Fuzz-washed, blessed drone.
Approaching the Invisible Mountain (HFQ/NAFH 2008)
"Billed by label Holidays for Quince as an "improvisational guitar record," Approaching the Invisible Mountain sees a departure from the gorgeously dreamy noise of Horseback's 2007 release, Impale Golden Horn. Miller's latest work sees him working his electric guitar for all it's worth, stretching its capabilities far left of center without ever forsaking listenability. And that has become Miller's reputation, making the seemingly avant-garde accessible. It wouldn't be a stretch to call Miller one of the area's most versatile and innovative musicians." -- Dive Blog (May 2008)
"On his solo debut, Approaching the Invisible Mountain, Miller picks and coaxes sounds from his guitar in a more standard style. In doing so, though, he explores some of his most nebulous territory yet through six instrumental improvisations bend around a thematic piece, "Babylon Destroyer," a blues-based guitar revision. Miller breaks up minitature guitar figures using space and silence in surprising ways. The result can be alternately confusing and alluring, but this record isn't meant to unfold in black and white." -- The Independent Weekly (June 2008)
"A beautiful set of solo electric guitar pieces that might remind you of John Fahey, but remind me most of Neil Young's Dead Man soundtrack." -- Trianglerock.com (June 2008)
"On his latest, and the first under his own name, Approaching the Invisible Mountain, Miller grabs his electric guitar, builds it up and tears it back down, stretching it further than most would consider, drawing tones from across the sonic map ... Granted, it sometimes takes an open mind and a willingness to experiment, but listeners able to leave their comfort zones will immediately find that buried under sounds that might first be classified as experimental and unknown, there is an abundance of melody and beauty.
Approaching the Invisible Mountain is no different. The seemingly avant-garde is drawn back toward the center on the type of record that features such distinct and different sounds that each of its six tracks could serve as the soundtrack to all of your dreams." -- The Daily Tarheel (June 2008)
Impale Golden Horn (Burly Time/HFQ 2007)
"So gorgeous. Absolutely one of our favorite new records, a practically perfect fade-out-drift-off-drone-dream-disc ... Best drone record of the year? Quite possibly... " -- Aquarius Records (New Arrivals 270, July 2007)
"A great drone record can envelop, displace and fascinate by turns, such is the wealth of detail in every frozen but rapidly liquifying moment. Lesser efforts may favor detail over impact and change over stasis, but it is the rare breed that achieves the fine balance of subtlety and power necessary to maintain interest over extended listening. For that reason, Impale Golden Horn, Chapel Hill, North Carolina multi-instrumentalist Jenks Miller’s debut full-length as a solo artist, is one of the finest drone discs I’ve encountered in some time. Although drone is at the heart of Miller’s aesthetic, labeling the project that way is somewhat unjust. The disc’s closer, "Blood Fountain," sports a beautifully morphing structure akin to songcraft, but it is also the easiest point of entry for what can be a dense listening experience. Miller layers creamy-smooth guitars, piano, watery-clear vocals and hard-panned drums over a bed of distortion, but for Miller, distortion is never a crutch. As with Birchville Cat Motel or early Stars of the Lid, it is a vehicle, a portal through which starker focus on the subtle transformations occurring in simultaneous sonic events is achieved. Harmonic shifts and the drums’ miraculous emergence are bolstered but, importantly, never overshadowed by shimmering fuzz ... The disc’s diversity is somewhat masked by all-encompassing drones, but it is there, waiting to reward the dedicated listener." -- Signal to Noise (Issue 49, Spring 2008)
“'Finale' is a pretty brazen debut for Chapel Hill noisician Jenks Miller, an ebow-chugging mix of ever-overlapping drones and shimmering squall. Calling it 'Finale'—even though it’s the first track on the record—was as obvious a choice as, say, 'Exit Music (For A Film)' or 'Ascension.'" (9/10) -- Paper Thin Walls (March 2007)
"Horseback's debut, Impale Golden Horn, reads as "Easy Listening" in iTunes. It seems like an ironic classification for a cacophonous drone-based record. But once you acclimate yourself to the album's oversized sounds, it's an oddly apt fit, especially for the plaintive "Blood Fountain." Featuring help from Heather McEntire of Un Deux Trois and Bellafea, Jenks Miller's maximalist meditation on blood coaxes a twinkling long-form guitar figure through a hedge of hymn-like hums. In no hurry to get where it's going, bereft of abrasive protrusions, it continually lifts and glides, finally bottoming out in a flurry of percussion that teases out the latent rhythm so adeptly that it sounds inevitable when it arrives." -- Independent Weekly (The Triangle's Best Songs of 2007, December 2007)
"This is drone at its most capacious and its most beautiful. It's the sort of thing that would be at home on the next interstellar space probe, nestled next to Bach and Beethoven, to show whoever's listening the breadth of our collective musical experience." -- Sound Advice (January 2008)
"Miller's attention to detail is astonishing as he builds and deconstructs his instrumental tales. The songs lull you into a blissful dream-like state before slowly bringing you back into consciousness." -- Sound as Language
"Though it be noise, it isn't abrasive. [Its] atonality becomes a densely layered blanket that sweeps over the listener heavily, but without smothering. The faintest hints of a melody seep through the fog from time to time, like the remnants of a pleasantly remembered dream." -- The Daily Tarheel (June 2007)
"A compelling effort to say the least, as the space of these songs provide for enough personal feeling to ensure a connection, be it in a live setting or repeated spins of this album." -- N/A Reviews (October 2007)
"[Impale Golden Horn] is a shimmering gem ... four tracks of layered drone that gains a drum-beat at times and morphs into something resembling dream pop. While the record occasionally steeps in a meditative stasis, some points verge on Sigur Rós-style post-rock, contemplative and majestic at once." -- The Pittsburgh City Paper (November 2007)
"Labeled as a drone record, "Impale Golden Horn" is nowhere about experimentation, improvisation, weirdness or snobbery. Instead it is an impressive work of composition, translating a beautiful and fragile sensitivity, the work of three years ... It takes a few listen[s] to realize how much ["Impale Golden Horn"] is a personal and revealing record, how much depth is hidden behind apparently simple drone waves and layers, how much subtlety lays in the textures and slowly evolving structures of these tracks ...." -- Derives.net (November 2007)
