Jim Taylor
A glorious record full of droney harmonium soundscapes. It'll take you on a journey you never want to come back from.
Favorite track: A European Eternity.
'The whole world is but a great ceremony,
A search for the vanished heaven...
On our way we passed through a maze of hills & valleys,
through woods, by deep lanes, by paths over sunken lands;
we could see no distances...'
Arthur Machen
We commit our spirit to the cosmos
Our flesh to the Earth
Clouds of starstuff & clods of dirt
I flew too close to the Moon & got burned
Bless Us & Break Us With Mystery Upon Mystery
The singing satellites fell one by one
Bless Us & Break Us With Mystery Upon Mystery
I didn't want you to see how lonely I was
Bless Us & Break Us With Mystery Upon Mystery
Compass gone & the stars unreadable
Like fireflies moving between falling flakes of snow
The world remains a vast wilderness
You share with things pretending to be your ghost
Up here the air's still breathable
Dreaming opens portals
'I stood here, and saw before me the unutterable, the unthinkable gulf that yawns profound between two worlds, the world of matter & the world of spirit; I saw the great empty deep stretch dim before me, & in that instant a bridge of light leapt from the earth to the unknown shore, & the abyss was spanned.'
Arthur Machen
...& the abyss was spanned....
Weave your peace from the voices of the dead
Their breath the thread that binds you
When you know The Rapture Of The Endless Road
The song that fills the river's flow
Come find me
Set a course toward the signal fires
The Universe Is Alight
'On his new release under the name Raising Holy Sparks, David Colohan is credited with 34 instruments. Clocking in at 90 minutes (or 138 if you snag a triple-cassette edition), Search for the Vanished Heaven covers tons of ground, yet it never sounds crowded or busy. Colohan (who also leads the longtime Irish group United Bible Studies) seems less interested in rate of activity than the profundity that can be discovered in long durations. Most tracks here are over 20 minutes long, living up to names like “A European Eternity” and “We Are All Cosmic Couriers.” Colohan also enlists 13 other musicians, constructing synth explorations, psychedelic meditations, and folk-ish hymnals. It’s a lot to take in, but once you’ve pressed play on Search for the Vanished Heaven, time melts away pretty quickly.' Marc Masters, Bandcamp Daily
'Man this zoned me in and out on a scale of biblical proportions, real quick - in a matter of minutes i was sold the whole way, hook line sinker - even if i had no preconceived notion of DAVID COLOHAN or his RAISING HOLY SPARKS project, or EIDERDOWN for that matter, or a glimpse of the awesome screenprint artwork -which, even considering EIDERDOWN's well established artwork excellence is the best yet for sure- i would surely be singing the same praise -- thousand yard staring metronomic percussion with a repetitive minimalist banjo subtly yet inexorably immersed in a cosmic sea of bliss? was that twenty minutes or twenty lifetimes? close listening makes it impossible to discern - and that's just the first track.
i was a bit late to COLOHAN's work - i didn't catch on to UNITED BIBLE STUDIES until AINE O'DWYER's MUSIC FOR CHURCH CLEANERS via FORT EVIL FRUIT started making waves, and then not obsessively enthralled by what little i encountered until 2014 when i picked up RHS and DECLAN KELLY's understated yet overwhelming meditative masterpiece TRIVENI SANGAM / THE SAME RIVER TWICE, then shortly thereafter backtracking to ever greater works ERA OF MANIFESTATIONS and FOUR SACRED MOUNTAINS - the latter blew my mind, it had me reeling, it quickly earned the mental check mark of a vaguely defined (lengthy) shortlist for surefire inclusions on any all-time list i might ever bother to put together at some point, or maybe not, but the point is that FSM is undoubtedly somewhere on that theoretical list
well, here's another no brainer check mark worthy effort
in an attempt to reduce this exemplary work to my typical referential trappings, consider old guards of kosmische minimalism like TONY CONRAD WITH FAUST, NEU! and KLAUS SCHULZE as channeled by contemporary captains DIRE WOLVES, ETERNAL TAPESTRY and EXPO 70, with twists and turns synergistic to SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE or STEVEN R. SMITH, particularly his tenure with/as HALA STRANA, or perhaps more akin to NATURAL SNOW BUILDINGS drifting out on a deep current into zoned krautrock territory, with a reserved styling while achieving impressive motorik cruising speeds at times, despite seeming effortless, organic, minimally guided natural propulsion, like a sleek ship steering downriver, or a satellite streaking across the sky, jettisoning previous stages along the way - but a peculiar moss covered new age mystic futurism permeates throughout, like a BLADE RUNNER street level IAN WILLIAM CRAIG juxtaposed with a ceremonial mound soundscape and touches of HAROLD BUDD meets SEAN MCCANN experimentation
there are some elements of SEARCH that to some extent make A MELBOURNE NOCTURNE (PL13) seem like an elaborate collection of live fire tests, not unlike DIRE WOLVES' HOUSE OF TRIANGLES (PL15) to EXCURSIONS TO CLOUDLAND [REC #169] - i'm quite fine with that - to my ears both PSI LAB tapes are more endearing expressions, in the moment, springboards toward more formed and polished artistic statements, and particularly in COLOHAN's case, toward an unequivocal magnum opus, a clear and present frontrunner for my favorite album of the yearComing out on Eiderdown Records in 2017.' PSI Lab
credits
released June 27, 2016
Search For The Vanished Heaven emerged from extensive travels throughout the uncanny landscape of Europe Endless during times when dream & reality often became confused. What remains... prog gnosis, lunar devotionals, ancient-future rituals & thanks & prayers to the resident spirits, who know of no borders save those liminal ones we may sometimes glimpse...
For John & Peter, Rolf-Ulrich & Gille
...& Cosmic Couriers Everywhere...
David Colohan - EMS VCS3 & Synthi A, Farfisa Compact Duo, Moog System 55, Roland Juno-60, Korg MS-20 Mini, Korg microKORG, Casio MT-400V, Casio CA-110, Hohner Organetta, modular synthesizer, electric guitar, mandocello, autoharp, piano, strohviol, pump organ, drum, gong, cymbal, bullroarer, voice, lyre, low whistle, santoor, Appalachian & hammered dulcimers, accordian, low whistle, field recordings, no-input four track, tuned percussion & sampled Mellotron, EKO ComputeRhythm & Univox Rhythmer
Richard Moult - voice & the turning of eternal wheels
Alison O'Donnell - voice & illumination
Guenter Schlienz - modular synthesizer
Gary Morrison - Korg MS-20, MiniBrute, Moog Little Phatty & modular synthesizer
Dom Cooper - Korg ElecTribe EM-1, Virtual Moog & Make Noise Shared System
Declan Kelly - banjo, harmonium, piano & accordian
Ulrich Rois - Roland VK7 & Korg Monotribe
Matt Leivers - soprano saxophone & field recordings
Jez Creek - EMS VCS3 & Virtual ANS
Barry Synnott - modular synthesizer
John Cavanagh - EMS VCS3
Bart De Paepe - Korg MS-20
Enda Trautt - drums
All words & music by Raising Holy Sparks, except for the spoken sections, which are taken from the writings of Arthur Machen (3 March 1863 - 15 December 1947)
Recorded variously across Europe Endless in Ballymahon, Drumnadubber, Dublin, Galway, Ballinteskin, Stuttgart, Milan, Ravenna, Vienna, Glasgow, Avebury, West Kennet Long Barrow, Manton Down Long Barrow, Isle of Harris, Stonehenge, The Paps of Jura, Lovosice, Brussels, Parkstone, Rijeka, Copenhagen, Nottingham, Lausanne, Melksham, Watford, Shoreditch, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Bratislava, somewhere in France & somewhere in Romania, Copenhagen, Stamford Hill, Stekene, Helsinki, Berlin, Gracinica, Sonderho, Budapest, Stekene & Istanbul..
The Search began sometime in 2012 & was completed Under The Light Of A SuperMoon in November 2016, if such a search can ever truly be completed...
'An eerie loveliness that should really be soundtracking a Werner Herzog film; indeed Popol Vuh’s work provides a useful reference point as, similar to Vuh, the music herein is almost religious in its solemnity and grace.' The Active Listener
supported by 8 fans who also own “Search For The Vanished Heaven”
Captures the miraculous feeling of being seated near a window inside a warm house while the winter rages outside, and the melancholy that attends the backward glances that are inevitable on such evenings. Matthew Doucet
The latest ambient collection from Neil Lord’s Future Museums project benefits the Texas reproductive rights group Lilith Fund. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 22, 2019
Aura Gaze explores new directions in ambient music, bringing in rich instrumentation to complement the gloriously languid melodies. Bandcamp New & Notable Jun 28, 2021