paintings of windows - plaza de armas: sonida de sud america (blr05)

Paintings of Windows is one of many pseudonyms adopted by New Zealander Antony Milton. Antony has a discography that stretches back to the early 1990s, releasing tapes, cdrs, cds and vinyl on a heap of labels that include Last Visible Dog, Foxglove, Release the Bats and his own PseudoArcana. His musical endeavours involve a maze of solo projects, collaborations (with Peter Wright, Uton, and Campbell Kneale [Birchville Cat Motel, Our Love Will Destroy the World] to name just three!) and more typical group set ups that encompass an excitingly dynamic range of experimental music – from considered folk songs to free rock to black metal.  

'Plaza de Armas' is the latest outing for Antony Miltons PoW project. As with the previous works in this series, works from India, Pakistan and NZ, the album is based upon field recordings that have been subtly layered or treated so as to draw out the mood of pieces and to enhance the natural narrative flow of the album as a whole. Most times these treatments are imperceptable to the listener. Recorded in Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina much of the album favours distant sounds more reminiscent of day dreams over strident documentary recordings. The sounds of a vibrant but distant fiesta band drifts up a mountain valley on the wind, a childrens pipe band rehearse in a broken down church, frogs chirrup in a palpably warm dusk, an 80 year old woman sings a lullaby on a jungle boat. 

Limited to 100 and housed in a rePlay recycled sleeve, the cdr comes with a twelve page booklet of text and photos, full colour on body cdr art and a cover image screen printed at didacus.co.uk from an original photo collage by Antony. 50 of these come with a bonus 3” cdr with a .wmv file of a film Antony made of his time in South America.

digital version here at antony's bandcamp

£8(uk)/£8.50(eur)/£8.75(row)

photo above by pete phythian