DRONARIVM, DR-11, 3”CDr, ltd. 66
“Bloody Oath” is thick and sticky like eucalyptus sap, monotonous like a didgeridoo sound, drone ambient from the German artist René Margraff aka Pillowdiver. All tracks in the album are based on top hits from Australian musicians. “I created these in a similar way like “Frozen Soundtracks” – says René – I was freezing, stretching, mangling, whatever moments of these three songs first. These then got layered into fuzzy drones”. In search of a music protolanguage Pillowdiver neutralizes the current pop culture and reveals an archaic character of primitive cultures by reducing fictitious diversity of the contemporary music palette to a sacral, timeless drone. And this process is unlikely to be subject to reverse engineering.
The album design is entirely hand-made, in line with the edition concept. The general set of colours implies a blood oath rite. A cover somewhat refined (calligraphic type, folds of dark silk) presents a contrast to the filling: signs of the aboriginal Australian culture bleed through coarse paper of the inserted booklet.
Limited of 66 handnumbered copies.
René Margraff (b. 1975) lives and works in Berlin. He started Pillowdiver in 2008 and released his albums at such labels as 12k, Analogpath, Under The Spire, Twisted Tree Line, Nomadic Kids Republic.
http://pillowdiver.tumblr.com/
Curated by Bartosz Dziadosz (Pleq)
Managed by Dmitry Taldykin
Cover art by Peter Nejedly
Designed by Dronarivm Art
If you are looking for a digital download, please support this artist and buy it direct from his Bandcamp page: pillowdiver.bandcamp.com/album/bloody-oath
A Closer Listen:
“By moving the music forward through processing, Margraff ironically moves it back as well, to a time when a slow, steady hum was considered a holy ritual”.
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Textura:
“A connecting line can easily be drawn from the imagery to the originating musical material, which Margraff, adopting the mindset of an anthropologist, broached as archaic remnants of a past civilization before radically transforming them by, in his own words, “freezing, stretching, mangling.”
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Igloo Magazine:
“Bloody Oath exacts prolonged vengeance on pop music by taking a handful of chart hits by Australian acts and stretching, layering and generally obfuscating any trace of origin”.
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