STILL POINT full length CD Profound Lore 2007 - available for purchase here securely through Paypal
I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4
Member Since: 7/10/2004
Band Website: amberasylum.com
Band Members:
Amber Asylum current line up includes: Kris Force - classical strings, voice and studio production; Leila Rauf (Saros/FIA/IOn Channel)- guitar, Keyboards and voice; Martha Jane Wojno (aka Burns)- Cello, Eric Wood(Man is The Bastard/Bastard Noise/Ion Channel) - Bass, electronic devices and voice.Amber Asylum is a highly-variable San Francisco-based music group that is the brain child of composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist Kris Force. Other members and performers have included Steve Von Till (Neurosis), Annabel Lee (Blood Axis), Martha Burns (aka Wojno), Jackie Perez Gratz (Grayceon/Giant Squid/Asunder), Erica Stoltz (Lost Goat), Wendy Farina, Lorraine Rath (The Gault), Sarah Schaffer (Weakling), John Cobbet (Hammers of Misfortune/Ludicra), Eric Wood and Leila Abdul-Rauf.
Influences: Arvo Part, Coil, Legendary Pink Dots, Throbbing Gristle, Hildegard De Bingem, Johnny Cash, This Mortal Coil, Delibes, Berio, Alfred Schnittke, David Bowie, Erik Satie, Angelo Baldementi, Gorecki, Bernard Herman, Belios, Dr Dre, Judast Priest, Luc Ferrari, Hindemith, Ennio Moricone, Chopin
Sounds Like:Amber Asylum's music is generally within the neoclassical or Dark Ambient genres, and it tends towards the romantic, introspective, and brooding. Violin and cello are the dominant instruments.Amber Asylum might sound like the polar opposite of Asunder's crushing doom and Wold's terrifying prairie black metal, but the San Francisco foursome are just as capable of establishing dark moods to rival their Profound Lore labelmates. Firmly rooted in the sedate yet experimental terrain of avant-garde chamber music and post rock, the overall effect of their distinct brand of doom and gloom is far more subversive: What starts out as breathtakingly lovely leaves us emotionally shattered an hour later.Coming on the heels of 2006;s gorgeous GARDEN OF LOVE Ep, Still Point benefits tremendously from some ingenious sequencing, gracefully transitioning from wistful melodies to haunting drones. The mental images the music conjures are indelible: "In The Still Point He Remains" basks in lukewarm, understated beauty(a sunny summer afternoon, cooled by bitter wind), singer/multi-istrumentalist Kris Forcesounds mourneful on "Black Pheobe"(clouds start to form), the faithful cover of Richard and Linda Thompson classic "The Great Valerio" signals the album's spellbinding second half("The sky's beginning to bruise," to quoate Withnail), while the strikingly beautiful dirdge "Garden of Love" and chilly Earth-like drones that dominate "Diminishing Returns" bring the CD to a devastatingly bleak climax(It's dark, it's cold, it's late, we want to go home!). It's rare that we get an album that is able to appeal to lovers of folk, neoclassical, post rock and doom metal all at once, but that's the extraordinary mix that Amber Asylum have mastered yet again. -ADRIEN BEGRAND - DECIBLE March 2007This is the 1st review of our forthcoming CD on Profound Lore - Due out in April. They got one fact wrong; Lorraine Rath sings Black Pheobe.
Record Label: Profound Lore, Paradigms, Neurot
Type of Label: Indie