An Emperor's Garden
1. Moon, Waiting for the Stars
2. In Your Silver Secret
3. Lighthouse on the Open Sea
4. Book of Spells
5. The Emperor & Impaler
House of Alchemy, 2007, CD-R
So delicate, the sounds that unfold here. Brad Rose and Ville Mosquiitto return as Autumn Galaxy with another discharge of aural marvel. They tip-toe around one another, laying out a finely-crafted set of music that manages to be both dense with texture and startlingly fragile. Fractured sound-scapes, shattered banjo and endless buzz are just some of the elements at play here.
"The project of Brad Rose and Ville Mosquiitto completely confirms it's title. The music is amazingly atmospheric (in autumn way) and surprisingly diverse. The disk opens with dreadful dark drone ambient, resebling the album of Navia "Holodno", then turns into thoughtful "September" psych-folk, then comes post-Sonic Youth noise-rock with persistent seawaves noise, then - melancholic spicy pseudo-Indian acid-folk, and finally - soft drone ambient with an accordion. A sequence of the autumnal moods. Non-standard cardboard sleeve."
"Collaborative cd from Brad Rose (North Sea, Golden Oaks etc) and Ville Moskiitto. This is as wonderfully wide-eyed and laid-back as any of Brad's other projects with some stellar banjo playing on a couple of tracks. Elsewhere ominous drones that have the chill of winter about them. Nice card sleeves with paste-on art and inserts." [Boa Melody Bar]
"Yet another postal-collaboration of the workaholic/agoraphobic Brad Rose, Autumn Galaxy (re)weds the Oklahoma strummer to Finland’s Ville Moskiitto [I’ve stayed there – unpleasant], last seen in 2005 under the same name for ‘Harapaa’ (MYMWLY). ‘An Emperor’s Garden’ is a five track daydream of guitar-centered freeform/drone pieces, with elaborate titles and fantastic imagery not-vaguely suggesting the courtyard stories of Italo Calvino’s ‘Invisible Cities’. Somewhere between Varèse and My Cat is an Alien, overture “Moon, Waiting for the Stars” opens on a dark analog drone, spotted with comets of attenuating frequencies and an early, swirling climax which holds for the duration of the ten-minute track. A piece of folksy, near-banjo guitar creates “In Your Silver Secret”, with sparse gong-percussion accompanying the strolling meter of this Fahey plucking. “Lighthouse on the Open Sea” is a dark jazz of reverberating guitar and walking bass-thud illustrated with ocean noise and the call of ships; a slumbering, droning electric guitar soon awakens with a big muff solo all sizzle and sharp angles in good krautrock-fashion. The atmospheric gamelan/guitar free-play of “Book of Spells” is complimented by the reedy shanty “The Emperor & Impaler”; its lanterns rattling a gentle percussion, the men’s raspy hush join the song with restraint and something nearing disdain. From a similar place as (VxPxC)’s ‘Reticent to Manifest’, these songs reflect more than a seafaring life, but voyage by ancient means, and in ways far smarter than any CD of pirate songs. Black-bottom CDr comes in chip-board arigato pak with colorful labels and stamps all over." [Animal PSI]
"Autumn Galaxy is Brad Rose and Ville Mosquiitto and Emperor’s Garden is another all too limited CD-R on the impeccable House of Alchemy imprint. Carefully created drone webs of the dense variety seeps in and out of your conscience with thunderously powerful physicality. The buzz of the opener is replaced by guitar strum and spectral folk in “In Your Silver Secret” while the nightmarish “Lighthouse on the Open Sea” makes me long back to that remote hostel/lighthouse we recently visited in the northeastern part of Scotland. “Book of Spells” has more of a fractured folkscapes vibe to it while the closer sounds like a postcard that never got sent. These simple foundations of primitive repeating motifs are pure magic and a brilliant way to end a very complex and intriguing album." [Broken Face]
