“Is It Atomic? - Songwriter-sound engineer-musician Mike Feeney is back again with another collection of ambient songs that are borne from the digital realm. Employing guitars, synths, loops and an arsenal of special sound effects, Feeney creates everything from mood to industrial to machine with inventive ability. Cool compositions include “Ambient Interludes # 2, #3 & #4” “Ancient Pistol Theme” (which reminds us of the Munsters theme) and the manic “Mancunian”. ”
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D. S., Metronome Magazine
“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.”
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D. S., Metronome Magazine
“It’s All Energy To Me, features the sounds of the universe. Seriously, how are we to know if these aren’t indeed the sounds of energy being intuited and channeled through the artist? We can picture Bill Nye, The Science Guy, blissfully explaining what “Control Rods,” “Sieverts,” and “Roentgens” are while the tracks of the same names blare out from their hidden source. And we must mention “Grays,” which is energy personified, with a flat out mad guitar jam and a sweet ending.
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Lily Emeralde and Emma Dyllan , Phosphorescence Magazine
“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.
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Metronome Magazine
“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 ”
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- Lily Emeralde and Emma Dyllan, Phosphorescence Magazine
“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.
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Francis DiMenno, The Noise
"White Sands Memories = A Nuclear Soundscape" is the third official release of Ancient Pistol, hailing from the Boston area. Guitarist Mike Feeney mixes his instrumentals with effects, delays, electronica, and dissonance to create his vision of the experience of a "nuclear soundscape". White Sands Memories consists of five parts, labeled as "The Tower", "The Device", "The Decision", "The Ignition", and "The Consequences". If the listener lets imagination take hold, a post-nuclear desolate, surreal world comes to life (or lack thereof) through a cacophony of sound. It would also play well in a spooky, sci-fi, Twilight Zone kind of genre. Ancient Pistol's "progressive, alternative, experimental" riffs jar the brain and activates the emotions.
Read more: http://www.myspace.com/ancientpistol#ixzz0uheLHUJ6
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Lily Emeralde , Phosphorescence Magazine
