A 19 year old guitar player from Dublin who combines squicky pre-war blues, Appalachian string band music, modern classical and the Takoma school. His music boasts an orchestrated and fully instrumented sound that is playful and eerie at the same time.

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Some reviews on Childhood, Christian Lies & Slaughter by Cian Nugent

Kindamusic

Begin oktober vond Het Time Of Rivers Festival plaats in de Space Gallery in Portland, Maine. Dit festival bood een staalkaart van het huidige muzikale avant folk-landschap. Begenadigde gitaristen als Jack Rose, Matt Valentine en Glenn Jones, die hun inspiratie deels bij de Noord-Amerikaanse folkgeschiedenis halen, werden hier afgewisseld met ander goed volk dat zich meer op drone folk concentreert: Fursaxa, Visitations, Zaimph en Steve Gunn. 
Tussen deze klinkende namen, waarbij zeker Jozef van Wissem en Joshua Burkett niet mogen ontbreken, prijkte die van ene Cian Nugent.
 De negentienjarige Ier mag nu al tot het legertje van gitaarhelden in de lijn van Robbie Basho en John Fahey gerekend worden. Childhood, Christian Lies & Slaughter is een live registratie van het vierde concert dat Nugent ooit speelde.
 Nugent hanteert een stijl die uitermate verhalend is en waarin de melodieën elkaar subtiel opvolgen. Het resultaat is nooit te druk of te overladen. Daarnaast integreert Nugent de stilte als element in zijn speelstijl, wat overpeinzend aandoet. Ondanks hun eenvoud hebben Nugents nummers een rijke textuur, die zich bij iedere luisterbeurt meer prijsgeeft.
Het hoogtepunt van dit eerste officiële werkstukje is Abyssal Plain, een nummer waarin de melodie nog wat beklijvender is dan de rest van Childhood, Christian Lies & Slaughter. Als blauwdruk van Nugents talent is dit alvast een imposant schijfje



Hans van der Linden

Psychedelic Folk

This is a live recording of Cian Nugent and with a closer listen I am still amazed of the rich melodic range, with freeing rhythm played tunes of his, a rich world. I'm not sure where the title refers to, but receiving this after having finished my lecture on the heritage and causes of Christianity it fitted there well enough (the lecture meant to me a freeing myself of some inhabited and controlled processes of experiencing and thinking). Cian Nugent himself sounds to me like a free spirit with his guitar playing, controlled, contemplative, descriptive and above all very natural. Highly recommended: he deserves to be considered amongst the greats, in a modest way of being there, to create space for a timeless zone of contemplation.

www.psychedelicfolk.com

Downtown Music Gallery


I find this disc to be consistently superb and often sublime. 
Cian writes contemplative, melodic and somewhat bluesy songs that 
always ring true. The one cover, Baka Dance, has more of an older, 
folky theme, but all of the songs have an organic, human quality that 
feels just right. If this was released in the mid-70's, it would fit 
perfectly in the Takoma catalogue with John Fahey and Leo Kottke. 
Pretty great company for a young whippersnapper like Cian Nugent.

Aquarius

We first heard Cian Nugent on the recent volume of Tompkin Square's Imaginational Anthem series. For such a young newcomer (he's still a teenager!) to the ever crowded solo acoustic scene, his track was a highlight among the more seasoned performers like Steffen Basho-Jungens and R. Keenan Lawler. Childhood, Christian Lies & Slaughter documents a live performance (his fourth ever!) in Nugent's home town of Dublin, Ireland. Released on Jozef Van Wissem's Incunabulum imprint, the performance showcases the talent that has folks turning heads. Sweetly beautiful melodies that swing and swirl into complex and melancholic knots. Of course the Takoma influences are ever-present but they lean toward Leo Kottke rather than John Fahey in using early American song-form structures. Yet Nugent's playing also draws from Davy Graham's folk-blues raga style as well as Balkan gypsy rhythms that offer something slightly different than we've heard before. Something wonderously ineffable that we can't quite put our fingers on, but makes us ever curious to hear more.

Other Music

A stunning live set from this 19-year-old Irish guitarist, just one lone acoustic guitar and the weight of history riding lightly on his back. Nugent is strongly influenced by Fahey and early folk, blues and traditional English and Irish music, and in his nimble fingers the six-string fairly sings with its past and its possibilities. What else is there to say? Spare, simple playing that is rich with emotion and truly beautiful.


Le Piano Demécanisé is a vinyl album with music played on a dismantled piano. The release of the album goes in tandem with the publication of the new issue of RTRSRCH magazine, in which Frederik Croene presents the text accompanying the LP. The LP was pressed in an edition of 500, sleeve design by Joris Verdoodt.

http://www.frederikcroene.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/frederikcroene

Belgian guitarwizard gets carte blanche.

"… The Sonic Architecture pieces are constructed geometrically according to a mathematical scheme which is based on the symbolism of numbers. On the basis of whatever drives my senses, I gather together a great mass of recorded sounds from everyday life: the street, the wind, streams, the noise of cars, of conversations, of birds, of singing… accompanied by everything that resonates around them. …" — Mireille Capelle
3 Sonic Architectures. Each Sonic Architecture consists of two compositions.

Each composition can be played separately. From the moment they are played together and allowed to resonate via 2 CD players and 4 audio speakers, the Sonic Architecture becomes one composition.
These pieces make a journey of several hours, or days, before they refind the point of their beginning.
The CDs in this box are 3 Simulations. Each CD is a fragment of one of the 3 Sonic Architecture compositions. Anello, Naga & Sunyata were presented repectively at the Axel Vervoordt exhibitions Artempo, Academia & In-finitum.

Mireille Capelle appears in various films and plays, as well as singing a number of different operatic roles. She interprets baroque works with Jos Van Immerseel, sings numerous recitals of melodies throughout Europe and Japan, and she is a singer in the HERMESensemble. Capelle is a Professor at the Conservatory of Ghent, where she is also in charge of the singing department.
Anello. Naga. Sunyata is a production of Inspiratum vzw and is available via Smeraldina-Rima.

Stellar vocals and drones by Sachiko of Overhang Party; three pieces of hypnotic, gliding delight. This is Sachiko's first —all-drone— vinyl release, in an edition of 350. Heavy-weight vinyl & paste-on sleeve with artwork created by Johan De Wilde. AudioMER. edition in collaboration with Croxhapox gallery.

This is what David Keenan had to say about the album:

"Major new album from one of VT’s central obsession, Japanese underground femme Sachiko, ex of Kousokuya/Overhang Party. This LP is pressed on 180g vinyl and comes in a run of only 350 copies. The first side is a completely mesmerising stone. Accompanied by Rinji Fukuoka (Overhang Party) on voice and cello, Sachiko sounds as if she is gargling planets as she levitates wordless vocals through a slowly shifting bible-black background of orchestral drone and Eternal Music strings generated by vortices of cello and viola and hovering electronics. Can’t think of anything that so beautifully combines the vision of the original Dream Syndicate with the aesthetics of dark Japanese psychedelia. On the flip there are two tracks, both of which extend the time-blurring effects of the first side into new zones of heavenly tonefloat, with Sachiko’s high vocal style dissolving in butterflies of F/X while electronics hiss and spit and intergalactic shortwave travels through endless space. Easily the best record she has made to date, a mesmeric slice of higher-minded drone narcosis and a classic Japanese underground side. Highly recommended."