Baroo & Himalaya Albums Both Named “Best of 2019” by The Wire, Pitchfork, Artforum, Bandcamp

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Both Carl Stone album releases from 2019 found their ways onto a number of Best of the Year lists, from Artforum to The Wire.

THE WIRE:
Himalaya: Best of 2019 14/100
“The world’s pop music has become putty in Stone’s hands. Each piece could, in theory, keep reassembling its particles infinitely”

https://www.thewire.co.uk/issues/431

THE WIRE:
Baroo: Best of 2019 27/100
“Like a vivd and recurrent memory of somewhere you have never been, or an everday experience suddenly made inexplicable and strange”

https://www.thewire.co.uk/issues/431

ARTFORUM:
Himalaya: Best Music of 2019 5/10

How much music do you really need? Stone’s work suggests that sometimes a second is enough. As he shows on Himalaya, real-time manipulation of tiny samples can yield extraordinary results, ranging from shattered-beat mosaics to oceanic stillness.

https://www.artforum.com/print/201910

BANDCAMP
Baroo & Himalaya: Best Experimental Albums of 2019
The two albums released by Carl Stone in 2019 bubble with ideas and careen with dizzying juxtapositions. He has an uncanny knack for cutting up songs and samples in ways that retain structure and melody yet still sound deconstructed and disorienting, as if the floor beneath them is bending and warping and could collapse at any time. Baroo and Himalaya both engage with pop music by rearranging its DNA, constructing a new kind of catchiness through circular edits. He can build arcs that rise and fall, and ride loops that hypnotize as they expand. The process is brainy, but both albums are also full of glee, as fun to listen to as they are to contemplate.
https://daily.bandcamp.com/best-experimental/the-best-experimental-albums-of-2019

PITCHFORK:
Baroo: Best Experimental Albums of 2019
“Like a vivd and recurrent memory of somewhere you have never been, or an everday experience suddenly made inexplicable and strange”

https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/best-experimental-albums-2019/

These titles available through UNSEEN WORLDS as well as on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon and finer music stores.

March 13 9:00PM New York NY Experimental Intermedia Foundation

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Friday March 13 2020 9:00PM
Carl joins with Ulrich Krieger for a shared evening of solos and duos at Experimental Intermedia (EIF), the place where Carl held his New York debut 43 years before.

Artists:

donation

Experimental Intermedia Foundation
224 Centre St # 3 New York, NY
212-431-6430
https://www.experimentalintermedia.org/concerts/

March 21 7:00 PM Austin Texas Central Presbyterian Church SXSW

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Saturday March 21 2020 7:00 PM
Carl’s official South by Southwest performance debut. Each year in Austin, Texas, the SXSW Music Festival brings artists, fans and music professionals together with film and tech industry creatives for a unique celebration, discussion and exploration of music — discovering new talent, making personal and business connections and enjoying a week of great live performances. Carl’s performance is on the penultimate day of the festival in a showcase event that includes Fennesz, Astrid Sonne and others. Presented by Qobuz.

Artists:

Primary Entry: Music Badge, Platinum Badge
Secondary Entry: Music Festival Wristband, Artist Wristband

Central Presbyterian Church
200 E 8th St, Austin, TX 78701

https://www.sxsw.com/festivals/music/
https://schedule.sxsw.com/2020/artists/2026068
https://schedule.sxsw.com/2020/events/MS51500

March 22 4PM open 5PM start Austin Texas Carpenter Hotel

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Sunday March 22 2020 4PM open 5PM start
Carl extends his stay in Austin with a performance at the Carpenter Hotel. The evening promises to be most intriguing. Carl starts near the top of the evening due to promises made to the organizers at SxSW. So come early and stay late!

4:15 pm – Little Mazarn
5:00 pm –  ST 37
6:00 pm –   Carl Stone
7:00 pm – Garrett T. Capps y NASA Country
7:45 pm – Thor & Friends
8:00 pm – Tara Bhattacharya Reed
8:45 pm – Chromic

Artists:

free admission

Carpenter Hotel
400 Josephine St, Austin, TX 78704

gtc@garretttcapps.com
 http://carpenterhotel.com/

March 27 Open 7:00PM Start 7:30 PM Berkeley CA Tom’s Place

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Friday March 27 2020 Open 7:00PM Start 7:30 PM
Carl joins once again with the great Soo Yeon Lyuh, whose instrument is the haegum, from Korea, This traditional Korean string instrument, resembles a fiddle. with a thin straight neck, a hollow wooden soundbox, and two silk strings, held vertically on the knee of the performer and played with a bow. in the hands of master musicvan Soo Yeon Lyuh it is one of the most expressive instruments on the planet.

Artists:

donation

Tom’s Place
3111 Deakin Street, Berkeley CA
510.703.8195
Map (English) at here
td@pixar.com
http://4-33.com/toms-place/index.html

April 26 20h00 Dublin IE The Sound House

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Sunday April 26 2020 20h00
Carl’s Dublin debut! Opening the evening will be Jane Deasy, a composer and performer working across various forms including theatre, installation and radio. She composes both electronic and electroacoustic music exploring the boundaries between music and theatre. Hosted by Enthusiastic Eunuch Promotions and The Sound House

Artists:

EUR 15.00

Buy Tickets Online

The Sound House
1st Floor, 28 Eden Quay, North City, Dublin, D01 DE44

https://billetto.ie/e/carl-stone-with-special-guest-jane-deasy-tickets-411720/
https://www.facebook.com/events/530053431193671/

Full Review of HIMALAYA in The Wire’s December 2019 Issue

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Carl Stone made the wise decision to split his latest creations over several releases.

Carl Stone Himalaya Unseen Worlds CD/DL/2xLP

 

It takes 35 minutes to reach the summit of Carl Stone’s new Himalaya. To arrive there, you ascend through manically cut up and overlaid Afrobeats, funk and hiphop grooves together with a tasty disco riff that reassembles the very molecules of your being. Then, having hit the apex, Stone throws you into idyllic freefall for the next half hour, into a balmy environment of slow moving and ethereal tones, music that is as voluminous and prayer-like as the opening part is compacted and hedonistic.

The relationship between Himalaya and Stone’s release from earlier this year, Baroo, mirrors that between Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew and In A Silent Way – the later album building on the textural and harmonic palette of all that went before, while clawing open fresh expressive possibilities. The opening piece “Han Yan” tells you what to expect as high-speed Afrobeats hallucinate on their own existence. Musically, two things are happening. Stone has the beats on intense fast-forward, while little microedits snip out crucial supporting notes in the harmony, which spins the music relentlessly forwards – it has no brakes.

A strutting rock beat kick-starts “Bia Bia” before it lurches towards ebullient chaos, with broken-up trumpet fanfares randomly puncturing the texture like Lester Bowie is wandering in and out of earshot. “Kikanbou” is grounded by a mesmeric disco beat that keeps rolling for 17 minutes, a motor around which auxiliary beats circle. Around the six minute mark, and for no other reason than he can, Stone suddenly turns everything upside down and inside out, and upside out and downside up, leaving beats coiling in other directions and soaring upwards. The world’s pop music has become putty in Stone’s hands. Each piece could, in theory, keep reassembling its particles infinitely. But Stone applies his composerly voice with a noticeably light touch, making conscious decisions about his material without ever suffocating its freedom.

Had he signed off after “Kikanbou” Himalaya would still have been exceptional, but the final glide through spacious textures and rarefied tunings – leading towards intonations from the Japanese vocalist Akaihirume – reconnects your soul with the stuff of sound itself as you ruminate on an epic journey, both exhilarating and affecting.

Philip Clark

The Wire December 2019