Davenport  

chaotic accidental transcendent tribal landscape

shamanic free improvised experimental roots music

Web site at http://www.23productions.net

Davenport exist in the moment of improvisation when the air begins to vibrate and the musicians feel something otherworldly start to emerge.  A moment when the music will crumble into chaos and dust or become purely transcendent....

Overview

In this current era of instant media communication it would be possible to say that the mystery around music making has been diminished. This would not be true of the evolving enigma which is the band ‘Davenport’. Davenport come from Wisconsin the USA and consist of Clay Ruby as the central musician with Tony Endless (performing or engineering) as the permanent members. There is then a semi regular troupe of various musicians who are in the band when then can as the band travels around playing live. Rather than try and list them all here, we will detail those we know of who are listed on the various releases by the band.

Davenport was formed by Clay Ruby to make the music of his dreams back in 2001, bringing in Nico Kain and then expanding from there. The band exists outside the mainstream of music making, with no formal label they distribute their music through various small labels on tiny quantities of hundreds or even dozens and I don’t think there has ever been more than one release per label. These releases are Cdrs often with amazing hand drawn packaging and captures them live or playing in/around their barn in Wisconsin.

Their music is improvised using acoustic instruments, pocket/cheap electronics and field recordings. Originally their music was a kind of informal ritual that combined pounding percussion, folk strumming, blues playing, primal howling, field recordings and drones. It still does encompass these qualities but has evolved such that some pieces have been a pastoral middle eastern music (’Springtime on Saturnalia’) where as the recent split with Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood saw them making a transcendent soundtrack to a storm. Clay acts as a kind of trash shaman to those around him, the music being influenced by mood and those involved at the time. By working with the source elements of music, the simplest forms of each genre they weave together into something new, it takes the music further and rewards the listener.

Although their official presence in terms of releases on shop albums is virtually zero, the band are almost a myth, especially to those outside the USA who haven’t seen them play. They are underground in the truest sense, influencing, inspiring and supporting a hugely diverse range of music, spin off and related artists. They are a concept from which other bands have stemmed or who have inspired others to do the same for themselves.

There is no compromise in their music, organisation or approach and yet during 2005 we have seen a more widely distributed double CD of their music called ‘The Field Tales’ and the new ‘Davenport Family Boxset’ we will review at this page. They are part of a set of collective artists working with a broadly similar attitude and approach to improvised music such as the MusicYourMindWillLoveYou collective (at http://mymwly.blogspot.com) in Australia, the Deserted Village Collective in Ireland and the Jewelled Antler Collective in the USA.

The main way to experience the band directly is in the live setting which was their original intent and incarnation. I have reports from those who thought they were a literally transcendent experience and those who left after ten minutes of what they felt was self indulgence. I’m fairly sure that both of these views is accurate as the band go where the music, the sound itself takes them. This inevitably means it won’t always form into something wonderful. But when it does it might be unexpected and change from one level of performance to another in a moment.

It’s very difficult to track all the releases by the band, almost all of which are unavailable on CD anyway (though Clay makes them available on cassettes as the 'Skull Fucking Tapes' and they can be found in internet distributors shops and online). They vary hugely but are worth tracking down. I’ve tried to list them based on as much chronology as I have. However some of these came to me mysteriously on Cdr in the post, many I bought, some I even had to download (the band is kind of addictive once you start). Whilst this list does list almost everything they’ve done, I don’t have line ups for all of it. It should give a useful understanding though. You can read our informal reviews of Davenport and related Cdrs if you click here and follow the links..

With the Field Tales Cds (to read our review click here) and the new ‘Davenport Family Boxset’ the band seems to be taking a step forward and bringing together their diversity and range of related artists so that we can at last understand them a little more clearly.

Davenport - Rabbit's Foot Propeller      September 2005

Davenport are a loose collective of musicians led by Clay Ruby based in Winconsin USA. Over the last two years they have released a huge range of improvised music on a series of CDrs which often quickly fall out of print. Their music combines acoustic improvisation, sonic exploration, free folk, informal rituals and experimentation in an attempt to achieve some transcendent musical fusion. They have toured constantly over the last two years, their releases being documents of their travels. With such a large and floating line-up the band has produced a wide ‘family’ of musicians working in combinations and solo. To try and bring together a relatively cohesive view around the band, we have reviewed them and their recent ‘box set’ here.

It has been becoming clear this year that Davenport was evolving towards something new. Their releases have gone from tiny print runs to more widely distributed ones. They also produced the wonderful ‘Davenport Family Tales’ double CD and the ‘Family’ box-set which seemed to draw a line in the sand and say ‘this is how far we have got’. Then came the news that the recent Cdr ‘The Hands of Worm Heaven’ on TimeLag records would be their last? A ripple of shock was felt amongst their fans, were they drifting apart, was this it? The answer I am pleased to say, appears to be that they are not splitting but evolving, hence this new ‘proper’ CD their first ever on the excellent ThreeLobedRecords.

Although this release is one of the first of theirs not to be live, it is still not a conventional ‘studio’ recording. Using an odd tape recorder with no erase head, they were able to constantly record infinite overdubs. On the first track ‘Propeller Invocations’ we wouldn’t know this from the sound which is surprisingly relatively simple, just whistle, harmonica, chimes and odd electronic noises drifting around an imaginary field. By the second track ‘Soar Lives On A Bell Chime’ it’s apparent that this new evolution of the band doesn’t seem to have unduly caused any compromise of their genuinely ‘out there’ sound. On this track apart from a shuffling rhythm the piece seems to capture whoever is drifting by at the time with the hint of a drone and shuffling hand percussion, plus a mewing voice but not much more. ‘Root System’ and its linked follow up ’Calm Is Sleep’ are like a tentative piece of musique concrete with distant touches of guitar and field recordings. It appears to form into a momentary tribal rhythm but never quite does. Then we come to the languid folk strumming and vocal of ‘Ague Breath’ where the formation of sound into a song, however loose is quite shocking and lovely. ‘Candlefqs’ is exquisite with chimes where the sound decays slowly and a very minimal, distant drone. Field recordings of wind play hauntingly in the background as electric guitar enters seeming to play the same rising and falling currents. ‘On Trolling the Wake Song’ we hear cello playing over a clicking backing with some sung moans.

‘Deal For A Sun’ captures a one-fingered testimonial of foot stepping and hollering over psychedelic guitar whereas ‘Attawdriftiscast’ appears to be a static, ear splitting drone more akin to Clay Ruby’s ‘Jesus Balls’ work. ‘Deark Skull’ is a like folk song played in a long abandoned house by broken dolls. It’s creepy and macabre, quite unsettling even in daylight. ‘Passing Parade for the Goddess of May’ is a fantastic longer track mixing field recordings, a haze of drone at the edge of perception and what may or not be voices calling our to us. It’s surprising to hear a guitar riff start up ‘In The Grass Again’ as though they are the Velvet Underground live circa 1969 but then a fairly odd vocal comes in, like a demented preacher and it could only be Davenport. The final track ‘Cardinal Points Home’ is almost totally unnoticed but great because of this, lovely field recordings of birds in fields plus minimal piano chords, simple and in their own way, emotionally moving.

With that, this first proper CD release by Davenport has gone. As always a combination of strange, beguiling, unsettling and even amusing sounds and ideas. This release almost works at an ambient level, it’s far more quiet than many of the earlier hollering and stomping releases from them. For many, perhaps even most people it will be just random noise or as though there isn’t anything there to actually listen to. But let it seep into the room, play it constantly and the wilds of Winconsin will be yours.
 

To listen to a track from this album click here.  To protect copyright this track cannot be downloaded.

The final Davenport CDr Release?      August 2005

DAVENPORT “THE HANDS OF WORM HEAVEN” cdr (TIME-LAG) $15.00

"When clay ruby told me this was to be the last davenport cdr, we knew we had to do it right. this is a beautiful art edition release, with davenport dishing out a very extended (77 minutes) gush of free-form earthen folk/psych. mixing extremely out-there bursts with more ass-shaking song forms, and plenty of damaged vibes and sonic dirt. we got beautiful scottish madman dylan nyoukis (chocolate monk, etc.) on board to do the art, and he pulled through with some blazing ink... the whole thing is packaged in a 4-panel oversized fold-out folio cover, featuring 4 of dylan’s original drawings. the cover unfolds to hold 7 inserts, 4 featuring more original art from dylan, and the other 3 holding notes/poetry/art/etc. pertaining to the sounds within... all finely letterpress printed on extra heavy textured art paper. all black cdr. hand numbered edition of 223. first 50 copies are printed in sweet/nasty pink ink, the rest are soil brown ink. "

Web site http://www.time-lagrecords.com

Email sinewave23@aol.com

Our Review....

Davenport it seems are here on 'Hands of Worm Heaven' with their final CDr as they have moved onto music labels and fully released CDs, spreading their rural chaos ever further. Musically where some of their releases focus on sound exploration others such as this have a fuller sound. This starts with a mournful vocal chant, bells and cello in a weirdly psychedelic mood. 'The Spells We Know' comes next with a lengthy fourteen minute track where cello drones underpin an astounding folk ritual of rumbling clattering percussion, vocal exhortations and one of those wind whirlers. It's a heady atmosphere sounding as much north African as it does from Wisconsin. This piece takes us back to their origins and shows what masters they can be of creating and sustained a deeply mysterious mood. Fans of the new musical primitives like The Skaters, Buried Civilisations, The Wooden Cupboard or Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood should get this immediately.

'Frozen Country Dub' places their arcane string band into frost filled suspense with dervish violin and shimmering metallic percussion. 'Cough It Up' starts deceptively with gentle, bucolic ambience before becoming intensely noise filled, feedback, insane harmonics, electronic signals and distortion combine to rupture the senses, eyes bleeding, gagging on the sheer sustained frequencies. The next two tracks take us back to the fields, but these are fields equally disturbing as comforting. The quietly malevolent throat singing and children of bedlam on 'Sheep Meadow Invocation #5' should give shepherds everywhere sleepless nights. 'Serpents Come Here' is a particularly effective piece, as much magical spell as it is music. The overlapping, continuous calling notes build a dramatic power, calling to the spectral creatures just out of sight. It's especially powerful and recalls the pieces on the recent split with James Blackshaw.

'Sons of the Pasture' takes the music back to their most haunted and hushed, an ode to their Wisconsin fields, psychedelic electric guitar taking his heavenwards, ascending to their new worm masters.
Go to http://www.time-lagrecords.com/
 

Volume 1

Clay Ruby starts off the box set with ‘Mountain Long’ a stomping, primitive heavy metal drone of guitars feeding back over a thumping minimal beat. It’s an unexpected opening, very direct and simple. Then some child speech and laughing over toy chimes opens up “Train Unit” (which is Karen Eliot) with ‘Art Hart II’. This is a sound manipulation piece that is quite creepy with echo on children’s voices which makes they sound as though floating through space. Track three is a jarring drone from Jesus Balls, a mysterious extreme noise outlet for Clay which then evolves into has loops of speech, toy chimes and more woven into polluted noise. This is section is by “Craig Microcassette System” who are Tony Endless and Mansfield. A folkish acoustic song by “The Lamb Called Light” takes us in another fragile, even sanctified direction. This band is Theresa Behnen and Clay Ruby together.

Drunjus are next with a more ominous but ambient take on the droning sound. “Drunjus” is a band of Clay Ruby and Dan Woodman. Out seventh track is a curious field recording from “Teargas Tournament” which is Tony Endless, Clay Ruby and Mansfield. Clay Kolbinger then has a greet acoustic version of ‘The Vampire’ by Buffy St Marie which sits in a bed of tape processing and shards of audio corrosion. Candiru close the disc with a soft piece that combines beautific ambience and field recordings. This again is Tony Endless with Clay Ruby and Iam Lee.

So the first disc acts as a rapid but oddly cohesive tour around the family, showing many aspects of the diverse sound with the pieces mixed so as to flow between them almost as a whole. For every noisy, confrontational track there is a moment of delicate respite.

Volume 2

Db Pedersen starts off disc two with ‘A day in the loaf’ with oscilating low throat singing with flute playing and vocal overtones. It’s quite a different sound but rather wonderful and completely unique with an aboriginal quality. Second are The Mudslide Family who have emerged from the Wisconsin area and taken up the improvised ritual sounds of early Davenport. This piece has tribal drums, jews harp and a middle eastern reed instrument. At the Pasures festival organised and curated by Davenport, groups of musicians sit around the campfire and improvise. This is captured here under the band name Grass Magic with field recordings, fragments of speech, rumbling tom toms, struck bells and an air of informal ceremony. Nic Stage solo plays ‘Oceans Away’ on acoustic guitar, a mixture of restrained frenzy and exploration with wild improvised wordless singing that is almost disturbing..

Disc two stretches out more allowing longer, personal tracks showing some of the artists who haven‘t yet released much music themselves but show the expansion of the family.

Volume 3

Wooden Wand are a relatively known band from people collecting this area of music. Here we have some straight-to-tape hymn singing out in the field.. I found this piece strangely moving, reminiscent of the Gavin Bryars’ ‘Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet’ classic. Clay Kolbinger is back as Maths Balance Volumes with a step-up one-toothed chant over atonal banjo strums and communal yelps. There is something deeply unsettling about this band, as thought they would entertain you then pluck, skin and boil you in the same night. Mansfield is back now with ‘Mansfield Deathtrap ReRecordings’ which alleges he took painkillers and recorded the results. It’s a field recording of something possibly odd with a heartbeat, bird song and noises best left without visuals. Dan Woodman also returns as Woodman doing a low-fi minimalist acoustic version of Suicide’s ‘Cheree’. Pan to Scratch is out penultimate track and a band new to me. It appears to be sound recordings from a field taken apart and reconstructed with bird cawing and insects discernable in the background. Nico Kain takes things home to acoustic banjo led folk on ‘The Way of God’ with nice, simple playing straight to microphone.

On disc three we have the margins of the Davenport family and even music itself. The field recordings are always beautifully done with a grainy quality that adds to their atmosphere. The low-fi folk strumming feels at the heart of the Davenport concept and in Maths Balance Volumes we have The Hills Have Eyes brought to life.

Volume 4

Davenport themselves appear on disc four and are the only artist with an extended piece called ‘Blood and Rhum Offering’. We start with rumbling metallic percussion and in the background a muffled jazz piece which soon disappears. This clatters like pans continually being dropped until a wind pipe spun in the air appears to take over. An accordion drone comes in as various indecipherable percussive noises are made. After about four minutes the reed drone starts to follow hymn like chord changes with chiming guitar and clattering. A moaning, intoning singer joins us, lost to themselves. In their own way this feels sincere and genuinely spiritual in intent. This piece reduces to just held wordless singing then reprises in to a vibrant if shambolic, almost shaman like dervish of percussion , chimes and possessed yelping, howling voices. It appears to have no connection to modern society, to be something primal and disconcerting. Merging religious music of multiple types together into a new devotional form.

Disc four then shows us Davenport at their most oblique and focussed, the spiritual intent at the heart of their music, the realisation of their dreamt visions, the development of a new communal roots music. It also reminds how curious and wild they are, unrestricted and free in the most adventurous and intriguing way.

Volume 5

Our last Cdr commences with ‘Garage Indians’ comprising Mansfield with Tim and Greg. This track ‘Cold Woman’ is quite intimidating with primal drum bashing, a TV on in the background, wailing and moments of coherent speech. It only last a minute and you will be quite relieved at the brevity. Second we have ‘Ammesis’ another new name to me but seems to be Nic Stage.. This track is a deep electronic drone with some tape manipulation and howling, almost painfully slow electric guitar feedback loops.. Tony Endless then returns as ’Postage’ on Recess. This is an almost unbearable set of creaking noises like opening and closing a gate continually. After a moment of teeth grating repetition we have a more ghostly piece from ‘Clay’s Festering Lungs’ which combines a haunting distant vocal with a penetrating surges of noise. Some beautiful melodies and choral phrases almost appear but are edited and cut out and replaced by endless waves of scraping drone.

The deeply mysterious ‘Wolf In The Breast’ are next with what appears to be a field recording. However Clay says he has ‘learned nothing about them that I can safely say to the public’…we can only wonder. One of the more sporadically beautiful family bands is ‘Leannen Sith’ which is John Gould and Kelly Shippy. They merge field recording with excellent psychedelic folk songs and this song is a highlight of the boxset. We end with the even more mysterious ‘Wyoming’ which was on a tape send anonymously to Davenport. Here we have noise, ticking and somewhere in there…even music.

Disc five takes us to the very outer reaches, to the future of the wider family and ever more uncompromising music that frustrates and beguiling they are. Operating outside the mainstream and as myths to the underground, that they continue to exist and tour is a amazing. Theirs is a mixture of music in the moment, chaos and a deceptively mature talent which they deliberately undermine. Davenport now exists beyond the membership, not just as a physical group of musicians but as a concept, an ethos and approach. For the invisible quiet musicians working at the extremities of music, finding their own way to survive and bringing together many cultures and styles - Davenport may be the source but now their approach is being adopted by others. In a world of entertainment conformity and compromising of creative expression Davenport are a necessary howl in the face of society.

For an extensive list go to http://www.23productions.net/audio.htm

Reviews of Davenport and Davenport Family releases at TheUnbrokenCircle.

Davenport Field Tales

If ever a band or artist deserved the title of 'enigma' it is Davenport. They operate at the outer fringes of the music industry, active within their growing circle but ignored by the music media. Even magazines that proclaim to touch experimental music barely know of Davenport. They are astoundingly prolific, 2005 has seen no less than around ten releases so far, I say 'around' as the are on a bewildering array of micro internet only labels and on runs of 100 CDs. However this should not imply they are hopelessly obscure, they organise USA music festivals, play live constantly and are a constant source of myth and musical mayhem.

They are anchored around key member Clay Ruby (who also helped engineer the new Josephine Foster) album and have a pivotal web site (address above) that manages to keep track of their extensive output, most of which are CDrs of live performance. We cover them at our blog, the area of the site with informal, rapidly written reviews where we have reviewed many limited run CDs from them (see http://theunbrokencircle.blogspot.com) but this release is a double CD, seeming to be important to the band themselves with a wider availability. However active Davenport are in the studio they are most directly experienced in the live setting where they either enthral or send people running away screaming. They might spent fifteen minutes trying to amplify the sound of a leaf or spent twenty minutes bashing chains. But at the heart of this musical adventure is some kind of unspoken quest, to reach informal beauty outside the conventional methods, to understand and explore existence at the most fundamental level by removing the alleged sophistication layers of society.

Davenport's music is difficult to describe and raises the fundamental question of what music actually is. They are like a tribe of feral kids let loose on broken toy instruments running amok in the fields and backwoods of America, raised by wolves and trained by native Americans in shamanism. Their music is primitive, simple, rambling, almost idiotic but equally compelling, beguiling even sometimes transcendent or calming as the mood takes them. They combine acoustic music, field recordings, processed noise, occasional vocals, hand drums, birdsong, whoops, cries, yelps and hollers into a whole that like it loathe it isn't ignorable. As shown on some recent CDrs they are capable of sophisticated, adventurous but cohesive experimental music like their thunderstorm soundscapes on the CDr split with James Blackshaw or the shepherd raga of 'Springtime on Saturnalia'. However 'The Field Tales' takes the sound down to the basics, where individual sounds recorded 'in the field' matter as much as melody, it's as much a soundscape as it is music, which only surfaces anyway at certain points. This CD would probably disgust many but capture one or two converts who are then hooked for life, Davenport become the itch you can't scratch, a toxin seeping into the skin that seduces you with their madness.

It evolves from people moving in the field to occasionally strummed acoustic jams, ritualistic tribal yelping to droning horns and wind instruments. To call this folk music would imply too much structure or intent, but yet it connects somehow to that area. The description of 'free folk' was coined for the music coming out of similarly experimental, sometimes insane sounding music, it's as good and poor a description as we'll get. I find this release being more extended than others covers the whole range of Davenport's styles and is best put on and ignored (doing hallucinogenic drugs to this might turn out to be a trip without a return ticket, not recommended). Whilst ignoring it strange musical shapes will emerge, currently it's a kind of military brass on huge amounts of valium, other times it's dogs barking over one stringed guitar. There's a logic here but I don't know what it is, there is intent here but they're not giving it away. I think the attraction is sometimes, how did they get here? Why did they do it? What are they trying to express? It's like some big extended primal expression, a need to expunge all the useless crap inside. It's extremity and carnal outpouring aligns it with free jazz, thrash metal, avant punk, broken electronics, 90s jungle. It's that need to roar until you're empty, to pound at the sky.

Recommending this or trying to say whether it's good or not is relatively pointless, it exists and some people should hear it. You won't go away unmoved but the reaction might not be one of enjoyment. For the rest of us, the deluded weirdos who can't get enough of this stuff, Davenport are out there in the woods, pounding at logs and howling at the sky for us because we can't. Someone has to do this, why I don't know, what gods it appeases we can't see but just occasionally, when their lurching and bashing forms into cohesion, those moments are all the more beautiful, the sublime reached through accident. When the instruments such as they are disappear and bird song remains the only sound, then they reach some kind of clarify and simplicity which sits at the heart of an unreachable and undefined folk idyll.

You might think this entire review is pretentious drivel and you may be right. My answer will be, okay, buy it then. I dare you..... and may the gods have mercy on your souls......

Informal Reviews

taken from our blog at http://theunbrokencircle.blogspot.com

Davenport continue to beguile and confuse on their side of the split release with James Blackshaw. In the last couple of months about six CDrs of theirs have been released by different labels, all of them different ranging from the meditative and musical to the noisily confrontrational and chaotic. This tends initially more to the quieter, rumbling soundscapes with chimes, percussion, bells, nature sounds, droning strings and percussive clatters sounding like the quiet just before a storm hits. That moment of tense silence, of everything falling still but you know the ominous power to come, that's what we're hearing before it slowly slides into the otherworldly, as though another dimension begins to creep into ours. Heavily reverbed, strange notes enter the piece, sounding like an intrusion from somewhere unknown. On the second piece it starts like the chattering of nature after the storm, almost imperciptable noises and notes hang in the air. Again the sound opens out slowly, notes arching across the music like something disturbing moving around in a distant cave. The only thing more subtly macabre than the music is what your imagination projects sits at the edge of the piece trying to find it's way in...

Clay Ruby's Davenport from the USA on recent CDr 'Springtime on Saturnalia' were more pastoral than I had expected, field recordings introduce tentative plucked, middle eastern sounding acoustic guitar played over birdsong which evolves into a full raga of intense power with sitar, violin and many sounds swirling in the continually building epic track. Not at all what I expected and very beautiful.

The Davenport associated Jesus Balls on 'Yellow' were somewhat more stark, a grey noise, feedback, circuits malfunctioning based series of drones into which tiny, trace elements of melody are added. It's hard to know what I'm supposed to make of it. It did though clear my head, perhaps that's what it's for.
 

From frenzied confrontation to the ceremony in an underground chamber of the Davenport rassociated Seen Through. Searing, slow electric guitar reverberates around the cave, filling every cavity of the rock and your skull. A slow invocation to primative instinct, music from past lives, prayers of the stone age. The ceremony reaches its peak, the roar of primal existence on part two. Almost screaming, tearing at your skull, the grinding of the circle stones. Here be the pronunciation of savage gods that we have lost that wait to reclaim us. Noise mangles all perception, reason and rationale denied with only the droning strings left that seep into every cell of the cave walls. They come not to invoke gods, but to become them.

Also from Wisconsin is the Pastures Music Festival and Jubilee which brings together many current US experimental folk / acoustic oriented artists. 23Productions have released a double CDr very cheaply covering the one from 2004 which really is a defining compilation to introduce current underground music. It has a mouth watering line up of known artists like Postage, Spires That In The Sunset Rise, Jack Rose, Black Forest/Black Sea, Davenport, Christina Carter, Born Heller, Matt Valentine and Erikea Elder, Pelt and various Jewelled Antler bands such as Of and Blithe Sons. Then it gets really weird with deeply subterranean artists like Unstable Ensemble, Pfeifer Sam, Son of Earth, Black Twig Pickers and Virgin Eye Blood Brothers. It's got to be essential really for any readers so broad is the coverage. It's still available for now (but in limited quantities) at http://www.23productions.net

The Davenport family of bands is always guaranteed to take into the extremities of music. However Drunjus the drone music offshoot of Clay Ruby and Dan Woodman is far more entrancing and almost ambient than I expected. There is a double CD on Foxglove recently issued which contains a shorter studio version of the music on this disc. The Cdr here was released in June 2005 and is called ‘Thick Winds Off the Sargasso’ which is a live, twenty minute or so piece that has wind, waves and insects echoing in the distance and gently buzzing notes whirring above which build over time in intensity. It’s rather lovely really in its own way and as close to early Michael Stearns or Jonathan Cole Lough’s ‘Cake’ as it is to Davenport themselves. It’s got a very still feeling as though heat haze is shimmering in front of the speakers. The piece is a kind of self-enclosed musical landscape, you feel as though you are at this place with the insects all around. After a while I almost didn’t notice it was on which is a good thing, the air merged with the music and the room changed for the duration of the mini-CD. That’s not to say it’s dull, it just flows consistently until it becomes part of the sound all around you. This is a very interesting direction for the Davenport family and amongst the very best of its type.

Go to http://www.dlc.fi/~hhaahti/267lattajjaa/ltj-34.htm

Go to http://www.digitalisindustries.com/catalog4.html

Another Davenport linked artist is Maths Balance Volumes which is Clay Kolbinger on ‘Cattle Skulls and Rail Road Tracks‘ their third release. Well this is frankly terrifying, a journey into the butchering Hicksville world of the lost deep south. This is inbred uneducated lunatics given power tools and Pro-Tools. Grinding endless noise, shards of banjo, demented hollering, frenzied drumming and more for your delectation. You might not mind listening but you wouldn’t want them to visit. If folk music is the expression of the people, then this foul noise if the expression of inarticulate, one toothed, no fingered sub-people reduced to banging bones together and scraping off the remaining marrow like dogs. Yet sometimes the music does come through, the harrowing foot stomping dances of ‘Dried Up In The Sun’ do have some kind of feeling, these people do live…somehow. You should hear this but you will wish you hadn’t. The soundtrack to the snuff movie version of a potential Wicker Man remake.

Go to http://www.volcanictongue.com/mathsbalancevolumes.html

Or http://mathsbalancevolumes.tripod.com/

Or http://www.pinktoes.net/chocolate_monk.htm

Here is the latest updates for the grand tour featuring the Skaters, Davenport, Lau Nau, Hertta Lussu Assä, Pekko Käppi, Tomutonttu, Taikuri Tali, Islaja, and Kuupuu. Bios for all the bands are listed below.

A bunch of blanks have been filled in and we are still filling in many blanks, but this is the official schedule. More info coming soon. Drop me an email with any questions, concerns, or help. clayruby@23productions.net

All start times for are strict due to the number of bands per night. Please show up on time.
 

TOUR ARTIST LINKS:

TOMUTONTTU
http://www.kemiallisetystavat.com/tomutonttu/

PEKKO KAPPI
http://www.dlc.fi/~hhaahti/267lattajjaa/ltj 14.htm

ISLAJA
http://www.islaja.com/
http://www.fonal.com/islaja/
a review on an Islaja album can be found here:
http://www.foxydigitalis.com/foxyd/review_detail.php?id=191

KUUPUU
http://www.mixoftheweek.com/kuupuu/
a reveiw of a Kuupuu release is available here
http://www.foxydigitalis.com/foxyd/review_detail.php?id=654

LAU NAU
http://www.locustmusic.com/launau.html
Article: http://www.citypaper.com/music/story.asp?id=10044
Interview: http://www.foxydigitalis.com/foxyd/launau1.html
reviews of the album: http://www.foxydigitalis.com/foxyd/launau_kuut.html
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record reviews/l/lau nau/kuutarha.shtml

Hertta Lussu Ässä
This is a super trio that includes Islaja, Kuupuu and Lau Nau. What they play is partly improvised psychedelia and folk with a wide range of instruments & wild singing. It's a mess of sounds and changing structures. And wow, they're good at it! Hertta Lussu Ässä's performances have raised excitement and euphoria and their debut album will be out on Eclipse records, late 2005.

TAIKURI TALI
http://www.deepturtle.net/rauha.html
http://www.volcanictongue.com/lauhkeatlampaat.html

Article on the "Finnish Psych Folk Scene"
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/features/weekly/05 04 18 finnish psych folk.shtml

DAVENPORT
The Davenport Family is a loosely knit network of musicians, mainly located in Wisconsin, led by Clay Ruby. Sounds from Davenport involve improvisations and song cycles created with voice and various acoustic and electronic tools. The recorded workings of Davenport are available through such labels as Time Lag (US), PsuedoArcana (NZ), 267 Lattajjaa (Fin), Imvated (Bel),  Jyrk Collective (US), Foxglove (US), Audiobot (Bel), Haamumaa (Fin), Polyamory (US), and our own 23 Productionsand Skullfucking Tapes. This lineup of the Davenport Family Travelling Band will feature:  Clay Ruby (Jesus Balls, Clay's Festering Lungs, etc), Woodman (Drunjus), Endless (Craig Microcassette System, Postage), and accompanied by Nic Stage (Amnesis, Retroactive Interference) and John Gould (Leannan Sith) for the first half of the tour and the occasional special guests throughout.
http://www.23productions.net/davenport/
An article about Davenport is here:
http://www.diskant.net/columns/dave_stockwell/november04.htm
a live recording can be found here:
http://www.bsrlive.com/archives/playlist.php?p=2601
Many reviews of Davenport can be found here:
http://www.foxydigitalis.com/foxyd/alpha.php?letter=d

THE SKATERS

"THE SKATERS ALIGNED THEMSELVES AND MET IN  SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA IN 2003.SINCE THEN THEY HAVE TRAVELLED TO SAN FRANCISCO,THE SKATERS ARE  JAMES FERRARO,SPENCER CLERK AND, SOMETIMES DAN BRYANT.THE SKATERS PERFORM PSEUDO RELIGOUS THEATER, SENDING DEVOTION UPWARDS INTO THE UNKNOWN, APPRECIATING THE AESTHETIC OF RELIGON AS THEATER.CHANNELING THE ENTERNAL LIGHT SOUND "WE ARE ALIVE ON EARTH AND ALIVE IN HEAVEN AT THE SAME TIME" SAID WHISPERS AN OLD FRIEND OF THE SKATERS.MANIFOLD INVERTED TEXTURES MAKE THE STAIRWELL IN WHICH THE SKATERS WALK TO MEET UP WITH OHPA ON A PAVILION OF CLOUDS AND THERE HAND AND HAND DROP DICE INTO THE WELL OF MEMORIES".
http://naturetapelimb.0catch.com/.htm
 

Streaming online MP3s by Davenport and the extended family....  These tracks may be listened to in your media player but cannot be downloaded to protect copyright.

 

Davenport - track from 'Rabbit's Foot Propeller'	click here
Davenport - excerpt from Field Tales	click here
Davenport - Cast The Rabbit Seed Cycle   (from 'Tongue of Bear')	click here
Davenport - Shaking Job's Tears   (from split with 'James Blackshaw')	click here
Clay Ruby - Mountain Long    Album "Davenport Family Boxset" Year 2005    Label "23 Productions"    USA Web site www.23productions.net  clayruby@23productions.net	click here
Maths Balance Volumes - Sideways    Album "Sideways 3" Year 2005    Label "23 Productions"    USA Web site http://www.23productions.net	click here