#insect factory

[spaceintruderdetector]

Insect Factory live 6-16-09

https://archive.org/details/InsectFactory

‘‘Silver Spring, MD-based solo-guitar drone/ambient project of Jeff Barsky’‘

[spaceintruderdetector]

Beau Finley/Insect Factory/Fast Forty

https://archive.org/details/BeauFinleyinsectFactoryfastForty-QuarryHouse

Three-way guitar jam recorded live at the Anti-Valentine's Day Noise showcase, Quarry House, Silver Spring MD, 2-14-10

[maplehousecollective-blog]

Insect Factory

[the-out-door]

200 Words: INSECT FACTORY

(In 200 Words, we highlight a new record we like a lot, via a 200-word review by Marc Masters and 200 words (or so) from the artist about whatever they choose.)

INSECT FACTORY - Work LP (Insect Fields)

Rhythm seems to me to be an under-appreciated aspect of drone music. This is understandable, as drone often seems more focused on stillness and clock-erasure than motion or time-keeping. But the best drone music has multiple rhythms - real, imagined, and most importantly, a combination of the two. Jeff Barsky’s work as Insect Factory has often struck me as a perfect example of this. It always has a pulse, some undercurrent pushing it along. Sometimes the rhythm is right there on the surface, as if Barsky sees no reason to hide it, and he’s right.

Work could be the most rhythmic Insect Factory release so far. Every track has an undeniable cadence, whether created by discernible aural events like blips of distortion and bites of plucked guitar string, or forged from the subtle, sometimes even subconscious undulations of the music’s forward progress. The rhythm has levels, too: in some ways it’s the spine of the music, but in other ways it’s something to latch onto while the rest of Barsky’s tones, textures, and sonic postulations sweep over you. By the end of Work I may not necessarily know how much time I’ve spent listening, but I know I’ve been taken somewhere.

– Marc Masters

<a href="http://insectfactory.bandcamp.com/album/work">Work by INSECT FACTORY</a>

JEFF BARSKY on Work

I’m a huge fan of French filmmaker Jacques Tati. Tati’s films are almost entirely wordless and plotless, but utilize city sounds, incidental character dialogue, and squeaks and chirps from everyday objects for a soundtrack. Playtime, in particular, was inspiring to me over the last year. Playtime’s anonymous characters move almost entirely in straight lines through hallways of an airport and turning at sharp right angles at the beginning of the film, but in a slow transition over two hours to the last act, the film culminates in a restaurant getting completely destroyed on opening night, showing proudly that chaos reigns over the rigid geometry of the movements from earlier in the film. Philip Kemp from Rotten Tomatoes said, “If Playtime has a plot, it’s how the curve comes to reassert itself over the straight line.”

I thought a lot, in particular, about curves and straight lines when I was making recordings over the latter half of 2015 and early 2016 – the sessions that yielded my new Work LP. I thought a lot about how straight lines are becoming curves in our everyday lives. We used to go to work to spend all day thinking about producing and counting and quantifying and earning, and some of us would get a job review every 10 months. But this “straight line” of measurement and data is slowly bending to fit what we now do with our personal time – in the form of credit and capital received for sharing information online and retraining our brains to get excited for the response and acceptance from our community. Not to mention the theater that results. This interaction has become like work.

My guitar playing is largely atmospheric, and I’ve always thought a lot about structure and space when I’m making music. I also think a lot about filling rooms with sound, and repurposing these rooms as meditative social spaces. And this leads me to the straight line that pointed forward with the slightest upward trajectory of social progress and was overtaken by a “curve”.

Resisting this curve is also the work I’m talking about.

Work is out now on Insect Fields. Buy it here.

[radiostaticphilly]

Tape Tuesday #57 Hallowed Bells S/T

On my drive into work this morning, I put the digital version of Hallowed Bells‘ self titled tape that they sent me. I had received it yesterday and was so stoked that they were one of the few bands that would send me their cassette for free, I bumped their cassette right to the top to be reviewed today! I listened to it last night on my walkman just to prime my senses for the review, but the drive in today really inspired the mood for the review this afternoon. It was when I passed the completely frozen Delaware River and watched as the sun came up over the frozen abyss that is Philadelphia in late February that the tonal response and ambient soundscapes provided the soundtrack to the imagery around me. It’s quite rare that the music captures such a moment for me because I listen to an ungodly amount of new music on a daily basis. Local or not, I’ll normally enjoy a good amount of it, but the connection with this tape and my surroundings shocked me as it was seamless!

Hallowed Bells’ sound is very synth heavy, with no vocal work in this release’s entirety and completely ambient. Normally I’m split between this kind of sound working really well and the thought that if a particular release had vocals it would have been way better. Thankfully on this release, the composition of the music is a journey in itself and honestly if they added vocals they’d have to be really good because I honestly think this release is perfect the way it is! The scenarios are painted like abstract art yet, totally comprehendible to the average listener in it’s sonic state. This isn’t a noise project, either. The more noise I listen to, the more I realize that ambient and experimental describe that genre pretty often, so right off of the bat I want to make sure you’re not confused by those descriptions. The best aspect about Hallowed Bells is that they have a beat in the background. I could totally see someone else having a similar vision and totally leaving out any type of percussion, but thankfully these guys had the foresight to add it in and do it well. The progression of the music is wonderfully beautiful as well. While there are instances of tension and dissonance, over all, their self titled release has a very celestial resonance that will please any listener of their music!

The swell of the arpeggiator to start “Color Organ” is met by a symphony of bells, electronic strings, steady fragile beat, and keyboard lead that sets the tone of the opening track. It all falls away in a bit of disintegration, but is swiftly lifted by an almost mechanical beat. It all collimates to another wilting of the sound and is reincarnated by the next track “Nocturn: Silver Bay” which is a swirling composition of keys that has no beat, but provides a bit of an interlude in between songs. This song almost acts as the extended version of “Color Organ” yet, it stands on it’s own as a great track by itself. “Jovian Lights” starts off with some light keys and what sounds like a vibraphone. The tension in the beginning sets a bit of an interesting tone having vaporous quality until the beat comes in and gives the music a totally different feel. I could see if Carl Sagan was still alive, this being in the background as he described life on other planets like he did in his Cosmos series as song is definitely the most extraterrestrial of them all on the album. Flip the cassette and “Gloomaroo” has a tension building clear piano sound that adds a lot of interest just because it’s the first clean keyboard sound on the album. It dissipates into a fantasy like progression that reminds me of a soundtrack to a video game of my past on the first Nintendo system. The pulsing beat with an almost industrial feel introduces “Baby Yaga” and a barrage of synth parts interact with each other. Theres a compression of sorts put on the recording, giving this song a sort of retro sound which is really interesting and the progressive nature of this song is probably my most favorite part because it reads like a story only to reintroduce certain parts like how a book references parts from the past that hint to the novel’s conclusion. Finally, “The Snow Maiden” directly references to what I was saying about my drive in this morning. There’s definitely a chill in the atmosphere of this track’s musicianship that is apparent through out the whole song. The main key line in this song again has video game like undertones that definitely piqued my interest and it ends perfectly with the blunt end of one keyboard part after another.

Hallowed Bells shows the diverse nature that our music scene projects to the rest of the world and their self titled release is evidence of that very statement. While a lot of people point to our emerging punk or noise rock scenes that are killing it right now, theres a lot of electronic movements that are gaining ground quickly as well. It might be why the last few weeks I’ve been fixating on genres that haven’t gotten their proper exposure, yet. This release is truly one of the gems of the experimental, ambient, electronic pop that I’ve heard yet. It also stands on it’s own as a truly original composed piece of music that seemingly no one has approached, yet. They have two shows coming up. The first is at Magic Pictures with Kate Ferencz and Flyherder on Saturday, March 7th and the second is at Pageant: Soloveev Gallery with Insect Factory and The Caribbean the next Saturday after, March 14th. At the end of March they are going on tour as well. Check out all of the dates and tell your friends in other towns to check them out! You can also pick up their self titled tape here or at one of their shows coming up. So get into Hallowed Bells, get to their shows in a few weeks, listen to their self titled release below and pick it up in it’s physical format on cassette!

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[jwarminsky]

Arts Desk post about the Broadcast Rain mp3 release.

[dog-woods-blog-blog]

CONCERT TONIGHT! Avey Tare (of Animal Collective) will be in DC tonight at U Street Music Hall tonight. Doors open at 8pm and tickets are $10. This is an 18+ show. Eric Copeland and Insect Factory are the opening performers. Do not miss out on this amazing line-up!