GLEN announce new album ‘PULL!’

GLEN press photo

Berlin based post-rock/art-psych group GLEN have announced their second album ‘PULL!’. The album features four lengthy instrumentals with kraut-rock precision and cinematic feel and a John Cale cover. ‘PULL!’ is like an entire universe of compressed beauty, mystique and musicality. Listen to the album trailer via YouTube below.

Having collaborated on several films and audio visual projects, the current members of GLEN, lead by german multi instrumentalist and film score composer Wilhelm Stegmeier and greek visual artist, filmmaker and musician Eleni Ampelakiotou, celebrate the release of their new album ‘PULL!’.

While GLEN ́s previous album ‘CRACK’ “switched in and out of different moods with a sense of widescreen dynamics and penchant for extended narratives that were shaped by their cinematic endeavours”, their new album ‘PULL!’ is even more consistent in their wandering through the glens of nearly unmarketable instrumental elegies rejecting despite their haunting melodies any assignment to traditional rock aesthetics, similar to the uncompromising deconstructing energy of the avant-rock movement citing “there are no waves, only the ocean”.
Supported by greek-austrian bass player Maria Zastrow as well as american sound artist and drummer Brendan Dougherty, GLEN ́s eclectic guitar sculptures on ‘PULL!’ loom up to elegant mesmerizing structures of free improvisation, meditative minimalism and multidimensional layered soundscapes. Pursuing an abrasive reductionism, GLEN merges disparate styles and contrasting textures to a unique sound of tempting narratives, vertiginous swelling dissonant chords, melodic patterns and abstract noise.

‘PULL!’ was mixed by german producer legend MACK, who started his career in Giorgio Moroder ́s Musicland Studios working with bands like Marc Bolan ́s T. Rex, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, early Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Sparks, etc. and of course became famous as the producer of Queen.

No matter what ocean; Pull ahead, yo heave O!”

The playful sensibility of seductive melodies, driving rhythms and subtle electronics set the stage for purposeful ambiguity as the title of the album ‘PULL!,’ the track Ahab and the artwork refer to Mocha Dick, a famed aggressive whale, first mentioned in 1839 in a story published in The Knickerbocker, New-York Monthly Magazine, which was likely an inspiration for Melville’s Moby Dick.

Mythical Characters like Ahab, unbearable endeavours like Korinth and the Rosebud like enigma of Davos are open to multiple interpretations, a Lecture on madness, bliss, obsession, greed and tragedy of mankind enveloped in an album cover that was shot in the abandoned offices of the Athen ́s Stock Exchange.

Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should see the world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder through an ear which is smaller than a hare’s?(…) — Why then do you try to ‘enlarge’ your mind? Subtilize it”

Entirely instrumental, GLEN “subtilize” one ́s mind by including a single surprising vocal track to the five track album ‘PULL!’ of mystical serene beauty – an exceptional version of John Cale ́s Buffalo Ballet. ‘PULL!’ will be released on May 7th on standard black vinyl, as well as a limited colour vinyl edition, via Sound Effect Records, Athens, Greece. The compact disc version will be released via Anesthetize Productions, Paris, France. You can pre-order on Bandcamp now.

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