MIS+RESS 'The History Of Fishes' A Stellar Debut Album

Somewherecold Records has announced the latest addition to its blossoming collection of dreampop, nugaze and ambient offerings with the forthcoming debut album from MIS+RESS. This self-titled 10-track offering is quite remarkable, oscillating between the atmospheric opaque reverie of such bands as Land Observations, the mysterious edge of Michael Brook and Daniel Lanois, and fantastic imagined music boxes for grown-ups.

Although the press materials doesn't say outright that this is a concept album, it feels like one and thank goodness for that. There is so much beauty in this album, it could burst. I feel some parallels between this project and Land Observations, Loscil, and the more ambient side of Bonobo.

MIS+RESS is the solo project of musician, artist, mixing and mastering engineer, father and educator Brian Wenckebach, who is perhaps best known as a member of Brooklyn shoegaze darlings Elika and experimental electronica outfit Thee Koukouvaya. He has worked with a number of established artists and labels including Showtime Television Networks, Polyvinyl Records, Ulrich Schnauss, Asobi Seksu, Noveller, Thisquietarmy, Dead Leaf Echo and Nadja, and also re-mastered Blind Mr. Jones' classic album 'Tatooine'.

Wenckebach first began recording music to analog tape in 1995 and, by the end of the decade, had started to move towards computer sequencing. The Durutti Column, Land Observations, Daniel Lanois and Harold Budd number among his musical influences, along with Loscil, Nils Frahm, William Basinski, Noveller, Rafael Anton Irisarri, Susumu Yokota, and Tim Hecker.

A long-term professional used to the comforts of his work with Electric Blue Studios in Brooklyn, this album marks a departure from the studio setting. It was recorded in Toms River, New Jersey with an electric guitar and four effects pedals in a make-shift studio he set up in his sister-in-law's abandoned childhood bedroom.

Rather than relying solely on atmosphere and texture, MIS+RESS creates songs with genuine emotional content. They are clever and intricate, dreamy yet broken. They paint a sonic canvas full of gorgeous landscapes, littered with machines languishing in obsolescence. This debut album evokes memories of a past/future you didn’t/won’t have. This is post ambient, instrumental guitar. No frills and no hiding.

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