This CD, entitled Vultures vs. Ampersand, boasts ambient, dark, and industrial sounds that recall Italian Futurism in two half hour long tracks that highlight the unusual instrumentation and varied musical backgrounds of the two projects.

Ampersand, led by artist and musician Stephen Oldfield, builds and performs with giant metallic structures created in his Deptford home. Along with the sound sculptures, Ampersand uses missile shell casings, corrugated iron sheets, and a dismantled piano as well as radios, detuned electric bass, and enhanced electronics.

Vultures Quartet for this recording features prepared zither, a Korg synthesizer, metal percussion, bowed cymbals, and house hold objects such as pot lids, a wok, table legs, and a CD rack. Many of the acoustic sounds made by the quartet were manipulated and reintroduced into the composition through the live computer processing of member Matt Chilton.

Vultures is an improvising quartet from London, England; consisting of Daniel Beattie, Matt Chilton, Will Connor and Anthony Donovan. Working across the fields of music, visual art and film, its members take influence from industrial, post-rock, free-jazz, avant-classical and noise, to create a new hybrid that seems somehow to be organically formed.

Vultures has a fearsome live reputation; both in its own right and in collaboration with the likes of Steve Beresford, Z'ev, PAS, Sandeep Mishra and Ampersand. A recent tour of the UK and Europe included support to Faust, Nurse with Wound, John Butcher, Adam Bohman and Fullborn Taversham.

56:29 is the band's first full-length CD, and shows a vital and exciting new direction for improvised music; in marrying elements of doom-drone, extended techniques - in percussion, guitar and prepared-zither, cracked electronics, and esoteric light-reactive software; creating an unholy new sound for lovers of the avant-garde. 56:29 will be of interest to fans of Supersilent, Death Ambient, Sunn O))), Deathprod, Burning Star Core.

500 copies, no reprint

Comes packaged in super-shiny gold envelope