Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Sorry for the poop jokes Will

Ponds recorded this past Sunday for a behemoth 12-hour block with Will Killingsworth at Dead Air Studios in Leverett, MA. The day was grotesquely productive.

In that 12 hour span:

-we recorded 4 songs almost entirely - "Heart/Lungs", "A New Hampshire Mirage", "Prophylaxis", and "198 Pieces". Song names always sound stupid when you're sharing them with people.

-we talked about poop only twice

-when we tired of talking about poop we changed the topic to music. The only band we could think to talk about was SHAT

-Bard recorded guitar solos. Fucking guitar solos. Two of em. Jesus.

-I ate two entire bags of trail mix. That was all I ate. The following day was a grisly ordeal.

-the unmixed, rough, result is a nightmarish mess. Terrifying. I think you'll love it.

We'll be returned to Dead Air after the first of the year to record a 5th song, "Stork Bites" and to track vocals, samples, drones, et al. Between now and then, we'll figure out what exactly we're going to be doing with these 5 pieces of horror and let you know as soon as that happens.

bye bye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

~Adam

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Recording: Dealing with no daylight whatsoever

The entire roster of holdyourbreath Music has fallen into live slumber lately. Very few live shows to speak of, though things will be picking up considerably after the first of the year. For now, beneath the perceived lag, and in classic introvert style, our brains have been atwitter with writing and recording activity. Every... single... project. I'm assuming this has something to do with our distaste for being around other human beings that only increases as the amount of daylight wanes.

PONDS will begin recording an EP tomorrow in Leverett, MA with Will Killingsworth at Dead Air Studios!! This is very exciting. I'll let you know how it goes on Monday. Will: don't fuck this up or else I'll make icky jokes about you on a blog that no one reads. Consider the arc of your entire career in the crosshairs.

THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS has been meandering about, recording songs here, some there, and even a few over there. Today, Cora, Bard, and I will be hearing some of these recordings for the first time and contributing bass, bells, and guitar on the song "Alaska". Eventually these bits of histrionica will make their way onto some sort of release. Possibly two releases? Ask Jamie Lavo. Email him: trials.tribulations01@gmail.com

SYLPHID is slowly, painstakingly recording dozens of pieces. I'd hazard to guess that this will continue until the ground thaws, leaving us with a mass of music roughly the size of Siberia to sift through and compile into our first actual LP.

TUNDRA TODDLER has clambered back onto it's feet. If it ever were on it's feet in the first place. I have 5 years worth of demos that I've been giving the eyeball, the eardrum, and the harelip lately. 8 of these have been selected and are getting re-honed and thrown back down onto fresh tape err... hard drive. I imagine that within a week or two I'll be dumping every thread of my being into this and not really coming up for air until it's done.

The LIGHT album is nearly done from what I understand. I wouldn't know. I haven't talked to Eon lately. Though I'm in a band with him and he's one of my best friends, I think I've talked to him for a net total of 2 hours in the last month. Should be a good barometer for my anti-social behavior lately. Sorry everyone. Spring is just around the corner in 4 months. Anyway, the new Light is absolutely fantastic. Perfect for long, dark nights, with the weather-proof windows to your home gathering frost patterns, sputtering heating vents in the corner. It will be called "Beams of Light Like Insects Crowd the Floor".

loves,

~Adam

Monday, November 9, 2009

2 Last Minute Shows...

Lots of wee 'ittle bits of news this week.

First things first: There are 2 last minute shows quickly advancing this week. A bit bummed about this, only because this is my first opportunity to really tell anyone at all about them.

This Thursday (Nov. 12) PONDS will be rocking the the dirt out of our hair and the grease out of our beards at O'Brien's Pub in Allston, MA with God Awful and other mysterious bands that are unbeknown to us. This is bound to be a dead show and I apologize to all two of my bandmates for booking such a waste of gas. Come out and prove us wrong! Nevertheless, thank you Mr. Shred for keeping us in mind. Starts at 9pm, 21+, and I believe can be had for $7. click for directions. You don't want to get lost in the bone bucket that is Allston...

Show # 2 is this Saturday night (Nov. 14). SYLPHID is playing a house show in South Deerfield, MA at the Woodrose Ballroom (7 River Rd.) with Almost Morse Code. I jammed with these cats roughly a year ago. Weird, Krauty psychedelic squalls of splendor. A wall of synthesizers, a homemade electronic drum kit... I'm missing The Jesus Lizard and Animal Hospital in Boston for this, so you know it'll be good.

In other news there has been a truly mongoloidal amount of recording activity lately. We've got 4 separate projects in the process of recording material for various EPs, full lengths, and downloadable tracks. It's consumed our entire being - and we wouldn't have that shit any other way. More to come oh so soon!

~Adam

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Unreleased Cheaters Club Track Available

Hey everyone. Remember The Cheaters Club? Neither do we. The Cheaters Club has fallen to the back of the backburner, to where all of the olive oil residue and bacon drippings collect, where it may very well stay indefinitely. Or not. We're all (relatively) happy chaps at this time in our lives and I think it'd be disingenuous for us to blaze that trail for the time being. Only time will tell.

Anyway, I was meandering through my hard drive today dispensing of unlistenable 90s NoMeansNo mp3s when I happened upon an old, notably apocalyptic, demo(?) for a song that we never managed to do much of anything with. I thought you might be interested in hearing it.

So until our families are crushed by an upended tractor trailer full of beef, or we watch our best friend slowly engulfed by Parkinson's Disease, you can tide yourself over with the unreleased track "Wake Me Up" on the myspace player.

THE CHEATERS CLUB ON MYSPACE

~Adam

Friday, October 30, 2009

Ponds Live Recordings Available On the Now-Obsolete Myspace!

I posted two very rough live recordings from our show up in Peterborough, NH at Toadstool Books from a few weeks ago - courtesy of the beautiful Dave Seidel and his (startlingly) even more beautiful Zoom digital recorder that he smuggled into the store. Way to bootleg our recordings Dave. This shit's going to be worth it's weight in gold someday, possibly, but not likely... or even at all.

Check out "Heart/Lungs" and "A New Hampshire Mirage" on the PONDS MYSPACE.

More shows to report in a couple o' days.

~Adam

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Ponds shows! Ponds Recording! Ponds Ponds!

Holy confused priorities. After 6 months of near inactivity, Ponds is back to playing shows. For now we only have 2 shows in the upcoming weeks, but we're just barely creaking out of sleep and dusting the rust off. I say "near inactivity" because we have hatched out a few new, ugly, throbbing lumps of evil that we'll be debuting at these shows.

It also looks like next month we'll be holing ourselves up at Dead Air Studios in Leverett, MA with Will Killingsworth (Orchid, Ampere, Bucket Full of Teeth) to record a 5 song EP. We're longtime fans of Will's output, so expect lots of ass-rimming on our part.

In the meantime, Ponds will be playing Sat. Oct 17 @ Toadstool Books in Peterborough, NH with the deliciously stoned Black Norse. The shows starts at around 6pm. Click the link for directions.
We'll also be playing a house show in Granby, MA on Halloween afternoon/evening with the likes of Belltone Suicide, Evil Bill, Problem with Dragons, Whyte Castles, Radioactive Prostitute, Hornworm, Jow Jow, Bunwinkies, The Lamb Bashers, and of course, The Two Tents band, who are throwing this abominable soiree.
If you're on facebook, here's a link to the event for more info: HALLOWEEN SHIT.

Have the fun.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Light's First show! And Multiple Artist Ambient Project...





Eon has been chipping and spit-shining away at his solo lap-gloss project LIGHT for the last month or so and it sounds like a fever. He had recorded an album worth of material back in '05, hand-packaged the results, and shelved it after passing it along to a couple dozen folks. This is unfortunate and ugly. Being one of the few people to own the debut, I'm ludicrously excited that he's forded the swamp of writer's block (or what have you) and is working on new material.
As excited as I am, I'm equally as disappointed with myself for missing his off-the-cuff live premier at The Elevens in Northampton last Saturday. I hear it went off without a hitch. Hopefully more will come. A total must for fans of Pole, Casino Vs Japan, and Lullatone. Here's a link so I can stop burying my snout in Eon's ass now. LIGHT circa 2005.

Also in the developing stages, we're excited to be participating in the Multiple Artist Ambient Project. A pet project of Daniel Davis (of Carl Sagan's Ghost), MAAP is, in his words...

"...a multiple-artist album in multiple-parts that are meant to be played simultaneously in a mix-and-match fashion up to the listener’s preference. Each participating artist will record their own part for each composition. These parts will then be assembled by the listener for a unique, interactive listening experience. The parts can be downloaded and then assembled via an audio editor like Audacity. The parts can be downloaded and then played simultaneously on different audio devices.The parts can be played via an interactive website to be designed at a later date..."

As the name suggests, multiple electronic artists will be getting involved and providing minimal textures, blips, drones, et al. For more information, please visit carlsagansghost.com.

Stay awake.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

The Valley Advocate loses it's entire readership

The Valley Advocate has printed an article on Sylphid! How sweet of them.

You can read it HERE.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

VOTE... help us lull dude bros to sleep.


Every year, Northampton (and the surrounding region) holds it's own microcosmic music awards called The Grand Band Slam, hosted by The Valley Advocate. Sylphid has been nominated for "best electronica act". Groovy? Sure.

Winners of each category will play an all-day festival at this enormous honking sports bar called Maximum Capacity (or "MaxCap" as the locals call it) - a mainstay of reunited, hair-metal fixtures such as Slaughter and Firehouse... and a perfect venue for our brand of bucolic, delta-wave-inducing ambient squalor.

So be a peach and help us out! (There are some other extraordinary artists on the ballot. Take great care to help them out as well.)

VOTE HERE

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

3 Sylphid shows this week of our Lord...

We're playing, well... tonight actually, at PA's Lounge in Somerville, MA with our buddies TECHNOIR MA (an eerie, unintentional(?) re-vamping of the best elements of Factory Records circa 1979) and CONNCET9 (blasts of noise from CT). Sort of a down-to-the-wire notification, but oh well. Should be dead, albeit rad.
This Thursday we'll be at The Sierra Grille, in our stomping grounds of Northampton, MA with Boston's inimitable, monster drones of ANIMAL HOSPITAL and a bizarre mash-up of HORNWORM (ex-Psychic TV among a million other stripes of insanity) and HUNTER-GATHERER (doom, gloom, and... hope?), both from in town.

And then on Sunday, Aug 16, we're playing this monstrosity with a SHITFUCK of bands... Lightning Bolt, White Crime, Sisters and Brothers. Sord, Relics, Belltone Suicide, Problem with Dragons, and a million others. Check the flyer.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Hello Fan!

Congratulations Fan #_______! If you've haphazardly stumbled upon this page, then you've probably heard of one of our projects. Blush. What's even more, you probably took enough interest in what hatched and oozed from our brains and bodies to follow one or more of our projects' myspace pages, since that is the only place we've chosen to pass along the word that is this site. Erections. If that isn't enough, NO ONE in their EVER-LOVING RIGHT MIND would still bother farting around with the user-shredding interface of myspace.

Unless of course, you're a fan.

Our sole motivation behind unveiling our collective corner of the internet via myspace's crummy antiquity is that you probably qualify as a fan. If you had taken the initiative to maneuver through the endless spawn of legions of backwoods tweens and bot-abusing metal bands to read our advert from within the cyber-folds yellowed panties then I would say you qualify as a fan. Any interest you have, the volume of which matters not, is humbling. Without you, the artistic process would not only be nullified, but incomplete.

Interest in what you may ask?

This little, swirling gyre of creative waste, is the combined effect of the musical projects of Eon Fontes-May, Cora Rose Gaulin, and myself, Adam Kozak. Functioning, or no-longer functioning. And those would be SYLPHID, PONDS, THE CHEATERS CLUB, LIGHT, TUNDRA TODDLER, GUILTY RICH WHITE KIDS, THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS, and whatever the fuck else we feel like releasing without a budget, on a whim. All news, show-listings, and general information regarding any of those bands will be available on here, along with miscellaneous crap we're presumptuous enough to think you'll find interesting/amusing.

So read on! Check back daily.

~Adam