Michael Mueller
A difficult album to classify, but an easy one to admire. Crosses genre-divides with considerable aplomb, encompassing jazz, ambient, electronica, modern classical and world music, without every sounding beholden to any one in particular.
In many ways, this album is 'typical' of the music I've enjoyed in 2017. Beautiful, immersive, and defiantly, boldly, unique. Free of constraints or labels. Bound by no limits other than the limits of the imagination.
Terrific release. Highly recommended.
Favorite track: Ambassador.
Mortal
by Quicksails
Bob
Bob
Very good meditative album. Goes through valleys of struggle and resolution. Excellent mixing and creative composition.
Favorite track: Mortality Sweep.
Tommy Stangroom
djhummingbirdfeeder
Raida92i
nora barton
Geoff Wilt
Gauthier Shimizu
erikdkramer
Whiskas
eemelson
Boy Pockets
Matthes
32031314
Ty Stamp
ttrager
Cat Temper
Ingrown Records
Corey Smith
Sebastian Sequoiah-Grayson
abowlofpho
1trainwreck
cartcult
Tom's Thumb
Matthew Ryals (fan account)
Isreal M.T. (cxxxviii)
Jamie Lawson
Kat O'Rly
LC
Ben Babbitt
annette
eva henderson
joel berk
Michael Nigro
Erik Blad
Jeffrey Wheeler
Jim Dvorak
zachpollakoff
Jamie Orlando
mari
Matt Stites
Akira Watts
George Grella
Tucker
Carlos Carvajal Gómez
᧞ᧉᖇᙀᘚᧉᖇ
Chris Kissel
Morgan Cole
Christopher Daniels
Alex Ruder / Hush Hush Records
Dietmar Petschl
jibberjabber
Too Hands
erica mei
Lucian Ștefănescu
Massimo Tonzar
Corey Lyons
b2iach3i
JQ
Mike Smith
Maximilian Spiegel
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Streaming + DownloadIncludes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.Purchasable with gift card
$8 USD or more
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Record/Vinyl + Digital AlbumMortal - LP version!
Heavy weight vinyl. Artwork by Sam Nigrosh.
Includes unlimited streaming of Mortal via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.ships out within 2 daysPurchasable with gift card$15 USD or more
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1. |
Valley Voice
04:45
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2. |
Ambassador
04:07
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3. |
The Compound Blues
03:52
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4. |
Faith Feel
04:13
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5. |
Silent Separation
03:39
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6. |
Hall Song
03:37
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7. |
Dance of Eyes
04:07
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8. |
Left Temple
04:04
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9. |
Mortality Sweep
03:59
|
about
All music by Ben Billington
Recorded at The Compound 2014/2015
Mastered by Patrick Klem
Artwork by Samuel Nigrosh
Tracks 1 & 3 feature Carlos Chavarria - Tenor Saxophone
Track 6 features Jake Acosta - Pocket Trumpet
Recorded at The Compound 2014/2015
Mastered by Patrick Klem
Artwork by Samuel Nigrosh
Tracks 1 & 3 feature Carlos Chavarria - Tenor Saxophone
Track 6 features Jake Acosta - Pocket Trumpet
credits
released December 9, 2016
HAUSMO 52 - LP / DIG
Ben Billington has devoted a decade of his life to Chicago’s overlapping scenes of experimental DIY, electronic music, and free jazz as a part of seminal outfits including Tiger Hatchery, ONO, and ADT. His solo music under the Quicksails moniker compresses his mastery of synthesis and percussion into dense electro-acoustic compositions animated by stacked layers of rhythm and alien texture. Mortal, his first LP for Hausu Mountain following releases on labels like Spectrum Spools, NNA Tapes, and Captcha, finds Quicksails piecing together some of his most complex compositions to date, steering his network of synths, samplers, and acoustic instruments through conflicting emotional territories as a means of personal catharsis and abstracted self expression. Each track on Mortal presents its own mosaic of juxtaposed textures and moods, as electronic and acoustic elements swell together into short narrative arcs: lush polyphonic synth lines clash or collude over basslines that trudge through the nether regions of the mix; massive saxophone and trumpet fanfares (performed by Billington’s ADT bandmates Carlos Chavarria and Jake Acosta) weave through layers of complementary electronic melody; busy percussion lines sound out from drum kit, hand percussion, and drum machine, smearing together into a rhythmic bedrock that blurs the line between the synthetic and the organic.
Quicksails composed Mortal during a year of intense personal upheavals, and he presents the album as a series of obliquely diaristic sketches coded with the emotional residue of real life events. “The Compound Blues” evokes claustrophobia with its queasy bassline and shuffling percussion, but reclaims a more even mindset as layers of yearning saxophone and filtered synth washes drift into the mix. “Silent Separation” bursts over spastic IDM rhythmic grids and light-speed electronic squelches, which all come to share space with walls of major-key synth harmony. “Left Temple” mimics the mental overload of a migraine episode with arrhythmic noise formants and dizzy peals of atonality. For all the darkness this music is capable of channeling, Quicksails’ optimism and joyfulness shines through in each track’s baroque construction and inevitably redemptive climax. He finds room in his compositions for untold layers of acoustic instrumentation, from tabla to gong to gamelan-like chimes, which achieve a form of reverse synthesis by becoming nearly indistinguishable from his electronics. Meanwhile, his synth patches pound out and burst with the attack and the fine-grained textures of acoustic percussion, or blend seamlessly in electro-acoustic bliss with sax and trumpet leads. Quicksails explores the uncanny valley between performance styles and traditions, achieving a hybridized performance style that uses the experimental electronic and free jazz vocabularies as tools for nuanced storytelling and pointed personal exploration.
HAUSMO 52 - LP / DIG
Ben Billington has devoted a decade of his life to Chicago’s overlapping scenes of experimental DIY, electronic music, and free jazz as a part of seminal outfits including Tiger Hatchery, ONO, and ADT. His solo music under the Quicksails moniker compresses his mastery of synthesis and percussion into dense electro-acoustic compositions animated by stacked layers of rhythm and alien texture. Mortal, his first LP for Hausu Mountain following releases on labels like Spectrum Spools, NNA Tapes, and Captcha, finds Quicksails piecing together some of his most complex compositions to date, steering his network of synths, samplers, and acoustic instruments through conflicting emotional territories as a means of personal catharsis and abstracted self expression. Each track on Mortal presents its own mosaic of juxtaposed textures and moods, as electronic and acoustic elements swell together into short narrative arcs: lush polyphonic synth lines clash or collude over basslines that trudge through the nether regions of the mix; massive saxophone and trumpet fanfares (performed by Billington’s ADT bandmates Carlos Chavarria and Jake Acosta) weave through layers of complementary electronic melody; busy percussion lines sound out from drum kit, hand percussion, and drum machine, smearing together into a rhythmic bedrock that blurs the line between the synthetic and the organic.
Quicksails composed Mortal during a year of intense personal upheavals, and he presents the album as a series of obliquely diaristic sketches coded with the emotional residue of real life events. “The Compound Blues” evokes claustrophobia with its queasy bassline and shuffling percussion, but reclaims a more even mindset as layers of yearning saxophone and filtered synth washes drift into the mix. “Silent Separation” bursts over spastic IDM rhythmic grids and light-speed electronic squelches, which all come to share space with walls of major-key synth harmony. “Left Temple” mimics the mental overload of a migraine episode with arrhythmic noise formants and dizzy peals of atonality. For all the darkness this music is capable of channeling, Quicksails’ optimism and joyfulness shines through in each track’s baroque construction and inevitably redemptive climax. He finds room in his compositions for untold layers of acoustic instrumentation, from tabla to gong to gamelan-like chimes, which achieve a form of reverse synthesis by becoming nearly indistinguishable from his electronics. Meanwhile, his synth patches pound out and burst with the attack and the fine-grained textures of acoustic percussion, or blend seamlessly in electro-acoustic bliss with sax and trumpet leads. Quicksails explores the uncanny valley between performance styles and traditions, achieving a hybridized performance style that uses the experimental electronic and free jazz vocabularies as tools for nuanced storytelling and pointed personal exploration.
license
all rights reserved
tags
about
Hausu Mountain Records Chicago, Illinois
Hausu Mountain is a record label founded in 2012 by Doug Kaplan and Max Allison. We release music on vinyl, cassette, CD, and here on Bandcamp.
discography
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Aug 2021 -
Jul 2021 -
Jun 2021 -
May 2021
contact / help
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