brian harnetty :: reviews

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reviews and articles for silent city:	reviews and articles for american winter:
the wire: "Working like a novelist, he has immersed himself in an archive of field recordings – slices of past lives – and now emerges to create a new text, breathing new life into old chunks of sound by radically recontextualising them." more...	allmusic: 4.5/5 stars: "brilliant, maddening, addictive....Harnetty has proved that one way to preserve history is to weave it into the moment and let it vanish in our midst while echoing forever its truths, aphorisms, superstitions, and lies. Highly recommended." more...

mojo magazine: “bewitching folk collage.…Silent City plays like a snow-dampened sleepwalk through the shadows of a rural American town, Oldham’s voice floating like a Salem sprite over the field recordings and naïve piano melodies, spinning together folk fragments and the words of Harnetty’s father." more...	the wire: “Many are the artists who have been deeply affected by hearing scratchy old recordings, but Brian Harnetty has devised a way to let us simultaneously experience ancient audio documents and his music inspired by them….Harnetty lets us eavesdrop on moments of great beauty….there are so many striking moments…” more...

Paste magazine: Artist of the Week: “The result is an other-worldly album that demands—and deserves—undivided attention in a darkened room with some good headphones. In that environment, you might just be transported to the mythological small town Harnetty imagined while recording.” more...	Other Music: featured new release: “….rather than sculpting songs out of the antiquated material, Harnetty chooses to fashion the recordings into a delicate fabric of forgotten atmospheres, embracing all the nostalgia and feelings of loss therein." more...

Stereogum: “The video for their spare, spacious "Sleeping In The Driveway" is quietly beautiful: A patient camera guides us through fields and the interior of a house, past silos, blues skies, fall leaves, and stop signs to an old man wandering St. Patrick's Cemetery, rural America. Press pause and you have yourself a postcard.” more...	Dusted: “A pretty seamless exploration of some deep vaults while recontextualizing the sound of America’s past for a whole new generation.” more...

new music box: "brings gem recordings up out of the basement and into the light....the resulting music isn't about stepping back into the past, but rather experiencing the past and the present simultaneously in a way that is instructive." more...	aquarius records: "A soft focus gauzy collage pieced together from fragments of Appalachian music and field recordings. Darkly lovely....The audio collages slowly drift in and out of focus, and the results are both engaging in the documentary sense and hauntingly spectral. Recommended!" more...

Kronic Magazine, Italy: "Silent City is a unique and intimate disk. This is particularly so because of the ability of Brian Harnetty (a contemporary artist with a thousand faces) and Bonnie “Prince” Billy to tap into the sounds close our hearts—ranging from field recordings to soft electronics reminiscent of folk-country—sounds that evoke a deliberate melancholy. And, the voice of Will Oldham observes and recounts folk singing without being condescending to it." more...	thompson's bank, london: "...but there is something almost uncanny about the way [harnetty is] able to place his own interventions in relation to the archive material, sometimes appearing not merely to respond to but slightly to anticipate the movements and nuances of their vocals, which creates a most curious simulacrum of liveness....it also creates something not merely poignant but also celebratory, and something respectful but lively and, in the best sense, playful." more...

Pop Review Express, France: 8.5/10: "Here is a disk that is stark and meditative. The music is filled with rural melancholia.... sumptuously arranged, and captivating to the end." more...	vital weekly, the netherlands: "If there was a serious question mark corner in Vital Weekly, then the CD by Brian Harnetty would be taken poll position there....Very odd but great CD." more...

Rock Action Magazine, Italy: 8.5/10: "Silent City is one of those disks that cannot pass unnoticed, for the quality of musical thought and care poured into its unique sound....The album finishes in forty elusive minutes: long enough to fall into an indelible, strong groove before we reach the new day, with its noise and its inevitable distractions." more...	deep discount: "AMERICAN WINTER is a painstakingly compiled collage of overlapping samples augmented by modern instrumentation and post-modern aesthetics. The listening experience is elegiac, beautiful, and utterly unique; with a completely original mix of sounds as old as the hills, undiscovered shards of Americana, and meditative modern drones and shimmers." more...

Magic rpm, France: 5/6 stars: "stretches out before our very eyes, to our great joy!" more...	end of an ear records, austin: "The original Jandek, seriously. This is some crazy hermetic folk / sound art songs with home ambiences and backwards pianos and other unexpected weirdness. Awesome!" more...

Aquarius records: "...fusing sampled bits of Appalachia and fragments of oral histories with dark brooding collaged soundscapes, the results were haunting and captivating, the two sounds working surprisingly well together, creating a sort of ghostly old world folk, the cracked and weathered voices wrapped in warm whirs and spectral ambience." more...	songs illinois: "Brian Harnetty is like a modern version of Alan Lomax, though he is not content to just catalog and present ancient American music. Instead he’s chosen to interact with it by creating collages, contemporary compositions and new ways for archival music to breathe again." more...

Autres Directions, France: "...there are brief interludes that capture a form of life evoking moments in a distant America we will never know. Bonnie "Prince" Billy illuminates the songs he sings on (“Sleeping In The Driveway” or “And Under the Winesap Tree”) with restraint and precision, and he enjoys shining light into new corners of the Silent City." more...	kzsu, stanford: "It's nothing new to create experimental collage out of old records/sound sources, but it's pretty damn cool to have done it while maintaining an historical archival sense to it all like it's done here. Great stuff." more...

Komakino magazine, Italy: " It's about the inescapable loneliness coming soon or later in your life, (As Old As The Stars); loneliness of aging, of living (Sleeping In The Driveway), of 'being' (To Hear Still More)…I mean, this is a dangerous record. It might actually make you stop and think....even if you're made of stone I dare you to listen to this record alone in your room." more...	columbus alive: "Layers of folk songs, news clips and interviews, primarily from the 1950s through 1970s—over a collage of bells, pianos, organs and strings—capture the sadness, texture and beauty of winter, and the underlying hope that can be found in a dark period of transition. At the same time, the essence of the source material isn't tarnished." more...

the 412: featured album: "There are samples, and then there are samples. While a great many artists from the Beastie Boys to Girl Talk have gained notoriety thanks to their inventive sampling techniques, artist/musician Brian Harnetty takes the concept to an entirely different front...This is one of the few albums out there that should appeal to both the folksy-oriented hipster crowd and to those looking for a more challenging listen." more...

home news sounds bio links contact

reviews and articles for silent city:

reviews and articles for american winter:

the wire: "Working like a novelist, he has immersed himself in an archive of field recordings – slices of past lives – and now emerges to create a new text, breathing new life into old chunks of sound by radically recontextualising them." more...

allmusic: 4.5/5 stars: "brilliant, maddening, addictive....Harnetty has proved that one way to preserve history is to weave it into the moment and let it vanish in our midst while echoing forever its truths, aphorisms, superstitions, and lies. Highly recommended." more...

Paste magazine: Artist of the Week: “The result is an other-worldly album that demands—and deserves—undivided attention in a darkened room with some good headphones. In that environment, you might just be transported to the mythological small town Harnetty imagined while recording.” more...

Other Music: featured new release: “….rather than sculpting songs out of the antiquated material, Harnetty chooses to fashion the recordings into a delicate fabric of forgotten atmospheres, embracing all the nostalgia and feelings of loss therein." more...

Dusted: “A pretty seamless exploration of some deep vaults while recontextualizing the sound of America’s past for a whole new generation.” more...

new music box: "brings gem recordings up out of the basement and into the light....the resulting music isn't about stepping back into the past, but rather experiencing the past and the present simultaneously in a way that is instructive." more...

aquarius records: "A soft focus gauzy collage pieced together from fragments of Appalachian music and field recordings. Darkly lovely....The audio collages slowly drift in and out of focus, and the results are both engaging in the documentary sense and hauntingly spectral. Recommended!" more...

Pop Review Express, France: 8.5/10: "Here is a disk that is stark and meditative. The music is filled with rural melancholia.... sumptuously arranged, and captivating to the end." more...

vital weekly, the netherlands: "If there was a serious question mark corner in Vital Weekly, then the CD by Brian Harnetty would be taken poll position there....Very odd but great CD." more...

Magic rpm, France: 5/6 stars: "stretches out before our very eyes, to our great joy!" more...

end of an ear records, austin: "The original Jandek, seriously. This is some crazy hermetic folk / sound art songs with home ambiences and backwards pianos and other unexpected weirdness. Awesome!" more...

songs illinois: "Brian Harnetty is like a modern version of Alan Lomax, though he is not content to just catalog and present ancient American music. Instead he’s chosen to interact with it by creating collages, contemporary compositions and new ways for archival music to breathe again." more...

kzsu, stanford: "It's nothing new to create experimental collage out of old records/sound sources, but it's pretty damn cool to have done it while maintaining an historical archival sense to it all like it's done here. Great stuff." more...