TRACKLIST

1. Last Train To Aldebaran. . . .5:34  2. The Pure Voice . . . . . . . .3:03  3. Back From Exile. . . . . . . .3:43  4. Through The Cane Fields. . . .2:23  5. Suburban Mystery . . . . . . .3:20  6. In The Abbey Of The Psalms . .4:11  7. Akiko's Diary. . . . . . . . .1:29  8. A Cold Spot. . . . . . . . . .3:13  9. Triangulating The Daemon . . .6:27 10. Stardust . . . . . . . . . . .3:35 11. Gunslinger . . . . . . . . . .3:26 12. Down To Zero . . . . . . . . .3:19 13. Singapore Sling. . . . . . . .3:11 14. The Crying Indian. . . . . . .4:09 15. Noctuary . . . . . . . . . . .5:28 16. Western Glamor . . . . . . . .1:04

Dead Hollywood Stars are a trio consisting of John Sellekaers, C-drik and Hervé Thomas, three artists who have been exploring various aspects of electronic and post-industrial sound via numerous projects over the past few years. Together, seperately and in collaboration with others, they have recorded under the names Xingu Hill, Ammo, Ambre, Moonsanto, Torsion and more, with releases on many labels including KK/Nova Zembla, Hymen/Ant-Zen, Hushush, Flyco, Gun Music, Zoth Ommog and Foton.
As for what they sound like - well, it's not really dance music, but you can dance to their charged downtempo rhythms. It's not purely listening music, but few things will engage your ears and mind like their ambience-washed sound.
They have dipped into the sounds of two seemingly disparate genres - head-nodding downtempo and American roots music - to produce a hybrid that could be best described as 'desert ambient'. Smooth beats and shimmering soundscapes are overlayed with ghostly blues and country guitar riffs, evoking images of the wild west gone space-age sci-fi. Imagine Ry Cooder guesting on the mellower tracks from Moby's Play, only much better (and less Starbucks-friendly), and you'll have some idea on sonic landscape that the Dead Hollywood Stars call home.

Junctions employs found sound as signifier in the best filmic tradition: cicadas, threatening drones, Bollywood strings, Cooder-esque guitar drenched in reverb implying great (American) distances, a horse neighing, gritty noises, and so on. There's lots of things going on, but the detail isn't fussy at all, just necessary to the setting of a particular scene.
Synthetic sounds associated with IDM or D'n'B (bass waves, washes) are placed in a different context and the consequent mix of acoustic and synthetic is highly enjoyable. Rhythm tracks are used sparingly, and when they are the template is electronica-derived.
The sonic world of Junctions is luxurious, like a book whose first page you've just read and you know you're going to enjoy the rest of. Lavishness is a large part what this music seems to be about: in the same way you'd enjoy savouring a Thali, here the constituent parts await your delectation, adding up to a satisfying whole, a nice full belly.
Reference points? John Zorn's Spillane, FSOL's Lifeforms, Fourtet's first album, Ry Cooder's Paris, Texas. New invisible soundtracks are emerging constantly -this is one of the (much) better ones.

SPOILER!

CODE Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 4 from 23. January 2008 EAC extraction logfile from 21. December 2008, 18:42 dead hollywood stars / junctions Used drive  : MATSHITABD-MLT UJ-220S  Adapter: 0  ID: 0 Read mode              : Secure Utilize accurate stream : Yes Defeat audio cache      : Yes Make use of C2 pointers : No Read offset correction                      : 102 Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out          : No Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes Delete leading and trailing silent blocks  : No Null samples used in CRC calculations      : Yes Used interface                              : Installed external ASPI interface Used output format              : User Defined Encoder Selected bitrate                : 1024 kBit/s Quality                        : High Add ID3 tag                    : No Command line compressor        : C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\wavpack.exe Additional command line options : -hmxd -w "GENRE=%m" -w "DATE=%y" -w "COMMENT=Released by a-one" %s %d TOC of the extracted CD     Track |  Start  |  Length  | Start sector | End sector     ---------------------------------------------------------         1  |  0:00.00 |  5:34.48 |        0    |    25097          2  |  5:34.48 |  3:03.72 |    25098    |    38894          3  |  8:38.45 |  3:43.48 |    38895    |    55667          4  | 12:22.18 |  2:23.32 |    55668    |    66424          5  | 14:45.50 |  3:20.07 |    66425    |    81431          6  | 18:05.57 |  4:11.73 |    81432    |  100329          7  | 22:17.55 |  1:29.73 |    100330    |  107077          8  | 23:47.53 |  3:13.24 |    107078    |  121576          9  | 27:01.02 |  6:27.04 |    121577    |  150605        10  | 33:28.06 |  3:35.41 |    150606    |  166771        11  | 37:03.47 |  3:26.52 |    166772    |  182273        12  | 40:30.24 |  3:19.69 |    182274    |  197267        13  | 43:50.18 |  3:11.71 |    197268    |  211663        14  | 47:02.14 |  4:09.33 |    211664    |  230371        15  | 51:11.47 |  5:28.23 |    230372    |  254994        16  | 56:39.70 |  1:04.68 |    254995    |  259862        17  | 60:16.63 |  6:21.20 |    271263    |  299857  Range status and errors Selected range     Filename C:\Rips\dead hollywood stars - junctions.wav     Peak level 96.6 %     Range quality 100.0 %     Copy CRC 6E7A2C98     Copy OK No errors occurred AccurateRip summary Track  1  not present in database Track  2  not present in database Track  3  not present in database Track  4  not present in database Track  5  not present in database Track  6  not present in database Track  7  not present in database Track  8  not present in database Track  9  not present in database Track 10  not present in database Track 11  not present in database Track 12  not present in database Track 13  not present in database Track 14  not present in database Track 15  not present in database Track 16  not present in database None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database End of status report

SPOILER!

CODE REM GENRE Abstract, IDM, Experimental REM DATE 2002 REM DISCID D40F9E11 REM COMMENT "ExactAudioCopy v0.99pb4" PERFORMER "dead hollywood stars" TITLE "junctions" FILE "dead hollywood stars - junctions.wv" WAVE   TRACK 01 AUDIO     TITLE "last train to aldebaran"     PERFORMER "dead hollywood stars"     INDEX 01 00:00:00   TRACK 02 AUDIO     TITLE "the pure voice"     PERFORMER "dead hollywood stars"     INDEX 00 05:32:59     INDEX 01 05:34:48   TRACK 03 AUDIO     TITLE "back from exile"     PERFORMER "dead hollywood stars"     INDEX 00 08:36:60     INDEX 01 08:38:45   TRACK 04 AUDIO     TITLE "through the cane fields"     PERFORMER "dead hollywood stars"     INDEX 00 12:18:35     INDEX 01 12:22:18   TRACK 05 AUDIO     TITLE "suburban mystery"     PERFORMER "dead hollywood stars"     INDEX 00 14:42:61     INDEX 01 14:45:50   TRACK 06 AUDIO     TITLE "in the abbey of the psalms"     PERFORMER "dead hollywood stars"     INDEX 00 18:03:69     INDEX 01 18:05:57   TRACK 07 AUDIO     TITLE "akiko's diary"     PERFORMER "dead hollywood stars"     INDEX 00 22:15:70     INDEX 01 22:17:55   TRACK 08 AUDIO     TITLE "a cold spot"     PERFORMER "dead hollywood stars"     INDEX 01 23:47:53   TRACK 09 AUDIO     TITLE "triangulating the daemon"     PERFORMER "dead hollywood stars"     INDEX 00 26:59:14     INDEX 01 27:01:02   TRACK 10 AUDIO     TITLE "stardust"     PERFORMER "dead hollywood stars"     INDEX 00 33:26:17     INDEX 01 33:28:06   TRACK 11 AUDIO     TITLE "gunslinger"     PERFORMER "dead hollywood stars"     INDEX 00 37:01:61     INDEX 01 37:03:47   TRACK 12 AUDIO     TITLE "down to zero"     PERFORMER "dead hollywood stars"     INDEX 00 40:28:33     INDEX 01 40:30:24   TRACK 13 AUDIO     TITLE "singapore sling"     PERFORMER "dead hollywood stars"     INDEX 00 43:48:34     INDEX 01 43:50:18   TRACK 14 AUDIO     TITLE "the crying indian"     PERFORMER "dead hollywood stars"     INDEX 00 46:59:23     INDEX 01 47:02:14   TRACK 15 AUDIO     TITLE "noctuary"     PERFORMER "dead hollywood stars"     INDEX 01 51:11:47   TRACK 16 AUDIO     TITLE "western glamor"     PERFORMER "dead hollywood stars"     INDEX 00 56:35:00     INDEX 01 56:39:70