THE TOWER RECORDINGS

Indo-Prog/Raga Rock • United States

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The Tower Recordings biography
The Tower Recordings were an American psychedelic folk collective founded in New York around 1994. The ensemble was started by guitarists Matt Valentine and Pat Gubler, who originally attended SUNY Purchase together and played in the bands Memphis Luxure and the Werefrogs, and were later joined by Valentine's British expatriate friend Helen Rush, whom he met when the Werefrogs temporarily lived in England. The collective took their name from SUNY's Tower Gallery in which Valentine and Rush lived and where they initially recorded their low-fidelity cassette-based bedroom sketches with the help of Gubler. The Tower Recordings combined their members' encyclopedic knowledge of British acid folk from the 1960s and 70s, krautrock, free improvisation and avant-garde jazz, echoing the droning raga of the Third Ear Band and John Fahey, the shambolic essence of ESP artists like Sun Ra and the Fugs, the drugged atmospheres of Can and Siloah, and the boundary-expanding songwriting of the Incredible String Band, Comus and Pearls Before Swine. A revolving-door cast of musicians wielded acoustic and electric guitar, harp, piano, cello, harmonium, electronics and many others to craft the Tower Recordings' otherworldly and beguiling compositions, with the tape hiss of the medium as much of importance as the music itself.

A meticulous archivist, Valentine recorded every jam session, resulting in hours of content that would be shaped into ten LPs and a smattering of EPs during the group's existence, beginning with 1995's Rehearsals for Roseland, released on the trio's own Superlux label. The eclectic unit subsequently refined their kraut-folk amalgam across a trilogy of albums: 1996's The Fraternity of Moonwalkers, 1997's Let the Cosmos Ring and 1998's Furniture Music for Evening Shuttles, released on Audible Hiss, Spirit of Orr and Siltbreeze respectively. Their ranks now featured Valentine and Gubler's former Werefrogs and Memphis Luxure bandmate Marc Wolf on guitar, tape manipulator Robert Henry Jones III and drummer Scott Freyer.

The summer of 1998 saw the Tower Recordings spend a long weekend recording session in an upstate New York church where Gubler's brother Steve presided as music director. In a lineup described by Pitchfork Media as "a virtual Wu-Tang Clan of subterranean psych-folk", the Tower Recordings grew to include Valentine's partner Erika Elder, multi-instrumentalist Samara Lubelski, percussionist Tim Barnes, saxophonist Andr� Vida, sound art...The Tower Recordings were an American psychedelic folk collective founded in New York around 1994. The ensemble was started by guitarists Matt Valentine and Pat Gubler, who originally attended SUNY Purchase together and played in the bands Memphis Luxure and the Werefrogs, and were later joined by Valentine's British expatriate friend Helen Rush, whom he met when the Werefrogs temporarily lived in England. The collective took their name from SUNY's Tower Gallery in which Valentine and Rush lived and where they initially recorded their low-fidelity cassette-based bedroom sketches with the help of Gubler. The Tower Recordings combined their members' encyclopedic knowledge of British acid folk from the 1960s and 70s, krautrock, free improvisation and avant-garde jazz, echoing the droning raga of the Third Ear Band and John Fahey, the shambolic essence of ESP artists like Sun Ra and the Fugs, the drugged atmospheres of Can and Siloah, and the boundary-expanding songwriting of the Incredible String Band, Comus and Pearls Before Swine. A revolving-door cast of musicians wielded acoustic and electric guitar, harp, piano, cello, harmonium, electronics and many others to craft the Tower Recordings' otherworldly and beguiling compositions, with the tape hiss of the medium as much of importance as the music itself.

A meticulous archivist, Valentine recorded every jam session, resulting in hours of content that would be shaped into ten LPs and a smattering of EPs during the group's existence, beginning with 1995's Rehearsals for Roseland, released on the trio's own Superlux label. The eclectic unit subsequently refined their kraut-folk amalgam across a trilogy of albums: 1996's The Fraternity of Moonwalkers, 1997's Let the Cosmos Ring and 1998's Furniture Music for Evening Shuttles, released on Audible Hiss, Spirit of Orr and Siltbreeze respectively. Their ranks now featured Valentine and Gubler's former Werefrogs and Memphis Luxure bandmate Marc Wolf on guitar, tape manipulator Robert Henry Jones III and drummer Scott Freyer.

The summer of 1998 saw the Tower Recordings spend a long weekend recording session in an upstate New York church where Gubler's brother Steve presided as music director. In a lineup described by Pitchfork Media as "a virtual Wu-Tang Clan of subterranean psych-folk", the Tower Recordings grew to include Valentine's partner Erika Elder, multi-instrumentalist Samara Lubelski, percussionist Tim Barnes, saxophonist Andr� Vida, sound artist Barry Weisblat and Steve Gubler himself. The results of this session were later released on 2000's Folk Scene, initially presented as a single-sided LP before being reissued a year later on CD with fifteen additional tracks. Described by Valentine as "the fulcrum of our catalogue," Folk Scene is the band's most well-known and critically acclaimed work. Around this time, Valentine and Elder moved the heart of the Tower Recordings to Vermont, relocating from Manhattan to Guildford, a community farm close to the town of Brattleboro. The wake of Folk Scene's success saw the blossoming of several solo projects, with Valentine and Elder's "lunar blues" duo MV & EE and Pat Gubler's progressive folk band P.G. Six releasing their debuts in 2001. Tim Barnes' first solo outing followed a year later, with Samara Lubelski the last to issue hers in 2003, distributed through Valentine and Elder's Child of Microtones label alongside the release of Folk Scene's two-volume follow-up The Futuristic Folk of the Tower Recordings.

In 2003, Valentine and his friend Ron Schneiderman organised the two-day Brattleboro Free Folk Festival, which featured a host of performers including Sunburned Hand of the Man, Jack Rose, Charalambides, Paul Flaherty, Chris Corsano and the Tower Recordings themselves. British music magazine The Wire covered the festival, dubbing the bands under the collective banner of "New Weird America." With newfound momentum from the event and the success of the various Tower offshoots, the ensemble reconvened in 2004 to release three final albums: Message from the Celestial Explosions, Ya'Ard God and The Galaxies' Incredibly Sensual Transmission Field of the Tower Recordings. The latter was culled from the same church session which yielded Folk Scene and is similarly held in high regard. The Tower Recordings dissolved sometime afterwards, with Valentine devoting his energy to MV & EE, the Towers' spiritual successor.

The Tower Recordings come warmly recommended to fans of Six Organs of Admittance, Pelt, Jackie-O Motherfucker, Natural Snow Buildings, Avarus, No-Neck Blues Band and Alastair Galbraith.

- Gordy, April 2023read more

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THE TOWER RECORDINGS discography

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THE TOWER RECORDINGS top albums (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)

3.00 \| 1 ratings Rehearsals for Roseland 1995	4.00 \| 1 ratings The Fraternity of Moonwalkers 1996	4.00 \| 1 ratings Let the Cosmos Ring (as Planet TR) 1997	5.00 \| 1 ratings Furniture Music for Evening Shuttles 1998	5.00 \| 1 ratings Folk Scene 2000
4.00 \| 1 ratings The Futuristic Folk of The Tower Recordings Vol. 1 2002	4.00 \| 1 ratings The Futuristic Folk of The Tower Recordings Vol. 2 2002	3.00 \| 1 ratings Message from the Celestial Explosions 2004	4.00 \| 1 ratings The Galaxies' Incredible Sensual Transmission Fields of The Tower Recordings 2004	4.00 \| 1 ratings Ya'Ard God 2004

THE TOWER RECORDINGS Live Albums (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)

THE TOWER RECORDINGS Videos (DVD, Blu-ray, VHS etc)

THE TOWER RECORDINGS Boxset & Compilations (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)

THE TOWER RECORDINGS Official Singles, EPs, Fan Club & Promo (CD, EP/LP, MC, Digital Media Download)

3.00 | 1 ratings

Contact Low: Definition
1996

3.00 | 1 ratings

Rules of Thumb (split with Tono-Bungay)
1997

THE TOWER RECORDINGS Reviews

Showing last 10 reviews only

Thanks to gordy for the artist addition.

3.00 \| 1 ratings Rehearsals for Roseland 1995	4.00 \| 1 ratings The Fraternity of Moonwalkers 1996	4.00 \| 1 ratings Let the Cosmos Ring (as Planet TR) 1997	5.00 \| 1 ratings Furniture Music for Evening Shuttles 1998	5.00 \| 1 ratings Folk Scene 2000
4.00 \| 1 ratings The Futuristic Folk of The Tower Recordings Vol. 1 2002	4.00 \| 1 ratings The Futuristic Folk of The Tower Recordings Vol. 2 2002	3.00 \| 1 ratings Message from the Celestial Explosions 2004	4.00 \| 1 ratings The Galaxies' Incredible Sensual Transmission Fields of The Tower Recordings 2004	4.00 \| 1 ratings Ya'Ard God 2004