Reviews:

(The Unbroken Circle) Eloine on 'Short Community' offer a more becalmed respite, the flowing water, the gently played musical percussion, the suspended guitar notes and vibrant jews harp. Like attendance at a ceremony you don't understand but are happy to observe, it interests and fades from you at the same time. But this is not just soundwash, there is an element between the notes, not allowing release but probing, you make be still but that doesn't mean you shouldn't think. If Davenport's release sits somewhere between India and Afghanistan and The Puke Eaters or Lampukkello are the sounds of slowly encroaching madness then Eloine is the remote parts of Nepal, untouchable, barely seen, beautiful to visit but impossible to stay. There is a calm sense of purpose here, but one you have to find yourself. - Mark Coyle

(Vital Weekly) Eloine is Bryan Day, the same man responsible for the Public Eyesore label. The three cuts here were recorded last july and contain some forty minutes of absolutely nice lo-fi improvisation music. In each track a specific instrument seems to be playing the main part, such as the jew harp in 'Dangling Filaments', guitar in 'Bonanza Illusion' and percussions in 'Apples On A Cutting Board' (although it uses apples on a cutting board, so I learned). All three pieces are played in a rather free manner, but it never gets anywhere near 'loud'. Eloine (a solo project) plays repeated themes on a wide variety of instruments, all in quiet and peaceful manner. Nice, contemplative music. - Frans de Waard

(Touching Extremes) Bryan Day, best known as founder of the perennially boiling Public Eyesore label and the mastermind behind the Eloine moniker, recently sent me a batch of releases where he's involved as a player, and which I'll be glad to report about in the upcoming issues of this webzine. "Short community" is an excellent introduction to Day's improvisational methods, consisting of three lengthy segments in which he calmly deploys acoustic, electric and environmental sounds to create the equivalent of an aural Zen garden, but with a slightly deformed view of the objects comprised by the latter. "Bonanza illusion" is a perfect example, built as it is on the constant presence of a placidly plucked zither (or is it?) with minor intrusions and background noises. On the contrary, "Apples on a cutting board" is rather darkish, the acute frequencies leaving room to distant recollections of unquiet atmospheres where the manipulation of an electric guitar's resonance generates a semi-ethereal concoction that moves the piece according to an unsteady, yet well-aimed intent. The initial "Dangling filaments" is developed over the sound of water à la Darren Tate and - differently from the rest of the album - is a little more variegated, boings and zings deriving from various sources to be fused with guitar and percussion in a peculiarly heartwarming kind of psychedelia. Remaining indecipherable enough, Eloine's music is nevertheless a very welcome company whatever the occasion in which one enjoys it; in this writer's opinion, it works the finest at low level in a tranquil setting. - Massimo Ricci

(Dead Angel) Eloine is secretly Bryan Day, the brain between the mighty Public Eyesore label, doing strange things with guitars and strings and things. This is loose-limbed, mostly mellow improv, three long tracks worth -- "dangling filaments" is filled with the sound of strings being plucked, bent, wiggled, jiggled, and generally bent out of shape in an incredible live simulation of the wow and flutter of a cassette tape someone fished out of the river and tried to play in a cheap boombox on a really hot day. Drones and what might be subliminal field recordings make their way into "bonanza illusion," where bell-like tones and vaguely melodic guitar plucking is augmented by the lonesome wail of some cheap wind instrument and rumbling waves of sound like tidal motion in the background. The final track, "apples on a cutting board," is a return to the minimalist tinkering of the first track, albeit with the occasional bass-heavy twang or squealing shriek to keep you on your toes. The end result is a drifting, subdued journey through tones and drones, with some truly pleasant melodic and harmonic moments amid the drowsy flow of sound. - RKF

(Apex Online) Lovely spacious improvisations that have a vaguely eastern air to them and utilize guitar, zither, jew's harp, scraped violin, woodwind and apples being chopped!

(Sea of Tranquilty) While it's unlikely Vivian Stanshall ever met Bryan Day, or heard his work as Eloine, Mr. Stanshall nevertheless provided an apt enough description: "Changing yet changeless as canal water..." These three handmade releases contain uniformly remarkable work, the covers of which might make Motherwell shed a tear, and music of which might make Cage crack that smile of his. All the pieces manage to move along and stand still just enough for the listener to consider whether or not time is actually passing, or whether it is instead suspended in a grainy and crystal clear, formicated soundstage. Drawing together a seemingly vast number of sources, the pieces are generally formless and completely preoccupied with sound. Sometimes it is the sound of small things, like a button, a Jew's Harp or a Thumb Piano or the glissando of a sliding whistle; others a found object struck by another found object, all toybox free of clockwork and alarming in their specific presence. In some cases, like the suite-ishness of green stump, slow halos of grit accrete or entropically overcome varied disjunctive systems of chance, staccato interactions. short community offers a more legato solidity, with air. Other pieces incorporate traditional instruments played non-traditionally as a part of an ensemble determined simply by the fact that a sound may originate when some thing or other is stroked, plucked or struck. In every case, the niceties of Music are set aside, intimating that "Eloine" may or may not derive from "eloin", to operate outside the law, or at least in this case, outside the rules. An alternative to alternative musics, Eloine resides as part of the artist colonies of work available through publiceyesore, digitalis industries or stentorian tapes, fitting if nothing else the outlier sound artist category perfectly. Cage once said that if an idea seemed weak across just a few minutes, one should repeat it even longer and notice that it will inevitably get better: a comment that says more about human perception than about evaluating creative work. Eloine gets the lengths just about right, and seems subversive in doing so. Bryan must also take some small glee in the vaporous cover credits which provide an odd reminder of Duchamp's "Fountain" by identifying the artist himself only as "b.day". - Kerry Leimer