Rafael Anton Irisarri - The Unintentional Sea - "Partly inspired by the true story of the Salton Sea, a failed river redirection to assist Californian agricultural development at the turn of the 20th century, Rafael Anton Irisarri’s “The Unintentional Sea” mimics the ideas of transformation of place.
During the 1950s, this ecological disaster was seized and rebranded by corporate land developers, flipping it into a dream getaway destination for West Coast elites. Before long, record temperatures and a rising level of water mineralization led to the mass death of fish and other wildlife, and in turn so too did the resort town's population, leaving behind a vast post-human deserted wasteland. This unintentional sea had given life and now has taken it away.
The follow-up to the much acclaimed “The North Bend,” this album continues Irisarri’s development of landscape inspired musical renderings. Like the Salton Sea of today his latest edition is a gently churning portrait of fluidity. It’s a record that sounds like staring at a vast ocean in light breeze. Layer upon layer of currents swirl below the surface, while gentle surges and waves coalesce creating fleeting patterns and moments of intermeshed sonics. As these elements meet and break away again, a sense of motion - both micro and macro - is created, a rendering of the ocean calm before the inevitable storm. Coated in a thick blanket of bass tonality, flickers of light catch on the crests of these waves, uneasy jewels of sonic light that appear as quickly as they disappear." Room40 - €music
Nicolas Bernier - frequencies (a / fragments) - "frequencies is an ongoing process focusing on basic sound generation systems. For this edition, frequencies (a / fragments) the system consists of a series of custom made devices in which computer-controlled solenoids activate a variety of tuning forks. The resulting sound fragments, when articulated in conjunction with synthetic sine waves, create frictions between the acoustic and electronic elements.
The tuning fork, producing a sound closest to a pure sinewave, provides a historical linkage between science (beginning as a 19th Century precision tool), tonal instrumental works, and electronic music in all of its permutations.
The frequencies (a) sound and light performance was awarded the 2013 Ars Electronica Golden Nica for Digital Music & Sound Art."
- Line
KK NULL, Israel Martinez, Lumen Lab - "These works are a collaboration between the Japanese figure of experimental electronic music, KK Null, and Mexican artists and brothers Israel and Diego Martinez. Diego is best known as Lumen lab, and both are mentors of the label Abolipop - Suplex. The process started at the end of 2012 when Kazuyuki Kishino, based in Tokyo and Israel Martinez in Berlin, started to share electronic sounds and field recordings. They tried making new pieces exploring various approaches to composition such as the recording of improvisation sessions, the capturing of the soundscape and incorporating some electroacoustic computer processes. After several exchanges, Israel invited Lumen lab to participate in the project from Zapopan, Mexico. The two had not worked together since 2002 when Israel was part of Lumen lab. Sharing this experience with an early influential musician of the 90's electronic and experimental scene provided a good moment. The process of exchanging isolated sounds and then fragments of composition continued. The three musicians worked using each others' lead. Eight months after moving back to Mexico, Israel together with Diego and Kazuyuki, finished four pieces called Incognita, now available on CD as an album. In addition, they composed work for a limited edition vinyl, Terra. It includes the first track of Incognita, which makes it especially appealing for vinyl collectors. The result of this collaboration shows the different profiles of the musicians, from the semi-rhythmic and powerful electronic dynamism of KK Null and Lumen lab to the deep drones and the convulsive field recording's treatment of Israel Martinez. Incognita and Terra Incognita are a celebration of sound as a bridge of communication between people of diverse geographies and generations, sharing respect for each other's work and their cultural context. Friendship, reflection and teamwork." Aagoo Records - Soundcloud
'Fury and Hecla' is a meeting of worlds. Named after a near mid-point between the residences of artists Fieldhead and Loscil, it explores both the familiar and the foreign. Although not a collaboration in the strictest sense, sounds were shared by each artist allowing for a sort of aural infusion between the compositions. The results are a series of fragments and quotes that appear and reappear - sometimes in ghostly form - throughout each artists tracks.
Illuha - Akari
Due out March 18, pre-order available now.
Akari is the third album from Tokyo duo Illuha. Following 2011s debut Shizuku (12k1067) and 2013s Interstices (12k2028), Akari takes the next artistic step for the band. While Shizuku was recorded in the US and completed separately by the artists, Interstices captured the duo creating their exceptionally detailed music together live during a Japaneses tour. Akari, in turn, is the first studio album where Illuha recorded and mixed together, throughout the entire process. The beautiful st-robo studio in Tokyo put a collection of amazing equipment at their fingertips, from vintage mics and outboard gear to a vast collection of instruments, both acoustic and electronic. Their writing sessions were numerous and long with details meticulously obsessed over for nearly a year. The result is the most bewildering music Illuha have created to date. An album swimming with the most delicately tactile sounds and instrumentation that draws the listener in with hushed, motionless attention.
Richard Chartier & Yann Novak - Undefined - "Undefined is the first collaboration between artists Richard Chartier and Yann Novak. For this piece the artists chose to collaborate in a way that was less about concept and more about the act of listening. The piece began with Chartier creating an unfinished work and sending it to Novak with no explanation, just the instructions to add to it, subtract from it, or a combination in order to finish the piece. Novak was then to send the recording back to Chartier for a simple approval or rejection.
Undefined is dedicated to the uncertainties of Los Angeles where Novak has lived for the past 4 years and Chartier is currently relocating." Farmacia901
- "48 cameras are known as an international project of variable geometry.f or now the collective includes 9 members coming from various countries, cultures & disciplines. some of them never met, and line-ups vary according to the projects requirements. so, for this special issue, 4 of them took part in the recordings". Siren Wire More 48 Cameras @ Emusers
I Think You're Awesome is: Kasper Staub - juno and wurlitzer Morten Kærup Hjort - guitar (left side) Alex Jønsson - guitar (right side) Andreas Skamby - drums Jens Mikkel - bass, composer.
With guests: Maria Isabel Edlund, cello Scott Westh - trumpet Jens Bang - trombone - Recorded live in Aarhus April 30th 2013 by Anders Ørbæk https://www.facebook.com/ithinkyouareawesome
- "Absolutely fascinating music from this quintet out of Denmark, who mix Nordic jazz, folk, pop, avant-garde, and, apparently, anything else that seems right at the time. Instruments like juno synths, Wurlitzer and banjo fit seamlessly with guitar, bass, drums, trumpet and trombone. Music drifts peaceably, and it moves with a spry motion, and it twitters with excitement, driving forward with a determined gait. Hard to really compare it with anything. Led by bassist Jens Mikkel, and includes keyboardist Kasper Staub, who has been putting out some solid music lately. Just too cool, and mesmerizing as hell. Find of the Week." - Dave Sumner @ Wondering Sound - Emusic Jazzpick 03.19.14
- "Everyone knows what it means to be absent, or the unpleasant and almost humiliating feeling it
can be to be around absent minded people. Paradoxically, absence usually springs from a total
presence. So when you're 100% absorbed in one thing then you tend to forget everything else
around you. This is the zone I enter when I work alone with my music "
- Rumpistol
Rumpistol - Away . . . ."Like most electronic musicians and composers Rumpistol has always worked alone, so the isolation is a basic condition requiring a certain personality, which some might perceive as introverted or even nerdy.
Rumpistol's great devotion to analogue sounds shows a passion which some might find kooky too. A passion for deliberately squashed cassette tapes, reel-to-reels, crackling vinyl and vintage synthesizers from before the digital age, where sounds were designed from scratch - slowly with patience and good craftsmanship.
This analogue element mixed with Rumpistols bitter-sweet compositions and subtle use of children's voices evokes a feeling of nostalgia, where washed-out memories of childhood comes alive. Like on the first single "Asleep" which features elements of an old Danish childrens song or "Adrift" where Rumpistol samples a recording of himself as a child.
The title track (a duet between Red Baron & Katherine Mills Rymer of OOFJ) as well as the track "A Fall" brings the subject of struggling relationships to the table, while the majestic closer "Atacama" feat. John LaMonica sees absence in a much larger universal perspective, taking inspiration from Guzmans documentary Nostalgia For The Light.
With elements from juke, ambient, house, IDM & drumnbass, "Away" elegantly summarizes Rumpistol ability to produce highly elaborate and genre crossing electronic music, that still bears a human face, while integrating sonic details with microscopic precision, that can only be made possible by many hours - days - even months of strenuous work in the studio.
Its an ability that has gained love from critics & DJs alike, from BBCs legendary John Peel to French techno star Laurent Garnier and Om Unit, and has brought him to venues like Boiler Room UK and MUTEK Montreal." Rump Recordings - music
Jens Berents Christiansen aka Rumpistol - is a very enthusiastic soul. He releases exciting underground acts on his own label Rump Recordings. Moreover, under the moniker Rumpistol he has released three albums full of melodic and bubbling electronica. His eclectic yet minimalistic mix of dub, ambient, idm, juke, glitch and even 4/4 beats does not deny him also putting accessible melodies in the mix as well as orchestrating strings.
Rumpistol released his critically acclaimed debut album in 2003. The album received airplay by the late John Peel at his legendary BBC Radio 1 show, and several tracks from the album were licensed to different compilations. The follow-up Mere Rum from 2005, "Dynamo" from 2008, "Talk To You" from 2011 and "Floating" from 2012 all received great responses, and caused Rumpistol to play an extensive amount of concerts in Denmark and abroad.
Rumpistol has done remixes for acts like: Efterklang, System, I Got You On Tape, Blue Foundation & Indians among others and has performed his genre crossing music at festivals and venues all across Europe, North America, Mexico, China and Russia.
He has appeared in various improvised setups and constellations with artists and orchestras such as Red Baron (DK/US), Kalaha (DK), F.S.Blumm (DE), Copenhagen Philharmonics (DK), John LaMonica (US) & Kohei Matsunaga aka NHK Koyxen (JP).
In 2008 Rumpistol was commissioned by The Danish Film Institute to create a live soundtrack for the Russian silent movie Cosmic Voyage from 1936.
In 2010 he was nominated for the Qwartz Electronic Music Award in the Discovery category for his album "Dynamo".
As a musician, Jens Berents Christiansen has a background in different bands, where he played guitar, synths, and sang, but since the year 2000, he has been concentrating on the Rumpistol project plus different commissioned work for TV, theater, film and games.
Inventions - Inventions
Nice new collaboration between Matthew Cooper of Eluvium, and Mark Smith of Explosions In The Sky.
The label says:
Across eight songs the duo explore the delicate and disturbing and virtually everything in-between with majestic abandon. Its the kind of beauty and brilliance that only masters of their craft can accomplish when all egos and expectations are cast aside in pursuit of the splendor of sound.
...so that's informative :-). There are some tracks to stream here - does sound quite nice actually. Perhaps a tad lush for my ear, but attractive.
Also worth mentioning, Intervalo by loscil, released a year ago exclusively on bandcamp, is now finally available on other download services, including emusic.
On a new label called Woodstock Sessions: - "Medeski, Martin & Wood have teamed up with Nels Cline (Wilco) to release The Woodstock Sessions (Vol. 2), a live performance/recording session hybrid captured in front of a live audience at Applehead Studios in Woodstock, New York in the summer of 2013.
Together at Applehead Studios, the quartet jumped head first into nearly two hours of improvised music spread across two sets. Theyd ricochet between ideas that run the gamut from avant noise to space funk, experimental jazz to electronic minimalism with nearly a million other musical impulses and currents spiraling from their dense web of sound. The recordings were later edited and mixed into nine separate tracks by the Applehead production/engineering team of Michael Birnbaum, Chris Bittner and Kevin Salem."
- The Waster AAJ review
Chicago Underground Duo - Locus - "Locus, the seventh album by the Chicago Underground Duo (Rob Mazurek and Chad Taylor), follows on the heels of their acclaimed 2012 Northern Spy release Age of Energy. Bits of breakbeat and Afropop are heard within the jazz, ambient and electronica elements of their unmistakable grooves. Also in the mix is a Ghanian folk tune and Ennio Morricone played on cornet, drums, mbira, ballophone, bamboo flute and Game Boy. The pairing came out of the Chicago Underground Orchestra founded by Mazurek almost 20 years ago during a series of weekly workshops at the famed Chicago nightclub Green Mill Cocktail Lounge. The Orchestra morphed into the Chicago Underground Duo, Trio and Quartet as situations demanded, and while the orchestra has counted among its members such jazz greats as Sun Ra drummer Robert Barry and the late bassist Fred Hopkins of Air, the younger wunderkind Taylor has been the only other consistent member of the Underground bands. The duo remains core to most everything the uncompromising Mazurek takes on. With Taylor (championed timekeeper behind Marc Ribots Spiritual Unity Trio and projects with Peter Brötzmann, Ken Vandermark and many others), Mazurek has crafted an ever expanding sound, based in elements of jazz, techno, film music. The nine tracks on Locus find the tireless Duo exploring, as always, new sounds and new combinations." Northern Spy Records - Bandcamp
- "Where Tortoise-style indie rock and the Windy City's gradually more youthful jazz scene intersect lie Chicago Underground Duo -- also known as Chicago Underground Orchestra and Chicago Underground Trio with various lineups. The nominal leader, cornetist and keyboard player Rob Mazurek, recorded three albums for Hep from 1994 to 1997. As Chicago's own indie rock sensation Tortoise began leaning closer and closer to the city's improvisational and free jazz forbearers, Mazurek began playing with them and appeared on the group's 1998 album, TNT. The first Chicago Underground Duo album, recorded with drummer/vibraphonist Chad Taylor in 1998, appeared on Tortoise's Thrill Jockey label. The following year, the pair expanded to a trio with the addition of bassist Noel Kupersmith and released Possible Cube, on Delmark."
- Allmusic
" Porya Hatamis latest effort is an electronic beauty that sounds quiet and comforting when one is tired and active and energizing when one is awake. The albums chameleon-like nature is an asset to multiple styles of listening. The effect is achieved through by blending two types of recording. Loops are responsible for the lulling nature of the presentation, while additional electronic sounds, some of which seems improvised (and thus unpredictable) are responsible for the energy. On the one hand, the album counters its name by being extremely stable, while on the other, it remains, as the artist writes, unstable. Its the rare album that splays repetition without being repetitive " -- Richard Allen
Not new to the world, but new at emusic for $2.45.
Adding to Gp's post, (out on music yesterday): Erased Tapes is pleased to announce the release of A Winged Victory for the Sullen's 'ATOMOS VII'. April 28 sees the first installment leading up to the release of the second full length studio album 'ATOMOS', and score for choreographer Wayne McGregor's long form dance piece.
McGregor was heavily influenced by the duo's 2011 self-titled debut, playing it repeatedly during practices with his core group of dancers. After noticing the group's reaction with the music, he contacted Adam & Dustin to see if they could write the score for his new oeuvre.
The duo recorded more than sixty minutes of music over a four month period during the summer of 2013 in Brussels, Berlin and Reykjavik with the help of their longtime collaborative sound engineer Francesco Donadello. This EP also sees the involvement of Ben Frost, who composed the music for McGregor's previous work 'Far'.
McGregor, mastermind behind the Random Dance Company and resident choreographer at the Royal Ballet since 2006, is known in popular culture circles for serving as movement director for the film 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'. He has also choreographed the Radiohead video 'Lotus Flower' and 'Ingenue' by Atoms for Peace.
"While we were re-amping guitars at Greenhouse studios, Ben expressed interest and admiration in the sounds we had created. We were planning for the B-side to be a metamorphosis of part VII, and Ben seemed the obvious choice. With the multi-tracks transformed, it follows a trajectory that we had not felt comfortable with before. But with Ben's involvement and influence, it was a painless entrance to this crooked, distorted world." - Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie
"We never imagined 2013 would be such an explosively creative year. The first record took us 2 years from start to finish, but in the micro span of time over last summer we were able to change the formula for the way we write, record, and let go. It was incredibly liberating." - Dustin O'Halloran" Erased Tapes - Soundcloud
The AWVFTS release is out on emusic US as well. I will probably end up getting it, but I do object to $6.99 for a 25 minute EP billed as a taster for the full-length album to come.
ETA, ah, $3.87 at 7digital, that's more promising.
ETA2 it seems Google Play is the place to go. $2.97. Or another 40c off that if I get the two short tracks at emusic. I can live with $2.57.
(In case anyone but me is interested, Porya Hatami's EP The Waning Branches is also $0.99 on Google Play - $6.49 on emusic. Evenings's savings for checking Google Play: $9.92)
WOW ! - News from the excellent Austrian Mosz label: THE TWENTIETH CENTURY are Pieter Gabriel: Gitarre & FX and Lukas Lauermann: Cello & FX.
Lukas Lauermann is among others playing with A Life, A Song, A Cigarette, Soap&Skin, Alp Bora Quartett.
Pieter Gabriel is doing a solo project under the moniker Sleep Sleep.
- The Twentieth Century are an experimental duo from Vienna whose music is a cocktail of ambient, sound collage and electro-acoustic improvisation. Cellist Lukas Lauermann and guitarist Pieter Gabriel create and manipulate their sets live from beginning to end - without hiding behind laptops or anonymous canned sounds. Each of their real-time ambient live sessions, created using analogue instruments and an armada of effects pedals, produces a unique tonal piece which, depending on the direction it takes, can throw up references to Stars Of The Lid, Sunn O))) or ambient-godfather Brian Eno. In their more oblique moments they even reveal themselves as disciples of early tone artists like Luigi Russolo or John Cage - a kind of ad-hoc aural cinema.
For their first album Gabriel and Lauermann faced the challenge of reproducing the unique character of their live sets. Rather than going into a sterile recording studio they instead - in keeping with their experimental nature - set up an improvised pop-up studio in a Vienna auto painter
The Alvaret Ensemble - Skeylja Ingi Garðar Erlendsson (Tuba, Trombone, Thranophone) Greg Haines (Piano) Kira Kira (Voice, Electronics) Jan Kleefstra (Voice, Poems) Romke Kleefstra (Guitar) Borgar Magnason (Contrabass) Eiríkur Orri Ólafsson (Trumpet, Electronics) Sytze Pruiksma (Percussion)
--- "Skeylja" An invented word combining the Frisian word for Terschelling, "Skylge", and the Icelandic word for island, "Eyjan" ---
Skeylja is an international multimedia project, based around the ideas of improvisational music and the coming together of musicians from different countries and musical backgrounds to create a spontaneous sonic landscape. The project started when The Alvaret Ensemble (Greg Haines, Jan & Romke Kleefstra, and Sytze Pruiksma), who you may know from their eponymous debut on Denovali in 2012, travelled to Iceland to try to find a shared music language with the Icelandic musicians Ingi Garðar Erlendsson, Kira Kira, Borgar Magnason and Eiríkur Orri Ólafsson . They were joined by the 33 1/3 Collective, a group of visual artists from the Netherlands, who began to collect footage that would later be used as source material for the visual side of the performance.
Some months later, after a successful week of traveling to beautiful locations and playing music together, the group met again, this time during the Oerol festival on the island of Terschelling in the Netherlands, for a series of nine sold-out shows in an old church, all of which were being recorded. Each artist "curated" a rough plan for one evening, which could be anything from hand-drawn images to be interpreted musically to more precise plans of structures and combinations of musicians to be explored. Never were the notes, or the content of the music itself, discussed - this was instead left up to chance and developed through listening intently to each-other, trying to create an atmosphere where each player was vital, but where everyone always worked towards the whole.
After ten intense days on the island, all that was left were the memories of the audience and, luckily, a hard-drive with over ten hours of recorded music. After everyone had had a chance to listen back to rough mixes of each night and make comments, the material was taken to Greg Haines' Electricity Works studio in Berlin, where the long process of selecting, editing and mixing began. Finally, almost two years after that first initial meeting in Reykjavik, the album is complete and ready to be released into the world. We hope you enjoy it." - Denovali Records - Soundcloud
News from the Serein Label from Wales, UK (Nest, Brambles, Colorlist etc): Imprints - Data Trails Written and produced by Shaun Crook, Darren Clark and Alex Delfont
Tom Rosenfeld - Double Bass (Longshore Drift)
James Fox - Drums (The Sea & Electricity)
- "Imprints are a technical nightmare of tape machines, synthesizers, homemade pedals, mixing desks and Max/MSP patches; a band perpetually on the brink of collapse. Their music examines the uneasy relationship between dissonance and melody, the contrast between dense masses and harmonious space. Contorted textures and tape-saturated atmospheres merge with pedal-steel-guitar, generative feedback and live sampling to produce a sound that is both organic and electric.
The bulk of Data Trails was recorded over three days in a small space in rural Devon. Imagine the scene: a medium-sized room filled to the brim with music equipment. Tape machines, synthesizers, pedal steel guitar, laptops (three of them), effects pedals, home-made distortion units and arpeggiators; and these, Im told, are just the essentials.
For a period of two years following those three days of recording, the raw takes were edited and refined. New sections were recorded and overdubbed. Sometimes the band worked together in person on these additions but more often than not, files were swapped over the internet and the collaboration continued remotely. This was due in part to two of the band members relocating overseas for a period of time (as far as Qatar and Thailand), the album title pays homage to this spirit of remote collaboration.
Maybe its best to think of Imprints as sculptors of sound. Youve heard about some of the instruments they use, but more often than not, individual sound sources are indistinguishable from one another. How sound is processed is as important as the sound source itself. A complicated setup of wires, individual mixing desks and real-time audio manipulation transforms signals, making tones and frequencies fuse to forge new sounds. Sounds that are warm, organic, brimming with life, fizzing with energy, only just under control.
This live, improvised aspect of Imprints music is important. It is three men battling with gear - words they use themselves to describe how they perform. Live performances are a mixture of excitement and stress - each member has an overwhelming list of duties to perform. Audio is allowed to loop and feedback into itself using the Time Lag Accumulator method, pioneered by Terry Riley. If pushed too hard, the feed becomes over-saturated, decaying into a wash of noise; it has to be reined in.
Imprints are masters of suspension, tension and release. To begin with, chaos is encouraged - distortion and feedback combine to give us what we typically refer to as noise. Noise, as in a wall of sound, sound that has a very full spectrum of frequencies and that we feel with our bodies as well as hear a sonic mass. At their most intense, these walls bring with them an almost physical tension - you feel gripped by the music to the extent that you find your breath held, waiting for that moment of release. And thats what sets Imprints apart, their ability to give us not only that mesmerising, gripping build-up, but also the sweet moment of release; for just when those walls of sound threaten to overwhelm, the ice breaks and Imprints deliver the most spine-tingling passages of music Ive heard in a long time.
There is a relaxation technique used by therapists that has you tense every muscle in your body for as long as you can bear before releasing them - the release is felt much more intensely when it follows extreme tension, and so you feel relaxed; this is the best analogy I can think of to describe listening to Data Trails. Ebb and flow, push and pull, tension and release. . . . ."
- http://serein.co.uk - 1 free track @ Soundcloud - music http://imprintsmusic.bandcamp.com/album/data-trails
- "Taking in the full breadth of guitarist Nels Clines sonic sphere of influence has always required a particularly wide lens. Zoom out from his fret board-blistering mash-ups of abrasive rock and bleeding-edge jazz to encompass his decade-long role with inventive rock superstars Wilco, then pull back further to find space for his ventures into Brazilian rhythms, electronic drones, and all manner of madcap musical fusion.
MACROSCOPE, the fifth album and Mack Avenue debut by his adventurous trio The Nels Cline Singers, provides a measure of the long-running groups staggering range. Captivating and continually surprising, the album finds the instrumental trio with the slyly deceptive name veering in one off-kilter direction only to suddenly be overwhelmed by another drastic stylistic shift, often within the space of a single tune. Serrated psychedelia becomes consumed by soulful Brasiliana, blissed-out electronica overwhelmed by garage-rock skronk. Then theres the wholly unexpected Red Before Orange, where a howling Hendrix-inspired solo suddenly erupts in the middle of a slick lounge-jazz number, Cline unleashing the inner George Benson that few of us expected he even had.
The title MACROSCOPE speaks to the idea of the mutt within, Cline says, the fact that Im not in any one genre, and never have been. I was a rock and roll kid, but after hearing Coltrane and Miles and Weather Report, then Indian music and Nigerian pop and that sort of thing, there was no turning back. From that point on, the idea of purism just was not possible.
With the Singers, Cline has assembled a vehicle that he can steer in any and all of these deviating directions. On MACROSCOPE, Cline and founding drummer Scott Amendola are joined by bassist
Trevor Dunn, replacing former bassist Devin Hoff. I think Trevor is the only guy who could have followed Devin into the band, Cline says. They both share a multiple personality aesthetic. Trevor not only is a great jazz player, but he has no fear of pop, no fear of black metal, no fear of rocking out. On his first gig with us, he destroyed like hed been playing in the band for years. I found that absolutely remarkable, and I dont think there are many people who could have fit in as seamlessly.
The trio also expands its already substantial palette with the addition of several special guests: keyboardist Yuka C. Honda, co-founder of the eccentric Japanese pop band Cibo Matto; percussionists Cyro Baptista and Josh Jones; and harpist Zeena Parkins. Cline also removes tongue from cheek to actually add his voice to the mix on two tracks, slightly undermining the irony of the bands name while drawing inspiration from Brazilian singer-songwriters on Respira and Macroscopic.
I was emboldened to use my voice from decades of listening to Baden Powell, whos not a great singer but has an amazing voice, Cline says. I think thats true of a lot of Brazilian singer-songwriters, where virtuosic singing is not the point. What were listening to is personality and composition and feeling and flavor.
Macroscopic was penned in tribute to Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. The variation on the title of the album reflects the artists similarly expansive worldview, which in Kusamas case stems from an experience early in life that could be termed a breakdown or an epiphany. I think she sees the world in its atomic, microscopic make-up, Cline says She became overwhelmed by that and it informs her work, where the macrocosm and the microcosm really are one.
The album begins with two tracks featuring the trio alonethe inviting Companion Piece and the brisk, acute-angled Canales Cabeza, a tribute to Bay Area chef and music aficionado Paul Canales. The Wedding Band begins with a warped, percussive clatter before settling into a sunny country-western lope. The dense, hypnotic Climb Down stems from a jam with Parkins in which it becomes impossible to tell one instrumentalists distorted inventions from anothers.
Cline cites such diverse influences as Weather Reports Joe Zawinul and Czech bassist Miroslav Vitous as inspirations for the epic Seven Zed Heaven, where a whorl of 70s-style fusion evanesces into an immersive, ecstatic drone. The album draws to a ferocious close with the anarchic Hairy Mother and the playfully skewed Saschas Book of Frogs, named for Amendolas son and an actual amphibian-centric tome.
In addition to the CD and download versions of MACROSCOPE, Mack Avenue will also release a vinyl version of the album in a different sequence and minus the tracks Canales Cabeza, Hairy Mother and Saschas Book of Frogs.
Throughout the album, Cline says, the intention is to arrive at a place that could be surprising or unexpected or maybe inevitable, but that is so compelling or all-consuming that were absorbed and can forget about all kinds of minutiae. I would like us to arrive at a point that has no boundaries, thats totally amorphous. Its like sunshine or mist, its everywhere and nowhere.
Excellent news from former 16 Horsepower frontman, David Eugene Edwards and his band: - "About twelve years ago David Eugene Edwards new band Wovenhand (Woven Hand in the beginning) showed its first sign of life with their self-titled debut album. His main band 16 Horsepower was still active at that time, but their three members David Eugene, as well as Pascal Humbert (bass) and Jean-Yves Tolà (drums) were slowly drifting apart. Yet in the same year they still managed to release Folklore a blistering album and their studio swansong.
Long since has the former solo-project stepped out of 16 Horsepowers long shadow. Wovenhand so far released seven albums that made the old fans happy, won new ones and progressed tremendously as a band.
Wovenhand is a band led by dedicated life-musician and lyricist, David Eugene Edwards. Over the last two decades, his prolific work in both Wovenhand and the legendary 16 Horsepower has influenced and inspired a generation of musicians throughout the expansive alternative music world.
Wovenhand cannot be described in traditional terms. Their sound is an organic, weavework of neo-folk, post rock, punk, alt. country, and alternative sounds. All coming together as a vehicle for David's soulful expression and constant spiritual self exploration. Sometimes sad and sorrowed and at other times uplifting, Wovenhand are always unforgettable in spirit and sound.
"Refractory Obdurate" is the latest album from Wovenhand. Joining David on this album are longtime percussionist Ordy Garrison, along with musicians Chuck French and Neil Keener (Planes Mistaken For Stars, Git Some).
"Refractory Obdurate" is a moving masterwork that shows Wovenhand exploring louder roots hinted at on prior albums. As they maintain their melodious course, "Good Shepherd", "Field of Hedon", and "Hiss", stomp forth with a newly amplified punk rock heart. While "The Refractory", "Salome", and "Obdurate Obscura" each ascend epically into a multi-layered haze. Ten songs in all, "Refractory Obdurate" plays as a beautifully crafted patchwork that transcends genres and expectation; a true artistic achievement, that only Wovenhand could offer."
- Glitterhouse Records
- Scott Tuma is a musician from Chicago, Illinois, United States who is best known for having played guitar in the pioneering alt-country band Souled American. Since his departure from Souled American in the late 1990s Tuma has released three solo albums, performed and recorded with Chicagos Boxhead Ensemble, and collaborated with members of the band Zelienople in a project dubbed Good Stuff House.
Tumas unique guitar work is one of the primary features responsible for Souled Americans highly distinct sound, though the band has continued playing without him seeming relatively unfazed by Tumas departure. His solo work is more in line with ambient music than folk or country, though elements of those and other styles are still present. Hard Again and The River 1 2 3 4 are expansive, gorgeous albums that feature Tuma playing most of the instruments himself - primarily guitar, harmonium, and organ (though he also plays bass, harmonica, and banjo) - though Hard Again, released on Atavistic Records in 2001, also includes guest spots from members of Dirty Three, Rachels, and Boxhead Ensemble."
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Rafael Anton Irisarri - The Unintentional Sea
- "Partly inspired by the true story of the Salton Sea, a failed river redirection to assist Californian agricultural development at the turn of the 20th century, Rafael Anton Irisarri’s “The Unintentional Sea” mimics the ideas of transformation of place.
During the 1950s, this ecological disaster was seized and rebranded by corporate land developers, flipping it into a dream getaway destination for West Coast elites. Before long, record temperatures and a rising level of water mineralization led to the mass death of fish and other wildlife, and in turn so too did the resort town's population, leaving behind a vast post-human deserted wasteland. This unintentional sea had given life and now has taken it away.
The follow-up to the much acclaimed “The North Bend,” this album continues Irisarri’s development of landscape inspired musical renderings. Like the Salton Sea of today his latest edition is a gently churning portrait of fluidity. It’s a record that sounds like staring at a vast ocean in light breeze. Layer upon layer of currents swirl below the surface, while gentle surges and waves coalesce creating fleeting patterns and moments of intermeshed sonics. As these elements meet and break away again, a sense of motion - both micro and macro - is created, a rendering of the ocean calm before the inevitable storm. Coated in a thick blanket of bass tonality, flickers of light catch on the crests of these waves, uneasy jewels of sonic light that appear as quickly as they disappear."
Room40 - €music
Nicolas Bernier - frequencies (a / fragments)
- "frequencies is an ongoing process focusing on basic sound generation systems. For this edition, frequencies (a / fragments) the system consists of a series of custom made devices in which computer-controlled solenoids activate a variety of tuning forks. The resulting sound fragments, when articulated in conjunction with synthetic sine waves, create frictions between the acoustic and electronic elements.
The tuning fork, producing a sound closest to a pure sinewave, provides a historical linkage between science (beginning as a 19th Century precision tool), tonal instrumental works, and electronic music in all of its permutations.
The frequencies (a) sound and light performance was awarded the 2013 Ars Electronica Golden Nica for Digital Music & Sound Art."
- Line
- "These works are a collaboration between the Japanese figure of experimental electronic music, KK Null, and Mexican artists and brothers Israel and Diego Martinez. Diego is best known as Lumen lab, and both are mentors of the label Abolipop - Suplex. The process started at the end of 2012 when Kazuyuki Kishino, based in Tokyo and Israel Martinez in Berlin, started to share electronic sounds and field recordings. They tried making new pieces exploring various approaches to composition such as the recording of improvisation sessions, the capturing of the soundscape and incorporating some electroacoustic computer processes. After several exchanges, Israel invited Lumen lab to participate in the project from Zapopan, Mexico. The two had not worked together since 2002 when Israel was part of Lumen lab. Sharing this experience with an early influential musician of the 90's electronic and experimental scene provided a good moment. The process of exchanging isolated sounds and then fragments of composition continued. The three musicians worked using each others' lead. Eight months after moving back to Mexico, Israel together with Diego and Kazuyuki, finished four pieces called Incognita, now available on CD as an album. In addition, they composed work for a limited edition vinyl, Terra. It includes the first track of Incognita, which makes it especially appealing for vinyl collectors. The result of this collaboration shows the different profiles of the musicians, from the semi-rhythmic and powerful electronic dynamism of KK Null and Lumen lab to the deep drones and the convulsive field recording's treatment of Israel Martinez. Incognita and Terra Incognita are a celebration of sound as a bridge of communication between people of diverse geographies and generations, sharing respect for each other's work and their cultural context. Friendship, reflection and teamwork."
Aagoo Records - Soundcloud
loscil & Fieldhead - Fury & Hecla
ETA, various bits of this on soundcloud - give this loscil track a listen. Nice.
Good Weather For An Airstrike - A Home For You
NYOP.
Illuha - Akari
Due out March 18, pre-order available now.
Richard Chartier & Yann Novak - Undefined
- "Undefined is the first collaboration between artists Richard Chartier and Yann Novak. For this piece the artists chose to collaborate in a way that was less about concept and more about the act of listening. The piece began with Chartier creating an unfinished work and sending it to Novak with no explanation, just the instructions to add to it, subtract from it, or a combination in order to finish the piece. Novak was then to send the recording back to Chartier for a simple approval or rejection.
Undefined is dedicated to the uncertainties of Los Angeles where Novak has lived for the past 4 years and Chartier is currently relocating."
Farmacia901
- "48 cameras are known as an international project of variable geometry.f or now the collective includes 9 members coming from various countries, cultures & disciplines. some of them never met, and line-ups vary according to the projects requirements. so, for this special issue, 4 of them took part in the recordings".
Siren Wire
More 48 Cameras @ Emusers
[url="http://www.emusic.com/album/i-think-youre-awesome/loft-mig-op-sa-jeg-kan-na/14855594/"][img]http://cf-images.emusic.com/music/images/album/148/555/14855594/600x600.jpg [/img][/url]
I Think You're Awesome is:
Kasper Staub - juno and wurlitzer
Morten Kærup Hjort - guitar (left side)
Alex Jønsson - guitar (right side)
Andreas Skamby - drums
Jens Mikkel - bass, composer.
With guests:
Maria Isabel Edlund, cello
Scott Westh - trumpet
Jens Bang - trombone
- Recorded live in Aarhus April 30th 2013 by Anders Ørbæk
https://www.facebook.com/ithinkyouareawesome
- "Absolutely fascinating music from this quintet out of Denmark, who mix Nordic jazz, folk, pop, avant-garde, and, apparently, anything else that seems right at the time. Instruments like juno synths, Wurlitzer and banjo fit seamlessly with guitar, bass, drums, trumpet and trombone. Music drifts peaceably, and it moves with a spry motion, and it twitters with excitement, driving forward with a determined gait. Hard to really compare it with anything. Led by bassist Jens Mikkel, and includes keyboardist Kasper Staub, who has been putting out some solid music lately. Just too cool, and mesmerizing as hell.
Find of the Week."
- Dave Sumner @ Wondering Sound - Emusic Jazzpick 03.19.14
Bird is the Worm Review - http://onlyjazzblog.com/tag/loft-mig-op-sa-jeg-kan-na/
Soundcloud (with Tak EP)
Gudenådalens Avis (newspaper)
Another new release from the ever prolific Jason Corder.
offthesky - stationaryrace
$1 at bandcamp
For drone likers.
The Longing Daylight by Lee Anthony Norris & Porya Hatami
So much good stuff coming out right now I can hardly keep up.
can be to be around absent minded people. Paradoxically, absence usually springs from a total
presence. So when you're 100% absorbed in one thing then you tend to forget everything else
around you. This is the zone I enter when I work alone with my music "
- Rumpistol
Rumpistol - Away
. . . ."Like most electronic musicians and composers Rumpistol has always worked alone, so the isolation is a basic condition requiring a certain personality, which some might perceive as introverted or even nerdy.
Rumpistol's great devotion to analogue sounds shows a passion which some might find kooky too. A passion for deliberately squashed cassette tapes, reel-to-reels, crackling vinyl and vintage synthesizers from before the digital age, where sounds were designed from scratch - slowly with patience and good craftsmanship.
This analogue element mixed with Rumpistols bitter-sweet compositions and subtle use of children's voices evokes a feeling of nostalgia, where washed-out memories of childhood comes alive. Like on the first single "Asleep" which features elements of an old Danish childrens song or "Adrift" where Rumpistol samples a recording of himself as a child.
The title track (a duet between Red Baron & Katherine Mills Rymer of OOFJ) as well as the track "A Fall" brings the subject of struggling relationships to the table, while the majestic closer "Atacama" feat. John LaMonica sees absence in a much larger universal perspective, taking inspiration from Guzmans documentary Nostalgia For The Light.
With elements from juke, ambient, house, IDM & drumnbass, "Away" elegantly summarizes Rumpistol ability to produce highly elaborate and genre crossing electronic music, that still bears a human face, while integrating sonic details with microscopic precision, that can only be made possible by many hours - days - even months of strenuous work in the studio.
Its an ability that has gained love from critics & DJs alike, from BBCs legendary John Peel to French techno star Laurent Garnier and Om Unit, and has brought him to venues like Boiler Room UK and MUTEK Montreal."
Rump Recordings - music
Jens Berents Christiansen aka Rumpistol
- is a very enthusiastic soul. He releases exciting underground acts on his own label Rump Recordings. Moreover, under the moniker Rumpistol he has released three albums full of melodic and bubbling electronica. His eclectic yet minimalistic mix of dub, ambient, idm, juke, glitch and even 4/4 beats does not deny him also putting accessible melodies in the mix as well as orchestrating strings.
Rumpistol released his critically acclaimed debut album in 2003. The album received airplay by the late John Peel at his legendary BBC Radio 1 show, and several tracks from the album were licensed to different compilations. The follow-up Mere Rum from 2005, "Dynamo" from 2008, "Talk To You" from 2011 and "Floating" from 2012 all received great responses, and caused Rumpistol to play an extensive amount of concerts in Denmark and abroad.
Rumpistol has done remixes for acts like: Efterklang, System, I Got You On Tape, Blue Foundation & Indians among others and has performed his genre crossing music at festivals and venues all across Europe, North America, Mexico, China and Russia.
He has appeared in various improvised setups and constellations with artists and orchestras such as Red Baron (DK/US), Kalaha (DK), F.S.Blumm (DE), Copenhagen Philharmonics (DK), John LaMonica (US) & Kohei Matsunaga aka NHK Koyxen (JP).
In 2008 Rumpistol was commissioned by The Danish Film Institute to create a live soundtrack for the Russian silent movie Cosmic Voyage from 1936.
In 2010 he was nominated for the Qwartz Electronic Music Award in the Discovery category for his album "Dynamo".
As a musician, Jens Berents Christiansen has a background in different bands, where he played guitar, synths, and sang, but since the year 2000, he has been concentrating on the Rumpistol project plus different commissioned work for TV, theater, film and games.
Inventions - Inventions
Nice new collaboration between Matthew Cooper of Eluvium, and Mark Smith of Explosions In The Sky.
The label says: ...so that's informative :-). There are some tracks to stream here - does sound quite nice actually. Perhaps a tad lush for my ear, but attractive.
- "Medeski, Martin & Wood have teamed up with Nels Cline (Wilco) to release The Woodstock Sessions (Vol. 2), a live performance/recording session hybrid captured in front of a live audience at Applehead Studios in Woodstock, New York in the summer of 2013.
Together at Applehead Studios, the quartet jumped head first into nearly two hours of improvised music spread across two sets. Theyd ricochet between ideas that run the gamut from avant noise to space funk, experimental jazz to electronic minimalism with nearly a million other musical impulses and currents spiraling from their dense web of sound. The recordings were later edited and mixed into nine separate tracks by the Applehead production/engineering team of Michael Birnbaum, Chris Bittner and Kevin Salem."
- The Waster
AAJ review
Medeski Martin & Wood + Nels Cline - 2014/04/07 - Lugano, Switzerland (SBD) @ Soundcloud
http://soundcloud.com/woodstock-sessions/tracks
Chicago Underground Duo - Locus
- "Locus, the seventh album by the Chicago Underground Duo (Rob Mazurek and Chad Taylor), follows on the heels of their acclaimed 2012 Northern Spy release Age of Energy. Bits of breakbeat and Afropop are heard within the jazz, ambient and electronica elements of their unmistakable grooves. Also in the mix is a Ghanian folk tune and Ennio Morricone played on cornet, drums, mbira, ballophone, bamboo flute and Game Boy. The pairing came out of the Chicago Underground Orchestra founded by Mazurek almost 20 years ago during a series of weekly workshops at the famed Chicago nightclub Green Mill Cocktail Lounge. The Orchestra morphed into the Chicago Underground Duo, Trio and Quartet as situations demanded, and while the orchestra has counted among its members such jazz greats as Sun Ra drummer Robert Barry and the late bassist Fred Hopkins of Air, the younger wunderkind Taylor has been the only other consistent member of the Underground bands. The duo remains core to most everything the uncompromising Mazurek takes on. With Taylor (championed timekeeper behind Marc Ribots Spiritual Unity Trio and projects with Peter Brötzmann, Ken Vandermark and many others), Mazurek has crafted an ever expanding sound, based in elements of jazz, techno, film music. The nine tracks on Locus find the tireless Duo exploring, as always, new sounds and new combinations."
Northern Spy Records - Bandcamp
- "Where Tortoise-style indie rock and the Windy City's gradually more youthful jazz scene intersect lie Chicago Underground Duo -- also known as Chicago Underground Orchestra and Chicago Underground Trio with various lineups. The nominal leader, cornetist and keyboard player Rob Mazurek, recorded three albums for Hep from 1994 to 1997. As Chicago's own indie rock sensation Tortoise began leaning closer and closer to the city's improvisational and free jazz forbearers, Mazurek began playing with them and appeared on the group's 1998 album, TNT. The first Chicago Underground Duo album, recorded with drummer/vibraphonist Chad Taylor in 1998, appeared on Tortoise's Thrill Jockey label. The following year, the pair expanded to a trio with the addition of bassist Noel Kupersmith and released Possible Cube, on Delmark."
- Allmusic
Andrew Liles - Monsters From The Future: Volume 2
Porya Hatami - Unstable Not new to the world, but new at emusic for $2.45.
New EP from A Winged Victory for the Sullen, due out in a couple of days. Third track also features Ben Frost.
Erased Tapes is pleased to announce the release of A Winged Victory for the Sullen's 'ATOMOS VII'. April 28 sees the first installment leading up to the release of the second full length studio album 'ATOMOS', and score for choreographer Wayne McGregor's long form dance piece.
McGregor was heavily influenced by the duo's 2011 self-titled debut, playing it repeatedly during practices with his core group of dancers. After noticing the group's reaction with the music, he contacted Adam & Dustin to see if they could write the score for his new oeuvre.
The duo recorded more than sixty minutes of music over a four month period during the summer of 2013 in Brussels, Berlin and Reykjavik with the help of their longtime collaborative sound engineer Francesco Donadello. This EP also sees the involvement of Ben Frost, who composed the music for McGregor's previous work 'Far'.
McGregor, mastermind behind the Random Dance Company and resident choreographer at the Royal Ballet since 2006, is known in popular culture circles for serving as movement director for the film 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'. He has also choreographed the Radiohead video 'Lotus Flower' and 'Ingenue' by Atoms for Peace.
"While we were re-amping guitars at Greenhouse studios, Ben expressed interest and admiration in the sounds we had created. We were planning for the B-side to be a metamorphosis of part VII, and Ben seemed the obvious choice. With the multi-tracks transformed, it follows a trajectory that we had not felt comfortable with before. But with Ben's involvement and influence, it was a painless entrance to this crooked, distorted world." - Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie
"We never imagined 2013 would be such an explosively creative year. The first record took us 2 years from start to finish, but in the micro span of time over last summer we were able to change the formula for the way we write, record, and let go. It was incredibly liberating." - Dustin O'Halloran"
Erased Tapes - Soundcloud
Zbigniew Karkowski / Brian O'Reilly - The Difficulty of Being
Monotype Records - Soundcloud
ETA, ah, $3.87 at 7digital, that's more promising.
ETA2 it seems Google Play is the place to go. $2.97. Or another 40c off that if I get the two short tracks at emusic. I can live with $2.57.
(In case anyone but me is interested, Porya Hatami's EP The Waning Branches is also $0.99 on Google Play - $6.49 on emusic. Evenings's savings for checking Google Play: $9.92)
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY are Pieter Gabriel: Gitarre & FX and Lukas Lauermann: Cello & FX.
Lukas Lauermann is among others playing with A Life, A Song, A Cigarette, Soap&Skin, Alp Bora Quartett.
Pieter Gabriel is doing a solo project under the moniker Sleep Sleep.
- The Twentieth Century are an experimental duo from Vienna whose music is a cocktail of ambient, sound collage and electro-acoustic improvisation. Cellist Lukas Lauermann and guitarist Pieter Gabriel create and manipulate their sets live from beginning to end - without hiding behind laptops or anonymous canned sounds. Each of their real-time ambient live sessions, created using analogue instruments and an armada of effects pedals, produces a unique tonal piece which, depending on the direction it takes, can throw up references to Stars Of The Lid, Sunn O))) or ambient-godfather Brian Eno. In their more oblique moments they even reveal themselves as disciples of early tone artists like Luigi Russolo or John Cage - a kind of ad-hoc aural cinema.
For their first album Gabriel and Lauermann faced the challenge of reproducing the unique character of their live sets. Rather than going into a sterile recording studio they instead - in keeping with their experimental nature - set up an improvised pop-up studio in a Vienna auto painter
The Alvaret Ensemble - Skeylja
Ingi Garðar Erlendsson (Tuba, Trombone, Thranophone)
Greg Haines (Piano)
Kira Kira (Voice, Electronics)
Jan Kleefstra (Voice, Poems)
Romke Kleefstra (Guitar)
Borgar Magnason (Contrabass)
Eiríkur Orri Ólafsson (Trumpet, Electronics)
Sytze Pruiksma (Percussion)
--- "Skeylja" An invented word combining the Frisian word for Terschelling, "Skylge", and the Icelandic word for island, "Eyjan" ---
Skeylja is an international multimedia project, based around the ideas of improvisational music and the coming together of musicians from different countries and musical backgrounds to create a spontaneous sonic landscape. The project started when The Alvaret Ensemble (Greg Haines, Jan & Romke Kleefstra, and Sytze Pruiksma), who you may know from their eponymous debut on Denovali in 2012, travelled to Iceland to try to find a shared music language with the Icelandic musicians Ingi Garðar Erlendsson, Kira Kira, Borgar Magnason and Eiríkur Orri Ólafsson . They were joined by the 33 1/3 Collective, a group of visual artists from the Netherlands, who began to collect footage that would later be used as source material for the visual side of the performance.
Some months later, after a successful week of traveling to beautiful locations and playing music together, the group met again, this time during the Oerol festival on the island of Terschelling in the Netherlands, for a series of nine sold-out shows in an old church, all of which were being recorded. Each artist "curated" a rough plan for one evening, which could be anything from hand-drawn images to be interpreted musically to more precise plans of structures and combinations of musicians to be explored. Never were the notes, or the content of the music itself, discussed - this was instead left up to chance and developed through listening intently to each-other, trying to create an atmosphere where each player was vital, but where everyone always worked towards the whole.
After ten intense days on the island, all that was left were the memories of the audience and, luckily, a hard-drive with over ten hours of recorded music. After everyone had had a chance to listen back to rough mixes of each night and make comments, the material was taken to Greg Haines' Electricity Works studio in Berlin, where the long process of selecting, editing and mixing began. Finally, almost two years after that first initial meeting in Reykjavik, the album is complete and ready to be released into the world. We hope you enjoy it."
- Denovali Records - Sound cloud
Imprints - Data Trails
Written and produced by Shaun Crook, Darren Clark and Alex Delfont
Tom Rosenfeld - Double Bass (Longshore Drift)
James Fox - Drums (The Sea & Electricity)
- "Imprints are a technical nightmare of tape machines, synthesizers, homemade pedals, mixing desks and Max/MSP patches; a band perpetually on the brink of collapse. Their music examines the uneasy relationship between dissonance and melody, the contrast between dense masses and harmonious space. Contorted textures and tape-saturated atmospheres merge with pedal-steel-guitar, generative feedback and live sampling to produce a sound that is both organic and electric.
The bulk of Data Trails was recorded over three days in a small space in rural Devon. Imagine the scene: a medium-sized room filled to the brim with music equipment. Tape machines, synthesizers, pedal steel guitar, laptops (three of them), effects pedals, home-made distortion units and arpeggiators; and these, Im told, are just the essentials.
For a period of two years following those three days of recording, the raw takes were edited and refined. New sections were recorded and overdubbed. Sometimes the band worked together in person on these additions but more often than not, files were swapped over the internet and the collaboration continued remotely. This was due in part to two of the band members relocating overseas for a period of time (as far as Qatar and Thailand), the album title pays homage to this spirit of remote collaboration.
Maybe its best to think of Imprints as sculptors of sound. Youve heard about some of the instruments they use, but more often than not, individual sound sources are indistinguishable from one another. How sound is processed is as important as the sound source itself. A complicated setup of wires, individual mixing desks and real-time audio manipulation transforms signals, making tones and frequencies fuse to forge new sounds. Sounds that are warm, organic, brimming with life, fizzing with energy, only just under control.
This live, improvised aspect of Imprints music is important. It is three men battling with gear - words they use themselves to describe how they perform. Live performances are a mixture of excitement and stress - each member has an overwhelming list of duties to perform. Audio is allowed to loop and feedback into itself using the Time Lag Accumulator method, pioneered by Terry Riley. If pushed too hard, the feed becomes over-saturated, decaying into a wash of noise; it has to be reined in.
Imprints are masters of suspension, tension and release. To begin with, chaos is encouraged - distortion and feedback combine to give us what we typically refer to as noise. Noise, as in a wall of sound, sound that has a very full spectrum of frequencies and that we feel with our bodies as well as hear a sonic mass. At their most intense, these walls bring with them an almost physical tension - you feel gripped by the music to the extent that you find your breath held, waiting for that moment of release. And thats what sets Imprints apart, their ability to give us not only that mesmerising, gripping build-up, but also the sweet moment of release; for just when those walls of sound threaten to overwhelm, the ice breaks and Imprints deliver the most spine-tingling passages of music Ive heard in a long time.
There is a relaxation technique used by therapists that has you tense every muscle in your body for as long as you can bear before releasing them - the release is felt much more intensely when it follows extreme tension, and so you feel relaxed; this is the best analogy I can think of to describe listening to Data Trails. Ebb and flow, push and pull, tension and release. . . . ."
- http://serein.co.uk - 1 free track @ Soundcloud - music
http://imprintsmusic.bandcamp.com/album/data-trails
Interactive website based on sound and imagery from the album Data Trails by Imprints.
- Hint: Move slowly around the screen and listen carefully to discern how your movements change what you hear. Audio streams are randomised on each page load meaning that each time you come back, you can hear a new collage of sounds from Data Trails.
Matthew Halsall & The Gondwana Orchestra - When The World Was One
Now available for pre-order.
Nels Cline Singers - Macroscope
Nels Cline - Guitar
Trevor Dunn - Bass
Scott Amendola - Drums
- "Taking in the full breadth of guitarist Nels Clines sonic sphere of influence has always required a particularly wide lens. Zoom out from his fret board-blistering mash-ups of abrasive rock and bleeding-edge jazz to encompass his decade-long role with inventive rock superstars Wilco, then pull back further to find space for his ventures into Brazilian rhythms, electronic drones, and all manner of madcap musical fusion.
MACROSCOPE, the fifth album and Mack Avenue debut by his adventurous trio The Nels Cline Singers, provides a measure of the long-running groups staggering range. Captivating and continually surprising, the album finds the instrumental trio with the slyly deceptive name veering in one off-kilter direction only to suddenly be overwhelmed by another drastic stylistic shift, often within the space of a single tune. Serrated psychedelia becomes consumed by soulful Brasiliana, blissed-out electronica overwhelmed by garage-rock skronk. Then theres the wholly unexpected Red Before Orange, where a howling Hendrix-inspired solo suddenly erupts in the middle of a slick lounge-jazz number, Cline unleashing the inner George Benson that few of us expected he even had.
The title MACROSCOPE speaks to the idea of the mutt within, Cline says, the fact that Im not in any one genre, and never have been. I was a rock and roll kid, but after hearing Coltrane and Miles and Weather Report, then Indian music and Nigerian pop and that sort of thing, there was no turning back. From that point on, the idea of purism just was not possible.
With the Singers, Cline has assembled a vehicle that he can steer in any and all of these deviating directions. On MACROSCOPE, Cline and founding drummer Scott Amendola are joined by bassist
Trevor Dunn, replacing former bassist Devin Hoff. I think Trevor is the only guy who could have followed Devin into the band, Cline says. They both share a multiple personality aesthetic. Trevor not only is a great jazz player, but he has no fear of pop, no fear of black metal, no fear of rocking out. On his first gig with us, he destroyed like hed been playing in the band for years. I found that absolutely remarkable, and I dont think there are many people who could have fit in as seamlessly.
The trio also expands its already substantial palette with the addition of several special guests: keyboardist Yuka C. Honda, co-founder of the eccentric Japanese pop band Cibo Matto; percussionists Cyro Baptista and Josh Jones; and harpist Zeena Parkins. Cline also removes tongue from cheek to actually add his voice to the mix on two tracks, slightly undermining the irony of the bands name while drawing inspiration from Brazilian singer-songwriters on Respira and Macroscopic.
I was emboldened to use my voice from decades of listening to Baden Powell, whos not a great singer but has an amazing voice, Cline says. I think thats true of a lot of Brazilian singer-songwriters, where virtuosic singing is not the point. What were listening to is personality and composition and feeling and flavor.
Macroscopic was penned in tribute to Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. The variation on the title of the album reflects the artists similarly expansive worldview, which in Kusamas case stems from an experience early in life that could be termed a breakdown or an epiphany. I think she sees the world in its atomic, microscopic make-up, Cline says She became overwhelmed by that and it informs her work, where the macrocosm and the microcosm really are one.
The album begins with two tracks featuring the trio alonethe inviting Companion Piece and the brisk, acute-angled Canales Cabeza, a tribute to Bay Area chef and music aficionado Paul Canales. The Wedding Band begins with a warped, percussive clatter before settling into a sunny country-western lope. The dense, hypnotic Climb Down stems from a jam with Parkins in which it becomes impossible to tell one instrumentalists distorted inventions from anothers.
Cline cites such diverse influences as Weather Reports Joe Zawinul and Czech bassist Miroslav Vitous as inspirations for the epic Seven Zed Heaven, where a whorl of 70s-style fusion evanesces into an immersive, ecstatic drone. The album draws to a ferocious close with the anarchic Hairy Mother and the playfully skewed Saschas Book of Frogs, named for Amendolas son and an actual amphibian-centric tome.
In addition to the CD and download versions of MACROSCOPE, Mack Avenue will also release a vinyl version of the album in a different sequence and minus the tracks Canales Cabeza, Hairy Mother and Saschas Book of Frogs.
Throughout the album, Cline says, the intention is to arrive at a place that could be surprising or unexpected or maybe inevitable, but that is so compelling or all-consuming that were absorbed and can forget about all kinds of minutiae. I would like us to arrive at a point that has no boundaries, thats totally amorphous. Its like sunshine or mist, its everywhere and nowhere.
One of the most inventive and original guitarists across a wide range of genres, Nels Cline has worked with members of Sonic Youth and Deerhoof as well as artists including Tim Berne, Charlie Haden, Julius Hemphill, Carla Bozulich, Mike Watt and The Geraldine Fibbers, and is the lead guitarist of Wilco. Cline has recently recorded an album of duets with guitarist Julian Lage and has been touring in a free-improv meeting with Medeski Martin & Wood."
- Mack Avenue Records
"Companion Piece" by The Nels Cline Singers @ Soundcloud
http://nelscline.com/macroscope-track-by-track-descriptions
- "About twelve years ago David Eugene Edwards new band Wovenhand (Woven Hand in the beginning) showed its first sign of life with their self-titled debut album. His main band 16 Horsepower was still active at that time, but their three members David Eugene, as well as Pascal Humbert (bass) and Jean-Yves Tolà (drums) were slowly drifting apart. Yet in the same year they still managed to release Folklore a blistering album and their studio swansong.
Long since has the former solo-project stepped out of 16 Horsepowers long shadow. Wovenhand so far released seven albums that made the old fans happy, won new ones and progressed tremendously as a band.
Wovenhand is a band led by dedicated life-musician and lyricist, David Eugene Edwards. Over the last two decades, his prolific work in both Wovenhand and the legendary 16 Horsepower has influenced and inspired a generation of musicians throughout the expansive alternative music world.
Wovenhand cannot be described in traditional terms. Their sound is an organic, weavework of neo-folk, post rock, punk, alt. country, and alternative sounds. All coming together as a vehicle for David's soulful expression and constant spiritual self exploration. Sometimes sad and sorrowed and at other times uplifting, Wovenhand are always unforgettable in spirit and sound.
"Refractory Obdurate" is the latest album from Wovenhand. Joining David on this album are longtime percussionist Ordy Garrison, along with musicians Chuck French and Neil Keener (Planes Mistaken For Stars, Git Some).
"Refractory Obdurate" is a moving masterwork that shows Wovenhand exploring louder roots hinted at on prior albums. As they maintain their melodious course, "Good Shepherd", "Field of Hedon", and "Hiss", stomp forth with a newly amplified punk rock heart. While "The Refractory", "Salome", and "Obdurate Obscura" each ascend epically into a multi-layered haze. Ten songs in all, "Refractory Obdurate" plays as a beautifully crafted patchwork that transcends genres and expectation; a true artistic achievement, that only Wovenhand could offer."
- Glitterhouse Records
Scott Tuma - Cracker Where Am I ?
Bathetic Records
- Scott Tuma is a musician from Chicago, Illinois, United States who is best known for having played guitar in the pioneering alt-country band Souled American. Since his departure from Souled American in the late 1990s Tuma has released three solo albums, performed and recorded with Chicagos Boxhead Ensemble, and collaborated with members of the band Zelienople in a project dubbed Good Stuff House.
Tumas unique guitar work is one of the primary features responsible for Souled Americans highly distinct sound, though the band has continued playing without him seeming relatively unfazed by Tumas departure. His solo work is more in line with ambient music than folk or country, though elements of those and other styles are still present. Hard Again and The River 1 2 3 4 are expansive, gorgeous albums that feature Tuma playing most of the instruments himself - primarily guitar, harmonium, and organ (though he also plays bass, harmonica, and banjo) - though Hard Again, released on Atavistic Records in 2001, also includes guest spots from members of Dirty Three, Rachels, and Boxhead Ensemble."