thaniel ion lee . com

t-shirt pre-order

2012-01-19T18:49:00.000-08:00

im now taking pre-orders for my first t-shirts. im making 24 of them 12 will be red on white and 12 will be red on gold. they goto monkey drive when i either A] get 10 orders or B] the 4th of next month. they are 18 USD post paid.

NO COPPER / TROPICAL TRASH split (self-released) cassette 5.00 - catalog description

2012-01-13T19:33:00.001-08:00

Latest releases from blackened soundscaper Thaniel Ion Lee, who we first heard in his guise as Blood Escutcheon, who split a tape with black metal weirdos Cloak Of Displacement, and then released a cd-r (both sadly out of print). He then released a cool boxed cd-r called White (which we just got back in and you'll find listed elsewhere on this week's list), and is back again, now in a duo called No Copper, whose sounds is less droned out and blackened than Blood Escutcheon or his solo record, and more abstract, ritualistic soundscaping, inhabiting a soundworld more along the lines of say No Neck Blues Band, Sunburned Hand Of The Man or Avarus, long buzzing tones, pounding abstract drums, scrapes and creaks, lush layered drones, raw and lo-fi, minimal, but gorgeously thick and washed out, caustic in places, noisy in others, but all blurred and smeared into a dark landscape of echo drenched reverberations, melodic fragments, rhythmic experiments and black ambient shimmer, all flecked with bits of folky flutter and strange abstract sonic filigree. Fans of Lee's other projects will definitely dig.
The flipside is occupied by an outfit called Tropical Trash, who may or may not also be called the Coconut Crimewave Big Band, but who prove themselves worthy foils for No Copper, with a sound that pushed even further into avant rock territory, a sort of free jazz / avant noise, heavy rhythmic, twisted electronic freakout heavy rock crush (!), the group fusing pounding drums to clouds of swirling glitched out swoops and swirls, before launching into some seriously blown out heaviness, thick churning riffage, pounding drums, all peppered with some bleeping electronics, and a sheen of hazy buzzy soft focus noise, a killer slab of classic electronic flecked noise rock, that definitely has us wanting to hear more! The band soon return to scrabbling and abstract skitter, the rock crush ditched in favor of some experimental abstraction, which is bombarded over the course of the rest of their side with some seriously fierce drum damage,
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Housed in cool hand screened origami style cardstock boxes, each one hand numbered, with a printed insert.

LEE, THANIEL ION White (self-released) cd-r 13.98 - Aquarius records catalog review

2011-12-02T21:08:00.001-08:00

LEE, THANIEL ION White (self-released) cd-r 13.98 - Aquarius records catalog review

The name Thaniel Ion Lee might not be immediately familiar to most folks, but avid readers of the aQ New Arrivals list might know him as the man behind blackdrone / ambient blacknoize outfit Black Escutcheon, whose cd-r we reviewed (and sold out of in a flash) and who shared a split tape with aQ faves weirdo outsider black metal one man band Cloak Of Displacement.
This latest missive, an outrageously limited (25 copies) and extravagantly hand made cd-r box collects a handful of material recorded over the last 3 years, and never released until now. And it seems that on these tracks, the blackness and noise are dialed back, leaving some lush layered dronemusic that will definitely appeal to the aQ dronelords (and droneladies), with its smoldering layered shimmers and buzzing SUNNO))) like glacial dirges, laced with bits of lazily strummed acoustic guitar, sweet soft swells of melody, swirling clouds of abstract effects, the sound slipping deftly from slowcore drift, to churning lowend heaviness, and from hazy spectral blur, to hushed almost shoegazey creep, often in the same song.
Folks who dug the blacker and noiser aspects of the two Blood Escutcheons, might still find much to dig here, it is still dark and droney and hauntingly atmospheric, but folks into dreamy dronemusic will be in heaven, although the last track, the nearly 16 minute "And You Will Know Him By His Deeds" does get grim and grisly and sonically sinister before blossoming into something much more glistening and celestial sounding.
LIMITED TO 25 COPIES!! Each one housed in a white cardboard reel to reel box, with a xeroxed insert and a white paper doily, each box hand numbered and titled, wrapped in twine.

follow me if you can/want

2011-11-01T18:04:00.001-07:00

https://twitter.com/#!/thaniellee

interior shots on my show

2011-08-06T20:15:00.000-07:00

75 cents a square inch

2011-08-03T14:56:00.001-07:00

Over the years many people have stated that they would buy my work, but the pricing of my work frequently goes above his or hers budget, and because of that i dont sell to them and they dont buy from me.

so this is what ive decided to do .....im going to let you tell me what you can spend and ill take that amount and divide it by .75 and what ever that number comes out to be will be the square inches of the work you get.

so if your interested send a email with your budget to thanielionlee[at]gmail.com

PS this price doesn't include shipping

closing announcement

2011-07-30T21:45:00.002-07:00

to celebrate the closing of thaniel ion lee's show, swanson contemporary will be having a musical event that includes r. keenan lawler and softcheque.

r. keenan lawler and thaniel ion lee met somewhere in the very late 90's/early 2000's, and have worked together in various contexts and situations. over the years they have done everything from improvisational duets to performance art, and other sonic and visual fusions.

the members of softcheque and thaniel have new each other long before the members of softcheque new each other. arsenio and lee met in a community college elevator in the late 90's , and their 'band' tek[yes] terrorized both non-profit galleries and punk rock clubs during the early 2000's. dane and thaniel met when he attended a performance of the 20 plus member version of the long lived and respected post-jazz collective that is known as sapat. warren and thaniel met via a mutual friend, and have been running into each other and having odd anti-hipster/pro-mid-fi w/o irony conversations ever since. in the writers opinion the band softcheque mixes good french pop, mellow prog, and non-borring smooth jazz into a sound that can only be described as sounding very experimental louisville without sounding like slint.this show starts at 830pm sharp and will end before 10pm

skull 2011

2011-07-13T20:51:00.000-07:00

skull 2011
ink on found object
photo by jen mitchell

a Review of an ImPerfect Circle

2011-07-06T22:57:00.000-07:00

http://theartslouisville.com/Reviews_2011/mc_thanielionlee.php

Thaniel Ion Lee: An ImPerfect Circle

2011-07-02T12:38:00.000-07:00

Thaniel Ion Lee: An ImPerfect Circle

Thaniel Ion Lee’s recent ink drawings on paper evoke a fantastic vision of life, death, nature, and desire that could easily be inspired by the Early Renaissance painter Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights.” Lee’s “family” of bizarre and distorted imagery—from outstretched eyeballs to floating religious figures, appear as direct descendents of Bosch’s eccentric and often grotesque figures culled from an invented “heaven” and “hell.” In several works, disembodied anatomical parts, such as female breasts and brains appear to grow from a strange garden, or flowering bed of black line.

Manipulating a Sharpie pen with his mouth, Lee’s drawing technique forces his eye within inches of the paper’s surface. In order to fully apprehend certain details in the drawings and to experience first-hand the artist’s own proximity to the work, the viewer must also observe it at close range.

Despite his formal academic training, Lee eschews traditional representation, choosing to render images and objects in a whimsical manner reminiscent of visionary or folk art. The artist states that for his exhibit at Swanson Reed Contemporary, he wanted “to simplify his technique and do what he would have done as a 17 year old, if a 17 year old knew anything about art history.”

Lee notes that his work incorporates many art historical traditions and practices, including Surrealist automatic drawing (designed to reveal the subconscious) as well as Abstract Expressionist painting, evident in Lee’s “all-over” attention to the surface. He also appropriates conceptual strategies similar to artist Sol LeWitt who established rules for realizing process-based artwork. For his drawings at Swanson Reed, for example, Lee began each work with an attempt to draw a perfect circle. Yet, rather than produce uniform and symmetrical works that converge on a Minimalist aesthetic (as seen in LeWitt’s gridded wall drawings and geometric forms, for example), Lee’s strategy yields ornate decoration, twisted line, and imaginary worlds. Although an ultimately imperfect circle, Lee’s drawings successfully negotiate ideals of art with realities of constraint. According to the artist, such limitation informs the outcome of any aesthetic.

-Maiza Hixson

thaniel ion lee playing live at derby city expresso on june 16th 2011 part 1

2011-06-17T14:14:00.001-07:00

news - may/15/2011 -thaniel ion lee - an imperfect circle - promo video

2011-05-15T14:17:00.000-07:00

news - may/13/2011

2011-05-13T10:59:00.000-07:00

night soil
ink on paper
30 by 22 inches

welcome to the new simplified version of my website