INCHES reviews Ascend, Blank Realm, Active Child, Ernest Gonzales [MP3s]

In the strange wake of music's digital rebirth, vinyl has experienced a modest boom in popularity, seen by many as a replacement for the awkward middleman that is the compact disc. INCHES reviews the output of L.A.'s healthy record-making community (artists and labels, indie or other), believing that good music deserves much more than a handful of ones and zeros.

Last time around, we covered releases by Sunn O))), Flying Lotus, Russian Circles and the Langley Sisters. This week, we review a total of 55 inches. Email INCHES here.

Chris Martins

​Artist: Active Child
Title: "She Was A Vision"
Label: Transparent (UK)
Format: 7-inch, white vinyl, 300 pressed

Active Child is the recording name of L.A's Pat Grossi, a heretofore unknown entity evidently capable of great, great things. For this British import, Grossi delivers two equally enticing songs that combine his seemingly equal interests in haunting vocal folk (of the Bon Iver variety) and damaged electronic music (a la dubstep). "She Was A Vision" is the biggest-sounding of the pair, where reverbed drum hits echo forth from the '80s, vocals cascade in choral washes, and harp sounds gather in pools of dulcet notes. B-side "Voice Of An Old Friend" sheds the single's chillwave leanings for creepier territory, occasional dissonance and fluttering pan pipes, but both excel at a sort of ethereal organic sprawl that's been absent from L.A. music, even in a time as ripe as this.
Active Child - "She Was A Vision"

Purchase at your local independent record vendor (INCHES recommends Origami or Vacation), or now via the Leftist Nautical Antiques shop (mind the import price).

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Chris Martins

​Artist: Ascend
Title: Ample Fire Within
Label: Southern Lord (East Hollywood)
Format: 2LP, 180 gram vinyl, heavy card stock gatefold jacket, tip-on inner panel, printed sleeves, 550 pressed

In a word: Triumphant. In the last installment of INCHES, we featured Sunn O)))'s nigh-classical masterpiece, Monoliths & Dimensions. That hefty fucker was fantastically mired in its own quag, but Ample Fire Within, the 2008 album from Ascend (another drone/doom duo featuring Greg Anderson) just now getting its vinyl debut, takes a different tack. Opener "Obelisk Of Kolob" stomps forth like a proud mammoth, its hair made of knotted guitar strings. The track grinds, drones and crashes before, through the glorious murk, a kingly horn blows. The titular song follows, where a spare guitar/Wurlitzer combos chases down some Eastern melodies before a garbled voice enters the scene and something equally beautiful and terrifying grabs hold. For its third song, Ascend takes on a composition by pianist McCoy Turner, "Desert Cry," which solidifies this record's (at least) spiritual connection to vintage freewheeling jazz -- Sun Ra could've done something like this if he'd had the members of Fantômas at his disposal. Guitars cry, a voice coos, there's more trombone, more keys, incredible amounts of droning tones, more more more guitar... And that's just side A.

Ascend - "Ample Fire Within"

This limited release is only available through Southern Lord mail order. Purchase it here.

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