Blood Fountains “Floods” CD

I've only recently started listening to experimental music again after a three- to four-year hiatus, but nothing would have kept me from checking out "Floods" (released by the very intriguing Utech Records), the long-awaited debut from Blood Fountains—which is the current musical outlet of visual artist Stephen Kasner, who just happens to be my favorite artist of all time. Said to be "initiated in the idea of transforming images into sound—a soundtrack extension of painting", the material certainly works to invoke appropriate visual components from the imagination—though of course standing on its own as well. Kasner works with several collaborators throughout the 40-minute excursion—most notably the hypnotic, chillingly abstract, chant-like vocals of Bloody Panda's Yoshiko Ohara, which work surprisingly well to complement the overall atmosphere of the misty whirrs and rumbling dark ambient hums that drive the bulk of the compositions. Guitars accent said foundation by offering both shimmery passages that almost border on tangible "riffs" and waves of subdued drones and feedback, while quite nice spurts of distant, melodic bass color the background. For whatever reason, I typically dislike traditional instrumentation being a recognizable sound source in experimental music, but that's actually not the case here at all. I'm sure a part of that is because the avant-garde nature of Blood Fountains' work certainly expands beyond the bounds of "noise" by further developing such textures into something more musical, thus the overwhelmingly improvisational nature of the collaborators' approach still somehow retains a sense of structure and arrangement. Hear for yourselves...

Blood Fountains "Hemming" (excerpt)

Apparently the pressing is limited to just 750 CD's, which I imagine will sell out at some point, so... if this type of thing interests you, don't sleep on it for too long...

Get It

Blood Fountains
Utech Records