Northern Song Dynasty/Cristal

Split CD: First 10 tracks are Northern Song Dynasty, last 4 are Cristal.

Northern Song Dynasty: Psychedelic dream folk pop, along the lines of Windy and Carl meets Low, Flying Saucer Attack, with 4AD elements a la His Name Is Alive. At least one track sounds exactly like Low for that matter, with the airy soft male/female vocals. Truly narcotic stuff.

1) peaceful stream sound, water, fades after simple acoustic guitar picking appears, airy male/female vocs, song builds nicely into psychedelic dream pop masterpiece
2) female vocs in front, echoey and airy simple melodic with spacy soundbed
3) this sounds very much like Low: slow plod simple dissonant/minor strum with ride cymbal beat, male vocs, but ends with nice psych noise
4) minimal noise then simple echoey melodic girl folk
5) more simple strumming, some sparse percussion, male vocs
6) female vocs, again airy and simple melodic, with minimal psyche noise in background and acoustic guitar strumming
7) trippy drone, FSA’ish
8) simple folk like previous tracks except male vocs, but after 1min it picks up then crashes around louder, then quiet again
9) trippy layered sounds, flutelike, echoey
10) the girl sings a la Low again

Cristal: Rightous noise, beautiful narcotic layers of distortion become ambient washes, glitch and rhythmic heart beats. Masterful stuff.

11) layered noise, begins atmospheric but after ~4 min becomes intense noise drone, harsh distorto, but fades out pretty
12) onslaught of distortion from git-go, ebbs and flows and then throws in digital noise as a low pulse appears and beats like a heart for a good few minutes, after which a very nice organic layer of noise onslaught evolves, then the strangest almost musical ending, synth tones
13) harsh out the gate again, but this time it stays that way, onslaught
14) rather chill and glitchy, loopy at first, turns into a held tone with loops, voice, rather beautiful