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SORRY FOR LAUGHING Rain Flowers
Sorry For Laughing is a project by Gordon H. Whitlow who is also a member of legendary US avantgarde collective Biota, formerly Mnemonists or Mnemonist Orchestra. Their music is a mixture of modern classical, experimental sounds, noise, industrial, avangarde, songwriting and free jazz. In 1986 Gordon H. Whitlow released a cassette under the name Sorry For Laughing: "The compositions stem from my beginning days with the avant-garde recording ensemble Biota, shortly after completion of the Bellowing Room LP." The album was re-issued on CD by Klanggalerie in 2018 and is still available. Recently, Gordon reactivated the project and changed it from a solo effort into a new supergroup.He says about 'Rain Flowers': So, we arrive again… this time, ensnared in nature’s web, betrothed to tradition. In its next group installment — Rain Flowers — Sorry For Laughing looks out through an organic lens at a world (and a country) nearing disrepair. A love letter characterized by unexpected ironies and chance encounters. The two-disc gallery is adorned with impressionistic new pieces and more than a passing nod to history and lore, with original interpretations, some at odd angles. Add to this, a familiar voice from those halcyon days of post-punk pleasures, and the flower garden is full of psyched-out colours! Sorry For Laughing: Martyn Bates (vocals, piano, melodica, whistles), Edward Ka-Spel (vocals), Janet Feder (guitars), Gordon H. Whitlow (organs, accordion, production), Patrick Q Wright (violin, viola, strings). With Larry Wilson (drums), Tom Katsimpalis (paintings), and Bill Sharp (photography), and featuring Dave-id Busaras (vocals). Full tracklist: CD1 1. Johnny's Gone To Hilo 2. Processional 3. The Hunter 4. I Go Bound 5. Man Of Thessaly 6. When I See 7. Oats And Beans....And Barley Grow 8. Christ Child Lullaby CD 2 1. Will Be 2. Rain Flowers. Price: € 25,-/copy incl. worldwide shipping.
Orgelklänge prägen die Atmosphäre vieler der Tracks – mal verspielt-psychedelisch, mal von monumentaler Schwere, mal mit dem gebrochenen Charme eines melancholischen Jahrmarktssounds. Immer wieder entstehen monumentale Momente, getragen von Bates’ unverkennbar entrücktem Gesang. Edward Ka-Spels gesprochene Passagen setzen einen beunruhigenden Kontrast, wenn sich seine Worte über beklemmende Soundscapes legen, die bisweilen einen lärmenden Zug annehmen.
(African Paper, April 2025)
None of this is very song-oriented, also defying expectations, I guess, but it all remains on the narrative side of things, in which the music takes the lead, and the vocals support the narrative. Spacious music, in which time is relative, space is infinite, and history looks down from ages; music is as new as old. As before, slow music is to be enjoyed in full seclusion, with no other distractions.
(Vital Weekly, April 2025)
Brani trovati in chissà quale cassetto dei recordi proposti insieme a vere e proprie nuove composizioni, in un raccto all insegna di un rinnovato amore per la Natura e per le atmosfere bucoliche. Attitudine post-punk e incontenibile fantasia psichedelica sono gli ingredienti fondementali con cui Gordon H. Whitlow impreziosisce le nuove composizioni dei Sorry For Laughing, tra Ombra E Luce.
(Rockerilla, May 2025)
Rain Flowers es un álbum que en general tiene una estructura de canción, a la que se le van sumando grabaciones del ambiente con guiños a sonidos experimentales, acompañado de un tempo apacible y lleno de contornos melódicos con una ascendencia nostálgica, donde las voces aterciopeladas de Bates y Ka-Spel le dan un toque sicodélico y progresivo a este álbum, arropado por una portada que muestra bellas flores a punto de abrirse con un fondo de colores variopintos.
(Loop, May 2025)
And thats perhaps the album’s most poetic gift: its embrace of the liminal, the marginal, the in-between. These pieces operate in the cracks between genres, between tradition and experiment, memory and invention. (...) Rain Flowers is a love letter to imperfection, to collage, to listening with your whole nervous system. Its a record that rewards patience and curiosity, a kind of strange pastoral mass for our scattered, overwhelmed moment. So, sit in the garden. Let it rain. And listen.
(Chain DLK, May 2025)
In Rain Flowers is registra una partecipazione più contenuta da parte di Edward Ka-Spel, presente soltanto nei sedici minuti di I Go Bound, in cui recita in una foschia tipicamente Legendary Pink Dots, sino all apertura di una finestra su ancestrali panorami, col pezzo che diventa gravemente meditativo, seppur subisca prima sobbalzi avant e poi serpentine free, ma anche l inedito intervento, nell altrettanto estesa Will Be, dell ex Virgin Prunes Dave-id Busaras, la cui voce caratterizza quasi integralmente in brano che momentaneamente, con l accordion di Gordon, sembra trasportare ad istanti lontani sino a che non si interrompe, diventando troppo doloroso ci si rifugia nell astrazione e in ipnotiche circolarità sintetiche.
(Blow Up, June 2025)
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