A new review for I Swear By All The Flowers” is in the latest Steam Punk Magazine:
The simplest way to sell you on this CD is to tell you that it was created entirely of antique sources, sampling music boxes, and wax cylinders to great effect. The entire album is restrained, soft, and pretty. As atmosphere, it’s nearly perfect.
That said, there is not so much that is intensely beautiful about the album, nothing to really draw you in, nothing that will haunt you hours later (with the possible exception of “sunrise”, the final track, performed on a lovely out-of-tune piano). But while this is to say that the work is not a masterpiece, it is certainly well executed and well worth multiple listens.
“I Swear By All The Flowers” is now on Pandora.com. I think Pandora is great, so it is cool to have the album on there.
The Headphone Commute posted a new review of “I Swear By All The Flowers“. They also posted a quick interview.
The review:
Tiny vinyl crackles are quietly put to sleep by a music box lullaby. The simplistic nature of I Swear By All The Flowers urges against dismissing the album too quickly. And so I dig. Bottle Imp is an independent label specializing in genres like glitch, breakcore, ethereal and darkwave. Its four first official releases are from a single artist, plus a recent addition to its roster, BLÆRG. That first, prominent name, is Life Toward Twilight, a Detroit based solo dark ambient and post-industrial project of Daniel Tuttle. Tuttle is the man behind the label as well, which features an archive of previous net releases available as a free download. But the record that I’m listening to is far from any of the above mentioned genres. It’s ambient atmospheres, dirty hisses, and analog noises as if they were recorded from… ah, yes! All of the sounds indeed were recorded from antique sources, like grandfather clocks, music boxes, old factories, steam trains, and yes, even wax cylinder recordings! I am a proud owner of a Victrola myself, which I occasionally wind up to marvel at its analog technology of sound magnification. An entire album made of such bits and pieces, with an old detuned piano, is a truly haunting experience. A meditative echo of the past. Voices of a forgotten era recorded by the magnetic fields of earth. This is an experimental album you’ll play over and over, and then talk to your friends about. Reminded me of The Refractors, Elegi, and Deaf Center.
The interview:
First of all, what gave you the idea of creating such an album?
Honestly, it was the next natural step for me in my music evolution. I consider myself an ambient artist, and my usual goal is to create a certain vibe and mood. I do not fully subscribe to Eno’s idea that ambient music should not be distracting in anyway. I like to tell stories, and I do that by adding stuff to the foreground of the music, though in very subtle ways. Most of my work in the past is narration to a story I have in my head. I still feel my music works as ambient music, though. I had been dwelling on this idea of making music that is intentionally low fidelity that creates an antique and rusty atmosphere. I love deep drones, but I wanted to move away from that and try something very different. My story is old, and I wanted the music to sound appropriately aged. The rule I set for myself in this recording is that I could only use sound sources that either were from the late Victorian era, or could have existed at the time. Then I mixed them using the same sort of production techniques I used for my older albums. Even the melodies are intentionally detuned and decrepit.
Tell us about the main character of the story within the music.
My protagonist is the ghost of an old man that died in autumn of the year 1908. The music largely represents this man’s memories, starting from his youth and moving all the way to his deathbed. The music is a reflection on his life, loves lost, long travels and sad nostalgia. I imagined it narrated like a fuzzy dream sequence, with no good order or rhythm. When building the album, each track represented an individual experience or memory, with some repeating themes. I usually do not tell the actual story, preferring the music to do that job for me.
Do you really own an wax cylinder phonograph? I’m a geek when it comes to antique technology.
I own a single wax cylinder, but no phonograph. I would love to own one though! I am fascinated by antique sound equipment, as well. When I was putting together the idea for this album, I contemplated a hundred different ways to go about the production. What I really wanted to do was record the whole thing on a wax cylinder phonograph, and then re-record it digitally for production. However, the technical and financial hurdles would have slowed down the production on the album significantly, possibly for years. I decided to recreate it the best way I could with the tools I have, which is ultimately how I get everything done. All of the static is from some very nice wax cylinder recordings. A lot of the background vocal snippets are from home recordings done on wax cylinders.
A new review of “I Swear By All The Flowers” has been posted by Mick Mercer.
…here we have an exquisite album of ambient composition that relies entirely on old sounds, and without the Goth ethos seeping into all areas of music it would doubtless have been a rustier, more angular affair, instead of which it’s a delight. So hurrah for Goth and on with the review of Daniel Tuttle’s latest work, with me avoiding any sudden shocks by advising you all to buy it.
A little card came with the CD which explains concisely – ‘All of the sounds used in the recording came from antique sources, including music boxes, ticking grandfather clocks, steam trains, wax cylinder recordings, early mechanical factories and old voices. An old detuned piano played by hesitant ghosts haunts the recordings. A warm static stays in place throughout, a constant reminder of the technical hurdles of early recordings.’ That static actually works as a keepnet on the project, barely noticeable but essential. Mind you, those hesitant ghosts are a bugger in the studio. “Let’s take that one again. Oh, they’ve gone!” (Or have they?)
‘Sleepy/Solitude’ tinkles through a music box, with the static clear, dainty and thoughtful. A threshing rhythm then stokes ‘Threnody To The Quiet Mind’ but the piano moves gently into the foreground, joined by ticking and distant chunky rattling. The piano perks up brightly during ‘The Theft Of Memory’, competing with a deft clutter of mechanisms and moving objects, splintering towards the end and on into the slow drone of a ‘A Trip To My Beating Heart’, which reminded me of an eerie version of the Salvation Army passing in a parallel street, then it mutates into a busy concourse of a station by the sound of it, in the busiest track which doesn’t upset the mood, it’s a weird peak.
‘Your Eyes Have Their Silence’ has more vocals lightly swirling in the dust and there’s a ghostly sheen which slowly grows bolder, and on into the comparatively joyful ‘Of Course, Words Collide’, the music box timid but glowing amid the scattering of worldy activity, which suddenly all stops and we crawl into the darker, contemplative space of ‘Threnody To Our Time Apart’ which has a sorrowful air for all its shuttling rhythm and warm piano.
‘An Incoherent Lullaby’ crackles and chimes sweetly, ‘We Sing As The World Dissolves’ has the sounds of the church filtering in through the haze, for this is often a light experience, and in ‘Sunrise’ we return to the heavier static, the ticking and the end of an old record, with pleasant piano wrinkles, where there’s the feeling of a day gone by, much as on recent Tor Lundvall albums, with a journey completed, a snapshot brought to life.
A short album, which rather works in its favour, but one which avoids the background music tag as it takes you somewhere else; a little strange and jarring initially, but gradually you appreciate being there. A little treasure, all things considered.
You can purchase the album from many places:
You can listen to the whole album for free at Last.fm
My album, “I Swear By All The Flowers” is now available in all sorts of places, now including iTunes and eMusic.
eMusic
It is also available for purchase from these places:
Bottle Imp Productions
Amazon
Napster
Rhapsody
Kunaki
You can listen to the whole album for free at Last.fm
Some reviews for the album:
“This isn’t horror movie stuff; it’s actually quite pretty, creating a pleasant nostalgia through softly plinking melodies against a background of static. This sort of dusty yet comforting sensation continues on “Threnody to the Quiet Mind,” with its sparse, somehow antique-sounding piano, and “The Theft of Memory,” with wooden rattling and creaks–again, a frequent trope of dark ambient used here for something other than chills and creepiness–conjuring up a sense of lost treasures languishing in an old attic somewhere. Even the noisy, more industrialized elements on this recording are less oppressive than rustic and old-fashioned, more suited to some small town in the early 20th century than a crumbling futuristic apocalypse.” – Grave Concerns
“To me, it is as if these are visions and sounds picked up by the ghost of a deceased person, who still lingers somewhere between this world and the next. He or she has some sense of what is happening in the world, and can at times make out things through the mist, but it’s all jumbled and, more importantly, just out of reach. Even childhood memories and pictures of lost innocence drift through the consciousness of the musical protagonist. You can feel the yearning, madness, and grief, and that makes this a beautiful piece of music.” – Evening of Light
“The CD is haunting, but never haunted. We’re not taken on some heavy-handed “creepy” journey. This isn’t the soundtrack for a horror film about undead tots in a contaminated nursery. It’s the sound of an old, decaying orphanage where the echoes of children and songs just want to be tucked in until the end of time.” – Sepiachord
A review for “I Swear By All The Flowers” has been posted on Heathen Harvest.
I had heard about Daniel Tuttle’s project, Life Toward Twilight, some time ago and have randomly listened to some of his material. It hardly needs presentation, especially because it has already been spoken about in two previous reviews in Heathen Harvest. It had started in 1999, when the mentioned member of Ogun’s Will decided to begin his own project. When Ogun’s Will parted, around 2000, Life Toward Twilight became the main project for Daniel. In 2007 Life Towards Twilight counts with seven releases and many compilation appearances. ‘I Swear By All The Flowers’ returns to a thematic release, while the previous one, ‘We Waited For A Subtle Dawn’ was more a collection of tracks dedicated to Laura, Daniel’s sadly lost fiancée. ‘I swear by all the flowers’ is also different from previous releases in other characteristics; it sheds some of the percussion and dives deeper into ambient, in a very particular way, creating a storyline that one can follow through the record.
For the listening, one must be ready to be submerged into a place where silence is as important as every single sound. The slight distortion in the background recalls the sound a vinyl makes, full of static, when going round and round the player at its end. The chiming of a music box sound manages to generate a desolate atmosphere, where each detail comes sharply into view. This song paves the reception for the following ones: if one listens closely the listener falls into a place of delicate details and constant surprises – all so faint and subtle it is almost as if a secret unfolds like a blooming dawn flower that you can only take pleasure in if you are willing to give up a piece of your time. ‘Threnody to the quiet mind’ does not differ clearly from the initial song, but it does introduce a piano, that constructs a melody, which falls down, steps up again and again flounders. The background image sounds develop, including further mechanical references while keeping the static.
‘The theft of memory’ is obvious in its beginning, mainly because of the sharp melody that opens it. It is full of beauty, slightly oriental, very raw and intuitive. The atmospheres in the background are full of falling sounds, sort of if one found themselves inside the belly of an industrial mill, where wheels are turning and grain is raining over your head. The composition of the song is superb, and ‘The theft of memory’ becomes, without doubt, one of the most outstanding songs of the record. As a counterpoint ‘A trip to my beating heart’ is dirty, violent and chaotic. Throughout the song there is a growing buzz, a crescendo in noise, destruction and unravelling turmoil.
With ‘Your eyes have their silence’ calm returns, and so does the static, yet this time it fills up with moaning voices that create a disturbing atmosphere. Mechanical noises start coming in waves and what seemed to be a haunting composition becomes a violent and overwhelming field of devastation. A chord line moves in behind the noise, only to disappear again. Some voice samplers open the next composition, where the music box melodies pour in again over a much denser and darker atmosphere than the one found in ‘Sleepy / Solitude’. The noisy, machine-like background is constantly growing in each song, like a menacing animal. Once unleashed, it is never again completely controlled, until the birth of ‘Threnody to our time apart’. It rolls around various mechanical sounds, but they are closer to a domestic sound. A steam-like motor sound is laid out while the piano notes take the spotlight. The melody is broken and deconstructed. It is as if steps were faltering, brimming with a sweet desperation.
Calmness sets in as the percussion in ‘An Incoherent Lullaby’ is surrounded by wave-like sounds. Every note is strangely coherent yet floats uniquely in the surrounding static. ‘We sing as the world dissolves’ comes almost unexpectedly, until one is really conscious that the chimes have stopped and the machinery sets in. A chanting dissolves in the background, almost not there at times. The end belongs to ‘Sunrise’, returning to the flighty music box notes over the faint and ever-present static. ‘I swear by all the flowers’ is definitely a voyage trough many sentiments and reactions. It is an articulate patchwork of emotions, portrayed in an excellent way through noise confronted with delicate melody. Probably one of the better works of Life Toward Twilight to date, and highly recommended for all those that enjoy feeling gloomy, nostalgic and distressed.
A new review has been posted for “I Swear By All The Flowers” at Evening of Light :
‘I Swear By All The Flowers’ is the fifth album by this project by Daniel Tuttle, and another one with interesting and captivating sounds. Where the previous album, ‘We waited for a subtle dawn’ was quite diverse in its sound, this album is more of a solid concept, as Daniel expresses it himself. And he is right about that. This album has a more ambient atmosphere, with some sections of slightly denser industrial influence.
The album is both shorter and calmer than its predecessor, and it lacks the heavier percussive parts that were present before. Instead, it focuses on a mixture of white noise, piano, music box melodies, samples, and other effects to create a haunting collection of tracks. Here and there, we hear everyday sounds, decrepit old records, confused female singing, or just people talking.
The combination of these aspects and the fuzzy, gritty sounds lends this album a unique mood. To me, it is as if these are visions and sounds picked up by the ghost of a deceased person, who still lingers somewhere between this world and the next. He or she has some sense of what is happening in the world, and can at times make out things through the mist, but it’s all jumbled and, more importantly, just out of reach. Even childhood memories and pictures of lost innocence drift through the consciousness of the musical protagonist. You can feel the yearning, madness, and grief, and that makes this a beautiful piece of music.
Those emotions were also what I found missing in the previous album, and combined with the clear musical vision, it lifts this album up a lot. This is a wonderful album for those who’d like to share this eerie experience, and look at this world from beyond.
You can purchase the album here.
I had a few people email asking about the cover art. I designed it personally after the album was finished. I spent some time listening to the finished recording, and then shelved it for a few weeks to let it ferment in my mind a bit. After I came back to it and listened to it a few times, I visualized exactly what I wanted for a design, then threw it together rather quickly. It really helps tell the story I had in mind while composing the music.
The front:
Photo was taken on the top floor of the Michigan Central Station. Here is the original photo:
I had gone on an exploration trip to the train station with Jeremy and Sam from Phallus Über Alles. I took a lot of photos, some more of which can be seen here.
Here is the reverse side, minus the text/track list:
The photo is this one, with Sam and her friend Rick walking around in the background (and who were photoshopped out of the final image):
The girl with the lilies came from a scanned by a girl on DeviantArt. When I saw it, I knew I had to use it.
If interested in buying the CD, or previewing trackings, go to the Bottle Imp page.
Hello, all!
I just received the CDs for my new album, “I Swear By All The Flowers”, back from the manufacturer, so they are now available to be ordered. You can order them dirctly from me at the Bottle Imp site via Paypal. Or you can order via Kunaki. Ordering from me is cheaper as I do not charge for shipping and handling.
You can listen to audio samples from the new album at Myspace or Last.fm If you are interested in ordering via mail with cash or a check, please email me at lifetowardtwilight@gmail.com or send me a message here and we can make arrangements. If you’re in a band, I may consider doing a trade for your CD as well.
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