Friday, November 30, 2007

The Dreadful Gift

Jewelled Antler is the extremely prolific musical collective created by Loren Chasse and Glenn Donaldson of the incredible drone/folk bands Thuja. Since 1999 Jewelled Antler has unveiled a number of wonderful releases of various incarnations of a core group of immensely talented musicians. Often these releases come wrapped in elaborate hand-made packaging.
Among these was a series of 3" cdrs in limited editions. Number two in this series, "The Dreadful Gift," stood out most to me. According to sources in the know, Tomes was formed by Chasse and Donaldson themselves having been inspired by the aesthetic and feel of some of the lo-fi black metal they encountered and loved. Not that Tomes sounds anything like any black metal I have ever heard, it's not black metal at all. Like Thuja, Tomes play droning acoustic improvisational folk.The only difference I can tell between the two groups is Tomes seems to have a darker, more malevolent feel to it. Think of Tomes as Thuja's evil twin and you will do fine. If you find this to your liking delve deeper into the massive eccentric pantheon of Jewelled Antler releases.

Here is the link to a great site about Jewelled Antler with album art and a comprehensive family tree.

http://www.theunbrokencircle.co.uk/artist_jewelled_antler.htm

Download TOMES "The Dreadful Gift" here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=F0DAUIN8

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