A "virtual" opera featuring a wide array of electronics, acoustic instruments, female vocalists, whispers, staticky noise rock and a dark libretto woven into a surreal sound sculpture.

With more than twenty minutes of music, Oblivion Ensemble's Phonorecord is one of the longest playing releases in Drone Records' series of 7"EPs. The material for the record was recorded live at The Tea House Art Gallery in Rochester, New York, and subsequently edited and arranged for this release. No distinction has been made between the two sides of the record; this simply is Oblivion Ensemble's phonorecord: two extended stream-of-consciousness soundscapes.

A great wealth of different elements have been incorporated into these free-floating musical tapestries. Here are many layers of spacious atmospheres, sporadic outbreaks of various percussions, electronic effects, occasional samples of an indiginous quality, and the reflexive use of crackling vinyl. The music vexes and wanes, being at turns relaxing and meditative, and, intense and disconcerting. At times, the pieces come to complete halts, only to resume again, and pursue altogether different tangents, and as such the music is propelled by a nice sense of the unpredictable and spontaneous. These improvisational qualities are perhaps best illustrated by the manner in which both sides end -- one, abruptly in the middle of a tone, and the other with a brief appendix of drifting ambience. The over-all impression of listening to these strange, meandering compositions is akin to watching some drama or ritual unfold, the content of which is alien and obscure to the point where only the vaguest comprehension is possible.

Phonorecord is presented in a faded purple sleeve with colorful handmade stamp designs. The vinyl is of a smoky translucent variety, and the release is as usual limited to 250 copies in this first edition.