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Landing (originally May Landing) were formed in late 1997 in Utah by
Aaron Snow (vocals and guitar) and Adrienne Snow (bass and then synth),
who later recruited Dick Baldwin (bass) and Daron Gardner (drums).
They released the EP Centrefuge (Music Fellowship, 1999), containing
Blue, Clouds, Centrefuge, Lower, Hovering .
After relocating to Connecticut, they released first full-length album,
Circuit (Music Fellowship, 2001).
Tracks:
White Walls, Convergence, Held, Across the Sky, Summer Song, Coming Down, A Song.
It was followed by a
split mini-album with Windy And Carl (Music Fellowship, 2001), containing
three Landing compositions: Along,
Where the Leaves No Longer Grow, Passage to Sleep.
Their second full-length album, Oceanless (Strange Attractors, 2001),
which had actually been recorded earlier (still in Utah), contained lengthy,
dreamy, unstructured instrumentals a` la Windy & Carl.
Tracks: How Did You Feel,
Harmonies,
Rial Veed Fiir,
Are You Gone to Vast Arc Hues,
Structure Vs Chaos.
Surface of Eceon is a side-project by Landing with guitarist
Adam Forkner (of Yume Bitsu) and drummer
Phil Jenkins.
Seasons (Ba Da Ding, 2002) is a mature work that summarizes their
influences, running the gamut from San Francisco's acid-rock of the 1960s to
Cocteau Twins' dream-pop to
Windy & Carl's ambient madrigals to
Beadhead's slo-core.
At their best, Landing's compositions are lush, almost symphonic, and as
light as feathers.
First Snow is a delicate hymn, whispered by the male and female voices
from a distant galaxy, enveloped in a richly colored tapestry of tinkling
guitars.
Ruins of the Morning is drenched in spirituality, its humble drones
releasing a solemn "om" to the universe, that the voices caress with ecstatic
prayers.
At times the music can be a little too relaxed and subdued, bordering on
the cataleptic (Encircled), and the attempts to exploit the same
technique for more impressionistic purposes
(Clarke Street) are not fully successful.
However, the instrumental and vocal interplay is always interesting.
Not all songs are floating in the ether. A few glide down to earth. For example,
In A Car has a threatening rhythm and
Blue Sky Away is propelled by the
light boogie and jangling guitars of early Velvet Underground.
Overall, though, the celestial prevails over the mundane.
Landing contributed five tracks to
New Found Land (Music Fellowship, 2002):
Introduction to Clouds,
With You,
Disappear,
Through the Twilight,
Mepeop.
The EP Fade In Fade Out (Strange Attractors, 2002) is both a
more relaxed work in the "ambient/impressionistic" vein and a
deeper psychological study.
On the one hand, there are tracks that merely evoke a sense of calm:
a tinkling lattice of tiny crystalline notes weaves the
ecstatic mantra of Forest Ocean Sound;
ocean washes lull the delicate tapestry of Against the Rain;
the slow-waltzing Whirlwind is wrapped in a filigree of buzzing guitars
and sweetened with female whispers.
On the other hand, there are pieces that dig deeper into the human soul:
Constellations is droning music for the observatorium, replete with night
sounds, that suddenly warms up via guitar arpeggios and harmonica-like wailing;
and the 12-minute Pulse sinks in a lake of free-form sounds that is
sailed by alien noises and subtle interferences, as if strains of neurosis
wrinkled a healing trance.
The method is certainly different, but the result approaches the delicious
trance of Harold Budd's early pieces.
Kinski, Paik and Surface Of Eceyon share
Crickets And Fireflies (Music Fellowship, 2003). Its highlights are
Kinski's 20-minute jam Keep Clear Of Me I Am Maneuvering With Difficulty
and Surface of Eceon's 30-minute droning concerto.
Continuing the process of disintegration, Passages Through (K, 2003)
builds guitarscapes that are even more ethereal and hypnotic, locating Landing
where the most delicate slocore balladry meets the most seductive cosmic music.
Adrienne Snow's mantra is enveloped in guitar shimmers in Close Your Eyes Slowly, and the singing is merely after-the-fact decoration for fragile nebulae such as Breathing and Wings of Light.
Sphere (K, 2004) is a less engaging journey through the ruins of psychedelia.
Brocade (Strange Attractors, 2005) works mainly as a survey of their
own style, a sort of career retrospective made of all new songs.
Most songs reference one or more of their past songs in a way that feels more
than just an acquired habit. It is almost as if they tried to refine the
same kind of songs over and over again. The torrid How to Be Clean and
the austere Music For Three Synthesizers mark the territory, that
is wider than ever.
Gravitational IV (Equation, 2006) collects and revisits material that was
recorded during the same sessions of Sphere and originally discarded.
The sound is much more psychedelic and abstract.
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