Motivesounds Recordings is a new record label based in Carlisle UK planning to promote independent and original music with a fresh perspective. Well, their first three releases certainly fit the bill containing some innovative and powerful music.
First off it’s Let Airplanes Circle Overhead whose self-titled debut begins with a squall of feedback before the drums kick in. Featuring improvised instrumental played on guitar, bass and drums the band have a hypnotic power that lifts them above the ordinary and draws comparison with Kinski, My Bloody Valentine, and Thought Forms. Proving themselves adept at dynamic tension the songs move from slow burning to full on guitar mangling in the blink of an eye, no more so than on “Fury Against Formless” or the epic closing track “Hired Guns Of The Old West” which moves the band up a notch and into the kind of territory normally associated with Comets On Fire.
If these releases are anything to go by then Motivesound are a label worth investigating, dealing in music rather than...
terrascope.co.uk
As the sprawling soundscapes of bands like Sigur Ros, Mogwai, Labradford and Godspeed You Black Emperor! have already proven, there's so much more to music than just hitting those melodic choruses with clockwork precision and trotting out the same structured songwriting formats over and over again. Music can be just as much about setting up moods and feeding the imagination, creating moody atmospherics and melancholic ambience. LET AIRPLANES CIRCLE OVERHEAD are another band who are aware of this, delivering instrumental walls of sounds from guitars, drums and effects pedals - using shifting dynamics and constant changes in direction to engage and inspire.
The opening sounds of PENGATROSS come wrapped up in warm sounding feedback, the guitar lines weaving in and out of each other - riffs forming and fading while the drums skitter in the distance, a subtle presence.
Taking a more aggressive stance on FURY AGAINST THE FORMLESS, the band break out the molten guitar riffs and...
ukmusicsearch.co.uk
Editor's Pick
Culling their name from the W.H. Auden poem “Funeral Blues”, Let Airplanes Circle Overhead compose majestic post-rock soundscapes that will find Explosions In the Sky looking over their shoulder. Instrumental music can sometimes tease and tantalize but often it yawns through an exhaustive album with no real direction or fancy. That can’t be said about this self-titled full-length from a band whose already made their mark when they were known by the name As An Enemy. Capturing over 30 hours worth of improvisational post-rock in The Shed studios, there’s rumors that they’ve been releasing some of those sessions (which I simply must hear!) on limited 3” CD-Rs. As mathematically technical and precise as you can get, Let Airplanes Circle Overhead brandish jazz improve with instrumental post-rock structures and wield it well.
- J-Sin
smother.net
If you have ever heard that line before, chances are it was in 'Four Weddings And A Funeral'. A line from the poem 'Funeral Blues' by W.H.Auden, the band insist that this is the original source for the inspiration that goes into this band. Not the film.
Life began for this band as a duo, Luke Roberts (guitar) and David Langfield (drums). Under the name As An Emery they grew in stature, but were limited to what they could achieve. When James Johnson (guitar/bass) joined in the Summer of 2003 the band were finally able to explore new territories. Live they captivate; ensuring that you stand and take note, that you become immersed in the band. Risk taking, they go out to push the boundary of their sound every night. They end up in a place where the distance between glory and glorious failure is blurred; where one night you can be heckled for ripping off Explosions In The Sky and the next you'll be mobbed for having created a sound of your own in an ever decreasing space that is "post-rock".
Having locked themselves in The Shed, they set about recording near on 30 hours of...
ifmicecouldmovemountains.com
Another release on the impressive motivesounds recordings label, based in the far north west of England (Carlisle to be precise). Let Airplanes Circle Overhead are a three piece band - that have a huge sweeping sound.
Let Airplanes Circle Overhead are another band that fall into that lazy label 'post rock'. Which simply means the band excel in making giant sound scape type music. The band hail from Newcastle and are all 18 years old. The band record sprawling instrumentals that veer between clean and gentle sounding guitars to a feedback laden noise - where to all it could sound like the walls are falling in on you.
This is the bands first 'proper' release and as such it's big statement of intent. This is not an easy listening LP. The sheer intensity of the sounds generated demand the listener pays close attention. I am a sucker for noisy guitars and this LP delivers huge slabs of guitar noise for me to wallow in.
I am often uneasy with bands that try and create noisescapes as I am sucker for noise wrapped up in a pop song and a band...
lostmusic.co.uk
Let Airplanes Circle Overhead: May as well, you're not going to hear the massive machines - LACO play their respective instruments as if attempting recapture what Hans von Ohain did with jet engines on record. Appropriately titled band & album (formerly referred to as As An Enemy) and the song titles ("Fury against the formless", "Pengatross") hold true as well. "Fury against the formless" (as with many of these songs) takes very little time (around the 1:00 mark) warming up the turbines and forcing waves of intensity through your listening post.
And in between the wailing streams of guitars and drums, LACO honor you with breathing room on atmospheric compositions such as the 2-minute "That was no accident" - just like being 5 years old again and seeing snow fall for the first time. Bipolar disorder may have never sounded so angelic. Producing songs that are in no hurry to reach the end (3 tracks are 6 minutes+), all while peaking, swelling and swooning in countless directions - Let Airplanes Circle Overhead have fine-tuned a...
sctas.com
The three 18-year-olds have taken the road less travelled, treading in the footsteps of Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Mogwai, Sigur Ros and Oceansize. They’ve produced a series of epic soundscapes that range from the frenzied to the subtle. Feedback roars and drums crash, in subsequent stillness tiny melodies drip and repeat before building to another climax. They’ve a little way to go before they hit the same standard as the pied pipers they’re following, but there’s plenty of time for that.
- Joanna Booth
new-noise.net
I’d have to say that at certain times I can be quite churlish and petty and my assumption that I’d never again enjoy a record squarely placed in the “post-rock” encampment might be coming back to bite me on the arse if there are more bands of Let the Airplanes Circle Overhead’s calibre lurking in the undergrowth.
It’s not that they have turned the genre overhead and thrust it in another, more daring direction just that they play it with such feeling it’d be a lie to say that it didn’t move me. The shimmering guitars drip melancholy and pathos and those slow burning build ups are accurately drawn and well executed.
One way in which Let Airplanes Circle Overhead do differ from their peers is that on peaking they do actually throw themselves into some bone-crushing riffs that Bardo Pond would be proud of, and rather than let them hang aimlessly like storm clouds they drag them along at a rollicking, almost speed metal to these ears, pace which had me offering the devil sign up to the displeased heavens.
foxydigitalis.com
The first CD I received and reviewed from the rather lovely new innovative label known as Motive Sound Recordings was a Carlisle based post-rock band known as ctrlaltdelete, and this peaked my enthusiasm for the new label. So when this new Let Airplanes Circle Overhead CD arrived and it was tagged with sounding similar to the roster of the ever-prolific Constellation Records again I was eager to give the EP a whirl.
At the tender age of just 18 the band members certainly have a rather splendid looking future ahead of them, as although it’s a little rough around the edges and doesn’t always quite have that layer, hook or melody to keep you routing for them, they definitely know how to rock out, be it in the post vein.
Opener “Pengatross” builds up to some swirling guitars and feedback style delayed noises that’s more akin to the lighter end of Pelican on their new CD, rather than the Red Sparowes style epic twiddly soundscapes I had anticipated. But where as the Pelican boys obviously love their riff, stonking and massive, Let Airplanes Circle Overhead tend to take the more subtle...
staticdomain.com
This debut album from the fresh-faced Northeast instrumentalists belies their tender years. ‘Airplanes’ core members Luke, David and James joined existing duo, ‘As an Enemy’ in 2003, merging to create this improvisational tour-de-force which possibly lies somewhere between Massive Attack, Muse and My Bloody Valentine.
Ultimately however, there is no need for such snatched pigeon-holing. The tracks have the potential to turn on a sixpence, morphing from the blissfully peaceful to the relentlessly chaotic before you can say “Where’s the singer?”
Gentle melodies are juxtaposed with moments of feedback-fuelled anger; melancholy the order of the day. The tracks are not necessarily self-defined, but all carry the same tortured sentiment and the disc can be digested as a whole without continuity issues.
Overall, promising stuff. Bring on the live show.
4/5
Jake Richards
highvoltage.org.uk
The thing that really stuck me is that each member of this band are only 18. It makes me feel little old. Let Airplanes Circle Overhead are a Carlisle based band and this album their first commercial release for the very promising Motive Sound Recordings.
"Pengatross" has a great wall of noise in the intro before the drums kick in. The guitars are weaving in and out, and then at the four minute mark it turns into a raving beast. "Fury against the Formless" starts off a bit louder and really grows into something special. The end, with that chaotic distortion and the one guitar riff is just stunning stuff; Eight minutes of bliss. "Rwanda" shows another direction that the band are capable of. The track is broken up into bits of sound and guitars heavily diced with effects make this quite the haunting piece of work. Just as the title suggests, its an emotional piece. "Hired Guns Of The Old West" is the last one here and its just over twelve minutes long (I enjoy a ten minute plus tune every so often). It's a...
comfortcomes.com
It surely can’t be a coincidence, the parallels in the name of the band and the stunning gorgeous dreamy instrumental output that they produce to those of the delectable Explosions in the Sky? It can be a bit unearthing to listen to a band that so clearly wear their influences on their sleeves and mould themselves on the idols they set before them. That said and owing to the instrumental nature of the music (I reason the lack of a distinctive and therefore imitated vocal sound from the one band to another reduces the tedium and frustration).
LACO deal in dreamy luscious soundscapes that sweep from the math rock to the clean cut chord progressions with a pinch of delay. Such split personality in music is so wonderful and elegantly executed by three 18 year olds from Carlisle. Such musical maturity, not to mention the 30hours of improv recordings out down in a shed are truly astounding. Like Future Hero Robot Empire without vocals or a Mogwai session with a family size pack of Beta Blockers. ‘Pengatross’...
joyzine.co.uk
Let Airplanes Circle Overhead are hugely ambitious, and they never once let their fear of failure stop them from reaching for greatness. Admittedly, their reach often exceeds their grasp, but these little failures make the band endearing -- especially when they have the balls to attempt grandiosity. Anyone who has ever attempted to create epic instrumental post-rock will tell you that trying to keep a bunch of fickle music fans' attention for six or seven minutes -- without lyrics -- is a bold step toward failure. Even the untouchable Explosions in the Sky sucked at it for a few years.
So while these kids (all three band members are 18) seem to be slightly out of their league, selected elements of their work speak volumes about their musical abilities and sense of space. "Pengatross"'s use of dynamics is absurdly jarring. The shift from the song's sparse delay and reverb guitar work to the wall of sound climax is as potent a transition as anyone could hope for, but the songwriting still needs some...
splendidezine.com
January 2006
rock-sound.net
Even before you hear the music you have to love this lot. Anyone who mentions W.H. Auden and Darren Aronofsky in their press release should be immediately clasped to the bosom and then never let go. Old habits die hard so I put the cd in the player and my ears become clad in a light and elongated melody of the post rock nature and then as if from nowhere a barrage, an onslaught, a wall of noise redersunders into action and continues unabashed to the end of track one.
The remaining six tracks perform similar peaks and troughs of sound but in ever more new and varied ways that show a train of thought and not just repetition of a tested formula. At times wholesome, at others abrasive. Polar opposites are captured in the blink of an eye. Its Isis without the growls, Pelican without the Pop. Song titles like 'I laughed till I stopped laughing' may be the only negative as they show a need to wear the post rock angle on their sleeves just a little too much. The songs could be called 'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep'...
glasswerk.co.uk
Opening with a quiet roar of feedback as though firing up an engine, this self-titled release proves that Let Airplanes Circle Overhead is appropriately named. All songs are set to a familiar equation: begin with atmospherics, ascend into huge clouds of white noise and finally return to the starting line. “Fury Against the Formula,” one of the album highlights, can be viewed as a rather tongue-in-cheek title as Let Airplanes Circle Overhead is surely a calculated presentation of post rock schooling. The result is a highly focused album that manages to avoid the pitfalls of waywardly moving between the extremes of soft and loud. You won’t be bored.
- Shelby Hast
meshsf.com
Somewhere amid the pattering buzz of guitar and low thunderous roll of drums of Let Airplane's Circle Overhead's self-titled album lay the perfect accompaniment to finding oneself lost. To the unmindful ear,it could be said it all sounds a bit samey; but then, the unmindful ear would be missing the seamless transitions, the baseless continuity of a sonic landscape. The term "sonic landscape" is far too overused, but here entirely applicable. Stretched over seven tracks is the curve of the ocean: seabirds caw and fight through fuzzed distortion and brief scramblings over the high-hat, grey-green waves seethe and foam in the low rumbling bass drum, sandy footprints escape from the gritty, staccato noodling of electric guitar. As the album deepens, so does the landscape change. The wind whispering through dunes and reeds soon finds itself tumbling through the skeletal remains of a desert town. Tension mounts, is reigned in, is cooled off, takes flight until at last in the final track, 'Hired Guns of the Old...
pennyblackmusic.co.uk
January 2006
kerrang.com
Jordan Finds This Far Less Ominous Than Vultures: Let Airplanes Circle Overhead - Let Airplanes Circle Overhead
I'm still not exactly sure what it is with the United Kingdom, but the independent instrumental scene is in full force, as is evident by MotiveSounds Recording's new release, the self-titled debut of Let Airplanes Circle Overhead. LACO is comprised of three members, each of whom are just a mere eighteen years old, putting them in that young and talented category of musicians similar to the brilliant work of Yndi Halda. The band more closely resembles the work of labelmates CntrlAltDelete, with smooth ethereal segues and brutal transgressions into aggressive, climatic passages that are marked by a bass presence that is impossible to deny. LACO makes it loud to the point where the listener's ears get that fuzzy, hearing-depravation feeling, and songs like "Pengatross," "Fury Against the Formless," and "Rwanda" encompass the...
decoymusic.com
So after Let Airplanes Circle Overhead's debut has gone through a couple of tracks, I'm all set to mark it down as a graceless homage to Mogwai's 4 Satin EP and move on. Admittedly that particular release is an interesting one to work from; harsher and starker than any of the band's albums, “Superheroes of BMX” and “Stereodee” regularly erupt into flurries of guitar, and their black-and-white surges offer something a lot more programmatic than the blood red of their recent work. Except for Aidan Moffett on “Now You're Taken,” these songs and most of the others collected on EP+6 don't sound robotic or removed so much as inhuman, the thrashings of machines and cities left to their own devices. As you can tell I love that EP, but I'm the first to admit that most of the bands out there who lavish devotion on that sound justifiably don't get very far; like most imitations they lose the charm of the original but this type of music goes especially flat without that certain je ne sais quois. So as I...
stylusmagazine.com
Maybe Mogwai started it, but while Canada’s taken the instrumental template into territories so experimental that repeated listens become chore-worthy, Blair and Bush lands respectively have set to work on a fresh sub-genre: post-rock-lite.
Very much with the effect of, say, Pepsi Max – wide appeal, blander taste, reduced long-term enjoyment – it’s a bewildering liquid to gulp. That’s not to say teenage Port Carlisle trio Let Airplanes Circle Overhead flop into a field fenced by those criteria exactly, but the brilliant yet edge-devoid aesthetic of recent Explosions In The Sky material hangs heavy for sure.
It’s not all that simple though. ‘Fury Against The Formless’ shares structural similarities with the jazz signature twisting of Billy Mahonie, only with the extra beef of excess amplification thrown in for good measure, while elsewhere the majority of the Constellation Records roster is fed kinda conspicuously through consciences...
drownedinsound.com
February 2006
bigcheesemagazine.com
Motive Sounds Recordings presents the debut album from Let Airplanes Circle Overhead, which contains over forty minutes of blistering instrumental rock. Like several of its predecessors, LACO punishes with a heavy bass and a plethora of feedback and distortion. The opening track, "Pentagross" starts off innocently enough, but after about four minutes the band drops the pristine sounds for a gritty, aggressive edge that shakes the foundations of the band's music. A short segue later, the band returns with "Fury Against the Formless", which charges out of the gate with an cacophony of distortion and a dose of brutal drumming to anchor the restless beast. A track this unrelenting could only be attempted by a band in the early stages of its career, before it gets the need to settle down and mature, and "Fury Against the Formless" is a immaculate representation of the raw energy and devotion of this young band to its craft, much like Mogwai exhibited back in the early days of its...
decoymusic.com
March 2007
creativereview.co.uk
February 2008
idnworld.com
