Tantrum Seas & Dust Lanes

Ink Puddle Compound | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 11, 2003)
• Original Release Date: 2003
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Camera Obscura
• ASIN: B0000E2REM
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #912,347 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

First official release for solo project from Brandon Siscoe from Hudson, IL via Norman, OK & Bossier City, LA. Has been self-releasing home recorded projects since 1998. Just as comfortable laying down a range of textures, from minimaliust electronics in the mould of early Rough Trade releases to edgy, acoustic folk that dovetails nicely with the NYC anti-folk movement of the moment. Ghostly vocals waft over gloom-laden portraits of folky minimalism that seem to bind instinctively to lush, narcotic soundscapes

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ink puddle compound..., November 24, 2010

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susto - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tantrum Seas & Dust Lanes (Audio CD)

Tantrum Seas and Dust Lanes - A review of Ink Puddle Compound - In recent 'indie yelping', where shoe gazing diffidence is habitually channeled into a kind of anxious extroversion, few have the grit and determination to actually withdraw into their own compositions. Tantrum Seas and Dust Lanes, the first official release by longtime home-recorder Brandon Siscoe, known herein as Ink Puddle Compound suffers from none of this social multilingualism. Instead the disc, from the moment the play button is innocently pressed, suckles inward with the vehemence of a warehouse implosion. Siscoe is a longtime resident of Norman, Oklahoma now transmitting from the heart of the Midwest's glowering drape. He has been releasing music since '98, performing infrequently, preferring to issue icy, clamoring 'sound-scapes' from the privacy of a home studio. That Siscoe has thoroughly abandoned the leafy purgatory of the 'Musicians Wanted' bulletin board is evident from Tantrum's opening track, "Camella," a cavernous instrumental that chugs headlong into the badlands traveled only by lost dogs and solitary tourists. Bulging keyboard drones interlacing uneasy vibraphone ripples, this nervous icebreaker deftly ruptures into a pair of flickering, reverb drenched acoustic beauties, "Fledgling" and "Call For You With Echoes," the latter of which marks the album's most quantifiable moment, a choppy largo bringing to mind early Swans or the shifty delicacies of early, under appreciated "Seventeen Seconds" era Cure. Just as the listener prepares to melt into an elastic headphone-trance; however, the melancholic astringency of the initial tracks gives way to a persistently shape shifting set, predominantly instrumental, with Siscoe's voice occasionally discernible through the vapor. Tracks among the eight-minute organ meditation turned gravedigger chant of "Furnace Palms" to the ricocheting vulture squawks of "Sirens in Our Bed" range from jumpily gorgeous to downright unsettling. The sound can be described as deliberate and leaden submergence. By the time the unusually buoyant guitar rumination "Distance Steals Her Vapor" closes the show, a whole wardrobe of moods have been wriggled into and discarded, embraced and cast aside dexterously, metamorphic by subtle tugs. Slo-core enthusiasts who prefer their ambience swaying and saccharine might find Tantrum Seas and Dust Lanes a few shades too dark for easy Pabst-flavored ponderings, but anyone fascinated with the multihued intricacies of Sonic Boom or even the incisive Miles Davis of "In a Silent Way" would do well to seek out what proves to be one of the most persistently fascinating releases of 2003. -Patrick Porter
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Ink Puddle Compound is an exciting new addition to the Camera Obscura roster. This one man band out of Illinois plays an interesting hybrid of textured folk-pop and experimental electronica on its debut CD, Tantrum Seas and Dust Lanes. As that might suggest, Legendary Pink Dots or Current 93 could be reference points to what's going on here, but Brandon Siscoe sounds less ironically detached than Ed Ka-Spel and not as fatalistic as David Tibet. The vocals are a real strong point actually, slightly phased and passionately performed, sounding influenced more by the likes of Alan Sparhawk of Low or CO's own Patrick Porter than any of those World Serpent bands as he delivers lines of heartache and surreal word play over atmospheric blips and crackling drones the likes of which haven't been heard since Disco Inferno's DI Goes Pop, or the last Piano Magic album. This is decidedly less paranoid and meth addled than the DI record though, opting for a casual bleakness that's accented wisely by the inspired, minimal production and all around warped vibe. My favorite moment is definitely the expansive "Our Sculptor Was a Lazy Prince", yet the whole thing has an icy/warm home recorded aura that will likely appeal to fans of any of the Legendary Pink Dots' hazier flights of sound as well as classic early UK "post rock". -Lee Jackson