3 Crows Redux

I would like to remind anyone who undertook to download Glenn Brown's 3 Crows & The Moon during the dark days of server malfunction that the album is once more available, and should be downloaded and listened to without delay. The album's release coincided catastrophically with the Internet Archive's server crisis, and it remained unstable for almost two months, so that many people whose lives Glenn's music might have enriched were denied.

To refresh your memory: Glenn Brown creates luminously ambient sci-fi soundscapes using only his (heavily processed) electric guitar - but that description does no more than hint at the delicious weightlessness of the sound, and the mingled bliss and disquiet of dreaming in zero gravity.

So, once again: Glenn Brown - 3 Crows & The Moon

The Threshold People on Myspace

For those of you who keep track of such things, The Threshold People now have their own Myspace page!

As an incentive to go take a look, the fiends have uploaded a demo from their forthcoming album, Seven Legs from an Eight-Legged Beast! Be one of the first to hear, etc.

New Release: Nagual Art - A Landscape Built By Whispers

Nagual Art - A Landscape Built By Whispers
[free download, 192kpbs mp3]

"Nagual Art - the German Dark Ambient Soundtrack Project - was founded in 2005. Inspired by dreams and an abstract mindset, I try to render dreams audible and - the other way around - to provide a possible access to subconsciousness and dreams through music. Abstract-dark, confused-melancholic soundscapes with neo-classical influences emanate from this musical concept."

01. The Whisperbox
02. Bedroom Visitors
03. This Winternight Forever
04. Adoria
05. The Swan

"Stop your thoughts, start to dream, live!"

General news and whatnot

Hello, friends! I'm writing this update from the bunkhouse, since maintenance is smudging my office following last night's "incident." The Threshold People have kindly allowed me to crash with them (I can't stand the smell of sage, and won't be returning until my office is well and truly aired out), so I'm looking forward to a very long, popcorn-fueled night. Anyway, to business...

In June, I announced that our tenth release would be our label compilation. As you have seen, of course, we decided to release Terra Lucida as plague010 instead. The compilation has been postponed for a short time while we release work from several artists who have been waiting for us to get our act together (to be painfully frank). Watch for it before too much longer!

Next up: Nagual Art - A Landscape Built By Whispers

In other news, I do finally have a new intern to help out with the website. Unfortunately, he's an anarcho-primitivist, so he really hasn't been an awful lot of help with the technical side of things, but he makes Turkish coffee like he was born to it, so he stays. I'm also pleased to announce that the sheep mutilations have ceased, and the perpetrator has been dealt with, which will hopefully put an end to the unwanted attention the Institute has been receiving from the local farming community.

Finally, the crew of the airship Jane Guy would like to apologize to the former residents of 114 Broad St. Medville, Arkansas, for the late-night emergency ballast drop. Our accounting department will be in touch.

=PD

New Release from Fabrizio Torri

Fabrizio Torri - Terra Lucida
[free download, 192kpbs mp3]

Fabrizio Torri's first album for This Plague of Dreaming is a strange world of echoes, of memory, and of golden, shifting light. Torri's music is frequently retro in sound, but it has been filtered through the distortion of the intervening decades, rounding its sharp edges and blurring its outline in warmth and dust. This is music to listen to alone, with headphones and closed eyes and the sun on your face.

01. ambra baltica
02. gizmo
03. l'equilibrio
04. kid eternity
05. mago saverio
06. peg-leg pete
07. swedenborg
08. terra lucida

Another Milestone

With unprecedented speed, Sublinear's debut album Pinned Beneath the Boiling Sky [plague009] has exceeded 1000 official downloads.

Thank you, once again, loyal plaguedreamers.

In response to a question, a clarification:

An anonymous correspondent has questioned my recent report of Mr. _____'s unfortunate incarceration, wondering if I had mistakenly typed "15 years" when I meant "15 months," a more likely, though still somewhat immoderate, sentence for the crime of orchid smuggling.

Indeed I did not. Mr. ____'s sentence has been set at 15 years, and if I may say so frankly, he was lucky to get that. The orchids in question were more-than-commonly outre, as were his methods for obtaining them, and while I am not at liberty to elaborate, I might state euphemistically that the laws of Man were not the highest of those which were contravened in pursuit of his epiphytic prize, and this no doubt contributed directly to the unconventionally stiff penalty which he faces. Let us then consider "orchid smuggling" a convenient label under which to subsume a nested series of offenses the exact nature of which is unlikely to come to light, and allow the matter to rest. Further inquiry, my good Anonymous, will not profit you.

=PD

Milestone - First PlagueDream release to reach 1000 downloads!

Another update already!

This Plague of Dreaming is proud to announce that Night of the Threshold People [plague003] has reached 1000 official* downloads, our first release to do so.

Thank you, loyal plaguedreamers, for helping us make it this far!

*that is, downloads recognized by the Internet Archive's official counter

The state of things at the Institute

Summer is upon us here at the PlagueDream Institute, deep in the hoary hills of New England, bringing with it swarms of fireflies, the heady scent of night-blooming flowers, and an infusion of new talent: oneironauts Fabrizio Torri and Nagual Art have joined our ranks. Watch for new music from them in the coming months!

In the meantime, work is underway on This Plague of Dreaming's tenth album release, a compilation featuring label artists present and future, as well as featured guest artists.

In other news, the head of the Institute's Exploration unit was just sentenced to 15 years for orchid smuggling*, and in the resulting departmental chaos, our Outreach service was able to slyly requisition one of Exploration's much-coveted airships. Watch the sky over cornfields and lonely hilltops near you for the disco running-lights of the Jane Guy, and the throbbing sub bass which will announce another of their impromptu fly-over raves (for such lucky locals as awaken from their beds to follow the music into the night). I wish, sometimes, that I could fly out with them, but my work is here at the Institute.

Finally, I must apologize for the infrequent nature of updates both to this blog and to the main website - with new converts and wild-eyed pilgrims wandering into the compound every day, you'd think Personnel could spare me one to act as webmaster, but, alas, they retain them for their own darkly-hinted purposes. I suppose I shouldn't complain, as construction on our new subterranean facilities is progressing ahead of projections, but it still leaves me to maintain the department's web presence "in my spare time," when I'm not coordinating work in the lab. Grumbling aside, look for updated information (and a snazzy website redesign) in the near future.

Until the next update (whenever that may be), keep watching the skies, and don't get caught.

=PD

*the PlagueDream Institute categorically denies any knowledge of Mr. ____'s unlawful activities, and resents the implication.

Another Milestone

With unprecedented speed, Sublinear's debut album Pinned Beneath the Boiling Sky [plague009] has exceeded 1000 official downloads.

Thank you, once again, loyal plaguedreamers.

New Release from Sublinear

Sublinear - Pinned Beneath the Boiling Sky
[free download, 192kpbs mp3]

Music for a radiant abyss.

This is Sublinear's first album with This Plague of Dreaming, but his experience as a score composer shows clearly in his disquieting, cinematic trip-hop arrangements.

01. A Quiet Death
02. Night of the Reptiles
03. Shattered Light
04. Fragility
05. And the Wind In the Trees Is Like the Sound of Eternity
06. Breakdancing in the Rain
07. Bloodworms
08. Our Weapons Are Useless Against Them
09. Kill Us Before the Rains Come
10. Litany

Sublinear appeared alongside The Threshold People on Oddio Overplay's terrifying Halloween compilation Calling All Fiends.

MZR001: BOY DESTROYER: "RISE HORUS RISE"

"Mauve Zone Recordings is pleased to announce the release of its first digital bullet, "Rise Horus Rise", which is in turn the grand debut of noise supergroup BOY DESTROYER."

Featuring This Plague of Dreaming recording artist Sypha Nadon!

If you need noise, this album will hurt you so good.

Get more information, including an interview HERE

Download your pitiful life away HERE

The roller-skate boys sweep down a hill in a shower of autumn leaves. They slice through a police patrol. Blood spatters dead leaves in air.

The screen is exploding in moon craters and boiling silver spots.

"Wild boys very close now."

Darkness falls on the ruined suburbs. A dog barks in the distance.

Dim jerky stars are blowing away across a gleaming empty sky, the wild boys smile.

-WSB

New Release: [interrupt:Jumper] - "music for unfinished movies"

[Esc.] Laboratory:
[interrupt:Jumper] - "music for unfinished movies"
[free download, 192kpbs mp3]

"Making music means to us to free our hearts from agony, frustration, lust and the eternal sin. It`s a way of cleansing the soul. As we get deeper into the grains of sound we touch the intelligence of chaos." - [Esc.] Laboratory

01. replica (live)
02. endgame
03. refrigerator
04. story of Kain
05. move (live)
06. unknown applicant
07. Idoru
08. through closed doors

Germany's [Esc.] Laboratory are veteran sonic ritualists, and explorers of a liminal territory that will be familiar to our loyal plaguedreamers. The sound is industrial-dub, thrumming bass and echoic beats offering a pulsing glimpse of deep time traveling down the spine, the soundtrack to a lunar eclipse.

When [Esc.] Laboratory contacted the PlagueDream Institute in 2006, we were impressed by their dedication and craft, and affected by their trance-inducing sound. After intense negotiations, we entered into a mutually-beneficial strategic alliance. [interrupt:Jumper] is the first of several [Esc.] Lab projects that will be hosted by This Plague of Dreaming, according to the terms of that treaty.

New Release Addendum:

As some of you probably noticed, several of the tracks from the recent Sypha Nadon release ended rather abruptly. This was not intentional. The damaged files were up for the first dozen or so downloads, but they have since been replaced. If you were one of the enterprising, though unfortunate, early downloaders, you might wish to return to the download page so you can hear the full release as it was meant to be heard. We apologize for the inconvenience.

New Release from SYPHA NADON:

Sypha Nadon - Threnody for Zumb Zumb

This, Sypha Nadon's second full-length release, marks a new phase in his musical development. The familiar elements are still here - the signature off-kilter melodies and savage noise breaks - but the album is more unified than previous efforts. Threnody is also SN's most minimalistic work thus far, allowing simple patterns and complex textures to unravel over time, revealing their inner richness.

01. Sonic Lwa
02. Phil Collins finds the Godhead
03. Ginen
04. Barracuda Lullaby
05. The Sypha Nadon Factory Tour
06. Threnody for Zumb Zumb
07. Russolo for Dummies
08. The Meon
09. Kill the Violence
10. Kind Hands is the Cure

Oddio Overplay Compilation: Calling All Fiends

Featuring This Plague of Dreaming artists The Threshold People!

"Halloween is meant to be scary, right? Year after year we dust off the old silly 1950s and 1960s novelty records. While they are fun, they not at all frightening. Oddio Overplay put the challenge to musical artists the world over to create Halloween music that is "frightening, damaging and disturbing." No 'Monster Mash,' instead creepy soundtracks to a fiendish Halloween. They succeeded with CALLING ALL FIENDS! Some of these pieces will creep you right out of your skin."



Featuring: 8m2stereo, [Not] Daniel Johnston, Brian and Harlan, Bureaucratica, Cauhaus, Click Click Click, Grant, Jeffrey Letterly, Lee Rosevere, Lenkei, Limonadiac, Mark Harvey, Mr. Fab and His Bag of Heads, Nigel Simmons, Pharmacom, Rain Station, Roymond, Shirley and Spinoza, Splogman, Stealing Orchestra, Sublinear*, The DVDs, The Threshold People, The Waiters, Ton Rückert, Urban Inbreed, Weirdomusic, X-Tokyo-River-God

*hint: one to watch for

Threshold People Interview:

Clayton Cameron's exclusive interview with horrorbeat artists The Threshold People is now online.

New Release: Harel Gal - the beginning the end [plague006]

For this, our sixth label release, the dream is taken up by Israeli songwriter and soundsmith Harel Gal. When Harel contacted the PlagueDream Institute, we were immediately struck by the intimacy and tenderness of his musical vision. His sonic palette is often melancholic, occasionally foreboding, but never bleak. In addition to playing guitar, flute, electronics, and many other instruments and non-musical objects, Harel also has the distinction of being the first singer on the label. His gentle voice graces two songs, away and sounds of sorrow.

[plague006] Harel Gal - the beginning the end

botelmania (4:58)
away (3:20)
sounds for nebula x (3:28)
weather (5:52)
sounds of sorrow (4:24)
dreaming circles (2:46)

[stream via M3U]

Announcement:

This Plague of Dreaming is proud to announce that we have just signed a new artist to our roster:

Accomplished dreamsmith Harel Gal will soon make his Plaguedream debut - watch this space for updates!

Another Announcement:

Sypha Nadon hit another milestone today, as his Enter Horus reaches 200 downloads!

(I don't suppose I'll keep making these announcements indefinitely - we're a young label, and we still get, perhaps, unreasonably excited about these sorts of things.)