Archers By The Sea - Aloha! (Solid Melts, 2011)

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French experimentalist Vincent Caylet has wedged himself into nearly every corner of the cassette underground. From his beginning monikers Archers By The Sea, The Pistil Cosmos, and "V" tactfully exploring mind-expansive drone and ambient work to the electro exploits of Cankun, Caylet has dipped his toes into palettes both psychedelic and dance-worthy. Amidst a wave of Cankun cassette and CD-R releases, Archers By The Sea has crossed paths with the project on its latest tape Aloha!, an aural exploration spanning a continual 23 minutes.

Evidenced by an effervescent key cluster of an introduction, the piece ventures toward immersion at exceptional momentum. Smudged guitars glimmer overhead as their arpeggios uncurl into a mist of chords. A faint rhythm lurks its way underneath the radiant elation, providing definition for an otherwise frenzied loop. Hushed and haunting, Caylet bedims his voice in delay. His wordless hum sinks into the background just before a sole keyboard enters the foreground for a sparse, ghostly 2-minute detour. In a brightened resurgence, bouncy synth and springy transmissions circulate sparkling pulsations.

Aloha! best exhibits Caylet as a performer rather than a composer as last year's more refined They Were Floating Over the Mountain, They Were Kings professed, which, in its brevity, could deftly reel in a new listener base. More or less it encapsulates the essence of a live performance, where loops are bound to evolve and crescendos are destined to be met. With gradual layering and bewildering psychedelia, Archers By the Sea brings forth one of its most expeditious recordings to date (alongside its beko_dsl contribution), and a gripping precursor to the project's forthcoming swan song.



[Archers By The Sea Blog]
[Stream/Buy Aloha! from Solid Melts]

Archers By The Sea - They Were Floating Over The Mountain, They Were Kings (La Station Radar, 2010)

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If one were to choose an essential out of the affluence of limited cassette and CD-R releases under Vincent Caylet's belt, pigeonholing his discography would be an understatement. With work dispersed among some backyard favorites, including Housecraft, Stunned, and Kimberly Dawn, Caylet's reputability leading up to his first proper full-length is certainly merited.

On the project's debut, They Were Floating Over The Mountain, They Were Kings, Archers By The Sea's soundscapes grow and cascade as opposed to the generally static progression that his contemporaries undergo. Voices cast out among landscapes formed by overlapping guitar phrases, tapestries of loops submerge and emerge from murk, and crescendos decompose to an airy flutter before dissipating. For each tense culmination there is an embracing closure.

They Were Floating Over The Mountain, They Were Kings is a uniquely pastoral album that displays Caylet's structural fortitude accumulated from his past releases. Each of the five pieces at hand pulsate, at times reaching gorgeous flourishes and at others breezing through meditative lulls. Perpetually enveloping for its 45 minutes, the album stands as one of, if not Archers By The Sea's most solid work to date.

[Archers By The Sea Myspace]
[Buy They Were Floating Over The Mountain, They Were Kings from La Station Radar]

Archers By The Sea - They All Dreamt They Were Bears (Kimberly Dawn, 2010)

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Ok, so I know it's been awhile since you've heard from me, and I know I've been writing about nothing but tapes, but it seems my cassette binge may be over, for the time being, due to the new Kimberly Dawn batch. Kimbery Dawn, for those of you who have never heard the name before, is an "artist run micro label out of Tennessee." The artist in question is Frank from Sparkling Wide Pressure, who releases quite a bit of his own music on this label. Now I would go as far as to say that everything that comes out on KimDawn is amazing, but I just released a little disc of my own music on KimDawn and that would seem a bit biased. However, I will say that everything I've heard on this label (other than my own release), has been nothing short of wonderful, and They All Dreamt They Were Bears is no exception.

On this 19-minute long track Archers By The Sea seem to play... god I don't even know. Is that organ? Synth? Whatever it is it creates a truly beautiful atmosphere. Sounds like an ancient spaceship crashing into earth 300 years from now and instantly being submerged in the ocean. Maybe I'm just getting the water vibe because this band is called Archers By The Sea, but whatever, it still rules. At points it can sound like every Nintendo game you ever played while you were little, and every church hymn you sang when you were 7, but, at the same time, it sounds like every great grandmothers funeral you ever want to where you wondered why everyone was crying. This little CD packs a mix of confusion and joy within its 3 inches, and plays on other emotions too. You'll feel almost nostalgic when you put this on, like it's something you jammed to all the time when you were 13. For sure this is one of those that will haunt you for years and ooze so far into your brain that you'll hear it every time you wake up from a nightmare or space out driving down the highway. Grip it before it's gone.

[Archers By The Sea Myspace]
[Buy They All Dreamt They Were Bears from Kimberly Dawn]