Danny Saul

http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=43941

XELA WITH GREG HAINES AND DANNY SAUL - The 12th Chapel
Rite
LP // £6.99
XELA WITH GREG HAINES AND DANNY SAUL - The 12th Chapel, Rite

*LIMITED TO 300 HAND-NUMBERED COPIES!* New bespoke Type Records offshoot Rite opens its account with this highly limited one-sided 22 minute LP documenting an incredible session by Xela (Type's John Twells) alongside guitarist Danny Saul and Miasmah's Greg Haines. The recording is an impressionistic representation of the trio's set at Manchester's Cross Street Chapel - I say impressionistic since the whole affair has undergone a bit of post-production saucery, although it's near impossible to tell what happened when, and how it came about. Despite being sourced from instantaneous, unrehearsed performance, the various components all hang together beautifully - the sounds seem to merge together, enveloped in a kind of spectral fug, yet thanks to some deftly underplayed effects all the instrumental elements of the piece are established without ever over-asserting themselves. For the sublime opening Haines strikes up a few loose piano phrases while Saul's acoustic guitar infuses with the reverberant ambience of the location, paving the way for some occultish vocal howls from Twells. Thus far the music is characterised by a weightless, ethereal quality, although it's soon hit by an almighty headrush of noisebound gravity. The piece rapidly accumulates density, embracing a euphoric ascent into clamorous feedback and primal synth oscillations through its mid-section. All of a sudden the more ambient, folkish tendencies of the set's early phase has been annihilated by plumes of fuzz. It's all a far cry from the brittle IDM compositions of Xela's debut "For Frosty Mornings And Summer Nights" - heck it's even a pretty radical departure from the morbid psych infusions of "The Dead Sea". This improvisation is suggestive of far freer, more experimental work from Xela and his collaborators, material that manages to bridge the gap between caustic sound sculpting and ghostly aloofness. Upon reaching a triumphant crescendo, the music dies with a few waves of distortion and Haines' mournful cello strokes, leaving the sound to fizzle out in the echo of the chapel's hallowed frame. And all this on consecrated ground? I can only hope they salted the earth afterwards. Quite a remarkable record indeed. - Boomkat.com

http://www.digitalisindustries.com/foxyd/reviews.php?which=1790

This second solo EP by Saul, a member of Tsuji Giri, shows a range of deepening talent. With his guitar and voice, and a little help from some drums, he has in these four songs created a layered, experimental folk that often approaches the stunning.

Sounds are stacked one on top of another that create a fairly harrowing atmosphere in “Signs1”and “Cuts”. While the mood created is bleak, this layering of sound over the traditional guitar and beat of folk reveals a bit of light where you don’t expect it. That is usually called hope, and these songs fight their own claustrophobia to offer at least a little hope. These songs extend into repeated listening, as if meant to be fluid like most personal histories.

Jandek’s “I’m Ready” is the closer, and it is an inspired choice. The psychic alignment with such a hermetic, suffocating sound, suits Saul’s original work. Jandek has never been known for offering any semblance of hope in his music. By building his brooding sound, playing off the traditional instruments of the original, and adding his own sounds to the lyrics, “I’m Ready” does offer a space for light. I harp on this because it would be easy to take a casual listen of “History +3” and assume this is a bleak outsider folk set. Danny Saul takes those elements, and adorns them with much more than that. 9/10 -- Mike Wood (18 September, 2006) - Foxy Digitalis Online

http://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/content/articles/2006/07/14/140706_danny_saul_music_unheard_group.shtml

What We Think:

"So far is Saul’s solo stuff from his Tsuji years that it’s almost not worth mentioning them. However, what they do have in common is an intensity, which he now whispers when he used to scream. Bleak, brooding and black as a devil’s heart, this is Willy Mason singer/songwriter territory that’s more than worth having a closer look at. Just don’t stare too hard into the darkness, you might just topple in…"

Chris Long - BBC.co.uk

http://dannysaul.com/press6.html

(please follow link) - City Life

http://www.digitalisindustries.com/foxyd/reviews.php?which=1790

This second solo EP by Saul, a member of Tsuji Giri, shows a range of deepening talent. With his guitar and voice, and a little help from some drums, he has in these four songs created a layered, experimental folk that often approaches the stunning.

Sounds are stacked one on top of another that create a fairly harrowing atmosphere in “Signs1”and “Cuts”. While the mood created is bleak, this layering of sound over the traditional guitar and beat of folk reveals a bit of light where you don’t expect it. That is usually called hope, and these songs fight their own claustrophobia to offer at least a little hope. These songs extend into repeated listening, as if meant to be fluid like most personal histories.

Jandek’s “I’m Ready” is the closer, and it is an inspired choice. The psychic alignment with such a hermetic, suffocating sound, suits Saul’s original work. Jandek has never been known for offering any semblance of hope in his music. By building his brooding sound, playing off the traditional instruments of the original, and adding his own sounds to the lyrics, “I’m Ready” does offer a space for light. I harp on this because it would be easy to take a casual listen of “History +3” and assume this is a bleak outsider folk set. Danny Saul takes those elements, and adorns them with much more than that. 9/10 -- Mike Wood (18 September, 2006) - Foxy Digitalis Online

http://dannysaul.com/press7.html

(please follow link)
Single of the week. - City Life Magazine

17 February 2005 / Star and Garter / Manchester

Deadstring Brothers / The Loving Cup / Danny Saul

So you’re a solo artist that plays what’s loosely called ‘folk music’ with dexterity and sincerity. Ah, yes! You must sound like Nick Drake, then! Danny Saul sounds like two Nick Drakes playing at once. Actually, fuck it. Danny Saul sounds like Nick Drake in the way that The Dead Kennedys sound like Elvis Presley. Not that much of likeness. All the male guitarists in the room stand there slightly awestruck and inadequate. The guitar after all, is to a man semi-phallic and this Tsuji Giri stringsmith in front of us has what sounds like two; like Maybelle Carter after a diet of God knows what, mainly we think, from the leftfield.

So every deluded artist says, “Oh er…it’s really hard to categorise our music…” Yeah, bollocks. With Danny Saul it really is a tough job (here comes that dreaded word) categorising. This is hardly surprising considering he probably had to put his bed into storage to accommodate the number of records inundating his bedroom. There are of course a few things that stand out. There’s a smattering of lightening fast bluegrass banjo picking and whole array of strange folk tunings presumably descended from both the alternative and traditional sides of Americana. This of course collides headlong with what one can only presume is a diet of the finest underground indie and noise rock leading to queasy offset rhythms and dazzlingly strange chord voicings. Needless to say the majority of musicians in company tonight ponder hanging up their instrument and a pursuing a career in banking or something equally worthless.

Danny focuses on the floor with the same intensity that he focuses on his craft and few manage to combine so many bright and disparate notions and influences together with such incredible precision. The man that barely opens his mouth in his main band can really sing and that’s with an observant and emotional side that’s rarely experienced. Always an indicator of something very special, Danny writes songs that you wish you could have written but instead you have to be content with mere admiration. Modern Drake-copyists wish they could create tunes like this but they’d probably blow a fuse contemplating. Nothing sounds too much like this. Not only that, it’s incredibly captivating and as tuneful as heaven. I came here with no idea as to what I was going to get and I leave equally bedazzled. Few things are truly amazing. This is.

(Dave Himelfield)
- manchestermusic.co.uk

http://dannysaul.com/press7.html

(please follow link)
Single of the week. - City Life Magazine