other-music Archives – Ambientblog (2024)

CHRISTOPHER CERRONE - BEAUFORT SCALES

The Beaufort Scale, devised in 1805 by Francis Beaufort, relates wind speed to observed conditions at sea or on land. It is a 13-part scale of increasing intensity. Experiencing wind is strongly subjective - 'one man's stiff breeze might be another's soft breeze' - which is why describing the conditions by sea or land conditions is helpful. For example: Beaufort 0 is described as 'sea like a mirror' and 'smoke rises vertically'. Beaufort 12 (the heaviest storm imaginable) as 'the air is filled with foam and spray; sea is completely white with driving spray; visibility very seriously affected' and with the much shorter land condition 'devastation'. (Full descriptions on the Wikipedia page).

The different descriptions of wind forces read like a poem. This inspired composer Christopher Cerrone (1984, New York) to compose Beaufort Scales, a composition for (female) choir and electronics, 'transforming the steps of the scale into 13 corresponding movements of escalating musical intensity'.
"As the work proceeds and the weather becomes more violent, I use different forms of electronic processing—granulation, downsampling, pitch shifting—to distort the voices."

Between the steps, there are also four spoken interludes, with wind-related texts from The Great Gatsby, Moby Dick, The Anthology Of Water, and the King James Bible. At these moments, you can regain your breath somewhat, because - even if this composition is no longer than 35 minutes - it gets more and more intense as it progresses. Which can of course be expected when following the Beaufort Scale from 0 to 12.

But even the strongest storm eventually subsides: tranquillity returns in the Postlude: "It will be fair weather, for the sky is red (Matthew (16:2)".

LAURENT PERNICE - ANTIGONE

Quite a few scores are written for old (silent) movies, but Laurent Pernice goes further back in time, presenting his score for Sophocles' Antigone, a play written in 441 BC! This score was written for the play as performed by Anima Motrix, directed by Emma Gustafsso and Laurent Hatat.
Antigone cannot easily be summarised so I simply refer to the Wikipedia page for convenience. Pernice's score tells the story in just one hour, in 20 relatively short tracks filled with all kinds of emotions.

Laurent Pernice is no stranger to music: Antigone is his 20th album! For a previous Anima Matrix production (Foucault's Le Corps Utopique) he focused on wind instruments from all over the world, but this time it's strings. Pernice plays bass, double bass, zither, and harp, but there's an important role for Violaine Sultan - a teacher at the Marseille Conservatory of Music, on viola. The acoustic performances are subtly altered by Pernice's electronic treatments: 'the sound of [Sultan's] instrument, while sometimes very clear and simple, interpreting melodies of a elegant beauty akin to that of classical music, is often turned on its head, slowed down, overdriven, to create textures conducive to the atmosphere of this or that part of the play'.

Obviously the soundtrack score will have extra impact when you have seen the performance, but it definitely speaks for itself too, even without the text of the original play. The music itself 'takes you on a journey of an absolute tragedy, while revealing the infinite complexity of the human being'.

Please note that the Bandcamp page only presents the digital download and refers to the ADN Records (Alma De Nieto) website for a CD version - but I couldn't find out how to order the CD from this site, so you may want to check SoundOhm if you want a physical copy.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

JAN JELINEK - SOCIAL ENGINEERING

"Permit me to inform you of my desire of going into business relationship with you."

A great idea always raises the question 'Why didn't anyone think of this before'?
Everyone with an online existence has experienced the nauseating phenomenon of phishing mails, but it requires some kind of genius to turn it into art. Enter Jan Jelinek, who did exactly this.

On Social Engineering, he used thirteen text fragments from phishing emails and transformed them using speech synthesis tools into spoken or sung texts. For this, he used the kind of speech synthesis that is easily distinguished as such, not the recent AI tools that can hardly be distinguished from natural speech. After all, any alert person could distinguish a phishing mail from a real person's mail in a similarway.

The texts are then extensively manipulated and 'transformed into abstract textures', and that is the moment this idea becomes true sound art. It is fascinating in such a way that you might actually welcome the next phishing mail you receive, imagining in your mind 'what would Jan Jelinek would have made from this?'

The tracks on Social Engineering (which are perfectly mastered by Rashad Becker by the way), were originally conceived as a radio hörspiel for the Sudwestrundfunk/ARD but it definitely deserves a wider listen. The vinyl version contains all of the 'lyrics' printed but I guess the tracks are pretty self-explanatory in itself. Stay aware!

ALVA NOTO - HYbr:ID III

The music of Alva Noto (Carsten Nicolai) often comes in series, such as the acclaimed series Xerrox I-IV (which, judging by the cover layout, still waits for edition V). The HYbr:ID series has now reached its third chapter, after I (2021) and II (2023). And like its predecessors, it has an unmatched sophisticated sound design - only a few can create electronic sounds like Alva Noto can.

The 'soundscape of meditative and resonant tones' Alva Noto creates draws its inspiration from 'Noh, a traditional Japanese musical drama dating back to the 14th century. The album reflects the genre's distinctive rhythmic movements and its nuanced expression of emotions through subtle gestures.'
I'm not familiar with Noh to say anything about this, but I can hear what Nicolai means when he says that he wants the tracks 'to possess a sculptural quality'.

"The HYbr:ID series is Carsten Nicolai’s ongoing research into heterogeneous compositional methods that converge in music fusing geometries, dystopias, and scientific references. The sounds oscillate between stylized, dilated rhythms and dreamy atmospheres generated by high and low frequencies."

The thirteen compositions on this album were also commissioned to score Richard Siegals Ballet of (Dis)Obedience. When you are in Rome before August 2025 this year, visit the #Chamber Music at the Macro Museum to experience the music of HYbr:ID in an exhibition setting.

But I strongly recommend enjoying this on a decent and capable sound system at home.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

MICHEL BANABILA - THE UNREAL REALM

A new album by one of my long-time favorite artists, Michel Banabila, is always a welcome surprise. And this one does not disappoint!
Mostly, The Unreal Realm presents rather contemplative music - perhaps even dark at some moments. This is especially the case in the compositions that were commissioned for new choreographies by Yin Yue: three tracks for 'Somewhere' (which will be premiered in New York in June this year), and another two for 'Timeless Tide' (which premiered recently in Columbus, US). The music for these dance performances is hauntingly dynamic. In longer tracks (up to 15 minutes) Banabila takes his time slowly leading us to intense sound climaxes - and back again into the quiet.

Apart from the music for these choreographies, the album is further completed with four tracks. Two of those were previously released as digital singles: one with Pierre Bastien and the other with Dave Liebman.
Bogus Dominion and Inward Spiral are two (aptly named) collaborations with Mete Erker and Machinefabriek (Rutger Zuydervelt) respectively.

The title of the album, The Unreal Realm, refers to the hypocrisy of Western society. Recent turmoil in the world is a major concern to Banabila, who recently released an instrumental single with Cengiz Arslanpay called 'Stop The Genocide! End The Occupation Now'. Some of this album may express this concern at its darkest moments. But never too explicitly - so, ironically, it is a great pleasure to listen to.

RUTGER ZUYDERVELT - KITES

I'll assume Rutger ('Machinefabriek') Zuydervelt needs no further introduction here. In his massive back-catalogue of music, there are quite some original scores for choreographies or other performances. Usually, these are presented under his own name, as is this one: Kites - Music For A Performance By Roshanak Morrowatian. Kites is the first score Zuydervelt created for Morrowatian. It premiered in 2021, but it is only now released as an album.

Roshanak Morrowatian is an Iranian dancer, choreographer, and actor working from Maastricht (NL). She previously worked with people like Marina Abramovic and Pina Bausch. Her Kites performance deals with her own experience: “What is it like to have to flee your homeland at a young age and grow up in an asylum seekers’ centre, in a ‘limbo’ between past and future?”

Zuydervelt's score is mainly instrumental, but some of Roshanak's experiences are voiced in the piece Places, which features her own voice.

Zuydervelt's music has no roots in Iranian culture. Still, in this score, he manages to create the feeling of total displacement - especially by subtly incorporating fragments of some Iranian hit songs from a cassette he got from Roshanak's parents. He adds "I hope they do not sound too Fourth World-ish". I personally love a good 'Fourth World sound', but indeed this is nothing like that. As far as I can tell without having seen the performance, I feel that this score perfectly conveys the message that Morrowatian intended with her performance.

BRUNO DUPLANT & RUTGER ZUYDERVELT - EDGE OF OBLIVION

I could easily fill this whole blog with the music of Rutger Zuydervelt (or Michel Banabila, for that matter) - sometimes it is hard to choose. But since these two albums are released almost simultaneously, I may as well mention Zuydervelt's collaboration with French artist Bruno Duplant.
It's not the first time these two worked together: in 2020 they released their collaboration album L'incertitude; followed with Synchronicité in 2021.

With current high-speed connections, artists can collaborate without meeting each other in real-time. But for Duplant and Zuydervelt, this approach wasn't satisfactory:
"Bruno sent me his parts, and I added mine. And we were happy. Until we weren’t and decided to shake things up a little: Bruno’s parts were trashed, keeping only my whizzing sci-fi noises. A slab of organ was then thrown into the mix, adding a sense of menace and unease with its atonal tone clusters. Some more editing and
fine (de)tuning was done, et voila..."

The result is a 36-minute 'heavy disorienting trip' indeed! One that can best be experienced in half-dark with speakers on full-blast, or with a quality headset. Don't know what the edge of oblivion looks like, but now we know what it may sound like.

BANABILA & MACHINEFABRIEK - A LOOMING PRESENCE

We come full circle with A Looming Presence - the sixth collaboration album of Michel Banabila and Machinefabriek (Rutger Zuydervelt, this time using his alias). And it is a pleasant surprise once again: quite different from the previous albums they made together, but still undeniably the kind of work only théy can create.

The first thing I noticed is that most of these tracks are heavily rhythm-oriented, with just a few exceptions (such as the title track and the quiet Oumuamua). The music is playful, but also 'a dark soundtrack for a crumbling world'.
On Cracked Dispatch the duo is completed by Oene van Geel's trombone and viola and Maryana Golovchenko singing the Ukrainian traditional In The Sea There's A Marble Stone. This song's atmosphere pleasantly reminded me of Holger Czukay's Boat Woman Song from 1969 (show hands if you remember that one).

Unlike their previous albums, A Looming Presence is a digital-only release; there are (currently) no plans for a physical release.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

TAYLOR DEUPREE - STI.II

When delving into new albums, I usually refrain from reading any accompanying information beforehand. Hopefully, this allows for a more unbiased initial listening experience. So, you can imagine my surprise when I was greeted by the sounds of a fully acoustic ensemble upon pressing play. Could this truly be the work of Taylor Deupree, as I've come to know it?

Had my memory served me better, I might have recognized the musical themes themselves. "Sti.ll" is an acoustic reinterpretation of Deupree's 2002 album, 'Stil.', arranged for a lineup including clarinet, vibraphone, cello, double bass, flute, guitar, lap harp, and percussion.
Remarkably, the arrangements stay true to the original tracks, maintaining the same sequence and durations. Thus, it becomes particularly intriguing to juxtapose both albums and observe how Deupree's 'exploration of extreme repetitions and stillness' translates into the realm of acoustic performance.
Which is easy, because the original version of Stil. is also included in the download.

The reconstructions are meticulously crafted by arranger and producer Joseph Branciforte, marking the second release in his Folio series - 'a release format that sets out to answer the question: why release music in a physical form today?'

Sti.ll is a hybrid offering, combining a high-resolution digital download of both albums with a 6.5x8" hardcover book. Within the book, readers will find an introduction penned by Pitchfork's Philip Sherburne, essays contributed by Deupree, Branciforte, and Greenstone reflecting on the album's conception and creation, as well as a complete reproduction of Branciforte's arrangements in full score, complemented by studio photography courtesy of Deupree.

Sti.II will be released on May 17 but can be pre-ordered from the link above or from Bandcamp.

SUMNER JAMES, ROBERT CHAMBERLAIN, VOLCANO LAZERBEAM & SAROON - DIVE 1: REFRACTION

The Bathysphere Records label started out in January 2023. It is a cassette-only label, but their releases are also available as digital downloads.
Dive1: Refraction is their 12th album release, and brings together artists that have released on the label before:
James Phillips (or Sumner James), Justin Longerbeam and Christina Cano (known as Volcano Lazerbeam), Robert Chamberlain, and Ayal Alves (Saroon).

'We brought together artists from around the country and engaged in an evening of improvisational recordings. The resulting works were thoughtfully curated and sent to Ayal Alves, who composed and performed intricate woodwind arrangements, unifying the piece.'

There's a delicate balance between organic and electronic sounds - the woodwind arrangements indeed make the tracks feel natural and organic. The music isn't 'simply' ambient, it is quiet introspective jazz also.
But I guess I should not try to fix a genre label to it and just note that this is 'a sensory expedition mirroring the synergetic spirit and aesthetic of Bathysphere Records.'

In the future, there will be more collaborations like this, 'uniting artists from the label roster to craft unique and immersive musical experiences'.
Based on this edition, that is definitely something to look forward to!

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

DAVID SHEA - THE SHIP

The Ship is David Shea's music for (and inspired by) the virtual reality game Materials created by Tom Crago. Perhaps 'virtual reality artwork' is a better description, because after its premiere in 2017, it was acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. So I don't think you'll find it in your local game shop.
'The game transports us onto a ship and we are asked to journey through the virtual space, discovering its possibilities, to generate our own artwork. As we undertake the journey we are surrounded by ambient sound, created by sound designer David Shea, and we discover pieces of an artwork by Viv Miller that combine into the player’s own composition. [...] The player could in certain locations make and enhance their own score additions by placing the sound objects onto a water mirror and experiment with new sound combinations.'

That is of course a unique and personal experience that cannot be reproduced on a fixed media album. So for this release, David Shea has recreated the soundtrack into eight compositions that can be enjoyed without any knowledge of what it was originally created for. The Ship is an album of beautiful cinematic soundscapes - 'a mix of singing bowls, gongs, samples, piano, instrument ensembles and cinema sound design.'

The only downside I can think of is that this music makes you want to experience the original VR game/artwork too. But that would require a trip to Melbourne, Australia.

IAN BODDY - MODAL OPERANDI

Ian Boddy has been around for quite some time. Inspired by the music of Tangerine Dream he started composing music in the late 70's. His first release was in 1980, his back catalogue now spans over 80 titles (not counting the library music he wrote and the sound libraries he designed for various sample packs). In 1999 he started the DiN label to release 'ambient electronica that bridged the gap between the analogue sounds of the early 70's and the digital soundscapes of the more experimental modern exponents of electronic music.'

Modal Operandi is created 'entirely in the analogue domain, with each track based on a highly processed field recording'. The synths and effects used range from classic Roland and EMS, to Serge and Eurorack modules, to Moog and Buchla. In the hands of Ian Boddy this guarantees some wonderful otherworldly soundscapes.

All tracks are in the key of C Major; the album moves through the different musical moded of that scale - as can be read from the track titles: Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aoelian, and Locrian. Which makes this album, in Boddy's own words, 'a sonic journey in seven musical modes'.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

PUNKT | STILLEFELT - MODEST UTOPIAS

First, Punkt refers to the annual Norwegian festival founded by Jan Bang and Erik Honoré - a festival with a distinct concept: 'live sampling and live remix of music. Continuous creation and collaboration'. It is different from other festivals: for example, all concerts are remixed live: 'the audience gets to hear the remixes immediately after each concert. In many cases, the remixers also invite musicians to interact with the remixes, making them a vehicle for continuous innovation and improvisation'.
But it doesn't stop there: since 2022, there's also Punkt Editions: a label releasing 'Punkt-related' music (music that has the same adventurous starting point).

And now, there's also Punkt referring to a music collective: in this case, the core members Jan Bang and Erik Honoré working with University of Agder music students (performing on vocals, electronics, samples, duduk, guitar). And, as if that wasn't enough, there's this collaboration project with British trio Stillefelt (which means 'quiet field'): Chris Mapp (bass, electronics), Percy Pursglove (trumpet), Thomas Seminar Ford (guitar, electronics).

Like everything related to Punkt - performing just outside your comfort zone as a goal - this collaboration was no standard exchange procedure: 'Stillefelt’s performances in Birmingham were reimagined and enhanced in the Punkt Studio in Kristiansand before being returned for further creative input by Stillefelt.'
As can be expected in such a setting, this music defies simple categorization. Part of it is (dream-)pop, but there's also jazz, ambient electronics, and improvisation. But there's absolutely no predictability. And all of it is presented in a top-notch sound production.
Modest Utopias contains all that Punkt stands for.

JOHN DEREK BISHOP - FLOW

Punkt Editions is a sublabel of the Norwegian label Jazzland Recordings, founded by Bugge Wesseltoft. The name may suggest a jazz label, but that would be too simple: the label is open to all music with an open mind, music with 'new conceptions'.

As is demonstrated by John Derek Bishop's album Flow. Bishop is a Norwegian-American musician and producer from Stavanger, Norway.
Flow is his seventh recording for Jazzland Recordings, this one being 'his most minimalistic to date' - a meditative ambient-electronic album inspired by Norwegian nature (and if you ever visited Norway, you know they have a LOT of nature!). Flow presents 11 relatively short tracks that are different but form a coherent album together. Bishop uses electric piano, guitar, piccolo bass, and modular synths (and a trumpet sample on one track), all 'manipulated to create complex soundscapes combined with field recordings from nature and urban areas'. After finishing recording, the album was remixed in a beer brewing hall 'to give the album a wider sound and an organic reverb.'

'A cornerstone in Bishop´s production is the texture and timbre of sound. He searches for sounds that are out of the ordinary and places the listener in different emotional states.'

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

HENRIK MEIERKORD - PROSCENIUM

Henrik Meierkord is a productive artist: his name has popped up often recently. Only in December there was the release of Zeitreisen, and a few weeks later we are treated with another two releases worth listening to.

The first is Proscenium, released on the Whitelabrecs label. It's Meierkord's first full-length SOLO album for the label, following up Inseln - a collaboration with Logic Moon (see below for more of that) - and a Cello Improvisations EP. Apart from the releases on this label, Meierkord released quite a lot on various other labels (and self-released them if he could not find a label).

His cello is never far away and is often the composition's foundation. But Meierkord embeds the instrument in dream-like orchestrations created with piano, double bass, violin, synths, and whatever else is needed. His music thus borders on neo-classical and atmospheric ambient.

Proscenium is the word for 'the view the audience has when watching an Ancient Greek theatre performance, or indeed the location from which the actors carry out their performance'.
The track titles may suggest Meierkord had a specific play in mind, but he hadn't: 'it could in fact be numerous stories collected together as many overlapping emotions, played back all at once, as if recalling centuries of moments emitted from a theatre stage'.

LOGIC MOON & HENRIK MEIERKORD - EWIGER WALD

Ewiger Wald (Eternal Forest) is the second time Henrik Meierkord and Logic Moon (Tobias Lorsbach) worked together: they also released Inseln in 2022. This time, their work is released on the Dronarivm label - in another sort of collaboration with Fonodroom. (The latter is the (distribution) label of Artem O., or Artyom Kryptogem, who represents both labels after relocating from Russia to Amsterdam. Explains the link but is perhaps also a bit too much information ;-) )

Meierkord's cello and violin and Lorsbach's electronics are a perfect match, meandering between (or combining) ambient soundscapes and neo-classical music - 'encapsulating a wide range of modern ambient music'. A wide range in a short time, unfortunately: the EP presents no more than 20 minutes of music in 5 tracks on a 3" CDr. Which leaves us longing for more (fortunately there's also Meierkord's solo release mentioned above).

The short playing time is compensated with the package: Ewiger Wald is released in a 10x10cm box, which includes 3 grams of 'Taiga' herbal tea (also known as 'Siberian Ginseng') and two paper tea sachets.
Don't get too excited, please: the limited edition (of 50) immediately sold out before the release date.
We can only be happy that the music still remains available.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

PHILL NIBLOCK - LOOKING FOR DANIEL

In January 2024, Phill Niblock passed away. The influence of this 'master of minimalism' can hardly be overstated. 'Known for his thick, loud drones of music, Niblock’s signature sound is filled with microtones of instrumental timbres that generate many other tones in the performance space'.
His music is often stretched out until time is no longer relevant, but at the same time it can be quite intense: as Lawrence English quotes in his obituary, Phill once wrote "You should play the music very loud. If the neighbours don't complain, it's probably not loud enough."

Two beautiful examples of his encompassing drone compositions are presented on Looking For Daniel, an album that was completed in collaboration with Niblock shortly before he died.
The first is Biliana, composed in 2023 and performed by Biliana Voutchkova - the violinist it was written for. "Her violin phrases and vocalizations carve out a deep sonorous space full of fluctuating overtones."

Exploratory, Rhine Version, Looking for Daniel, is created from three different performance recordings by Ensemble Modelo62 and Scordatura Ensemble.
This composition is dedicated to the co-director of Ensemble Phoenix in Basel, "which the Rhine river flows through. He disappeared one night and was found along the river after a few weeks. Evidently, he dropped off a bridge. No one thinks it was a deliberate suicide. He is missed.”

Both compositions feature long extended string chords; it's interesting to experience the fluctuations in sound, the movement of the waves. Biliana feels like a steady drone, with subtle and hardly noticeable changes in the overtones. Exploratory, Rhine Version, Looking for Daniel, on the other hand, is a drone that is constantly changing its underlying structure: 'a work comprising of 20 parts, where lines seem to emerge and
disappear out of a landscape of harmonies and sonic spectra'.

Phill Niblock's legacy is a large body of work that deserves to be explored. But I guess the could hardly be a better way to end his career than with these two compositions, which encapsulate everything his music stood for.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

MORITZ VON OSWALD - SILENCIO

Moritz von Oswald is a tough artist to pinpoint, and that is usually a good sign. Influential techno producer, Palais Schaumburg percussionist. Co-founder of the legendary dub-techno duo Basic Channel as well as (one of my all-time favorite reggae acts) Rhythm & Sound, never afraid to enter unexpected experimental territories and cross musical boundaries.

Silencio opens with a long (12:34) electronic track which sounds fairly standard at first, but soon introduces some elements indicating which direction the album will take. In the tracks that follow, the 16-voice choir Vocalconsort Berlin often takes the lead, but is countered by von Oswald's electronics and synthesizer voices. Four tracks (Luminoso, Infinito, Volta and Opaco) appear in two different versions; three others (Silencio, Librarsi and Colpo) only feature their original version.

'What are the differences and similarities between human and artificial sound, between oscillations generated by vocal cords and synthesizer voices, voltage amplified by speakers? [...] The vast dynamism of the human voice adds to the profound weight of electronics while offering up a rhythmic source and sonic noise palette unexplored in von Oswald’s repertoire. [...] The focus is not on using one means to imitate the other, but to sonically discuss the tensions and harmonies between the two worlds and create a dialogue between them.'

This exciting music on Silencio is reminiscing the work of composers like Varèse, Ligeti and Xenakis. This music is meant for an avant-garde-loving audience, for those listeners who are not afraid of trodding unexpected new paths.

SMALL THINGS ON SUNDAYS - GUIDE

When listening to a lot of ambient music releases, there will come a time when a lot of music starts to sound the same. Or same-ish. After all, like any other genre, it has its own cycle of innovation (when creative artists develop new sounds) and consolidation (when other artists start to adopt these sounds).
So it is always nice to hear a sound that is different from what is in fashion at the moment - a sound that feels personal, and unrelated to current fashion trends.

When listening to Small Things On Sundays Guide, I felt that I heard such an original, different, and surprising, sound.
I did not realize that everything on this release (apart from the opener Prozac) was previously released between 2008 and 2017. In fact, this album sounds like it could have been created and released today. This demonstrates that Henrik Bagner and Claus Polsen created their own unique soundworld using turntables, (broken) guitar, radio, tapes, casio keyboard, viola, and whatever else they could use.

This release is like a 'young person's guide to Small Things On Sundays' - and it is a perfect introduction to their work.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

SIMON WHETHAM - ORGANIC VOLATILISATION NEAR IMPERCEIVABLE

I think I can safely assume that you have no idea what the process of fermentation sounds like. Well, look no further: here's the answer!

Simon Whetham was invited to explore the subject in 2022, and explored and recorded 'the sounds of various fermentations including red and white cabbage, green beans, ginger, courgette (a huge one donated to the project by the neighbouring florist), (non-lactose) kefir and mead.'

The results were presented in a Swiss installation, but now also as a release on the label experienced in the most fascinating field recordings: Gruenrekorder, who released it on cassette. Which is now sold out but personally I would recommend the digital download anyway due to the intricate details of the sound recordings.

Listening to the detailed high-pitched pinches, sometimes near imperceivable indeed, reminded me of some of the work of Jacob Kirkegaard - especially the sounds of decomposing in his Opus Putesco part of Opus Mors. But Kirkegaard documents the sound of decay, while Whetham focuses on the process in which microorganisms create a desirable change to food or drinks.

It may not be 'music' (in the traditional sense), but it's beautiful.

EMMANUEL RÉGIS - TSSAÄNÈNE

I have a somewhat difficult relationship with field recordings. When used in a pure documentary way, and when properly recorded, I can definitely enjoy them. Especially when played in the background, the sound of the outside world can be comfortably masked by the sound of another.
But it's different when I listen actively. Then, I need a more 'musical' approach: a composition created with the recorded sounds. Something that triggers my fantasy with tension/release dynamics, or with unusual combinations, impossible in real life, suggesting a completely different world.

Tssaänène is a fascinating example of the latter. Emmanuel Régis (from Lyon, France) uses 'sounds collected on Earth', adding synths and software effects where required to create his 'hand-sewn atmospheres'. And those atmospheres (I typed 'artmospheres' accidentally!) are vaguely familiar, but at the same time they seem to come from 'a science-fiction universe that suggests vast, titanic open spaces'. Like it could have been a modern-day score for Solaris...

'Through sounds with earthly connotations, you no longer know where you really are in space and time'.

Emmanuel Régis is part of the Explocréateurs collective ('We travel into a sci-fi imaginary world!') and has experience in creating soundscapes for their exhibitions and publications. He used that experience to create his first solo album Tssaänène, because he wanted to do a more personal project.
Régis recommends headphone listening for the maximum immersive experience.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

HENRIK MEIERKORD - ZEITREISEN

Sweden's Henrik Meierkord's main instrument is the cello, which defines most of the atmospheres of his music. But he also masters the viola, double bass, guitar, other instruments, and is no stranger to incorporating electronics either. His knowledge enables him to create a well-balanced combination of neo-classical music and atmospheric ambient, drawing 'as much from ambient music's meditative qualities as they do from humanity's rich history of classical styles'.
Meierkord has released 9 solo albums until now (Kval from 2021 being the latest), but he also frequently appears on compilation albums and in many collaboration projects (such as A Black Tape For A Blue Girl and Aarktica).

Four of the 10 tracks are 'Cello Ambient Improvisations', and the others have titles like Mitthavet (Mediterranean Sea), Våren Står På Lut (Spring Is In The Air), Doppelgänger, Sarabande, and Danza. Ranging from solo cello to (almost) entirely electronic, Zeitreisen is a perfect album to demonstrate what Meierkord is capable of.

'Understated and graceful, the beautiful and mysterious string-fused soundscapes find emotional stimuli and tension within a melancholic soul'.

(Zeitreisen is offered as a name-your-price download)

HARRY TOWELL - INFINITE LIGHT

Harry Towell is not only the label owner of the prolific Whitelabrecs label, he also releases music as Spheruleus. Infinite Light, the label's 150th release (!), is released under his own name. And rightly so: it is a highly personal (double) album, documenting the first year he and his family spent inside the home they moved in a year ago.

Each of the 28 tracks is explained in detail in the included 32-page booklet, describing the home-related experiences with words and images.
'I was given a 2023 diary for Christmas and so took note of all the home improvements we did, the decorating, the projects, the challenges, as well as noting days out and other events. I captured field recordings regularly and took several photos, as I tried to build a time capsule of memories.'

There were many challenges, but Harry is an optimistic man, obviously: 'whilst life is always full of challenges (of which there were many over the course of this year), my rose-tinted view of the world sees only infinite light for our future here as a family'.

Infinite Light presents acoustic modern classical music, with an atmosphere directly linked to the atmosphere of the Lincolnshire surroundings. Acoustic and Stratocaster guitar, ukelele, harmonica, mandola, violin, hang drum, cymbal, zither, kalimba, recorder, piano, and - of course - various field recordings. Hardly any electronica is involved apart from some sparse plugins.
This music is as organic and natural as can be - almost as if you're living there with them in the same house.

GLACIS - INTERPRETATIONS

Scottish composer Euan Millar-McMeeken, better known as Glacis, often collaborated with other artists in the past. This led to the idea to invite artists 'to adapt, distort, and deconstruct a collection of his original compositions', thus creating a completely new album.

There's a simple reason this album is called Interpretations: all (11) tracks are, ehh, interpretations. I'm not sure what the exact difference is between a 'remix' and an 'interpretation', but Euan explains 'he’s never really liked the term ‘remix’ as it simplifies the process of working with original material'. So, 'interpretations are not simply remixes' - they are 'careful sonic studies of the original work that respond and react in different ways. Some of the pieces contain moments of the original pieces, some are unrecognisable, all are fascinating examinations.' If you feel the need, you could compare the interpretations with the originals on his earlier albums Death And Piano, Ten, Memory Pool, Transcend, and Wake.

The list of interpreters includes many familiar names: like C. Diab, The Humble Bee, Claire Deak, The Green Kingdom, Adrian Lane, Simon McCorry, Tape Loop Orchestra, and Glåsbird. With so many different artists involved, each putting their distinct personal mark on the music, it is remarkable that the album has a consistent atmosphere: quiet, introverted, and somewhat melancholic. I guess shows that the common denominator of this album is the music of Glacis himself.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

“Lay Your Ear To The Rail… (once more)”

Tracklist:

• 00:00 DreamScenes - Intro (Susanna)
• 00:45 Aret Madilian - Arcturus
  The Abbey Project, 2022, self-released
• 04:42 L. Petitgand, Scanner, Geins't Naït - Idiot Scan LP1
  Et Il Y Avait, 2023, Ici d'Ailleurs
• 09:47 Roedelius & Arnold Kasar - Lifeline
  Zensibility, 2023, 7K!
• 15:18 The Green Kingdom - Gathering Clouds
  Ether Hymns, 2023, Dronarivm
• 18:16 Melanie De Biasio - Chiesa
  Il Viaggio, 2023, PIAS Le Label
• 24:20 Galán / Vogt - Panacea III (Akira Rabelais Remix) (edit)
  All The Time In The World, 2023, self-released
• 29:38 Henrik Meierkord - Doppelgänger I
  Zeitreisen, 2023, Projekt
• 32:27 Choeur Tac-Til - Object VII (fragment)
  Blind Ecosystem, 2023, UNrec
• 34:52 Hilary Woods - Burial Rites
  Acts Of Light, 2023, Sacred Bones Records
• 37:36 Andrea Burelli - Ali Di Cotone
  Sonic Mystics For Poems (Of Life And Death Of A Phoenix), 2023, self-released
• 38:52 Rakhi Singh - Julia Wolfe: Lad (edit)
  Purnima, 2023, Cantaloupe Music
• 42:24 Antonymes - Remember Me
  The Gramophone Suite, 2023, Les Disques de L'Accalmie
• 44:47 CV & JAB (Christina Vantzou & John Also Bennett) - El Muelle (fragment)
  Κλίμα (Klima), 2023, Editions Basilic
• 45:36 Iu Takahashi - Awake Lakeside
  Sense Margin, 2023, Laaps
• 50:17 Brian Eno - Floating On Sleep's Shore
  Top Boy OST, 2023, Opal Records
• 54:53 Aret Madilian - Procyon
  The Abbey Project, 2022, self-released
• 59:00 DreamScenes - Outro (Dean Hurley)

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--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

KATE CARR - A FIELD GUIDE TO PHANTASMIC BIRDS

'All the birds Kate Carr never recorded, and some she did. In a field recording she never made'.

Field recordings always raise the same question: is this for documentary purposes, can it be considered music?
If 'music is organized sound' (R. Murray Schaefer), the answer is clear. But for some, even the unaltered, unorganized sound of nature is the most beautiful music in their ears. Kate Carr further challenges this discussion with her new album: field recordings of non-existent birds.

The first track is called Unlikely To Be Heard, and is created primarily with bird horns. The three following tracks are composed (or 'organised') from various dawn chorus field recordings from South Africa, Australia, and the UK.
One might argue that only the birds in the first track are phantasmic because the others really do exist somewhere on the planet. But not in this setting, 're-imagined. Stretched and stuttering, glitching and morphing, swirling and sputtering. Artifact and performance, digital bits all.'

The tracks all have descriptive titles: 'A Loud Hissing Screech Which Drops In Pitch Halfway', 'Usually Concealed In Dense Foliage', and the melancholic closing track 'Shy, Typically Alone Or In Pairs'.

By adding her layered electronics, Kate Carr settles the argument for once and for all: this definitely is 'music'. Music for Phantasmic Landscapes.

A Field Guide To Phantasmic Birds is released on Room40 and mastered by Lawrence English, who is no stranger to challenging field recordings himself.

VARIOUS ARTISTS - SYNTHETIC BIRD MUSIC

It is no surprise that we also find Kate Carr on this compilation on the Mappa label from Slovakia. Her track Three Calls is one of the 32 tracks on this 132-minute album filled with exactly what the title promises us.

Most of the artists involved are unknown to me, but there are some familiar names too: JAB (John Also Bennett), Mike Cooper, Andrew Pekler, Felicity Mangan. But that's about it for me, so there's quite a lot of new names to explore.

The compilation "crystallises the borders between memory, beauty, and anxiety and follows a chronological order from dawn to dusk and deep into the night".
While Kate Carr's phantasmic field recordings (see above) sound as if they an environment like that could exist somewhere on this planet, such is clearly not the intention here. These are synthetic birds - metallic, electronic, alienating. And definitely fascinating, even if it is a lot to listen to in one session.
Occasionally, there is also a 'true' musical composition based on birdsounds (for example 'Wind Up Paradise Birds' by Øyvind Torvund, BIT20 Ensemble, Trond Madsen, Jørgen Træen, and Kjetil Møster)

"You could stop there, enjoying this record on a musical level, but it invites us to do one step further, to consider reconfiguring our relationship with the Earth and its inhabitants. To question our impact, and to ask why we need synthetic bird music. Is it just a visionary endeavor or is it because we are failing at fostering a world in which organic birds and other creatures can thrive?"

Synthetic Bird Music is available as a digital download but also as a limited double cassette. Profits from the record will be donated to the SOS/BirdLife Slovakia, an organization protecting the bird biotops by river Ipeľ, in the south of Slovakia.
So that we can enjoy real bird sounds in the future too!

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

CLAIRE M. SINGER - SAOR

Saor (pronounced Sieur, as in Monsieur, and meaning 'free' in Scottish Gaelic) is the first of a triptych of releases inspired by the peaks of Claire M Singer's homeland (she grew up in Aberdeenshire). For this album she wanted to capture the dramatic visions of the landscape she grew up in, but at the same time it's an exploration to get to know the organ more intimately.

Singer started playing the cello when she was six but got hooked on the sound of the church organ after a commission to write an organ piece in 2006.
Currently, she is the music director of the 1877 ‘Father’ Henry Willis organ at the world-famous Union Chapel, but this is not the only organ she plays on this album. Much of it was written and recorded in her home country Aberdeenshire, and the title track is recorded in Amsterdam's Orgelpark (where the album release party will be held, with Claire performing on five organs simultaneously!).

"I realised by controlling how much wind enters the pipe affects the tuning and you can create rich harmonic textures and complex overtones that create ever-shifting melodic and rhythmic patterns. It was incredible to produce a sound which came from the same sonic palette I was working with in the studio but was completely acoustic".

Don't expect 'traditional' music for church organ, obviously: Singer approaches the instrument as a sound source with almost limitless possibilities. And on the 70 minutes of this album featuring nine tracks of varying lengths (the title track almost 25 minutes, the shortest only 17 seconds) these possibilities are demonstrated convincingly.
However, the organ is not the only instrument used. Claire also plays mellotron, harmonium, cello, and electronics, and the sound palette is completed by Brian Shook (trumpet on Cairn Toul), Yann Ghiro (clarinet), Andy Saunders (French horn), and Patsy Reid (strings on Càrn).

GALYA BISENGALIEVA - POLYGON

With her album releases until now (Aralkum + remixes, The Ice Dive OST) and her impressive live performances, Kazakh/British composer Galya Bisengalieva has set herself a high standard. She is a violinist with experience in contemporary classical music (member of the London Contemporary Orchestra), but easily transcends any genre merging classical roots with folk, ambient, and electronic music. She has worked with Steve Reich, Suzanne Cianni, Laurie Spiegel, Terry Riley, Pauline Oliveros, Hildur Gudnadottir, Sarah Davachi,andMica Levi - which should be enough references to check out her solo work!

Polygon is her third solo album. Again, the violin is her main instrument, but overall the music is more experimental than contemporary classical, and involves a lot of electronics. Just listen to the title track to get an idea.

Polygon refers to the Semipalatinsk Test Site on the steppe in northeast Kazakhstan - the primary testing venue for theSoviet Union'snuclear weapons.
'For the [Kazakh] inhabitants, the 465 nuclear tests conducted during its existence had dire consequences on an ancient landscape that supported traditional pasturelands with little regard for their effect on the local people or the environment, leading to devastating long-term impacts.'

A dark and dreary theme unmistakably echoed in the music. Chilling, scary, but at the same time fascinating in its haunting beauty. Anyone who remembers (and enjoyed) Hildur Gudnadottir's soundtrack for Chernobyl should check out this album. But that is of course because the underlying themes are also connected. Apart from that, this album also demonstrates what can be achieved with uncompromising out-of-the-box thinking.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

FROM THE MOUTH OF THE SUN - VALLEY OF THE HUMMINGBIRDS

Valley Of The Hummingbirds is one of the albums that are parts of the 'Maps To Where The Poison Grows' subscription series. Subscribing to these series on the Lost Tribe Sound label means that you receive it at a reduced price, as a reward for your faith in the label release policy. But Lost Tribe Sound is kind enough to also present the album as a regular release for those who do not want (or cannot afford) a full subscription.

From The Mouth Of The Sun is the name of the duo formed by Aaron Martin and Dag Rosenqvist. The music on this album was originally written for the dance performance by Greek choreographers Danae & Dyonisos, but was adapted to fit an album release.

The opening track, The Herd (Murmuration), starts slow and quiet but gradually builds up to a frantic rhythm-driven piece of post-rock proportions. With its 20 minutes, this is the longest track on the album. It is followed by two tracks shorter in length (The Medusa and Dandelion, each around 10 minutes) - somewhat more subdued at the beginning but also building up to rather intense climaxes. The Herd (Murmuration) and Dandelion are then reprised in shorter (5-minute) versions.

CLAIRE DEAK - SOTTO VOCE

Claire Deak's Sotto Voce is part of the same subscription series Maps To Where The Poison Grows. While the compositions sound like they were conceived recently, they are in fact loosely based on the works of early baroque composers Francesca Caccini and Barbara Strozzi - both early 17th century.
Claire Deak extensively mentions the sources for the music as well as for the titles, but her interpretations are definitely contemporary and sound nothing like the original work of these composers. So all credits due to Claire Deak!

She is not performing this work alone, by the way: the Sotto Voce Consort is completed with Lizzy Welsh (violin, viola da gamba), Judith Hamman (cello), Tony Dupé (violin, cello, contrabas), Edwina Cordingley (baroque cello), and Lucy Adlington (lute). Claire Deak herself additionally performs many different instruments, as well as adding her voice.

Sotto Voce: 'soft voice' - a quiet voice so that only people near can hear. But also: intentionally lowering the volume of one's voice for emphasis.
If you're interested in contemporary music that combines classical influences with modern composition techniques, I can only emphasize, in my own soft voice, that you should definitely listen to Claire Deak's 'soft voice'.

For what it's worth: this music was recorded 'in a 19th century wooden church on unceded Wurundjeri-Woi Wurrung Country'. Which, as far as I can feel, definitely adds to the atmosphere of this album.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

CV & JAB - KLIMA (Κ​λ​ί​μ​α)

CV & JAB is the shortcode for the duo Christina Vantzou and John Also Bennett. Klima is their third album together, preceded by Zin Taylor's Thoughts Of A Dot As It Travels A Surface (2018) and Landscape Architecture (2020). In 2022, the duo expanded to a trio with Michael Harrison on a self-titled album (with their full names).

They refer to the album as a 'rhizomatic composition rather than a sequential excursus' ('rhizomatic': a concept describing a nonlinear network that connects any point to any other point). A varied, associative collection of different atmospheres, each of them enigmatic in its own way.
'Percussion, refracted voices, chirps and gurgles, other-worldly synthetic winks, reverberated piano chords, and yearning flute circumnavigations all surface sometimes in solo, sometimes synchronically to eventually dissipate again'.

There are introspective piano pieces, ghostly ('flickering plasma') voices, and collages of field recordings taken out of context. The more abstract soundscapes are balanced with more soothing tracks featuring JAB's (bass) flute like Dwelling and Pottery Fragments.

As different as the songs are, on the album they still fit together beautifully, 'inducing listeners into a contemplative state through mellifluous repetitions and offshore sci-fi inflections ... sounds and chords materialize and dematerialize as landscapes at which we gaze, half-asleep over a long journey'.

CHRISTINA VANTZOU - OBSERVATIONS, EDITS, A CURE FOR RESTLESSNESS

More good news for those of you who - like me - can't get enough of Christina Vantzou's music: a 20-minute soundscape track is featured in edition #34 of the Longform Editions series.

Observations, Edits, A Cure For Restlessness presents an 'exquisitely sequenced stream of intimate sound fragments [that] creates a realm where reality seeps into an imaginary haze, like the random, varying moods that circle through places where time's measure changes in unexpected ways'.

The sounds were gathered in over ten years. As Christina Vantzou states: 'I like the idea that sound can ripen like fruit, age like wine, and bond organically when in contact with another sound.'

If you didn't know already: the Longform Edition series, curated by Andrew Khedoori, releases (longform) tracks from different artists, in batches of four every two months.
Christina Vantzou's addition is already #134 in the ever-expanding list. Other artists in thís edition (#34, 18-10-2023) are Arp, Dania and Suss & Andrew Tuttle.

JOSEPH BRANCIFORTE & THEO BLECKMANN - LP2

In 2019, Joseph Branciforte (electronics) and Theo Bleckmann (voice) released their first album called LP1. So their follow-up album's title is hardly a surprise. For those who know LP1, the music on LP2 is hardly a surprise either. Or, let me rephrase that: it's as big a surprise as LP1 was.

It's the same unique musical language: Branciforte's electronics together with Bleckmann's wordless vocalizations. The tracks on LP2 are built on the duo's experience in live performance, and 'further dissolve the
boundaries between improvisation & composition, live performance, studio production, human & machine-generated sound'.

Both albums are linked with the opening track, 1.13, which served as a soundcheck improvisation when recording LP1, 'to make sure levels were set properly and we could hear one another'.
There are similarities in both albums ('extended improvisations built upon asynchronous looping, live analog & digital processing, and deep listening'), but the compositional process was different: 'in addition to free improvisation, each of us brought in a few 'prompts' or 'scenes'. These prompts could be a verbal description, a musical or textural seed, or more explicitly composed material'.

LP2 is released on Branciforte's own Greyfade label. It will be released on 8 December but can be pre-ordered (soon).

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

RUTGER ZUYDERVELT - KALEIDING

The music of Rutger 'Machinefabriek' Zuydervelt has graced these pages so often that I can ship the introduction - even if I covered only a fraction of his work on Ambientblog. Discogs mentions no less than 222 releases as Machinefabriek and 56 under his own name (and I doubt if even that is a complete overview). He must be a completist's worst nightmare (or perhaps biggest dream, that depends).

Zuydervelt is no stranger to composing scores, most often for dance performances. Kaleiding (a non-existing and untranslatable word) is scored for the performance of 'contemporary circus company' Lily&Janick (no spaces). Viewing the teaser video on the Bandcamp page this is close to a dance performance, but it it is more than that: 'Kaleiding is a movement-based show working on the border between dance, circus and visual arts'.

The score for this performance is, in Rutger's own words, a 'mixed bag'. The opening track Utopia, with almost 19 minutes the longest on the album, is a quiet, slowly evolving ambient piece that has a lot in common with Halfslaap ('semi-sleep', from 2010). Which along with Halfslaap II is one of my favorite releases in Machinefabriek's catalog, and will probably most appeal to the ambient audience.

But Escallation, the second track, will pull you out of your ambient slumber with 'the closest I [Rutger] ever came to creating a techno track'. Not the kind of techno you'll hear on the dancefloor, I guess, it's too complex for that. But it'll definitely work great in the performance setting. Two more (and shorter) tracks conclude the album: the more abstract soundscape-ish Dystopia, and Point Of No Return, a slightly more laid-back version of Escallation.

Zuydervelt miraculously builds a repertoire that is consistent and recognizable but at the same time surprises with each new release.

COEN OSCAR POLACK - A CONCRETE PASTURE

In 2020, Coen Oscar Polack surprised many with his Haarlemmerhout release, named after inspired by the park with the same name - including local field recordings with additional atmospheric layering.
A Concrete Pasture expands on this idea, but this time the recordings come from different locations such as Schiermonnikoog (one of the Dutch islands), Hong Kong, Bangkok, and possibly even more.

The opening track Cuore Nero with its fairly loud 'powerchords' acts like a statement telling us not to expect any 'documentary-style' of the isolated field recordings: it's better to approach what comes next as an orchestrated composition. The field recordings are treated as if they were one of the instruments; Polack adds many different layers of sound to create a musical composition around them.

This way, Polack is 'balancing natural textures with synthetic and instrumental sounds [...] giving a meaning to a music that is liberated of its formalities and charged with a poignant imagery by transformation.'
And that can get rather intense, as can be heard in the way the drone builds up in the 20-minute Kraaiennest, before it morphs into a bagpipe-like sound and closes with a tenor-sax solo.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

QUIET PLACES - QUIET PLACES, VOL. 2

Quiet Places not only (partly) describes the music on this album, but it is also the name of the trio formed by Dennis White, Charlie May and Dave Gardner.

After releasing Volume 1 in 2020, Volume 2 expands upon 'their deep and suitably hypnotic long-form compositions', once again captured in four untitled tracks on a 2LP vinyl release (the digital download also features a bonus track titled 'The Empty View'). The vinyl edition is available in marbled green, black or yellow vinyl. I must admit that I am quite late in mentioning this album (it was released on A Strangely Isolated Place on July 7), so I'm happy to say that at the time of writing, there are still physical copies available.

The music on these four tracks, best played in one session, is an associative set of 'moments of melody amongst the wide landscape of abstract sounds and samples'. With 'associative', I mean that the music takes some unexpected turns, opening surprising views of different sonic landscapes without becoming chaotic.
It's a risky comparison due to the legendary status of that album, but listening to this Quiet Places album somewhat reminded me of KLF's Chillout Album. But perhaps it's better to decide for yourself.

FLOCKS - FLOCKS

Flocks is the debut album of the duo with the same name, consisting of Werner Durand and Uli Hohmann. The duo may be new, but the artists are seasoned musician presenting a music that goes beyond any genre boundary.
Werner Durand has played and performed with Amelia Cuni, Urban Sax, Arnold Dreyblatt, Ellen Fullman, Catherine Christer Hennix, Hilary Jeffery, and also released quite some solo work. He studied saxophone as well as Indian/Persian flutes, and is also 'a highly reputated protagonist in the drone scene'.
If some of the wind instruments he plays on this album sound a bit unfamiliar to you, you are right: he plays wind instruments he invented himself: ur-sax, buzz-clarinets, PVC neys and horns. But also regular instruments like tenor-sax, blown kalimba, mouth harp and drones.

Uli Hohmann also performs on self-invented instruments: plucked, bowed & hammered string instruments in this case, apart from creating rhythms with frame drums like kanjira (South Indian frame drum) or riq (Arabian frame drum). Hohmann followed his interest in music from Asia, India and Africa, and studied with Ghanaian master drummer Mustapha Tettey Addy and others.

In Flocks, the combination of these more or less unfamiliar wind instrument sounds, the steady yet complex rhythms, and the electronics creates music that feels traditional ánd experimental.
Mix and merge Jon Hassel's Fourth World music with a healthy dose of Krautrock and you may get an idea.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

MARTINA TESTEN & SIMON ŠERC - EKODUKT

First, a word of warning: this album contains no music. Unless, of course, you define music as 'organized sound' (like Edgar Varèse said).

In this 'forest bathing for the ears', Martina Testen and Simon Šerc capture the sounds of the Slovenian Goriška region and the Italian Friuli Venezia Giulia, between sunrise and sunset, and then comprise these sounds into a two-hour mix. It is interesting to hear the forest sound palette change over time: starting with the birds, then hearing the frogs and crickets take over later on the day, and then the return of the birds when sunset nears.
It is a very refreshing sound to play in the background of your own environment. It is also a bit confronting since it made me realize that a rich and lively fauna like this, a place where you hear no human-made background noises, is almost impossible to find in my country (Netherlands).

Ekodukt is a continuation of Biodukt from 2020, which apart from an album also culminated in immersive installations. The sound recordings were part of the thesis by Martina Testen: 'Analysis of the influence of the sound environment on customer behavior'.

Ekodukt is released on Blu-Ray disc, which means you can enjoy the two-hour soundscape uninterrupted, but also has the accompanying video, taken from the installation, which is probably as beautiful as the sounds (I haven't seen the video but I have no doubts about that). If the sounds are enough for you, there's also the audio-only digital download.

NATASHA BARRETT - RECONFIGURING THE LANDSCAPE

Also created entirely from environmental recordings, but with a completely different intention is Natasha Barrett's aptly titled Reconfiguring The Landscape. Barrett has built herself quite a reputation as a composer of 3-D audio and ambisonics, 'treating spatialisation as a musical parameter'.

Reconfiguring The Landscape is her 'artistic research project investigating how 3-D electroacoustic composition and sound art can evoke and provoke a new awareness of our outdoor sound environment'.
She does so in three (remixes of) installations and a two-part work, Impossible Moments From Venice.

'Capturing reality seemed impossible', she says about recording the sounds of Venice. That also accurately describes the soundscapes she creates: the sounds are familiar enough, but together they seem to re-create a different, non-existent, and dreamlike world. A different reality, strange yet attractive. A world filled with sounds of incredible clarity, even when the mixes merge an 8-channel installation into 2-channel stereo.

“I’m really concerned with the idea of tangibility. Sound is invisible, but we can do things that make you want to reach out and touch it.”

DORIAN WOOD - EXCESIVA

I assume you have probably asked yourself many times how an environment would sound if you could listen from within an empty milk jar. If you did (ánd if you didn't): Dorian Wood provides the answer.

For this recording, the milk jar and microphone are placed 'near a dilapidated old amphitheater on the grounds of the MacDowell Artist’s Residency in Peterborough, New Hampshire where Wood was a resident in the fall
of 2022, and captured the afternoon unfolding around its borders. Bird calls echo against the glass, filtered through the wind, which carries also the distant sounds of hunters’ guns, and the rustling of oaks at the base of Mount Monadnock'.

This may sound like a somewhat strange starting point for a 44-minute sound recording, but in fact the result can be very satisfying, at least for those that can 'still themselves long enough' to hear the far away details. It is a sound that wraps around you like an isolation tank would do, a way to shut out all other sounds and drift around, focusing on your own thoughts.

Excesiva is mastered by Lawrence English and released (digital only) on Yann Novak's Dragon's Eye Recordings label.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

DRØNE - THE LONG SONG

The core of Drøne is the duo Mark van Hoen and Mike Harding, but on their album, they are 'assisted by many'. On The Long Song that means they are assisted by a choir of seven female artists 'which reasserts the feminine while the male world falls apart': Galya Bisengalieva, Ipek Gorgun, Bana Haffar, Alex Hoang, Bethan Kellough, Jana Winderen and Anna von Hausswolff. And apart from the choir there's also Claire M Singer playing the organ from the Union Chapel.

An impressive list of names, but both Anna and Mike have an extensive network: Anna also runs the Pomperipossa Records label which released (almost) all of the Drøne albums. Mike Harding is also the publisher and curator of the Touch label.

With a name like Drøne, one might expect pure 'drone' music. There are definitely drones involved, but The Long Song is much more than just that. Along with (perhaps even opposing') the female choir is a 'miasma of field recordings, modular synth, static, electronics, found sounds, and 'musique concrete''.

Unearthly and fascinating music, which I think is not unlike some of the work of Holger Czukay.
The songs on both sides of the album have different titles but play continuously. In the digital version the two sides are simply The Long Song I and II.

The 12" vinyl edition comes with a poster with black & white photos by Nico van Hoen. As usual, the album is also available as a download.

RAND - PERIPHERIE / PERIPHERIE REMIXES

Rand is the name of the Berlin-based duo formed by Jan Gerdes (piano) and Frank Bodganowitz aka Dr. Nojoke (electronics). Peripherie was originally recorded in 2020, but released in September 2022.
The album shows both artists' fascination 'for the frontiers of contemporary piano music and experimental club electronics and the acoustic and performative interweaving of individualized, poetic and lyrical piano sound with the overwhelming, orchestral and bizarre soundscapes of electronic music'.
Their 'jazzy-IDM' combines many different styles: 'minimal, romantic and contemporary music as well as to jazz, ambient, drone, glitch, clicks & cuts and club music'.
All these lengthy descriptions may suggest their music could go in any direction - but the opposite is true: their music is actually very focused and coherent. The piano and the electronics complement each other seamlessly, it's as if the compositions were improvised on the spot.

Peripherie is now completed with the release of Peripherie Remixed, a 25-minute EP presenting remixes of four tracks from the original album. Lucid, San Gimignano, Hoola, and Siegfried 2.0 are remixed by Steevio, Deadbeat, Dr. Nojoke, and Andrea Cicheki. The remix artists show their respect for the original music but also add their own dimension, taking the tracks to another/different level. Steevio and Dr. Nojoke add a solid beat; Deadbeat and Cicheki counter-balance this by focusing on the ambient side of the tracks.
The remixes are mastered by none other than Stefan Betke (Pole).

The only downside is the fact that this is such a short EP with only four of these remixes. It would've been great if the other tracks from Peripherie got the same treatment by some other artists too to complete a full album. But hey - who knows what's to come in the future.

Peripherie Remixed is released on (Dr. Nojoke's) Clikno label and is available on vinyl (including a poster) as well as a digital download.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

AKI YLI-SALOMÄKI - JÄI MIELEEN

From Finland comes the chamber music of Aki Yli-Salomäki. Jäi Mieleen roughly translates as 'Memory Lingers', and that is an apt description of this 'deep northern slow listening music manifested by grand sonority and soaring melodic arcs'.

Yli-Salomäki has a diverse musical background: he started out as a punk/metal bass player in the 1980s, released ambient/electronic music as OSA7029, and studied classical music at the University of Helsinki.

The three pieces opening Jäi Mieleen represent the latter: slow and thoughtful music written for acoustic instruments (a string quartet). This is followed by five sections of Vain Kaikuja (Only Echoes) introducing Yli-Salomäki on synthesizer together with the same string quartet. Slowly but undeniably the music is getting more otherworldly. The closing piece Siirtyma (A Transition) ends the album in full electronic mode but with the same calming mood as the beginning of the album.

Jäi Mieleen is Yli-Salomäki's second album, following up the (more orchestral) Valunta debut in 2022. But this will surely not be the last time we will hear from this composer.

MARDIT B. LLESHI / BLEDI BORAKU - SAGGIO

Mardit B. Lleshi and Bledi Boraku: two artists from Albania. Both have released music before, but I guess I can safely assume that these are new names for most (non-Albanian) users. They have also previously worked together in live settings but this release is their album debut as a duo.

With only two instruments - Boraku's electric guitar and Lleshi's cello - they present music that sounds as if many more instruments were involved.
The pieces on Saggio ( 'Wise') were recorded live in a dimly-lit church (as depicted in the cover art), and the feeling of the instantaneous moment is preserved by 'capturing the acoustics of the room as a key component of this record'. The combination of cello with electric guitar is quite unusual (as far as I know), and the instruments engage in an interesting dialogue.

There was no intention to polish the recording afterward, which I think was a wise decision since the music sounds as spontaneous as a live performance. Based on this album, I would definitely love to see the duo perform live, but I guess this will not happen soon. So I'll have to do with this album for now.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

ALVA NOTO - THIS STOLEN COUNTRY OF MINE

Shortly after the music for the play Kinder der Sonne (released in May this year), Alva Noto presents another soundtrack. This time it's the score for the German documentary of the same name, directed by Marc Wiese.

The synopsis: 'The documentary film explores the question of a state's sovereignty in the face of foreign powers. The film portrays Ecuadorian resistance fighters and journalists who oppose the sell-off of an extensive part of the country's resources to Chinese investors.'

With a theme like that one would possibly expect a soundtrack full of local music, but there's none of that. And without having seen the documentary itself, I can imagine that that may exactly be why the sound may add extra impact to the theme of the documentary. Noto received the German Documentary Film Music Award for this soundtrack at the Munich 37 DOK.fest in Munich.
'Alva Noto's music subtly accompanies the struggle of a mountain village, immersing us into the film’s narrative and pathos'.

Like his Kinder der Sonne soundtrack, the music on this soundtrack is highly emotional, cleverly combining orchestral sounds with the bright kind of electronic sounds and the production value only Carsten Nicolai can present. It is 'applied music', of course, so the context is quite different than that from his Xerrox-series for example.
In these 75 minutes (19 relatively short tracks released on 2LP vinyl, CD, and download) Alva Noto intensely reflects on 'the dark shadows and the glares of hope of communal resistance'.

SNORRI HALLGRÍMSSON - I AM WEARY, DON'T LET ME REST

Moderna Records, the label that released all of Snorri Hallgrímsson's work, calls this 'his 'sophom*ore LP' (released five years after his debut Orbit in 2018). But with that, it ignores the (digital only) Chasing The Present (2020) and the Landbrot double-ep from 2021.

Perhaps because it was written in a 3-month period in the middle of winter, Hallgrímsson 'dives into the weariness we feel with the hardships of the world - fighting that inner urge to tune it all out, and reminding ourselves of our duty as humans, citizens, neighbours to stay aware and engaged. Moments of heart-wrenching melancholia are interspersed with dramatic orchestral swells that somehow always find a hopeful resolution.'

He paints the pictures by alternating intimate, soft piano compositions with full orchestral works performed by the Reykjavik Recording Orchestra led by Viktor Ori Árnason - and including the Voices Of Ulysses choir on the haunting Worth And Knowledge.

I Am Weary, Don't Let Me Rest sounds like a major movie soundtrack, but it isn't. If it was, it would have been a soundtrack for a sad - or heavily melancholic movie. That's what a 3-month winter does.

As far as I can see, I Am Weary, Don't Let Me Rest is only released digitally; no physical version. As much as I am in favor of digital releases myself, I think that is a bit of a shame, because an album like this really deserves a physical edition.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

ULRICH KRIEGER - APHOTIC I - HADAL

Ulrich Krieger is a German composer and musician 'not accepting stylistic boundaries'. Apart from his solo work, released on many different labels, he also is connected to many groups - of which Art Zoyd may be the best known.

His new release on the Room40 label shows his fascination for the ''alienness' of oceanic depths': Hadal is the deepest of the so-called aphotic ('lightless') oceanic zones: 6.000 - 11.000 m.

In an unlikely coincidence, Aphotic I - Hadal was released two days before the Titan submersible was reported missing. It turned out to be imploded at a depth of 3.500 m below sea level: the Bathyal zone. Given the pressure at that depth, it is impossible to imagine what the pressure must be in the Hadal zone.

Scuba divers will know that 'underwater also has its own, different acoustic that irritates our senses and creates a new, unique experience - sounds seem to come from everywhere, meaning we cannot orientate by sound anymore. Further, there is the filter effect of water, making the underwater soundscape filtered, darker and quieter. And the deeper we go pressure gets stronger, water gets colder, and less animal life can be found.'

This is the exact atmosphere the Ulrich Krieger recreates in these three 20-minute versions of Hadal: Acoustic, Delay, and Electronic. The sonic depth created by Ulrich Krieger (bass clarinet, electronics), Ben Richter (accordion), and Alkis Nicolaides (electric guitar) is almost palpable.

The I in the album title suggests that more Aphotic releases may follow in the future. Slowly moving up from Hadal through Abyssal (4.000 - 6.000), Bathyal (1.000-4.000), and Mesopelagic (200-1.000) - until finally, in Epipelagic (0-200), we'll be able to see the sunlight again.

OLIVIER ALARY - APPARITIONS (VOL. 1)

Olivier Alary, born in France but now living in Montreal, has released four albums under his own name since 2016 - two on 130701 and two (including this one) on Richard Chartier's Line Records. Apart from his solo albums, he also released work as Ensemble, whose debut Sketch Proposals caught the attention of Björk who invited him to remix two of her songs. Later, he also collaborated with Johannes Malfatti and Ian William Craig. He composed music for more than 50 feature fiction and documentary films.

Apparitions, Vol. 1 is the first of a series of composed works, 'instrumental acoustic pieces centered around the idea of a musical representation of the spectrality of memory - a space where time collapses and our past collective memories haunt our minds, like a ghost.'

Coming from an electronic music background, Alary chose to limit himself to acoustic instruments without using any electronic processes. The three tracks are written for (and performed by) 3 violas, 4 vibraphones, and marimba, and 3 bassoons. Each piece takes the time to develop the composition to maximum effect.

The 'Apparitions' from the title - referring to 'hauntology music which relies on the intersections of memories and depicts musically how we are haunted by the past' - is the result of using similar instruments played together 'in order to use psychoacoustic effects coming from the closeness of the timbres'.

Someone on the Line BandCamp page commented with the simple statement 'Contemporary done right' - and I can heartily agree with that. Even if it's hard to explain what exactly is 'right' and what is not, this is definitely 'done right'!

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

For The Birds: The Birdsong Projectis a collection of no less than 245 (!) bird-inspired tracks by famous (as well as lesser-known) artists. When I read about this collection, I felt that I wanted to make a radio show about it with a selection from the material. That led to three one-hour broadcasts on Concertzender Nederland.
Like all radio shows on this station, they remain available on-demand afterward.

The 13 hours on this 20LP collection represent every musical style imaginable and include music as well as poetry. Apart from this release, The Birdsong Project grew into a larger platform of activities such as exhibitions, live performances, artist-designed birdhouses, etcetera, of which all proceedings are donated to The Audubon Society.
And since I am very happy that I had the privilege to compile these selections, I like to mention them here - even though they have only minor 'ambient' content (there is sóme of that, however: by artists like Chris Watson, Jana Winderen, Ben Lukas Boysen).

Below are the links to the three shows on Concertzender Nederland. I hope you'll enjoy listening!

Part 1

[audio src="https://streams.greenhost.nl/cz/cz/rod/20230503-2200.mp3" /]

Cosmo Sheldrake, Nick Cave, Beck, Maki Namekawa/Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, David van Tieghem, Danielle Lupi, Chris Watson, Suzzy Roche, Loudon Wainwright III, Midori Hirano, Tawiah, Mamadou Kelly, Michael Penn, Yo Yo Ma, Jana Winderen.
https://www.concertzender.nl/programma/popart_716072/

Part 2

[audio src="https://streams.greenhost.nl/cz/cz/rod/20230510-2200.mp3" /]

Cosmo Sheldrake, Calexico, Makaya McCraven, Chilly Gonzalez, Anthony Roth Constanzo, Peter Broderick, Daniel Lanois, Annie Gosfield, Olivia Chaney, The Album Leaf, Koa Kalish, Kaoru Watanabe, Cassandra Jenkins, Mark Mothersbaugh, Hidden Orchestra ft. Tim Southorn, Steve Gunn, Ragazze Quartet.
https://www.concertzender.nl/programma/popart_717200/

Part 3

[audio src="https://streams.greenhost.nl/cz/cz/rod/20230607-2200.mp3" /]

Cosmo Sheldrake, Balmorhea, El Buho, Sam Gendel, The Flaming Lips, Saunder Jurriaan & Danni Bensi, Lee Ranaldo & Michael McClure, John Cale, Nico Muhly, Devendra Barnhart, Roddy Bottum, Vince Giordiano & The Nighthawks, Meara O'Reilly, The Haden Triplets, Ben Lukas Boysen, Spring Summer, Mary Lattimore.
https://www.concertzender.nl/programma/popart_722061/

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

MACHINEFABRIEK WITH MONIKA BUGAJNY - RECYTLE

It's been a while since I last recommended work from Machinefabriek/Rutger Zuydervelt (well, to be exact, it was January this year, but before that, you'll have to go way back to 2021). But that has nothing to do with his output: in the meantime Rutger has probably released more music than most readers own. One of the constants in his output is that it is always surprising - while at the same time, his discography shows remarkable coherence.

One of the many short pieces on '+' featured clarinetist Monika Bugajny, and that 'concoction' (as he calls it) was the start of a fruitful collaboration resulting in this new album.
Recytle (Recital / Recycle, get it?) is more subdued and less exuberant than some of Machinefabriek's earlier output, but this is exactly what this music needs.
Monika Bugajny gets all the space to excel with her clarinet reinterpretations of classical music, while Zuydervelt takes a modest but effective role in manipulating the material and adding 'moody and woozy' electronics.

Music inspired by Poulenc, Brahms, Copland, Messiaen, Stravinsky, Debussy, Arnold, Horovitz .. few would have expected to hear these names on a Machinefabriek release (Rutger himself perhaps least of all).
But it works wonders.
It may have a classical atmosphere, but it definitely is contemporary music. It also may be one of Rutger's most accessible albums, so I strongly advise to check it out, whether you are a Machinefabriek adept or not.

LOUISE CAMPBELL - SOURCES

Louise Campbell is an artist from Montréal, who feels so closely connected to the St. Lawrence Seaway that she dedicated her debut album to it. Her primary instrument is the clarinet, and she pairs this instrument with intricate electronics to create 'rich yet spacious sonic environments, attentively layering and shaping the
instrument's characteristic pure tone through the aid of surreptitious processing, [folding] delicate microtonal sighs, futtering textures, and distant echoes into a single evocative image.'.

This album's four pieces can be enjoyed without further context, but it is still nice to know that this music is part of a larger multimedia setting: there will be an interactive outdoor installation in Montréal, which will include a system of small modular speakers as well as the bult-in speakers on participants phones. Apart from that, Campbell also devised a sense-walk, 'guiding listeners to interface with their surroundings in new ways.'

But of course, and unfortunately, that is only interesting for those near Montréal. The rest of us will have to do with the music on this album. Which proves to be satisfying enough!

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

"A Descent Into The Maelström"

Tracklist:

• 00:00 DreamScenes - Intro (Susanna)
• 00:22 Snorri Hallgrimsson - Behind the Sun
  I Am Weary, Don't Let Me Rest, 2023, Moderna Records
• 06:24 Machinefabriek & Monika Bugajny - IV (After Horowitz)
  Recytle, 2023, self-released
• 09:36 Nicholas Britell - End Credits - Choir And Orchestra - With Open Eyes
• 11:46 Nicholas Britell - Langsam - We Gave It A Go
  Succession S04 OST, 2023, HBO
• 13:40 Craven Faults - Severals
  Standers, 2023, Leaf
• 17:19 Kloob & Onasander - A Descent Into The Maelström
  Mysterium, Incubus et Terror. Music inspired by Edgar Allan Poe stories, 2023, Eighth Tower Recordings
• 22:51 Katta - Meditace I
  Vox Organi, 2023, Emika Records
• 25:19 Gabriel Ólafs - Sálmur
  Lullabies For Piano And Cello, 2023, Decca (rel: june 9)
• 28:05 Kajsa Magnarsson - Meditation
  New Age Sound Aesthetics, 2023, Outerdisk
• 31:18 Loscil - Alta (fragment)
  Alta, 2023, self-released
• 35:14 France Jobin - String 3
  10-33CM, 2023, Room40
• 38:21 Louise Campbell - Songbird (edit)
  Sources, 2023, Redshift Records
• 43:56 Cruel Diagonals - Lament
  Fractured Whole, 2023, Beacon Sound
• 46:47 Robert Rich & Luca Formentini - Murmurs
  For Sundays When It Rains, 2022, Soundscape
• 49:40 Runhild Gammelsaeter & Lasse Marhaug - The Magus
  Higgs Boson, 2022, Ideologic Organ
• 54:03 Nicholas Britell - Phone Call
  57:16 Nicholas Britell - My Dear, Dear, World Of A Father
  Succession S04 OST, 2023, HBO
• 59:02 DreamScenes - Outro (Dean Hurley)

Play this edition on-demand from theConcertzenderwebsite

OR:

[audio src="https://www.ambientblog.net/mix/dreamscenes-104.mp3" /]

DreamSceneseditions are alsoavailable as a podcast!

Please note:
This month's edition is not available on Mixcloud because of their new licensing constrictions (max 3 tracks from one album).

Receive the full DreamScenes tracklist automatically at every new edition? Simply subscribe here!

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

DAVID TOOP & LAWRENCE ENGLISH - THE SHELL THAT SPEAKS THE SEA

When these two artists collaborate, you know you’re in for a strangely wonderful sonic adventure. The opening track, Abyssal Tracker, sets the tone with its dark atmosphere.

The Shell That Speaks The Sea is a result of David Toop's and Lawrence English's shared interest in sounds that evoke emotions and memories rather than facts and events. One example is the sound of the Tawny Frogmouth, a mysterious bird whose call sounds like a low-frequency oscillator that changes pitch.

The compositions started from Lawrence English’s collection of (haunting) field recordings, to which they added voice, electronics, guitars, bowing, whistling, percussion, flutes (David Toop) and electronics, shortwave radio, bass drum, ghost flute, bamboo, stones (Lawrence English).

The Chair’s Story is a remake of one of the tracks on David Toop’s debut album New And Rediscovered Musical Instruments from 1975 (released on Brian Eno’s Obscure Records). The chair’s voice has aged over the 48 years but the track remains (or even becomes more) intriguing and mysterious.

The Shell That Speaks The Sea defies any standard genre classification because it creates a genre of its own created by Toop and English. It combines elements of electroacoustic soundscapes, musique concrète, and acousmatic music - all of them haunting and ‘charged with unexpected dynamics’.

CRUEL DIAGONALS - FRACTURED WHOLE

Cruel Diagonals is the alias of multimedia artist Megan Mitchell. She has a classical background and is ‘well-versed in jazz standards’, but her music here is far from conventional jazz - unless you have a very broad definition of ‘jazz’.

Fractured Whole is her fourth full-length album. The eleven tracks are made with only her voice (and electronics), 'chopped up, warped, rendered unrecognizable, ringing out in hymn-like incantations - a powerful exploration of vulnerability and resistance'.

The vocal soundscapes explore various emotions - as the liner notes say, they ‘range from the sacred music of Hildegard von Bingen to the satanic masses of Diamanda Galas’.
Those are the two extremes; Mitchell’s music is not as frightening as Galas’, even though it can be haunting. But it shows the territory that Megan Mitchell covers on this adventurous album.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

RUSSELL BURDEN & CRAIG TATTERSALL - DIAGENESIS

The Laaps release for Spring (it was released on 24-04-2023) is a collaboration album by Russell Burden and Craig Tattersall (also known as The Humble Bee). Both are sound and visual artists with a special dedication to the environment.
Burden specifically explores 'qualities of ambient perception, most often through the lens of hydrological, geological or biological processes', while Tattersall focuses on his own interactions within his environment.

This is especially clear on this album, where the soundscapes are built from many different field recordings to create a detailed fantasy landscape. But the result is not simply a collection of documentary environmental recordings, but four undoubtly musical soundscapes.

Diagenesis,the (well-chosen) album title, means 'the watery interactions, microbial activities, alterations, compactions, and chemical transformations of sediments slowly converting to rock'.

NED MILLIGAN - CONSIDERABLE

Next in line in the continuing Laaps series (but still representing the Spring season, slowly nearing Summer) is Ned Milligan's Considerable.
New York-based Ned Milligan's daytime job is an elementary school teacher, but apart from that he is an 'occasional' musician.

For this occasion, he created a beautiful companion to the aforementioned Burden/Tattersall album, completing the field recordings with chimes, singing drum, autoharp, and - of course - extensive processing.
'My work in the past five years has been grounded in recording and playing outdoors, trying to communicate the meaning of being in a particular location and finding meaning in interacting with whatever sounds or elements are equally present'.

Personally, I would have skipped the 'graciously and anonymously donated singing' in the beginning of A Crack In The Sky, because for me it somewhat breaks the spell of a fresh and sparkling outdoor holiday vacation that the rest of the album radiates. A vacation in York, Maine, obviously, because that is where most of the sounds were recorded.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

AMBIENT LAYERS VOL. II

In their ongoing Layers-series, the 7K! label presents piano-, string-, wind-, ambient-, and duet layers. Some of them already two volumes: the Piano and String layers before, and now there's also a second volume of Ambient Layers, It is a digital-only release presenting 21 previously unreleased tracks (97 minutes) 'that outline and take a picture of the current underground ambient scene'.

There are familiar artists that can generate interest (like KMRU, Loscil, Jacaszek, Marconi Union, Skalpel) but the showcase also presents lesser-known artists from all over the world.
Overall, the music also represents a wide range of ambient of the more 'experimental' kind - no new-agey muzak here!
Expect the definition of 'ambient music ' to be somewhat stretched for the occasion: a track like Skalpel's Syntetik (great track by the way) would be more likely to be expected on a volume called Jazz Layers. And Joycut's C-Kdaster or Sundrugs Rapids would perfectly fit on something like Noise Layers.
'Ambient' obviously comes in many colors!

THESE CLOUDS...

The Sound In Silence label celebrates its 100th release with an 18-track compilation. In fact, it is only their second compilation: the label started in 2006 with a compilation called These Waves...
The compilation covers different - but related - styles: ambient, modern classical, electronica and post-rock.

Many of the artists previously released work on this label, but there are also new names that will be releasing more work in the future. If you're a regular visitor of Ambientblog, you'll definitely find some familiar names in the list of contributors:
Panoptique Electrical, Sven Laux, Yellow6, The Green Kingdom, Benoît Pioulard, Wil Bolton, David Newlyn, Akira Kosemura, Halftribe, A Lily, SineRider, Absent Without Leave, Hotel Neon, worriedaboutsatan, r beny, Jakob Lindhagen, The Humble Bee, and Hainbach.

Like all releases on Sound In Silence, These Clouds... is released in a hand-stamped cardboard envelope, 'with the front cover image printed on a polaroid style photo paper'.

MYSTERIUM, INCUBIS ET TERROR
- MUSIC INSPIRED BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

This compilation is considerably darker than the two mentioned before. Of course, this is to be expected from a compilation tribute to Edgar Allan Poe, the legendary writer of macabre mystery tales.
'His meandering stories featuring such things as the onset of plague in a quarantined complex, troubles at sea, a murderer preying upon victims in their homes in the streets of Paris and quite frequently the haunting phantasms of guilt and grief and loss. At the times the supernatural drifts in, it is frequently with a disconcerting subtlety, even when wreathed in Gothic robes'.

The ten tracks on this (63-minute) album are like soundtracks to Poe's stories: frightening, scary, and nightmarish. Just how you expect (and want) them to be. The titles are like summaries: The Masque Of The Red Death, The Premature Burial, A Descent Into The Maelstrom, The Murders In The Rue Morgue. Don't say you weren't warned.
The haunting atmospheres are crafted by - among others - Morgen Wurde, Kloob & Onasander, Rapoon, Michael Bonaventure, Henrik Meierkord.

To complete this release, Eight Tower Records (part of the Unexplained Sounds Network, aka the Network of Aural Disorientation) also released an accompanying book with 13 illustrated Poe tales. Of course, the stories that were set to music on the album are present here. The book and album are also available separately, or as a bundled edition.
So if you want, you can play the music as a soundtrack while you read. Cold shivers are guaranteed.

MAPS TO WHERE THE POISON GROWS

Maps To Where The Poison Grows is not exactly a 'standard' compilation: it is intended as a sneak preview to the subscription series that Lost Tribe Sound will release over the year 2023. This will include 10 full-length albums (of which one is a double-album): each of these releases is presented here with a preview track. This is not the first time Lost Tribe Sound does a series like this: in fact is is already the fifth series.
You can either subscribe to the digital releases or to the CD-versions. If you choose the CD-edition, you'll receive the digital versions on their release date, but the physical editions will be shipped in one shipment on completion of the series to avoid extra shipping costs.

Lost Tribe Sound promises a lot of adventurous music, as can be heard on this introduction compilation:
'This series will expand upon our signature sound... dusted, intense modern composition teeming with electroacoustic experimentation. Elsewhere, heady ritual and slow-driving industrial ambient helps to disrupt, corroded circuitry and late-night alchemy brings comfort in the form of electroacoustic ambient works. Additionally, there's thirty-one minutesof circuit-bending post-folk experimentalism and a mammoth solo debut which explores themes of illness, apotheosis, and death.'

Maps To Where The Poison Grows will present albums by Claire Deak, Lavatone, Skyphone, mastroKristo, R.A. Sanchez, 't Geruis, Kaya North, Drawing Virtual Gardens, From The Mouth Of The Sun, and Civic Hall.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

BRÌGHDE CHAIMBEUL (& COLIN STETSON) - CARRY THEM WITH US

Not many of you will probably associate the sound of a bagpipe to 'ambient' music, because of the often rather penetrating sound most people know. But it is probably also the first instrument that comes to mind that produces a distinct 'drone', along with instruments like the tanpoura and the sitar or the hurdy-gurdy.

Brìghde Chaimbeul is a Scottish pipe player from the Isle of Skye. She explains: "I’m always led by the drone. To be a piper you must have a natural attraction to drones. That’s the minimalist aspect, the atmosphere it creates, rather than a rhythm. The other side is melody, one or two of them in a tune, repeating them so it becomes trance-like, and getting lost in them a little bit."
Listen to Crònan (highlighted) below and you'll feel what she means by this.

Chainbeul plays the Scottish smallpipe, an instrument that almost was forgotten but which she helped to revive. Compared to the Great Highland Bagpipe, it has a much softer sound - it is suited for playing indoors and with other instruments and has a soft tone similar to a clarinet. (On this page, the three Scottish bagpipes are compared).

On Carry Them With Us she collaborates with the well-known saxophonist Colin Stetson: 'he uses atmospheres that inspired me.' The two instruments fit together beautifully and complement each other's sound - and the same is true for the way they are played.

If you like the sound and tradition of the Scottish pipe, this is mandatory listening. If not, I advise you to set aside your prejudice, open your ears and discover the fascinating sound of Brìghde Chambeul's smallpipe music.

SIX O'MATIC - A MISNOMERED PIPE'S DREAM

And while on the subject of bagpipes, we might as well check out this unusual release by Six O'Matic - a somewhat enigmatic and mysterious musician from Pittsburgh. His catalog covers all kinds of styles: 'from ambient to Appalachian, from silly to psychedelic'.

'For more than 25 years he's been exploring the sounds in his head before they escape forever'. Besides, he has played the Scottish great highland bagpipe for more than 35 years.

In his own words, A Misnomered Pipe's Dream is 'the ambient bagpipe album nobody asked for [...] and nobody realized they needed to hear'.
On the short (22 minute) 5-track album he plays acoustic and electronic bagpipes, combined with synths and electronics. He blends experimental and improvisational methods to create these tracks, which also mean that the music is less rooted in the traditional Scottish culture compared to Brìghde Chaimbeul's album mentioned above. It may come from a different angle, but it's just as much fun to listen to!

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

MARTYNA BASTA - SLOWLY FORGETTING, BARELY REMEMBERING

Though she was classically trained in guitar, Polish composer Martyna Basta 'escaped academia at the age of 18, replacing her native instrument with a synth'. Her music is described as 'balancing hush and haunting' - and that is a perfect description.
Slowly Forgetting, Barely Remembering is her third album, the second for Bratislava's Warm Winters label, following 2021's Making Eye Contact With Solitude - she definitely knows how to come up with a captivating title.

Using guitar, voice, manipulated field recordings, and zither, she carefully creates an atmosphere 'approaching what remains lost or unknown'. 'Basta plays with the voice’s limits and potential: hers interjects on a spectrum from pure, claustrophobic breath to tense muttering to an even hum'. (The autotuned voice on It Could Be As It Was Forever is not Basta's, by the way, but Claire Rousay's).

There are two tracks called Podszepnik, which is Polish for 'one who secretly whispers, an intimate confidant'. These tracks 'act as the album’s two-part centerpiece, between them tracing an arc from a child’s murmurs to a full-fledged chorus of open-throat singing that soars above the weight of an electric guitar'.

Martyna Basta may 'make a strong case for the beauty of uncertainty' here, as the liner notes state, but with its reference to dementia in the title it is rather scary at the same time. This music probably won't leave you unaffected.

FLOS - SONGS / SIGNS

Flos started in 2011 when Stefano Castagna and Luca Formentini met. They decided to work with self-made instruments ('Flos Boards') in their search for 'new composition processes that could facilitate improvisation, electronic treatment and the emission of unplugged, analogue and unconventional sounds'.
Flos Boards were built 'assembling strings, microphones, recycled materials (violin bows, pipes, pens, guitar
pick-ups). They were wired to two computers for the elaboration and editing of the outcoming sounds'.

This already tells us that we can't expect music from trodden paths here. Flos exists 'to generate sounds that could bring the audience back to the mystic, the wonder and the well-being of interplayed, unusual live music'. This usually resulted in playing live improvisations - Songs/Signs is their first album release. (Apart from Il Sogno Blanco (2014) that is, which was the music recorded for an 8-hour action painting performance by Luccio Pozzi in Milan).

The double CD (and/or cassette) release of Songs/Signs is a real two-headed beast. Each part of this set requires a different mindset to be fully enjoyed. On Songs, 'the Flos Boards are tamed to speak the more popular language of the song', with added contributions of various voices and instruments from guests like Laurie Amat, Markus Stockhausen, Steve Piccolo and Claude Voit. By nature, this part of the album has no specific 'ambient' content: it is an adventurous vision on 'popular' music.

While Songs does not particularly aim at the ambient-inclined listener, Signs will definitely appeal to those that can appreciate a varied cinematic instrumental soundscape. Signs 'includes improvisation work coming from the various sessions recorded through the years, rearranged and mixed so as to create an uninterrupted suite of 44 minutes, divided in 15 parts'.
This evocative set of instrumentals spontaneously invokes imaginary visuals.

Unfortunately, there is not much information about the Flos boards itself. I would have loved to know some more details about the 'Tavola di Flos', the 'Saucillator', and the 'Magic drainpipe', and whatever else whas used in creating these fascinating sounds.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

ERIK LEVANDER - KVAD

This album originated back in 2001, when Erik Levander passed by the Lunds Domkyrka cathedral in Sweden and decided to step in. He recorded the rehearsing choir with his minidisc recorder, but stored away the recordings. When he found them again many years later, he was enchanted 'both by the reverberated atmospheres of the cathedral, and the spars harmonies of the song'.
Deconstructing, re-arranging, and re-processing this material, adding layers and layers of new elements ultimately led to this album Kvad.

The (uncredited) choir plays an important role in these recordings, especially in the first two tracks. But do not expect the kind of choir performance you'd hear in a church: this much is true from the very first seconds when Levander kicks in with some intimidating noise.
Not áll tracks feature the choir, by the way: Levander adds sonic elements like cassette-loops, lo-fi noise, and many levels of distortion. But it definitely is the combination of the electronic elements mixed with the church atmosphere (and the choir recordings) that gives these tracks their fascinating emotional depth.

Kvad, according to Levander, 'is an old Nordic word for poem or song. Traces of the word can be found in modern words like the Swedish "kvida" meaning "to whine/moan"'.

Kvad is released on the Berlin-based Supple9 label: 'a small boutique record label with a focus on lovingly produced electronic releases backed by a physical format'. It is available on CD and as a digital download.

GRANT CHAPMAN - INDENTATIONS

"You're gonna be OK. Be with me. I'm gonna take good care of you".
These are the first lines from Indentations' opening track Just Bad Dreams. You may want to remember that advice because what follows is quite, ehhh..., confusing. Not to say mind-boggling. But it's also a captivating experience: once you started this journey, you won't want to get off until the roller coaster ride stops.

'Indentations draws deeply on Chapman's personal experiences surrounding loss and betrayal. An intimate work reflecting the struggle of dealing with traumatic experiences, the album makes the case for equilibrium following life-altering experiences'.

Grant Chapman is a New York-based producer. He created these (14) tracks using a laptop, a pair of headphones, and a midi sampler, mixing and merging all kinds of sounds he mainly found on YouTube - 'taking influences that range from ASMR to acapella choral performance'.

'The album is a meditation on the sheer weight a broken relationship can have on two people. A personification of the stages of grief one feels when growing apart from someone they love, for reasons they can’t seem to reckon with or comprehend.'

PIOTR KUREK - PEACH BLOSSOM

More vocal acrobatics on this release by Polish composer Piotr Kurek. Peach Blossom presents music that was written for a theatre performance called titled 某种类似于我的地洞：心室片段 Heart Chamber Fragments, performed at the Münchner Kammerspiele in October 2021. Additional music composed following this project is also added to this release.

'Peach Blossom is named after a fable written in the year 421 by Chinese poet Tao Yuanming which depicts life in harmony in perfect isolation from the outside world, unaware of it for centuries.'

Two actors from the Münchner Kammerspiele add their vocals: Komi Togbonou and Martin Weigel. There's also a spoken word contribution from Xiangjie on the closing track Bau. Most of the time, the vocals are heavily synthesized, harmonized and distorted, to otherworldly effect. But there are also clear references from music fromall over the world, with influences ranging from Indian vocal music to Indonesian gamelan music (on the 13-minute Martin is Crying, for example).

On first listen, all these modified voices may be a bit confusing. It creates a distance from the listener to the material, and may feel as if OpenAI (makers of ChatGPT, etc) were experimenting with A.I. singing.
But when you're used to it, you'll find that this is exactly why it also is so very charming.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

TED REICHMAN - ORGELWERKE

Over the years, the church organ has become quite a popular instrument in experimental music settings. No real surprise, knowing the extreme dynamics the instrument has: it can go from whispering silence to intimidating thunder within seconds. And its natural habitat, a reverberating church, always adds an extra dimension to the experience.

But for his Orgelwerke (Organ Works) Ted Reichman took a different approach to the instrument. Finding 'a pile of rare organ vinyl in a library's discard box, [...] he digitized them, turning them into loops and gestures, then reshaped them with tape, broken amplifiers, and analogue echo boxes.'
And you can simply trust a composer who studied experimental music and ethnomusicology with people like Alvin Lucier and Anthony Braxton to come up with something interesting!

But at the same time, this music does not sound like a usual church organ recording. The source is altered and modified to a different sonic entity, even if it still has its recognizable roots in the original instrument. In a fascinating way, these loops and soundscapes become 'non-electronic electronic' music.
The original recordings are looped into drones, but not the minimalist kind of drones: there is quite a lot happening here. The twelve-minute closing track Geisterorchester (Ghost Orchestra), especially, unleashes the full power a church organ is capable of, while also including the original sounds of a lightly scratched vinyl recording.
This is not exactly 'ambient' music: it requires active attention to be fully appreciated. So, perhaps, best file it under 'power ambient' - because it works best when played LOUD.

Orgelwerke is a download-only release; there is no physical edition.

CM VON HAUSWOLFF & CHANDRA SHUKLA - TRAVELOGUE (BALI)

Travelogue (Bali) is the second release in a series of 'collected international audio diaries' presented by Carl Michael Von Hauswolff and Chandra Shukla, the follow-up to 2020's Travelogue (Nepal).
'The premise is quite simple: the two meet at a mutually agreed upon destination along with the facilitation of something to record audio of these experiences on.'
This time, all sound sources are recorded in various locations in Bali: beaches, temples, markets, forests, mountains, etc. etc.
But beware: this is not exactly the kind of archival recording to preserve a specific cultural environment. The recordings are used as source material to create sonic sculptures rather detached from the original culture. In fact, they are actively morphed into quite an otherworldly trip.

The album kicks in rather relentlessly with a sonic modification of the Sanghyang - a traditional sacredBalinese dance, based on the premise that an unseen force enters the body of anentrancedperformer. You can almost literally feel that in the Kecak chanting, and even more so with the ghostly modifications of von Hauswolff and Shukla.
The following tracks are somewhat more 'environmental ambient', but the atmosphere remains mysterious and brooding. After three instrumental tracks, a mysterious vocal chant is reintroduced. It's unclear what this chant is about (except for Bali residents, I assume). When the album finally concludes, it may leave you wondering what exactly you were listening to.

Bali's nature feels like paradise, I know. But if I hadn't seen that with my own eyes, I would hesitate to visit the island based on these soundscapes. And this is definitely meant as a compliment to these soundscapes by von Hauswolff and Shukla.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

STBL - THE AUTUMN VOICES

STBL is Jorge Ortiz de Pinedo, a sound artist from Madrid, Spain. STBL is 'his most accessible alias' - he also works under the name noi, creating music for installations, video, art, and theatre. There's not much further information: Discogs mentions three previous releases, two of which self-released. So, at least for me, The Autumn Voices may be the first introduction to his work.

And that definitely is a nice surprise! The Autumn Voices has a nice bright sound - ambient soundscapes mixed with some glitchy ingredients, 'a careful variety of deep percussion and organic atmospheres, [...] navigating between crazy soundscapes and ghostly noises'.
All sounds on this six-track album are created by Pinedo, with the addition of soundscapes and vocals of (voice) artist Petra Kapš (ORpoesis) on Green Water, Autumn Voices.

Inspired by nature and silence, STBL presents a welcome diversion from the usual sounds and strategies often used in ambient music. It's always good to hear a fresh, personal sound!

LIONEL MARCHETI & DECIBEL - INLAND LAKE (LE LAC INTÉRIEUR)

French electroacoustic composer and sound and visual artist Lionel Marchetti visited Australia in 2019 to work with the Decibel chamber ensemble - a 'six-piece new music ensemble focusing on the integration of acoustic and electronic instruments in chamber music performance'.
Marchetti came with a ''partition concrète' that was part score, part ensemble member, part fixed media. The music is coaxed from the ensemble, without score, but with discussions, listening, and experiments'. After the first rehearsals and performances, Marchetti adapts the work integrating the recordings with synthesizers, tape and electronic manipulations.

The recording of Inland Lake was an unusual setup: the Decibel ensemble was split in half between the east and west coast of Australia, while Marchetti himself participated from France. This unusual recording process required some advanced software 'to reduce the perception of latency and improve the sound quality 'down the line' for the performers'.
The 36-minute Inland Lake demonstrates a perfect integration of the acoustic ensemble and electronics indeed. It is a slow-evolving piece where all sonic ingredients play an equally important role, together creating an enigmatic, unworldly atmosphere.

Also included is the much shorter (2'26") piece La Patience - Marchetti's first notated composition. Each member recorded their part in their own home, and the result is mixed by Marchetti.
Distance is no longer an issue, not even with chamber ensemble recording.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

HARRY TOWELL & FRIENDS - PETROLOGIST'S LENS

Besides being the tireless force behind the Whitelabrecs label, Harry Towell is also a musician himself: he has released over 20 albums as Speruleus - on many different labels such as Lost Tribe Sound, Home Normal, Time Released Sound, Hibernate and Eilean.
The combination of running a label and being a musician opens up a great possibility using his network: a collection of works created with his friends. All of them have previously released at least 2 releases on Towell's label.

And thus, Whitelabrecs starts 2023 with the release of The Petrologist's Lens, by Harry Towell & Friends. Petrology is the branch of geology that deals with the origin, composition, structure, and alteration of rocks:
'Harry studied the land history of the areas where his collaborators reside, to help form a title for each piece. Tracks are named after particular fragments of rock or sediments, land regions or fossils for example, and the compositions were developed in a way which mimics the layering of these.'

Regular readers will obviously know most of the (12) artists performing here with Harry Towell: Edu Comelles, Pruski, Glåsbird, Pruski, Sven Laux, Andrew Heath, Polaroid Notes, Adrian Lane, Slow Clinic, Blochemy, Phil Tomsett, Simon McCorry and Guy Gelem.

Apart from the digital download, there are 2 CD versions available: a gold vinyl-effect as well as a marble vinyl-effect CD. Both include a 16-page booklet

MACHINEFABRIEK - +

While on the subject of an artist's network: it sometimes seems that there are only a few artists in the electronic/experimental/improv scene that Machinefabriek / Rutger Zuydervelt has nót worked with. His immense discography (Discogs lists no less than 219 albums as Machinefabriek and 52 under his own name) features many collaborations, sometimes with a lot of people on the same release (most notable of these perhaps being 2021's With Drums, and 2014's Stay Tuned).

+ (Plus) refers to all the friends featured on this latest release: no less than 52 (!) to be exact... Rutger invited all of them to send him a short track, a musical idea not longer than one minute. The length was the only directive given for this: "because I love surprises". He then treated or reworked the submission, adding his own fingerprint to the result. And finally, the last step was 'to sequence everything into a more or less coherent album'.

That 'coherent' leaves some room for discussion, I guess ... 'The variety is huge, with jazz cats, electronica wizards, classical players, and more.'
The diverse and often unclassifiable work of Zuydervelt in combination with artists coming from such diverse backgrounds is rather unpredictable and covers a wide range of experimental styles. But Zuydervelt has carefully arranged the sequence, for example by ordering them by their main instrument. Anyway, it's coherent enough when you're familiar with Machinefabriek's diverse output.
As Rutger states himself: 'it’s safe to say that these tracks are all over the place, stylistically. But it surely is an intriguing trip. '.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

KEDA - FLOW

Keda is the duo of Mathias Delplanque (electronics) and E'Joung-Ju (geomungo). E'Joung-Ju plays the geomungo: a six-string traditional Korean wooden instrument of over 1600 years old. The combination of this historical instrument with Delplanque's electronics opens up a fascinating sound world - as is demonstrated by this third Keda album for Parenthèses Records.

Flow is a score commissioned for the dance production of the Swiss dance Compagnie Linga. Their performance is 'inspired by the astonishing performance of animal’s group movements, such as shoals of fish, flocks of birds or swarms of insects. [...] Exploring the mechanisms that allow keeping coordination in collective synchronous movements..'

In a relatively short time span (26 minutes), the four tracks on Flow have an interesting flow themselves: starting with a relatively abstract soundscape, where E'Joung-Ju seemingly explores the sonic capabilities of the geomungo backed by the embedding drones of Delplaque, the music gradually becomes more 'down to earth' in each following track. In the second half rhythm is introduced, while the geomungo gradually acknowledges its ancient history in the more melodic sequences.

I don't know if this process is reflected in the choreography, but I can easily imagine how seemingly unrelated chaotic movement suddenly changes into a determined formation. Like the seemingly unrelated movements of a school of fish or a flock of birds that suddenly changes into a coordinated formation.

AVIVA ENDEAN - MOTHS AND STARS

Aviva Endean plays the clarinet. And if that simple statement puts any idea in your head about the sound you may expect, you'll have to think again. Or simply listen to a few minutes (or preferably a few tracks) of her album Moths And Stars, released on the Room40 label. It will not be what you expected (unless of course, you're already familiar with Endean's or her work).

"I wanted the recording to have a right-up-in-your-ear kind of intimacy - so close, that you could hear the
beating of a moth’s wing, but I also wanted the listener to experience the expansiveness of the recorded space, like the vast night sky."

In these (electro-acoustic) compositions, Endean combines the sound of her clarinet with various sounds from her archive, microtonal humming, Leslie speakers ( 'as a way to spin my bass clarinet around the microphones'), e-bows, magnets, binaural microphone feedback, and field recordings.

The result is a sound world that is as fascinatingly beautiful as it is disrupting. Intimately recorded in such a way that it gets under your skin, but at the same time it offers a sound world big enough to get completely lost in.

ÅKE PARMERUD - BRUIT NOIR

If it comes to electro-acoustic music, the Empreintes Digitales label from Canada is the way to go. Ever since 1990, the label has released a consistent stream of electroacoustics, acousmatics, and musique concrète. By now, their catalog includes 181 albums by 152 artists.
It's not the easiest music to listen to, it can be quite demanding, and it's not suitable to play in the background. But it often opens up sound worlds that you never knew existed.

Bruit Noir ('Dark Noise'), by Swedish composer Åke Parmerud is a great example. Parmerud is new name for me, but he's active in music and multimedia since the late 70's. Empreintes Digitales previously released four of his albums. Apart from his electroacoustic music, Parmerud's website also mentions many other musical projects, as well as music for films and stage productions.

Empreintes Digitales has no habit of including extensive promo texts with their releases. They obviously don't like to tell you what you're supposed to hear. It's up to the listener to decide. Also, I guess it's hard to describe a sonic roller coaster like this. But since I'm writing this recommendation I'm afraid I can't leave it at that.
If I had to describe what I hear, I guess I'd say it feels like a soundtrack from a movie but I'd have no clue what that movie would be about. And I couldn't tell if it was a move from the past (say, the space age 50's) or from the future. But it would definitely be a movie I wanted to see!

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

COH MEETS ABUL MOGARD - COH MEETS ABUL MOGARD

When two artists with different approaches but sharing a vision work together, the result can be fascinating. As is demonstrated by this collaboration of CoH (Ivan Pavlov) and Abul Mogard (anonymous until recently, but now revealed to be the alter ego of Italian artist Guido Zen). After they met at a Slovenian festival in 2019, they decided to work together, and this is their 'maiden collaboration'.

Guido 'Abul Mogard' Zen delivers his 'lushly romantic Buchla 200 and Serge Modular scapes', further treated with a 'grayscale fluorescence' by Ivan 'Coh' Pavlov (who is not only known for his solo work, but also for his collaboration with Psychic TV/Coil's Peter Christophersen).

The combination (or even juxtaposition) of 'Mogard's melancholic synth gloam and Pavlov's penetrative digital synthesis' works out wonderfully well - combining the best of both worlds. The album has a fresh and vivid sound that is soft and sharp at the same time.
Immersive at times, but also ruthlessly rhythmic: 'a supranatural alchemy of discrete analogue material and digital energies'.

STEFAN GOLDMANN - CALL AND RESPONSE

With his large body of work, Stefan Goldmann is 'changing techno from within, creating his own unique form of contemporary art music'.
"Techno hasalways been about imagining the future and experiencing the excitement of change and discovery".

Goldmann has been DJing in Berlin's Berghain since 2006, which is where the 'techno' may refer to, but his music could perhaps better be described as experimental electronic, or electro-acoustic, music - especially in the case of Call And Response. After all, Goldmann also conceived the Elektroakustischer Salon nights for Berghain, presenting experimental music. There are no limits.

The sounds on Call And Response are created 'entirely from artificial reverb and nothing else': all sounds are responses to brief impulses (clicks).
'All sounds stem exclusively from the intrinsic properties of machines designed to replicate spatial acoustics. These range from early mechanical means such as springs and plates to increasingly complex algorithms aimed at convincingly approximating the rich acoustic responses of real-world environments. The capacity of artificial reverb (...) isoften amplified to gargantuan proportions, only to be folded back into what appears to be the most minuscule of entrapments.'

With his reverb machines, Goldmann creates the most unlikely sound worlds. The result is as fascinating as it can be intimidating (especially when played at a loud volume).

MELVIN GIBBS - THE ANAMIBA SESSIONS VOL.1: THE WAVE

Melvin Gibbs. Melvin Gibbs?? THE Melvin Gibbs - that bass player known for his work with Ronald Shannon Jackson, Henry Rollins, Vernon Reid, Arto Lindsay, The Clinton Administration, Defunkt, Sonny Sharrock, John Zorn, Femi Kuti, Caetano Veloso, and many many more?

Yes, this is him, the one and only! His work already demonstrated that he is not afraid to cross borders, but still, I would not have expected him to release an experimental album like this.

Like most of the releases on Editions Mego, this music is far from 'average'. 'Sound design' is probably a better way to describe the result than 'music' - Gibbs himself calls it 'sonics'.
The sound sources for these pieces are taken from a selection of sounds that included random moments of (probably unwanted) feedback on '70s records.

These sonics 'emerged from an alternative mode of contemplation, a mode that he sees as closer to the mindset of a rootworker, an African-American herbal doctor who cures psychic ailments using means derived from African spiritual practice, entering a forest to find the right plants for a suffering client than a mediator attempting to invoke mindfulness.'

It is a rich collection of sounds 'bristling, itching, restless, clicking, diving, abstract and unearthly', but it's a rewarding listen very much worth diving into.
And, since it's 'Vol.1', I assume that more like this will follow. Íf Melvin Gibbs is not too busy playing jazz music festivals, of course.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

KASPER BJ∅RKE QUARTET - MOTHER

I must confess I had not heard about Kasper Bjørke Quartet before - even if he is a renowned artist who released music on many labels, made music for Prada, Nike, Bang & Olufsen, and remixed works by many famous artists such as Sascha Funke, Moby, Trentemøller, Gus Gus and many more. I also missed the 2018 release The Fifty Eleven Project, a two-hour album released on Kompakt which was accompanied by a stunning website featuring stunning visuals for each track. The album was included among The Guardian's best contemporary albums. So: time to catch up - especially after hearing this follow-up album Mother.

Mother is the second release of Kasper Bjørke Quartet, which also consists of Davide Rossi (strings), Jakob Littauer (piano), and Langstrakt (synths). (The Quartet output is not to be confused with Bjørke's solo output as a house/techno DJ). They are completed with two guests: Sophie Birch (on Formation and Miocene), and duo (Josephine) Philip| (Hannah) Schneider (on Abiogenesis and Requiem).

The music on Mother is beautiful enough to be enjoyed without context, but there is a clear concept behind the album: Mother refers to our planet, Mother Earth. The track titless tell the story of its origin, life, and its ultimate decline. And this does not end well, I'm afraid: the last two tracks are named Tipping Points and Requiem.

Mother (and The Fifty Eleven Project before that) presents a kind of contemporary classical ambient music you probably wouldn't expect from a 'house/techno DJ'. The tracks on this 80-minute album are all over 10 minutes in length (the opener Formation even clocks at 21 minutes). It feels like primarily acoustic music, but there are a lot of electronic details to complete the sonic image.
In fact, it is a bit hard to pinpoint this music, since it combines elements of acoustic ambient, choir music, modern classical, and minimal music. And it does so very well!
I wouldn't be surprised if Mother will again be praised as one of the best contemporary albums of this year.

LORENZ WEBER - NACHTSTÜCKE

Lorenz Weber is a musician from Leipzig, Germany, who 'tries to carry stillness into the world.' In doing so, he designed his own language for the piano: 'a way of playing that is more like a natural rhythm, like water or the wind - in waves and forms, sometimes effervescent, sometimes flattening - but above all with space and silence'.
There are many piano solo recordings currently, but Nachtstücke definitely has a different sound than most of them. The pieces are all very quiet and introspective (which is to be expected from an album called 'Night Pieces'), and are melodic while also lacking distinct melodies. Creating a calm atmosphere, Weber wants 'to create a spece to feel, think, rest, paint or write.'

After 'exploring the beauty and darkness of the night' on his piano, Weber also wrote a poem to each of the tracks. The physical edition of Nachtstücke is available in two editions, both hand-made: a 'simple' edition CD in a hand-printed cover, and the 'fine art edition' in a black hand-printed cardboard sleeve that also includes 8 cards with the poems. Of course, there is also a digital download edition.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

JOHN LUTHER ADAMS - SILA: THE BREATH OF THE WORLD

All of John Luther Adams' music is closely connected to natural environments. Just check his previous releases: Arctic Dreams, Lines Made By Walking, and the massive trilogy Become River, Become Ocean, Become Desert. This is not in the sense that it merely 'celebrates' or 'describes' nature: it's more like the music evokes the natural processes in sound. Which means the compositions can be long, seemingly timeless.
Sila: The Breath Of The World continues this tradition. Originally premiered in 2014, it is only now captured and presented as a CD (/download), as well as in immersive Dolby Atmos on selected streaming platforms.

Recording Sila clearly was not an easy task, given the multiple ensembles and the compositional choices involved:
"Sila is scored for five ensembles of 16 musicians —woodwinds, brass, percussion, strings, and voices— who may perform the music in any combination, successively or simultaneously, outdoors, or in a large indoor space. The musicians are dispersed widely, surrounding the listeners, who are free to move around and discover their own individual listening points".
Besides that 'there is no conductor. Each musician is a soloist, who plays or sings a unique part at her or his own pace. The sequence of musical events is composed, but the length of each event is flexible. The music breathes.'

Sila, in the Inuit tradition, is 'the spirit that animates all things, the breath of the world. Sila is the wind and the weather, the forces of nature. But it’s also something more. Sila is intelligence. It’s consciousness. It’s our awareness of the world around us, and the world’s awareness of us'.
In this time of increasingly fierce climate crises, Sila is 'an invitation to listen more deeply'.

The composition, just short of one hour, opens with a deep rumbling. A movement from the bowels of the earth from which all further activity grows. 'Sila comes out of the earth and rises to the sky, floating upward through sixteen harmonic clouds, grounded on the first sixteen harmonics of a low B-flat. All the other tones in the music fall “between the cracks” of the piano keyboard—off the grid of twelve-tone equal temperament.'

Throughout the composition, the deep sub-level rumble recedes in favor of the higher frequencies. The music gradually dissolves 'back into the breath of the world'. Is the world simply going to rest, or is a fundamental part of it slowly dying?

Being a surround nerd (but not yet involved in Dolby Atmos setups), I'm a bit disappointed that the release does not include a traditional (5.1) surround sound recording next to the stereo version (like the previous releases did). I would love to hear a full surround session to be able to hear Sila as it was intended. With an orchestration like this, there will probably be only a very few live performances.
But enough of that. Most people are not too much into surround anyway. This stereo release is a brilliant recording, and definitely immersive enough to experience John Luther Adams' original intentions.
Just listen deeply.

JOHN LUTHER ADAMS - HOUSES OF THE WIND

Houses Of The Wind, which was released earlier this year, is equally environmentally-related but with a completely different instrumentation. No large-scale symphonic acoustic ensembles here, but electro-acoustic interpretations of an original recording made in 1989 from the wind playing through (or with) a small aeolian harp.

All (five) pieces here have the same length as the original recording, but each of them demonstrates a different kind of wind: Mountain Wind, Tundra Wind, Canyon Wind, Catabatic Wind (awindthat carries high-density air from a higher elevation down a slope under the force of gravity), and Anabatic Wind (a warm wind which blows up a steep slope ormountainside, driven by heating of the slope).

The sound of the original aeolian harp is 'transposed, layered on itself and sculpted' to reflect these different kinds of winds. Interestingly, the album has the same effect on the listener as Sila (and most of the other John Luther Adams projects): it is an open invitation to 'listen deeply', resulting in nothing but respect and awe for all kinds of natural processes.

Houses Of The Wind is released on Cold Blue Music and is available on CD as well as a digital download.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

[audio src="https://www.ambientblog.net/mix/Cloudwatching.mp3" controls /]

Most (if not all) previous Ambientblog mixes always had some dark moments in them, they are never 'just' relaxing. You can only feel release if you also felt tension.
This time, I wanted to avoid the darkness and create a 'lighter mood mix'. Not of the 'Ibiza Chillout Lounge' kind, but one that can be played in the background and is still exciting enough to listen to. I hope I succeeded, but of course, you're the one to decide about that!

With two hours, Cloudwatching is longer than usual. Only a few tracks are included in their full length, but most are heavily edited or even just short fragments. Also, they are often overlayed, so you'll hear the music in a different context. The extensive playlist below may help you track down the original in their full-length versions.
I really hope you'll enjoy watching these -imaginary- clouds!

Massive thanks to Dave Michuda (from Low Light Mixes) for making the beautiful promo and teaser videos, and to Joseph Aleo for co-hosting this mix in his Soundwave series.

Tracklisting

Start Length Artist - Title
Album Title, Year, Label

• 00:00 3:58 Francisco López - Untitled #373
  Untitled, 2019, Esc.Rec
• 00:17 4:09 Lawrence English - Pre-Approach - Citizen
  Approach, 2022, Room40
• 01:47 6:04 William Basinski & Janek Schaefer - … On Reflection (Four)
  … On Reflection, 2022, Temporary Residence Limited
• 06:15 4:02 Arve Henriksen, Eivind Aarset, Jan Bang - The Swans Bend Their Necks Backward To See God
  The Height Of The Reeds, 2018, Rune Grammofon
• 09:22 2:59 Masayoshi Fujita - Harp
  Book Of Life, 2018, Erased Tapes
• 11:12 4:07 Mombi Yuleman - Mental Telepathy
  Hours Lost, 2022, ZeroK
• 13:14 2:31 Asmus Tietchens - Paralelle Ebene 1
  Parallelen, 2022, Line
• 14:26 2:41 Abul Mogard - Like Water
  Strega Music, 2022, Make Noise Music
• 16:14 2:48 Keda - La Lune De Corée
  Hwal, 2015, Bruit Clair
• 18:31 4:27 Tapani Rinne & Teho Majamäki - Reflection
  On the Border, 2022, Signature Dark
• 22:34 4:01 Radboud Mens - Convolution
  Continuous, 2022, ERS
• 26:02 3:03 Alex Haas & Michel Banabila - The Woods (ft. Bill Laswell)
  Singles (2020-2022), 2022, Tapu Records
• 27:58 2:01 Imperial Valley - Fields North Of Kane Spring, Oct 8, 1938
  Imperial valley III, 2022, Folded Rime
• 29:03 3:47 James Murray - Clearings
  Careful Now, 2022, Home Normal
• 31:41 2:02 Raum - Daughter
  Daughter, 2022, Yellow Electric
• 32:04 3:05 Tierro Cosmico - Eres Nocturna
  Figments Of Wonder, 2022, Neotantra
• 34:29 2:34 Emmanuel Holterbach - Rivage (Shore)
  Le Rêve, L'Ombre Et La Vision, 2022, Canti Magnetici
• 35:09 3:51 Holland Patent Public Library - A Road I've Passed But Never Taken
  Songs To Fall Asleep At The Wheel To, 2022, Dear Life Records
• 38:34 2:11 Thomas Ragsdale & Richard Arnold - The View
  Chasing Waves, 2022, Frosti
• 39:24 3:50 David Cordero & Kenji Kihara - Grazalema
  Komorebi, 2022, Home Normal
• 42:27 2:14 Abul Mogard - The Rain Has Gone
  For Ukraine Vol. 3, 2022, Headphone Commute
• 44:06 3:43 Robyn Miller - Gateroom
  Riven - The Soundtrack, 1998, Virgin
• 47:34 2:12 From The Mouth Of The Sun - Paint & Stories
  A Broken House, 2021, Dronarivm
• 49:01 4:23 Olga Wojciechowska - Recreating Worlds
  For Ukraine Vol. 3, 2022, Headphone Commute
• 52:50 3:13 Biosphere - Aura In The Kitchen With The Candlesticks
  Departed Glories, 2016, Smalltown Supersound
• 55:35 1:46 Jolanda Moletta - Spell II: Daydream And Nightbloom
  Nine Spells, 2022, Ambientologist
• 56:32 1:48 Budhaditya Chattopadhay - Dhvani
  Anthology Of Exploratory Music From India, 2021, Unexplained Sounds Group
• 57:01 6:29 Cell - Geiger
  Onwards System, 2022, Ultimae Records
• 1:02:46 1:33 Clarice Jensen - Fear
  Esthesis, 2022, FatCat Records
• 1:03:19 4:06 Erik Wøllo - Peace Bells
  Sojourns, 2022, Projekt
• 1:06:30 4:07 Tarotplane - Auximenes
  Aeonium, 2022, Constellation Tatsu
• 1:09:30 2:39 Norman W. Long - Return & Recovery
  Return & Recovery, 2022, Line
• 1:10:51 3:08 Marine Eyes & Antarctic Wastelands - Enshrouded
  Sustain Series, Vol. 3, 2022, Ambientologist
• 1:13:54 1:34 Ryoji Ikeda - Data.Tron (2007-14)
  Music For Installations Vol. 1, 2021, Codex Edition
• 1:14:37 2:07 Masayoshi Fujita - Pons
  Bird Ambience, 2021, Erased Tapes
• 1:16:39 3:32 Tetsuroh Konishi - Kevaan Aania
  Scenes, 2021, Off-Recordlabel
• 1:19:38 3:30 Madeleine Cocolas - Presence
  Spectral, 2022, Room40
• 1:22:17 1:49 Pinkcourtesyphone - Comfortable Predictability
  All Intensive Purposes, 2022, Room40
• 1:23:51 4:10 Clarice Jensen - Love
  Esthesis, 2022, FatCat Records
• 1:26:16 3:47 Radboud Mens - Modular
  Movement, 2022, ERS
• 1:29:16 2:08 Arve Henriksen - The Farmers Of Sonic Alchemy
  Murimorphosis, 2021, Arve Music
• 1:31:18 2:10 Daigo Hanada - Kage
  Satori, 2022, Moderna Records
• 1:33:04 3:21 Ivan Cebrian - Snow In Silence
  Inside/Outside, 2022, Oigovisiones
• 1:35:53 3:34 Robert Rich & Luca Formentini - First Day
  For Sundays When It Rains, 2022, Soundscape Productions
• 1:39:20 1:48 Sofie Birch & Antonina Nowacka - Outro
  Languoria, 2022, Unsound / Mondoj
• 1:41:03 1:50 Sven Laux & Fione - Stay
  Tomorrow Everything Could Be Different, 2022, Whitelabrecs
• 1:42:07 4:16 Loscil - Dub For Cascadia
  Endless Falls, 2010, Kranky
• 1:45:50 2:22 Powlos & Holt - Our Shimmering Breath
  Sustain Series, Vol. 3, 2022, Ambientologis
• 1:47:48 3:33 Anne Chris Bakker - Johan (In Memoriam)
  A Sketch In Leaving, 2022, Whitelabrecs
• 1:50:45 2:34 Glåsbird - Sirsa
  Himalaya, 2022, Whitelabrecs
• 1:53:15 1:04 Trio Ramberget - D Minor Postlude
  24 Ways Vol. 1, 2022, Piano And Coffee Records
• 1:54:11 2:08 Galya Bisengalieva - The Crash
  Hold Your Breath: The Ice Dive OST, 2022, One Little Independent Records
• 1:55:48 4:11 Madeleine Cocolas - Enfold
  Spectral, 2022, Room40

OR: Listen on Mixcloud, Spotify or iTunes:

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

RADBOUD MENS - CONTINUOUS/ MOVEMENT

Dutch sound artist, composer, and sound designer Radboud Mens boasts no less than 40 years of experience in working with sound. All kinds of experimental sounds: ranging from 'attaching contact microphones to dog's brushes that he used to destroy vinyl records by scratch-laying them, boosting the signal through broken cassette decks and recording the results', to drones, clicks & cuts (to be taken quite literally: Cl;ck (2000) used digital clicks and errors he collected while cleaning up digital recordings). All things electronic & experimental, and always 'out of the box'.
As such, he also experienced the constraints of such thinking: in the 90s most labels were not interested in releasing albums where different genres (minimal techno, glitch, ambient) coexisted or were combined. It was always either...or.... But the idea of doing this never left him for over 20 years.

So finally he started working to create this vision, combining digital clicks, ambient drones, minimal techno and dub. And the 110 minutes on Continuous / Movement proves him right.
The two albums present a unique combination of sound that can be enjoyed in different ways: it is definitely 'ambient' when played on a lower volume - the pace is unhurried and the tracks take their time to develop (or to deliberately nót develop). But at the same time, the beat is relentless and unavoidable, even at a slower speed, and the lower bass is earth-shaking when played at a louder volume. This music definitely works at all levels.

I don't know if the times have changed compared to the 90s regarding the label's attitudes toward genre-defying music. I hope so. Radboud Mens decided not to find out and simply released these two titles on his own ERS label.

Continuous and Movement are two separate albums exploring this concept. They can be obtained separately but should be regarded as a double album. The - ridiculously - low price for the CD-versions ($5, which in fact is lower than the $7 for the digital version!!) means that you don't have to doubt about buying both or not.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

FRANS DE WAARD & MARTIJN COMES - EQUAL WEIGHTS

These days, there's nothing new about (electronic) artists working together remotely. Exchanging files back and forth, each iteration reacting on the previous. It has led to many fascinating albums of course, yet it has become a standard practice. Nothing wrong with that of course, but creative minds keep finding ways to keep that concept a step further so it stays challenging.

This online collaboration by Frans de Waard and Martijn Comes is an example of the surprising turns a different approach may take. As a start, de Waard created two empty 'containers' (each around 25 minutes long), adding some of his own 'sonic brushstrokes', but leaving it to Comes to fill the gaps. De Waard's electronic fragments had some kind of 'old-school' feeling about them, which lead to a feeling of nostalgia by Comes - thus defining the overall mood of the album. It's interesting to note that this album is a follow-up to 2020s Various Weights, which was an example of the more classic way of interchanging sounds.

The first part of this album ('Those Silences That Occur') is perhaps the most surprising: there are some elements that I personally would not have expected here. The opening sequence features beautiful trumpet and fluegelhorn improvisations (by Marcel Klingeler), merging into immersive spacey electronics and then morphing into a charismatic choir loop for the second half of the first part. These ethereal sequences seem to be a recomposition from themes by Carlo Gesualdo (ca 1600) - a composer whose lifestyle did not exactly match his heavenly compositions, so to say. It is exactly this unique and unexpected combination of sounds that lifts this album to a unique level not often heard.
The second part ('And There Is Nothing To Say') takes off from the closing chord of the first part but quickly drifts into deeper and incrementally more abstract electronic ambiances - drifting off into infinity (and beyond) without losing the nostalgic, somewhat sentimental mood.

The CD (and download also) features a 24-page book with artwork from Bas Mantel presenting images of various kinds of gemstones 'as a symbol for digging up objects from the past that have stayed underground for a long time.' The booklet also features some quotes that may illustrate the struggle of creating: 'That is not music'. 'There is no point', 'There is too much of nothing in it', 'I am not a musician', 'It must be revised', 'That I am getting nowhere'. The constant struggle of the creative creator fighting self-doubt and uncertainty.
Uncertainty may be a necessary phase in the process of creation, but listening to the result there was no reason to doubt. This album can easily fill those silences that occur when there is nothing to say.

MARTIJN COMES & NICOLETA CHATZOPOULOU - SARIRA

Martijn Comes' common denominator may be electroacoustic music, but he is not afraid to incorporate surprising elements into his music. Who, after all, would expect a carillon to be used as an instrument within an electronic context? Of course, the piercing sound of the bells from a carillon can by definition never be used in an 'ambient' context. Or can they?
Comes composed different works for this instrument: EANN in 2017, MOTHER, written for the Dom carillon in my hometown Utrecht, and Radiance, Time for carillon, tape and electronics, commissioned by the Rewire festival and performed at the Stevenskerk in Nijmegen. The first two tracks of Sarira are the recording of this Rewire performance.
Radiance, Time is split into two separate tracks: Radiance is a solo piece for carillon (performed by Malcosa Fiebig, city carillonneur of Utrecht and Nijmegen - a beautifully recorded piece of majestic bells. Time, on the other hand, 'moulds, stretches and purifies the timbres of site-specific bell sounds into rich, cavernous reflections'. Here, the bell sounds (two bells called 'Damiaatjes', from the St. Bavo church in Haarlem) sound more distant and somewhat more hesitant among their fiercely electronic surroundings.

The closing track of Sarira is a 16:31 collaboration with Nicoleta Chatzopoulou, a viola da gamba specialist, composer, and sound researcher based in Athens, Greece. Her 'original lines and bowings remain recognizable, juxtaposed against mysterious electronic transformations, Comes’s guitar notes and the eery rattling of tuning pegs. The subtle twang of the viola, and the surprisingly rhythmical quality of the performance add up to an experience that is equally of this and another world.'

Sarira is released on The Crystal Cabinet and available as a limited 'tea shell' cassette (edition of 30), and of course as a digital download.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

VARIOUS ARTISTS - FOR UKRAINE VOLUME 3

In March and April, two volumes of For Ukraine were released, two compilations to raise support for the International Rescue Committee (if you are not familiar with them check them out: Volume 1, Volume 2, and - for an overview - perhaps also the mix I created with music from these two).
The first two volumes raised over $17k, but since the last campaign was triple matched, the total even went up to $31k!
Unfortunately, your support is still needed: the war is still going on and there are no signs that it will end soon.

For Ukraine Volume 3 helps to make your decision: presenting 20 tracks (94 minutes) curated by none other than Rafael Anton Irisarri.
It's a 'who's who' of contemporary ambient/post-classical music featuring many familiar names and also some less familiar. The quality of the music is exceptional, but that is something that's clear when browsing contributors such as Olga Wojciechowska, Clarice Jensen, Claire Rousay, Abul Mogard, Arovane, Mike Lazarev (who presents this series through his Headphone Commute site), Lubomyr Melnyk, Eluvium, Taylor Deupree, Christopher Bissonnette, Markus Guentner, Joachim Spieth and Ian Hawgood.
And that list isn't even complete.

So, as a compilation, this is what we can call a 'no-brainer'. And with the cause it supports, it's a double no-brainer. Or triple, to be exact!

VARIOUS ARTISTS - SUSTAIN SERIES, VOL. 3

Another third edition in a compilation series is this third edition of the Sustain Series, of which Volume 1 was released in November 2020, and Volume 2 in July 2021.
The Sustain Series is also a charity compilation series: in this case (as the name suggests) for the Eden Reforestation Projects: projects to restore forests together with local communities "on a massive scale, thereby creating jobs, protecting ecosystems, and helping mitigate climate change'.

The concept of sustainability is taken quite far: many of these tracks are 'recycled' versions: reworks demonstrating what can be achieved when on person's trash can be another's treasure.
And there are quite some treasures to be found here, in this two hour and twenty minute compilation of 27 tracks. So: yet another no-brainer!

"Volume 3 seems to blend as a continuous, drone-focused, collective understanding of what needs to be heard and felt." Among the participants are Anthéne, Gallery Six, Henrik Meierkord, Jolanda Moletta, Rinnovare, Halftribe, Seabuckthorn, Marine Eyes, Karen Vogt, Hilyard, Logic Moon - but there are many more.

With so many different artists, the music is remarkably well matched: "Volume 3 seems to blend as a continuous, drone-focused, collective understanding of what needs to be heard and felt."

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

CHRISTINA VANTZOU, MICHAEL HARRISON & JOHN ALSO BENNETT -
CHRISTINA VANTZOU, MICHAEL HARRISON & JOHN ALSO BENNETT

Christina Vantzou, Michael Harrison, and John Also Bennett collaborate on this 'suite of raga-inspired compositions and improvisations [...] centered around a devotion to just intonation tuning, deep listening, and resonant spaces.'

Vantzou is the sound director on this project (and adds the occasional tape loops and field recordings), Bennett and Harrison perform on just intonation piano (the main instrument on these pieces) and modular synth (creating the accompanying drones).
Michael Harrison was a protégé of La Monte Young (and tuned his piano) and a disciple of Pandit Pran Nath, which may indicate what music can be expected here.

The piano clearly takes the center stage; the combination with the modular drone indeed feels like a raga - with the same calming effect. The just intonation tuning of the instrument is what gives these ragas their extra dimension. For the 'uninitiated listener', without knowledge of this matter, this almost mathematical approach to tuning may sometimes sound like some notes are clashing in an 'unnatural' way. This feels somewhat uncomfortable but at the samte time also refreshing.
More informed musicologists will probably be fascinated by the examples of Harrison's tuning provided with the notes, such as this 'modified revelation tuning' as used in Sirens (which, by the way, is one of the more electronic-sounding tracks where the piano is strictly used as the sound source):

Let me be clear: I reckon myself to the former, the 'uninitiated listener'. I do not understand the complexities behind just intonation, and I have no idea what this modified revelation tuning scheme can tell me.
But I dó know what my ears tell me: this is a fascinating pleasure to listen to and explore again and again!

Christina Vantzou, Michael Harrison & John Also Bennett is released as double (45 rpm) vinyl via Séance Center. Both the vinyl edition and the digital download can be ordered via Bandcamp.

MICHAEL BEGG - MOONLIGHT AND SENTIMENT

I have not encountered many albums that are promoted with a text like this:
'This is not a crafted record. The quality is often very poor and the resolution is seldom realised. The melodic lines drift into sentimentality and the production lacks focus and rigour.'

When you are familiar with the previous work of Michael Begg, you'll probably know that it can't be this bad. But indeed: the musical atmosphere dóes reflect the image on the cover, which one could call somewhat 'sentimental'. But it's the kind of sentimentality I love to listen to. It is, in Michael's words, 'the authentic sound of moonlight suicides, Christmas midnights and a representation of a certain kind of recovered memory that ruins your sleep.'

Moonlight And Sentiment emerged more or less by accident when Begg was trying to realize something else - something 'that refused to play'. He feels that it was something he had little control over, but the result 'seems to speak more truly to my private clear-night-sky self than any contrived contribution I may otherwise have forced upon you.'

Moonlight And Sentiment is released in a CD edition by Klang Galerie; the digital download can be obtained from Omnempathy's Bandcamp.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

[audio src="https://www.ambientblog.net/mix/TimeToListen.mp3" controls /]

Apart from its opening sample - 'It is time to stop seeing. It is time to stop speaking. It is time to listen', from David Cronenberg's Crimes Of the Future - this mix has no central theme or story. It's up to you, the listener, to take the time to listen and go with the flow. Let your fantasy tell you the story. And, after you did, I'd love to hear what you heard.

This mix is also published on the excellent Low Light Mixes. Thanks to Dave Michuda for co-hosting the mix, ánd for creating the awesome teaser video!

Time To Listen can be downloaded in various (lossless) formats. Of course, there is also a free surround version. Details below.

Tracklist

This mix is created using many fragments and samples from longer pieces of music, often presented in multiple layers. Check the original compositions using the tracklist below:

Start time Sample Length Artist - Title
Album - Year - Label

• 00:00 01:12 David Cronenberg - Time To Listen (Sample)
  Crimes Of The Future, 2022
• 00:04 03:35 Dronny Darko & Protou - Sin Eater
  Liberty: Compilation Of Experimental Music From Ukraine, 2022, Flaming Pines
• 02:28 02:42 William St. Hugh - Voice Of The Dolphins
  Dominion, 2022, self-released
• 04:31 02:16 Tapani Rinne & Teho Majamaki - Lucid Dream
  On The Border, 2022, Signature Dark
• 06:13 02:36 Ivan Cebrian & Victor Cerdan- Enemigo Intimo
  Inside // Outside, 2022, Oigovisiones
• 06:40 02:30 Park Jiha - At Dawn
  The Gleam, 2022, Glitterbeat
• 08:49 02:39 Benedicte Maurseth - Eidfyrder
  Hárr, 2022, Hubro
• 10:47 03:51 Bill Fontana - Imaginary Sonic Visions
  MSCTY Expo Unknown Pleasures Zone, 2022, MSCTY Editions
• 12:40 02:18 Alva Noto - Odradek (for Jhonn Balance)
  For, 2006, Line
• 13:31 01:50 Jacek & Ewa Doroszenko - Night Masque
  Bodyfulness, 2022, Audiobulb Records
• 14:17 02:27 Higher Intelligence Agency - The Black Patch
  Song Of The Machine, 2022, self-released
• 15:58 02:50 Siddhartha Barnhoorn - Final Ascension
  Out There, Oceans Of Time, vol. 1, 2022, self-released
• 18:27 02:24 Mike Lazarev - All That Remains
  When You Are, 2022, Slowcraft Recordings
• 20:27 03:17 Orghanon - Dronework V
  Droneworks I-V, 2022, St.An.Da
• 22:13 03:27 Aleksi Myllykoski ft Wimme - Composition VI: Inherently Destructive Contamination
  St. Virus, 2021, Signature Dark
• 24:37 04:13 Peter Phippen, Rahbi Crawford, Invar Lunde Jr. - Andromeda
  Galaxies, 2022, Projekt Records
• 28:46 02:30 Jóhann Jóhansson & Echo Collective - Shell
  12 Conversations With Thilo Heinzmann, 2019, Deutsche Grammophon
• 29:46 05:29 Maggi Payne - Distant Thunder
  Arctic Winds, 2010, Innova Recordings
• 33:08 03:07 Leo Kupper - Litanea 1987
  Complete Electronic & Voices Works 1961-1987, 2022, Sub Rosa
• 36:22 04:35 Monty Adkins - Remote Communion
  Remote Communion, 2020, Cronica
• 38:56 01:28 Laurie Anderson & Kronos Quartet - Thunder Continues In The Afternoon
  Landfall, 2018, Nonesuch
• 40:11 04:35 Cell - Passive Control Part 1
  Onwards System, 2022, Ultimae Records
• 43:27 03:59 Alphaxone & Protou - Sub Signal
  Stardust, 2017, Cryo Chamber
• 45:51 03:03 Wil Bolton & Francis Gri - The Ripples Theory
  Imaginary Tales, 2022, Krysalisound
• 47:54 02:11 Xqui - Narrator
  Pieces Part 2, 2022, Somewherecold Records
• 48:45 03:57 Michel Banabila - Alienation
  Monochromes, 2022, Tapu Records
• 52:21 00:55 Stuart A. Staples - Fluids
  Music For Claire Denis' High Life, 2019, Lucky Dog
• 52:31 01:13 Helge Sten - Quad 2
  Monochromes, 2014, Bôlt
• 52:45 02:29 Dean Hurley - Girl Appears /Black Smoke
  Anthology Resource Vol. I: △△, 2017, Sacred Bones Records
• 54:00 01:55 I Wound - To Wind, Wound, Wound
  Homework Year 1, Taâlem
• 54:52 05:07 Francois Robin & Mathias Delplanque - Le Puits
  L'Ombre De La Bête, 2022, Parenthèses Records

OR: Listen on Mixcloud, Spotify or iTunes:

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

MIKE LAZAREV - WHEN YOU ARE

Mike Lazarev must be a very busy man. Next to a full-time job, he runs the immensely popular Headphone Commute site. And apart from that he somehow still finds the time to make music himself.

His earlier releases were primarily solo-piano focused, but over time, the sound of synths was added.
When You Are marks a new direction in his sound design. Lazarev 'now looks further afield, enlisting textural and harmonic support from the rich and diverse array of analogue and digital synthesis tools'.

Of course, Mike still plays the piano on this album, but it's not taking the main role. Still focusing on cinematic and often melancholic introspective compositions, the tracks are now somewhat more 'ambient' - which is why this album perfectly fits James Murray's Slowcraft label on which it is released.

The person portrayed on the cover is not Mike Lazarev himself, to be exact. It is the portrait that he uses as his avatar: a portrait of Joséphin Péladan, a mysterious French occult novelist that established the Salon De La Rose + Croix (for painters, writers, and musicians sharing his artistic ideals), and who was also connected to Erik Satie.

Mike Lazarev himself is born in Kyiv, to a Russian mother and a Ukrainian father. You can probably imagine the deep impact the current war must have on him personally - one of the reasons he released the two For Ukraine charity compilations. But it may perhaps also explain some of the melancholic, uncertain, darker moods on some of the tracks on the album - even though I would not say that When You Are is a 'dark' album.

ANNE GARNER - DEAR UNKNOWN / DEAR UNKNOWN (INSTRUMENTAL)

Anne Garner's music is a bit hard to classify. It's 'pop' but not 'poppy'. There are songs, with lyrics, so it's not strictly 'ambient' - but the instrumentation, produced and performed by her partner James Murray, definitely is. I guess 'dream-pop' comes closest for a description: "an atmospheric subgenre of alternative rock that relies on sonic textures as much as melody".

'Anne Garner's music offers a rare blend of lament and solace, by turns sorrowful and sanguine, providing a well of deep comfort to hearts in need. Her hushed, intimate ballads and soaring secular hymns radiate a child-like sense of wonder and delight, yet find their roots in an unflinching commitment to explore and express the painful, contradictory workings of the emotional inner life.'

Her songs are always very personal and intimate - and even more so on her latest album Dear Unknown. The track Alma, for instance, 'celebrates the artist’s late mother, whose passing prompted Anne to begin her songwriting career, urging us all to cherish each and every moment of life’s precious, fleeting gift.'

Dust Devil tells about 'a sad and troubled girl who made her world so small and familiar that she now feels trapped and weighed down by all the emotions she’s collected to keep her safe'.
The accompanying video for this track - entirely hand-drawn by Anne herself - won the prize for beat animation at the ARFF Paris 2022 International Awards.

Slowcraftalso released a fully instrumental version ofDear Unknown:
"Stripped of lyrical focus this dreamy ambient pop collection proposes an alternate vision of Anne's celebrated new work, one in which her vocal poise and bitter-sweet poetry give way to an enigmatic, ambiguous listening experience laying bare the fruit of three years' production."

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

MEMORYBELL - MEMBRANES

Grant Hazard Outerbridge (Memorybell) has been playing music for more than 30 years. In 2014, he was diagnosed with 'transient global amnesia, a condition that causes the brain to temporarily stop making new memories.' Returning from the hospital he found his previous compositions 'garish' and started to pare them down to their essence. This resulted in the minimalist piano album Obsolete (2016).

Three more modular synth-based ambient albums followed, but on Membranes he once again presents an album of Satie-esque piano compositions. Once again, his unfortunate medical condition triggered this work:
"Between December 2020 and November 2021, Outerbridge was in excruciating pain caused by the side effects of various medications. He underwent multiple surgeries and spent much of the year incapacitated in bed. 'Membranes' - a reference to staring through pain while imagining one is somewhere else - is the result. [...] The songs mimic the experience of being in two places at once, one real and one imagined."

None of the tracks reflects this pain and suffering, however. At least not directly. Leaving many long spaces between the notes, these pieces are very calm, relaxing and comforting. The opening title track sets the theme (and the mood), but the album is best enjoyed in one single session. Membranes feels like one single (39-minute) composition that is divided in seven parts, each variation on the recurring theme.

In the abundance of solo piano albums that are released in recent years, it is refreshing to hear someone taking a completely different approach. Espécially of course when the music sounds like it could have been a lost work from Erik Satie!

Membranes is released on Hidden Shoal and will be available digitally and on CD (Bandcamp only) from June 10.

TRIO RAMBERGET - 24 WAYS VOLUME I, VOLUME II, VOLUME III

The idea for 24 Ways started when Trio Ramberget recorded the music for Musik Att Somna Till (musicfor falling asleep) in 2020. They wanted 'to create a space where you just don’t fall asleep, but where you can totally lose yourself in, music to accompany you during the 24 hours of the day'.

The result is not a 24-hour set, but it is still a massive two and a half hours of music divided over three albums,. 48 Tracks: 24 (short) preludes and 24 improvisations varying in length. The pieces follow every key of the twelve-tone scale, from C major to B minor, and are presented in that exact order.

Swedish Trio Ramberget is Gustav Davidsson (trombone), Johanna Ekholm (double bass), and Pelle Westlin (bass clarinet). They are able to retain a calm and reflective mood, even in this massive project that crosses the borders of jazz, improvisation, and modern classical music.

The three different volumes were released in November 2021, February and May 2022 respectively. The CD's of Volume 1 and 2 are already sold out, as is the triple CD also containing Volume 3. But the individual volumes remain available digitally.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

TAPANI RINNE & JUHA MÄKI-PATOLA- OPEN

If there is a thing called ambient jazz then the music of Tapani Rinne definitely is one of the first names to mention. And this album, combining his soothing saxophone and clarinet playing with the synths, piano, organ, and guitar performed by Juha Mäki-Patola once again demonstrates why.

Both artists were already active for decades in the Finnish music community before they met in February 2021. Tapani Rinne's already boasts an impressive discography (some of which were previously mentioned here). Compared to this, the discography of Juha Mäki-Patola may seem rather modest, but don't underestimate this based on quantity alone.
After deciding to work together, Open was recorded in three months, working remotely from their home studios, covering 'cerebral jazz, glacial ambient, and cinematic neo-classical styles'.

'Ambient jazz' is often connected to the darker sound of acts like Bohren & Der Club Of Gore, The Dale Cooper Quartet & Dictaphones, and the 'doom-jazz' of Jason Köhnen's Kilimanjaro DarkJazz Ensemble or Mount Fuji's Doomjazz Corporation, but Rinne and Mäki-Patola claim their own different space which is much more comfortable to wallow yourself in.

The soft and warm sound of Rinne's saxophone embedded in Mäki-Patola's soundscape has more in common with the introspective Nordic sound we know from many ECM-releases. Its 'expansive and contemplative aesthetic [is] informed by Finland's icy climate and long winters, as well as the atmospheric nature of the Nordic experimental jazz scene.'

TAPANI RINNE & TEHO MAJAMÄKI - ON THE BORDER

Only a few months after Open, there's another Tapani Rinne collaboration: this time with percussionist Teho Majamäki. This is not the first time they worked together: they did so on Inside the Temple (2011) and Under The Ground (2015) - both the album titles referring to the locations where they recorded: temples and caves in India, and railway tunnels of Helsinki's metropolitan area.
On On The Border, the tracks were recorded "in controlled studio conditions, where different spaces can be created electronically." The name of the album refers to the place where the music was recorded: Kitee, Eastern Finland, near the Russian border.

The music is partly composed, partly improvised:
"Instead of listening to the sound of the space itself, the musicians tuned in to listen to the vibration of the metal and wooden instruments. We focused on sensing the mutual resonance of the instruments and the sensitivity of the improvisation.".

Once again, the music is unhurried, extremely relaxed, almost meditative. There's no sense of doom (so no 'dark-jazz'), but mostly a respectful and appreciative awareness of the surroundings.
Once again, an album to play on repeat.

SPACE BETWEEN CLOUDS - SPACE BETWEEN CLOUDS

Space Between Clouds same-titled album is a perfect companion to the above-mentioned Tapani Rinne albums. Not so much in terms of instrumentation, perhaps, but definitely in the atmosphere that the music evokes, in its patience and subtlety.

At the basis of these tracks was "a series of drones designed to sneak by consciousness and lay down in the shadows behind clouds". But the drones grew into luscious tracks that "can shine either in the background or foreground."

'Analogue and FM synthesizer sequences pulse at 30 BPM - “roughly half the speed of the human resting heart rate” - beneath saxophone, flugelhorn, clarinet, glockenspiel, all interlocking with textural, environmental sounds.'

Space Between Clouds is the debut album as well as the alias of David Ralicke from Los Angeles. And it may very well be the first time exploring music like this. But from his bio we learn that this 'debut album' has emerged from a wealth of musical experience.
Apart from the many groups he participated in, there's also an incredible list of artists that Ralicke has played (saxophone and trombone) with. I'm just gonna mention some of them to impress: Beck, Devendra Barnhart, Cat Power, Paul McCartney, John Cale, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Van Dyke Parks...
I guess none of this music resembled the work on Space Between Clouds, but it shows that Ralicke is not your average debutant. No further introduction is needed I guess.
And this experience can clearly be heard in this remarkable collection of "slowmotion explorations of spiraling dream-tones."

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

[audio src="https://www.ambientblog.net/mix/forukraine.mp3" controls /]

Among the many benefit albums and compilations that are released in support of the Ukrainian cause, the two that were curated by Hollie Kenniff in collaboration with Headphone Commute deserve special attention because of the wide range of artists presented in the (48) tracks.
All proceedings from these albums will be donated to International Rescue Committee to support displaced children and families with vital supplies during the Crisis in Ukraine.

Volume 1 was released on March 18 and Volume 2 followed on April 29 - so chances are you already know them. If not: check them on Bandcamp with the links below. Support is still needed, because unfortunately the war is not over yet.

When Mike (Headphone Commute) Lazarev invited me to do a mix of both albums, I initially hesitated to do so. How to avoid people NOT buying the compilations because they already have the mix? The mix should boost sales, not reduce them.
To avoid redundancy I decided to edit (or shorten) EVERY track in this mix: none of them are included in their original full length! So think of it as 'preview edits'.
And remember: not all tracks of the two compilations are included in this mix. Only 27 of the 48 tracks are included, so that leaves another 21 ‘musical incentives’ to buy the compilations!

If you like this mix, or even if you dón't like it, be sure to check out both charity compilations and help support the Ukrainian cause!

Included Tracks and their start time:
(Note: All tracks are edited/shortened. Download the original benefit compilations for the full-length versions)

• 00:00 Kiev Ambiance Intro by Stanislav Teterevlev
• 00:53 Madeline Cocolas - Emergence
• 03:48 Marine Eyes - Heart Held
• 06:38 Rachel Grimes - Patsy (instrumental)
• 08:35 Heather Woods Broderick - Monarch
• 11:03 Benoît Pioulard - Rasping Descend
• 13:02 Slow Reels - Interference
• 14:16 Simon Scott - Ember
• 16:57 Helios (feat. Hollie Kenniff) - Enfold
• 18:57 Christopher Willits - The Unknown Sea
• 21:48 Gailes - 7.83
• 25:35 Ryuichi Sakamoto and Illia Bondarenko - Piece For Illia
• 27:45 IKSRE - Seeds
• 28:59 Nailah Hunter - Palace
• 30:30 Sachi Kobayashi - Sakura
• 31:22 Karen Vogt - Light Must Come
• 32:56 Lea Bertucci & Lawrence English - This Heavy Rock
• 34:30 Mike Lazarev - Incoming
• 36:17 Endless Melancholy - A Peace Once Lost
• 37:39 Julia Kent - Spring Snow
• 40:33 Zakè & 36 - Rodych
• 43:14 Hammock - Displacement
• 44:54 Claire Deak - A Million Cloaked Ghosts
• 47:14 Joe Trapanese - Introspection
• 49:53 Rhian Sheehan - We Found Ourselves Beneath A Dark Sky
• 52:29 Rose Riebl - Near Dark
• 53:50 Aisha Burns and Jake Woodruff - The Reservoir
• 57:33 Hollie Kenniff and Anna Phoebe - Ways Of Seeing

(This mix is also published on Headphone Commute)

OR: Listen on Mixcloud:

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

MAN WATCHING THE STARS - THE SEXTANT OF A BLIND SEAFARER

More than seven years have gone by since the recommendation of Dusk. After that release, there was no sign of any new music from Brendan 'Man Watching The Stars' Paxton, from Cincinatti, Ohio. But some 10 months ago his YouTube channel came to life, presenting some captivating violin performances. And now there is The Sextant Of A Blind Seafarer - a collection to soothe the absence of the past seven years.

It's a collection of live, "spur-of-the-moment" recordings from 2017-2021. They are all improvised on the violin, adding layers and layers of loops and effects to full meditational effect. Each of the track titles has an added code, referring to a planet, star, nebula, galaxy, or black hole.

"This album logs a voyage through prayers, meditations, lashings-out, laments, and praise, sharing moments of bare expression, live composition, and spiritual reflection through sound."

Twenty tracks of various lengths, together no less than two-and-a-half hours of music. This may be a bit too much of a good thing when consuming it in one single session, so I strongly advise checking this out in shorter listening sessions for maximum effect.

You may not expect this due to the length, but Sextant Of A Blind Seafarer is not only available as a digital download, but also in a 2CD edition, as well as a limited deluxe edition. The deluxe edition contains 3 heavyweight prints and a bottle of "single-run fragrance made from Jakarta agarwood in 2018".
I don't know, but I assume that combining this perfume with listening to these hypnotizing sessions will probably be... eh... intoxicating.

TETSUROH KONISHI - INNER WINDS / SCENES

Trumpet player Tetsuroh Konishi may not be a familiar name in the west (yet), but his work gained respect in his home country Japan. His discography shows quite a few releases, of which I recently heard Inner Winds (2020) and Scenes (2021), both released on the Off-Record label from Belgium. Both of them made a deep impression and made me wonder why I (we) haven't heard more from him before.

Konishi music on these releases can be labeled as ambient jazz. Konishi uses "his unique way of bleeding in the horn and using some electronics on the top" - this breathing technique is called tokusyu/souhou - "a way of not using the mouthpiece trying to imitate bird songs."
I always try to avoid making artist comparisons, but as an exception: Konishi's music will definitely appeal to listeners that also like Nils Petter Molvaer, Arve Henriksen, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Jon Hassell.

Inner Winds is dedicated to some of the most famous mountain peaks. Only the closing track Unkai is not named after a mountain but is "a sea of clouds".
"I was following the call of nature more than the past history about those locations and tried to be as spontaneous with music as I could be. The final action was trying to be as pure as possible when recording those tracks."

Compared to Inner Winds, Scenes has a more cinematic, and slightly less 'ambient' atmosphere. As the title indicates, this music was written as an imaginary film score. "I originally became a composer because I wanted to do music for theater and video but I forgot about it until the pandemic took away my performance opportunities. I've made music for radio and television before but I've never tried my hand at film music."
The music was inspired by Mika Kaurismäki's films and the landscapes of Finland and Lapland, but in the end this music was not used in a film. Yet.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

"The Depths of Delusion"

Memoria

• 00:00 DreamScenes – Intro (Susanna / Memoria sample)
• 00:54 Eliane Radigue - Occam CCV (Excerpt)
  Occam XXV, 2022, Organ Reframed
• 02:49 The Black Dog - Womersley, Line One
  Music For Photographers, 2021, Dust Science Recordings
• 05:58 Devin Sarno & Randy Randall - Sound Study Four (edit)
  Sound Study Four, 2022, Perceived Sound (release March 4)
• 08:26 Désaccord Majeur - Mimèsis
  Homework Year 6, 2021, Tâalem
• 13:09 VÍZ = Veil 5 // Roter Berg
  Veils, 2022, Unsung Hunger/BlauBlau Records
• 16:09 HIA (Higher Intelligence Agency) - Old Bess (edit)
  Song Of The Machine, 2022, self-released
• 18:24 Yoann Pisterman - Marbling (Lunar Orbit Rendezvous Mix) (edit)
  Remix EP, 2021, Ransom Notes Records / Bytes (rel. Feb 18)
• 23:45 Lucid Dreams - Lucidity
  Lucid Dreams, 1996/2022, Em:t/Astral Industries
• 25:30 Poulson Sq. - Slow Tide
  Slow Tide, 2022, self-released
• 30:04 't Geruis - Iets Kostbaars
  Slow Dance On Moss Beds, 2022, Lost Tribe Sound
• 33:17 Sven Laux & Logic Moon - At The End Of The Day, It Felt Like A Goodbye
  The Unavoidable Death Of Loneliness, 2022, Ambientologist
• 38:12 Ben Lukas Boysen - Siren Song
  Siren Songs (Original Score For An Abandoned Video Game), 2021, Erased Tapes
• 41:35 Pan•American - Grounded
  The Patience Fader, 2022, Kranky (rel. Feb 18)
• 45:04 Jaco Benckhuijsen - Vulkaan
  Man In 't Wild, 2021, Self-released
• 47:33 The Black Dog - Norman Foster Knew
  Music For Photographers, 2021, Dust Science Recordings
• 51:44 The Seaman And The Tattered Sail - An Evening Kiss (edit)
  Standing On the Precipice Of Tears, 2021, Fluid Audio
• 56:36 DreamScenes - Outro (Memoria Takeoff sample)
• 58:32 Konejo - Sleep, Obey
  Buy sh*t. Look Cool. Take Pic. Post sh*t. Repeat., 2022, FreeEtLegal Label

Play this edition on-demand from theConcertzender website.

OR:

DreamSceneseditions are alsoavailable as a podcast!

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

THE SEAMAN AND THE TATTERED SAIL - STANDING ON THE PRECIPICE OF TEARS

Bill Seaman and Craig Tattersall previously worked together as The Seaman And The Tattered Sail on their massive 2013 project Light Folds, which contained no less than 2 LP's, 2CD's and a DVD. It took them nine years to come up with this new project, which is slightly more modest in quantity - but not in intentions.

This time, it is released on the Fluid Audio label, which means the physical edition is an abundant luxury packaging we've come to expect from this label: not only including 2 CD's but also lots of pages, images, A6 luxury prints, A3 poster, Stamped library print, vintage photograph bookmark, and celluloid negative, and a 35mm film strip of an Elvis documentary. Interesting side note: "the artwork was developed around Seaman's family photo of his uncle 'Twink', a stunt double for Elvis Presley."

The Bandcamp page mentions only the two CDs, but the package also comes with a download code for a surprising set of extra tracks, so the whole collection is almost three hours of "sonic experimental frequencies."

The CD's contain two continuous, uninterrupted sets of instrumental ambient soundscapes performed by Bill Seaman (Ableton Live, vocal, piano, samples, and all kinds of manipulations), Craig Tattersall (guitar, piano, loops, synths, field recordings and all kinds of noises), with the additional help of Emmanuel Witzthum (viola, voice), Wei Ping Lin (violin) and Robert Ellis-Geiger (Trumpet sample recordings).

The album concept is in fact ingeniously constructed. The starting point of this release is in the extra tracks that are included in the download - a set of cover versions of well-known standards like Julie With..., Wild Is The Wind, Perfect Day, One For My Baby (And One More For The Road), Suspicious Minds, Wichita Lineman, Somewhere, You Keep Me Hanging On, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow and more.
A collection of pop songs "that had meant much to both Seaman and Tattersall through the years".

Hearing them perform these songs in their own peculiar way is an experience in itself and may take a bit of time to get used to. The cover versions are not particular 'radio-ready', I guess. At some moments they bear more resemblance to the music of Scott Walker than to the original versions. But once you get over the initial surprise of this unusual approach, there's a strange and weirdly attractive beauty to be found.

From there, the two (ambient instrumental) soundscapes on the CDs get a completely different context. While not indexed and not separated as separate tracks, the 46 and 51-minute pieces of abstract ambient are created from fragments and samples of the 'pop' cover tracks included in the download.

This way, The Seaman And The Tattered Sail deconstruct their own covers - "winding their way down a path they know well, a path of abstracting abstractions. Creating what Bill named ‘uncovers’."

Uncovering covers. Abstracting abstractions. Uncovering 'hidden intentions'.
Fascinating, in their own unsettling way.

OF1000FACES - NADIR

of1000faces is the solo project of Matt Walker. His name may sound familiar, at least if you're familiar with Morrissey, Smashing Pumpkins, Filter and Garbage - bands Walker has toured and recorded with as a drummer/producer.
Nadir sounds nothing like the music of any of these bands, though. In fact there's hardly any audible drumming on it (though some tracks are percussive and rhythmic).

Nadir is the third part of the Monomyyth Trilogy, following Astronomica and The Infinity Line (September and December 2020). Like many (if not most) recent releases, the music was created during the pandemic. It reflects the quieter, more introspective aspects of this period. It is instrumental, and (in Walker's own words): "primarily ambient, but not strictly so. To be honest I find it difficult to categorize."

There's no explanation of what The Monomyyth Trilogy is about, so you'll have to guess about that. The music itself explores a varied palette of ambient/electronic music, from abstract soundscapes to rhythm-based, from optimistic to thoughtful, some bright, some darker ... obviously reflecting all different moods one can have during a pandemic like the recent one. And since everyone experienced that pandemic in his or her own way, probably all can relate to the music on these albums too, everyone in a different personal way.

Like on the previous two trilogy editions, Matt Walker gets some help from his friends: Chris Connelly added his voice to Vast And Unknown, Tom Moth plays harp, Brendan Byrnes adds an occasional guitar, and Jim Dinou plays additional percussion.

Nadir is a digital-only release.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

GIDEON WOLF - OBJECTS & APPARITIONS

Objects & Apparitions is Gideon Wolf's fifth release on the Fluid Audio label. I guess I don't have to go into details about the label's release and packaging policy, and how this means most of their physical releases sell out on pre-orders. For details on the packaging, you may simply look at this page.
Objects & Apparitions was released on November 5th, so this obviously means we have to do with the digital version now. Which is no problem at all: it's the same music after all!

The music for this album was originally written as a score for All Those Things, directed by George Ravenscroft (tagline: "If a man falls in a city and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?").
This is Gideon Wolf's (or Tristan Shorr as his real name is) first venture into film composition, but it doesn't feel like that. This is very effective, emotional music, with "raw repetitive phrases of rhythm and rosin textured scrapes" all performed by Tristan Shorr himself (with the help of Tom Spencer in the closing track).

The neo-classical score was "made to appear and disappear, to pulse above and below the surface of the film, a breathing continuum of strings and fluttering electronics that are there to infiltrate even the silence".

The music does its work very well - even without the movie it was made for.
With the included photos of an abandoned hospital (photographed by Daniel Crossley) it gets quite a different connotation, "tainted with lossand absence, dream-like images of a forgotten place and imagined histories". Or, if you want, just leave out the visuals and let the music guide your imagination.

Edit: at the time of writing I see that the album is sold out at the label, but that Gideon Wolf's Bandcamp page still has a few limited edition CD's for sale, including 50 A6 photography prints, a double-sided print by Craig Tattersall, and a 1/4 plate glass negative from 1910-1930.
So there you go!

FROM THE MOUTH OF THE SUN - A BROKEN HOUSE

It's no coincidence that all three releases on this post are soundtracks: quite a lot of artists are moving in that direction. This is no surprise because this kind of music is perfectly fitted for the medium and may hopefully provide at least sóme income for the artists.

A Broken House is a documentary about the Syrian architect and artist Mohamad Hafez, who, after coming to the U.S.A. "on a single-entry visa to study architecture, realized that he can't return to his home country and decides to conjure it in his art."

Reading this, one would expect musical references to Syrian original music, and perhaps this may be featured in the documentary itself, but not on this soundtrack. From The Mouth Of The Sun (Dag Rosenqvist and Aaron Martin) chose to focus on the Western neo-classical music we've come to expect from them.

Being a soundtrack, the nine tracks are all relatively short 'mood sketches', which also means that this album is very short in length: with its 19 minutes, it is more an EP than a full album (and this even includes some additional track not included in the film score). But size doesn't matter, it's the quality that counts.

Dronarivm has released A Broken House as a limited (75) edition cassette, as well as a digital download.

SHIDA SHAHABI - ALVARET (OST)

With a playing time of only 10 minutes and 19 seconds, Alvaret is even shorter: it isn't even EP-length, but a mere 5-track 'single' release. But a damn fine 'single' it is.

Alvaret itself, directed by Swedish director Maria Eriksson-Hecht, is only 20 minutes long, so that explains the length of its soundtrack. It is a "study on the aftermath of tragedy and a young girl’s resilience and determination to hold her remaining family together."

Stockholm-based composer Shida Shahabi plays electric bass and synth (no piano this time), with the cello performed by Linnea Olsson.

"I knew that the soundtrack needed an earthy yet big feeling, and that it was important to create a sound that also described care, grief but also an emotional complexity of the relationship between the daughter Alice who takes care of her father."

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

RYAN J. RAFFA, NICO ROSENBERG & THE SVARA ENSEMBLE - VELÃ

Let me introduce you to one of the most surprising albums I have heard recently. In the overload of music that is brought to my attention, not many albums tend to go 'on repeat' but this one definitely did. And it's easy to hear why: this is a perfect example of a 'crossover' album on which different genres merge into a result that is more than the sum of its parts.

This is as much 'ambient/electronic' music as it is ethnic (drone) music. It is 'global' music bringing together musical cultures from almost every continent: "from India, Taiwan, Chile, and Germany to the States, the UK and beyond".

Velã presents a set of improvisations that feature Indian classical instruments (bansuri, dilruba, santoor, sarangi, performed by The Svara Ensemble), accompanied by electronic instruments (synths, modular, tape recorders, played by Ryan J. Raffa and Nico Rosenberg). Lawrence English added the finishing mastering touch into a perfectly balanced sound.

Historically speaking, 'drones' (as in 'long, sustained notes', providing "an effective background to the melody, which adds the stability which in western compositions is furnished by harmony") can be found in many different musical cultures. Most of all perhaps, it has always been an essential element of Indian music (more detailed info about the use of drones can be found in this background article).

Velã is neither an 'ethnic/world' album nor a 'drone' album. And it isn't strictly 'ambient' either.
In fact, it is all of that as well as it is none of it.

If that sounds like I'm talking gibberish, I can perhaps best quote the artists:
"Listening to this music is the best way to understand what we were feeling and concentrating on during the project."

FRANCESCO DI CRISTOFARO - SPEIRA

Francesco Di Cristofaro's Speira is another example of 'drone music' created with acoustic instruments. Not exclusively acoustic: there are some electronics involved "to create long microtonal textures and cyclic parts", and there's the occasional field recording. But the original sounds come from the accordion, some string instruments, and various wind instruments from China, India, and Armenia.
"Bansuri, dizi, bawu, zurna, accordeon, bouzouki, baglamas, rabel, stylophone", to be complete.

In the five untitled (or better: numbered) tracks, the Italian composer combines his experience studying piano and accordion with his interest in traditional music to "pour out traditional sounds and instruments [into] electroacoustics, between minimalism and drone music."

Every track has its own distinctive sound and different instrument setting, but perhaps 0.III is worth mentioning for the use of the accordion as the main instrument. It is not explicitly credited, but feels like a homage to the deep listening work of the late Pauline Oliveros.

Speira is mastered by Taylor Deupree and released on the Italian label Liburia Records.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

[audio src="https://www.ambientblog.net/mix/WinterSolstice3.mp3" controls /]

2021 is the third consecutive year the Dutch radio station Concertzender Nederland celebrates the winter solstice - the longest night of the year - with a full eight-hour night of ambient music. Divided into four segments, the selections are curated by radio producers Roel Janssen, Harrold Roeland, Bob Rusche, and myself.

This mis is my contribution to this longest night edition. This includes a download option, as well as an (ambientblog-exclusive) 5.1 DTS surround version for those interested in extra sonic immersion. The previous editions can also still be found here: Winter Solstice 1 and Winter Solstice 2.

For those that want to relive the full 8-hour experience, the full-length Concertzender radio broadcasts can still be streamed from their website: the 2019, 2020, and 2021 editions remain available for your on-demand entertainment.

This mix is the closing part of the broadcast, at a time that most people are still asleep (between 05:00 and 07:00 am). But it is not intended to induce sleep: it is way too 'active' for that.
I created this with the intention to manipulate your dreams when you're asleep or half-awake at the time of the broadcast. In that case, it shouldn't be played too loud or you'll probably not be able to sleep at all.
When listening on-demand, at different times, sleep is not an issue. Just enjoy the ride and let the sequence guide you. But be sure to sit back, relax, and forget about time.

This mix is created from bits, pieces, samples, and short fragments of music that deserve to be explored in its full original form; only very few tracks are represented in their full original length. The Winter Solstice mix can best be enjoyed in one uninterrupted flow, but dedicated explorers wanting to check out where all of this came from will find detailed timings below.

note: first time is start time, second time is fragment length

Part 1: 05:00 - 06:00

• 00:00 06:40 Loren Nerell - Last Gamelan
  The Gong Prophet, 2021, Soundquest Music
• 05:08 06:08 Erik Levander - Massa
  Jöker, 2021, Glacial Movements Records
• 09:54 03:31 Alva Noto - Hybr:ID Oval Blackhole
  HYbr:ID I, 2021, Noton
• 12:39 02:30 Slim Vic - Ebenist (Part 1)
  Mörkrets Narr, Lamour Recordsa
• 14:51 02:26 Lustmord & Karin Park - Perihelion
  Alter, 2021, Pelagic Records
• 16:34 02:26 Hans Zimmer - Bene Gesserit
  Dune OST, 2021, WaterTower Music
• 18:05 02:43 Clarice Jensen - The Devil
  Identifying Features, 2021, FatCat Records
• 18:06 01:54 Scanner - Drones Places 01
  Earthbound Transmissions, 2021, Room40
• 18:22 01:40 John Luther Adams - Arctic Dreams 7. Where The Waves Splash, Hitting Again And Again
  Arctic Freams, 2021, Cold Blue Music
• 19:47 02:46 Jhelisa - Heartlove F. 341 Hz V.1
  7 Keys V.1, 2021, Dorado Records
• 21:02 02:34 Debashis Sinha - Rig_Veda000_03
  Anthology Of Exploratory Music From India, 2021, Unexplained Sounds Group
• 22:22 05:08 Caldon Glover - Gateway To The Fiber Network Deadworld
  Death Mycelium, 2021, self-released
• 26:48 02:40 Otorongo - Cjords
  Spells, 2021, self-released
• 28:42 01:56 Shida Shahabi - Dog Walk
  Alvaret OST, 2021, 130701
• 30:21 04:19 Birds Of Passage - A Tale Of Two Cities
  The Last Garden, 2021, Denovali
• 34:27 03:01 Luigi Turra - II
  Prisma, 2021, 901 Editions
• 36:52 02:29 Flin van Hemmen - Made Visible I II
  You Can Know Where The Bombs Fell, 2021, Neither/Nor Records
• 37:58 03:48 Hania Rani & Dobrawa Czocher - Ouverture
  Inner Symphonies, 2021, Deutsche Grammophon
• 40:02 06:15 Abul Mogard - Black Dust
  In Immobile Air, 2021, Ecstatic
• 44:43 04:40 K. Leimer - Fanfare For The Illusion Of Choice
  Found Objects, 2021, Palace Of Light
• 48:45 02:34 Kate Carr - Nothing Is Immobile
  dawn, always new, often superb, inaugurates the return of the everyday, 2021, Self-released
• 50:33 03:22 Akira Rabelais - … Me Ce Reservoir …
  Á La Recherche Du Temps Perdu, 2021, self-released
• 52:51 02:46 Jean-Paul Perrotte - All Pulls Towards The Sea
  A Collection Of Works, 2021, Ravello Records
• 54:36 04:07 Mastrokristo - Ocean
  Departures, 2021, Lost Tribe Sound
• 57:40 01:50 Alexandra Spence - Rain
  A Necessary Softness, 2021, Room40
• 59:13 01:33 Dustin O'Halloran - Opus 12
  Silfur, 2021, Deutsche Grammophon

Part 2: 06:00 - 07:00

• 1:00:39 03:13 Christina Vantzou - Releasing Spores
  Releasing Spores, 2021, Slow Moves
• 1:02:27 01:56 Iu Takahashi - Gallery Window
  Interspace, 2021, Slow Music Movement
• 1:03:34 03:07 J. Peter Schwalm & Markus Reuter - Abschied
  Aufbruch, 2021, RareNoise Records
• 1:05:32 02:04 Hexa - Aperture
  Material Interstices, 2021, Room40
• 1:07:00 02:19 Lustmord & Karin Park - Entwined
  Alter, 2021, Pelagic Records
• 1:08:34 04:23 Lustmord & Karin Park - The Void Between
  Alter, 2021, Pelagic Records
• 1:12:35 04:19 Sam Rosenthal & Projekt Artists - The Alabaster Reliquary Of Glittering Ashes
  Tim, Where Are You Now, 2020, Projekt
• 1:16:05 01:53 Jana Irmert - Control
  Cusp, 2020, Fabrique Records
• 1:17:22 02:09 Ben Salisbury & Geoff Barrow - I Am Become Death
  Ex_Machina OST, 2015, Invada
• 1:18:41 03:55 Gareth Davis - In Vivo II
  In Vivo, 2021, Iikki
• 1:22:00 04:08 Lab's Cloud - Reflections
  The Structure Of Emotions, 2021, Ensancha El Alma Records
• 1:27:18 04:59 Matthew Liam Nicholson - Nine Movements (ft. Miguel Atwood-Ferguson)
  Nine Movements, 2021, Longform Editions
• 1:29:58 02:00 Michel Banabila - Little Boy
  Descending The Mountain, 2021, Tapu Records
• 1:31:18 01:53 Robert Lippok - M3 S
  Glacier Music II. 2020, Establishment Records
• 1:32:22 03:01 Thomas Köner - 33 31'N 35 19' E Hour Six
  La Barca, 2009, Fario
• 1:34:43 00:53 Thomas Köner - 42 7' N 19 6' E Hour Eleven
  La Barca, 2009, Fario
• 1:35:13 01:32 Jerusalem In My Heart - Qalaq 6
  Qalaq, 2021. Constellation
• 1:36:30 02:27 Alder & Ash - Stars With No Sky
  tba (Salt & Gravity Series), 2022, Lost Tribe Sound
• 1:38:09 02:48 Kloob - Radiation Cloud
  Parallel States, 2021, Winter-Light
• 1:40:34 01:28 Ben Lukas Boysen - Premonition
  Restive OST, 2012, Hymen Records
• 1:41:33 01:02 Jon Hopkins - Underwater
• Monsters OST, 2010, Domino
• 1:42:20 02:43 Janek Schaefer - Swallow Hole
  Glitter In My Tears, 2017, Room40
• 1:44:43 02:40 Snorri Hallgrímsson - Sandlóa
  Landbrot II, 2021, Moderna Records
• 1:46:48 3:55 Skrika - Mechanics Of Desolation
  Fifth Nature, 2021, Cryo Chamber
• 1:49:13 03:26 Monty Adkins - With Love, From An Invader
  With Love. From An Invader, 2021, Crónica
• 1:51:33 04:56 Tetsuroh Konishi - Haruna
  Inner Winds, 2021, Off Record
• 1:55:39 02:14 Alva Noto - Hybr:ID Oval Hadron I
  HYbr:ID I, 2021, Noton
• 1:57:23 02:33 Michel Banabila - Descending The Mountain
  Descending The Mountain, 2021, Tapu Records

OR: Listen on Mixcloud, Spotify or iTunes:

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

MASTROKRISTO - DEPARTURES

MastroKristo (or μastroKristo as it is officially written) offers his debut album as the fourth release in Lost Tribe Sound's subscription series Salt And Gravity. But for those that do not want or cannot subscribe to the full series, the albums are also available separately.

Christos Parapagidis (mastroKristo) is a 'naive' multimedia artist, producer, and multi-instrumentalist from Athens, Greece. This may be his debut album release, but he already has quite a lot of experience as a composer, sound designer, and sound engineer.

His experience helped him to define a clear view of the sound design he wanted for this album, in which he chooses different angles than usual. There are some 'lo-fi' accents, such as the use of 'the worn mechanics and incidental noises of his nearly 100 years old upright piano and its exposed soundboard'. Other instruments are deliberately placed in the back of the mix, as if they are playing from the back of the room.
But it's clear from the start that this is a deliberate sound design choice, not coincidences or inexperience.

This adds to the nocturnal atmosphere the compositions have in themselves. As if some of the music comes from your half-sleep.

"‘Departures’ is a nocturne, built from a humble and quiet rehearsal for untuned piano, tuba, bassoon, and tapes. It's a tribute to the night, and to all the failed and successful attempts at falling asleep."

A remarkable debut album that strays off the beaten track, thus adding inspiring new impulses to a somewhat overcrowded genre.

WILLIAM RYAN FRITCH - BUILT UPON A FEARFUL VOID

Built Upon A Fearful Void is the last album in another Lost Tribe Sound subscription series, one bearing the same name as this album. But as usual, it is also available separately: as a 2CD release or as a digital download.

William Ryan Fritch is a prolific Californian composer who scored the soundtracks of over 100 documentary and narrative films. With the exception of his earliest releases in 2008, all of his (over 30) albums have been released on Lost Tribe Sound - including the work he released as Vieo Abiungo.
His work has a very distinctive sound that is immediately recognizable once you have heard some of his albums. It is a "unique amalgam of folk, contemporary classical, and experimental music", but its uniqueness also comes from the recording and production techniques Fritch uses.
I hesitate to call it 'lo-fi', because that is not what it is at all. But Fritch stays away from the near-perfect widescreen cinematic production that is common in modern classical music, using "a mixture of audio fidelities, by using Hi-Fi 24 track decks and old Soviet magnetic wire recorders". The result is very intimate and spontaneous sounding.

Built Upon A Fearful Void is not composed as a movie score. The album was "seemingly fated to never be completed" because over the eight years the music was recorded the music was either lost or discarded three times: "a leak that waterlogged and ruined most of the half dozen tape reels the original album was recorded on, a destroyed and unrecoverable hard drive in 2018 that held the near-completed mixes and finally in 2021 voluntarily letting go of what remained of the salvaged material to rerecord the album entirely using only faint flickers of the old tapes and cassettes that held the remnants of the old songs."

Using "union and disunion of sonorities for pipe organ, reed instruments, voice, viola da gamba, prepared piano, pedal steel, viola d’amore and banjo", and "dozens of unreliably tuned reed instruments like sheng and shō, chromatic harmonicas, oboe, concertina, accordion and reed organs", William Ryan Fritch created a fascinating collection that perfectly demonstrates his uniquely personal sound.

GLÅSBIRD - RETURN TO SEA AND SARDINIA

Glåsbird ("an anonymous project by an established artist, built specifically to branch into the world of composing music for film and creating far-flung fictitious journeys") returns to the Whitelabrecs label with the soundtrack for the docu-film Return To Sea And Sardinia.
This film re-traces D.H. Lawrence's journey to Sardinia some 100 years ago, which resulted in his book called Sea And Sardinia.

In the 19 tracks of this hour-long soundtrack, Glåsbird presents a varied and captivating set of "sound-postcards". Two of these tracks also feature the voices of Coro Femmininile Urisè.

Glåsbird's previous releases, Grønland among them, "aim to explore the globe through albums inspired by various locations as a sonic expedition to faraway lands".
He (or she, or maybe even they?) "describe this soundtrack as a ‘vacation’ from the on-going ‘A Sonic Expedition’ series, yet it has been approached in a similar way to this musician’s work: the cycle of inspiration, research, and more inspiration."

The CD-version is printed in an edition of 300 (finally a title that is not sold out at the time of publishing my recommendation), and includes a 32-page booklet of stills and captions of the film. This booklet is also included in the digital download as a PDF file.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

"You Are Safe"

• 00:00 DreamScenes – Intro (Susanna)
• 00:48 John Duncan & Tobias R. Kirstein - You Are Safe (fragment)
  John Duncan & Tobias R. Kirstein, 2021, Moving Furniture Records
• 02:43 Ryan J. Raffa, Nico Rosenberg, The Svarsa Ensemble - Kuvalaya (Moon Flower) (Feat. Vanraj Shastri)
  Velā, 2021, Shimmering Moods Records
• 07:40 Dullmea & Ricardo Pinto - Nem Fogo, Nem Vento, Nem Sopro
  Orduak, 2021, self-released
• 10:48 Enrico Coniglio - Detachment
  Alpine Variations, 2021, Dronarivm
• 11:51 Isabel Pine - Ocean
  Transience, 2021, self-released
• 14:23 Jaco Benckhuijsen - In De Stilte
  Man In Het Wild, 2021, self-released
• 16:45 Ingar Zach, Michele Rabbia - Radiographie Sonore
  Musique Pour Deux Corps, 2021, Sofa
• 17:35 Tarxun & Siavash Hakim - Blood Role
  Hiraeth, 2021, Flaming Pines
• 20:31 Christopher Hanco*ck - Sacral Stimulation (edit)
  Solfeggio Sculptures, 2021, Lo Fi Spiritual
• 23:40 Hammock - Elsewhere
  Elsewhere, 2021, Hammock Music
• 27:08 Darren McClure - Ganbatte Oona Chan (fragment)
  Project OO, 2021, Touched Music
• 31:08 Scanner - Off The Bench And Flying High (edit)
  Project OO, 2021, Touched Music
• 34:59 of1000faces - Across Night Sands
  Nadir, 2021, self-released
• 39:06 Marie-Jeanne Wyckmans - Fin De Crise
  Trajectoires, 2021, Empreintes Digitales
• 42:47 Clarice Jensen - Back To Miguel
  Identifying Features, 2021, Fatcat Records
• 44:20 Jóhann Jóhannsson & Yair Elazar Glotman - The Universal End
  Last And First Men OST, 2020, Deutsche Grammophon
• 45:06 Christina Vantzou - Life Of A Mushroom
  Releasing Spores, 2021, Slow Moves
• 48:26 Voces8 - Jóhann Jóhannsson: A Pile Of Dust (Arr. Rimmer)
  Infinity, 2021, Decca Classics
• 52:44 Ajna & Onasander - Invading The Gardens Of Maecenas
  Canidia, 2021, Winter-Light
• 57:15 Poetica - Lamentation (Instrumental)
  Poetica Instrumentals, 2021, MPress Records
• 59:00 DreamScenes - Outro (Dean Hurley)

Play this edition on-demand from theConcertzender website.

OR:

DreamSceneseditions are alsoavailable as a podcast!

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

ROBERT TAKAHASHI CROUCH - JUBILEE

In his letter to Lawrence English (included in full on the Bandcamp page), Robert Takahashi Crouch notes that "abstract sound is not terribly effective at communicating complex ideas; it can only present the formal qualities of itself, as it is heard; it can't tell you much beyond that with certainty. The timbral, rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic information—yes that’s there. But without context, what else can we know?"

It's true: Jubilee can be listened and enjoyed without any knowledge of the context it was created in. But there will be questions. About the titles, to begin with: A Ritual, I've Been Part Of Evil Doing, and Reconciliation.
Merging "longform low-frequency drone work against a reductive sense of harmony", Crouch aims to create a listening space "in which the listener becomes paramount, their narrative and reflections in the moment as critical and valuable as those of the album’s creator."

At the same time, and perhaps somewhat contradictory with this, he describes the context of this music as a deeply personal reflection on some of the significant events in his life, being a bi-racial hom*osexual person.

"In my life I’ve felt the sting of emotional abuse, racism, classism, and hom*ophobia. I’ve have had people throw bottles at me and my boyfriend from moving cars, and I’ve been beaten and left unconscious in a parking lot at 2am. And I’ve also done some really f*cked up sh*t too. They’re things I don’t want to mention or to speak about—but I’ve done them."

Crouch describes the compositional process as an "opportunity to collect and organize sounds, texts, ideas, and images that could create not just a context for listening, but a space for a listener to inhabit. A shared listening experience.

"At its core, the album is about creating a space for selfforgiveness."

JULIUS EASTMAN - THREE EXTENDED PIECES FOR FOUR PIANOS

Imagine me, or any other middle-class suburban white guy releasing music with titles like Evil nigg*r, Gay Guerilla, and Crazy nigg*r. It wouldn't take very long before we would get 'canceled', I guess.

But we're talking the 1970s and 1980s here, long before the woke movement even existed, and Julius Eastman being one of the very few African-Americans to gain recognition in the New York Avant-Garde scene.
But even so, things did not end well for Eastman, "whose melancholy influenced his genius as well as his tragic destiny: suffering from various addictions, declared missing, actually homeless. During Winter of 1981-82, he got deported from his apartment by the police, who destroyed most of what he owned - including scores and recordings. He was found dead in 1990, on the streets of Buffalo, after years of vagrancy."

That background story makes these three pieces for four pianos (pieces that "are among the most powerful in contemporary music") even more painfully poignant.

The performers - Nicolas Horvath, Melaine Dalibert, Stephane Ginsburgh and Wilhelm Latchoumia hardly leave room to breathe in the almost physical opening track Evil nigg*r. Gay Guerilla is less violent but somehow seems to exude the same emotional desperation. The relentless hammering returns in Crazy nigg*r on the second CD.

All of these pieces are very long: 21, 30 and 56 minutes respectively. The length combined with the intensity of the music may be uneasy and hard to listen to, but it is fascinating in a strange way. After all, as Julius Eastman's lifetime teaches us, life can be uneasy and hard.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

Longform Editions, started in 2018 by Andrew Khedoori and Mark Gowing, is "a curational music practice created to foster and celebrate immersive listening experiences for the musically adventurous." It is not a label, but more like an online platform, "seeking out singular, extended music pieces that offer a focussed point of listening."

"Longform Editions reminds us to slow down and become intimate with the music."

New releases on the Longform Editions come in batches of four titles that may be connected in Longform Edition's use of constantly changing hieroglyphic fonts, but also may offer a quite varied palette of music, as demonstrated in these two examples of the October batch.

MATTHEW LIAM NICHOLSON - NINE MOVEMENTS
(Feat. MIGUEL ATWOOD-FERGUSON)

Matthew Liam Nicholson's Nine Movements is presented as a single 39-minute track, but in fact it can also be seen as a suite of different movements that can only be enjoyed in their intended sequence. It was 'composed to be performed and receivedin an immersive, meditative, comfortable setting, indoors or outdoors, most often horizontally."
An early version was featured in full multichannel audio for a week at a massive outdoor temple at Burning man (I would love to hear a multichannel version of this!), but the lockdowns "put a halt to our performances, but created space for the piece to be embellished and completed for release".

It's somewhat difficult to define this piece because it contains electronic as well as acoustic elements, combined with string sequences: Miguel Atwood-Ferguson is of course mentioned as a headliner because of his defining violin performance, but the atmosphere is also defined by the percussionists (space percussion, crystal bowls, tuning forks, Tibetan and Japanese singing bowls), the didgeridoo and the tenor saxophone. Ánd of course by composer Matthew Liam Nicholson procession all of this and adding his acoustic guitar, synths, and field recordings.

"Whilst dreaming I occasionally hear, and merge with, ecstatic, complex multidimensional celestial music whose origin is a total mystery to me, and is not able to be transcribed or often even quite understood upon return of the waking state."
Frustrating as this may be to the composer, Nine Movements sounds like a rather successful attempt!

This last remark should definitely not go unnoticed: "Full spatial audio masters can be made available for installation."

YVETTE JANINE JACKSON - TEST FLIGHT NO. 1

Test Flight No. 1 demonstrates a quite different side of the sonic spectrum Longform Editions covers. The electronic soundscape is "an etude for a series of compositions themed around commercial space tourism".

With 19 minutes and 44 seconds, it is a relatively short moment of weightlessness, but it is enough to simulate the experience in sonic form.
Composer and installation artist Yvette Janine Jackson "blends her experiences with her work as a theatrical sound designer and electroacoustic musician into a narrative style of composition" taking the listener on an imaginative (test) space flight.
Her work includes "radio operas" that "bring attention to historical events and social issues."

"[Test Flight No. 1] picks up where Destination Freedom left off. (Destination Freedom is a radio opera that begins in the cargo hold of a tall ship transporting Africans to the Americas and morphs into a spacecraft in search of freedom.)"

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

SNORRI HALLGRÍMSSON - LANDBROT (I+II)

One year ago, in November 2020, Snorri Hallgrímsson released the Landbrot I EP. "A very touching (mini-)album, perhaps with only one disadvantage: it is wáy too short", I concluded in the recommendation then.

Patience is now rewarded with the release of Landbrot II, a new EP with another 5 tracks (17 minutes) of subtle piano-string compositions performed by the same ensemble: Snorri Hallgrímsson (piano), Björk Óskarsdóttir (violin), Karl James Pestka (viola) and Unnur Jónsdóttir (cello).

Judged by the atmosphere of the compositions and the sound, I assume these pieces were recorded in the same sessions as Landbrot I: both sets were recorded in the same studio and mastered by the same Martyn Heyne. So when played together it's clear that Landbrot I and II are in fact one album with ten perfectly consistent compositions for piano and strings.

For those that already enjoyed Landbrot I, Landbrot II is a perfect addition. But apart from the twe EP's, both sets are now also available as one single album version. Called Landbrot, obviously. The Ep-versions are download only, the full version is also available as a vinyl release.

ISABEL PINE - TRANSIENCE

While talking about short EP releases: Isabel Pine's Transience also presents five tracks just short of 14 minutes. so maybe there's a new trend in ultra-short releases coming up?

There are more similarities between Transience and Snorri Hallgrímson's Landbrot EP's: especially in the atmosphere that perfectly seems to help you keep warm in the cold winter season.

I'm afraid that I cannot tell anything more about the background of Isabel Pine than what can be found on her Bandcamp page: that this is her first EP-release, only preceded by a single track called In Whispers. Spotify adds that she comes from Chicago, and that she is classically trained (although she seemed to have dropped out of music school). Her classical training can be easily heard in the way she plays the viola, cello, and violin, along with found sounds (from British Columbia) and electronics.
I can simply add that her music on Transience is worth checking out, definitely. Even if it is so short that it'll probably leave you longing for more.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

CHAS SMITH - THREE

In the spirit of Harry Partch, Chas Smith creates his personal musical world by creating his own instruments. With these, he creates "a world of expansive musical tapestries, carefully woven textures, that evolve via slow, constant processes of change."
His music and his instruments have featured in many film scores and on recordings by artists such as Harold Budd, Rick Cox, and others.

Other than you may think, Three is not his third album. In fact this is already his ninth for the Cold Blue Music label alone. Three refers to the number of tracks on this album: three tracks each around fifteen minutes in length, carefully taking time to evolve and display the broad scope of possibilities of the instruments Smith uses.

From the list of instruments, you'll probably only recognize the steel guitar and the bass steel guitar. The other instrument names are a fascinating list in itself: JrBlue, Guitarzilla, Pez Eater, Bertoia, Lockheed, Que Lastas, Copper Box, Replicant, Lockheed, Sceptre, Parabaloid, Towers, Big Ti. You can only imagine what these may sound like - an accompanying video demonstrating the instruments would definitely be appreciated.

However: you won't learn about the sound of these individual instruments by listening to this album. Together, they are mixed into immersive and evocative drones and soundscapes in such a way that it's no longer necessary to know hów these soundscapes are created: it's best to simply surrender to it.

CLARICE JENSEN - IDENTIFYING FEATURES

Following up the music she wrote for the score of Ainu Mosir, this is Clarice Jensen's contribution to the Mexican feature film Identifying Features (Sin Señas Particulares). Like on Ainu Mosir, Jensen's contribution is too short to call it an album: the four tracks only take 19 minutes to complete. But they come with so much emotional intensity that these 18 minutes are enough: there's no need to say more than this.

Identifying Features is a movie about the subject of immigration across the Mexican/U.S. border, and "on the many hundreds of immigrants who go missing or die on their journeys." No light-hearted subject, and fittingly Clarice Jensen's contributions "are laced with a visceral, heavily psychedelic sense of darkness".

After her previous albums For This From That Will Be Filled and The Experience Of Repetition As Death, these two EP's will definitely confirm her status as a soundtrack composer.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, the ever-enigmatic Akira Rabelais presents two projects at the same time. Both were intended to be released in physical (vinyl) form but were canceled due to the current difficulties (and costs) of releasing vinyl, especially in multiple disc sets like these.
Akira Rabelais decided to publish them in digital form "before anything bad can happen".

Be sure to read to the end for a chance of a free download of one of these titles!

AKIRA RABELAIS - 図書館 (TOSHOKAN - LIBRARY)

Akira Rabelais' work always requires an active approach from the listener, like a puzzle that must be solved. Not only when approaching his music, or reading his liner notes, or visiting his website, but even more with his software Argeiphones Lyre - the tool he uses to create his music which is free to download but takes a lot of perseverance to comprehend.

The album and track titles are presented in Japanese language without explanation.
図書館 , or Toshokan, translates to "Library".
Google Translate also helps with the track titles: I'll include them here so you don't have to check them out yourself:

1. 幽霊が正しい言葉かどうかはわかりませんが、それは間違いなくこの世界のものではありません
   I'm not sure if ghost is the right word, but it's definitely not of this world!
2. 暖かく満足のいく記憶の中で失われました
   Lost in a warm and satisfying memory.
3. 時間は拡大し、次に縮小し、すべて心臓のかき混ぜと調和します
   Time expands, then contracts, all in harmony with the heart's stirring
4. 胸郭の後ろで黙って 私の暖かい心は私の意志とは無関係に伸縮します-何度も何度も
   Silently behind my rib cage, my warm heart expands and contracts independently of my will - over and over again.

There's an extensive background story to this album, based on a chapter from Murakami's Kafka On The Shore: a story about a young boy's experience of a ghost in his bedroom, an appearance of a beautiful young girl. No fear or horror is involved, no fearful suspense - only awe and deep fascination for the beauty and mystery of her appearance.
"As the sky begins to lighten I finally sleep a bit. When I wake up, my pillow's cold and damp with tears. But tears for what? I have no idea."

The music, spread out of the aforementioned four tracks each around 20 minutes in length (it was obviously intended as a double vinyl release originally) perfectly matches the atmosphere described in this story. Fleeting piano sounds, moving through misty atmospheres, present yet elusive. Unintelligible whispers from somewhere beyond. Mysterious yet comforting, never haunting, but at the same time also something we will fail to understand completely.
Music that you can easily play on repeat, again, even after listening to the full 80 minutes.

Toshokan has been a long time in making: I'm proud to have had the privilege of including a preview of this music in the DreamScenes edition of October 2020 - exactly one year ago already.
But that will probably not be the reason it may sound familiar to you. If it sounds familiar that must be because this music seems distilled from a collective subconsciousness.
It may have always been around but only now made audible through the mysterious processes of the Argeïphontes Lyre.

AKIRA RABELAIS - À LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU

While released simultaneously with 図書館, À La Recherche Du Temps Perdu is quite a different beast - 'beast' literally ánd metaphorically speaking. With a playing time of almost FIVE hours, spread over 12 tracks each around 20 minutes, and one Addenda of 57 minutes (the latter only available in the Bandcamp download), a physical release would have presented SIX vinyl albums (and one additional CD).

(Edit Dec. 02: Akira Rabelais informed me that the Recherche... album is now available as a 4-CD release also. You can find it here at Boomkat!)

"Ha, yes! the Proust books are long ... and my feeling was that music from that tijdgeest (Zeitgeist) needs to be long as well"

But this is only referring to the quantity of course. The music itself is quite a surprise too.

À La Recherche Du Temps Perdu (translated as In Search Of Lost Time, or Remembrance Of Things Past) directly refers to the seven volumes of Marcel Proust's "recollections of childhood and experiences into adulthood in the late 19th-century and early 20th-centuryhigh-societyFrance, while reflecting on the loss of time and lack of meaning in the world".
Each of the album titles directly refers to the titles of the different volumes of Proust's book.

"My aim with this album is to capture a little of thatFaubourg Saint-Germain zeitgeist... what music did Proust have in his collection, what pieces did he see performed in Paris and in Venice ... what was the hot sh*t coming out of Wien?"

Rabelais interprets the 'remembrance of things past' quite literally by using old recordings from the same era Proust's novel was published (1913-1927). You'll find music from many composers: Bartók, Bellini, Berg, Brahms, Caccini, Chausson, Chopin, Debussy, Delibes, Donizetti, Franck, Hahn, Jungmann, Lully, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Satie, Schoenberg, Schubert, Schumann, Scriabin, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Wagner, and Weber (and Beethoven on the Addenda).
Many of these compositions were composed in the same period the books were written. Music from that period was often received with mixed feelings (to say the least): they were 'met with hisses and catcalls' or turned into a downright scandal, including fighting members of the audience.

Imagine yourself finding a large box full of old 78rpm shellac recordings in the attic of your grandparents and start listening to them. You'll hear familiar classical music themes, including the scratches, clicks, pops, hiss, and all the other artifacts of old physical media. The lo-fi recording quality of the past immediately forces you into your own 'search of lost times' - times you can't even 'remember' because you weren't born yet. Listening to the music now, one hundred years later, it's hard to imagine the scandals and unrest they caused.

But. You aren't listening to a box of shellac recordings from your (great-)grandparents. You downloaded a massive set of supposedly new Akira Rabelais' music. You probably did not expect to be exposed to old-school operatic cantatas and other classical compositions, some of which sound familiar but most do not (depending on your level of knowledge of classical music). Where's the Rabelais in all this?

At some parts, this is easy to hear. Some treatments of the sound directly resemble the way he treated the found tapes on his landmark album Spellewauerynsherde. Most of the time, subtle manipulations of the recordings are added - echo, reverb, and other inexplicable things that the Argeïphontes Lyre software can do - but always without altering the 'soul and heart' of the compositions involved.
At other times, the original recordings seem to be left untouched.
Only if you're familiar with the originals you'll notice that Akira Rabelais has "taken many liberties with the music, especially in reimagining the chamber works".
Rabelais claims he has worked on this project for more than 10 years!

The overall effect is not unlike the The Caretaker's way of re-creating retro dancehall music into a hallucinatory atmosphere. But here, the result is never as radically distorted as those deconstructions were: Rabelais always stays closer to the original recordings and thus to its original atmosphere. Still, he adds a new dimension to the originals, not unlike a enhancing 2D image to 3D.

I must admit it took me some time to get accustomed to this project, simply because it was radically different from what I expected. I can't say what exactly I expected; after all, the ONE thing you can expect whenever Akira Rabelais is involved is Radical Confusion. But I certainly did not expect to open a box of old classical recordings.
But with 5 hours of playing time, there's enough time to adjust oneself, to adjust ones expectations, and to be amazed by the subtle sonic enhancements of the original recordings.

And, undeniably: the music definitely brought back (previously non-existing) remembrances of lost times.

(Editor's note: I usually aim Ambientblog recommendations to be short enough to raise your interest, thus avoiding long analytical reviews. But I guess whenever Proust is involved, things tend to get longer than usual. Cannot explain why, really.)

FREE DOWNLOAD CODES!?!?!

Akira Rabelais kindly contributed five download codes for each of these two releases that I can share with the readers of this blog. If you want to participate in the draw, simply leave a comment below mentioning which of the two titles you're most interested in.
(You can't have both, of course, sources are limited).

Winners will be drawn randomly exactly two weeks after publication.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

JACOB COOPER & STEVEN BRADSHAW - SUNRISE

Online collaborating - sending music fragments back and forth and thus gradually work on the final result - already was a way of creating music quite common with 'electronic' musicians living far apart. The COVID-19 lockdown obviously triggered a lot of these online collaborations - which were often also thematically related to the worldwide crisis. But few - if not none - of them are as surprising as Jacob Cooper & Steven Bradshaw's Sunrise.

To understand its background, it's good to know that Cooper (sounds) and Bradshaw (voice) found their inspiration in a song that was written by Eugene Lockhart and Ernest Seitz during the 1918 pandemic. Shortly after World War I and in the middle of a serious pandemic, The World Is Waiting For The Sunrise gave hope to people in difficult times.
The song was later covered many times, by people like Benny Goodman and Les Paul and Mary Ford (who had a big hit with it: check this YouTube version to be impressed by Les Paul's incredible guitar playing).

Dear one the world is waiting for the sunrise
Ev'ry rose is heavy with dew
The thrush on high, his sleepy mate is calling
and my heart is calling you

But none of these upbeat and uplifting song versions resemble the way Cooper and Bradshaw treated the base material. You wouldn't probably have recognized the original at all if you didn't know. And I guess you probably won't hear or see this version on prime-time radio/tv either (Except in DreamScenes, of course, can't resist mentioning that).

The 32-minute piece Sunrise is actually divided into three different parts. It opens with a gentle yet somewhat unsettling vocal soundscape of fragmented words from the original lyrics. This slowly gets more intense when low-pitched harmonics are introduced together with a somewhat ritualistic rhythm.

Then, around the 10-minute mark, the style suddenly changes. The abstract vocal samples turn into voice loops that sounds like a more conventional 'song'. The samples are looped and stacked together into an impressive choral piece demonstrating Bradshaw's vocal capabilities in full.
Its prettiness, however, is deceiving: the 'stacking' of the loops relentlessly continues, building a sonic web from which escape is impossible. Ultimately, it climaxes into harsh waves of noise - which last quite a bit longer than is comfortable (just like the pandemic itself did, by the way).
If you set the volume louder in the beginning to hear all subtle details, there is a chance that you (or your neighbors) may begin to regret that at this point!

But there's still the third and closing part to come. It offers the opportunity to regain yourself. The piece calms down again with a bright and hopeful piano theme - and floating (yet dissonant) vocals. Some of the distorted noise keeps intruding at intervals as if to remind us that danger still lurks around the corner. When the music falls silent, a few birds can still be heard - so all of this ends with of positive note (as did the original song). Nature will prevail. Probably.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

OTORONGO - SPELLS

It was the unusual atmosphere on Spells that immediately caught my attention. A strange mix of Krautrock-ish atmosphere in the opening track Gntlr, ethnic-sounding 'medicine music', coupled with vocal samples and electronics. Well-balanced, organic music.

Exploring the 12 relatively short tracks on the (41-minute) somehow felt like a sonic journey in a non-existent (but very appealing) exotic place. All tracks, however different they are, stay close to the album's 'organic ambient feel'.

Otorongo (Paul Gaeta, flutist and electronic musician from Asheville, North Carolina) merges so many different genres that he creates a new genre for himself.
His artistic philosophy "combines his love of martial arts and plant medicine with a close connection to his natural surroundings: The Blue Ridge Mountains". The technical aspect of synthesis and production is of secondary importance.

Spells is self-released; available as a digital download as well as on white vinyl.

OLENC - PARTICLES

Particles is the debut release of Slovenian artist Matevž Kolenc, known (or perhaps not much known, though some may know his name from his connection to Laibach) as Olenc.
With the help of Ema Kobal playing cello, Kolenc focuses on "decomposition and the granulation of singular strings of cello, conceptually constructed all tracks by zooming into the musical/sound matter."

The result is fascinating cyborg-like music, in the sense that it sounds organic and non-humanoid at the same time. The title track is the most 'granulated' of this small collection, the preceding tracks have the quality of a movie score.
This is no surprise knowing that these tracks were created for a VR-Project ('Dust, Michael Saup) and theatre performances ('Demian', Jana Menger; 'Blackholes', Bara Kolenc), which explains why they feel so very 'visual'. I myself felt some associations with a movie like Blade Runner, though more in the atmosphere than in the musical style.

With so much quality in only 24 minutes of playing time, Particles feels too short and leaves longing for more. There is small compensation for that short playing time in the separate release of the single (2'55") track Particles 2 - but I don't doubt that there will be much more to come in the (near?) future. Let's hope so.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

Empower and Enhance

Tracklist:

• 00:00 DreamScenes – Intro (Susanna)
• 00:35 Saba Alizadeh - I May Never See You Again
  I May Never See You Again, 2021, 30M Records
• 03:57 Michel Banabila - Descending The Mountain
  Descending The Mountain, 2021, Global Inside
• 06:14 Soundwalk Collective with Charlotte Gainsbourg - Empower and Enhance (ft. Lyra Pramuk)
  Lovotic, 2021, Analogue Foundation
• 10:36 Andrew Heath - Pause
  New Eden, 2021, self-released
• 13: 53 Michel Banabila - Little Boy
  Descending The Mountain, 2021, Global Inside
• 15:37 Cliff Martinez - Ambient 2
  Myndstream Collection Volume 1, 2021, Myndstream
• 20:27 The Lovecraft Sextet - De Mysteriis (Vocalis)
  In Memoriam, 2021, Denovali
• 25:57 Lina Filipovich - Resurrection
  Magnificat, 2021, Time Released Sound
• 30:00 Distant Fires Burning - Book Of Rebellion (edit)
  Inperspectyon vol. 1, 2021, Audiobulb
• 36:56 Shackleton - Shimmer Then Fade
  Departing Like Rivers, 2021, Septic
• 41:40 Jakob Schauer - It's My Horse
  In Death I Am Caressing You, 2021, Forwind
• 44:23 Billie Eilish - Not My Responsibility
  Happier Than Ever, 2021, Darkroom/Interscope
• 47:45 Skrika - Seventh Extinction
  Fifth Nature, 2021, Cryo Chamber
• 57:58 Akira Kosemura - Reverie
  88 Keys, 2021, Schole Records
• 59:00 DreamScenes - Outro (Dean Hurley)

Play this edition on-demand from theConcertzender website.

OR:

DreamSceneseditions are alsoavailable as a podcast!

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

DICTAPHONE - GOATS & DISTORTIONS 5

I don't know when music is called 'dark jazz' but what I do know is that I almost always like music that is labeled as such. In the case of (Belgian-German) band Dictaphone, I can understand the 'jazz' aspect because of the extensive use of clarinet/saxophone in a (seemingly) improvisational context. But is this 'dark'? I don't experience it that way myself - I'd rather call it 'unconventional'- but maybe that tells more about me than about the music. Darkness, after all, is in the eye or ear of the beholder.

Goats & Distortions 5 is Dictaphone's fifth album, diving deeper into what they call their 'morbid instruments' concept. Before I raise the same question again (when is an instrument called 'morbid'?), the answer is already given: these recordings started with the samples from "an old tape machine, which Doerell found in a hidden room in his house in Berlin, [on which] ghostly sounds could be heard".
The machine died soon after being sampled.

These ghostly remains can be heard all over the album, in compositions Oliver Doerell created together with Roger Döring (saxophone and bass clarinet - which he lost in the subway after recording, which is morbid too) and Alex Stolze (violins).

The result is a unique combination of sounds, a boundless approach that merges different genres, creating a whole new genre in itself. A genre for which the right name has yet to be found.

JASON SHARP - THE TURNING CENTRE OF A STILL WORLD

Jason Sharp is a saxophonist and electroacoustic composer from Montréal. The first two tracks on The Turning Centre Of A Still World immediately clarify what this combination means: the intro (called Intro) is a saxophone-centered track, perhaps simply to get in the mood, but is followed up by Unwinding Surrender, where the frenzied sax-loops are still recognizable as such but turn into a clearly electronic composition.

The saxophone may be his primary instrument, but on the whole Sharp's third solo album on the Constellation label feels like (in his own words) "a singular sonic exploration of human/machine calibration, interaction, expression and biofeedback."
The 'biofeedback' referring to the recording setup, using "saxophones, foot-controlled bass pedals, and his own pulse – patched through a heart monitor routed to variegated signal paths that trigger modular synthesizers and samplers."

As 'electronic' (as opposed to 'organic') as it may sound, the music literally has an organic heartbeat, since Sharp's heartbeat was always at the core of these compositions (sometimes clearly audible, too, as in Blossoming Rest).

This - the pulse-driven electronics combined with the saxophone riffs, even if these are hidden deep in electronic layers - results in an extra depth in the music.
A cyborg-like presence can be felt throughout.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

VARIOUS ARTISTS - SUSTAIN SERIES VOL.2

With our world facing a threatening climate crisis, I expect this to be the subject of many releases in the near future - probably including many field recordings.

While not presenting field recordings, Ambientologist's Sustain Series is concerned with sustainability in two different ways.
The proceedings of the releases our used to fund projects working on a sustainable future: Volume 1 raised over $500 for Conservation International, and the revenue of this Volume 2 will be donated to Julie's Bicycle: "a non-profit aimed at mobilising arts and culture to take action on climate change, focusing on high-impact programmes and policy change to make a meaningful impact."

The music itself is 'sustainable' in a different way: the 24 tracks (just short of two hours) are all 'recycled' material in itself, "making use of unfinished, long-lost or bespoke material". With this, the series "promotes an idea of slower consumption, and making use of existing material, while also bridging connections between like-minded musicians."
A well-thought concept supporting an important cause!

Artists include some familiar names but also quite a few lesser-known artists. To name a few of the familiar: Rinnovare, Henrik Meierkord, Logic Moon, Pepo Galán, Anthéne, Sven Laux, Halftribe, Snufmumriko and Gallery Six. Check out the Bandcamp page for the full tracklist details.

Of course, the concept (ánd its length) requires this release to be available as a digital download only: there is no physical edition.

ANUSHKA CHKHEIDZE (+ OTHERS) - GLACIER MUSIC II

Glacier Music, or Gletschermusik, is a collaboration project commissioned by the Georgian Goethe-Institut in Tblisi. It brings together different musicians who work together in creating works dedicated to and inspired by (the preservation of) glaciers. The project started in 2013, but the first album was released in 2016.
Since then, the situation has only become more urgent than it already was.

This second release of the project is the result of a shared trip to "the icy Greater Caucasus mountains of Georgia" bringing together artists from Armenia, Georgia, and Germany.
Robert Lippok (Berlin, known from To Rococo Rot and from his solo work) may be the most familiar name here. The other contributors are Eto Gelashvili, a singer-songwriter from Tbilisi, well-versed in the polyphony and harmonies of Georgian folk music, Hayk Karoyi Karapetyan, a multi-instrumentalist from Armenia, visual artist Lillevan, and Anuschka Chkheidze, up and rising electronic music producer from Georgia.
Each of them brings his/her different background, and the result is a unique blend of contemporary experimental and traditional music.

The musicians present their work in a different combination on each track. Anuschka Chkheidze contributes her bright and inventive piano playing to all but two of the ten tracks; so Glacier Music II could have been easily credited to Anuschka Chkheidze and Guests.

The project download comes with an extensive 72-page book "with images and texts from
the artists, reflecting on the process of making, the meaning of the environmental message of the project, collaboration, and the shared experience of travel and performance."

This is a PDF download on Bandcamp, since only a digital download is offered there. Physical media can be ordered directly from the Establishment Records label: check their site after the release date (August 20)

VARIOUS ARTISTS - SALT AND GRAVITY SERIES

The Lost Tribe Sound label has started a new subscription series called Salt And Gravity Series. This series will include new full-length releases from Tony Dupé,Alder & Ash,'t Geruis,Federico Mosconi,Arrowounds,Sanr,Alapastel, andmastroKristo, which will be released over the next 6 months approximately.
The label describes this series as "by far our most classical / ambient / drone adjacent collection yet."

The Salt And Gravity title comes from a novel by Brian Catling: "The Vorrh":
“One solitary tear crept through the scars of his face, through the diagrams of constellations and the incised maps of influence and dominion. A liquid without a name, it being made of so many emotions and conflicts, each cancelling the other out until only salt and gravity filled the moment and moved down through his expression.”

At this moment, Alapastel's Ceremony, and Tony Dupe's Margaret Hammett Lived have been released. Arrowounds The Rise An Fall Of The Melting World will follow on August 27.

Subscribing to the series means that you will receive all of the releases at a reduced price. But the good news is that non-subscribers can still buy the releases: they only pay more per item - ánd of course, accept the risk that the physical edition will run out because of the subscribers' priority.

The introduction to this series, with one track from every featured artist, can be downloaded as a pay-what-you-like download from Bandcamp.

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

JOHN LUTHER ADAMS - ARCTIC DREAMS

The works of John Luther Adams are often closely connected to landscapes and the places he lives or has lived. Examples are The Become Trilogy (Become River, Become Ocean, Become Desert), and Lines Made By Walking. Arctic Dreams is no exception: Adams lived in Alaska for many years before he moved to rural New Mexico some six years ago.

Arctic Dreams is scored for four string players (violin, viola, cello, bass), four singers (Synergy Vocals: 2 sopranos, alto, bass) "enhanced with three layers of digital delay that create 32-part canonic textures - with delay times ranging from 1.125 to 32 seconds".
The string sounds, Adams writes, "are all produced by natural harmonics, or open strings." Only the C string of the cello is tuned at its usual pitch; all other strings are extensively retuned.
"The sung text is a series of 'Arctic Litanies,' composed of the names of Arctic places, plants, birds, weather, and seasons, in the languages of the Iñupiat and Gwich’in peoples of Alaska."
This does not mean these texts are intelligible: the syllables are stretched into unrecognizable words.

The dreamlike effect of this is felt specifically in the earlier parts of the seven sections. But things do not remain as peaceful as they seem. Closer to the end, somewhat worrisome unrest, or even turmoil, is introduced, climaxing in One That Stays All Winter. Not everything in the Arctic is dreamlike, obviously.

Arctic Dreams is dedicated to Adam's friend Barry Lopez, author of the award-winning book with the same title. In this book, he explores "the many-faceted wonders of the Far North."
The book is described as "a timeless meditation on the ability of the landscape to shape our dreams and to haunt our imaginations".
Which is also applicable to Adams' musical interpretation.

PHILIP BLACKBURN - JUSTINIAN INTONATIONS

The 50-minute title track on Justinian Intonations is preceded by a short 5-minute track called Out Beyond: A Call For Non-Judgment. It is an invocation to prepare the listener for what is coming later. Out Beyond is written for conch shell chorus and voice, an old Persian text written by Jalāl ad-Dīn Mohammad Rūmī (1207-1273), sung by Ryland Angel.

"Out beyond ideas of / right-doing and wrong-doing,/ there is a field. I'll meet you there. [...] People are going back and forth / across the doorsill / where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep."

Entering (almost literally) Justinian Intonations is almost like entering an entirely different world or dimension. And, in a way, it literally is: the origin of these recordings are found in the 5th and 6th century Theodosius and Basilica cisterns in Istanbul.
"Two enormous tanks made from marble and granitewith giant columns supporting arched roofs. Built to filter and store water from nearby aqueducts, they even included subaquatic carvings and statues of Medusa arguably never meant for human eyes. Water, when you need it, is truly sacred."

When Philip Blackburn recorded and analyzed acoustic test tones in the cistern and experienced the immersive reverb - "wave after wave; underground music suitable for any float tank experience" - it inspired him to create this electro-acoustic composition. For this work he stretches the existing reverb even further, mixing Ryland Angel's voice deep into the stretched layers of vocal chords and electronics.

The piece is named after the Byzantine emperor, Justinian I, who recovered from the first plague pandemic in 542 (which was then named after him), and who enlarged the (already existing) cisterns to make sure there would be enough supplies of healing water. This history directly links Justinian Intonations to the actuality of our own time. It's the moment "the two worlds touch".

"Don't go back to sleep."

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---

"Nocturnal Sunrise"

Dear penpal...
My computer is broken
I'm sorry it's taken me so long to write, but as you can see, I'm not very good at this.
And sometimes I have to backspace over words and type 'X's through them because I don't have any whiteout.
I hope I get my MAC back soon. Until then, you probably won't hear from me too often.
Love...

Tracklist:

• 00:00 DreamScenes – Intro (Susanna)
• 00:34 Pamela Z - Typewriter
• A Secret Code, 2021, Neuma Records
• 02:17 Waclaw Zimpel - Fen
  Wind Layers, 2021, 7K!
• 06:53 Masayoshi Fujita - Cumulonimbus Dream
  Bird Ambience, 2021, Erased Tapes
• 10:57 Sam Gendel & Josiah Steinbrick - Mouthfeel 01
  Mouthfeel / Serene, 2021, Full Bloom
• 12:15 Jason van Wyk - Light Burns Out
  Threads, 2021, n5MD
• 15:50 Loscil - Lux
  Clara, 2021, Kranky
• 20:35 Murcof - Surface Wear
• 23:06 Murcof - Nocturnal Sunrise (extended drone)
• 24:04 Murcof - Dropped Soul
  The Alias Sessions, 2021, Leaf
• 25:07 Pamela Z - Syrinx
  A Secret Code, 2021, Neuma Records
• 29:39 Sonic Attack - Chromium
  Elements, 2021, self-released
• 30:56 Lexicon Of Sound - Saint Agatha's Bells
  Hypnagogia, 2021, Lighthouse Record
• 35:18 Seefeel - Meol
  Rupt And Flex (1994-96), 2021, Warp
• 38:37 Paul Haslinger - Schubert IX Coda
  Exit Ghost II, 2021, Artificial Instinct
• 40:48 Broken Thoughts - Vaguely Remembered
  Hearing Ghosts, 2021, Merrie Records
• 42:53 Jon Hassell, Rick Cox, Luke Schwartz - The Nothing Of Roselight (Edit)
  The Nothing Of Roselight, 2021, self-released
• 46:35 Kajsa Lindgren - Abundance
  Momentary Harmony, 2021, Recital
• 50:57 Soccer Committee - Hazy
  Tell From The Grass, 2021, Morc Records
• 52:43 Erik Wøllo - Viewpoint
  North Star, 2021, Projekt
• 59:00 DreamScenes - Outro (Dean Hurley)

Play this edition on-demand from theConcertzender website.

OR:

DreamSceneseditions are alsoavailable as a podcast!

--- originally published on Ambientblog ---