Roman Nose

December 2018 saw the release of the debut album proper by Roman Nose (on lp, co-released with Humane Pyramid Records). We are now shipping copies of this lp.

It was recorded in Autumn 2014 and 2016 at Shakeeb Abu Hamdan’s studio in Leeds and has artwork by Bridget Hayden.

It features harmonium, vocals, tulum, concertina, sheng, tape players and electronics by Jon Marshall; flute, vocals, hulusi and sheng by Sarah Mcwatt; drums, waterphone and percussion by Charlie Collins; and double bass etc by Otto Willberg.

Price including postage



‘the ethos of Roman Nose […] is one of creative destruction […] a chorus of reed and electronic drones recalling ceremonial Japanese gagaku […] abrupt, dissonant harmonies struck by the bass and reeds captur[ing] the spine-chilling quality of a Ligeti string quartet […] brutal and frenetic.”
Andrew Trayford, Now Then Magazine

 

“Ensemble fodder of the least tethered and most onomatopoeic kind  […] While the personnel involved have serious improv pedigree, there’s nothing po-faced about this […] tapestry of honks, creaks, cranks, shrieks, gurgles, fits’n’starts and micromoments of aural clarity […] a midsection of harmonium-powered acid drone […] about as linear as Roman Nose get […] an inexplicable, horse-scaring cacophony… BUT it’s one assembled with care and intuition.”
Noel Gardner, The Quietus

 

“no prissy tiptoeing free improv […] the record is at its best when air, water and percussion are smushed into a slow, relentless and thrillingly degenerate metamorphosis […] shot through with scratchy gummed-up tape moisture and barbaric vocal babbling […] Juddering double bass scrabbles at the floorboards. […] Throughout, sludgy reeds slosh from channel to channel, then smash with an unearthly clatter, while heavy percussive magma burns holes in the tape. […] The sounds are ugly but the momentum and mutation are violently exhilarating and uncannily ecstatic […] There’s a lot going on in this record, and it can be hard just to keep up sometimes […] some beautifully glutinous mythologising unique to the North of England. Navigating it can be tricky, but there is a thread of air, breath, expression being forced […] Let the chaos batter you, soon enough you begin to see it laid out bare…”
Matt Fifield, The Ardent Awake

 

“Roman Nose operates within a disease vector covering a large swathe of no-audience topography […] on this, their debut record, Roman Nose conjures dense layers of junk noise with wizard-level skill […] once you open yourself up to Roman Nose’s mouldy cacophony, you’re in it for the long haul, dragged ever closer to its malevolent nucleus like some hapless galactic traveller drawn towards the event horizon of a black hole […] To be fair, the effect is never less than bracing. As a result, Roman Nose may not be what you want in this freezing winter of despair. But it is definitely what you need.”
Paul Margree, We Need No Swords

The only other Roman Nose release was the following solo tape, released over five years ago on winebox press….

Black (Silk) Death on Silk (Silk) Road

c30 on winebox press

roman nose triptych‘Roman Nose is the solo guise of J Marshall of Hunter Gracchus et al. Using harmonium, vocals, reeds etc he assembles a bunch of inspired ethno-drone miniatures that take in the cosmological drones of Herman Nitsch, the glottal euphoria of Ghedalia Tazartes and the kind of dense improvisatory ethno-flux of the Gracchus proper. A great companion piece to Winebox’s recent Blue Yodel set.’ Volcanic Tongue

http://soundcloud.com/roman-nose
http://thewholevoyald.blogspot.com/2011/10/winebox14-roman-nose-black-silk-death.html