Album Release – Anthony Weis

Nature Has Forever (2019)

Posted on March 12, 2019March 18, 2020 by Anthony

I was interviewed by the experimental music blog Caliper Music. Read the full interview here. Website founder, Matt Ackerman, comments on the album Nature Has Forever:

“It’s a unique, accessible exploration of organic sounds and techniques in music making. From the title, you can gather there is an attempt to return to some unadulterated, back-to-basics, or “natural” aesthetic.”

-Matt Ackerman, Caliper Music

“If you are looking for new sounds to add to your routine, take a look at the latest Anthony Weis , no doubt, has something that will give another color to your days.”

–Zone Nights music review

Nature Has Forever is an experimental acoustic album self-released by musician Anthony Weis. The album contains instrumental pieces touching on Country Folk, Progressive/Post Rock, Soundscape/Minimalism, and World Music.

Many homemade instruments are featured throughout, ranging from percussive beats consisting of wood piles, drawers, and junk heaps, to one stringed instruments that have been plucked, sampled, and distorted. Soundscapes underlie many of the songs, ranging from sounds in nature to manipulated ambient recordings. One of the goals in making this record was to create unique sounds all my own.

Nature Has Forever follows up the instrumental guitar rock album Smashed Against Infinity (2017) and the four piece ambient rock/soundscape suite Sound Continuous (2016).

Bandcamp: https://anthonyweis.bandcamp.com/album/nature-has-forever

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/39gFntFLlMrhruZFWHM21o

Release Date: May 1st, 2019

Track Listing

Four Strings (3:42)
Slide Slide Harmonica (3:14)
Back To The Primitive (2:49)
Notes Out Of Season (4:06)
Absurd Melodies (3:53)
Bewilderness (3:31)
Front Country (3:32)
Fall Reprise (2:11)
Banjo, Banjo (3:21)
Up, Glorious Soil! (2:48)
Man’s Pursuit Of Purpose (4:27)
Where The Raw Breeze Blows (3:13)
Incessant Sunlit Fields (3:14)

Smashed Against Infinity (2017)

Posted on January 27, 2017March 12, 2019 by Anthony

“My favourite track this week.”

-The ‘Spill on the track “Creation’s Riff”

Smashed Against Infinity is the 4th album by experimental musician Anthony Weis, released on March 1st, 2017.

“Quick work doesn’t mean less serious work, it depends on one’s self confidence and experience…I must warn you that everyone will think I work too fast…and that in time to come there will again be hard days, empty of inspiration. So one must strike while the iron is hot.”

-Vincent Van Gogh

The writing and recording of Smashed Against Infinity, my 4^th and latest album, came together with a burst of energy unlike any project previously. Midway through creating what I thought would be my next record, I got the distracting urge to write loud, more aggressive music, which in turn lead me back to my roots. After beginning this album in September 2016, the music flooded out instinctively, with little rational oversight. It was completely mixed by December.

Noisy garage rock, my roots, is what the album ended up becoming. The goal was the sound of a loud rock band jamming in a garage somewhere. This element was always present in my work, but here I decided it should become the focal point, for at least one album.

I further looked to the past through the reimagining of three songs that appeared on my first record Knowledge & Compromise. These tracks reemerge completely dismembered and rearranged with 75%+ newly recorded parts, as “Creation’s Riff”, “Smashed Against Infinity”, and “Thus Spoke The Mountains”. In their original form they’re a bit lacking, but had a spark I wanted to carve out and create a new piece around.

The rest of the album follows a similar suit, plenty of guitar tapping …distortion/fuzz…feedback…and some world music flourishes to add an additional layer to the mix.

This album follows up the four piece ambient rock suite Sound Continuous (2016), the sparser minimal rock album Aubade Crowning (2014), and the eclectic Knowledge & Compromise. Smashed Against Infinity is available March 1st, 2017.

Stream the album via Spotify.

Buy the album via Bandcamp.

Stream the album via Soundcloud.

Track Listing

Creation’s Riff (4:02)
Bright Crisp Morning (4:14)
What Else Is Sacred (4:58)
Smashed Against Infinity (3:04)
Oblivion Studies (3:12)
Painting A Bridge In Arles (3:12)
Eternity Sketches (3:19)
Still Life With American Novels (3:45)
Joy & Living (3:37)
Thus Spoke The Mountains (4:13)
Of All Achievement (3:56)

Sound Continuous (2016)

Posted on November 19, 2016March 12, 2019 by Anthony

“Sound Continuous is a unique take on music and field recordings, where compositions accompany the recordings. Musically, it draws from acoustic music, rock, classical music, and a bunch of other genres and styles…their incorporation into the long field recordings is what makes them special. Give it a try!”

-Can This Even Be Called Music?

“Sound Continuous” refers to the nature of sound itself. On a spectrum ranging from random noise to written melody, there is typically an accepted point delineating sound as either “music” or “non-music”. On this album, my third, I reject that such a point actually exists, and blend noises from the world with my written music. Street ambience, bird songs, clanking of pots and pans all find their place on Sound Continuous.

Arranged as four 15-minute suites, these collage pieces roughly represent the passage of time, both from morning to night, spring to winter, and birth to death.

All of the sounds on this record are my own, no samples were used. The field recordings were captured walking around near where I live, in and around Chicago.

A companion album, SC Singles, consists of some of the main songs, but not all, taken out and presented on their own, for a different listening experience. These records follow up Aubade Crowning (2014) & all albums are now streaming everywhere.

Open in Spotify: Anthony Weis – Sound Continuous

Full Tracklist

THOUGHTS FROM A BEGINNER (15:03)

In Through The Front Door (0:00)
And So It Begins (0:26)
To Plan A Life (2:50)
Sonar Messages Home (4:21)
Walking Through This Old House (5:06)
House Full Of Nothing (5:27)
Word From The Sea (8:02)
Limit Of Meaning (9:17)
Mind Looks Inward (11:07)
Sounds From The Yard (11:48)

SOUNDS FROM THE WORKSHOP (15:15)

Rummaging Through The Baker’s Rack (0:00)
In Italian Gardens (0:18)
Borrowed Scenery (2:02)
Sit And Wait (2:37)
Noise From Down The Hall (3:43)
Various Ways To Waste A Minute (4:03)
Some Remote Thoughts (8:24)
A Collection Of Things (8:53)
Strings From The Hills (9:15)
Emptiness in A Major (9:40)
Street Scene (10:06)
Well, That Makes Infinity (10:26)
Sun Running (12:08)
Back Through The Woods (12:32)

INTO NIGHT (15:15)

Chorus Verse Chorus (0:00)
Working Through The Night (3:19)
Warning Storms (5:54)
The Only Way I Know (6:07)
Warning Rains (7:12)
See, Anything Is Music (7:43)
Never Surprised (7:54)
The Bridge (9:57)
Night, Just Outside The Workshop Window (10:15)
A Calm Spot (12:24)
The Breakdown (13:11)
Honing My Craft (13:24)

PATHS CONVERGE TO SPLIT AGAIN (15:52)

Trying To Calm The Mind (0:00)
Old Knowledge Revisited (0:20)
Unable To Sleep (3:28)
Days Of Simpler Pleasure (3:40)
Two Thirty-Five AM (4:30)
More Weird Dreams (5:00)
More Noise About Nothing (7:03)
Everything Back Into Noise (8:03)
Sounds From The Dark Corners (10:28)
Almost Finishing (10:51)
And So It Ends (15:12)

SC Singles (2016)

Posted on November 19, 2016March 12, 2019 by Anthony

SC Singles is the companion album to Sound Continuous and features some of the main songs as free standing tracks for a different listening experience.

Open in Spotify: Anthony Weis – Sc Singles

Melodies in Binary (2015)

Posted on November 19, 2016March 12, 2019 by Anthony

This is the commissioned score to the podcast series “The Podcast Producers”, which first aired in April, 2015. The show explores the state of podcasting today and what we can expect in the future. Hosted by Corey Coates and Jessica Rhodes, the show brings in many great guests from podcasts large and small, to give their opinions and insights on a variety of topics.

For the score, I wanted to give the music a slightly futuristic feel, but still retain a certain warmth that can be lost in that aim. What I ended up with is a set of songs that approximates ambient beat music, with an experimental and even “outer space” vibe. Songs from my first two albums, “Knowledge & Compromise” and “Aubade Crowning” were featured as well.

Visit the show’s site: http://www.thepodcastproducers.com/

Aubade Crowning (2014)

Posted on November 19, 2016March 12, 2019 by Anthony

“Fascinating release…Right from the get-go on “Endless Gardens”, track one, a variety of interesting beats and rhythms are thrown at the listener, along with a whimsical melody…a stew that mixes catchy melodic segments with funky (“Craft and Commonplace”) or offbeat percussive sounds (the Steve Reich-ian “Orchestra of Blocks”), and even some tabla-type sounds (“The Lives of Artists”)”.

-MAKE YOUR OWN TASTE Review

“Aubade Crowning” is the second full length album by Anthony Weis. Many influences are touched upon, from African drumming to Japanese Shamisen, to Avant Garde experimentation to rock.

Open in Spotify: Anthony Weis – Aubade Crowning

Knowledge & Compromise (2013)

Posted on November 19, 2016March 12, 2019 by Anthony

This debut album comprises of a collection of pieces done for various projects/films during 2012.