Jonathan Coleclough

Sumac
Jonathan Coleclough & Andrew Chalk

Sound extract

Tracklist

1.   Sumac   (71.06)

This CD is an extended version of the piece first released on the single-sided LP Sumac.
Andrew Chalk’s website: http://www.farawaypress.net/

Reviews

One of the rare masterpieces of minimalism, sound art, and electro-acoustics. As of this date, neither artist has managed to produce anything as sublimely immediate and physically ephemeral as Sumac. Hyperboles have a way of becoming redundant and they lose their impact; but I can honestly say that I could listen to this record all day and never grow tired of it.

A cavernous yawn that expands in every direction to infinity. Rumbles and fluctuations constantly ripple out from the central drone, never becoming too obtrusive, but always keeping the progression of sounds very active... any specificity of the source material vaporizes within the composite abstraction into a mesmeric drone.

Again, I must say that Sumac is one of my favourite recordings. I simply love this album.
Helen Scarsdale

[A] sense of lost time is also deeply embedded in Sumac... Subtly bowed metal and slow-throbbing bursts of cymbal light up all sorts of dark places that seem to be eternally caving in on themselves, tunnelling slowly nowhere.
David Keenan, Opprobrium Online

For the duration of the track, a solid bass tone underscores while unidentifiable flying objects and whispery homemade wind instruments play and reverberate madly. At loud volumes, the experience is nothing short of intense. What makes this recording so eerie is perhaps the fact that it’s actually going backwards, something that’s not strikingly clear until the last moments, where it seems every phantom instrument, shrouded in effects, reveal themselves only in time for everything to come to a sudden, and unexpected halt. ... a marvelous recording.
Jon Whitney, Brainwashed Brain, V06I06 February 2003.

Awesome dronecore, very low-end, emotional, not a dull moment in 71 minutes.
DJ10-4, DJ magazine, UK, Jan 2000.

Gorgeous long tones, waving flutes sounds and earthly rumblings. Kinda like a particular blend of the softer Organum, think ‘Ikon’ or ‘Submission’. Hauntingly beautiful.
Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly 196, Oct 1999.

Very low event rate on this: one piece, seventy-one minutes, carefully-limited resources. To open, a very low sound booming out, changing gently within itself but always itself; extra layers are added, higher sounds, tearing, not quite sitting well with each other harmonically. Sounds change a little in volume or timbre, the top layer of sounds has a little action in it, there’s a change of mood past the halfway mark and that’s it. You find yourself listening to it the way you’d look out the window at a landscape, your attention moving with the sound, sometimes away entirely. The cover - leaves in various autumnal shades - fits with the sound; it’s quite dark, melancholic, very natural and very strong. It’s one of the best pieces of ambient music I’ve heard, and well worth getting hold of.
DJ10-4, Flux magazine, Dec 1999.

Beautiful scrape
from ND catalogue, 1998,

Mind-numbingly beautiful (and heavy)
Seth Nehil, ND magazine, Spring 1999.

Sumac has been one of those hidden gems within the deep listening realms of music that has continuously amazed us. Working with upstart dronologist Jonathan Coleclough, Chalk has conjured a breathtaking memser of bowed metal wires, cymbals, and other pieces of metal with shifting chunks of backward masked slow aerated sound. Sumac, shrouded in a glistening darkness, is one of the all-time great drone records.
Jim Haynes, Aquarius Records, 2000.