Releases

Telefuzz - "Silent Rooms"

Telefuzz has had some degree of a revolving-door membership over the years with founder Don Verbrilli being the mainstay. The new album "Silent Rooms" is the result of a fruitful partnership between Don Verbrilli and Mark Hjorthoy, (A Laughing Circuit, SoftClip, Good Natured Threat). The two musicians found a shared love of analog synthesizers, guitars, drum machines, and techno-inspired adventures, creating a great number of songs in an open and experimental jamming atmosphere. "Silent Rooms" is a worthy introduction to the great musical variety to be expected from the partnership in the future. Frequent collaborator Paul McNeill of New Channel has added bass and synth- while Hamish Thompson, (multi instrumentalist, TV composer) added drums- to several of the songs. An early review of the album by Salvatore Muscat (SEQUENCHILL) was: "WOW! I have to say this is a psychedelic masterpiece. The best album I've heard in 2020" .

The Verbrilli Sound - "The Swankz Sessions"

The Verbrilli Sound's new album "The Swankz Sessions" is due for release on May 27th 2020. The album gets its name from Don Verbrilli's long-time friend E.D. Swankz, who worked extensively alongside Verbrilli in many early Upstairs Recordings releases. For "The Swankz Sessions" E.D. Swankz, first and foremost a jazz drummer and percussionist, provided a set of raw drum tracks cleverly played with different sections as if they were songs. Don Verbrilli took these bare drum performances and added all subsequent instrumentation and vocalization over the course of several years. From a set of drum tracks grew an album that has a very distinctive, unique, and cohesive sound. Don Verbrilli started by setting up his guitar amps in wide stereo stacks in his studio, with the microphones at a distance in order to create a strong sense of the room itself, as well as to capture a live and lush wash of sound. Guitars and synths were fed through the stereo rig, and bass was recorded in a similar way, with microphones at a distance from the amp. Other instrumentation was added over time- rhodes, hammond organ, modular synth, vocals, even clarinet. The album is hard to pigeonhole but if one was to describe it, you might say it sounded a bit like Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland walking in on Robyn Hitchcock walking in on an early 70s Pink Floyd rehearsal and jamming out a few songs... but then again you might not!

The Verbrilli Sound - "Astrakhan"

An eight-song album combining shoegaze-style guitars with electronic beats and synth elements. Vocals are layered with harmonies but tend towards being more defined, prominent, and lyrical than some shoegaze/ dreampop.

The Verbrilli Sound - "The Devil and the Dragonfly"

This album is the most complete and complex album I have produced to date, reaching back into many of my past influences and using virtually every instrument, electronic and acoustic, that I own. I wrote and played every single part and instrument, only enlisting Vancouver-based artist Gisun for some stellar backing vocals. Her rich voice provides a nice female counterpoint to mine, and helps balance my less refined style of singing.

The album itself is very loosely conceptual but don't let that scare you off. At its simplest it might be described as a musical myth about a dragonfly trying to escape imprisonment. But many themes are explored including the cultural history of dragonflies, the old "sell your soul to the devil" story, the Orpheus myth, and a Dante inspired voyage through the underworld itself. It's a sonic and psychedelic adventure, including drums, shakers, tambourine, triangle, electric and acoustic guitar, bass, piano, hammond organ, rhodes, glockenspiel, saxophone, trumpet, clarinet, harspichord, synthesizers, samples of cicadas in the orchards of the Summerland, and the sound of the Kettle Valley steam train arriving at its station. The vocals are harmonious and layered, and the lyrics are full of rich imagery and meaning.

Gisun - "Partes"

Gisun's Partes EP features 3 songs from the Vancouver-based singer-songwriter. Jazz-inspired acoustic pop with a vintage sensibility- with subtle shades of Joni Mitchell, Norah Jones, Tracey Chapman, Suzanne Vega, and Jane Siberry.

1. Marching
2. Wanderer
3. Away
4. Marching (Poet Mix)

The Verbrilli Sound - "Islands"

Inspired by and written contemporaneously with early electronic greats like The Orb, The Future Sound of London, Aphex Twin, The Irresistible Force, Ultramarine, Banco de Gaia, Orbital, and others, "Islands" presents a set of long sonic meditations filled with references to the island as place and as concept. Enjoy seven previously unreleased Verbrilli Sound songs:

   1. Ararat
2. Isles Of Psyche
3. Pangaea's Fabled Shores
4. Dr. Moreau Meets the Lord of the Flies
   5. Archipelagoes
   6. As the Deathstar Slowly Turns
   7. Krakatoa

Telefuzz - "Chimps in Space"

Telefuzz albums are sonic and cerebral journeys, and 'Chimps in Space' is no different, putting to music the voyage of a spaceship containing a crew of chimps. The mission starts well, the title track expressing hope and suspense at launch time. Splendid views of Earth and Moon follow, evoked by the spacious "Crystal Clear Nights." Mars' mysterious surface is inspected to the energetic sounds of "Passport to Cydonia". After the asteroid belt and Jupiter, the spaceship is caught in the gravitational pull of the ringed planet in "Saturn Gravity Disaster Averted". The ship gets thrown way off-course. Beautiful images of an earth-like planet are painted in "Heaven on Earth", while the pulsating "Of Suns and Clouds" describes the universal patterns of planets in orbit. Finally the crew wakes from reverie and in "Vapour Planet" the ship nears a mysterious celestial body veiled in gases. There to the backdrop of "The Queen Was Fabulous" they meet a wise and regal host who teaches them wonders. In "View of the Plurality" they reach a vantage point where the vastness of the universe is apparent. The incredible visions and lessons of their long voyage bubble up in their minds, and the chimps attain enlightenment in "Superintelligence"

The Verbrilli Sound - "Early Cuts"
Telefuzz - "Songs in Standard Time"
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Telefuzz and The Verbrilli Sound's early songs from UPR comps, repackaged and re-released! Click the album image for a Spotify link. Also available on Apple Music and other fine music services.

Verbrilli Sound Releases...

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Portable Planets Releases...