click here if you are having troubles navigating on our site  
    
Five songs in five minutes
Koyl - Fingerprints Koyl - Fingerprints
MP3 EP 2016 | Silber 222
5 tracks, 5 minutes

Koyl comes to Silber with five songs in five minutes, one about each finger. But are the fingers originally on one hand or are they fingers from dead men stitched together to tell tales of angst & woe? No matter, now they all are part of the one & making incredible soundscapes with a guitar & lapsteel.

: Press Release
: Digital Booklet
: Reviews

Track Listing:
Versus
Pulling the Trigger
Flipping the Bird
La corde au cou
Yubitsume
Reviews:
Koyl’s contribution to Silber’s long-running “5 in 5” series, mini-EPs (if that’s not a contradiction in terms) with five one-minute long songs making a five-minute-long whole, has a loose “five fingers” theme to it, with tracks named after your trigger finger or flipping the bird with your middle finger. I’ll be honest, I don’t hear how this translates to the miniature pieces themselves, but it’s a quaint idea for sure.
Predominantly this is meandering guitar improvisation over some dark and distant drones and rhythmic beds, and it’s expertly done. Even within the space of five minutes, there’s plenty of variety.
“Versus” is a strong intro that could easily have warranted several more minutes on its own, that flows continuously into the slide guitar and faintly Wild West tone of “Pulling The Trigger”. “Flipping The Bird”, with its faintly church-like ambience and relatively cheery loose melody wandering over a warm sustained chord, segues into the inversion of “La Corde Au Cou” as the chord bed turns dark and sinister, before dropping away to allow “Yubitsume” to run as a slightly sweet arpeggio loop that rounds things off nicely.
Other releases in the “5 in 5” series can sometimes feel like sampler items, 1-minute extracts from longer pieces, whereas this release almost completely escapes that problem and manages to create a work which stands up as a strong 5-minute mini-adventure that definitely makes me want to check out further Koyl releases.
~ Stuart Bruce, Chain DLK

Koyl’s 5in5 on Silber Records shows what can be done with limited time, but maximum creativity
Silber Records have just released a trio of EP’s by Premature Burial, Cloaca and Koyl. Each EP is five minutes long and showcases the bands individual talents and tastes. The 5in5 series offers musicians a chance to experiment, but due to tight time restrictions they can’t go off on bizarre tangents. With giving the musicians a short time frame, every second counts. Like The Residents’ Commerical Album, Koyl doesn’t have time to waste before getting to the crux of the piece. Over five minutes Indian influences are merge with drone and walls of guitar soundscapes.
Although Fingerprints is a collection of five, one minute ones it’s actually a five minute suite divided into five parts. Each part seamlessly flows into the next, and when you play it on a loop, it becomes just that. A never ending loop of minimal noises, sounds, textures, melodies and sound. In all fairness, what could be better than that, what could be better than that, wh what could be better than that, what could be better than that…
~ ThisYearInMusic

Staying with Silber’s 5 in 5 series, Koyl serve up ‘fingerprints’ – perhaps of all the releases from this recent batch, this is one that manages to shoehorn the most ideas and musical phrasings. Each track apparently dedicated to a finger on the hand with the rather trippy dust plains spiritual ‘versus’ opening up proceedings and gently freefalling into ‘pulling the trigger’ which unless my ears do deceive sumptuously navigates terrains previously occupied by Grails. Best moment without doubt, the angelic and dare I say beautifully eerie ‘flipping the bird’ whose bitter sweet repose somehow manages to capture, step and fill the finite fault line existing between Ennio Morricone and John Barry. ‘la corde au cou’ tenses the mood a smidgeon sounding as though its stepped straight from a classic 70’s horror giallo before the flighty and decidedly binary funk struck ‘yubitsime’ sweetly orbits its way to the finishing line beneath the vapour trailing shadow of boards of Canada.
~ Mark Barton, The Sunday Experience

The first finger that Koyl named ‘Versus’ we get served a Buddhist temple atmosphere in which guests ring the bells for the gods in the sky to notice them. When these gods quickly come down to earth, it’s time to hear the reasonable soundtrack of yet another finger dubbed ‘Pulling the trigger’. It’s a moment of lighted incense, magic lamps and ancient wisdom, performed by fingering the strings of a snare like instrument instead of a pistol. Is this also the theme track for when someone ask you to pull their finger, with a fart as a result?
A moment of truth and revelation comes while listening to the finger titled ‘Flipping the bird’. It’s a quick melodic moment that humbles the listener down in rapid speed. It’s all going down so quick, making it hard to capture if you haven’t got a reasonable amount of attention.
Also short but effective is the next finger ‘La corde au cou’ which comes in like a dark shadowy ghost hanging close to the floor, slipping like a shine-through spirit from one corridor to another. It all happens so quick; photo proof will be hard to find.
The five fingers of this EP becomes complete with the last audio finger track of ‘Yubitsume’, a minimal funk moment with experimental sounds. It’s pretty nice but will pass by rather quick again, making me feel like it’s best to play with each of these fingers on repeat as a loop, as otherwise it just passes by like an interesting, but quickly edible snack.
~ Yeah I Know It Sucks