Things things things, the Organ inbox is bulging with people chasing reviews and telling us they’re about to drop new records, get a grip on them if you already know you’re going to drop them! We don’t want things hitting the floor and breaking do we? The Consultant calls them accidonts because we don’t want them to happen!   Stop dropping things. So the Organ inbox is packed with people demanding attention for new music they’re dropping and such,  nothing really leaped out and demanded attention today until…..

Lauren Bousfield’s latest major work, ‘Avalon Vales’ has just been released on both vinyl and in digital formal.  through his own label Vale Records, Bousfield is sharing a free track from the album (wait for the convergence) called “Valed”. The piece is said to be “a huge departure from his breakcore work as Nero’s Day At Disneyland, as ‘Avalon Vales’ showcases Bousfield’s theory based compositional work and fascination with Tori Amos; never abandoning the virtuoso piano work he is known for”

And because this is the age of instant links, you don’t need reviews no more, here’s the cut and paste of the press release hype sheet and down at the bottom of this page you’ll find the album to listen to and the links to go buy it should you wish to…. Back in the day i would have been agonising for hours over a review and forming lines of words that dance around the architecture as I told you how it glowed in such a beautifully radiant way, how the crisp clean flow and the smooth glitch thrilled, I would have name-dropped William D Drake exploring refined things beyond breakcore and the beauty of….  but those days are gone and reviews are no longer needed, just signposts and recommendations and off you go to make your own minds up…

THE PRESS RELEASE…

“On his new album, pianist/composer Lauren Bousfield has jumped headlong into two of his obsessions: The haunting, desperate sound of 1500’s Renaissance music and the elegant, emotional honesty of the piano pop he loved as a teenager. Bousfield finds himself drawn to the boldness of the Renaissance; it’s grand gestures of both strength and loss.  When it comes to “Avalon Vales” though, his influences stems from a much deeper, personal nature:

“When I found Tori Amo’s music, specifically, I was going to military school, feeling incredibly trapped and alone. All the other boys around me were lifting weights and listening to Pantera – it was an absolute nightmare. When I found “Under The Pink” in a music store near the school, it just shredded through the entire world that that school had constructed for us, through all the awfulness and militarism and ignorance. I remember playing it on repeat in my room and these jocks would walk by and just scowl at me, not knowing where to put it, like “What the fuck is wrong with you?” – it was perfect. I want my music to at least carry a little bit of that possibility.”

Possibility is what initially drew Bousfield towards making electronic music in the first place, but discovering the choral music of the Renaissance, composers like Thomas Tallis and William Byrd, who seemed to embody both strength and loss allowed Bousfield to complicate his music with the raw emotional power of his teenage musical loves.

With Bousfield’s earlier work, under the pseudonym Nero’s Day At Disneyland, he mapped his virtuoso piano work into a breakcore setting. Since shedding the alias though, he has been able to reach a more personal place with his compositions. The romanticism and daring of Renaissance music fits very snuggly with the deep longing of Amos’ piano pop. ‘Avalon Vales’ is this intersection. An intersection between Bousfield’s bold technical aspirations and the intensely personal and formative role music played in his life as a young man.

Performing everywhere from the dingy DIY nest of The Smell to the prestigious halls of the Berkeley Art Museum, Bousfield has toured Europe and the US multiple times, both under his own name and as Nero’s Day At Disneyland. His music has been released by the Cock Rock Disco and Deathbomb Arc labels. ‘Avalon Vales’ is being released on vinyl and digital through Bousfield’s own imprint Vale Records”.

VALE RECORDS /  FACEBOOK