Reviews & Interviews:

Gregg Kowalsky – Tendrils In Vigne (Root Strata)
Dusted Magazine (Feb, 2008)
Composer Kowalsky transposed one of his electronic compositions for the 25-piece Contemporary Performance Ensemble at Mills College, led by Fred Frith on violin, as part of his Masters’ thesis. Here’s the result, a somnambulant wander through a descending four-note theme, female vocal sliding down the ever-shifting base of acoustic instruments. It sounds at once settled and vibrant, a profound modern classical work of beauty but also a strong semblance underpinning the affair, one that demonstrates how the influence of 20th/21st century classical has crept into the media. Eno might be proud. Paste-on sleeve, not a whole lot of copies to go around.

Aquarius Records (Jan. 2008)
Latest release from this Bay Area composer, electronic musician and dronologist Gregg Kowalsky. A one sided lp documenting part of his Master’s Thesis, which entailed taking one of his electronic compositions, scoring it for a live ensemble and then conducting the performance. Kowalsky enlisted the Contemporary Performance Ensemble, directed by Fred Frith, who also contributed violin. Recorded in 2005 at Mills college, the result was sublime. A gorgeous organic piece that references Feldman and Part and Melnyk as much as Kowalsky’s previous works.
The strings are low and buzz and throb dramatically, the piano is minor key and delicate, fluttering in brief little flurries, streaks of high end run through the swirling moodiness, over the top voices soar in choral fragments, washes of cymbals sizzle, horns moan, all manner of instruments are smeared into a heaving organic whole, shakuhachi, vibraphone, flute, a sonic cloud constantly expanding, intensifying chordal whir, like some moody rock band with the bones pulled out, leaving just a gloriously amorphous sound shape, slithering and drifting, creeping and billowing, building and building, some sort of classic chorale stretched out into a shimmering dreamlike blur. On the surface, it’s a dark drift, but beneath the surface, sounds are roiling and churning, a sonic sea of tension and emotion, subtly psychedelic, a gorgeous, organic, orchestral drone.

Interview posted at Mundane Sounds.
Interview with Chilean webzine Loop.

Gregg Kowalsky – Tape Chants A Million (Root Srata)
Aquarius Records (Jan. 2007)
With his first release for Root Strata, Kowalsky utilizes a much more eclectic array of source material: tape cassettes, sine oscillators, contact mics, bells, bird callers and a computer. Recorded live on KFJC in May, this half hour epic is another gorgeous slab of abstract ambience, those disparate sounds smoothed into thick warm swells, billowy swirls of smeared melody, and huge stretches of blissy whir. This is another one of those records that perfectly captures that sound we can’t ever get enough of, a testament to the power of the drone, completely mesmerizing and hypnotic, when the music finally stops, your ears and your head feel empty, and it’s only a matter of moments before we can’t help ourselves, press play again and fill them back up.

Gregg Kowalsky – Through The Cardial Window (Kranky)

Aquarius Records (April, 2006)
This is Furniture Music for the 21st Century!

The Wire (April 2006)
Through the Cardial Window is a collection of seven gorgeous electronically treated drones that seep into the listening space on a cloud of softly clashing microtones and teased out harmonics. The character of each piece is determined by the sound source. “Gara Note” features bowed acoustic guitar and violin, with Kowalsky manipulating the upper frequencies into fizzing, tambura-like overtones, while “Into the Marshes They Drove Me” applies the same techniques to samples of slo-mo Metallers Isis and is consequently dirtier and denser. Other tracks see him filtering the sounds of a chamber ensemble through a guitar pickup to record sympathetic string vibrations, and finding a useful purpose for a broken floor heater. The result is an album of beautiful, fascinating ambience. – Keith Moliné

XLR8R (April, 2006)
Oakland’s Gregg Kowalsky has quite a penchant for creating engaging noise and ambient compositions. Through the Cardial Window barrels through a buzz of minimal feedback, ghostly cymbal swells, and decadent build-ups that capture life’s most tumultuous times. Often ubiquitously serene and ravenously heavy at the same time, the Mills College MFA graduate employs a dense amount of textural techniques, from filtering his work through an acoustic guitar pickup to reworking source material from the brutal ambiance of the band Isis. From beginning to end, Kowalsky’s potent blend of feedback loops and psychedelic chiming leaves you feeling medicated and breathless. -Fred Miketa

Tokion (May, 2006)
We love Kranky records! The congestive, textural ambience of Gregg Kowalsky’s debut is only matched by its serenity and growth. Thick, time-stretched layers of manipulated guitar and tape loops float down beautifully droning feedback, while digital debris get sloshed around swallowed in the album’s mighty current. Never gaining the speed to crash into a waterfall of noise, Kowalsky’s sounds rather bottleneck to a placidly babbling brook. -Saheer Umar

The Stranger, Seattle (Feb. 16th, 2006)
Kowalsky claims that the dense, humid air of his longtime home of Florida affected his music. Consequently, there’s an intensely enveloping quality to Window. But instead of drenching you in sweat as does Florida weather, the disc induces the sort of chills that come from close encounters with the sacred. Kowalsky has distilled his sound to the essentials and made them shiver in a reverent light. His compositions have the rare ability to convince even staunch agnostics that a higher power exists. Window is a supernatural expression of sound’s spiritual dimension. -Dave Segal

Portland Mercury (Feb. 16th, 2006)
Kowalsky’s upcoming album on Kranky Records, Through the Cardial Window, is filled with the slow motion, pin-drop friction the label has become synonymous with. The plundered sound sources range from the tiny (a broken water heater) to the huge (dissected riffs from shoegazer metal giants, Isis), all melted down into subtle celestial hues. -Josh Blanchard