Wovenhand, Serena Maneesh

Wovenhand
http://www.myspace.com/wovenhand
Woven Hand is the personal project of David Eugene Edwards, former frontman of 16 Horsepower, featuring a revolving cast of collaborators from Denver, Colorado, United States formed in 2001.

The band began in 2001 as a solo project for Edwards while his primary group, 16 Horsepower, were taking a temporary hiatus. The band’s first live shows were performed by Edwards and multi-instrumentalist Daniel McMahon; the debut, self-titled Woven Hand album was released in 2002 on Glitterhouse Records. Performances following this record were executed by Edwards, McMahon, drummer Ordy Garrison and cellist Paul Fonfara. 2003 saw a release of Blush Music, the score to a dance performance mostly composed of reworked material from the first record. Touring behind this album saw Shane Trost replacing Fonfara.

In 2004, Consider the Birds was released on the Sounds Familyre label, who has also released the previous Woven Hand releases domestically. Edwards performed the bulk of the instrumentation in the studio; he and Garrison toured behind the record as a two-piece.

2005 saw both the demise of 16 Horsepower and the Woven Hand debut of guitarist Peter van Laerhoven, a Belgian guitarist - McMahon and Trost were now inactive with the group. 2006’s Mosaic album featured more input from Garrison and van Laerhoven, but still read like an Edwards solo album for the most part. Touring behind the record saw the inclusion of Pascal Humbert, 16 Horsepower’s founding and long-time bassist. Nonetheless, Edwards also played solo tours at this time billed as Woven Hand.

2008’s Ten Stones, conversely, was the first record from the group written and performed collaboratively; the project had thus evolved into a proper band, albeit with Edwards firmly at its head.

Since 2002, they have released 5 albums: Woven Hand (2002), Blush Music (February 2003), Consider the Birds (2004), Mosaic (2006) and Ten Stones (2008).

The current members of the live band (as of 2008) are Ordy Garrison (also of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club) on drums, Peter van Laerhoven on guitar, and Pascal Humbert (also of 16 Horsepower and currently Lilium) on bass.

Serena Maneesh
http://www.myspace.com/serenamaneesh
March 22nd (23rd in the US) will see Serena-Maneesh release their new album, S-M 2: Abyss In B Minor, on 4AD.

S-M 2: Abyss In B Minor is the second album following the release of their self-titled LP in 2006 which received much praise upon it’s release, establishing the Norwegian band as an act that could merge the lilting, ethereal melodies with crushingly loud, shimmering distortion. This new album is also their first release for 4AD, with them having recently been signed up to the label.

They started recording for the new album in 2008 when they went back underground to record in to a cave on the outskirts of Oslo; “Studio environments often get on my nerves,” Emile Nikolaisen explains, “and I love the underworld, you can silently head down there and do as you please, leave the world behind. So we found this huge cave with stone walls, it looked like a refugee hideout from World War II, with a huge, undiscovered treasure of sound.

Once recorded, they then worked on it further with Nick Terry (who has worked with Klaxons and Primal Scream), and Can associate René Tinner, who set about mixing the results – spending an incredible eight days on each song. It was even mastered at Air Studios by Ray Staff, who did the same for, among many others, Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti, but this is no distended double-album, the end result is a concise eight tracks spread over just 38 minutes and 45 seconds. There is more on the making of the record here.