It probably all started with founding Lathelight-recordings together with partner Mike Karadimos as a new label next to Scarcelight, to especially focus on lathe-cut records. Or it started with taking a pause of a few months to sort through projects and ideas to seperate the good from the bad. Or it started with meeting an old acquaintance again and then jamming in the garage they way they used to do years ago when they were younger and made up the lack of experience with energy. The results of this were released under the name of Skulllike and surprised many listeners. And maybe, but that is where we are getting into conspiracy theory territory, this album sold way better than the avantgarde stuff before so a redirection of focus was calculated. Maybe it was all of that together, just parts of that or nothing at all, or probably releasing three albums with electro-acoustic improvisation plus a heap of others at once that put the acustomed way of working and interests over the top and then to a stop. Who knows.

Then again it might not have been anything extraordinary at all, just a matter of coincidences. If we stick to the facts than these things have happened: founding of Lathelight records and the first three projects / releases on it being those centering around Chris Jeely himself in new musical structures. Or actually, quite old structures, because bands have existed way longer than solo-performances ever have. The guitar is still in the middle of Jeely' interests, but now in a more traditional way (as from a viewpoint of very outside the tradition, like if you are moving from a one-horse-town to a small village, then you have relocated to a more populated environment, stil you are not in New York, if you catch my drift.)

"It is true that I have rediscovered how much i enjoy writing songs as opposed to creating soundscapes, and that these two ways of creating are seemingly at opposite ends of the spectrum. The latest Accelera Deck 7" is basically a continuation of the album "A Landslide of Stars", heavy and loud drones with songs over top. I did recently release a CDR which contained all the unedited backing drones from "A Landslide of Stars" on the UK label "Unlabel" so if someone is interested they can see both sides of the coin. And to completely throw anyone of the trail, a new Accelera Deck album is in the works for release in later 2007 and it is largely based on improvisations with drummer Brad Davis and has no vocals ! Lots of sheets of guitar noise and percussion that is digitally manipulated."

A good theory still has its merits. Nevertheless, Chris Jeely still likes to make up bands and projects and bandnames. Now here is three in a bunch, carrying Lathelight-records #1 to #3 and they are the best proof to what is going on.

 The "Weatherman" EP by The Northern Rattle (catalogue number LLL01 for you collector types) is a stroll into the past when the hippies paraded Ashbury Heights and folksongs were enshrouded with electric guitars and all kinds of then new effects, but still life was beautiful and harmony was to be found everywhere. Or at least that is how I understand the ode to sunshine that opens up the EP of this full band with Jeely on guitar, Mike Karadimos on bass and two other friends. One of them Brad Davis who also drums for Accelera Deck. It is all one big family.

And if you are afraid of entering hippie-territory, then dig this: The Northern Rattle is also pop music. Being terribly distorted and the lathecut production doesn't really add to making the sound cleaner, but that way it sounds more fresh and current. Or like something evacuated from a bomb shelter that hasn't been reopened since the Sixties. Even the warbling effect of the not-vinyl adds a nice touch to the organ and guitar solo in the middle of "sunshine in my eyes".

The mantra of "everything is okay" repeated over and over again sounds a little strange to ears that have grown up with no future and the cold war apocalypse right around the corner. Bordering on the eastern bloc as teenagers we awaited the nuclear war any day after tomorrow and thereby grew thick coats of cynicism and pragmatism which our parents and the younger generation don't seem to understand, but we also listened to our Psychedelic era compilations and records by Jefferson Airplane, Buffalo Springfield and the like.A certain amount of happiness and sunshine should be good for everyone. This 8" definitely spreads some nice light.

Accelera Deck is the musical project where the change in direction is most directly visible. But then, as the name under which Chris Jeely likes to place all his solo ambitions, it is also the place that has experienced the most changes in the past: vast free improvisations and carefully built mountains of dense guitar sounds and then some. The picture 7" - nicely done by putting two lathecut-7" together with the colour printing sandwiched in between - has that slowly pounding groove that will make people nod their heads in time buried underneath a big load of distorted guitars. Drums and vocals are buried underneath them as well, only audible enough to add the harmony lines to that big wave of sounds. Think Spacemen 3 or My Bloody Valentine or any other kind of shoe gazer types but with lots more of destruction and noise in the mix. "Songshape / sunclimbing" (guess? right: LLL02)  is in some ways a direct offspring of the "sunstrings" album by Accelera Deck, where the glistening shoegazing trancelike tracks were called the highlight of the album.

One more question, what's that thing about the sun all the time anyway? Spender of life and energy, mother of all live, center of the universe? Well, just asking. We all like the sun, don't we.

LLL03 is an LP plus cassette package of his project with old friend Mike Karadimos called The Trust Riots, of which only the vinyl album made it to me. But that is probably okay, because from experience I  know that putting vinyl and a tape into one package usually destroys both. The "Dead Heaven" lp includes said tape with two tracks called "live in the Pitt" and "violence" which could be a good indicator to what is on them. Side one of the lp has already been distributed on a 3"CDR and described as " free improvised bass/guitar-noise" and "... letting it go loose and unrestricted in the rehearsal room, using their guitars, laptop and tapes while the recording machine is still running..." and that is still true. Side B of the 12" is even more raging and distorted guitar noise. It ends with some enigmatic mixing of undiscernible voices and single guitar notes. Of course, I like it a lot

 The Trust Riots is the closest connection to what was going on with Accelera Deck before it returned to the songformat as described above. And it shows that nothing is ever quite as simple as people writing about these things would like to have it. Because this is the place were Jeely and Karadimos seem to let it loose in all directions, or whatever comes first. So anything is possible, really. Which makes for exciting times and exciting listening.

There never was a clean cut away from experimentation and noise, and I don't think that people really do change that radically. If you go far enough away, you are on your way back home. Somewhere in the distance the opposites of drone noise and pop song meet and mix and turn up as something new. And an artist like Chris Jeely has never been going a steady course in his interests but rather hopping from interest to interest. Pantha Rei rings true all the time and over and over again. And after all that is what makes following the work and output of people like Jeely so interesting. If they did over and over again what they have done before, who would really care except those not really interested. So me, I'll keep on listening. Who will make me stop if I put on Funhouse and then Birth of the Cool and find that they both rock the house.

So what's ahead in the future. Scarcelight will be at it again with two interesting CDs, one a collaboration by Birchville Cat Motel with Cheapmachines and a full album by Howard Stelzer titled "Stone Blind". With regards to Chris Jeely himself the debut album of The Northern Rattle will be released on Lathelight end of March. One final question: Do you think you'll ever release three CDs in a row containing pure noise? oh yeah its totally possible, but then again so is an album of accordian and bagpipe.

www.scarcelight.org

Georg Cracked, March 2007