THIS ALBUM is sold out, but copies are still available via Almost Halloween Time in Italy and Tobira in Japan
15 years after the last Naturaliste release, a CD on the now defunct Belgian label Imvated, the group reunited in Shanghai in January 2019 to rent an entire instrument shop for a night of improvisational recordings and evocative mic placement. Past recordings and live performance utilized thrift store electronics, box fans, amplified
phone books (being torn apart), garbage bags of broken wine bottles and a fair amount of audience provocation; Temporary Presence manages to find atonal clamor, buzz and contemporary madness in elegant sources like upright and baby grand pianos, the Erhu
and Guzheng.
Additional individual recordings (some instrumental passages, some vocal ramblings, & some street scenes) from Beijing, Oakland, Omaha, Pittsburgh & Shanghai were swapped by the quartet and spliced into the mix along with a hefty amount of audio manipulation. The shadow it leaves is an industrial howl and whine, a pulsing temporary presence. It could be the air conditioner or a man on the street buying cabbage, a head filled with ideas and the feet always out of step.
Naturaliste (pronounced Naturalist) formed in 1998 in Omaha as a minimalist, almost academic drone band, but also a hyper reaction to a local music scene packed with emo and bar bands. Outside elements and influences prevailed, the line-up shifted and personal deconstructions were soon reflected in countless live fiascos and non-performances in Omaha and around the United States. Light bulbs were busted out while rabid noise freaks rolled around in the broken glass. Fiery arguments with sound engineers often made up entire performances. Hasty exits were made from the stage - if
there was one. Friends and family asked: "You travelled several hundred miles to play for three minutes?"
Like many sub-underground bands from the aughts, Naturaliste's discography of cassettes, CDRs, and compilation appearances was prolific and scattered across several dozen labels, but releases mostly served as blown out documents of shows or happenings, recorded with a walkman indiscriminately placed by an amp or bottle of
beer. They passed time in the ghost streets of Omaha, until 2005 when all members disappeared elsewhere.
To some they were always just tumbleweeds, a temporary presence.
This quartet, made up of Bryan Day, Christopher Fischer, Charles LaReau and L. Eugene Methe, seems to have, in whole or in part, convened in Shanghai a couple of years ago, borrowed some instruments from a shop there (presumably to be paired with whatever unique rigs these guys were able to get past customs), and laid down some heavy sounds. These sounds were then augmented with sounds from the group members' various studios, and the whole thing pressed up onto a nice, thick, black slab of vinyl for the public's consumption.
That public should be very damn glad to have access to Temporary Presence, too. Well, at least those members of the public that enjoy improvised Electro-Acoustic and Noise sounds whirling about their senses. See, this work fires on all cylinders within those aesthetics. Within its mix of strange piano chords, percussive clatter, keening feedback, and disembodied voices, the album treats the listener to two sides of consistently gooey and downright deep sonic exploration. Each piece is paced in such a way as to hook your senses in. Once this happens, their effect burrows down further and further, taking your mind with it. Disaster Amnesiac has been particularly enamored with It's Just the Air Conditioner, side two's longer track. This piece lowers a sonic boom that is consistently mind altering. Seriously, when that track has played in my house, things have just stopped and I've been frozen into a state of pure, immersive bliss. It's here wherein all of the various elements just combine into a very compelling whole, one which is just so consistently pyschoid and downright deep as to be a mind blower with every single hearing. Elsewhere, you have the mysteriously titled The Swallows Have Returned with its ominous thrumming electrics and warped piano, Vitals which features some cool, by turns glassy and popping percussion, and At the Worst Of It, which concludes things with a nice, thick atmosphere. All the tracks on Temporary Presence just exude this undeniable mood; clearly something special transpired at Sandy Music in Shanghai.
Along with the great sounds, Temporary Presence benefits from a rich and sumptuous package that has some great Bryan Day asemic writing and cool type face. Dunno if the inner sleeve insert is just a blur by design, but that's kind of cool in its own way as well.
As usual, Disaster Amnesiac is chuffed to be on the receiving end of another package from the House of Day. Temporary Presence checks all of the boxes for me. Seek this one out, as it probably will for you if you're at all inclined to dig the kind of psychedelia that Naturaliste are so adept at dishing up. - Mark Pino, Disaster Amnesiac
credits
released January 15, 2021
Bryan Day, Christopher Fischer, Charles LaReau and L. Eugene Methe.
Edited and mixed by L. Eugene Methe. Mastered by A.F. Jones at Laminal Audio. Artwork by Naturaliste. Screen printing by Christopher Fischer.
supported by 7 fans who also own “Temporary Presence”
Deep, mind-bending psych. I don't know how it was put together, but it feels very organic, like early Nurse With Wound. I could see Gordon, Dilloway, and Nace sitting among a pile of junk and miles of tape, splicing together this album piece by piece. Levrikon
A stellar compilation featuring shoegaze and indie favorites like Drowse, Midwife, and Mount Eerie benefitting Project Onward in Chicago. Bandcamp New & Notable May 11, 2023
The long-running NYC group's full-length debut explores the various guises of minimalism in music, from Krautrock to post-rock. Bandcamp New & Notable May 16, 2019
supported by 5 fans who also own “Temporary Presence”
"...the horn and guitar circling each other, intricate runs flying past like shrapnel."
Review by Anthony Osborne: https://bit.ly/Flock-Extremities a Jazz Noise
