars Of The Lid or Troum, but these are not the least
to be compared with and Dual certainly add, especially in the side of
rhythms, a thing of their own.
|
: staalplaat
december
2001 |
Dual - Caste
(CD)
An interesting new
project we just discovered, masterminded by the UKs Colin Bradley. Dual
has a minimalist front, with white and only tiny coloured artwork marring
the pristine CD case. But the music is a multi-depth, tapestries of
quiet and interruptions. Deep, sorrowful textures move just as the waterline
is slowly droning and fading string-whispers. The hum of open space
and fading activity you'll never understand. Beneath the surface is
the aquatic thumping of intentional physics, object against object in
an echoing waterspace. Further down are the clicking sounds, quiet and
occasional. The gurgles, there once or twice but not in a cycle, never
repeated. Then over it all are the tracks of pure, high-minded drones
and power, textural ambient spawned from the same wind-tunnels as Maeror
Tri. Great stuff.
|
:
manifold december 2001 |
Dual - Caste
(CD)
Spinning crackling
noise compostions from this English duo... relatively unknown but who
cares when you've been compared to Thomas Koner et-al... not to be missed
!!!
|
:
smallfish june
2001 |
- Dual - Caste
(CD)
-
- Add Dual to the
list of ambient guitar explorationists... and put the name high upon
that list, particularly if you're into a dark vision of what six-string
transmutations should be. Colin Bradley (with some help from Julian
Coope) belongs to a caste of sonic-creators that forge irresistibly
bleak soundworlds. Warmly buzzing guitar-spawned fluids swirl around
blicks, spiked with gritty occurrences and semi-rhythmic pulsation's,
some of which growl like a distantly raging locomotive. Those enigmatic
atmospheres flow into the quieter regions of chpst:k (4:30);
an isolationist's dream, these faint waves of feedback billow and
sometimes squawl obliquely across a panoramic-though-sparsely-populated
soundscene of indefinable activities. Those hushed sonic molecules
become spydel (10:39), a mutedly thrumming zone which abruptly
cuts off, leaving only the most minute traces. Eventually a cyclic
pattern emerges, like a tiny metallic jackhammer, which is swept into
the ringing gasclouds of wirm, which rises, falls, expands
and contracts, combining roughness and smoothness like a sand-carrying
wind. Seemingly alive with organic lifeforms of alien nature, crain
develops a bit of bass and beat to propel its amorphous evolution.
Screeching gleams fade into isochemic, though this closing
piece shifts to a flat expanse of foggy resonance, which dissolves,
slowly into nothingness. The ambient soundscapes of Dual hover in
a slightly rough neverworld awash in the grey movements of vast guitarnoisedrones
and decorated with other unexpectations. I found the desolate realms
of caste to be a most enjoyable visitation... An 8.7 for unguitarlike
abstractions of sombre beauty.
-
|
:
AmbiEntrance june 2001 |
Dual - Caste
(CD)
- Debut album,
following a couple of singles, respectively, Dirter Promotions and
Germany's Drone Records, collecting six works recorded &
primed during the past few years when Dual were
- actually a duo
rather than a chiefly solo enterprise helmed by Colin Bradley. Here,
kaleidoscopic digital plates slip 'n' slide against fractal crackles
& scratches, making for the kinda full bodied adventure in weightlessness
so many others promise but never actually realise. Considering all
the sounds are generated by guitar(s) alone as well, Caste is a bona-fide
accomplishment for the entire goddam medium.
|
: fourth dimension april 2001 |
- Dual - Caste
(CD)
Dual is Colin Bradley
and Julian Coope. The music they create is one of droning guitarscapes
with a percussive edge. But that is only the tip of the sonic iceberg,
as much invention is filtered throughout this astonishing disc. "Blicks"
molds gentle drones along steel-wool scrubbed train tracks, before the
shifting, swirling drones make a crackling connection to staggered,
looped percussive textures that sound both mechanical and of a soft,
wooden origin. Feedback twitches during the introductory stages of "Chpst:k,"
sporadic tones ringing vibrantly and calmly simmering, before slinking
through the jungle of drones at night, elastic plops peering through
the sonic foliage; this leads into "Spydel," and an oscillating drone
so thick it stifles; just when it seems it will grow unbearable, the
song cuts off into dead silence…and continues around the bend, amidst
strange metallic ticking and the pulse of a heart, and insects murmuring
underneath. Wild stuff! The sun-bathed landscape of the Arctic shimmers
during "Wirm," slowly melting attrition of self as one fuses with the
glare and the snow and the intermingled combination of both. An icy,
foreboding death awaits, as everything disintegrates into separate particles
of deterioration. This extends to "Crain," the death a genesis of new
existence, a metamorphosis forged in the resilient textures of drone
and distant screech. "Isochemic" vibrates like a cracked window, before
succumbing to the sludgy embrace of the heavy, darkened drones. Dual
is on par with Maeror Tri / Troum, though distinctive enough to captivate
on their own. More than recommended!
|
:
sidelines magazine april 2001 |
- 2nd Gen; Dual; OO [infinity]; Bajina;
- Red Rose Club-London.
-
- A night of drones on Seven Sisters Road, strangely
light on traffic in the aftermath of petrol protests, but still teeming
with North London's variegated Saturday night fun seekers and the
requisite fully made-up goths on the 253 bus. The Red Rose is no stranger
to the extremes of music, and the venue's home as a noted comedy club
is somehow appropriate to the on-stage antics of Bajina. Two geezers
in various stages of hand splatter-painted scruffiness, face paint
and a "Police Line - Do Not Cross" headband (the fashion
item de jour for the less publicly-supported kind of road protesters)
behind a bunch of electronic kipple, making an unholy racket with
all the glee of children set loose to their own anarchic devices.
It's an enjoyable blend of guitar feedback, radio noise, snatches
of charity shop recordings of the likes of Thunderbirds and Wout Steijnhuis'
sonorous Hawaiian guitar, all mashed into a bundle of fun from the
tapes slapped from Walkman to Walkman. Best of all is when the bandana
man sits feet up in a leather-bound formal chair while the deck abuser
does his worst to sundry vinyl, leering into the audience and stabbing
his teeth with a live jack plug in painfully faithful imitation of
a dentist drill. Still, they took it just too far in time terms, but
how exactly does this kind of noise assault end gracefully anyhow?
OO have a similar problem knowing how long to make a set of drones
extracted by E-bow from their acoustic and electric guitar. They sit
at their mixers, making the drones rise from a low hum to an all-enveloping
swarm of electricity around the hall over what seems like an hour
but may have been substantially less. This is one of the appealing
facets of the drone: the distancing of time from the listener as the
subtle shifts in tone and frequency make the transition from one second
to another liquid variables. But the problem with this set is not
of OO's making; it comes instead from the too-good acoustics of the
Red Rose in picking up every last inane comment of certain sections
of the audience, some of whose every last impolite natter ("Has
it started yet?") somehow makes it through the moments of maximum
volume, even in the front rows a few metres from the PA, to mood-deadening
effect. There is less of this problem for Dual, fortunately. The trio
make their beginning on three bowed guitars and a few flight boxes
of effects, accompanied by slithering red and white abstract projections.
Another long piece, but with simple, slow percussion backing which
adds a new dimension to the Dual sound, one which once again is reminiscent
of the shifting drones of Main. The night becomes alive with the rise
and fall of bows on coiled steel, and even with the distractions which
are still there to spoil it all at times, Dual largely break through
to the core of the audience's attention. A mixture of the meditative
and the abstract, the music makes itself felt. Last up are 2nd Gen,
tonight being main man Wajid Yaseen behind a black box or two (even
if one is a yellow Sherman box after all) and accomplice Paul of the
charmingly-named Dachau. Paul looks like a demented, fresh-faced Sixth
Former in his untucked grey shirt and tie, and his performance is
in suitably Punkish style. While Yaseen wrenches a series of squalls
and spaceless distortion from the electronic kit, Mr Dachau sticks
a mike between his teeth and spends much of the set screeching his
accompaniment to Wajid's occasional microphone shouts. Then the blasted
beats kick in, and a mashed-up bash of recycled metallic riffs and
loops for what passes for the evening's closest resemblance to individually
identifiable tracks. 2nd Gen's set is short but noisy, and wraps everything
up before the DJs and excellent cut-up films finish off the night
in a welter of neglected sounds from Coil, Loop and beyond. What is
refreshing about this night was the concentration of some wilfully-extended
drone music and avant-stupid sonic exploration under one trembling
roof; if only some of the punters would show more respect.
-
|
: freq magazine
september 2000 |
- Dual - Caste (CD)
-
- Caste collects together five years' worth of guitar-based
noise sculpture from Colin Bradley and Julian Coope, both once involved
of the intriguingly angular Spleen. Their work as Dual is densely
textured, layering spluttering gushes of string-wrenched gasps into
feedback drones the like of which haven't been properly explored in
this guise since Main went further into the digital realms of CDR
mixing and live laptop processing. That Isolationist sense of marking
the outer reaches of possibility for extracting noise from the guitar
is here fully intact, with the pervading sense of dread cold and existential
wonder which the genre invoked inherent to the core Caste's six tracks
- arranged into one long piece over the CD to suit the miasmic mood.
The organic feel to the sounds is amplified by the progressive dissolution
of a note into a warm drone, or a sub-bass undertow melted beneath
a frisson of volume-controlled feedback - with percussive interjections
making a large space for the whole to reverberate, reaching cruise-speed
during the peaking pulsebeat of "Crain". When a plucked
string or brushed metallic strike crops up, its intentions can only
be ominous, though a headlong dive into the mix reveals depths of
Modernist machinations at the music's heart. Caste requires attention
for a proper experience of its overtones and harmonics to get the
most from the rise and collapse of each segment of granularity; the
darkroom ambience could easily be terrifying, in the way that natural
phenomena can be, as levels are increased and polyrhythms (percussive
or textural) interlocked to panic-button stages of near-oppressive
intensity. Sometimes it even becomes hard to breathe. With titles
to match the abstraction or laterally referred implications of their
music - "Chpst:k", "Wirm", "Blicks"
- each piece edges from the dust of its predecessor, and more conventionally
descriptive names would perhaps lessened the impact of the whole.
"Isochemic" is the most evocative of certain brain-states,
closing the album in a drifting iceberg rumble and the hum of electric's
left out to weather in acoustic residue. Not one for the impatient
listener, Caste makes for some challenging listening, and deserves
playing at the loudest volumes for the fullest stretching of any nearby
double-glazing too.
|
: freq magazine
september 2000 |
- Dual - Caste (CD)
-
- This is a very interesting disc that I received from
the English guitar synthesis project, Dual. Dual is the collaboration
between Colin Bradley and Julian Coope. Caste is a captivating recording
that's strikingly reminiscent of John Cage's Imaginary Landscapes
and early electronic sound artist Pierre Schaeffer's 1948 composition
Etude aux Chemins de fer. Dual's exciting blend of Musique Concrete
and production laden guitar synthesis takes the listener on a round-trip
through dark sonorous caverns and ubiquitous sonic dreamscapes. A
fantastic recording, with solid production, great sound quality, and
a heaping helping of imagination, Caste takes the listener places
rarely visited, even in the finest experimental/ avant-garde music.
Great record you guys, keep up the stellar work! The Organization
of Sound will be looking for future releases.
-
|
: the organisation
of sound august 2000 |
- Dual - Caste (CD)
-
- Dual have been around for some time now, but so far
they released only some limited 7"s and cassettes. "Caste"
is also limited, but 500 copies may reach a few more people then 100
7" copies. Dual-Colin Bradley and Julian Coope-play both guitar
in the usual isolationist vein...that sounds more negative then it
is meant. Over a period of 5 years, they worked on six ambient guitarscapes,
but Dual use a much more rhythmic approach. Of course there is the
violin bow on the snares, but underneath small, repeated ants life
and once they come out, it's a crowded house. Since the ambience inhabited
by Dual is much more raw and unpolished (resembling more an empty
factory building then a clean room in your house), it reminded me
of Maeror Tri, who bared the same roughness, paired with ambience
and dark spaces. When Dual gets a bit more bumpy I was thinking of
zoviet*france, the old loop stuff. In effect Dual combines two of
my favourite bands and still have something unique of their own. Their
experimentation never goes out of control or over the top. They keep
their pieces within reasonable length and there is lots of variety
to be noted. Hopefully Dual will be around a little bit more.
-
|
: staalplaat july 2000
|
- Dual Klanik/ 4tH (7" Single)
-
- When guitar layers are presented as treated drones
I could not be happier, with Dual making me quite ecstatic! 'Klanik'
contains sounds of both low and mid ranged frequency sitting alongside
slow percussive beats, creating atmospheres that surge off on multiple
tangents. The texture and volume remove this from simple derivative
drones, likewise when infused with sparse melodious sounds creates
an engaging slow morphing song. '4tH' embodies a sparser experimental
guise with solid crumbling and fractured textures, deep feedback,
sporadic clatter etc., all underpinned by elements of drawn out guitar
drones. The level of volume and intensity of feedback again ensures
that the track transcends any simplistic drone categorisation. There
could be a broad compassion to Contrastate indicating the sheer brilliance
of this, definitely worthwhile.
|
: spectrum magazine
july 2000 |
- Dual-Caste
(CD)
-
- Sparse, hovering, electronic tinkering ranging from
the cyclic dissonance of Oval to eerie washes, punctuated by accelerating
rhythms.
|
: aquarius records
july 2000 |
- Dual-Klanik/4tH (7" single)
-
- Dual hail from Doncaster, now based in London, England
and have so far released two cassettes and a 7" on Dirter Promotions.
Their music is a mixture of mighty guitar-drones with massive sub
bass undertones & slight rhythmic structures that evoke feelings
of total transcendence and grandeur.
On side A (Klanik) there seem to be cascades of tuneful layered guitars
that speak a special language of their own, on side B (4tH) more concrete
elements (rumbling and squealing) and unpleasant feedback arising,
added by strange backwards sounds creating a rather eerie and challenging
feel to it. This is highly demanding incremental experimental guitar-music
with a very individual style!
-
|
: drone records
september 1999 |
- Dual-Drimon/Coil (7" single)
-
- Debut release (beyond a couple of cassettes and compilation
appearances), combining tones, tempered textures, pulses and a late
night/early morning comedown aura. Alongside contemporaries Stars
of the Lid, Main & Thomas Köner, Dual's world of processed
haze inhabits those fringes where the sinister bubbles beneath the
iridescence.
|
: fourth dimension
december 1998 |
- Dual-Drimon/Coil 7" single
-
- Dual continue to sculpt their ethereal, post industrial
landscapes with near religious vigour. Simple motifs drifting around,
melodic languor and a metronomic pulse all characterise their effective
sound, occasionally punctuated by harsh atmospherics and bursts of
brutal noise. 'Drimon' floats on a bed of subtle eastern flavoured
percussion and electrostatic wisps of noise. 'Coil' works on a darker
premise, regimented feedback and monotone bass creating a deliciously
claustrophobic atmosphere. Understated and uncompromising, a quite
wonderful release...
|
: spoil magazine
april 1998 |
- Dual-Drylite (cassette)
-
- A wonderful immersion in processed guitar mulch,
subtle patterns of sound and shimmering beauty. The format doesn't
do it justice, really, but while we await the arrival of something
more formidable, I guess it will have to do.
-
|
: fourth dimension
february 1997 |
- Dual-Drylite (cassette)
-
- What exists, I guess, as a demo to demonstrate a
new rather talented duo from Sheffield, though veterans of the UK
noise scene being previous members of Spleen and Splintered. Dual
are basically a darkly-rich ambient unit, utilising guitars and effects
to create nice tapestries over feedback layers and loops, not unlike
KK Null's recent outings, or the US-side Stars of the Lid. There's
been some live work recently, which, if the cassette is anything to
go by, probably equals a decent night out.
|
: immerse
magazine january 1997
|
Dual
Dual are a delightful enigma, built around the guitars
of ex-Spleen members Colin Bradley and Julian Coope. The music they
make is simple, subtle and special. Continuing the tradition of prime
experimentalists like KK Null, it is highly textural and organic yet
contains rigidly defined and desolate atmospherics.
Primarily a studio band, Dual are constantly expanding their sonic horizons,
their effective use of space and ambient dynamics, align them as much
with avant garde composers like John Cage, Steve Reich and La Monte
Young as the post rock contingent.
Working through the World Feedback label, Dual have already produced
two excellent album length cassettes 'Influx' and 'Drylite' which form
part of a special trilogy of releases to be completed by the end of
the year.
'Influx' contains 40 minutes of excellent guitar based minimalism. From
the opening drone discordance's of 'Further Closer', Dual's musical
ethic is clearly stated. 'Shooting Glass' exists in a more disturbing
universe, a dark collage of sustained guitar sliding over you in modulated
pulses of sound.
'Rime' adds a more percussive element to the music, while the epic sprawl
of the title track is unsettling but richly evocative and rewarding.
'Drylite' expands further on Dual's unique sound. 'Pyrrhic' has a starkly
beautiful melody, that subtly weaves it's way around and through the
washes of feedback. 'Hex.B' is pure experimentation in texture, merging
into more delicate layers of noise. Radial (Balance) is intense and
forbidding, a deep sub-aqua journey to the end of the bottomless ocean.
'Time (Polar)' has a heavy, subterranean rhythmic quality, dissected
by razor sharp, slivers of guitar and underpinned by mournful atmospherics.
'Neopia' is a short but effective exercise in desolate tonal repetition,
while 'Hyaline' evokes the idea of real industrial music, the listless
hum of generators, the constant automated pulsation, and electric crackle...
the closing 'Eyedog (Sular)' accentuates gradually intensified dynamics
to create an opulently menacing finale...
Both releases are highly recommended, if you are a bit of an isolationist
on the side and appreciate bands like Main, Techno Animal and Labradford
you'll find a lot to enjoy in Dual...
Also available from Dual is the extremely limited edition Drimon/Coil
7" single on the respected Dirter Promotions label and the Network
Volume II compilation which includes an exclusive Dual track 'Myopia'
alongside contributions from other experimental acts such as 7Hz, Yasuhiro
Ohtanu and Transient v Resident.
|
: spoil magazine
october 1996 |
- Dual-Influx (cassette)
-
- Debut cassette EP, featuring
four pieces of guitar generated soundscaping from Colin Bradley (ex-Spleen
& Splintered collaborator) and Julian Coope (ex-Spleen). Treated
drones, shifting textural minimalism and abstract sounds that are
allowed to develop natural rhythms and sequential enharmonic structures.
Released on their Sheffield based World Feedback label.
-
|
: fourth dimension may 1996
|
- Dual
-
- Think of La Monte Young, think of early Velvet Underground
experiments, think of Tony Conrad's infixity, think of Glenn Branca's
symphonic sonicity, think of Thomas Köner and his multi-timbral
acoustic, treated gong recordings and you might be on the way to understanding
just where Dual are at. Their latest vinyl offering 'Drimon' characterises
these qualities in an idiosyncratic way that is Dual's make-up, even
furtherdown the line of the contradistinctive field that is left of
centre.
Dual bring together a variety of tonal textures and a minimal percussive
'sound' that neither soothes nor screams or tears at your inner ears
with distorted guitar resonance. The guitar is unrecognisable and
virtually synthetic in creating an uneven corpus of organised, punctuated
noise, manifesting the mantras of electronic spitting utterances into
song-like structures.
Dual, predominantly studio based, utilising guitars, signal processing
and analogue tape facilities, occasionally extend and expand around
the nucleus of Julian Coope and Colin Bradley. Both prominent in the
experimental/noise ensemble Spleen, the latter also being a live collaborator
with Sheffield based noise pulse sculptors 7Hz, and a connoisseur
of dense but subtle guitar treatments and shifting fields of six-string
activity that has augmented the layered aural attack of Splintered.
Colin suggests that although Dual may go into the recording studio
to work in an empirical way, generally ideas for projects take shape
over long periods of time. "We don't always set off down a formalised
path with a goal in mind. But when listening back to the piece in
different environments, a certain fervour is achieved, it seems like
we are constantly toying with a multitude of ideas, and with numerous
projects in the pipeline, we still complete the 'jigsaw' and have
many pieces left over". Upon asking Dual if they see a future
in the live environment as a further adventure into sound exploration,
Julian comments that "we have always wanted to and often think
about playing live but the idea of performing in 'rock' venues and
pubs with people talking, shouting and generally paying zero attention,
has always been our main objection.
|
: noisegate
magazine february 1996 |
: info@dual.co.uk |
|