Ink

Zelienople

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 14, 2006)
• Original Release Date: 2006
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Loose Thread
• ASIN: B000EBGEQY
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #486,082 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
"This local quartet is fond of drones, disembodied sounds, live-to-tape recording, and looming ambience. The group employs guitars and tuned suspension cables among other instruments on the album, but damned if I can tell which is which. Get it while it's hot: Ink has been released in a numbered edition of 100, with spooky cover art to match the music inside." - CHICAGO READER

In the few years Chicago's Zelienople have been an actual band, they've experimented with a variety of configurations. After the shifting eclecticism of Pajama Avenue and the hushed, almost melancholy focus of Sleeper Coach, Zelienople have arrived with the most well-integrated statement of their divergent threads. Ink was recorded on two separate days in May and April 2005. The instrumentation is quite different from Zelienople's previous releases, with most of the instruments being invented. Boxes with springs were used for percussion, and many of the "string" sounds were made with tuned suspension cables.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Deep Listening, April 14, 2006

By	Mark Champion "autumnfair" (San Antonio, TX United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

That it commences with a minor-key bluesy remake/remodel of the first track from the first album ("It's Still Hard To Steal Cars"), and closes with the lines "Never looking back . . ." (the nearly Jandek-like "Boxes On Shores") is symptomatic of Zelienople's ostensible infatuation with irony. That this is Loose Thread's reissue of Finland's 267 Lattajaa CDR also suggests that the band is looking back after all. (And what - - a Chicago band with a Finland-only release? You gotta love that.) Their music has always managed to blend the lush with the stark, the simple with the inscrutible. The trend continues on this, their fourth release. Following on the heels of the beautiful (and all-instrumental) BACHELOR'S GROVE, which explored even further Zelienople's penchant for the abstract, INK is a more (relatively) conventional 'song-oriented' album. The soundscapes are still there, of course, but they're shorter and at times harsher than before (particularly on "Seroquel" and the title track). But for all the deep and sheety dissonance, there are moments of sublime beauty as well - - "Pace Car", for example, is a gorgeous and lengthy combination of quietly metallic drones and a simple, melancholic minor-key guitar line. They'd return to the abstract once again on the astounding GHOST SHIP/MARIE CELESTE, released in New Zealand - - these guys are as far-flung in their releases as they are in their music. On INK Zelienople once again maintain the teetering balance of uneasy beauty and uneasy listening.