Hydra Head and Everlovely Lightningheart have been working on this project for a couple years, and the final result is certainly pretty impressive. From what I understand, this is the final release from the band, recorded in 2007 and presented as a super-limited vinyl only double LP, with gorgeous, extremely heavy packaging and amazing artwork. The four sidelong tracks from Everlovely that are featured here are cinematic, piano-driven slabs of ethereal instrumental post rock that infuse their Eluvium-esque brand of moody melodies and near-beatless ambience with their playful use of found objects, which can range from peices of metal to broken glass to actual plants and other unexpected materials. The insert lists all of the materials and instruments that Everlovely used to create their music, and when you read down the list and see instruments like "wheel gear" and "crochet needle" alongside the expected piano, drums, and guitars, you know that this is going to be interesting.

The first side "Minge And Marrow" starts off with a furious gale of heavy, distorted feedback and crushing low-end, then grows into a thick raga-like drone, heavy and throbbing and slowly drifting like a massive cloud of mesmeric hum. This first half of the song is total ur-drone bliss that fans of Pelt and Skullflower and Vulture Club will love, but the second half is almost like an entirely different song, a brooding piano melody played over and over against a post-rocky backdrop of heavy bass, drums, and strings, all instrumental and sounding alot like the Mammifer stuff that Everlovely's Faith Coloccia is doing now. Dark keys and warbling electronics drift across a gorgeous heavy chamber rock soundtrack, and towards the end the music becomes creepier with the intrusion of strange wailing sounds.

On the other side, "3068 Victoria Theiodora" begins with a recording of crickets and frogs at night, a symphony of chirps and squeaks that gives way to another moody piano melody, this one joined by subtle, jazzy bass guitar. The melody is minimal and haunting, wound into cyclical figures while the other members of Everlovely weave low cello notes, washes of delayed reverb, swells of metallic shimmer, various handheld percussion instruments like shakers and other objects, blending these sounds together with simple fragments of melodic guitar and clouds of textural drift, and layering on glockenspiel and electric piano. The song slowly evolves through a number of different shapes, while always remaining lush and dreamy, a minimalist fantasia of drones and keys and delicate music-box chimes. Absolutely gorgeous.

The second record begins with "Yarrow Lophophora" on the a-side, and this piece is even more abstract. More of Coloccia's soft, minimal piano spins in circles through dense chordal drones and mysertious rattliing sounds, jazzy drums move back and forth across the periphery of sound, spaced-out sax lines are stretched into infinite drones, and clusters of melodic synthesizer streak overhead - there's a big krautrock influence on this one, like hearing a dark, somber piano-driven film soundtrack being merged with Ash Ra and Tangerine Dream, and it's really powerful and moving, especially in the last half when the song becomes more aggressive, the piano and drones being joined by distorted guitar and heavy bass, morphing into heavy cinematic post-rock.

The last side features "Alexandrian" starts as a menacing growl, metal being scraped against concrete, a cello bent and throttled, creating a dark rumbling presence that the band drapes with metallic chimes, softly plucked cello notes, bells, and tinkling glass objects, forming into a sort of abstract folk dirge. The cellos and metallic scraping subsides eventually, leaving behind minute traces of chiming bells, and then the song changes shape again as a murky percussive loop appears, and the band suddenly drops back in with violins and cellos and play a lurching Eastern European-style folk melody, the cellos loud and heavy, the violins eerie and repetitive. It changes again pretty soon, this time flattening out into a massive expanse of low-end orchestral rumble and dark ambient drift, an almost Lustmord-like subterranean heaviness spread out in all directions, with somber organ keys and fragments of percussion taking shape far off in the distance. The track builds and builds, becoming denser and more structred as the piano/organ melody grows faster, looping over and over, until the last few minutes erupt into a furious blown-out crescendo of overmodulated orchestral strings and digitally-blown out piano, a seriously sinister sounding ending that comes from out of nowhere.

As much of an art object as a piece of record music, Sien Weal is limited to 300 pieces, and is packaged in a super thick gatefold package with glorious full color photography of wilderness, strange black and white ink drawings, a printed insert sheet, and the records come inside printed full color inner sleeves. Each copy also includes a unique handmade collage constructed by Everlovely's Faith Coloccia.