Simon Scott + Gabriel Saloman at Kunstwerke / Thursday, 11.06.2015

Presenting the June 2015 edition of the FEED Frequencies program at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin. Founded as a label and conceived by Erik Skodvin in the late-90s as a reaction to the popular ‘demo scene’, Berlin-based Miasmah released 63 freely downloadable tracks & albums available through the creative commons license and archive.org

Today, the Miasmah label is recognized for releasing critically acclaimed albums bound by a cohesive aesthetic, and as a company that functions as both a record label and graphic design studio. Simon Scott and Gabriel Saloman have exceptional releases on Miasmah and will perform their collective works at FEED Frequencies on June 11th.

http://https://youtu.be/VazrtjzEjRc

Cambridge-based Simon Scott might still be best known for his tenure as the backbone of influential shoegazers Slowdive, but after his debut solo effort ‘Navigare’ in 2009, he showed that there was far more to his oeuvre than people might have thought. With an ease and fluidity that eschews the usual trappings of the genre, he injected Slowdive’s free-flowing bliss into the kind of blackened soundscapes the Miasmah label has made its calling card and gave the sound a rich, multi-layered quality that was effortlessly enticing.

‘Bunny’ is Scott’s sophomore long player, and sees the multi-instrumentalist growing in confidence as he takes on a plethora of themes and ideas and distills them into a coherent, well-defined narrative.

http://https://youtu.be/JTWcOL3r0Hk

Sounding as if you may be the last person left on earth, Gabriel Saloman guides you through rain filled open spaces, epic showdowns & abandoned cities. The debris is floating and in the shadow lurks a guitar picking Vincent Gallo. Meanwhile there seems to be marching bands closing by on all fronts while a punk band playing Tim Hecker tracks is to be heard from the horizon.

Soldier’s Requiem confirms Saloman as a man able to further his own musicality while regaining the key elements to his recipe. This is music for modern decay and melancholy.