Ancient Pistol

Member Since:

June 08, 2005

Members:

Mike Feeney Electric Guitar and Loops

Influences Mission of Burma; Roger Miller; Robert Fripp; King Crimson; Wire; The Fall; Colin Newman; ; Big Black; Brian Eno;Hugh Cornwell

Sounds Like:

Listen to the MP3s and judge for yourself.

Press

From Metronome Magazine (January 2010): Musician Michael Feeney is the mastermind behind Ancient Pistol. His talent at guitar is exceeded only by his technical prowess with gadgets, machines and recorders. On his Flying Wing v. the Martians offering, Feeney manipulates sounds, invents eerie loops and cajoles his guitar to create an otherworldly vibe that would be perfectly suited for a modern day Sci-Fi soundtrack. Folks who bend their personalities with mind altering substances would also get a huge charge out of listening to Feeney’s work on a great set of headphones…heck I do not use mind altering drugs and I enjoyed it immensely through my headset. Cool listening stuff for the nuclear crowd. (D.S.)

From Phosphorescence Magazine (Vol. 9, 2009) Madame Curie’s Cabinet: A Nuclear Soundscape is an experiment in the intense. The first track, “Prospects,” left no doubt that if machinery were taking over the world, this is what it would sound like - unlikely matches of reverberations combined with an Asian influence, and a guitar, all trapped in a factory. Similarly, if subatomic particles, neutrons, and x-rays could be seen dancing together with the naked eye, “Potential” is the music that would be playing in the background. The mind cannot help but envision scenarios such as white-coated individuals in a quantum laboratory performing a psychedelic brain scan when “Shed Those Neutrons” echoes through your head. Okay, so maybe you’d visualize something else entirely, but this was our listening experience, so bear with us. “Pitch Blend” was the devil himself playing a fiddle, as dissonant as it comes, and closing the album was “Success!,” a hard core rock celebration, and “Potential Released,” an all-out onslaught of energy. It takes talent to fit all the aspects of a vision such as Ancient Pistol’s together without being led astray. It seems as if Feeney is following where the vibrations take him, not vice versa. This stuff is most definitely:**** Way Cool! - Lily Emeralde and Emma Dyllan

From Metronome Magazine (August 2008): Musician Mike Feeney handles all the instrumentation, loops, effects and noises offered up on his lo-fi Bear Hill Phenomenon disc. Just as interesting as his song titles, Feeney delivers a gaggle of sound bytes that whirr, clang and buzz. Not all of the sounds are enjoyable, but Feeney manages to keep things contemplative as he lands his musical spaceship from planet to planet. This album would make a great soundtrack to a B-movie sci-fi thriller.

From The Noise (May, 2008): Michael Feeney is the mastermind behind these entirely instrumental self-designated soundscapes, which in their tonalities bring to mind such examples as very early Gang of Four, PiL, and Wire. But the musique concrete which results, though texturally intriguing to a diehard avant-guardian, ultimately seems more an application of mathematical formulae than a living, breathing entity; I get the distinct impression that this is what two jumbo jet computers might have to say to each other as they traverse the boundless ionosphere. (Francis DiMenno)

From The Noise (November 2006): The Three Pillars of Solar Fusion A Nuclear Soundscape
3-song CD

The replica of music performance was made by one of your kind using guitars and tape loops. This is a one-man popsicle stand, but no tasty milk-derived substances are available. But do not be dismayed. This human, Michael Feeney, influenced by such notables as Robert Fripp as well as such notable beings as Mission of Burma, Wall of Voodoo, Ennio Morricone, and the Ohio Players has produced an instrumental CD of three long songs equaling 47 earth minutes. It is experimental. It is good. It’s not ambient. It is self-indulgent, but in a good way. It does not want to make me dance or copulate. There is other fine music music for such unseemly activity. I recommend listening to this. But do not listen to your leaders, political, religious or otherwise. They tell lies, I do not. Procure this music; it is as scrumptious as milk-derived substances. Yum. (Slimedog)

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Record Label:

Questionable Priorities, CD Baby,TuneCore