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Accelera Deck. Shadow Land CD
A haunting and eerie recording that bears little resemblance to previous Accelera Deck outings, as this one dropped all beats, and had Jeely picking up an acoustic guitar as an outlet for his personal struggle with alcoholism. This recording was released on May 26th, 2001. Jeely entered rehab the next day. Shadow Land ended up being the blueprint for what would later become Jeely's Your Favorite Horse project.
01. 1000 Headaches
|: cover by Someone else |
| Reviews |
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Birmingham, AL's Chris Jeely, has been releasing his electroacoustic compositions on European labels such as Blackbean & Placenta, 555, Morr Music and Endorphin for most of the '90s. Jeely's albums have explored shoegazer effects-washed guitar meets drum & bass to total computer-ridden glitch with many stops in between. Now, with his self-released Shadow Land, he leans far away from the "electro-" to the completely acoustic, creating an intimate album of fragile, intertwined guitar and vocals. Has Jeely seen the future? Is there an introspective Nick Drake-ian singer-songwriter in every electronic musician? Whether Shadow Land is retro, futuristic or both, it's another pleasing development in the Accelera Deck sound.
If any artist in today's electronic underground could be labelled a musical chameleon, Chris Jeely is it. Under the name Accelera Deck and several other monikers, the astoundingly prolific Jeely has released a multitude of records and discs over the last few years that encompass atmospheric drum'n'bass, crunchy IDM, experimental glitch, ambient soundscapes and more. But even the most devoted follower of his work will undoubtedly be thrown for a loop by "Shadow Land", an album which finds Jeely setting aside the electronics, picking up an acoustic guitar, and (gasp) singing! The result is a stirring and heartfelt release that provides a peek into a portion of Jeely's psyche that his instrumental electronic work simply can't provide. At times, it almost feels like one is listening in on a personal therapy session; the first words from Jeely's mouth are "I'm a motherfucker but I guess you knew / When I took last night and tore it half in two", and later lyrics include "When I fuck something up / I make sure I fuck it up well", and "All I am is an empty promise made to you". It's almost a certainty that "Shadow Land" will strike many Accelera Deck fans as an excursion into territory that is simply too foreign, too raw, and too different from what they expect. But whatever your feelings about the music, it's simply undeniable that Jeely deserves hearty congratulations for having the cojones to release what he damn well pleases, and to hell with the electro-snobs and purists who don't like it.
...a simply lovely album. Sparse and almost lonely tracks envelope you in a kind of midwest warmth full of self-reflection and afterhours daydreaming. Excellent. boomkat.com |