Headphone Commute

Blogspot Mirror Shutdown

2012-01-15T04:16:00.000-08:00

Dear Readers of Headphone Commute,

After much consideration we have decided to shut down this mirror in 2012.

No, Headphone Commute is not going away - only our Blogspot presence. We just can't find the time to manually update all of the content on here. In fact, we have already been lagging behind by 3-4 months!

Our main site, headphonecommute.com, has received a minor facelift, allowing for easier navigation and readability. We ask that you visit us there, subscribe to our newsletter, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

If you use this site as your RSS Feed, don't worry! We have updated the source of data to point to our primary feed, which means that you will now receive updates the second they go live! In fact, if you refresh your RSS Reader you should pick up all of our latest in-depth reviews!

The content on this site will not be removed and continue to serve as our archive of past reviews. After all, this is where it all started, exactly four years ago. We thank you, Blogger, and everyone else for your support, and look forward to even more great music in the upcoming years!

Sincerely,
~HC

headphonecommute.com

Headphone Commute's Best of 2011

2012-01-05T17:08:00.000-08:00

Head over to reviews.headphonecommute.com/best-of-2011

20 Compilations and Mixes of 2011

2011-12-20T05:44:00.000-08:00

Read Headphone Commute's 20 Compilations and Mixes of 2011, featuring releases from ROOM40, Planet Mu, Hotflush, Fabric, Deep Medi, Fluid Audio, Hibernate Recordings, Tympanik Audio, Ultimae Records and more...

Click through to our main entry here : 20 Compilations and Mixes of 2011

Sound Bytes : Hibernate Special [part three]

2011-11-06T04:50:00.000-08:00

What started out as a Sound Bytes column featuring Hibernate Recordings latest releases, ended up growing into a three week label special. I just couldn't hold back sharing with you the music that has been warming up my speakers and my soul. Here's the last entry in this Sound Bytes installment, and be sure to check out [ part one ] [ part two ] and a Headphone Commute Mix by the man behind the label, Jonathan Lees.

Offthesky - The Beautiful Nowhere
Jason Corder's moniker, offthesky, needs no introduction. He has previously released albums on labels such as Home Normal, Experimedia, Tokyo Droning, Symbolic Interaction, Somnia and many others. With The Beautiful Nowhere, Corder arrives at Hibernate Recordings. For the album, the label goes the extra mile, and packages the limited edition CD in a hand-cut, textured organic mulberry paper sleeve, which in turn is cradled in a hand sewn hessian bag. Unfolding this beautifully presented physical release offers a hint of nostalgia for the process of carefully peeling open vinyl records, a unique experience destroyed by the unlimited supply of digital reproductions. Unfolding the music through headphones offers a familiar offthesky sound of electro-acoustic exploration, experimental field recordings, and gentle strumming guitar. Throughout the album, ambient swells carry the bowed string vibrations forward into the open fields, where plucked strings and piano chords offer a sense of a rhythm, stretched and contracted with the passage of time. For The Beautiful Nowhere, Corder attempts to avoid much of electronic processing, and instead concentrates on purely acoustic instruments. Thus, besides his favorite guitar, we welcome an appearance by harmonium, cello, toy piano, kalimba, vibraphone, and voice. Recorded in a cabin near Carter Lake, Colorado, the title of the album and its music explore the subjects of isolation, remoteness, and seclusion. Fans of 12k artists (and of course, Hibernate) will find inner beauty in the abstract subjects explored within.

Wil Bolton - Time Lapse
Listening to Wil Bolton's ambient drones, synthetic bleeps, and organic chimes, is like sitting in a crowded public space with a pair of open headphones - the internal guitar loops leak out, while the external plate clanking leaks in. These sounds all mix up and create an atmosphere of their own, a sense of a live performance in an outdoor setting, a feeling of a whole city living in your head. Although Time Lapse is the debut album for Wil Bolton recording under his real name, his past releases on labels such as Unlabel, U-Cover and Kahvi Collective may be familiar to people following his alias, CHEjU. Based out of Liverpool, UK, Bolton has been producing melodic electronica since 2004. Besides the numerous EPs on a handful of netlabels, Bolton has put out a few recordings on Boltfish Recordings, an independent experimental label that he runs together with Murray Fisher (aka Mint). Certain passages on Time Lapse remind me of Celer's Engaged Touches - that eerie feeling of pulsating waves penetrating lo-fi field recordings with saturated frequencies. They do, however, have a more upbeat feel, scattering the dark clouds with a gentle breeze of wind-chimes. Blending electro-acoustic tonalities with processed organic sounds, Bolton creates an atmosphere of subtle environmental soundscapes and vast synthetic oscilations. Time Lapse is a perfect fit for Hibernate's already astounding catalog of music to keep you warm throughout the winter.

Listening Mirror - Outside Heaven
Listening Mirror is the ambient project of English artist, Jeff Stonehouse. Though not formally trained in music, Stonehouse’s grounding in the recording, generation, and manipulation of sound has produced stellar results. With Stonehouse furnishing field recordings and treatments, and Kate Tustain's guest appearance on the delicate piano keys, the two-track EP turns into a textured meditation on soothing atmospheres and sounds. Awake But Still Adrift cracks open this release like dawn’s light poking through my window blinds. Gentle but persistent, it tugs at my senses like a child, breaking through the somnolence to become fully alert. Yet, even as I face the day, I am cocooned and lifted up by gentle washes of frequencies. Multiple layers unfold as the music swirls around me, suffusing joy and peace through my anxious being. Outside Heaven is spacey ambience, punctuated by bird calls and piano motes drifting in and out of the mix as it meanders to its fine conclusion. Be sure to pick up Listening Mirror's recent releases: Spires, Spirals And Stones (Heat Death, 2011), Wet Roads (Audio Gourmet Netlabel, 2011) and ...from dreams... (Entropy Records, 2011). Stay tuned for a full length release on Bathetic Records, titled The Heart of the Sky". All physical releases in the Postcard Series are strictly limited to 100 copies. Although digital versions are available for download (some even for free), I recommend you reserve your physical copies well in advance! Recommended for fans of quiet, ambient drones and contemplative work.

Listening Mirror review prepared by Elizabeth Klisiewicz.
Rest of the text by HC.

Sound Bytes : Hibernate Special [part two]

2011-11-06T04:48:00.000-08:00

I just spent my first week with Spotify (since it went live in US), and I'm already reeling from all the music that now I have access to. But being overwhelmed by a nearly unlimited catalog of digital media makes me want to pay even more attention to handcrafted and meticulously produced albums. Labels like Hibernate Recordings strive to remain if not profitable, then at least relevant in this music industry, and it is the focus to detail, both from the label and the signed artists, that continues to retain my faithful following. Support for this type of music is easy to provide - if you like it, buy a limited edition physical copy directly from the label - you will have a piece of history in your hand, holding one out of a hundred limited copies. And if it's already sold out, you can always buy a digital copy from bandcamp, or at least send a 'thank you' to the artist. I may be just rambling here, but the recent exposure of an enormous digital library on Spotify once again reinforced the concept of appreciating music, made with one major ingredient: love...

This Sound Bytes entry is accompanied by an exclusive Hibernate Mix. Make sure you also read [ part one ] and [ part three ]

Field Rotation - And Tomorrow I Will Sleep
There seems to be more than just a collaboration between Daniel Crossley's Fluid Audio and Jonathan Lees' Hibernate Recordings on compilations, such as the Japan benefit release, Kanshin -- some artists appear to migrate, or rather float, between these independent labels. Christoph Berg, recording under his alias Field Rotation is one of those lucky fellows who seems to have a deep well of inspiration, artistic creativity, and genre spanning output. After a few carefully crafted releases, Lich Und Schatten (2009) and Acoustic Tales (2011), Berg emerges on Hibernate with a conceptual album, produced and recorded after many sleepless nights. Designed to serve as Berg's own lullaby, the slow moving drones and peaceful waves of sound swell and recede in the peripheral auditory field of the subconscious mind, settling the thoughts that rewind the remnants of the day. Gentle strings seep through the frequencies, and penetrate the half asleep brain, painting fractal patterns of colorful light behind the closed eyelids. The six tracks on the album are almost designed for a short day-time nap of an agitated patient, cycling through names like A dimly haze (Asleep Pt. 1), Shoreline (Adrift, Dreaming), Slumber, and finally Swayed by the wind (Awakening). Packaged with extreme care and personal touch, each physical copy is wrapped in a hand-cut personalized envelope (mine came with my printed name!), in a hand sewn fabric sleeve. The cover art is by none other than Antonymes with a mastering touch from Rudi Arapahoe. I almost can't wait for my next jet-lag - I will surely remember to put on this wonderful album and enjoy the fantastic atmospheres that it offers right beneath the thin veil of dreams. Good night...

Danny Saul - Kinison - Goldthwait
After his 2009 solo debut Harsh, Final. on his very own White Box label, Danny Saul lands on Hibernate. The cover art, titled Boxers by Rachel Goodyer, is at once mysterious, and perhaps a bit deceiving. With a few photographs of American stand up comedians Sam Kinison and Bobcat Goldthwait, and the reminder of their feud over the origin of their act, the over aura only intensifies the feeling of action, dispute, and fierce confrontation. Yet the music of Kinison - Goldthwait is nothing of that sort. Ambient excursions into incredibly textured sound fill my room with a sense of longing, sadness and nostalgia. Titles of the tracks hint at a deeply rooted conceptual work, but in fact provide an 'ambiguous narrative' as Saul himself admits: "Throughout working on this record, for some reason, I couldn't stop thinking about these three people and this particular incident on the Howard Stern show" - The argument between the comedians became explosive when Howard Stern added some fuel into the fire on his radio show - "That's not to say the music or album is in any way conceptual - it isn't." The atmospheric pads, deep rumbling drones, and reverb drenched guitar loops, build up towards the second half of the album, exploring minimalism, dynamics, and deconstruction of what should be a recognizable instruments into their blistered, raw, material form. Sine waves oscillate, then go out of phase, fighting for the lead, until they are thrown off by hungry distortion that once again climaxes and dies. Perhaps the concept of the album is there all along, and instead of comedy, Danny Saul is able to convey the duo's tragic rivalry through music. Highly Recommended!

Szymon Kaliski - For Isolated Recollections
Simple keys and sounds of a water stream seem to be the minimal elements comprising the four-track ambient release by Szymon Kaliski, a young musician from a small town near Poznań in Poland. For Isolated Recollections is a sixth installment in Hibernate's Postcard Series. Designed out of delicate loops and field recordings, the recordings are at once basic and complex, like the Buddha's lotus flower sermon, surrounded by complete silence. Hinting at inner insight and personal reflections in isolated surroundings, these miniature recollections offer a meditative soundtrack to a restless mind. With lo-fi crackle, static and organic imperfections, the sounds are left to unfold at their own pace, in their own space, free of structure and suffocation. Kaliski's previous release includes an digital release on David Newman's Audiobulb offshoot, Audiomoves, titled Out Of Forgetting (2010). Easily a candidate of future signing to pioneering electro-acoustic labels like 12k, Kaliski demonstrates a complete restraint and control over the sound, which is a welcome breath of fresh air, in a densely populated bombardment of everyday frequencies. All physical releases in the label's Postcard Series are strictly limited to 100 copies. With many past installments already out of stock, I recommend that you reserve your physical copies. Some digital versions (including this one) are available directly from the artist's bandcamp site, with no set minimum price. File under hauntology.

Sound Bytes : Hibernate Special [part one]

2011-11-06T04:32:00.000-08:00

If you haven't yet noticed this wonderful micro-independent label from Hebden Bridge (West Yorkshire, UK), perhaps we can help... Hibernate is only two years old (est. 2009), but so far in its lifetime, it managed to capture our attention with every single release. From miniature 3" CDrs in the Postcard Series to an extremely limited edition of hand-cut tea-aged vintage-string-wrapped fragile envelopes, to textured organic mulberry paper sleeves in hand-sewn hessian bags, each release is cared for with great attention to detail, and most importantly, love... And the music? From Talvihorros to Mark Harris to Clem Leek, the artists from the label keep on surprising our ears, topping our charts, and capturing our hearts! And in this year alone, the label has managed to put out close to a dozen releases already (and it's only July)! So before the end of the year is upon us, let's jump right to it, and discover all that is beautiful about Hibernate Recordings.

This Sound Bytes entry is accompanied by an exclusive Hibernate Mix. Make sure you also read [ part two ] and [ part three ]

Simon Bainton - Sun Settlings
Sun Settlings is a debut solo release for Simon Bainton, who, along with Alex Smalley (aka Olan Mill) has already been introduced to the world as Pausal through their self-titled EP on Highpoint Lowlife in 2009 and first full-length, Lapses on Barge Recordings in 2010. Now, armed with a handful of piano keys, a collection of field recordings from the island of Anglesey (North Wales, UK), ambient atmospherics and light textural drone, Bainton paints a postcard with acoustic colors and warm pastel tones. Released as the fifth entry in Hibernate's Postcard Series, this seven-track/twenty-minute journey across the major key of Irish Sea, countryside land and spiteful wind, Sun Settlings is a drifting meditation on the landscape and its sonic ghosts. The EP opens up with an Arrival, a light piano medley with string background and splashing waves. Things get a little melancholic and incredibly beautiful once the key is dropped into its minor cousin, with the help of a few mournful strings, on a short vignette titled Sun Settlings Pt 2. The journey is resolved with the closing Going Home Drone, a minimal exploration or gated vocals, ~440Hz oscillating tone, and an echoing of a fading light. Sun Settlings (and yes, there's a letter 'L' in there) makes a great contribution towards the eight postcards already released, with entries by Relmic Statute, Ithaca Trio, Listening Mirror, Damian Valles, Szymon Kaliski, Cought In The Wake Forever / Karina ESP / Sheepdog and Yellow6 & David Newlyn. Can you collect them all? The question is how can you not? All physical releases in the Postcard Series are strictly limited to 100 copies, and are already out of stock. Although digital versions are available for download (some even for free), I recommend you reserve your physical copies well in advance!

Bengalfuel - Sprague / Edgemere
Sprague and Edgemere are actually two separate EPs, released by Bengalfuel on Hibernate in 2011. But because each is only 4 tracks, with similar themed cover art, and released only a few months apart, forgive me if I cover them both as one. In fact, Sprague and Edgemere are the first two installments in a four-part series, capturing the recording sessions by Lou DiBenedetto and Joe LiTrenta inspired by "surrounding ghosts and spiritual entities". The music becomes an offering to the souls caught in between two dimensions, inhabiting the world of mortals, occasionally haunting our lives. Ambient synth pads, drenched in an incredible ethereal atmosphere, stretch their outwardly existence towards new heights. All is calm, until a distant, dub-techno beat creeps in, setting the mood for the progression of the record. When the kick drum sets in, I am immediately reminded by my favorite works from Yagya, The Sight Below, and DeepChord Presents Echospace. And then I'm lowered, back into the pool of ambiance and bliss. For this series, each release is accompanied by a music video piece directed by LiTrenta. The duo also has a few full length digital releases: Woglum (self, 2010), Durban (Isolationism, 2010), Laudaten (Lizard Breakfast, 2011), and Chardavoyne (self, 2011). Be sure to also check out Bengalfuel's Feldspar EP on Rural Colours - a subscription-only sub-label of Hibernate releasing experimental folk, ambient, and drone on 3" mini CDrs. Bengalfuel's music has been a soundtrack to many afternoons. Recommended!

VA - Kanshin
The news of the tragic events of the Tōhoku Earthquake in Japan may have slipped from the front pages of your local paper, but the people who experienced the ordeal have been touched forever. And the musicians try to help in the only way that they know how - with music. Kanshin is a double CD compilation jointly curated by Daniel Crossley (Fluid Audio) and Jonathan Lees (Hibernate) to raise money for Japan's recovery. All of the profits will be contributed via Ian Hawgood towards ongoing relief efforts: "Ian lives in Japan and his wife is currently working with both the Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support organisation (JEARS) in Sendai and surrounding areas, as well as the Direct Help for Victims and Animals Rejected from Shelters in Japan group who are going up to areas which are not receiving government support for food, water, basic supplies, as well as rebuilding and cleaning up." And with 30 tracks, spanning almost three hours, any fan of electronic, ambient, and modern classical music should be happy, honored, and proud to own a copy of this release! Let me take a moment and rattle off a roster of appearances: Clem Leek, Hummingbird, P Jørgensen & Ian Hawgood, Wil Bolton, Field Rotation, Library Tapes, Yellow6, Maps & Diagrams with Ylid, Yann Novak, offthesky, The Moving Dawn Orchestra, Aaron Martin & Machinefabriek, Jeremy Bible & Jason Henry, Bengalfuel, Talvihorros, Alex Durlak, Antonymes, Kyle Bobby Dunn and many, many others that I can't fit into this short writeup! As of this writing, the compilation is already out of stock, and although there are no plans in reprinting the physical copy, a digital version is available for directly from kanshin.bandcamp.com

Interview with Submotion Orchestra

2011-11-06T04:30:00.000-08:00

Tell us about Submotion Orchestra. Where does the name come from? How did you guys all meet?
We originally met in Leeds. We all knew each other from various projects, gigs and sessions, since Leeds has a very vibrant music scene going on, but we'd never all played together. Tommy and Ruckspin originally brought the band together after wanting to play some dubstep-influenced material in a live setting, making use of the players' jazz backgrounds as well. We all came in one by one until the size and atmosphere of the players felt right. The name came at the end of one of the usual band-naming sessions that last for ever and throw up a lot of very bad names. Luckily most of these have been forgotten. By experience, as soon as someone says a name that doesn't sound absolutely terrible, it'll work...

In a seven piece band, describe the process of composition. Is each artist responsible for his own instrument? What about the lyrics of each song?
The composition varies. Tommy originally brought a lot of the initial material to the table, while we revisited some of the tunes Ruckspin had originally done on Ranking Records to adapt them to the Submotion sound. Once things were in place, the other members of the band started to bring material in too. Generally, once the main parts or hooks of the tunes had been written, they were brought to the band, where everyone comes in on the arranging and individual parts. Most of the tunes ended up in a pretty different place to how they originally sounded, though a couple stayed quite close. It's always a bit tricky with so many people to get everyone's opinions and thoughts covered, but generally we all know what sound we're aiming towards, and it usually ends up getting there pretty naturally and without much controversy. Tommy however is the main lyricist.

There are definitely dubstep elements in your music, (which I'm sure come from Ruckspin). What about the jazzy components? Who are the influences behind these organic and etherial sounds?
We're all equally responsible for the mix of influences. Fatty's been involved in grime and hip-hop projects, which inform the bass-end of the music pretty heavily, while Tommy, Taz and Bobby all have their backgrounds in jazz-based music, as does Ruby, and we've all drawn upon that. But if you listen closely, each instrument has its own feel - Danny's percussion has a bit of Brazil in there, Taz's keyboards show his early synth and ambient influences, and Tommy's approach to the drums is very jazz-based. We're trying to get a jazz sensibility into a music that doesn't always have it, but works with it very nicely. And the ethereal nature of the sounds has a lot to do with Dom's sound designing.

Talk about your live gigs... How are they different form studio recordings? Do you discover new interactions that make their way back into your studio?
Because of the jazz background of most of us, we're not the sort of band who are happy to play the same tunes the same way every night. Quite a few of the tunes have developed differently through playing live, and there's sections to some songs that you won't find on the album. Solos will often also be quite different. The instrumental tunes are also a lot heavier and more active live, and now as we're developing material for the second album, we're wanting to do it as live as possible to keep that feel there.

What are you working on right now, and what's next for your band?
We're currently getting material together for the second album, and fitting in rehearsals for it whenever we can manage, since the summer's pretty busy with festivals and gigs. There'll be some stuff that will keep fans of the first album happy, but hopefully also a few things that will move the sound on a bit and surprise people. For the rest of the year, we've got a summer full of festivals - Big Chill, WOMAD, GreenMan, Soundwave and Outlook in Croatia - and then in October/November a UK and Europe tour. So not much downtime, but it's good to keep the momentum going.

Be sure to read Headphone Commute's Sound Bytes featuring Submotion Orchestra's Finest Hour. Also, check out our Track of the Week with Submotion Orchestra's All Yours.

submotion.co.uk

Sound Bytes : Submotion Orchestra, Bop, Venetian Snares

2011-10-09T13:19:00.000-07:00

In this installment of Sound Bytes, I am covering three releases which all bend the genres just a tiny bit, but enough to invent some of their own. Submotion Orchestra cleverly mixes jazz and dubstep to create some of the most amazing bass rumbling electronica, with melodies that get stuck in my head for days! Russian artist, Bop continues to perfect his sonic explorations into micro drum'n'bass with just a little bit of glitch and techno. And the prolific Venetian Snares is back with his mind warping breaks, this time deconstructing reggae from its jittering jigsaw jungle jingles... I hope jew enjoy, and jot me few jolly jives, jes? Jeez!

Submotion Orchestra - Finest Hour (Exceptional)
When the self-titled EP landed on my desk from Submotion Orchestra, I immediately recognized an amazing potential behind this group of seven musicians... well... OK, so I'm a big fan of Dom Howard's productions as Ruckspin on Ranking Records, and his bass-rolling dubstep influenced beats could only polish off this already shiny record. The single, All Yours, was already featured on Headphone Commute as Track of the Week, and since then, I have been patiently awaiting the full length. And here it is! With sublime vocals by the lovely Ruby Wood, trumpet solos by Simon Beddoe, and distant smokey keys by Taz Modi, the group creates a sweet, seductive, and ultimately poisonous concoction of acid jazz, dubstep, and soulful breaks. The melodies instantly find their way into repetitive memory banks of my mind and get stuck there for days. And I just can't stop listening... So why seven people? You see, Submotion Orchestra is a proper seven-piece band, where all participants play acoustic instruments, including bass by Chris Hargreaves and percussion by Danny Templeman and Tommy Evans, fusing an organic, incredibly atmospheric, and skillfully mastered record, which should make everyone on Ninja Tune jealous. Formed in Leeds in 2009, the band is already turning heads across UK's festivals and gigs. Finest Hour is a Submo's debut album on Exceptional Blue, a UK label that has been around for over a decade, releasing 12" in a variety of electronica genres. Fans of The Cinematic Orchestra, The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble and of course, Bonobo will be extremely excited to add Submotion Orchestra to their collection!

Bop - The Amazing Adventures Of One Curious Pixel (Med School)
Releases from Hospital Records's Medschool have repeatedly appeared on my rotations. And although I mostly tend to consume label's compilations, there are definitely a few full-length albums and artists that I faithfully follow. One of them is St. Petersburg (Russia) based Alexander Dmitriev, who produces under his alias Bop. Dmitriev has previously released on a handful of Russian small labels, then moved up to Leipzig based Alphacut Records, and finally was discovered by Medschool in 2009. The label invested in Bop's first full length release, Clear Your Mind, which quickly gained attention with its experimental, minimal, and intelligent drum'n'bass. For his sophomore album, Dmitriev polishes off his glitchy beats with a touch of spacey, 8-bit chiptune vibe, deep dropping bass, and funky groove. Carefully shielding each frequency and individually processed signals from each other, the album traverses from the past of video game sound to the future of interplanetary travel. Appropriately titled The Amazing Adventures Of one Curious Pixel, the album tells a story of one lost digital picture cell, breaking off from the jumbled norm of a rasterized world, and venturing into an array of precision stitched, micro programmed rhythm, where each element has a life of its own. Spanning eleven tracks, the album includes one of my favorite remixes of Subwave's I Need You. With his second release, Bop continues to push the evolution of the genre, creating a unique style of his own. Check out our own Headphone Commute Podcast, to which Bop contributed two Micromixes consisting of tracks from his previous album and EP. The album can be purchased directly from the Hospital Shop.

Venetian Snares - Cubist Reggae (Planet Mu)
Like a tweaking Picasso on acid-laced ganja, Aaron Funk deconstructs the basic elements of reggae, then shuffles them around the straight edges and outlines of his twisted psyche. Foregoing his staple Venetian Snares delicious insanity of drill and breaks, Cubist Reggae is a four-track EP, on which Funk bends and chops basic loops into short studies of the genre. Instead of a smooth head-nodding smoke-filled vibrations, the sounds of Cubist Reggae are snipped, dropped, and then left to reverberate across extensive delays. Cutup, layered, and indeed dubbed over itself, the experimental production of the tracks strips the reggae off its glamor, leaving the naked, flesh-dripping skeleton to stumble over itself into a neurotic blender of Funk's surgical kit. Where You Stopped The Heaviest reminds me a lot of the melancholic Öngyilkos Vasárnap, from Funk's 2005 milestone, Rossz Csillag Allat Született (Planet Mu). Overall, VSnares satisfies the cravings of warped time signatures, triggered samples and low rumbling dub, enough to perhaps hold us over since his last full length, My So-Called Life, was released on his very own label Timesig, sponsored by Planet Mu. Only the lengthy track titles hold some unsolved mystery. Could these be the remains of the original reggae sources? The EP works well within its sixteen minute span (not sure how the concept would stretch out to an hour), and it's definitely nice to see Funk explore another territory. True fans of VSnares will understand...

Be sure to read this Sound Bytes entry directly on Headphone Commute

Hauschka - Salon Des Amateurs (130701) + Live at Joe's Pub

2011-10-09T13:17:00.000-07:00

Walking into Joe's Pub at The Public Theater of New York, I have to sneak in past the security guard, past the gathering crowd, past the box office receptionist, in through a carelessly propped open back door, in towards the dark seating room of a restaurant slash bar slash performance, where I am due to meet Volker Bertelmann for a quick Hauschka interview before his show. Through the thin veils of the projector's red lights I see a figure slouched over a grand piano, operating on the innards of the instrument awaiting its transformation for the performance. Like an evil scientist working on his new creation, Volker is busy preparing the piano, inserting foil wrapped cardboard, wooden clips, and fabric dampers between the strings, testing out the newly augmented sound with a few strokes of the keys. On the inside of the piano, next to the hanging pearl-like ornaments there's a bag full of marbles. Finally it hits me: I am watching Hauschka prepare his piano! An act witnessed by only a few prior to the show!

In the green room, Volker attempts to gather last minute information through a flaky wireless connection, and I get to briefly meet his drummer, Samuli Kosminen, a percussionist from múm. It feels like Hauschka was only recently on tour, performing pieces from his last album, Foreign Landscapes, released only a year ago. All this traveling must really be exhausting. "Yes," Volker confirms, "once I'm finished with a record, I want to present it to the public, and that's why, since 2007, I have been playing every year about a hundred concerts or so. And although, the positives of traveling outweigh the negatives, I still think I need a little break, which will finally happen this summer until the end of the year. There will still be releases in between, but at the same time I will try to concentrate on more music for film, theater and studio work."

On Salon Des Amateurs, Hauschka explores a rhythmic structure of every piece, often within a four/four beat, always centered around his light piano melodies, occasional string accompaniment by Joey Burns on the cello, Bernhard Voelz on the trombone, and the above mentioned Samuli Kosminen on the drums. This is the same good ol' Hauschka we've learned to love, but with an upbeat feel. In fact, Salon Des Amateurs really feels like an extension to Foreign Landscapes. "Well, they were two records that I wrote at the same time. Whenever I wrote a score for Foreign Landscapes, in the evening I would sit down and create these club oriented beats. I really thought that it's something that has been missing for a while. So there was always this back and forth switching between the two worlds. In the end, I composed about 40 songs and had to decide if everything should be on one record or separate. I'm glad that it was separated, because Foreign Landscapes encompasses a very melodic, classical and experimental world, while Salon Des Amateurs seems to affect more of the electronic music crowd." On the perceived departure from his staple prepared piano sound, Volker continues, "It's actually not a departure for me at all. It's been in me all this time. And when you listen to my older records, you should hear an approach to dance music, with electronic sculptural music and texture, and of course, classical music as well."

On the stage, Hauschka plays on the keys, while bells, clips and metal objects resonate along with the vibrations. Ping-pong balls are flying up in the air when the piano hammers connect with the strings. Samuli seems to be dancing with his drum kit, brushing on the snare, and moving in rhythm created with his entire body. A certain energy transfers between the players, moving back and forth among percussion instruments, and finally leaking into the crowd. I put down my drink and start tapping on the table with the infectious beat. Soon, the entire room is bopping their heads up and down along with the rhythm. Here's the true beauty of a live performance - music is actually created right in front of you. "I feel that a live performance is there for creating new material on the fly, and give people the excitement of experimentation, risk and danger at the same," Volker adds.

Salon Des Amateurs is actually named after a a cafe/bar located in the Kunsthalle museum of Düsseldorf, Germany. Volker explains some more, "It's supposed to be a coffee place for the museum visitors. But the place is a little bit dark, and people don't really want to have their coffee there. So instead, they come there to dance and listen to poetry readings. I'm really glad that Salon Des Amateurs exists, because there's not much in Düsseldorf that has such a wonderful program, free open space, and a buzzing atmosphere." Salon Des Amateurs is released on the wonderful FatCat's offshoot, 130701. This sublabel continues to excite our neurons with the latest signing of Dustin O'Halloran and the latest release from Jóhann Jóhannsson, both of which, I'm sure, will show up on Headphone Commute's pages very soon! Make sure you check out Headphone Commute's reviews of Hauschka's Foreign Landscapes, Ferndrof, as well as our past Interview with Hauschka.

Exclusive photography by Kristopher Wuollett. Text by HC.

myspace.com/hauschka | hauschka-net.de
myspace.com/fatcatrecords | fat-cat.co.uk

Sound Bytes : Herd, Kattoo and Haruka Nakamura

2011-10-09T13:14:00.000-07:00

I stopped apologizing for my delayed reviews a long time ago. I just can't keep up. But I swear, one day I'll get through all of it, and get the word out about the music that affects me deeply. The music that stays with me after it's gone, the sounds that excite my neurons, and the message that just makes me feel. For this installment of Sound Bytes I revisit a few albums I have left behind, but dusted off again for this occasion...

Herd - Tangents 41-47 (fsoldigital)
What happened to the amazing formula of Future Sound of London? After all, their approach to morphing seemingly unrelated samples into the dreamscapes was the subject of a long and frivolous debate in the late 90s. I remember completely falling in love with Lifeforms (Virgin, 1994) only to read later some blasphemy on Usenet claiming that anyone can stitch random sounds together to create a similar texture. Alas, either no one tried (debatable), or no one could (most probable). And yet with so many followers of FSOL, it is a shame... Until now... Released via the duo's very own digital distribution channel, FSOLdigital.com, this single track 20-minute exploration by Herd, is nothing more than an amazing (and very welcome) flashback to my favorite world of FSOL. I swear, I think I even hear some similar sounds! But to avoid the undeserving cookie cutter stamp of a copy-cat on Jason Thomson, let's examine Tangents 41-47 in more detail. Dark ambient passageways layer the cold corridors of this unnerving descent into the underworld, where the curtains sway with ghostly echoes and the doorways open out to other worlds. Then you're standing on a meadow, where the sound of a banjo slowly creeps into your subconsciousness, and distant abstract shapes slowly float up into focus to assemble broken mirrors and reflect the self. Perhaps words simply fail to describe this psychedelic atmosphere, so why not let the music do the talking? As the title of the EP implies, these seven "tangents" are just the latest in the series. There is also Tangents 1-19 (Future State of Rhythm, 2008), followed by Tangents 32-39 (Entity, 2009), both available as free releases from the netlabels. Really enjoyed this one!

Kattoo - l--ll-ll l-ll ll-ll- l-ll- l--l-ll l--l-ll ll-- ll-- l- l--l- (jungle.clan.ag)
About three years ago, Volker Kahl gave up on the music industry. Recording under his alias Kattoo, and earlier in his collaboration with Gabor Schablitzki as Beefcake, Kahl left his home-base of Hymen Records, and started releasing his music (including past albums) to the public on a donation basis, via his very own jungle.clan.ag, where every cent goes directly to the artist. Of course, giving up on the industry also means giving up some of its perks, like the wide distribution channels of a somewhat large independent label, and the necessary promotion that goes with it. Which is why, when the fourth full length album by Kattoo "hit the streets", I totally missed it! And I'm a huge fan! In the last decade, I have absorbed every Kattoo album, from Places (2004), to Megrim (2005), to Hang On to A Dream (2006) and now, this mysteriously Morse-style encoded album, which title translates to Reivoottak, which, in turn, spells out backwards "kattoovier", and just means "Kattoo Four". The eleven similarly encoded track titles translate into basic elements, reminding me of patch names on a synth: "Tape", "Church", "Orchbeat", "Violin", etc. Alas, the titles follow the main theme of each individual track. Thankfully, everything that is hidden from plain sight with complicated visual code, is revealed in all of its glory with sound. Here is the Kattoo staple sound that I've been waiting for. Dark and brooding passageways, a sinister and ruthless approach to tight production, broken beats and old-skool breaks, deep cinematic soundscapes that take me to the other worlds... Although the album looks like it is within a jewel case on kattoo.de, Kahl assures us that it is no available as a physical CD. And that's the only downside - I suppose the lossless files will do. This is modern classical meets IDM at its best! Highly recommended for followers of Hecq, Architect, Subheim, Nebula and Lusine Icl.

Haruka Nakamura - Twilight (Kitchen)
There's something about electronic music coming out of Japan that is exceptionally... "Japanese"... Don't you think? From Kashiwa Daisuke to Fjordne and to Ametsub - these favorite musicians continue to work with a potpourri of styles, plucked out of a lottery bowl of influences, that somehow, when all is settled, makes some of the most beautiful music of the world. With its quiet field recordings, and minimal undertones, Twilight dissects the complex structures of life, into individual moments of relaxation and peace. Gentle piano notes, slow breathing brass instruments, and incredibly light jazzy percussion, make up this delicately rendered sophomore solo release by Haruka Nakamura. Inspired by sunset, Twilight is an album recorded in Nakamura's studio overlooking the ocean, during those hours of the day, when the light changes its presence into music. This moment is captured by Nakamura and is easily recreated wherever his sounds pour out of the speakers - and that's what a great album is supposed to do. With the help of sublime vocals from April Lee (member of aspidistrafly duo with Ricks Ang), wandering saxophone, docile guitar strums, and the subdued crackling of electronics, Twilight wraps all of the worries of the day, into an hour long meditation on the trials of the past. I definitely recommend that you experience this during long evenings, while observing the world wind itself down through the windows of your pad. In addition to Twilight, make sure to pick up Fjordne's similarly influenced The Setting Sun (2009), aspidistrafly's I Hold A Wish For You (2008), and the more recent ironomi's Sketch (2010), all released on the beautiful, Singapore based, Kitchen. Label.

Be sure to read this Sound Bytes entry directly on Headphone Commute

Sound Bytes : 12 Bytes From 12k [part four]

2011-10-07T03:47:00.000-07:00

Wrapping up our four-part 12k special with three latest favorite releases, I can't help but point out the label's continuous attention to detail, its intricate aesthetic characteristics, coupled with an additional dimension of conceptual representation, where music really meets art, and art starts to sound like music. Whether the recordings are left to gently purr in the background, or be analyzed through a microscopic lens of a critic's discerning ear, repeated rotations of these albums continue to offer their new delights, slowly revealing their passion for acoustics, analog warmth, and delicate minimalism.

Be sure to read the first three parts : [part one] [part two] [part three]

Marcus Fischer - Monocoastal
Featuring cover art of pinhole photography taken by Marcus Fischer himself, Monocoastal is a document of found objects, a travelogue of a weary nomad across the West Coast of America, a lo-fi collection of field recordings and textures, as if heard through the camera's pinhole itself. Crumbling noises, background tape hiss, screeching wood, and gentle guitar strums make up the majority of Fischer's meditation on the Pacific coast. Throughout the recording, we hear an enormous restraint in the balance between organic sound, minimal electronic processing, and the pause of breathing instruments. Fischer's control of individual sounds within the abstract and physical space, culminates into the warm harmonic waves that fill my morning studio with atonal reverberations and a glowing hum. Based out of Portland, Oregon, Fischer's focus on composition is guided by experimentation with field recordings, self constructed instruments, and sometimes pure chance. Coupled with visual art, Fischer is also responsible for curating vision+hearing - a series of audio/visual events facilitating collaborations between musicians and filmmakers. His recordings under the map~map moniker are self released via his dustbreeding.com site, where throughout 2009, Fischer documented one creative project per day for an entire year. Monocoastal is a welcome addition to the 12k catalog, fitting the label's unique aesthetic.

Seaworthy + Matt Rösner - Two Lakes
At only thirty eight minutes in length, a collaboration between a member of Sydney based electro-acoustical group Seaworthy, Cameron Webb, and a Western Australia's sound artist Matt Rösner, the album Two Lakes is a sophisticated conceptual piece begging for multiple listens. The duo traveled to the south coast of New South Wales where they have devoted themselves to the detailed field recording study of two lakes - Meroo and Termeil. Armed with a hydrophone, a shotgun and stereo microphones, the artists attempted to capture the sounds of the Australian coastal environment and entwine them with subtle notes of acoustic guitar, a ukelele, and minimal electronics. At the center of the few improvised performances in a cabin by the lake, an abundance of nature celebrates its existence through recorded sounds. Two Lakes captures the environment in all of its exposed nakedness, while filling the missing frequencies with desolation, loneliness, and solitude. But instead of pure desperation, the peacefulness of the album reveals a recognition of pure life. The music often transports the listener to a quiet evening in the forest, where a good friend plays his guitar by the running creek. In addition to the album, Webb and Rösner have setup an Environmental Sounds blog, where more field recordings, photographs and notes continue the unfolding of the project. Be sure to also check out Seaworthy's previous releases on 12k - Map In Hand (2006) and 1897 (2009), as well as Matt Rösner's Room40 debut, Alluvial (2005).

Stephan Mathieu - A Static Place
Stephan Mathieu has been on my radar for a while now. His 2008 release on Die Schachtel titled Radioland had a profound impact on my psyche. Then there was his 2009 collaboration with 12k's own Taylor Deupree for a release on Spekk titled Transcriptions. In 2011, Mathieu managed to release two albums - there's the Remain on Line (now independently operated by Richard Chartier), and, the focus of this Sound Bytes special, A Static Place. To listen to Mathieu's latest marvel, I have to prepare myself. First - I carve out an entire hour to wholly consume the album in one take; second - I put on my favorite pair of headphones for a true sonic bliss; and third - I must close my eyes. "A Static Place is about the journey of sound," says Mathieu about the record. "Between 1928 and 1932 the earliest recordings of historically informed performances of music from the late Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque era were etched into 78RPM records. I used some of these records from my collection, playing them back with two mechanical acoustic HMV Model 102 gramophones. The initial soundwaves produced back then by period instruments like the clavichord, viols, lute, hurdy-gurdy are read from the grooves by a cactus needle to be amplified by the gramophones diaphragm housed in a soundbox. Those vibrations travel through the tonearm which is connected straight to the gramophones horn, which releases the music to my space. Here the sound is again picked up by a pair of customized microphones and send to my computer, to be transformed by spectral analysis and convolution processes." I'm afraid I have nothing more to add... Pure magic...

Sound Bytes : 12 Bytes From 12k [part three]

2011-10-07T03:43:00.000-07:00

In this third installment of our four-part 12k special, we examine two live performances and an experimental EP. In all three, the label excels at providing a service of archiving, if you will, of single events, group gatherings, and academical studies. With these releases, 12k once again stands out among today's cutting edge experimental, improvisational and conceptual music.

More from 12k Special : [part one] [part two] [part four]

MOSS - MOSS
Although this self-titled EP consists of a single 24+ minute track, the experience captured by this recording begs to be repeated. MOSS is actually an acronym, consisting of four names, four artists and four friends - Molly Berg, Olivia Block, Steve Roden, and Stephen Vitiello. Out of this group, Berg and Vitiello have previously appeared on 12k with their 2009 release, The Gorilla Variations. Block has mostly released experimental works on Massachusetts-based Sedimental. And Los Angeles based Roden, has been contributing to Line, Trente Oiseaux, Interior Sounds and many others. Originally, the performance was only meant to be a collaboration between Berg and Vitiello, at the San Jose's Trinity Cathedral for the 01SJ Biennial festival. But with Block and Roden in the vicinity, an opportunity presented itself that could not be passed on. The newly formed quartet creates a totally improvised sonic space, inhaling the acoustics of the church, and exhaling an immense restraint of sound. Complimented with just a touch of Berg's voice and clarinet, Vitiello's electric guitar, Roden's lap steel fingerboard, and Block's expert live manipulations of tapes, field recordings and electronics, the music on MOSS is an intricate play between the performers, the audience, and most importantly, the space itself. Recorded at midnight, the cathedral hosted a unique moment of an extemporaneous craftsmanship unfolding live within its dark, damp, and wooden belly. Every sound is treasured, including a distant horn of a car. I am only thankful that Vitiello recorded it, and 12k released it, so that this moment can be captured, archived, and replayed.

Various - Tasogare: Live In Tokyo
There's just something about Japan. Don't you think? From its culture, where future meets the past, to its literature, where dream-state meets the present, to its music, where abstract meets the concrete. 12k is among the labels to feature more than a few of our favorite Japanese musicians. Among them, appearing on this compilation, are Minamo, Sawako + Hofli, and Moskitoo. Joined by Australia's Solo Andata and the label's founder, Taylor Deupree, this five track release collects the works recorded live at two temples in Tokyo - Komyuji and Jiyu Gakuen Myonichi-kan. I'm not sure if the night crickets are part of Sawako's field recordings, or are simply picked up by the microphone, but the overall sonic experience transports me to the hot and humid nights of Japan, where the western traveler awaits his mind to beat the jet-lag. Sawako's lovely voice and Takashi Tsuda's (aka Hofli) soft guitar playing only enhances the overall experience. Sanae Yamasaki, recording under her Moskitoo moniker, twists her abstract pop into live experimental circuit bends. At the center of the compilation is a seventeen minute gem by Paul Fiocco and Kane Ikin, known to the faithful readers of these pages as Solo Andata. Steering clear of most software effects, the duo uses field recordings, found objects, and organic textures to create a deep, droning, drowning, and slightly unsettling environment, worthy of Japan's embedded relationship with spirits in every single object. This piece alone deserves to be a single, but on the compilation you get one more - a live recording from Taylor Deupree. With his lo-fi treatments and gentle organic pads, Deupree eases us into the early morning, wrapping this collective collaboration with a fuzzy sonic kilt. Tasogare: Live In Tokyo is yet another important document in the 12k archives, preserving a live performance that may never be duplicated again.

Giuseppe Ielasi - Tools
Opening a little small black cardboard packet I am greeted with a warning - "please do not use headphones for playback". With this a bit unusual packaging for 12k, I choose to follow the advice - the last time my brain caught a null pointer exception was when I accidentally used headphones for Florian Hecker's Acid In The Style Of David Tudor - not recommended. Meanwhile, Giuseppe Ielasi's 2009 album, Aix was covered on Headphone Commute and featured in Best of 2009 : Music For Sonic Installations In The Cavern Of Your Skull. So, my curiosity is already awake. On Tools, Ielasi takes the study into the physicality of everyday objects even further. Each track is titled after the object from which the sounds were made - "Cooking Pan", "Tin Can", "Polystyrene Box" - each a simple every day object, with a basic material from which it was made. The collection of seven pieces nods to material produced strictly for sampling or live performance by artists and DJs - Tools is kit of items that's meant to achieve a task without being consumed in the process. The process, however, is the result of this experimental 20-minute EP. Synthetically folding cooking pan, like a sheet of metal, Ielasi extracts the objects interaction with air pressure. My favorite, of course, is a Rubber Band - who hasn't played with this amazing instrument in school, and now in many boring meetings? With a little help from his computer, Ielasi manages to create a rhythmic structure, where the band becomes a percussion instrument, taking a musical life of its own. Other tracks resemble a production factory on which machines work with the beat in time with the late night warehouse techno tempo. The release may be a bit tough for a novice listener, but it is surely recommended for an experienced traveler into an array of sounds.

Sound Bytes : 12 Bytes From 12k [part two]

2011-10-07T03:41:00.000-07:00

Here's the second installment in our four part 12k Sound Bytes special. In this particular entry, I decided to dig back a few years and cover the albums that I really enjoyed from the label, but didn't have the time to write about before. As with all music, I don't believe in assigning a numerical value to the release date, representing some form of a human calendar system based on the period of our planet around the sun. I also don't believe in the past or the future. There's only now, only this, only words and these sounds.

More from 12k Special: [ part one ] [ part three ] [ part four ]

Machinefabriek + Stephen Vitiello - Box Music
I am already a fan of pretty much everything that Rotterdam based Rutger Zuydervelt touches. My only problem is that I simply can't keep up! Recording under his famous Machinefabriek moniker, Zuydervelt manages to output on average half a dozen records a year, and that's not counting all of the singles, collaborations, and appearances! Besides his numerous self-released albums and EPs, his works have appeared on labels such as Lampse, Low Point, Dekorder, Fang Bomb, Type Home Normal, Sonic Pieces, and now his first contribution for the celebrated 12k. Collaborating with an equally prolific Virginia based artist, Stephen Vitiello, the duo take turns in composing pieces for this five track, 50-minute long album, Box Music. With each track titled after the used ingredients, one immediately recognizes that there's a deeper concept behind the album. After the duo met online, they started talking about a collaboration centered around an "exchange" of not just ideas, but concepts across space and time. Zuydervelt and Vitiello sent each other a box full of non-musical objects and scrap recordings with the purpose of using those as source materials in their tracks. Thus, on "Broken Record, Cassettes" we hear Vitiello wrestling with clicks, cuts, and unwinding metallic hum, twisting for almost nine minutes, and finally winning, with a complete submission, by placing a loop lock over the perpetrator's heaving gasps. Perhaps there's another life for these deceased components. And on "Field Recordings, Rocks, Speakers" we hear Zuydervelt's extraction of a humming, buzzing, meditation, squeezing a song out of a rock, and somehow managing to carve out a gem. An excellent collaboration with an equally unique concept and a successful result!

Pillowdiver - Sleeping Pills
Selected as one of the albums for Headphone Commute's Best of 2009 : Music For Bending Light And Stopping Time, René Margraff's first and only (so far) album as Pillowdiver is a perfect off-ramp from the daily grind. Sleeping Pills is the wind-down for the insomniac, a hypnotic treatment for a buzzing mind, a soporific psychoactive surpassing any prescription medication. And that doesn't mean that it sounds boring. Returning to the state of calm, suspended sensory activity, and rejuvenation with Margraff's gentle guitar strumming, warm white noise treatments, and lo-fi recording techniques is a compliment in itself. For his debut album on 12k, the Berlin based musician limited himself to Fender Jazzmaster, a few synths, field recordigs, and a 4-track cassette recorder. But as every musician has already learned during his career - it's not the toys that make the record, but what is ready to reveal itself through the process of creating music. With Sleeping Pills we are once again reminded that sound, as simple, minimal, and purely naked as it is, can easily convey the message, even with a basic toolkit. In fact, the less distractions with the knobs, the better. Listening to nine numerically titled tracks, one can't help but be transported to a dream state where the melancholia lullabies with sorrow, while the encouragement wakes up with hope. Another great find for 12k, for which I am deeply thankful. Fans of Jasper TX, Celer, Seaworthy and Brian McBride will share my gratitude.

Murralin Lane - Our House Is On The Wall
While the name Murralin Lane may be new to the loyal 12k followers, the members of this duo should be familiar to the collectors of the latest modern classical releases. After all, one half of the group is none other than David Wenngren, known to the world mostly for his Library Tapes moniker with releases on Home Normal, Resonant, Sonic Pieces, Make Mine Music, and most recently collaborating with Danny Norbury as Le Lendemain on their acclaimed Fires (Home Normal, 2009). And the second, completing half, [what I am led to only speculate at] is Wenngren's girlfriend, Ylva Wiklund. The Murralin Lane project was born when Wenngren asked Wiklund to sing for the track that just begged for vocals. After a surprising outcome, they decided to record an entire album, Our House Is On The Wall. Recorded in their Swedish home, the seven tracks of this 30-minute album are full of textured vibrations, jittery drone pads, and lo-fi distant echoes of Wiklund's lovely voice. The nostalgic piano chords of Library Tapes are replaced with atonal resonating layers, akin to a synthetic flute being played by a lost wind in the canyon. Gentle triggers hint at the deconstruction of organic sound, ready to split at the seams, where time-stretching has failed to transmute. Wiklund's ghostly vocals evoke a melancholy of spirits, uneasy in their dwelling, wishing to only be heard. Our House Is On The Wall is a beautiful addition to 12k's already rich catalog of electro-acoustic, vocal-ambient, and pop-minimalist collection.

Sound Bytes : 12 Bytes From 12k [part one]

2011-10-07T03:38:00.000-07:00

I've been a long time fan of pretty much everything from Taylor Deupree's Pound-Ridge based label, 12k. Undoubtedly, one of the catalysts of boundary pushing developments in ambient, minimalist, and electro-acoustic frontiers, 12k is at the forefront of today's independent labels. With well over 80 releases since its inception in 1997, the albums dominate the charts on Headphone Commute’s Best of 2010 : Music For Bending Light And Stopping Time and the previous year's Music For Sonic Installations In The Cavern Of Your Skull. Although the output of the label is always in the rotation at HC headquarters, I finally made a point to sit down and catch up to a long overdue, and much-needed, four-part special of this Sound Bytes feature, titled 12 Bytes From 12k. In this installment you will find a selection of recently released albums, as well as a few EPs, compilations and past releases from one of my favorite labels. Enjoy.

More from 12k Special: [ part two ] [ part three ] [ part four ]

Kenneth Kirschner - Twenty Ten
At first, when a thick mailing envelope arrived at my door, I thought that perhaps Taylor Deupree tripled the output of his label. Alas, the man of the hour was Brooklyn based Kenneth Kirschner, who, along with 12k's help, of course, managed to release a triple CD, collecting four of his long-form (very long form indeed) pieces. With over three hours of music, the selection of abstract, experimental, and conceptual music takes the listener outside of the comfort zone, peeling away layers of audio veils, meticulously placed to allure. The pieces of Twenty Ten remind me of an intoxicated summer breeze, playing its ode on the lazy morning wind chimes. The music is as accidental as it is deliberate; as automatic as it is thought out; as random as it is methodical. Drones and pitches in the higher registers are cut through with distant string drops, sonic vapors and false hints of tinnitus. 142 unique chords in my speaker are closer than they appear, allowing the sound to decay, and then let the silence speak for itself. On Twenty Ten, Kirschner uses acoustic instruments to study the sonic contours, aural space and its micro-tonal outlines. With each piece titled for the date on which it was started, Kirschner pushes preconceived conceptions aside, leaving the aging piano to claw through the artifacts, and occasionally be interrupted. Although Twenty Ten may not be an easily accessible listening experience for the novice, it is indeed an impressive accomplishment outside of all boundaries and dispositions. Fans of Richard Chartier, Janek Schaefer, William Basinski, and of course, John Cage, will agree...

Fourcolor - As Pleat
The latest release from the label veteran, Keiichi Sugimoto, recording under the artist name Fourcolor, comes just in time to soothe the daily grind and blanket the room with spacial textures in As Pleat. Featuring a cover painting and vocal contributions from the lovely Sanae Yamasaki (Moskitoo), Sugimoto's third full length album for 12k (and fifth altogether) finds him further into experimentation with his guitar, slight hints of digital processing and accidental acoustic manipulation. It is indeed a very warm record, swaying in the air with gracious vibes, soft sonic fumes, and light, shimmering haze of harmonies and strummed chords. Sugimoto continues his quest in search of simple sounds in between the rest, urging his listeners to appreciate the beauty in both, simple layering and complex textures. And from ambient swells to glitchy skip-editing, the album manages to achieve just that. "As Pleat is unquestionably Fourcolor, but there is a pillow-like quality to the sound, a softness that plays beautifully off of the more organic edits and sharper plucks that all combine to create the most engaging Fourcolor album to date." Be sure to check out Yamasaki's previous releases on 12k: Air Curtain (2004) and Letter Of Sounds (2006). As well as his work with the electro-acoustic quartet, Minamo: Shining (2005) and Durée (2010), also available on 12k. Recommended if you like Tomasz Bednarczyk, Opitope, Chihei Hatakeyama, Lawrence English and Pillowdiver among the many.

Taylor Deupree - Shoals
I'm always excited when Taylor Deupree releases another album. Even if it's a short, 45-minute, four track release! Deupree's attention to detail, minimalism and subliminal aesthetics seems to seep from everything he touches. And although he appears to be constantly busy with curating the releases on his very own label, 12k, laboriously mastering almost every album that goes out to print, it's nice to know that he can find the time to compose a rare beaut, which is a treasured boon, like a surprise gift from a long-lost relative. Of course, from my perspective, it's difficult to cover the output of the label without talking about the man himself. But so much has been already said on these pages and many others, that I will practice great restraint, and instead concentrate on the music. On Shoals, Deupree finds himself even more ingrained with acoustic instrumentation, strict conceptual control, and at the same time sophisticated sound design and DSP programming. Using an extensive collection of Javanese and Balinese (Indonesian) gamelan instruments, provided by the University of York Music Research Center for the artist residency program, Deupree set out to unravel and reveal the exterior imperfections, by scratching, tapping, or scraping with an eBow at the surfaces and strings. An array of eavesdropping microphones appear on the album, capturing incidental movement and physicality of extracting the resonating sound waves. Developing a powerful audio software in Kyma, Deupree manipulated, layered and looped these meditative elements to create Shoals - "an album referencing the sonic and emotional world that can be discovered by scraping away surfaces to reveal a worn interior of comfort and time." The result is the most captivating, most elaborate, and Deupree's most triumphant statement made to date.

Sound Postcard : Machinefabriek - Greetings From Seeljocht

2011-09-25T14:57:00.000-07:00

It's about time that I have received a real Sound Postcard. Out of nowhere there was a message in my mailbox from none other than Rutger Zuydervelt, recording under the name Machinefabriek:

This audio postcard might reach you when I'm in Rotterdam again. This collage consist of recordings made on the island Vlieland (the Netherlands), where I'm doing a residency for the Seeljocht project, with Piiptsjilling (a quartet I'm in), Greg Haines and a few video artists. It's windy most of the time, and the bike-ride I did earlier was pretty exhausting. We're in the middle of nowhere here, surrounded by dunes, heath land, salt marsh and sand. It's beautiful, except for the moments when jet fighters use a part of the beach (very close to our residency) as shooting ground. It's strange to sleep in the middle of nature and being woken up by the sound of jet engines and gunfire.

As always, Piiptsjilling was ridiculously productive. On the first three days we recorded about 9 tracks. While normally I play the guitar, I tried a different approach this time. I used field recordings instead, to emphasize the connection with the island. So I'm walking around with my portable recorder a lot, capturing audio that I find inspiring. In the Piiptsjilling sessions, I process these field recordings, looping and pitching them, but for this postcard they're mostly untreated. You will also hear a voice. That's of course the usual suspect (and Piiptjilling colleague) Mariska Baars.

Anyways, this has been a very special week, and I'll miss it when I'm back home.
Enjoy. Rutger

Listen to this Sound Postcard on Headphone Commute

Two and a Half Questions with A Dancing Beggar

2011-09-25T14:55:00.000-07:00

What is the story behind your alias?
It was taken from the original name of my Dad's house, Dancing Beggars.

Talk a bit about capturing the seasons of London, UK, with your music.
I wrote both albums on the South Coast so I'm not sure I've yet to capture anything from London yet. It's a very busy place which I think works better with more electronic music such as Franz Kirmann - I think he's a perfect example of how a city like London can impact on the sound of an artist. You hear music like that and you can easily imagine street lights and cars rushing by. However, I like to keep my songs as minimal as possible so they're more rooted in the countryside and the sea but maybe it will change the way I write in future.

The title of the album and the individual tracks convey a certain darkness, yet the music feels light and, dare I even say, uplifting. How does this intricate play with the contrast center around the main theme of the album?
Some of the tracks are quite downbeat but others are pretty hopeful at times. I guess it's about trying to put all emotions on display over the course of the record rather than sticking to just one theme. Contrast helps to highlight the different moods, I wanted people to really notice the difference between the light and the dark and how the two can intertwine.

Although some fit your album into a post-rock genre, I feel that it gravitates closer to shoegaze. What are your thoughts on this particular classification, and for that matter, categorization at all?
It's good to have a general classification so that people who listen to similar artists and genres can easily get an idea of your music but I think all music is worth more than just a couple of words tagged onto it. I do listen to shoegaze a bit but not loads, bands like Ride, Amusement Parks on Fire but I'd say they influence the way I play with sounds rather than how I write songs.

After a few self releases you finally got signed to a label. How did you land on Audiobulb Records?
I wanted someone to release it who was passionate about the record and someone who understood what I wanted to achieve, Jeff and myself knew David was the best person to do that. Audiobulb have some great artists, I like their attention to detail and artwork and how they understood that a release is much more than just a record.

Read Headphone Commute's Review of Follow The Dark As If It Were Light

adancingbeggar.blogspot.com

Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute

A Dancing Beggar - Follow The Dark As If It Were Light (Audiobulb)

2011-09-25T14:54:00.000-07:00

For my first official review in Headphone Commute's new headquarters, I set up my gear, treated the room with some books and some rugs, closed all doors, tunnels and mouths, and slipped into my meditative listening place of pressure levels, frequencies, and vibrations. I used to believe in pure luck, in coincidence and in serendipity. Now I just flow... I pick up my next album to review not because of this or that, but because I just simply pick it up. In this spirit of unfolding events I arrive at a new album by A Dancing Beggar. Or so the story goes... Follow The Dark As If It Were Light is the sophomore release from James Simmons. Previously self-releasing What We Left Behind (2009), the seven track followup lands on David Newman's Audiobulb Records. Words like "lush", "ethereal", and "atmospheric" bubble on the surface of my cranium, but instead they are subdued and let to rest beyond these structures known as words. Genres like "ambient", "shoegaze", and "post-rock" want to suffocate the listener's perceptions, slot the album in a bin, and file under a plastic label, but instead they melt away, and let the music simply stream, from Simmons' consciousness to yours. But if I had to classify the album, or rather add it to the playlist of my favorites, it would certainly play nicely along with Hammock, Slow Dancing Society, The Ideal Setback, and Bitcrush. The tracks on the album (as does the output from the artists mentioned above) approach each passage with a soft palette of acoustic loops, field recordings and harmony rich soundscapes, often executed with the aid of a guitar, a few effects pedals, and perhaps distant soaring vocal couplet. Crashing waves, epic synths and reverberated strings - each evoke a feeling of euphoric bliss, a sun ray's kiss, a late night summer breeze. Musical poetry in the making, unfolding on the stage of life. And through these notes a deep and profound connection is made between a messenger and a receiver. That is the power of music.

Read Two and a Half Questions with A Dancing Beggar

adancingbeggar.blogspot.com
audiobulb.com

Eraldo Bernocchi / Blackfilm – Along The Corridors (Vital)

2011-09-15T04:26:00.000-07:00

Here's another great album that I've been meaning to tell you about for awhile. I suppose it's been a whole year since I originally heard Along The Corridors, and then, the release made it to Headphone Commute's Best of 2010 : Music For Synergizing The Synapse Of Ideas, so it's only appropriate that appears on these pages in a full review. From its heavy stone dropping bass to cinematic orchestration, beautiful piano melodies, and progressive dowtempo electronic beats, the latest collaboration between Eraldo Bernocchi and Blackfilm is an amazing find and addition to the Danish dark electronic label, Vital. Designed as a soundtrack for those lonely nights, walking through abandoned streets and skeleton buildings, Along The Corridors will keep you on the edge of your seat, with your imagination as the only projector for the cinema of your mind. Italy's heavy dub producer Eraldo Bernocchi is not a new face to the scene. Starting out his career in the 90s, Bernocchi produced under many aliases: Ashes, Interceptor, SIMM and Surrealistick Master. He's also collaborated with many artists recording under group names such as Apocalypse Fanfare, Charged, Equations Of Eternity and Black Engine among the few. But it is the works under his real name that deserve the most attention. In 1999 he released Charged recording with Tashinori Kondo and Bill Laswell. In 2005 he appeared alongside Harold Budd in Music For 'Fragments From The Inside' on Sub Rosa. And in 2007 he recorded Manual together with Thomas Fehlmann for 21st Records. There are also numerous EPs with Bill Laswell under Apollo's Re-charged series. I guess I'll stop listing his long discography here... Blackfilm, who continues to remain anonymous, is a Hungarian artist that was first introduced to us through his self-titled debut on the now defunct Spectraliquid Records. Since then, the album has been picked up by Denovali Records and repressed in 2010 on compact disc and vinyl. His dark atmospheric soundscapes and a bricolage of modern classical samples and instrumental hip-hop beats reminded me of my favorite works by Amon Tobin and Future Sound of London, for a brooding soundtrack enveloping your mind with heavy fog of penetrating sound. Since the release, Blackfilm has relocated to London where he has embedded himself with the heavyweights of dub and even darker journeys in the underground... Well, I've done enough name-dropping for a single review. And if any of the above does not excite you enough to pick up this fantastic album, perhaps you may not be a fan of film noir, illbient, and dark stepper's delights. A great headphone and high-quality studio monitor experience, to take you into the imaginary urban environments where one becomes lost and inevitably found. Highly recommended to fans of Subheim, Kattoo, Architect, Nebulo, Access To Arasaka, Undermathic and thirsty collectors of every release from Hymen, Ad Noiseam and Tympanik.

eraldobernocchi.net | myspace.com/blackfilmmusic
hentai-vital.com | myspace.com/hentaivital

Sound Bytes : Poordream, Frank Riggio, Access To Arasaka, Kaneel & Lackluster

2011-09-15T04:21:00.000-07:00

Here's a set of great mini-albums and EPs that should get any IDM-head twitching... What's more exciting is that two of these releases are available 100% for FREE for your listening pleasure! And you know you can't go wrong with that! So grab your restraining jacket, 12-pack of Red Bull, and a vial of smelling salts, then sit back and ... er... enjoy... I'll be back with more later!

Poordream - Living Now (33 Recordings)
Following his debut single, Immaterial Monarch, released by Spectraliquid back in 2009, John Valasis, recording under the pseudonym Poordream, returns with his first full length album, Living Now. With Spectraliquid now defunct (as unfortunate as it is), Valasis found an outlet in another Greek label, Athens based 33 Recordings [which also co-released the single]. The assembly of ten tracks on Living Now is a culmination of numerous live performances around the country, which later received studio treatment and glossy production to achieve a glitchy IDM trip through experimental soundscapes and melodic electronica. Featuring his own voice on a few tracks, as well as a few remixes of his own, the album traverses a continuous journey reminiscent of Trentemøller's downtempo meets Subheim's cinematica meets Shpongle's psychedelia. It's easy to lose yourself in the bass dropping, synth sweeping, rhythm pulsating beat. A delicious blend of smoky flavors in a bubbling cocktail of spicy scents. Released in a beautiful limited handmade "expressor" box with 2 CDrs, sticker, and a poster, the album is available directly from poordream.com. It's also available as a FREE download from 33 Recordings. Did you get that last bit? It's FREE!

Frank Riggio - Texturtion EP + Distosolista EP (DeepVast)
Well, well, well... Frank Riggio managed to release not one, but two EPs, both clocking in a bit under half an hour, with eight tracks each, conceptually planned to be released on a single CD, on his very own label, DeepVast. On my last review of Frank Riggio's album, Anamorphose (which, was also released by the earlier mentioned Spectraliquid), I drew direct parallels between him and Amon Tobin. And it seems that with this double EP, Riggio was able to perfect that formula, and, more importantly, find his very own sound. Elements of electronic instrumental hip-hop (think Brainfeeder's dirty lo-fi sound mixed with Glitch Mob's head bopping beats) permeate through IDM distorted, textured bricolage, with just a pinch of dub roaring flavah, and DSP-rich crisp production. Riggio drips with creativity. It oozes from every bit-crushed filter, leaving no knob unturned, no [brain/prison] cell unhinged. From Texturtion (a morph between "texture" and "distortion") to Distosolista (a morph of "distortion" and "solista" ['solo' in Italian]) and back, in whichever order you prefer, the duo of EPs is a special treat for all the members of the triple-A: an Anarchist's hymn, an Audiophile's delight, and an Addict fix. Grab your digital copy directly from Frank Riggio's bandcamp. Don't forget to read Two and a Half Questions with Frank Riggio.

Access To Arasaka - Orbitus (Tympanik)
Enter the futurescapes of Access To Arasaka. His endless capacity for synthetic engineering of sound, mixed with a deep tool-chest of effects and aural bending techniques brings a smile to any audio-geek, and especially this one. I'll plug my adapter into the interface for direct memory access, and let AtA manipulate the bits in lock-free circular array. As long as I keep chasing his input, we shouldn't have to catch a buffer under-run exception. The new Orbitus EP, released on the beloved Tympanik as a FREE download, is based on the themes from Richard K. Morgan's science fiction novels featuring Takeshi Lev Kovacs: "‘Orbitus‘ references Martian orbitals that shoot down anything that flies over a specific height, save for one gap near the planet’s equator, and how the characters try to figure out how to bring them down; symbolic of the limitations we place on ourselves and our attempts to overcome them." Here's everything you can expect from top-notch IDM production. Endless elements of jittery percussion, and full saturation of DSP. Amazing spectral stereo field, and beautifully revealing atmospherics, perfectly occupying large studio spaces, as well as a quality pair of headphones. With Orbitus, Access To Arasaka may have birthed a child from a hurried affair between dark ambient and synthetic glitch. Another frontier for future music has been broken. What's next? Be sure to check out Headphone Commute's review of Oppidan and of course, Two and a Half Questions with Access To Arasaka.

Kaneel / Lackluster - Split EP (Awkward Silence)
And finally, before I sign off from this installment of Sound Bytes full of amazing music for your enjoyment (I hope you agree), here's a short but sweet, 4-track split EP from Kaneel and Lackluster. Awkward Silence Recordings is a small independent label based in Kent (south-east of England), releasing mostly on 3" CDs, short-run vinyl, and now digitally via bandcamp and bleep. The label has put out splits from many makers and breakers of the IDM genre, including Arovane, Accelera Deck, ISAN, Christian Kleine, Lilienthal, Lowfish, Lusine ICL, Maps and Diagrams, Skanfrom, Yellow6 and many others. For their 33rd release, Awkward Silence compiles two tracks from Guillaume "Kaneel" Richard (see his album I've Sketched It A While Ago on Apegenine) and Esa Juhani Ruoho, also known as Lackluster (see his many releases on Monotonik, Psychonavigation, Kahvi Collective, U-Cover and of course, Merck). The 3" split continues to evolve on the favorite formula behind so many early IDM releases from the beloved Merck, that cranium pleasuring brain dance that since has settled down a bit and turned into a cerebral mind meditation. There's still plenty of elements to tickle your ear drum, and hopefully get your clicker over to the bandcamp to purchase the split. I really miss music like this... and I want MORE!

Overcast Sound - Beneath The Grain (Entropy)

2011-09-15T04:07:00.001-07:00

You don't have to descend into a deep cavernous space inhabited by the hollow reverberations of the Overcast Sound - you're already there. You don't have to close your eyes to embrace the darkness and inhale the dampness - the candles are already gone. You don't have to travel back in time to enjoy the memories of the early minimal, dark, atmospheric and dub techno days - the duo brings the sweating warehouse walls and vibrating concrete hallways into your home. In fact, no strain is necessary on your part today - sit back, relax, and enjoy the passage. Here's how it works. Deep vibrations bounce off the ceiling, drop on the floor, and jitter the air condensed with thick humidity of sound, thick enough to suffocate the breathless, until the fluttering of the closed hi-hat cuts through the layers and sets the rhythm of the groove. Atmospheric pads hide behind the old school claps, while a mysterious and musky voice recites some syllables in German. Hypnotic beats pulsate over never ending loops, metallic minor chords, and the darker side of dub techno. This may not be a familiar place, but nevertheless a place you'll call home. Beneath The Grain is the debut full length release by the Canadian duo, Overcast Sound. Although Michael Pettit and Jamie Drouin have already released a handful of digital EPs on their own similarly titled label, as well as on Silent Season, basic_sounds and Rohs!, the album marks their first cohesive output, spanning an hour of a mind bending trip. Overcast Sound is no stranger to top notch quality production - created for a huge sound system and headphones alike, the album oozes with the low fidelity crackling of vinyl and at the same time rich reverberation of a powerful DSP. The pristine qualities of the sound design behind the album do not come as a surprise. Jamie Drouin is a sound installation artist, exploring silence, noise, and "auditory phenomena of environments". He has previously released albums on Yann Novak's Dragon's Eye (check out A Three Month Warm Up [2009]), and his very own, Infrequency Editions (see his latest collaboration with the co-founder of the label, Lance Olsen, on Absence & Forgiveness [2011]. I can only speculate that Michael Pettit is the man behind the analogue sounding percussion and the driving beats of the sound on Beneath The Grain. The album, drenched with German influence, is the result of the duo's three-month residence in Berlin. "Each track investigates a particular place or theme discovered during their residency, drawing from the textures and sounds unique to those experiences. The ethereal vocals in Devil's Mountain make reference to the crumbling Cold War listening station on the outskirts of the city, while Lackadaisical bubbles and meanders with the reflected sounds of inner city parks and neighborhoods." So it's no sacrilege if I throw out label names like Force Inc., Perlon, and of course, Basic Channel. Released on the French Entropy Records, the album marks a welcome entry intro the arena of the masters such as DeepChord, Quantec, Thomas Fehlmann and Monolake. Check out Overcast Sound's EPs - The Changeling, Green Space, Losing You. There's also a free Holding Patterns Remixes release out on Basic Sounds. And be sure to grab a free mix put together by the duo for Headphone Commute's podcast, titled April Ambient Mix.

overcastsound.com
entropy-records.com

Sound Bytes : Flying Lotus, Gaslamp Killer and Gonjasufi

2011-09-03T12:59:00.000-07:00

Here are a few mini reviews that I have prepared a few months ago but never got a chance to publish... As with all music - there's no such thing as time - so, if you haven't uncovered these gems yet, I'll be glad to be the one to introduce!

Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma (Warp)
Listening to the music of Steven Ellison is a head trip. Period. Although we may have heard the sounds of Flying Lotus on Adult Swim's interludes (aka 'bumps') between the shows, he was first introduced to the followers of abstract, experimental, and instrumental hip-hop with his debut, 1983 on Warp Records' offshoot, Plug Research. Then, FlyLo showed off his skills with the Reset EP (2007) on Warp, and by 2008 the label was confident enough to backup this California producer of avant-garde beats and free-form jazzy rhythms for his sophomore LP, Los Angeles. By 2009 everyone knew his name, and although there were a few copy-cats in the alleys, no one could cut it as deep and smooth as Flying Lotus. Ellison's stumbling beats and rubbery bass lines defy metronomes and clock synced drum machines. Truly in the spirit of jazz music, Cosmogramma is an improvisational production. The synth lines sprinkle through the confetti of percussion, falling like a dandelion's florets into the dirt beneath a rolling tank of rhythms. Defying your expectations and any genre classification, Ellison's deranged psychedelia is a beautiful child playing with a kaleidoscope of plucked sound. If anything, Ellison's third full length is a lot more "jazzier" than its predecessor. With 17 tracks running a little over 45 minutes, Cosmogramma is an album with a lot of material to digest in one sitting, and begs for multiple returns. And these are definitely rewarded!

The Gaslamp Killer - My Troubled Mind (Brainfeeder)
Personally, before I ease into the troubled mind of Willie Bensussen, I like to queue up his incredible mix, Hell And The Lake Of Fire Are Waiting For You! released as a limited edition of 1000 copies by Hit+Run in 2009. And what a mix that is, ladies and gentlemen! One can not describe the skill with which The Gaslamp Killer traverses dubstep, hip-hop, jazzy riffs, and experimental psychedelic rock! Although The Gaslamp Killer has produced a few tracks here and there before, My Troubled Mind is the first official release, available as a digital download with 7 tracks plus a booklet or a two track 10" vinyl (with a different tracklist). Although its total run time is only about sixteen minutes, Bensussen manages to sweep you off your feet with his incredible instrumental beats and abstract experimental sounds, dragging you to hell and back through dub, hip-hop, kraut, and electronics! Full of vinyl clicks and hisses, the release is more than a mash-up of genres, B-side record digging, sampledelica and Frankenstein precision stitching - it's a true masterpiece celebrating love for music, culture, tranquility and psychedelia.

The Gaslamp Killer - Deathgate (Brainfeeder)
Rolling through my weekend with The Gaslamp Killer, I come upon his latest EP, Death Gate. Right from the start, the bass kicks in with a tighter production, sharper effected synth lines, and a lot more solid song structure. The EP is a bit over sixteen minutes, and the collection of five tracks still feel like a set of vignettes (if anything - that's the only downside - I can listen to Willy all day long). Gonjasufi makes an appearance on "When I'm In Awe", as does Mophono and Computer Jay. Here come the cut-up hip-hop influenced beats, distorted space trips, and intricate manipulations. Full of jazz riffing, lounge smoking, head bopping, dub rolling, and rhythm chopping ideas, Death Gate is a space ship ready to take you on a head spinning trip. Don't say I didn't warn you. This is an exceptional record that only gets better with repeated listening. You must check out the following mixes from The Gaslamp Killer: Gaslamp Killers (2007), All Killer: Finders Keepers Records 1-20 (2009), and the very latest, A Decade Of Flying Lotus (2010). There's also, of course, his production work for the ever elusive Gonjasufi, which we will cover here next...

Gonjasufi - A Sufi And A Killer (Warp)
What becomes apparent right away is Sumach Ecks' nonchalant execution and approach to music. His falsetto distorted vocals filtered through 60s psychedelia and lo-fi dub smoke, are at the heart of every song structure of each confident track. Mix into that the exquisite production by the one and only [mother-flippin] Gaslamp Killer, and you have a hit, that even with its peculiar sound, a label such as Warp is willing to back. First hearing Gonjasufi on Flying Lotus' Los Angeles (who described this sufi's voice as "timeless, incredible filfth"), I was almost sure that it was a sampled track from one of those dusty records found in a random garage sale somewhere between San Diego and Las Vegas. Imagine my surprise when I finally connected the dots! On this record, the duo (with a little help from FlyLo on "Ancestors" and Jon Ancheta as Mainframe on four tracks) clearly demonstrates that a great record can stand out all on its own, independent from the year, style, or the overly-produced sound one hears these days. In fact, I challenge you to attempt and replicate the sound of A Sufi And A Killer! From acid infused rock to influences from the pre-hip-hop era, the album strokes your inner mental child into a trippy daydream where the lyrics are as haunting as the ghost of Woodstock beats. Mind penetrating "She Gone", "Kowboyz And Indians", and an absolutely wonderful "Sheep", stay in your head long after the record has stopped playing. Really dug this debut, and I am looking forward to more output from the duo. Check out a remix album, The Caliph's Tea Party (Warp, 20010) featuring reworks of the tracks by the likes of Mark Pritchard, Bibio, Broadcast, and many other Warp favorites...

Sound Bytes : Enig'matik, Med School, and Thoughtless

2011-09-03T12:57:00.000-07:00

On my true Headphone Commute between New York and Philadelphia, Spring rushes past the windows of a high-speed tilting train. With two hours of music, a laptop, and spotty Wi-Fi service, I can catch up to the latest compilations that have truly excited me about the latest evolution of sound. Here are three of my favorites, showcasing the unknown, yet amazing sounds, in glitch, IDM, drum'n'bass, tech-house and experimental beats. I hope that these words will inspire you enough to pick up these sounds. Enjoy...

Painting Pictures On Silence V1 (Enig'matik)
It's a new day. It's a new dawn. And the new world welcomes a new kid on its doorsteps. The demented stork got lost in the electric storm, its mind is a mush from the strobe filled sky, and its broken beak stutters in time with the glitching beat, as it tip-toes off the cliff and falls, head first, into the abyss. Sorry - the headspace of Painting Pictures On Silence V1 has distracted me from my main point. What was I saying? Oh yes, the world welcomes a new record label based in Byron Bay hinterland of Australia. Run and operated by Jake Rose, also known as Sun In Aquarius, the label hopes to focus on the experimental side of electronica, glitch and abstract IDM, splattering digital sound all over the sonic canvas for your pleasure and delight. As is the latest custom with new labels, an entry into the scene is marked with a compilation showcasing the upcoming roster of artists. In this instance, Enig'matik collects seventeen tracks from up-and-coming, forward-thinking laboratory scientists of audio fidelity and razor sharp production, showcasing the current output from Australia, New Zealand and UK. Painting Pictures On Silence V1 promises to be the first installment, in what we hope to be, a series of digital releases from Enig'matik, pushing the boundaries of electronic music production. The label pulls out all stops and delivers a punchy, crunchy, and at times raunchy, genre defying compilation, constructed somewhere by some robots on some planet e. At times technoid, at times bass heavy, at times musically melancholic, the droplets of sound land on my favorite slip mat and splatter in a kaleidoscopic frenzy. A DSP-rich tasty treat for all nostalgics and addicts to drukqs. The demented stork would be proud.

New Blood 011 (Med School)
Last year, Headphone Commute lauded Med School's New Blood compilation showcasing the new sound of liquid drum'n'bass from around the world. It seems that there's plenty to add to this series, and the tracks reach out to a new height. New Blood 011, subtitled as a "bass filled tonic for mind and body" puts the left-field offshoot of Hospital Records back on the charts and our playlists. More fresh faces sprinkle the twelve-track play-list, cutting into the deep and low grooves with a scalpel precision of the med school's graduates - "it's a whole new blood group, fresh from dialysis". Ranging from bass driven fluid breaks, to broken half-time beats, to complex rhythms of a new millennia, and dubstep inspired rumbling monsters, each track on the compilation demonstrates the artist's ability to build up on a well known formula, and then tip its accepted stability off balance by introducing a heavy weight of their own. Once again, the continental span of Eastern Europe (Russia in particular) seems to shine with bright rays of music through its dark clouds of history. Perhaps suffering and misery culminate into something beautiful after all... Whatever the reason is behind this newly developed parasitic deconstruction, we welcome its evolution with an open ear. It is truly unique and incredibly beautiful, like an ugly doll in the hands of a sleeping child. Setting the bar pretty high with the 010's installment, Med Schools satisfies our expectations and returns with a slamming followup. What Warp did to electronica with the Artificial Intelligence in the early nineties, Med School is doing to d'n'b with the New Blood today. Well done, boys.

Era One (Thoughtless)
Toronto based Thoughtless Music, celebrates its 50th release over four years with the end of the first era, in this 73-minute mix, titled Era One. Collected and mixed by the label owner and curator, Noah Pred, the journey traverses over 50 tracks, marking the selection as the first "inaugural installment [in] the culmination [...] of thoughtlessness". Pred lays down a continuous mix full of highs and lows, abstract sounds and beats, pounding away at your mind with a quality controlled production. Minimal and tech-house rhythms are neatly folded and unwrapped to reveal a sonic landscape capable to separate the frequency space even among the muddiest of the noises. Every little sound feels EQd to live in its own head space, propelling the label into a category of production houses concerned with quality over quantity. When the price of a good or service is marked by a simple supply vs. demand curve, and when the supply in this digital age of such output may seem unlimited, Thoughtless Music skids on the limits of this formula, where the result just doesn't make sense, and you still want to pay for the music. "Showcasing a wide variety of sounds within the parameters of modern techno and house music, the mix builds from deep excursions to peak-time jams and back again, weaving a fluid tale that stands as both a testament to the Thoughtless sound and a statement of things to come…" Weaving in 50 tracks, overlaying on top of each other in three channels, is no easy task, showcasing the label's three year output of over 300 individual tracks is another. Faced with one of the most difficult dilemmas of distilling your catalog to a fraction of your favorites, Pred appears to seamlessly roll over the task with this gorgeous, mind bending mix.

Sound Bytes : Music To Lift The Spirits

2011-09-03T12:52:00.000-07:00

In our daily lives full of routines, tasks, and errands, we forget the simplest things. Our lives are filled with self created rules, constraints and expectations. And when these are not aligned, we simply get distraught. This pain and suffering is an unnecessary misery. In my mind it's just the natural outcome when the events do not align with our expectations. We try to change events, but can't. Instead, we must learn from the observable unfold. Luck may simply be a card that we are dealt. Or it can be the acceptance of our inability to measure the predetermined outcome. In the midst of this cycle there is nature. It too, has its own path. Unfortunately, in some cases, it is unstoppable by man. This moment of silence, between the music that is about to come, is dedicated to all that have suffered on March 11, 2011, during the Great East Japan Earthquake. May all beings be safe and protected from harm. May all beings be free from suffering. May all beings be happy.

For Nihon (Unseen)
After learning about the tragic events of the 2011 Tōhoku Earthquake, Keith Kenniff (aka Helios and Goldmund), and his wife Hollie Kenniff (together known as Mint Julep) decided to reach out to their friends and ask to contribute towards a compilation to raise funds to help those in need. They were surprised by the overwhelming amount of response they have received for this project. Every artist from every corner of the world wanted to be a part of this amazing compilation! This quickly almost grew out of control, but some of the most celebrated names in ambient, modern classical, and experimental music made it to the comp. For Nihon (Japanese name for Japan) features 38 fantastic tracks from every single artist that makes up the catalog of Headphone Commute's library! And although I try to restrain myself from listing every single one of them, I simply can't! For your $20 (USD) contribution, 100% of which will be donated towards the Japan Earthquake Relief Fund, you can enjoy the wonderful works by Alva Noto, The American Dollar, Ametsub, Balmorhea, Biosphere, Clem Leek, Deru, Dustin O'Halloran, Goldmund, Hammock, Helios, Jon Hopkins, Last Days, Max Richter, Near The Parenthesis, Nils Frahm, Olafur Arnalds, (hold on, taking a breather), Peter Broderick, Rafael Anton Irisarri, Rhian Sheehan, Ryan Teague, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Sawako, Taylor Deupree, Ulrich Schnauss and many many more! The MP3 and FLAC versions of the compilation are currently available directly from unseen-music.com, while (as of this writing), the physical 2xCD can be pre-ordered today!

SMM: Context (Ghostly International)
Ghostly's mysterious SMM series can be traced to its first volume, released in November of 2003 on vinyl, featuring five tracks by the then unknown experimental ambient musicians hailing from Midwest. A year later, the label followed up with a second volume of ethereal and ambient works, this time inviting Christopher Willits, Cepia and Lusine to curate the showcase in experimental sound. Although the meaning behind the SMM acronym remains unknown, the music in this lush, cinematic, and evocative composition speaks for itself. The genre can simply be described by the list of appearances curated specifically for this relaunched yearly series. The compilations features eleven tracks by all of our favorites: Goldmund, Leyland Kirby, Svarte Greiner, Christina Vantzou, Jacaszek, The Fun Years, Manual, Aidan Baker, Rafael Anton Irisarri, Kyle Bobby Dunn and Peter Broderick. The artwork by Mike Cina depicts a smoldering cover, a piece of the process in destruction, a burning document fulfilling its destiny within the context of the artist's mind. Make sure you also check out Ghostly's 2009 compilation: SMM One, featuring a selection of artists such as Richard Devine, Kiln, Loscil, Tycho and The Sight Below. On April 24th, 2011, I attended a special Ghostly event in New York City's Le Poisson Rouge featuring performances by Rafael Anton Irisarri, Kyle Bobby Dunn, Noveller, and Goldmund - more on that event later... Meanwhile, let's hope that there's more in the future of this Ann Arbor based label, as they continue to surprise, woo, and cradle our ears in the gentle waves of sound, process, and context.

Kanshin (Hibernate)
The news of the tragic events of the Tōhoku Earthquake in Japan may have slipped from the front pages of your local paper, but the people who experienced the ordeal have been touched forever. And the musicians try to help in the only way that they know how - with music. Kanshin is a double CD compilation jointly curated by Daniel Crossley (Fluid Audio) and Jonathan Lees (Hibernate) to raise money for Japan's recovery. All of the profits will be contributed via Ian Hawgood towards ongoing relief efforts: "Ian lives in Japan and his wife is currently working with both the Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support organisation (JEARS) in Sendai and surrounding areas, as well as the Direct Help for Victims and Animals Rejected from Shelters in Japan group who are going up to areas which are not receiving government support for food, water, basic supplies, as well as rebuilding and cleaning up." And with 30 tracks, spanning almost three hours, any fan of electronic, ambient, and modern classical music should be happy, honored, and proud to own a copy of this release! Let me take a moment and rattle off a roster of appearances: Clem Leek, Hummingbird, P Jørgensen & Ian Hawgood, Wil Bolton, Field Rotation, Library Tapes, Yellow6, Maps & Diagrams with Ylid, Yann Novak, offthesky, The Moving Dawn Orchestra, Aaron Martin & Machinefabriek, Jeremy Bible & Jason Henry, Bengalfuel, Talvihorros, Alex Durlak, Antonymes, Kyle Bobby Dunn and many, many others that I can't fit into this short writeup! As of this writing, the compilation is already out of stock, and although there are no plans in reprinting the physical copy, a digital version is available for directly from kanshin.bandcamp.com

10 (Room40)
To wrap up this saturated Sound Bytes entry, peppered with a ridiculous amount of amazing artist names, we celebrate Room40's 10 year anniversary, with an incredible, massive, 40 track compilation, curated by the one and only, Lawrence English. And what's even more delicious, is that this three hour journey can be yours completely for FREE - just trade it in for your email address to join the mailing list on this page. Over the last decade, Room40 has brought many wonderful artists to the scene and our ears, showcasing their works in this label sampler, simply titled 10. If this is your first acquaintance with the label, now is the time to familiarize yourself with some of its staple sound through Room40's friends and extended family: Asher, Ben Frost, DJ Olive, Richard Chartier, David Toop, David Grubbs, Andrea Belfi, Koen Holtkamp, Minamo, Pimmon, Grouper, Janek Schaefer, Scanner, Xiu Xiu, Chihei Hatakeyama, Glim, IO3, and of course, Lawrence English, and many many more! An amazing array of sounds (I'm starting to run out of celebratory words)! Hopefully this free compilation will wet your whistle and open up your wallet, if you haven't already done so. As part of the 10 year anniversary celebration, the label has slashed its catalog prices on many great releases - check out these store special offers. Here's to ten more years from Room40!

Two and a Half Questions with Antonymes

2011-09-03T12:50:00.000-07:00

First, I must ask, where did the name 'Antonymes' come from and what does it mean?
I took the name from the mid 19th century French word antonyme. It originates from the Greek words anti - 'against' and onuma - 'a name'. The idea of recording without a name appealed to me. I'd also written a piece galled Grotesquely Beautiful. Grotesque is an antonym of beautiful. A pattern seemed to be forming. Antonymes also sounds similar to anonymous, and I like the idea of anonymity.

What is the central story behind 'The Licence to Interpret Dreams' and who is the main protagonist in it?
The main protagonist is the rural landscape. Primarily, but not exclusively the landscape of North Wales. The story occurs over a series of dreams, each revealing a secret from the landscape. The only exceptions to the pastoral are On Approaching The Strange Museum, which takes place in Copenhagen, for obvious reasons, and Oradur-Sur-Glane which takes place in France. The album an invitation to the listener to interpret these dreams. Clues are given along the way. More clues will be given at antonymes.co.uk throughout the year.

What was your approach at recording this album, and who plays all of the instruments?
I approached the album with caution, and a lot of very short pieces/ideas, probably about 30 or 40. I never start playing at home without a track in record, so I capture everything that I play, good or bad. From there I'll spend a lot of time listening through to see if any ideas fit together. Sometimes a piece will come together in a matter of hours, sometimes months. I had a lot of helpful advice from Christoph Berg while I was putting the record together. As well as being a great composer and musician, he has a great ear. Christoph's contributions to the album extend way beyond his violin playing. He really helped me to push the boundaries of my ability. James Banbury played some lovely cello parts, some of it in London, some 20 floors up in an apartment in Hong Kong! Jan Van Den Broek spoke. Paul Morley wrote words. Everything else was played and/or reconstructed with by me.

Who and/or what were the inspirations for this album?
When I'm recording I don't really listen to a lot of other music, so influences tend to be fairly broad. I wouldn't really know where to start with that. As to what, my surroundings always have an effect. We stayed in a small cottage in Llanthony, near Brecon last winter. Although I wrote very little there, just The Gospel Pass, I brought a lot of field recordings back with me, which triggered ideas. Inspiration can also come from writing things down, things I've seen or heard, or simply finding the right reverb to go with a piano sound.

How, would you say, your music has evolved since 'Beauty Becomes The Enemy Of The Future"?
I think it's become more realised. I think I have a better understanding of when a piece is finished now, and i can play a little bit better. By my normal standards I think Beauty Becomes The Enemy Of The Future was slightly rushed. There are a couple of tracks that are unfinished. I was in a bit of a rush to get it released, as I wasn't sure that I'd get another opportunity. As much as I don't like going back to old material, I may revisit some of it in the future.

I know that you've been waiting to release an album on Hidden Shoal until you felt that it was ready for the label. How has been the reception so far?
Warm, and very much worth the wait.

Read Headphone Commute's review of The Licence To Interpret Dreams. Also, check out a special Sound Postcard from Antonymes

antonymes.co.uk

Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute

Emancipator - Safe In The Steep Cliffs (self)

2011-09-03T12:49:00.000-07:00

Occasionally, a newcomer comes around and hits your ears with a sonic bouquet of roses, first ripping your soul with the thorns, then gently kissing the wounds with the petals. An unsigned artist that can evoke that feeling is truly a rare occurrence, an unpolished gem, a diamond in the rough. What's interesting about Emancipator, is that I first heard his music back in 2006 with his self released debut, Soon It Will Be Cold Enough. By then, I was already convinced that he would be immediately snatched up, signed and distributed far and wide by a handful of bidding labels. With support from 1320 Records (STS9's label), and Japan's Hydeout Productions, Emancipator's sophomore full length, Safe In The Steep Cliffs is mainly self-released once again. Doug Appling first released his debut when he was only 19 years old. And four years later, his work is even more polished. Solid hip-hop flavored beats mingle with jazzy riffs, acoustic instrumentation and layered vocals. The original appearing violin is back to cry out in angst among the dancing rhythms with an ethnic flavor: there is something Asian in the undertones, and then there is something Brazilian, and it works! Listening to the tracks it's difficult to figure out if it's all sample-based, or if Appling gathered an immense ensemble of instrumentalists to execute the immaculate score for the film inside his head. What attracts me to this music the most, is the heart and soul that is put into each and every track. It is something that is definitely heard in every jazzy riff, every percussion break, and every silky smooth progression of melody. Whether it's the guitar sounds of Taurin Barrera or violin by Thacher Schmid, Appling manages to fold each sound over immaculately produced beats, so that each track becomes a unique journey. The above mentioned guitars, as well as banjo and mandolin are definitely original recordings with guest appearances by Japanese jazz musician Uyama Hiroto. I feel that labels should be watching Emancipator. In the Summer of 2009, Appling opened for Bonobo at the Roseland Theater, toured with Bassnectar and Sound Tribe Sector 9 (STS9), and even managed to get his track played at the Beijing Olympics (although, admittedly, he's not even sure how it happened himself). His organic trip hop sound would be perfect for the likes of Ninja Tune, Ghostly International and n5MD. Yet [as of this writing] he remains unsigned. That being said, at least Appling gets some exposure through live performances at music festivals across the globe. A beautiful, chilled out, dowtempo album for empty days and lonely nights, when memories well up inside and burst into this world through tears.

emancipatormusic.com

Two and a Half Questions with Markus Mehr

2011-08-14T17:01:00.000-07:00

Describe the process of capturing, processing and recording your multi-layered textures.
Most of the time it's about „following a sound“. A sound that's already there and leads you somewhere. It can be a piano-chord, a sample from a record or a crashed transient. Well, for me, composing is always like searching for something that's already there. The rest is a mixture of fantasy, hard work and luck. Still, there is no typical way i'm working, apart from working everyday!

What is your live setup like, and how much of your performance is based on pure improvisation?
It depends on the performance we (Live with Stefanie Sixt – Visuals) play. Performing stuff from LAVA is based on a MacBook plus guitar driven sounds. Basically i'm using two different delays, two fuzzboxes, a looper and some filters to process my guitar sound. The loops and soundscapes i'm creating live are the initial sound running through the whole song. So i have to deal with them till the end of it. For me that's kind of an improvisation in a structured way.

Talk about incorporating ventilators, electric shavers, and tooth brushes into your recordings. Where are some of the field recordings from?
I'm not that much interested in playing guitar in a usual way. I use it as a sound- and noise-generator. And an electric shaver, for example, positioned over a pick-up, can make a lot of noise. That's fun. But you have to have a clue and there must be a kind of following up, otherwise it's pointless and has already been done like a thousand times before. I have also experimented with field recordings on LAVA but they are completely knocked down. But I fell in love with field recordings and i will integrate them more obviously in my upcoming work.

I've already mentioned Tim Hecker and Fennesz as some of your influences, and you're also a fan of Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze. Who are some of your less-known inspirations?
At the moment i listen a lot to guys like Claus van Bebber, Janek Schaefer or Philip Jeck. I like their approach on sound-art. But for the last months I've been influenced by a germane guy called Ottmar Jenner. He wrote a book about the crossing from live to death, which inspired me for a 49 minute long piece. We will hopefully release it next year.

What was the overall reaction to your debut, Lava, and now that it's out there, what are you working on next?
I'm very pleased with the feedback on LAVA. The critics were all in all very good. The album even appeared on some „Best of 2010“ polls, which is great. At the moment i'm working a lot on new music and that's what i like the most. It's a bit early but we have some nice ideas for forthcoming releases. Regarding live shows, there is a big focus on the performance of the piece i mentioned above. I hope we can manage to present it first in a huge gas-tank here in Germany.

Check out Headphone Commute review of Lava in our Hidden Shoal Special

hiddenshoal.com/markus-mehr

Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute

Sound Bytes : Hidden Shoal Special

2011-08-14T16:57:00.000-07:00

Through the years, Australian label, Hidden Shoal Recordings has been quietly putting out little gems of experimental ambiance, gentle electronica, shoegazing post-rock and everything in between. From Sankt Otten to Wes Willenbring to Slow Dancing Society to Sleeping Me and Boxharp, the label based in Perth has been introducing the world to a wide spectrum of aural wonder. We have been following the output since the early days of 2006, featuring selected releases in our end of year lists - our Best of 2010, subtitled, Music For Withered Leaves And Lonely Fishtanks, featured the below reviewed Lava by Markus Mehr. Welcome to the world of Hidden Shoal...

Markus Mehr - Lava
Markus Mehr is one of the new artists that captured our ears and hearts. With its thick layers of frequency-heavy guitars and synth pads, Lava floats into our studios, first swallowing the floors, then suffocating the lungs. Rising fumes of sonic vapors come up to the neck, then the ears, restricting the flow of air pressure beyond its delicious onslaught. Using his guitars, synths and a computer, Augsburg-based (south Germany) Mehr twists, processes, and distorts the sound, until it moves like a solid wall, like a heavy tank, like molten lava. Inspired by the masters of experimental ambient and textured drones, such as David Sylvian, Tim Hecker and Christian Fennesz, Mehr finds his own voice, among the drowned out theme, noise generating household appliances, an intricate attention to acoustic detail. And beneath the smudge of sound that vibrates every crevice of my dwelling (and disturbs the sediment at the bottom of my favorite bottle of port), individual notes of melody peak through, like the single rays of sunlight on a hot and thunderous late summer dusk. Recommended for fans of meditative ambiance and stone cold drone alike.

Read Two and a Half Questions with Markus Mehr

Slow Dancing Society - Under The Sodium Lights
Slow Dancing Society is a solo project of Washington based producer and musician, Drew Sullivan. His contemplative, ambient explorations fling you into the heavens, where you remain suspended by his cerebral skein of shimmering notes. Under The Sodium Lights is Sullivan's fourth full length album for Hidden Shoal, and is a perfect follow up for his 2008 release, Priest Lake Circa '88 (see Headphone Commute Review and Interview with Drew Sullivan). As I listen, snow falls gently and surrounds me with its quiet aspect as SDS works its way into my cranium, soothing my frayed nerves and restoring the balance. A long silence demarcates the transition between tracks, and just when you long for the musical dream to continue, it floats back. "The delicate interplay between focused melodic details and blurred washes of sound draws the listener into a hypnotised state, where the waking world and the world of sleep cascade in and out of balance." This slightly somber but always lovely set of compositions continues to sustain me on these cold, wintry days, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys the peace of quiet and ambient music. Make sure you check out the upcoming re-issues of the first three Slow Dancing Society albums on Hidden Shoal...

Jumpel - Europa
On his third full length album for Hidden Shoal, Jumpel curates gentle whispers, lonely glances and tired sighs, in his carefully produced environmental snapshots of the world. Europa is Jo Dürbeck's continuation of sound exploration as Jumpel, inspired by his travels around the continent, transforming his memories into eleven tracks titled after the visited cities. From Stockholm to Madrid to Vienna and Lisbon, Dürbeck’s album is more than an audio travelogue, it is an "abstracted sonic diary, painting the intangibility and romanticism of memory and travel using sparse yet resonant sound." There's no trickery here to ploy the listener and bend his ear, instead the familiar fragments of harmony and effected progression shine through with their exquisite moments, and comfortably settle on their best. Although at times such a description may sound undesirable, I assure you that in this context it is meant as a compliment. Indeed, these tracks are perfect for my morning, rainy and drowsy commute, each telling a story of another city, ticking away with the clink-clank of the train. Perhaps somebody out there, perhaps Dürbeck, perhaps even you, is listening to the story of my city, on their own morning, rainy, and drowsy commute.

Antonymes - The Licence To Interpret Dreams
From the very first drops of sonic mist surrounding the mysterious arrangement of this cinematic journey, I already know, that this album will remain on my rotation for the years to come. The Licence To Interpret Dreams is a sophomore release by Ian M Hazeldine (although the first for Hidden Shoal), hailing from North Wales. I enter the world of Antonymes in complete darkness, with the lights shut and my lids closed. This way I can truly listen. Listen with my full attention focused on each sound and breath. As the string dynamics in the first dream rise, I am swept into a whirlpool of emotions drawn from memories and future past. Music like this is simply haunting... It embodies a soundtrack to our busy lives, to neurotic thoughts, and to the lonely naked trees moving fast beyond the vision. Melancholic piano chords come and go, as the ambient synth pads stretch their fingers through the white noise of the crashing waves in the distance. Words become speechless; sights turn blurry, then blind; mind tries to make sense of it all, in a sensory overload of the world... dreams set in... and Antonymes hands you the license... And when the music finally subsides, all that's left is the sound of the whistling wind, inexplicably and undeniably cold. Highly recommended!!! I'll be sure to grab Antonymes' 2009 debut, Beauty Becomes The Enemy Of The Future, released on Cathedral Transmissions.

VA - Crushed and Reminded
To polish off this Sound Bytes special featuring the latest releases from Hidden Shoal, we've saved a special treat for you for dessert! To get a bigger taste of the label's roster you absolutely must download the fifth installment in the Hidden Shoal's sampler compilations. And what's more exciting is that it's entirely FREE!!! You can't go wrong with that! Add to that the first four free volumes, and you have almost an entire day of music to dig through! This is a perfect way to get acquainted with some of the label's finest, such as The Caribbean, HC-B, Sankt Otten, Hotels, Down Review, Tangled Star, Apricot Rail, Tarcutta, Sleeping Me, Elisa Luu and Jumpel. "Moving from bitcrushed remixes through cinematic instrumental rock to deliciously mellow ambient electronica, Crushed and Reminded shines a new light across the breadth and depth of the Hidden Shoal landscape." Get your free download here. Stay tuned for the sixth sampler compilation, due out any day now, just in time for the label's 5th anniversary, celebrating on May 2nd!!!

Slow Dancing Society review prepared by Elizabeth Klisiewicz for Headphone Commute. Rest of the text by HC.

Sound Bytes : Talvihorros, The Ideal Setback and Hammock

2011-08-14T16:51:00.000-07:00

It's been some time now since I've sat down and deeply listened to music. More than anything, I'm back in the imaginary world of daily tasks, the consumption of all that's to be consumed, and the importance of being important. As I ride the early train to work, it seems that my past self has prepared for the present with the music for headphone commute. The dreadful hours on the uncomfortable seats and off the minds of self absorbed passengers can be only offset by the opportunity to bask in sound for an entire album from beginning to its end. It is during these moments that these words attempt to encapsulate this music and come alive on this page. But I may bore you with this somber preface. Enjoy the music...

Talvihorros - Music in Four Movements (Hibernate)
After listening to Ben Chatwin's third full length album as Talvihorros a few times in different surroundings, and in preparation for this review, I decide to put my headphones on, for a more intimate experience. For Music in Four Movements, released by hibernate in 2010, this London-based experimental musician explores the soundscaping possibilities of his guitar, the output of which is fed through various effect pedals and recorded using untried techniques on vintage equipment. "Both acoustic and electric guitars are layered with organ, synthesizer, mandolin, radio frequencies and various percussion instruments to create dense collages of sound, sometimes melodic, sometimes challenging but always captivating." During the four atmospheric tracks, Chatwin explores longer time frames, allowing for each sound to evolve and unfold, creating his "most ambient" work to date. At the center of the album, with titles like "A Continual Echo of the Sound of Loss", "Thoughts of Violence", and finally "And Then They Walked Into the Sea" is a dark theme of suicide. Yet it is not Chatwin's personal thoughts that we should be concerned with here, but rather the reasons why anyone would choose to end their own life. Chatwin became particularly interested in "reading stories about people who drowned themselves in rivers or the sea", and this visual image became a strong influence on the music behind the album. And if this message suggests a somber affair, the music speaks the same without the words... Pick up this album, along with a free track, Solo Guitar Improvisation II on Talvihorros Bandcamp.

The Ideal Setback - The Ideal Setback (Self)
Window Seat (self, 2008), and our selection of his last album, How We Spend Our Days Is How We Spend Our Lives (self, 2009) for our Best of 2009 : Music For Walking And Not Crying In The Autumn Rain. And although this Memphis, Tennessee solo artist continues to release music all on his own (personally, I think Kranky should sign him), we are happy that we get to hear his music and share his sounds with you. With his third fourth self-released album as The Ideal Setback, Chappell comfortably settles into the plush cushion of guitar driven ambient swells and loop based organic textures that lullaby and comfort the mind. At the core of this recording is a much more mature album then his previous, contemplating the time and space allowed for the development of each passage, carefully molded to create a gentle atmosphere of slowly evolving soundscapes. My previous observations on the musical progression of Chappelle's sound found him experimenting with both, the minor and the major tonalities. On his latest self-titled album, The Ideal Setback, the music has found the the balance between the two, creating a perfect harmony and an ideal advance. Foregoing crafty album titles, Chappell chooses the self-titled route as an introduction to the listener of his perfected skill. For those who are not familiar with The Ideal Setback, I highly recommend you check out his new album, if you like Stars of The Lid, Belong, Eluvium, Windy & Carl, and Hammock.

Read our Two and a Half Questions with Todd Chappell from 2008...

Hammock - Longest Year (Hammock Music)
What can be said about the beautiful music of Hammock that I haven't said before? Perhaps with the Longest Year EP, the duo, comprising of Andrew Thompson and Marc Byrd, have pushed themselves even further into the territory of evolving ambient sound. Add to that the fact that 12k's label boss, Taylor Deupree mastered the release, and you've got a five track elegant mini-album drenched in ravishing cello by Matt Slocum (of Sixpence None The Richer) and ethereal bliss of reverbed guitars. This 33-minute little gem melts away the last pieces of ice, formed around the trunks of trees and crusty edges of a withered soul. Commemorating the end of one tough year (Byrd's house was partially destroyed by the Nashville flood), and celebrating the beginning of another, Longest Year is a "soundtrack for winter, a gorgeous wall of sound imbued with the introspection, melancholy and mystery of the season." For this release on the groups own Hammock Music, percussion is completely absent, and the ambient soundscapes stretch beyond all boundaries and imaginations, creating a peaceful meditation on all that has been, and all that's to come. Along with the previously lauded album, Chasing After Shadows... Living With The Ghosts, Hammock has been quiet busy in 2010: there is the four track digital Outtakes EP for the latter mentioned album, as well as a little limited four track EP that comes with a photobook package, North West East South, and finally, a three track digital only single, Like New Year's Day a collaboration between Hammock and Matthew Ryan with individual remixes. I'm also glad to report that the duo is already working on their next Hammock album, hopefully to be released this year!

Read Headphone Commute's Two and a Half Questions with Hammock.

Interview with Rafael Anton Irisarri

2011-08-06T15:49:00.000-07:00

From your modern classical to ambient techno compositions, you seem to always push yourself further into challenging territories, and somehow master their domain. Was there a specific sonic aesthetic you tried to capture on The North Bend?
Yes, as a matter of fact. To me, The North Bend is an audio representation of the Pacific Northwest region, and not just with the fairly obvious ‘rainy, gloomy skies’ clichés, but more in the folk, cultural traditions and pop-culture references (think of David Lynch and his television-defining narrative Twin Peaks). They sort of influenced the creative process and helped draft a (sort of ) audio postcard of this beautiful area of the United States.

There is a lot of lo-fi, repeating, swelling waves of sound on the album, that I unforgivably must compare to the works of William Basinski. Was he one of the inspirations behind this work? Were there other musicians that have influenced this particular recording?
With all due respect, I don't see it or view it that way. As I said, this work was inspired by the Pacific NW region and musically speaking, the same set of influences as any of my previous works. Nothing's changed except the evolving sound, a result of self-discovery and experience, not of influences. I play my guitar thru loop pedals, so I applied the same criteria to classical samples and field recordings. I can see why you (or anybody for that matter) would draw some similarities, in the sense that there is heavy use of looping devices and thus repetition techniques. To me that's just coincidental. It would be like comparing Harold Budd's music to Erik Satie's since they both use a piano.

While I understand is almost inevitable to draw comparisons to frame a reference and give the public a general idea of the sound, one has to be quite careful when doing so. You are never certain of the process behind the artist or its intentions and, furthermore, it kind of devalues the work of both artists. I think this is the most important point: in this age of completely devalued music, where people don't even want to buy music or the industry treats it as a cheap commodity, it really contributes to the problem. It creates the false perception that anybody can just listen to “X” artist and make “X-sounding” record. It could also give the wrong impression on the actual processes behind an artist's work. And furthermore, where do you draw the line for comparisons? Why Basinski (in this case) and not Stars of The Lid or Tim Hecker or even bossman Lawrence English? Hence my point...

With releases on Miasmah and Ghostly International, did you by any chance create this album knowing that it was destined for Lawrence English's Room40?
Yes, it was a very focused and specific release. Long story short: I had met LPE online a while back. We finally met in person in Poland in 2009, as we were both playing a festival in Torun. We talked about perhaps doing a release on Room40. When I got back to Seattle, I sent him an album with 45 minutes of new music. He wrote back, liked it, wanted to release it. I replied: “please delete.” I wasn't happy with it (I tend to reject a lot of my own work, probably my worst critic). I told him, I'd write something new. Went for a hike that weekend, field recorded a bunch of new things. Inspiration. Made a new album (The North Bend) and sent to LPE with a note: “this is it.”

What is the relationship between the geographical landscape and the sonic layers portrayed on The North Bend?
For me it's not a conscious process. I guess you could correlate the peaks and valleys in the sound to the topographical region, but I think that process was more of a subconscious one than me actually trying to replicate the sounds of the region in a sort of “map.”

You just finished a piece with Keith Kenniff performing under his Goldmund alias. Tell us about that specific collaboration. Is there an album in the future?
We've been talking for ages about working together. I like his Goldmund releases very much, and he enjoys my production work, so it seems like a good match. Keith is an amazing musician/composer and one of the kindest, nicest, and descent quality human beings I've ever met. We worked in 2009 on a Satie piece (I just put it up on my Bandcamp store) that I had re-arranged for a museum performance earlier, so we recorded it for a French compilation. We later talked about doing an EP or something, so now we are working on it. Keith also contributed piano to Orcas (project with Benoit Pioulard and other Cascadians) and we've done a split mixtape together for a podcast.

Tell us about your Demo Vault and Live releases.
With the Demo Vault I wanted to release some exclusive material thru my store and give true listeners an idea of the processes behind my works. Like I mentioned earlier, I tend to reject a lot of my own work, but it doesn't necessary means it's bad, it's just I'm very particular. I want to give my listeners an insight on how I work, hence for instance uploading a long-distance collab with Danny Norbury, so people can see how it was done, etc. The Live release was a gift to my listeners, whom has bought my music and supported me during 2010. I selected an assortment of different concerts, hoping to give people who've never seen me perform live and idea of what it is like. As you may know, all my concerts are improvised, so no two sound the same. I also view each concert as important as my recorded works, so I want to create something specific for each engagement and change the perception that yes, while I perform using a laptop, it is ALL live, not prearranged in any way, shape or form. The Live album is a documentation of this process. I plan to release a second version, as a follow-up, with my concerts in Australia, Israel and Italy, and a special I3O recording (that's my trio version with a drummer and a pianist). It will also be a pay-what-you-deem worth – I've been really blessed with amazing listeners. I remember this really sweet lady sent me almost $65. I wrote her back (thinking it was an error). She replied, “your music means this much to me.” It was very kind and sweet of her and I'm forever grateful to have people like her in my life.

[ - s n i p - ]

Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute

Sonmi451, M. Ostermeier, Rafael Anton Irisarri, Minamo + Lawrence English

2011-08-06T15:46:00.000-07:00

As I may have previously mentioned, I have been a little bit busy these last couple of weeks, wrapping up a few personal errands. Unfortunately my musical listening patterns have suffered, and so has the output of Headphone Commute. But have no fear - this little silence on my part will turn around once again! Luckily for me, I have obtained a permission to dig into the wonderful archives of Peter van Cooten's AmbientBlog, and share with you some of the gems that he recommends for your ears. And remember, there's no such thing as "old music" - music just is.

Sonmi451 - Ruis (Slaapwel)
The Slaapwel label, specialized in music to fall asleep to, is becoming more collectible with every release. The previous (six) releases were all very beautiful (package and music-wise) and perfectly fitted the purpose they were created for: dozing away quietly, listening to music that is 'interesting and boring at the same time'. Among the previous performers were Peter Broderick, Greg Haines, Machinefabriek + Soccer Committee and Jasper TX. This seventh release in this remarkable series is this one, called "Ruis" by Sonmi451. 'Ruis' literally means 'Noise' which suggests about the total opposite of the music it contains: 32 calm minutes, slowly building, but without climax. The basic piano layers resemble the sound of Brian Eno's Neroli, though the composition here is more repetitive than generative. "Ruis" is like a comfortable bed: the lower region drones and chords carry you like a comfortable soft mattress, while the higher note sequences fold around your head like a pillow. When playing music like this, you'd almost wish for insomnia... Somni451 is the alias of Bernard Zwijzen from Hasselt, Belgium. He has been releasing electronic music under this name since 2005, mostly on the U-Cover label. Like all previous Slaapwel releases, Ruis is beautifully packed in a hand-stamped cardboard cover including a print designed by Louis Reith. Though printed in a larger edition (500 copies this time), the physical release will probably sell out quickly (leaving only the digital download). So, like label owner Wim Maesschalk said: "don't sleep over it for too long..."

M. Ostermeier - Chance Reconstruction (Tench)
The very first release on the brand new Tench label comes in a digipack with beautiful landscape photography by James Luckett. These sober, black & white, pictures perfectly fit the music of Marc Ostermeier on his new album: Chance Reconstruction. Though it's the first release on Tench, it's not the first work of Ostermeier, who has released earlier work, Percolate (parvoart, 2010) and Lakefront (hibernate, 2010). Combining acoustic piano and guitar with electronic textures, his work can be catalogued next to that of Rafael Anton Irisarri, Goldmund, Peter Broderick, Library Tapes and Labradford. Quiet, reflective and melancholic piano/guitar melodies, sometimes even only hints of melodies, are the heart of the 10 tracks on this album. In parts, the music on Chance Reconstruction is more abstract, but (quote the website notes): "there is no doubt that the operating word is still 'melancholy'. The hesitant piano melodies take on an almost conversational form, but from someone repeating and rephrasing his thoughts as he talks to himself, imagining different outcomes of something he cannot change." While melancholy is the perfect word, it's the fascinating electronic decoration of the acoustic sounds that prevents this album to become too 'easy' to listen to. If the reference artists mentioned above mean anything to you, you should not hesitate to check out Chance Reconstruction. Tench has set itself a high standard with this beautiful first release!!!

Rafael Anton Irisarri - The North Bend (Room40)
If this album had been presented to me 'blind', without knowing anything about it, I doubt that I would have guessed that I was listening to the new Rafael Anton Irisarri album The North Bend. I would probably have mistaken these rather dark repeating loops for a new William Basinski recording. Rafael Anton Irisarri (also main member of The Sight Below) obviously isn't afraid to leave expectations for what they are and explore different worlds. The music on The North Bend is quite different from the piano-focused music of his earlier releases Daydreaming (Miasmah, 2007), Hopes and Past Desires (Immune, 2009) and Reverie (Immune, 2010). For that reason, it may take a few extra turns to get used to, but finally the five tracks slowly reveal their secrets and beauty: " [...] a sound of uncertain source and unknown origin; ...like wind, far away, but with a depth like a rumbling of the earth." The drones, loops and rumbles are somehow related to natural landscapes (the pacific northwest of the United States to be more precise). But this music is not about birds, crickets and refreshing brooks. It's about nature on a much larger scale: about vast impressive landscapes that make you feel small and insignificant. About "Valleys, Mountains, the nearly endless Sea of Trees"... and filled with hidden mysteries. Like the music on The North Bend itself. Pick up this release, from the always wonderful Room40, Australian label run and operated by Lawrence English.

Be sure to check out our Interview with Rafael Anton Irisarri

Minamo + Lawrence English - A Path Less Travelled (Room40)
Together with the release of Rafael Anton Irisarri another recent Room40 release came to my attention: A Path Less Travelled by Minamo and Lawrence English. Minamo is a 4-person group from Japan recording since 1999. For this record they are working together with Lawrence English adding bass, harmonium, field recordings and electronics to their guitars, keyboards, electronics and object sounds. The electro-acoustic music on A Path Less Travelled is not 'ambient music', but the field recordings and the way the musicians explore their 'sound fields' have a lot of 'ambience'. For most parts, the compositions have a nice lively, improvisational feeling. "Rather than setting out with prescriptive or didactic ideals for their meeting, the musicians looked further afield for influences to shape their interactions". But in fact the musical results proves to be much less 'improvised' than one might imagine: "Drawing on Minamo’s sense of pace and sonic spatiality, English devised a number of arrangement strategies to compress, accentuate and expand Minamo’s initial sketches. Carefully editing and adding to the refined and measured contributions, the record took shape over two years of gradual process led production." The result is a pleasure to listen to. The music defies categorization, it is as much 'experimental' as it refers to classic 'rock' music. But one thing is sure: you probably won't hear much of it on your local radio station - because most of these stations don't really like 'paths less travelled'.

Francesco Tristano - Idiosynkrasia (Infiné)

2011-08-06T15:44:00.000-07:00

So, where did this marvel come from? OK, I have heard a single track from Francesco Tristano here and there. Once on a Point Music compilation, titled XVI Reflections On Classical Music with appearances from Hauschka, Alva Noto, Gas, Murcof, Max Richter, and more... Tristano performed a magnificent piano cover of Autechre's Andover. So perhaps that should have been enough of a hint for me to check out the works by Tristano! And even one of my favorite producers, Ben Lukas Boysen, included Tristano's track in his exclusive podcast for Headphone Commute (see Hecq – Mixtape One). I've even had friends recommend me this music! And I still failed to give this artist my undivided attention. Well, fear not - everything comes in due time - and today I put aside all of my daily chores to spend an hour with Tristano, and his amazing Idiosynkrasia album. How do I describe his music? Not since the deep rolling bass within some of Max Richter earlier tracks, or glitchy triggers of Murcof's orchestration, was I so excited to hear a beautiful marriage between my all time favorite elements - piano and electronica. Well, there was, of course, Ametsub and Nils Frahm & Anne Müller, which I adore just as much! But Tristano is not only a master behind his collection of DSP tools, but also a fantastic piano player! His compositions not only convey an avalanche of emotions, and excite my neurons with micro processed beats, but also captures his passion for the music and my beloved instrument with his outstanding performance - and you can hear it in the recording. From four-four beats to glitchy percussion and beyond-your-imagination wrapping and folding of the sound, this Luxembourgian pianist and composer entertains and fascinates with his third full length on Infiné. In fact, the latter mentioned label appears to start off its catalog with its very first release with Francisco Tristano's Not For Piano (2007), as well as his follow up, Auricle / Bio / On (2008). While we're talking about this international label based in Paris, Lyon and Berlin, it's worth mentioning that its catalog features a repressing of Apparat's Walls (2007) and Things To Be Frickled (2008), as well as Aufgang's self-titled, Aufgang (2009), which, by the way, Tristano is a member of, along with Aymeric Westrich and Rami Khalifé. So it's definitely worth digging deeper within Infiné. So where does this talented young musician come from? Graduating from the renowned New York Juillard School, Francesco Tristano is a pupil of contemporary classical and baroque music alike. At only 25 years of age, he has already performed in New York's Carnegie Hall, Berlin's Philharmonie and Paris' Cité de la Musique. While in New York City, Francesco became fascinated with its dynamic electronic music scene, and even participated in organizing his own club nights. In Europe, Tristano worked with Agoria and eventually with the above mentioned Fernando Corona (aka Murcof), before setting out on a tour across Europe. In 2008 Francesco teamed up with Carl Craig, and appeared alongside Moritz von Oswald on the stage for the Versus project. Carl Craig makes an appearance on Idiosynkrasia as an Executive Producer, along with the label's co-founder, Alexandre Cazac. Recording in Craig's Planet E studio, the sound becomes influenced by the Detroit's techno scene, and folds elements of Tristano's eccentric take on musique concrète, abstraction and minimalism, into a format of modern beat and structured rhythm. Here's Francesco with some words about the album: "This record is the fruit of a quest for an idiosyncratic language that is somewhere between acoustic and electronic, a quest that spans time and space, and I want to bring the piano into the 21st century. My ambition is to provide the piano with a new identity, because it is often associated with classical music and viewed as an instrument of the past, while I genuinely see it as an instrument of the future.” Francesco Tristano is currently on tour, continuing to perform with Moritz von Oswald (catch him in Hamburg this spring). He also managed to land a record on the prestigious staple of classical music, Deutche Grammophon with his upcoming release in March of 2011, bachCage, celebrating the contrast between you guessed it, Johann Sebastian Bach and John Cage. Definitely looking forward to that one. Meanwhile, Idiosynkrasi is highly recommended for the followers of the above mentioned artists, and purveyors of intelligent electronica and advanced modern classical genres!

francescoschlime.com | myspace.com/francescotristano
infine-music.com | myspace.com/infinemuzik

Interview with The Hole Punch Generation

2011-08-06T15:43:00.000-07:00

Your band has a pretty neat name. How did you come up with it and what does it mean?
The Hole Punch Generation name reflects mass-production processes and how these processes have affected art, culture, and identity.

The Hole Punch Generation has been playing together for five years now. How did you guys meet? What have you been working on all this time? And why do you think it took about five years to release your first album?
Patrick walked by Adam Sturtevant playing a show in Boston where he was covering Squarepusher songs on an acoustic drum set. He approached him after the show, asked him to collaborate. The Hole Punch Generation always wanted to work with a drummer who was influenced by computer-based music. Patrick and Caleb met making video games together. Five years is a long time. We wanted to come out strong as a band, with our sound fleshed out entirely. A lot of iteration took place: writing and throwing out songs that weren't good enough, producing a song and then scrapping all of it to re-produce it. Each iteration got us a bit closer to the sound we wanted.

I always wanted to know this - why do bands decide to release self-titled albums?
We think self-titled albums have the connotation of an introduction (or in some cases a re-introduction). The beginning of a relationship.

Tell us about working on your music video, "They're On To Me".
We met Avi through a music collective called Oxytocin. Avi plays guitar for a chiptune band, Cathode Rays, but is also an amazing visual artist. He had done a really impressive video for the band Spirit Kid, and we reached out to him about working together. He seemed to immediately understand the aesthetic of the band and even his earliest comps immediately reflected the lyrical content of the song. We think of him as a friend and a great collaborator.

How did you connect with David Newman and get signed on Audiobulb Records?
We've been fans of Audiobulb for quite some time. Love Austici, He Can Jog, Milinal, Build, Calika, Ultre: all these artists inspire. We worked on the album for years. When we were done, Patrick sent 5 songs to Audiobulb, with a note disclaiming that we understood our sound was different from the rest of the catalog. David listened to them over and over, and offered us a release the same day he listened to it.

I have to pry on this one - how do you think your album fits with the rest of Audiobulb's catalog?
Our album marks something a little different for Audiobulb. But I think to say "every Audiobulb release prior to THPG is the same as the next" would be incorrect. David works with musicians who come from very different cultural backgrounds and aesthetic perspectives. Without putting words in his mouth, what ties the Audiobulb catalog together is the importance of innovating. We definitely share that ethos as a cornerstone of the band's process and identity.

Your site reveals and shares some of your original Max/MSP patches. How do you go about designing these sounds? What role does Digital Signal Processing have in your music? And how do you balance the medium between acoustic and electronic?
Custom DSP is truly integral to our sound. When designing patches, inspiration comes in myriad forms. It could be a "wouldn't it be cool if?" kind of moment, where we create the software we don't have access to. It could be an improvement or tweak to something more widely available that isn't quite doing what we'd like, or it could just be a happy accident! Caleb works mainly in Max/MSP/Jitter. Patrick works in Reaktor and Supercollider. Every song on our Audiobulb release employs the use of custom DSP.

[ - s n i p - ]

Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute

Sound Bytes : Tupolev, Robert Miles and The Hole Punch Generation

2011-08-06T15:37:00.000-07:00

So I’ve had a few busy weeks, running around, trying to arrange the fragments of my life into a puzzle that makes sense (at least from afar). I haven’t had much time for music lately, and I know that soon that will change again. Thankfully I’ve queued up a few mini-reviews that I meant to publish earlier. Here’s a selection of albums that I enjoyed, which are a bit more on the rockier, jazzier, experimental riff… There’s always good music for every time and space – hopefully you will make find these on your rotations.

Tupolev – Towers of Sparks (Valeot)
These seemingly abstract and jazzy improvisations of the Viennese instrumental quartet, Tupolev, penetrate the walls of my kitchen mixing in with the sounds of falling snow and slowly stewing dinner. With Peter Holy on the vibrant grand piano, Alexandr Vatagin on the upright bass and cello, Lukas Scholler behind the electronics, and David Schweighart on the drums, Tower of Sparks rises in the air with the vapors of warm Sunday mornings, walking the melodic scale of keys, strings and lively beats. Recorded without metronomes, the groups create music relying solely on each other, breathing in unison the rubber band of rhythms and notes. This is the second full length release from Tupolev, following Memories Of Björn Bolssen released in 2008 by Valeot as well. Celebrating the label's 10th release, Alexandr Vatagin continues to deliver exceptional music to discerning ears and minds. The 28 minutes across eight tracks present a truly refreshing and rare treat. The album cover art is also worth mentioning here: it depicts an old photograph of people swimming near the waterfalls, with that 70's, rusty, window pane filter. Also check out the debut Tupolev EP released by 12rec in April of 2005. You can download the latter for free from archive.org

Robert Miles - Th1rt3en (S:alt Records)
When a promo from Robert Miles landed on my desk, I took a double take. Why does that name sound so familiar? And when I glanced at a press release, the photo of a chiseled, dark and rusty man sent me falling through the dark well, lined with dreams and memories. I have seen this man before - yet I couldn't put together the context. And after reading the first paragraph of Miles' bio, I was finally able to connect the dots. This is the same Robert Miles that had me dancing back in 1996 to his hit, Children (from the album Dreamland), which was made popular by clubs and radio stations across the globe. But those were the days of uplifting and progressive trance, and although Robert Miles (whose real name is Roberto Concina) had two more albums behind his belt - 23am (2007) and Organik (2001) - I didn't know what to expect from his recent output on his own S:alt Records, mysteriously titled Th1rt3en. Well let me try - acoustic percussion is mixed with experimental, alternative, and classic rock guitar riffs, bass thumps, psychedelic electronica, a little bit of jazz, cowbell and all! Truly an ambitious album, taking a giant leap in redefining his own sound, to the likes of Squarepusher's previous attempts, Th1rt3en is a culmination of struggles with fame, reflections on the past, and a continuous evolution of self. With guest appearances by Robert Fripp, The Invisible and Lamb, the latest output from this relentless artist will please the fans of Bill Laswell, Pink Floyd, and Miles Davis alike.

The Hole Punch Generation - The Hole Punch Generation (Audiobulb)
Looks like David Newman's (aka Autistici) label, Audiobulb Records, is taking a stab at breaking through musical genre boundaries, that so often constrain other catalogs by bias and expectations. By signing a Boston based three-member band, The Hole Punch Generation (consisting of Patrick Balthrop on guitar and vocals, Caleb Epps on bass and synth, and Adam Sturtevant on drums), Audiobulb leaps from micro-tonal, minimal, and experimental sounds to song-based electronica, post-rock and thick shoegaze, for the likes of Lights Out Asia, Port-Royal with a mix of Blueneck and maybe even Thom Yorke. And if genre-classification is such a silly thing to do, Audiobulb's pursuit of music that evokes an emotional response should not be concerned with labels. Setting out to compose an album that should be as easily reproducible live as it is in the studio, The Hole Punch Generation is a raw, emotional, sky soaring, musical flight, exploring the existential themes of life, love, loss and decay through twelve, DSP manipulated, guitar riff driven, and Balthrop's falsetto soaked tracks. Recall the days when you first discovered Stateless, Arcade Fire, and Phoenix, and you may get excited again about hearing this new band for the first time, and becoming a loyal fan so early in their career! A very surprising and enjoyable release from a favorite label!

Be sure to read our Interview with The Hole Punch Generation

Interview with Paul Nielsen of Tympanik Audio

2011-07-04T05:36:00.000-07:00

Hey Paul... I've been following the output of your label since the very beginning. You kicked off the sound of Tympanik Audio with the Emerging Organisms in December of 2007. Two years later, in 2009, Headphone Commute featured a label profile of Tympanik. Another two years have passed by... How would you say the sound of Tympanik Audio has evolved over these years?
Evolution has always seemed to be a natural state for Tympanik. The concept of the label hasn’t changed much over the past couple years but that’s not to say that it hasn’t evolved – it seems to be constantly morphing and emerging. Tympanik began as an experiment to demonstrate that the many genres of electronic music could come together, integrate, and ultimately co-exist effectively under one imprint. I like to think we continue to adhere to this model.

What about the label itself? Have you lost or found a new set of helping hands in its day-to-day operations? Has the support staff grown or merely held on to a few dedicated friends?
I’ve always handled all the day-to-day operations of the label and although it seems overwhelming at times, I actually prefer it this way – it’s just easier to maintain control. I do have a lot of support through our artists, graphic designers, audio engineers, and the like, all of whom this label would not function fully without, so I’m certainly grateful for that. Tympanik mainly operates on a network of very creative, selfless human beings who share my passion for delivering exceptional music to as many ears as possible – all around good people who believe in the original concepts and vision of the label as a whole. We are a family and we all work together towards a common goal, which is the fuel that essentially keeps Tympanik alive.

Are you happy with its current stylistic sound, direction and overall scene appeal? Is there a particular aesthetic that you wish to continue to develop or steer clear of?
I always disliked Tympanik being categorized as a certain type of genre label – that’s not our goal. Tympanik is about melding many styles of electronic music and slicing them up into meaty, cerebral aural concoctions that can be digested and enjoyed based on their own individual merits. Being a label that releases a fairly diverse style of music, it seems difficult for some listeners who only pledge allegiance to certain genre camps, to lock into our intended concept, especially if they have only bothered themselves with one or two of our releases. In my mind, each of our releases has their own unique sound and personality.

What can you tell us about the economics of running a label with such a dedicated schedule of physical releases? You managed to put out over 50 albums, and still going. How has the market place been treating you?
It’s been a struggle since the start. In the first couple years, I put a lot of my own money into the label as well as borrowing money and accepting contributions from family and friends to keep things going. These days, the label seems to be sustaining itself just enough to continue releasing music and that was my objective all along. Money really doesn’t hold any appeal for me personally, I’m merely concerned about making enough to keep the label moving forward and I’m very grateful that we have managed to do that so far. The support from everyone all around since the early days still blows my mind and it’s because of this support that we still exist today. The loyalty of our listeners, especially the ones that still buy our releases on CD, is what really keeps this label afloat. Our artists aren’t too concerned about making a fortune from their work; most understand that we are always working on a tight budget and they forgo any assurance of fame and riches. We all help each other for the good of the family and that bond ultimately allows us to continue to bring new sounds to our listeners. Tympanik is perpetuating these days and I have everyone who has ever ordered a CD from us to thank for that – thank you!

Regretfully, the Greek label, Spectraliquid, managed to stay in business for only a few years. How has its demise influenced your approach to managing Tympanik if at all?
Spectraliquid and Tympanik initiated around the same time. After Kostas and I got to know each other through releasing Subheim’s ‘Approach’ album, we often compared notes during those years as fellow label-owners. I loved what Spectraliquid was doing and supported them as they did Tympanik because we truly admired each other’s output. It’s not the first time I’ve seen an exceptional label fall, and Spectraliquid was certainly an exceptional label. I’ve seen it too many times over the years and it’s always poignant. Sometimes such labels burn bright, but half as long as they deserve, yet generally leave
behind a notable body of work in their wake. Their impact on music seems to stir and resonate for years afterwards. Tympanik was originally inspired by such labels as Schematic, n5MD, Component, Pendragon, Merck, Neo Ouija, Skam, Hymen, M-tronic, Xynthetic, Pitchcadet, and Toytronic, yet I can only hope we leave such a lasting legacy when we finally do fade away.

Speaking of our Greek friends... Kostas K's managed to migrate over to Ad Noiseam (which I know you're a fan of), yet you'll always be credited as a starting point for his Subheim project. And I would say that Tympanik is more than just a platform for up-and- coming musicians. What are your thoughts on discovering a newly unheard talent?
It seemed that Subheim and Tympanik were both finding their way at the same time and by chance we happen to congregate and ultimately form a lasting friendship. ‘Approach’ turned out to be a milestone release for Tympanik, but at the time, it was just another young label signing a new talent. I like presenting new artists to our listeners – there’s a lot of undiscovered musicians out there that deserve to be heard and if I can help a few of them develop and expand their listener base through Tympanik, I am certainly happy to do so.

What are some of the most interesting relationships (human or otherwise) that have been born as a result of running Tympanik Audio?
Almost everyone I have worked with since Tympanik’s inception has proved to be an exceptional human being. These are people that I have come to know very well and respect dearly, both on a professional and personal level. I’ve been involved in various electronic music scenes for a long time and through the label I have had the privilege of getting to know and work with artists and label owners that I’ve admired, much more closely now than I did before as a music fan. Someone once referred to my laptop as “my other girlfriend” and that really stuck with me. My computer and I have a love/hate relationship: it’s my savior and my nemesis at all times. Tympanik takes up an enormous amount of my time and a lot of my personal relationships have suffered because of this thing I have created and obsessed about over the past few years. Running a label means being capable of living under a mountain of never-ending details and still attempting to maintain a personal life, yet you’re destined to fail at any given moment at either one of these things if the balance isn’t just right.

Would you say that you have accomplished your goals? Surpassed your own expectations? Or do you still have a few mountains to climb?
I don’t want to discount what has been accomplished so far, but I do feel like we still have to prove ourselves to the uninitiated, but that’s just a part of the whole process of progress. I always have a plethora of projects and ideas on my mind, there’s just not enough time or resources to make them all materialize and I’ve come to accept that. I’m probably the most critical of Tympanik out of anyone. I’m really happy with what the label and our artists have accomplished so far but to me, there’s always room for improvement. I have made a lot of mistakes over the years, but I suppose that’s just how I learn and grow alongside this thing I have created. Tympanik has surpassed my expectations for sure; I never thought we’d make it this far but I’m really pleased that we have.

[ - s n i p - ]

Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute

Sound Bytes : Tympanik Audio Special

2011-07-04T05:28:00.000-07:00

If you have been following Headphone Commute's Podcast you would have witnessed two amazing mixes, back to back, by one of our favorite artists - Access To Arasaka. In the two-part podcast series, AtA showcased some of his influences and favorite tracks through Re:pose and In:spire, the latter of which featured some great sounds from Tympanik Audio - a Chicago based glitch, dark IDM, and post-industrial label that we have been following since its birth, in 2007, with the Emerging Organisms compilation. Since then, Paul Nielsen, the founder Tympanik, has introduced us to some amazing artists, like Subheim, Integral, Stendeck, Access To Arasaka and many, many others. I think it's fair to say that we have heard every single release, out of over 50, from Tympanik, and as many releases have appeared on our numerous Best Of lists throughout the years. Today, we are excited to kick off a two-part Sound Bytes feature, covering our latest favorite releases from the label, beginning (although in alphabetical order, but nevertheless appropriate) with Access To Arasaka's latest...

Access To Arasaka - void();
If you're an avid follower of these pages, the alias of Rob Lioy, Access To Arasaka should be already familiar to you. Last year, this Rochester, New York based producer got picked up by Tympanik and Spectraliquid to bring us some of the finest, detailed, and crisp IDM to date. Access to Arasaka easily fits among the releases by Hecq, Gridlock, Kattoo, Architect and all of our favorite dark and experimental artists - it's almost as if Tympanik snatched Lioy from beneath the tight hold of Hymen's artist roster - and we applaud this mighty score. AtA's music is at once ethereal and technoid, glitching and cutting up the beats across a full atmospheric spectrum of imaginary places, with micro-programmed and delicate effects in all the right places. Following on the heels of Oppidan (2009), this new full length album, is a lot more fluid in structure, bending and folding the proteins of digital organisms through compiled code of neural networks. Inspired by the history and future of system hacking, the titles of the tracks, stripped from a networking I/O library written in C, feature data structures and function calls responsible for low level communications, running an algorithm of asynchronous transmission of information from Rob's brain to yours. I continue to enjoy this album over and over! Highly recommended!

Be sure to check out Headphone Commute's review of Oppidan.
Read also Two and a Half Questions with Access To Arasaka.

Anklebiter - I Will Wait
In 2010, Portland based Tanner Volz joined the Tympanik family with his latest release, I Will Wait. With its impressive cinematic soundtrack quality (and I promise not to overuse 'cinematic' too much), the album tells a very personal and emotional story. Drawing on the themes of nostalgia, Volz takes listeners through minor harmonic progressions wrapped in intricate, warm and seasoned electronica. Although Anklebiter may be a relatively new project for Volz, he has been producing music, together with Laird Sheldahl and Rian Callahan, under the group's name ML, and the experience is clearly reflected in his production techniques. A little more withered, a little more laid back, and at the same time confident and mature, the sound of I Will Wait will impress followers of his work through past releases on Toast And Jam, Piehead, and yes, n5MD and its digital offshoot, En:peg. Ah, yes, perhaps the name dropping of the last label names will give you an idea of what's in store for you. I Will Wait is Volz's only second full length solo release, and it's already gaining recognition with remixes from Keef Baker, WNY, and subtractiveLAD. Fans of emotional electronica will enjoy...

Autoclav1.1 - All Standing Room In The Goodnight Saloon
Tony Young, recording as Autoclav1.1, has been a familiar name to followers of Tympanik Audio's catalog. Since his signing to the label back in 2008 with Love No Longer Lives Here, Young released a remix album, Broken Beats For Broken Hearts on Hive Records, and then a followup, Where Once Were Exit Wounds, back on Tympanik in 2009. This year he returns with his sixth full length album (third for the label), All Standing Room In The Goodnight Saloon, which is his most polished work to date. The signature piano melodies are blended with those tough, post-industrial electronic rhythms, synthetic orchestral passages, distorted guitar riffs, and a few occasional soul-wrenching vocals. Across eleven tracks, Young sifts through a variety of styles, blending cinematic passages with exploration of electronic / IDM / EBM sound, all while "battling with insomnia and thought processes within that..." Flipping through the latest promo photos of Autoclav1.1, I can see that Tony is an interesting character - someone I would definitely invite to my next Thanksgiving dinner. And if those pictures project his outer images, his music shows truly what lies within. Feed your insomnia...

C.H. District - Conclusion
For his fourth full length release, Mirosław Matyasik, recording under the alias C.H. District, blends intelligent electronic beats with solid dark electro and industrial rhythms. His previous album, Slides was released on the French M-Tronic label, five years ago, and now returning with Conclusion (on both, M-Tronic and Tympanik), Matyasik pulls out all the stops to create one of the most captivating albums. Seamlessly fitting for home listening and a club atmosphere, the album traverses synthetic lines, uplifting production, and dance oriented grooves. "The heavy, popping basslines and robotic creaks maneuver each track with thoughtful precision while crafty electro-styled overtones and moderately distorted synth pads create a perfect balance of energy, melody, and flow." Thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end, Matyasik's latest offering stands as one of my favorite releases from Tympanik, propelling the label to the top of the trend setters once again. Fans of Architect's sound will feel right at home, and one only hopes that Conclusion is not a final chapter in the works of C. H. District. Be sure to check out Matyasik's collaboration with Paweł Kmiecik on their project, Wieloryb and the latest self-released CDr, Empty (2010).

Dirk Geiger - Autumn Field
Any album that begins with rain and thunder grabs my attention from the start. Carefully placed piano phrases only hyper focus my interest further. And as suspected, after the very first track, I fall in love with Dirk Geiger's first album for Tympanik, Autumn Fields. Backed by detailed field recordings, each track glitches and clicks through warm electronic pads, washed out ambiance, and sharp IDM percussion. Tübingen (Germany) born Geiger creates a film score for chilly evening strolls, and early morning [headphone] commute, where the music leaks out of your headphones into the world, mixes in with the external sound, and seeps back into your ears again. Geiger is not a newcomer to the scene. In 2002 he formed his own label, Raumklang Music, releasing music under his own name (see Geiger's 2008 album, Dondukov 15), as well as albums from Kraftmaschine (an industrial group he formed a few years prior). On Autumn Fields, Geiger continues his explorations with fuzzy noise, experimental beats, and extensive field recordings, wrapping it all up into a neatly packaged listening experience. The album gets polished off with two remixes: from Svart1 and Access To Arasaka. Recommended!

Famine - Nature's Twin Tendencies
Entering the mysterious world of Famine, is like being welcomed into the depths of the unknown, where life, and ultimately death, fight over each other's turn to play with the spirit and the flesh. The weather is perfect - lush synthetic pads are cut through sharp, precision savvy glitch and triggered percussion; where IDM elements and metal breakcore create chaos, synthesized strings and chorus raise the listener's spirits from the fatigue of an ongoing noise onslaught. Nature's Twin Tendencies explores sonic landscapes oozing with slimy leeches and prickly porcupines, all trying to grab onto your skin, first for a local anesthesia with the melody, then for a deep bite with the beat. This is the sophomore release for Toronto based Famine on Tympanik Audio. "Distinctive, turbulent, and unwavering, each chapter of Nature's Twin Tendencies offers a diverse new tale full of compelling elements that will seize your senses and grasp your attention at every twist and turn." I definitely agree with that. For comparisons and recommendations, my mind travels to the early discovery of Hecq, Gridlock, and Venetian Snares whose intricate harmonic compositions are ripped through a torrent of DSP-heavy beats. Check out Famine's Every Mirror Turns Black out on Toronto's industrial label, Bugs Crawling Out Of People in 2008.

Tapage & Meander - Etched In Salt
The hypnotic beat and flowing melodies are just the beginnings of the foundation laid by Tijs Ham and Conrad Hoyer, collectively producing under their Tapage & Meander monikers. Their first work together was the Hydromedusa EP released by Meta0 in 2006. Celebrating Tympanik's 50th compact disc release, the album by the duo nicely wraps all the dark, cinematic, and surreal explorations of sound that Tympanik is known for. On Etched in Salt, the newly formed group explores vast soundscapes, rising from the blank canvas with mathematical precision, like distant mountains constantly warping in their occupied area of frequencies. Add to that electro driven sharp rhythms and IDM percussion, and the listening experience guides the explorer to climb higher, where the peaks hide in the clouds, and the sky becomes the inverted ocean. And all of a sudden you fall... up... "This fantastic pairing of two beautiful minds produces steady waves of beat-driven melodies captured in a net of heavy atmospheres and complex rhythms that mimic the power of the tides themselves." Truly inspiring work for all up and coming musicians interested in keeping with the experimental nature of music. Check out Tapage's previous releases on Tympanik: The Institute of Random Events (2008), Fallen Clouds (2009), and his very recent digital release, Seven out on Raumklang Music. Meander's previous work can be heard on his Dreaming In Reverse EP, out on Low Res Records.

Undermathic - 10:10pm
It feels a bit peculiar. Didn't I write about an album titled 10:10pm before? This feeling reminds me of that moment in the night, when you wake up at a seemingly random time, yet the alarm clock always beams in red, 10:10pm. Undermathic did in fact record the same titled album before he was signed to Tympanik, but it was a self-released album, at times lacking the self confidence and pride that an independent label can provide. From the composition and production perspective, the sophomore release by this Poland native Maciej Paszkiewicz, offers the listener a transparent view into the world of multiple dimensions and spectrum of sound. Complex textures and sonic treatments blanket the surface sprinkled with rhythm and intricate percussion, until the central theme seeps through and carries you away with its cinematic undertones, and you hear the seagulls by the beach, and forget that you are merely on a commuter train with a screaming baby in the seat behind you. With the album's "massive washes of ambiance and infection beatwork mixed with brooding melodies and heavy synth lines," the second album by Undermathic for the label is a lot more mature than his previous, Return To Childhood (2009). I will definitely continue keeping my eye on the music from Undermathic, as this artist continues to develop his inevitable brilliant future.

Keith Kenniff - The Last Survivor (Circle Into Square)

2011-06-17T15:29:00.000-07:00

Maybe you have missed the latest release by the prolific Keith Kenniff, but this little gem did not escape my ears. In fact, I don't think there's a single release from this Portland based composer that I have not fallen in love with. From his solo piano works composed under the Goldmund alias, to beautiful electronica sprinkled with light beats released under the Helios moniker, Kenniff's works have been in my rotation since his debut release Unomia, on Merck back in 2004. By the time John Twells has signed Kenniff for his Type Records, Helios and his amazing Eingya album (2006), was a household name among the hungry collectors of modern classical and ambient electronica alike. The Last Survivor is actually a feature-length documentary, following the lives of people surviving four genocides - The Holocaust, Rwanda, Darfur and Congo. In this collaboration with the directors of the film, Michael Kleiman and Michael Pertnoy, Kenniff is presented yet another opportunity to compose a score, and he easily surpasses all of the expectations, effortlessly gliding between his known monikers and finally producing under his real name. Where solo piano pieces continue to be signed off as Goldmund, most of the soundtrack is saturated with original music composed by Keith Kenniff. The Last Survivor score follows the four main characters of the film, providing the soundtrack for their sorrows and triumphs. At times serving as a comforting blanket, at times as a fuel for revival. At the core of the film and the music is a story about life. Life with all of its ups and downs, treading along the unknown, one ticking second at a time: The music itself acts an extension of the characters' inward journey as they deal with death, redemption and new beginnings. Employing a wide range of sounds and instrumentation, the pieces range from achingly beautiful piano-led compositions to ambient string passages and haunting synth drones as Kenniff creates a score that is as contemplative and diverse as the characters and their experiences. Here are all of the elements of Kenniff's sound that I love. At times seeped in sadness, the piano sings at the center stage of most tracks, at times complimented by full blown orchestration, at times left completely alone, even if it's for a few minutes in length. If the story of The Last Survivors weighs heavily on your soul, it's easy to detach the music from the film, and enjoy the album as the soundtrack to your own struggles. And that's the beauty of this score. For Kenniff's entire discography, make sure you visit his site, Unseen. There you can browse through his music releases, as well as film and commercial works, ranging from corporate names as big as Honda, Coca-Cola and American Express. While there, I recommend that you pick up my personal favorites: Unleft (2010) and Live At The Triple Door (2009) released as Helios, Famous Places (2010) and The Malady Of Elegance (2008) released as Goldmund (see our review), and Keith's collaboration with his wife, Hollie, Songs About Snow (2009), released as Mint Julep. We're looking forward to the forthcoming Save Your Season from the couple out in 2011. Be sure to check out the most recent Adorn by Mint Julep.

unseen-music.com | circleintosquare.com

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Interview with Keith Kenniff

2011-06-17T15:27:00.000-07:00

In our last interview, you revealed that the compositions behind the Goldmund moniker are "basically just solo piano", whereas your Helios output is "song structure and electronics, guitars and beats". I have to ask, what prompted you to release this album under your real name?
I chose to use my own name because it was sort of a mix of different material and didn't fit comfortably into any one moniker, so with the scores for films that I've done I'm just kind of lumping it into one name. There are cues that sound like Goldmund, and there are some that may sound like the more ambient material of Helios, but then there are some others that don't fit in with either.

I also recognize a few of the Goldmund pieces that previously appeared on Famous Places and Corduroy Road. How did these selections make it onto The Last Survivor?
The directors had used some existing Goldmund tracks from Corduroy Road as temp music for the film initially and it ended up working well so we left it in there and just did some editing and whatnot to match it to the film a bit better. While doing the film I was also working on "Famous Places" at the same time, so those pieces kind of overlapped where I would take a song I was writing for the record and expand it or edit it to fit the mood of the film.

I know you have composed scores for film before. Tell us how you got involved with this particular project.
The directors, Michael Kleiman and Michael Pertnoy, were fans of my music and had put a lot of pre-existing music of mine to the film while they were editing but also wanted to have quite a bit of music composed specifically for the film. They called me up and we chatted a few times and it seemed like we were all on the same page about the musical direction for the film. It was a really fun process and they were very easy to work with and clear about what they wanted.

How were the pieces composed? Were they written for specific scenes in the film? Did you have the particular characters and their experiences in mind when you were writing them?
The directors and I talked at length about what they wanted for specific scenes, so they would give me an idea of how they saw the mood/tempo/instrumentation for a scene and I would go to work at interpreting it from there. The film was basically already shot, so I had the scenes to work from. Each one of the characters in the film had gone through a lot of personal struggle, loss, disintegration / redefinition of their own culture, and family so the overall mood of the music as a whole ranged quite a bit but was meant to be quite emotional and highlight their own stories.

Who plays some of the instruments (strings, guitar) on the album?
I'm playing all the instruments, and the strings are largely samples that I've cut up from samples or sample instruments.

Your Mint Julep project with your wife, Hollie, has an entirely different sound from your other output. Tell us about the recent Adorn EP.
Yeah, my other projects, Helios and Goldmund are somewhat similar in that they quiet and instrumental, but Mint Julep is more of a rockish/electronic project that Hollie and I have been writing for a few years and is quite different. The songs have a lot of layers, is a little more aggressive and beat-driven and Hollie sings on all the tracks, so it's a bit more song-based. We just released a little EP with a few tracks which folks can buy via my website, and later on this year our full length, "Save Your Season" will be out. We're excited about it; it's been a fun process for both of us to do together.

How do you find the time to work on so many different projects?
I think if someone's committed to something they tend to make the time for things when they can. I'm no good at sitting still, I'm best when I'm busy. I enjoy what I do, I work on a lot of different projects, but I like the challenge and the reward even if it means staying up all night and walking around like a zombie the day afterward.

[ - s n i p - ]

Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute

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unseen-music.com

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Emanuele Errante - Time Elapsing Handheld (Karaoke Kalk)

2011-06-17T04:28:00.000-07:00

The truth is, I've been meaning to review an album from Berlin's Karaoke Kalk for quite some time now. And it's not only because some of my favorite artists found a home on this label, like Hauschka for his debut Substantial (2004), Senking for a self-titled debut Senking (1998), and Dakota Suite for The End Of Trying (2009) and their amazing collection of remix artists for The Night Just Keeps Coming In (2010)... but because all of the unmentioned artists in its roster deserve to be heard. So it wasn't long before I couldn't resist talking about this amazing label any longer. Especially now that they signed a long time favorite of mine, Italian experimental musician, Emanuele Errante. Errante's music, first introduced to me through Apegenine's Migrations (2007), and then Somnia's Humus (2008), stands to be in its own sub-category of minimal ambient and experimental modern classical compositions. Lo-fi noises, scratching on the strings of a gently weeping guitar, clicking field recordings, and cascading ambient atmospheres, penetrate through the walls and carpet, raising dust and killing mites (perhaps I should lower the volume a bit). Whether consumed as a sonic installation or an abstract piece of sound art, Time Elapsing Handheld captures the moment with its seven titles, creating a path which is "Leaving The Nowhere" through the "Memoirs", a bit "Counterclockwise", sometimes "Later, Earlier", and always "Inner". Lush soundscapes loop and breathe through organic piano tones, guitar strums, and harp plucks, drowning in a generous sweep of synthetic strings, sampled noise, and dripping effects. Centered around the theme of passing time (as the album's title suggests), the music hypnotizes the listener, bringing him a little closer into the notion of now, and then subsides, letting him simply float among the sounds of rewinding moments. Be still... and feel that... that's right... Here's Errante with a few of his own words: "Time is a relative concept. The recording of a song makes infinite the moment of its execution. But man has not yet succeeded in inventing a device that can accelerate the passing of time." Hmm. I thought that a device for "accelerating the passing of time" was television, and that we're all more concerned with a device for decelerating the passing of time, but I'm not going to argue with the composer here. His Time Elapsing Handheld may be that device after all, without his knowing... So... shhhh! Don't say a word... and listen... The digital version of this release contains two more tracks, "Egostatsy" and "Hidden Sun". Oh, and in case this review was not sufficient in piquing your interest, it is worth mentioning that Simon Scott appears on the album, collaborating with Errante on a track, "Made To Give". Highly recommended for fans of Marsen Jules, Deaf Center, Rudi Arapahoe, and Rafael Anton Irisarri.

Be sure to read Interview with Emanuele Errante
Also, check out Emanuele Errante's Sound Postcard

maisound.com/errante | myspace.com/eerrante
karaokekalk.de | myspace.com/karaokekalk

Interview with Emanuele Errante

2011-06-17T04:23:00.000-07:00

Your 2008 release Humus was an ambient masterpiece sprinkled with elements of electronica and IDM. In addition to synth soundscapes, your latest album features a lot more acoustic instruments. Tell us a bit about that progression.
In my works I have always tried to find the right balance between acoustic sounds and electronic sounds. The tracks of my previous album, "Migrations " and "Humus", consist of different themes played with acoustic instruments (piano, guitar, harmonica, flute, strings, sometimes even my voice), but each sound has been processed and loaded with effects. In "Time Elapsing Handheld" I choose to make my compositional approach clearer, by leaving the acoustic sounds mostly unchanged. Electronics give no limits to the creativity of a musician, but I think warmth and vibes of acoustic instruments are unique. That's why mine is a constant research for compromises between acoustic and electronic.

Where are some of the field recordings from? Is that windshield wipers I hear on "Later, Earlier"?
Most of the field recordings have been captured in rural contexts, in Central and Southern Italy. I'm glad you asked me this question about "Later, Earlier". I was in a little town near Terracina, at a friend's house on a hill. We were outside at night. Suddenly I hear a sound that repeats regularly, like a crafted loop. I asked my friend where that sound came from and he replied that it was a bug! I could not believe my ears. That sound had an incredible rhythm. I took my MicroTrack recorder and I captured it. I still do not know what kind of bug it is, but the sound you hear in "Later, Earlier " was not manipulated at all, it is exactly as is.

Tell us how you came upon collaborating with Simon Scott on "Made to Give".
With Simon we were in contact to explore the possibilities of live performances to propose together. The collaboration came about spontaneously. We started working on a draft that slowly took shape and became "Made to Give".

Let's talk about "time". First of all, what does the name behind the album "Time Elapsing Handheld" represent?
The concept behind it comes from a dream I had. In my dream I had a little time handheld that allowed me to make short time-jumps (10-15 minutes). When I woke up I thought that such an handheld would be precious for the human beings. Imagine you're stuck in the traffic: you just press a button and you're back home relaxing on your sopha. Imagine you're attending a very boring meeting: just press the button and you're suddenly in the bar drinking an after-work beer with your friends. Maybe people would be a little bit happier... And I thought that, after all, music is a sort of time elapsing handheld because while listening to it you get completely lost for the whole length of the album and when you "wake up" you realize that music gave you the capability to "freeze" a certain moment of your life and to "wake up" in a different situation, with a different mood and with different feelings.

What are your thoughts on passing time, and what are the proper tools for altering its perceived rate?
We all would like to stop time, but in certain situations we would pay to make it go faster. Both factors are obviously impossible to get so we use little tricks to cheat time and altering its rate according to our needs. I don't think it's the case to afford deep physical and philosophical concepts and their resulting paradox here but I can tell you that music is absolutely my "time machine", my main mean to cancel time. The hardest thing to talk about is the effect that canceling time might produce, because if I freeze a certain moment of my life by any means, when I get the clock to start running again my perception is that the clock hands run faster than before...

[ - s n i p - ]

Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute

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Interview with Emanuele Errante by HC. Photography by Silvano Caiazzo.

maisound.com/errante | myspace.com/eerrante

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Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972 (Kranky)

2011-05-08T05:38:00.000-07:00

When winter arrives and the sky goes grey I like to close the blinds of my apartment, turn the heater up to eleven and cuddle up in my bed. Usually this custom of mine goes together with the computer placed on my bed and a thick blanket of music that fills up the air around me. When this morning I glanced outside and there was no apparent source of sunlight to be seen, the never-ending stretch of clouds had me a little bit excited as I figured this would be the perfect moment to experience the new Tim Hecker release, on the Chicago based Kranky imprint. Ravedeath, 1972 is the result of a live improvisation session in a church in Reykjavik and the studio process that followed afterward. Recorded with the support of none other than Ben Frost, I anticipated a throwback to the guitar themed noise that was so prominent with Hecker in his early EP, My Love is Rotten to the Core (Substractif, 2002). The two installments of “Hatred of Music”, “Analog Paralysis” and “Studio Suicide” also had me brace for a grim listening experience much like Frost's By the Throat (Bedroom Community, 2009). But when the heavily edited organs start to buzz through my room, it seldom had me grind my teeth. Not that this is a bad thing. Hecker playfully combines his characteristic chromatic chords and dissonant layering of sounds with the special qualities of the 'studio'. The acoustic of the recording location rubs off on the already churchly character of Hecker's work. He takes full effect of the reverb that the church permits, creating even more dense structures with each layer of sound folding up on itself. The record does not get violent or grim, instead it feels like a careful study of different motives that entrance the listener. “In the Fog” is a suite consisting of three pieces that starts out with a landscape of sounds that has different tones colliding with one another much like waves hitting other waves near a cliff. At the end of the first installment, a rhythmic pulse sets in and the music becomes more fluent. This sine wave, that reminds me a lot of the pulse used by Jim O'Rourke in I am Happy and I am Singing and a 1, 2, 3, 4. (Mego, 2001), gradually fades out during the following section, before coming back in “In the Fog III”. The inclusion of touches of the piano at the start of the third section is maybe a sign of Frost's presence. This together with the buzzing pulse and a growing almost dronish noise makes this the standout track for me. “Hatred of Music” starts out with high pitched ethereal waves of noise in which textures slowly turn into something darker. The light tones are transformed into multiple layers of sound that take shape in a grim dissonant sound sculpture. It is the first and only sign of the unnerving atmosphere I anticipated when putting on the record, but the moment is fleeting and quickly dissipates growing into a calm yet dark soundscape. The triptych “In the Air” functions as some kind of closing piece of the album. It starts off really accessible with nice soothing tones, but gradually gets filled with Hecker's heavy chromatic chords. Ravedeath, 1972 very much builds up on his previous work. The typical dense layering of sound is something Hecker has mastered like no other and the abstract form of his music creates a different experience for every listener and on each listen. I feel as if Ben Frost's major influence was in the inclusion of some more pure tones. Both the touches of piano in “In The Fog” and the steady guitar based drones that are present in “Hatred of Music”. This is good music to listen to or rather experience on a day when the weather does not let up. Recommended for listeners that enjoy Fennesz, Stars of the Lid and Lawrence English.

sunblind.net | kranky.net

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Review prepared by Caspar Menkman exclusively for Headphone Commute.

Also on Headphone Commute:

Interview with Tim Hecker

2011-05-08T05:34:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: In June of 2010, I attended MUTEK, an international festival of electronic music, taking place in Montreal, Canada. During my stay, I interviewed many artists in person (yes, I know, I've failed to share many of these gems). Among them, I had an opportunity to talk with Tim Hecker. The following is a transcription of our conversation.

Talk a little bit about your upcoming performance tonight, at MUTEK.
Well, I'm playing a concert... I'm trying to make it a special thing because I don't play here very often. It's about once a year lately - this is my hometown - and I played at MUTEK maybe five or six times, so it's kind of strange. I've been here so many times, it's almost a déjà vu, although in this case, the venue is a bit different.

And how has it evolved over the years?
Well it's grown in both, the organizational structure and the size of the audience... as well as in its curatorial aspect. It has definitely changed with music shifting a bit.

MUTEK represents a sort of marriage between Music and Technology. What does it represent to you?
I'm not so crazy about the "technology" being the most important thing. Every musician uses technology, so why do we need to talk about technology in electronic music? Is it more interesting than the guitar's wood resonance? That's technology also - a more organic form of amplification. Do you know what I mean?

What do you think about the state of electronic music today? Do you pay attention to the trends?
No. I don't even know what 'electronic music' really means. When one refers to aspects of traditional electronic music - what does one mean by that? Synthesizers? Computers? I can give you a million examples, and I can give you a million ways in which electronics have been integrated into what we call 'mainstream' music. And I don't even know if that word means anything anymore. I tend to think of my work, not as electronic music, but as something like fake church music, neo metal drone, satanic pagan sacrificial rights music... I'm joking about that, of course. But with electronic music... it's hard to say.

What are some of the challenges in doing a live show?
It's definitely a challenge for me. I'm honest about the fact that I'm first and foremost a studio artist. I work on crafting documents that are usually around 60 minutes long, designed for a CD or vinyl. And that's my main form of work, where I put my greatest labor and love into. And performing live is a great change, a refreshing way of putting works out there in a different sense - it's more physical, overbearing and loud. It gives me a chance to really push things, to almost the threshold of sometimes pain and sometimes pleasure.

When you put together music, is it meant to be conceptually from beginning to the end, and do you expect listeners to consume it as such?
Well I hope that they would. I'm kind of nostalgic about that. I hold on to the idea of works of longer duration, where an album is not just a collection of hit songs with eleven B-sides attached to it. I like a long flow that has repetition, cycles, returns, counter points and bridges. And I think of an album as a big song, and always constructed them in that way.

Do you think there's an ideal setting where someone should consume your music?
Absolutely not. I try not to set too much interpretive framework around the work, so it's not overly conceptual, so that it's a more of an open context, it's open to a million interpretations, and also makes it more possible to be enigmatic in certain ways, than when it's totally pinned down and has an attached meaning or structure.

[ - s n i p - ]

Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute

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sunblind.net

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Sound Postcard : Taylor Deupree - Single Sound

2011-05-08T05:33:00.000-07:00

Headphone Commute's Sound Postcards project was inspired by Taylor Deupree's One Sound Each Day project, where for a year, Deupree would record a sound, regardless of how 'mundane' it at first appeared. As the owner of the amazing 12k label, and one of the pioneers behind the ambient and minimal genres, it's only suitable for Deupree to enjoy every single sound produced by organic and inanimate objects. We are honored to host an installment from Deupree for today's Sound Postcard!

Listen to this Sound Postcard on Headphone Commute

Dustin O'Halloran - Lumiere (130701)

2011-05-08T05:31:00.000-07:00

I first discovered Dustin O'Halloran when his beautiful track appeared on Explorer's Club series, from Loaf (on which I accidentally landed after an appearance from Hauschka, Nils Frahm and Jóhann Jóhannsson). I then gravitated towards O'Halloran's release on Sonic Pieces, titled Vorleben, and immediately fell in love with his music. His album was later featured in Headphone Commute's Best of 2010 : Music For Watching The Snow Slowly Fall In The Moonlight. So when I heard that his newest album, Lumiere, was to be released on FatCat's post-classical imprint, 130701, I wasn't even surprised. It's where O'Halloran belongs. Welcome home. With nine beautiful pieces, spanning a 43 minute album, O'Halloran pours his heart and soul through the delicate piano keys, making love to the music, the instruments, and my mind. It seems that even the mere mention of a solo piano album may evoke a passive response in avid followers of experimental and instrumental music. But true connoisseurs pick up on the slightest hint of the rising aroma from the padded hammers and the dusty strings. And Dustin plays for them. Where the piano can execute a variety of moods and genres as commanded by its player, in the hands of O'Halloran it gently weeps. Add to that a few string harmonies and a brooding cello, and you've got a cocktail for magnificent despair, that's, oh, so welcome, on these winter nights. Accompanied by New York's acclaimed American Contemporary Music Ensemble (previously appearing on works by Nico Muhly, Max Richter, and Hauschka), the album employs subtle electronics, guitar from Stars of the Lid's Adam Wiltzie and violin from yet another favorite of ours, Peter Broderick. The album ties this incredible collective of amazing appearances with a mixing hand from Jóhann Jóhannsson - and we immediately have a classic record on our hands... I mean, seriously, who's missing here? Nils Frahm? Oops, sorry, he also gets an engineering credit on Lumiere!!! O'Halloran has been playing piano since the age of 7, performing his own compositions at 11. Enrolling to study art at California's Santa Monica College, O'Halloran continued his life intertwined with music. Recording Lumiere during the last three years, at the ancient Grunewald Church in Berlin, an old farm house in Italy, an old book shop in New York, and at his homes, O'Halloran suddenly became aware of a new phenomenon - he could hear music as colors. Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which one involuntarily experiences one sense in another cognitive pathway. Famous synesthetes include Liszt, Rimsky-Korsakov, as well as Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett and the ever elusive Richard D James (Aphex Twin). Composing for an ensemble, O'Halloran evoked a new sensory palette of sound: Somehow in composing I had always viewed the work similar to how a painter would approach it, adding colors, texture, adding space, painting over the whole thing and maybe leaving just a corner. O'Halloran may be a new name among the circles of neo and modern-classical circles, but he's certainly no stranger to the street. He has previously composed music for Sofia Coppola's film, Marie Antoinette (2006), William Olsen's An American Afair (2010) and Drake Doreumus' Like Crazy (2011). There are also two volumes of Piano Solos released by Splinter Records in 2004 and Bellan Union in 2006, and of course, the above mentioned Vorleben. He's also a member of Dévics, where, together with Sarah Lov, they have released three albums on Bella Union: My Beautiful Sinking Ship (2001), The Stars At Saint Andrea (2003) and Push The Heart (2006).

Read also Headphone Commute's Interview with Dustin O’Halloran

dustinohalloran.com

Interview with Dustin O'Halloran

2011-05-08T05:28:00.000-07:00

Talk about the moment when you discovered that you had synesthesia. How has this condition affected your composition?
I always had this condition, but never really understood it or knew there was so much information about it until I started to study painters with this same condition. It really opened up a whole new world that connected painting and music, sound and color. I really started to read a lot about this connection when I was asked to perform at the Guggenheim in NY for their 50th anniversary, it was also the opening of the Kandinsky exhibition at the same time. Walking through this retrospective it was incredible how musical these paintings were, and how his series of "compositions", which he felt were his musical interpretations, how they really FEEL orchestral.

In my own compositions it helped me to have more freedom expressing these ideas and perhaps also help me get ideas across to other musicians that I work with. It's a language I understand, and I suppose since I am not formally trained it gave me some grounding in what I believe is a really important part of music and composing.

Describe your process of composing solo piano pieces. Do you improvise by the piano for hours? Does a single melody simply come out of nowhere?
I think all pieces start from improvising, and slowly start to take form over time. I do like to get them to a place where there is an idea and structure… sometimes that can change at the last-minute in the recording process. But I like the idea of every note being important, and no note is treated as a throw away… I want them all to count and mean something to the piece. I guess that's also why I work in a minimal way... I think a lot of music has unnecessary notes that just seem to be there for the sake of making a piece more ornamental. I am interested in the core of what makes music work.

From your earlier solo works, I can hear a lot of classical influences in your sound. Who are your favorite classical composers and why?
Yeah I spent a lot of time listening to the classical composers, and of course it's found its way into my work. I love this deep sense of composition which I think really was unique to that time... no film, tv, radio, or all these external distractions we have now. Does anyone have years to develop a single piece of music anymore in this world where everything must happen so fast?

As for composers I love: Gavin Bryars, Chopin, Bach, John Cage, Steve Riech, Arvo Part, Morton Feldman, Stravinsky, Debussy, Erik Satie, Philip Glass to name a few...

Did you like studying the piano when you were a kid? Were the lessons something you looked forward to, or did it feel like a chore? What were the other kids doing in your neighborhood while you practiced for hours? And finally (I know this is a loaded question), how do you think this has affected your childhood, and inevitably your adult life?
An interesting question... I didn't really have serious piano studies, so it was really my choice to learn. Just simple lessons from our church organist, no conservatory or anything. I really loved to play... of course there were times when I didn't want to practice... I just wanted to be able to play instantly, and of course you have to put the time in. Most of time I was pretty happy to... but yeah, your friends are going out to play and I would stay in, that's always hard when you're a kid. But it was not a really rigid schedule I had, and perhaps now I wish I had so that I could have had a better training when I was young, as I am catching up to a lot of lost time now.

I had a long period where I didn't play piano as I was moving around a lot in my teenage years, and it was not until later when I started to get into playing guitar and playing in a band that I came back to it. Now in my adult life I am trying to learn all the things I wished I had done when I was younger, but I guess the positive thing about that is I really want to, and its a pleasure to stay in play.

[ - s n i p - ]

Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute

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Read Headphone Commute's review of Lumiere

dustinohalloran.com

Two and a Half Questions with Asura

2011-04-30T05:55:00.000-07:00

You have been producing music for well over a decade now. How has your sound evolved over the years?
I think my music has always been a mixture of numerous influences, styles. I love electronic music, space and trance, but too, world music, classical, even pop rock. I guess that, since 1996, when Asura was created, the evolution was natural, cause it's not commercial music, so it has no boundaries, no limits. I too tried many synths and gears, and for something like 5 or 6 years, many virtual ones. So my sound changed with my various experiments.

360 is an album in two parts. What do the chapters "Before" and "After" signify?
It's a very personal reason in fact. This album is a tribute to my father who passed away in 2009. He taught me love of music, and I share what I know in part thank to him with my listeners. You are born, you live, and you die. But you give a message. It's like a loop. A circle. Life in 360. "Before" is when he was there, and "after" is... you guess what!

And what about the name itself - are you referring to a full cycle, return to the origin, as well as the unity of beginning and an end?
I don't want to keep my music enclosed in a formatted style. "Code Eternity", for example, belongs to the past, with its almost exclusive 4/4 beats, acid and loud basslines. We are in 2010 now, no more in the 2000's. I changed and my music with me. I will keep making this kind of music of course, cause I love it, but essentially for compilations, live acts, for the dance floor too. So now I want to go deeper in a mix of World Music, Trance Ambient, Trip Hop, Classical, Glitch, everything that I think can fit with my soul. I would like it to be a panoramic vision of music, at 360 degrees. That's why my 2011 album will be very different too, a spacey one. I will come back to a rhythmic album, as it's the case in "360", in 2013.

Talk a little about your collaboration with Ayten on El-Hai.
It was a virtual meeting at first, cause we met via Myspace. I send here some drones and she sang (divinely) on it. So we decided to make a track together, and it gave "El Hai", which means "Living God" in hebrew. And it won't be the last time. She has a heavenly voice, polymorphic I would say, and i am eager to collaborate on several other tracks, and maybe to released an album with her in the future.

[ - s n i p - ]

Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute

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Be sure to read Headphone Commute review of Asura's 360

asura-music.com

Interview with Boy Is Fiction

2011-04-30T05:53:00.000-07:00

What have been the greatest musical influences on your music?
For as long as I can remember I've been really easily distracted. My attention span is average at the best of times but music was always different. When I was growing up my folks had a huge collection of vinyl and discs that I'd disappear into and I guess because of that I've developed a fairly eclectic taste. I've never really given a shit who wrote the music or where it came from as long as it made me feel something. As a kid I remember listening to tracks over and over in an old pair of headphones for that reason alone.

I think the biggest shift for me was in my teens when I started to listen to bands like ministry. I was a die-hard metal fan so when I heard the mix of samples, synths and textures I was gone. I'd started playing guitar a few years earlier but from that point on I wanted to be able to do it all. My drumming sucked so I bought a drum machine / sampler and over time taught myself to play piano. As a guitarist I've gone downhill but spreading myself thinly over multiple instruments was the only way I could do what I wanted to do. These days I listen to everything from Godspeed to Leonard Cohen. There's so much good stuff out there, it's just a matter of filtering your way through it.

You seem to be a one man shop, doing all the writing, playing, and production yourself. Did anyone join you on Broadcasts in Colour? I hear a cello on "In" and a different voice on "Until Morning Comes." Is that all you? How many different instruments were employed to create the cinematic sweep of Broadcasts in Colour?
Boy is Fiction is just me. I've toyed with the idea of bringing in other musicians but it's such a personal project and so much of it comes from what I've seen and done. There are definitely people I'd love to work with and I wouldn't rule it out - but it's hard to do when you're in your own little world. In saying that I've spent some pretty late and messy nights with the people close to me picking their brains. It's a great way to sound out ideas but ultimately I'm stubborn and I tend to run with my heart.

To date the strings have been digital but that's definitely something I'd look at given the chance. Having started as a guitarist I still get a lot of textures from electrics, my keys are synth based and percussion is a mix of digital and acoustic. Over the years I've recorded a few kits and I still use them a lot when I'm after an open or live kit sound. The glitchy and broken beats come from a special place after a lot of hard liquor and shit talking.

Is your work drawn from your own life, or are they externally influenced?
Absolutely my own life, but music is a funny thing. I'm never really sure how a track will make someone feel so I just lay it all down emotionally. Why not? Once a piece is out there, people will interpret differently and I guess that's the beauty of music. Obviously adding vocals makes it easier to tell a story or whatever but I think if they're minimal enough the focus remains on the track as a whole. Everyone has moments and experiences they'll never forget. I have memories that I wish I could relive over and over, just as I have memories I wish I could outrun.

[ - s n i p - ]

Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute

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Interview prepared by Elizabeth Klisiewicz for Headphone Commute.

Check out Headphone Commute's review of Broadcasts In Colour

boyisfiction.com

Sound Bytes : Asura, Boxharp, Arc of Doves and Boy Is Fiction

2011-04-30T05:50:00.000-07:00

Here, at Headphone Commute offices, our bins are overflowing with promos, our mailboxes are screaming with "listen to meeee!" subjects, and our hard-drives are constantly churning, fragmenting and archiving. We have given up a long time ago on listening to _ALL_ of the music out there, and complaining about its abundance is also a sin... Thankfully, Elizabeth Klisiewicz comes to the rescue once more, dusting off a few of the albums that truly deserve recognition among these pages. With this first Sound Bytes entry of the year, we tip our hats off to our favorites by Asura, Boxharp, Arc of Doves and Boy Is Fiction.

Asura - 360 (Ultimae)
In my tiny corner of the world, snow is falling and winter has settled around me. Cold penetrates my very essence, and it is times such as these when I need emotional sustenance. 360 is a fourth album from Asura, which neatly fills that void. It is a musical cloak of many colors that opens with the stunning El Hau, featuring vocalist Ayten, who easily surfs the waters of Lisa Gerrard's Whale Rider period, finished with a Middle Eastern twist. Asura is the vision of one man, Lyon (France) based musician Charles Farewell, who guides listeners through beautiful vistas studded with psychedelic morning trance, IDM, and world beats. There is something for everyone, from the lush ambient strains of Halley Road to the global reach of Altered State, whose punchy back beats are gilded with Celtic airs. Atlantis Child's lazy, sun-dazed beats entangle these glad ears before yanking the rug from under me and catching me unawares with the uneasy, psybient strains of Longing for Silence. Robot tones usher in the final third of this piece, which veers from paranoia to melancholia. 360 tickles the pleasure center before it slides the stiletto silently through your emotional heart. Wonderful, woeful, and in constant rotation on my personal playlist. Stop by Ultimae to explore Asura's previous releases for the label. This album has been featured on Headphone Commute's Best of 2010 : Music For Awakened Spirits And Open Minds.

Check out our Two and a Half Questions with Asura

Boxharp - The Green (Hidden Shoal Recordings)
Boxharp is singer/songwriter Wendy Allen and producer/engineer Scott Solter. It is also a dulcimer style harp that frequently appears in the band's intriguing mix of modern beats, Celtic/Appalachian folk, and antique musical renderings. Like other artists that have married unusual musical genres, such as Afro Celt Sound System's West African-Celtic melange, Boxharp deftly mixes ghostly vocals with warm, ambient tones. Wendy and Scott meander through Burl Ives, poet Vachel Lindsay, and dive back to 1733 for the Leatherwing Bat (also known as The Bird's Courting Song). The ghost of Sandy Denny also seems to flit in and out of this antique ditty, which would slot nicely onto Fairport Convention's brilliant Liege and Lief (Island, 1969) album. Allen's personal ghosts also inform some of her lyrics, and surround music box tones with a mystical air. All these elements fit together into a logical whole and make for an uneasy but always engaging listen. With no less a dignitary than David Bowie lauding them, Boxharp seems poised for a bright future in the ambient, folktronic, and experimental music space. Pick up your copy directly from Hidden Shoal's online store, where you can also download five label sampler albums completely for free!

Arc of Doves - Impressions (Quietus Recordings)
Frequent moments of unimaginable beauty populate this debut album from producer Tetsuya Nakamura's Arc of Doves project. Released in 2009 on Brock Van Wey's (bvdub) Quietus Recordings imprint, it's a fitting companion piece to bvdub's own work (White Clouds Drift On And On). Ranging from piano scapes a la Goldmund to cinematic noir dub, this is a recording that settles around you like a velvet cloak, enfolding you with warm, organic swells of sound. The stark piano of "Introducing" slides into "Word of Mouth" with watery ease, treating listeners to an eclectic melange of modern classical, minimalist dub, and IDM. Impressions is the perfect soundtrack for a massage, or a soul-cleansing walk in the wilderness. Hints of Brian Eno and Harold Budd come into play, but Impressions is an original work populated with fluid tone poems and impressionistic soundscapes. Highly recommended if you like Christopher Hipgrave, Danny Norbury, Rudi Arapahoe and Rafael Anton Irisarri. See if you can track down a limited edition Arc of Doves release, Mille Plateaux (ROH²S!, 2009) as well as the latest, The Lights (AY, 2010), selected as one of the entries in Headphone Commute's Best of 2010 : Music For The Frosty Night When I Miss Your Warm Light.

Boy Is Fiction - Broadcasts In Colour (Sun Sea Sky Productions)
Broadcasts in Color is the second release from Melbourne-based musician/producer Alex Gillett, recording under the moniker Boy Is Fiction. Warm, organic tones mesh with frosty synth sounds and shift seamlessly between blissful beats and darker undercurrents. I have listened to this release numerous times over the past month, and am surprised and pleased by its staying power. That such lovely and accessible music has gone unnoticed by many is a mystery. "Feeling Lazy" is reminiscent of Brian Eno, and its message and affable melody will stick with you long after the last notes have faded away. Lovely piano, ghostly vocals, and a swath of strings augment this fragile centerpiece. Piano and synthesizer are the common elements in most tracks, underpinning everything from the airiness of "Pinprick" to the gritty, industrial sheen of "Rat". Bright and dark passages swarm your senses like migrating butterflies, and you are not released until the final strains of "For My Friend" set you down. Musical touchstones include Helios, Proem, Subheim, Pleq and Ginormous, but all fans of lush, ethereal electronic music will find something to relish here. The album is released by Illinois based Sun Sea Sky Productions, which has previously released Lights Out Asia's Garmonia (2003), and has recently announced an upcoming release by Melorman. Check out Gillett's debut on the same label, Boy Is Fiction (2007). Broadcasts In Colour is featured on Headphone Commute's Best of 2010 : Music For Withered Leaves And Lonely Fishtanks.

Read also Elizabeth's Interview with Boy Is Fiction

Be sure to read this entry directly on Headphone Commute for audio track samples.

Cepia - Cepia (Cepia Music)

2011-04-30T05:47:00.000-07:00

Huntley Miller's 2007 debut, Natura Morta, on Ghostly International as Cepia ends with Untitled II. His sophomore release on his own Cepia Music, self-titled Cepia, begins with Untitled III. Perhaps it is meant to tie the three years together, perhaps it's nothing more than a lack of words for the titles, or maybe there is no coincidence at all, and I'm reading into something that is not actually there. Afterall, Miller doesn't seem to be lost when it comes to naming tracks - there is the exclaiming "You Don't Know What It Means To Win", "Incurvatus in se", and "Me And My Gin" (sounds delicious). So let's pretend we didn't have this conversation and skip right to the music. Cepia is an album that grows on you with every listen. The only logical comparison I can make is to that one single event in your life - the first time you ever heard Autechre. Do you remember? Were you, like, huh, you know? But then grew up a bit and realized the beauty hidden in the layers? Miller's evolved sound relies on meticulously engineered sounds, micro programmed synthetic percussion, and patiently designed acoustic spaces. The sound is incredibly abstract, and indeed experimental in nature, showcasing ever molding branches of electronic music. Yes, I hear a bit of Autechre influence in there, as well as maybe some melodic flavors of Arovane, the synth folding lines of Wisp, and a little glitch hop from Lusine. But these comparisons only draw parallels of an invisible web of auditory nodes, colliding at the hub of Cepia's sound. Here's a blurb from a previous press release, courtesy of Ghostly: Cepia (pronounced “SEP-ee-uh”) is the sound of industry meeting with the vague memories that rest somewhere in the back of everyone’s mind. Processed bells lilt and chime at their whim, while kick drums skitter and scramble to catch up. Infinite layers of clicks and drones provide the glue that holds it all together perfectly. Miller's discography consists mainly of the above mentioned Notura Morta, a few EPs on Ghostly Inernational, and a remix compilation, Atlantic Blood, on The Flashbulb's Sublight Records from 2006. The latter collects Cepia's reworks of tracks by Mr. Projectile, Tiki Obmar, Tim Koch, and others, while being mastered by Richard Devine - it feels like a gathering of good ol' friends from the era of Merck. Cepia's 30-minute tightly packed 10-track release is a little puff of fresh air into the community of IDM explorers, a bit fatigued from following a beaten path. Just what the doctor ordered.

Read Two and a Half Questions with Cepia

cepiamusic.com

Two and a Half Questions with Cepia

2011-04-30T05:46:00.000-07:00

What is the main theme behind the album, and why did you choose to go with a self-titled approach?
There isn't a main theme behind the album, but to me, it's an album in the classic sense where all the pieces are related and it's designed to be listened to all the way through. It's self-titled because it's very close to the core or essence of this music that I want to hear. Somewhere between the density of my first release and the minimalism of the last album.

Can you talk a bit about sound design? What software / hardware do you employ in your studio?
Everything is synthesized and sequenced in Max/MSP, bussed out to analog preamps, compressors and EQs, and then back in the computer for a more traditional mixing process with Logic. The album was not mastered for maximum level and because of that it retains a lot of punch, you want to turn it up when it comes on.

Describe your composition process. What are the inspirations? What is the approach at attacking a specific idea?
The harmonic stuff is written on a keyboard and the percussion in Max. Sometimes it's really hashing out a chord progression over a couple weeks, other times it's getting up in the middle of the night with something stuck in my head. The inspiration is all over the place from The Meters to Phillip Glass to The Band.

Besides Gin, what is your other choice of poison? :)
Whiskey.

[ - s n i p - ]

Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute

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Be sure to read Headphone Commute's review of Cepia.

cepiamusic.com

Syndicated Posts

2011-04-23T09:53:00.001-07:00

I just wanted to drop a quick line and apologize for not updating this mirror in a while. It's not exactly an automated process, so it takes a couple of hours to manually update individual posts. Since it fell off my radar, the reviews and interviews on here are lagging behind by about four months. I know many of you use this site to as your RSS source, so I'll do my best and attempt to catch up as soon as I can! Meanwhile, perhaps you'd consider adding our main site: reviews.headphonecommute.com to your portable RSS reader, so that you can stay up to date with the latest publications!

Tipper - Broken Soul Jamboree (Tippermusic)

2011-04-23T09:52:00.001-07:00

Load up that rubber band gun with a stretched-out bass and snap the trigger on the dropping rhythm - the wobble bubble hip-bop is in the house! The 10th studio album from Dave Tipper, Broken Soul Jamboree, is about to slap you across the face, with its top notch production, acoustically rich other world themes, and of course, those staple (dare I say) glitch-hop downtempo beats, that have made Tipper a household name among the trip hop and nuskool breaks junkies alike. From acoustic instruments to CPU-intensive DSP rendering, the music prepares the listener for yet another mind trip, with captain Tipper behind the knobs and gas pedals. What could be said about this UK producer that hasn't been said before? How careful must I be with my words, in order not to reclassify the descriptions of the past? Should I attempt to write this review composed entirely of questions? You think? While Tipper follows his self-imposed rule of producing and releasing whatever he feels like on his own Tippermusic, I follow mine, and write about the music that simply makes me feel. The product of it all is just an auxiliary function. There is no other hidden agenda. It was through this self guided journey that I have discovered Surrounded back in 2003, and immediately fell in love with Tipper's music (I can still hear Forty Winks just by thinking about it). Since then, he released five more albums - the latest recommendations being Tertiary Noise and Wobble Factor (both released as digital only downloads in 2008). But it is with Broken Soul Jamboree that Tipper returns with his sound, and I feel like I am back running through the morning forest, looking for my sleeping friend's dew covered tent. Since Surrounded, Tipper has perfected his production techniques, paying a little more attention to the low-frequency space where the bass wobbles, and a little less attention to the direction of the rest of the world. Where others are concerned with following the latest trend (if you haven't noticed, dubstep managed to creep its dirty tail into every genre), Tipper is mostly concerned with making music that he loves. And that's where his perseverance prevails. On Broken Soul Jamboree, Tipper appears a bit more wise, mature, and even more confident in his sound than before. And through this confidence, Tipper is not afraid to show a little emotion, be it nostalgia or melancholia, while exploring the farthest corners of his mind (and ours).

Be sure to read our Two and a Half Questions with Tipper

tippermusic.net

Two and a Half Questions with Tipper

2011-04-23T09:50:00.000-07:00

Last night I had a dream that I was checked into rehab for overdosing on music. I think you were there as well. What were you in for?
I'm the janitor there.

What would be a perfect musical performance for your funeral, and who should we book to perform?
I don't give a fuck 'cos i'll be dead, but for the purpose of your own entertainment, you may want to book this talent : manualist plays the bee gees

Seriously now, how Big is the Question, and how small is the head?
The question is about the size of a small wood pigeon and the head is about the size of a frustrated raisin.

On Broken Soul Jamboree I hear a few neat-sounding metallic percussion instruments. Who was your favorite Ninja Turtle and why?
Never watched it, but after some extensive research, probably Raphael, as he is purported to be both sullen and pissed off… these emotional traits stemming from an existential crisis that came about as a result of being one of only four anthropomorphic turtles in existence. Fair game.

[ - s n i p - ]

Read the entire interview with Headphone Commute

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Read Headphone Commute's review of Broken Soul Jamboree

tippermusic.net

Eskmo - Eskmo (Ninja Tune)

2011-04-23T09:48:00.000-07:00

Brendan Angelides may be a new artist to Ninja Tune's roster, but he's certainly not a new name to me. I met Brendan in Portland in the summer of 2007, back when I was already a fan of his music released as Welder on Cyberset and Native State Records (see Vines And Streams and Bamboo Snow EP respectively). His San Francisco sound already had all of the bass-driven punch, perfectly mixed with a base of beautiful and haunting melodies. There is no way of pigeonholing this musician into any sub-style of electronica. He has the glitch; he has the beats; he has the sound my body needs. Breeding a whole new child from the lineage of dubstep, IDM, and west-coast instrumental hip-hop, Angelides cuts through the layers of deep bass with his own ethereal vocals. His unique style opens up your ears, and unlocks the withered bones, ready to pop into a mannequin stance at the drop of the beat. Somewhere between the spacecrunk funkadelia and ghostep dreamhoptronica, there's the world of sound that steers clear from dance floor anthems and instead floats into a sonic space of frequency-rich headphone listening experience. "The album was written over a six month stretch, in the middle of a whole bunch of personal relationship-type stuff, a lot of deep life-experience type stuff happening that helped the music just bleed out of me. I just poured all those feelings into the music, it’s very cathartic. I allowed myself to let go of DJ structure – it’s not a ‘dance club’ album, because that kind of stuff hasn’t inspired me in years. This is the first full body of work where I’m singing all over it, and allowing myself to get over that furlough of expression has been really liberating." Ninja Tune raced to lock in this amazing talent after a split with Eprom on Warp and a 12" Let Them Sing EP on Planet Mu. We may also attribute the label signage to Amon Tobin, after he collaborated with Eskmo as ESKAMON (see Fine Objects released by Brendan's own Ancestor), and a Colorbrain Mix that Brendan made for Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder Sessions. "Before Warp and Planet Mu I kind of fell into the game of making tracks to get released on smaller dance labels, having to cater to ‘dance’ formulas. Over this past couple of years, I feel I’ve let go of that, and am just writing the songs I want to write. I got back to what excited me about making electronic music when I started out, creating these little universes with sound and writing songs." Let's talk about those Ninja choons for a second. The London-based independent label, run and operated by Matt Black and Jonathan More (aka Coldcut), had a dry spell in the last couple of years. In 2008 we were teased with You Don't Know: Ninja Cuts compilation promising many great albums to come. There was The Bug's London Zoo, Daedelus' Love To Make Music To, and The Qemists' Join The Q. In 2009 there were Blockhead's The Music Scene, Fink's Sort Of Revolution, and Yppah's They Know What Ghosts Know. But I guess what the label was really preparing for is their 20 year birthday celebration with Ninja Tune XX (I am a proud collector of the entire boxset). Not that any of the above albums are not noteworthy. It just didn't feel like the good 'ol Ninja Tune output until, perhaps, Bonobo's Black Sands in 2010. It seems that with Eskmo, the label that introduced the world to so many great new artists is back on track! Let's hope for a prosperous 2011! I'm already looking forward to Matilda by Stateless and Toomorrow by Wagon Christ!!!

See also Headphone Commute's Interview with Eskmo.

eskmo.com | ninjatune.net

Interview with Eskmo

2011-04-23T09:47:00.000-07:00

I noticed that you're using vocals on the album (your own voice, right?). How has the Eskmo sound evolved over the years?
Yep I'm singing. I've had tracks along the way since the beginning where I put my vocal in there as a hook, but this recent album was the first full on diving in to take it to another place. I know the sound right now in the electronic world (for the most part) is all on the r'n'b tip with vocals, but that's not what inspires me. The idea of 'characters' inspires me no matter what the sound, so I took that and ran with it. Ultimately the music has always stayed true to being a reflection and metaphor of an inner process that has been happening within me over 10 years. The ways in which it has changed would be, the most obvious, in terms of production levels / concepts. But more deep than that would be the way I approach the tracks. Whether from a place of 2005 or 2008 and trying to write something that sounded 'heavy' and could make the dance floor go wild, to the more recent material which explores some more emotional terrain. Lately I've really allowed the idea of storytelling and memes to come through no matter if that places the track into a gentle area or the opposite, an uncomfortable or challenging one. Either way, I feel more is being said than me still going down the route of dj oriented tracks. (Not like I would ever get that big in that world anyways cause my stuff was always a bit 'odd' for most of dj crowd).

The latest music video by Cyriak Harris for "We Got More" kicks Inception's butt... Tell us more about videos that are now featured with your album. How have these complimented your music?
The first was "Cloudlight" which was directed by my friend Dugan Oneal. The 2nd was the video you mention. I've been real blessed to have been able to work with these two directors. Each song definitely comes from its own little world and different intention was put into each. We (Ninja and I) wanted to show 2 very different sides to the Eskmo character. Cloudlight comes from a very personal subtle sorta place. There is lots of story behind that one. I knew before the album was even done Cloudlight needed a video, but Pete at Ninja convinced me to do one for We Got More. They knew Cyriak (I hadn't heard of him before), and I trusted his judgment that it would be a good fit. And luckily it definitely was. I feel he nailed the exact quirky vibe I was hoping to achieve in tune.

Your signing on to Ninja Tune has definitely brought more attention to your music. Talk about the new opportunities that have presented themselves since the signing.
Signing with them has been a great experience. Their presence is so well established already and the fact that they are putting in a whole new level of focus into the brand and label these past couple years is just exciting. Through this I've been able to travel to new spots in Europe and Japan as well as meet a whole new crew of musicians I may have not encountered otherwise. It has also has brought its own set of challenges, which I also try to see as opportunities to grow. Releasing the music to such a large audience and with this much force behind the release brings a lot of leering eyes. Your work just gets examined in a different way. Especially if you don't give critics what they were expecting. I look at all this as chances to expand my sound and view of what this all means to me and how I might grow from it.

Do you think we'll see more material from your other project, Welder? Also, how would you classify the separation of sound between Welder and Eskmo?
I'm currently diving into another full length Welder release right now. Welder is the gentle, inward, very organic sound in me. No attention paid (for the most part) to bass lines or anything that feels the need to make a track 'hit' on the dance floor, where sonically or to make people bug out. Once you enter than sort of territory, the whole game changes. Eskmo, is the more open, outward, big sound. He understands the dance world and intentionally messes with it, where as Welder doesn't even acknowledge a need for playing with the rules, cause there aren't any. At one point I thought to make them extreme opposites from each other, but I could never bring Eskmo to be an annoying dance anthem character and still be ok with myself. I'm curious to see the direction of this next Welder album.

[ - s n i p - ]

Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute

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See also Headphone Commute's review of Eskmo

eskmo.com | ninjatune.net

Hauschka - Foreign Landscapes (130701)

2011-04-23T07:46:00.000-07:00

I remember the very fist time I heard Hauschka. Strange bells, cardboard clicks, and metallic slaps accompanied each note. At first, I was not aware that this was a prepared piano - an altered instrument with placed objects between the strings and hammers. Upon learning of Volker Bertelmann's exploration of possibilities through instrument modifications, I became entranced in the newly created sound of [what piano is actually classified as] a tuned percussion instrument. But it was not until I've seen Volker play live on a prepared piano, that I fell completely in love with his beautiful sound. Foreign Landscapes is Volker's third full length album for FatCat's 130701 imprint (he has also released two albums on Karaoke Kalk). His 2008 Ferndorf has made it on my Best of 2008 lists, and received critical acclaim among the followers and critics alike. On Ferndorf, exploring his childhood memories, Hauschka experimented with the addition of two cellists, a violinist and even a trombone player. On Foreign Landscapes, Volker reflects on his recent travels during an extensive world tour. And this time he's got an entire orchestra! In fact, some pieces don't even feature prepared piano, and instead showcase Volker's skill at arranging an expansive and ambitious orchestral score. "Nine of the album’s twelve tracks feature a 12-piece string and wind ensemble from San Francisco’s Magik*Magik Orchestra, alongside Volker Bertelmann’s own prepared piano. Dynamic, brimming with character and colour, ‘Foreign Landscapes’ retains its author’s distinctive musical voice and leads the listener through a beautifully balanced collection, moving from delicate solo piano lyricism to a propulsive, robust minimalism." On the album, Düsseldorf (Germany) based Volker Bertelmann continues to delight our ears with his compositions. At times somber, at times playful, Bertelmann's chord progression explores major and minor tonalities that calm restlessness and lift up the spirits. The twelve pieces sound very intimate, appealing to the listener's perception, as if the orchestra was setup in your own living room, for a private performance. The lack of organic (or synthetic for that matter) reverb, creates a very personal atmosphere, with skillfully balanced stereo field, centering the listener. It's worth mentioning that the album was recorded at San Francisco's Tiny Telephone (used by 4AD, Nonesuch, Temporary Residence Limited, Matador, and other labels among the many) and mastered by Bo Kondren of Calyx, in Berlin. 130701 has only put out two records this year - Foreign Landscapes and Max Richter's Infra. And although the quantity of the label's output was low, I assure you that the quality of these modern classical records is top notch. Oh, and in case you didn't know and always wondered, 130701 is indeed named after the date on which FatCat has brought it to life - July 13th, 2001. Be sure to check out a set of these excellent videos, published as NPR interview with Hauschka, featuring Volker playing a piano with document clamps, a seashell necklace, marbles, and tennis balls... Be sure to also check out Hauschka's 2009 EP, Snowflakes And Carwrecks, as well as his debut on FatCat, Room To Expand.

hauschka-net.de | myspace.com/hauschka
fat-cat.co.uk | myspace.com/fatcat130701

Interview with Hauschka

2011-04-23T07:43:00.000-07:00

Hey Volker. We last spoke after your release of Ferndorf, where you introduced a few stringed instruments into your music. On Foreign Landscapes you took on an entire orchestra! Tell us how this collaboration has evolved.
Oh i think with twelve people it is a small orchestra, and i am really happy that i could work on my ability to compose something out of my head. I always had the idea after doing so many improvised concerts and recordings, to work more on the parts that i don't know so well and arranging and composing for a big ensemble was something i never experienced. it is also a matter of having trust in yourself that you can transfer ideas into a group where it is out of your control when it is played... but it isn't as soon as you work with them. i was fortunate to be able record with the wonderful Magik*Magik Orchestra from San Francisco who helped me to get the best result in a very relaxed atmosphere.

Talk a bit about the process of composing for this orchestra. How different is your approach from working on solo piano compositions? How long did it take to put together this ambitious score?
It is different, as you must have everything ready when you go into the studio and the composition must be already perfect, once you press the record button. with my solo pieces i trust my intuition, which i think is a wonderful strength but different. my solo piano pieces are mainly based on improvisation and spontaneous output. with a composition, you have to shape it beforehand. i started in the spring of 2009 with the first piece and when i had all the drafts together, it took me about 6 weeks to finish the arrangements. the recording was done in 5 days.

Foreign Landscapes is influenced by the places you have visited during your past extensive touring, and I see that you're on tour once again. Talk a little about this aspect of your life, and how it affects your direction as a composer (as opposed to a bedroom musician with little interaction with audience).
I think traveling in general makes you wider in terms of your perspective on people, culture and a variety of thoughts. it creates an atmosphere that is hard to achieve in your bedroom and gives you an enormous amount of input through impressions, which doesn't mean that the bedroom is a worse place, quality wise. in my home, i can really focus on the essence because everything is sorted and familiar. so in my case i can say the nicest thing is the mixture of both.

How have your live shows changed, now that you're performing with an orchestra?
I am playing mainly with a smaller group then i recorded with out of cost reasons but my concerts are more planned as the running order is clear beforehand. during my solo concerts i can always spontaneously decide what i want to play.

[ - s n i p - ]

Read the entire interview with Hauschka on Headphone Commute

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hauschka-net.de | myspace.com/hauschka

Also on Headphone Commute

bvdub - The Art Of Dying Alone (Glacial Movements)

2011-04-23T07:42:00.001-07:00

Here's a true story. One morning I woke up between the two worlds - the one created by my mind, and the one perceived by it. With the remaining bits of dreams still lingering in my peripheral consciousness, I set off to the start of a new day. But the dreams kept coming back. In particular, an image of a needle playing on a dusty record, evoking two words spoken by that 60s radio jockey, repeated over and over in one continuous loop. The same two words appeared on the DJ's t-shirt - one on the front, the other on the back. Those two words were "dying" and "alone". That dream stayed with me for weeks, sending chills down my spine upon every recollection. Unable to interpret its meaning, I shelved it for another time. A month later, I have discovered bvdub's latest album. Have I seen this title somewhere else before? Perhaps. That doesn't change a thing... There's something about Brock Van Wey's music that makes me connect to nature, to consciousness, to being, through sound alone... Brock serves the highest sermon to all the listening gods in my church of music. The repetitive passages of sound create a blissful mantra, imploring you to erase all thought, forget about the past or future, and just stay in the present. The titles of the tracks, give me even more reason to believe that Brock's message is indeed reflective on the nature of our short stay in this world: "Descent to the End", "To Finally Forget It All", and "No One Will Ever Find You Here". The release includes the following message: "We all die alone, but some make it their last work of art." Released on an Italian ambient label, Glacial Movements Records, the album was written and produced by Brock in Shaoxing, China, where he currently resides. On his last album, White Clouds Drift On And On (echospace [detroit], 2009) released under his real name, Brock Van Wey paired with Stephen Hitchell to release a double disk full of deepest dub and emotionally absorbing music. On The Art Of Dying Alone, Brock returns with ethereal atmospheric pads, seamless loops over frequency saturated sonic soundscapes, with distant and delicate voices, gentle piano, and acoustic guitar. At the center of the album is a theme of contemplation on life, isolation, detachment, and inevitably, death. Be sure to pick up bvdub's We Were The Sun releases on his own, Quietus Recordings. I also recommend you grab the single track release, To Live, released by Smallfish in 2009. Additionally, I am looking forward to bvdub's upcoming release on Home Normal, titled Tribes at the Temple of Silence, scheduled to hit the streets in January 2011. The album features a track titled "These Walls Will Always Remember (for Dani)", which I'm sure is dedicated in memory of Danielle Baquet-Long (Celer / Chubby Wolf), who passed away in the summer of 2009 at the young age of 26. With all of this reflection on death, I must end this review, and set about my day, attempting to accomplish even the smallest tasks with full devotion, hoping that my presence would leave a tiny trace of my existence behind, when I'm ready to go...

Be sure to read Interview with bvdub

bvdub.org | glacialmovements.com

Interview with bvdub

2011-04-23T07:36:00.000-07:00

That topic of death and passing away is something that you have admittedly been obsessed with. Is it a fascination, phobia, acceptance or something else? Can you please shed more light on this?

What was once a nearly crippling fear turned to acceptance, and then to fascination.
It’s been something I’ve been obsessed with for a long time, nearly as long as I can remember. As a result, I tend to see things in a very retrospective way, like trying to imagine how people I know would maybe remember me or something I did after I’m gone. I’ve never been able to live in the now, I’m always stuck in the past, which is maybe why I gravitate naturally toward thinking about the end – because at that point, there’s only the past.

It used to be a phobia, a really bad one. The obsession I now have with the concept of death was once a nearly uncontrollable phobia and fear – that was until one day, probably about 15 years ago now, one of my best friends handed me a copy of The Stranger by Albert Camus, which then started me down the road to the full-fledged Existentialist I am now (yes I know Camus labeled himself a Humanist, but we’ll save that discussion for another time). Many people mistakenly think that Existentialists are these suicidal, miserable people, mostly due to misrepresentation and erroneous information in popular media, when in actuality the fact that you’ve accepted that you’re going to die someday and that it could be any minute makes you appreciate the small and beautiful things in this life that so many overlook when they’re only thinking about the next one. Anyway, let’s save all that for another day…

Honestly I have no idea where my obsession with death comes from. When I was young I wasn’t exposed to some traumatic encounter with it or anything, it’s just always been something I gravitated toward (much to the distress of my parents when I was young haha). Even when I was young, I spent all of my time stuck in the past, thinking about things that had happened, regrets, and things that might have been – so even from a young age, I began to look all the way to the end, and think back from there, imagining how others may reminisce about their lives someday, and how my own existence would, if at all, intersect in their thoughts. Needless to say, I was a hit at parties.

The concept very recently and horribly came to life when I suddenly and without warning lost my father, who though he would freely admit couldn’t for the life of him understand what was going on in my head, supported every step I’ve ever taken, including all the times everyone else said I was throwing my life away on music. Without him, I would never have made a single note of music that you hear today. I owe everything I am to him, and to suddenly wake up and have him disappear without being able to say goodbye is something words can never describe, though I am by no means unique in the experience – people all over the world have to face it every day.

Though the emptiness I felt was and still is heavier than ten oceans, I think my lifelong obsession with the concept of loss, and my ability to accept and even be fascinated by it in the later half of my life to date helped me to deal with it in a drastically different way than I would have when I was younger. When I would have ran in the face of it at one point, I was now able to stare it straight in the eye, and accept it for what it was. I don’t believe in souls, spirits, afterlife, or anybody looking down on anybody, but he will forever be a part of everything I do, because he was always the reason I was able to do it in the first place. And so I guess this is the definition of my obsession with death. I think that’s the most you can ask of life, to have that effect on someone, and to become part of the very fabric that makes up their being. I don’t think I’ll ever accomplish that, because I’m simply too cold and distant and frankly fucked up to love as he did, but here’s to hoping.

Can talk about the quote on your album, "We all die alone, but some make it their last work of art". What is its source and effect on your inspiration for this album?

Its source is actually me. I would say it very much relates to this idea of how after you’re gone, others’ memory of you in their lives will intertwine with the story of their own lives, no matter to what extent. For me personally, the most beautiful way this can be achieved, at least in my ideal, is to somehow know the end is near, and to silently disappear to spend those last moments completely alone, thinking back on the life you lived, and then just vanish as easily and suddenly as you appeared.

This has always been an obsession of mine, but it had lay dormant for a while until one day about a year ago I asked someone what their ideal way to die was, and they answered very matter-of-factly, showing they had thought about it many times, that they wanted to die alone in a place no one had ever been. I thought that was such a beautiful answer (coupled with the fact it came from the mouth of someone around 19 years old, which was extremely unexpected) I honestly shed a tear, and every time I even think of it, including now, I do the same. Quite frankly, to me, even the thought of such a concept is truly a work of art.

No matter how many friends you make, how much your family loves you, or anything else that we arbitrarily attach to the meaning of life, we were intrinsically born into this world alone, and we will leave it alone. So to me, embracing that fact, and seeking to make that a time of beauty, makes much more sense than this absurd idea of being surrounded by loved ones etc. What possible good does that do? To me it’s just another attempt to distract ourselves from the inevitable, even when it’s weeks, days, or minutes away. I’d rather spend that time finishing the last few sentences of my own story on my own, rather than making others fumble through them on my behalf.

Basically the idea for the album, its title, and that quote all came about during an extremely low point for me, during a pretty much crippling depression I experienced when first moving back to China, when I was experiencing a loneliness that was really beyond all description. My mind being the tortuous Moebius that it is, I began to obsess on the thought of not only how truly alone I was, but the fact that I could easily disappear or meet my end and no one around me would truly care – it was the closest I had ever come to that point of being alone I had previously dreamed of as the perfect way for it all to end. And the lowness I felt, quite honestly, made me care less by the day as to whether the next day was the last. In fact, I reached one day where I literally didn’t care at all.

I don’t know what happened, but I all of a sudden decided to take that crushing weight and put it into music. I think quite honestly, it was a sort of last-ditch effort to see if I could feel something again. It wasn’t even depression anymore. I had gone numb. So thought the only thing I could do was attempt to put the experience to music, to see if I could come out of the tailspin by talking about it then only way I know how – with myself. It was the first time I had touched music since moving across the Pacific, but it seemed like the perfect time to start, to try to make something constructive happen from what I was fairly certain was a depression that might consume me.

Though from the title of the album to those of the tracks themselves, I think it’s fairly obvious how I was feeling at the time, but what I wasn’t expecting was the beauty that ended up coming through in the tracks (at least I feel it, I can only hope others do too). I think it’s the most overtly sad album I’ve ever made, but as I progressed through it, it began to take on more and more beauty along with the sadness, and before I knew it, it became as much a statement about the beauty of life as much as its futility. And really, I think it’s embracing both that futility and beauty, irrevocably intertwined, that can bring about that one last work of art – one’s ability to make that last stroke on the canvas of their life, alone, just as they were when they made the first.

[ - s n i p - ]

Read the entire interview in two parts, only on Headphone Commute:
Part One | Part Two

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Read also Headphone Commute's review of The Art Of Dying Alone

bvdub.org

20 Overlooked Albums of 2009

2011-02-23T07:12:00.000-08:00

Editor's Note: Remember, the posts appearing on this Blogspot mirror are just a syndication of our original articles from headphonecommute.com, and may be lagging by a whole month! Be sure to stop by our main site, or subscribe to RSS Reviews Feed to keep up with the latest reviews and artist interviews!

Below is Headphone Commute's selection of 20 Overlooked Albums of 2009.
Check out Headphone Commute's Best of 2010!!!

(entries are listed in alphabetical order by artist. links point to album reviews on headphone commute)

Arc of Doves - Impressions (Quietus)
Asher - Miniatures (Sourdine) [ REVIEW ]
Cell - Hanging Masses (Ultimae) [ REVIEW ]
Christopher Hipgrave - Day (Home Normal)
Frank Riggio - Anamorphose (Spectraliquid) [ REVIEW ]
The Gaslamp Killer - My Troubled Mind (Brainfeeder)
Ian Hawgood - Snow Roads (Dragon's Eye)
Jamie Drouin - A Three Month Warm Up (Dragon's Eye)
Kelpe - Cambio Wechsel (D.C. Recordings) [ REVIEW ]
Max Richter - Henry May Long (OST) (Mute)

Onra - 1.0.8 (Favorite)
Paul Fiocco - Torsions And Drifts (Meupe)
Ruxpin - Where Do We Float From Here? (n5MD) [ REVIEW ]
The Seasons - Undone (City Centre Offices)
Sleeping Me - Lamenter (Phantom Channel) [ REVIEW ]
Svarte Greiner - Kappe (Type)
The Village Orchestra - I Can Hear The Sirens Singing Again (Highpoint Lowlife)
Wes Willenbring - Close, But Not Too Close (Hidden Shoal)
William Basinski - Vivian & Ondine (2062)
World's End Girlfriend - 空気人形 [Air Doll OST] (Human Highway)

Pleq – My Life Begins Today (U-Cover CDr Limited)

2011-02-23T07:10:00.000-08:00

Dedicated to all the people who are suffering from multiple sclerosis, Warsaw (Poland) based electronic music producer, Bartosz Dziadosz, releases his new album, My Life Begins Today as Pleq. The album hits my rotations out of nowhere, as it slowly lands on my desk, gracefully falling like the last leaf from the music tree of the year. Completely unexpected, and regretfully previously unknown to me, Dziadosz delivers twelve intricately produced tracks, painted with longing and nostalgia. Released on the Belgian electronic label U-Cover CDr Limited (a sub-label of U-Cover), Pleq blends elements of glitch, IDM, and experimental electronica with a touch of modern classical and atmospheric ambiance to create a well balanced and gentle album. With a helpful hand from his friends, Aki Tomita, Eleni Adamopoulou and Jordan Sauer, the album ties a few sad and melancholic moments, with those of celebration of new beginnings, as the title, My Life Begins Today, suggests. Lo-fi piano chords, clicking edits and cut-ups, hissing string pads, and glitchy IDM percussion tell a story of long past relationships, longing for a structured life, and a feeling of being lost in this confusing world. The theme of multiple sclerosis suffering is further established with the titles, such as "The Journey To Pessimism", "My Little Story About My Love", "The Story About Melancholy Man", and my favorite title, "You Were Wearing Blue While Running Away From Your Life". And the music reflects the same... Pleq's previous releases include a handful of albums and digital EPs, scattered across a variety of labels, like Basses Frequences (France), Impulsive Art (Greece) mAtter (Japan), Envizagae (Germany), Databloem (The Netherlands), and others. Although he can't seem to settle on a specific collective, his music has been noticed and remixed by personal favorites in the scene, offthesky, Tapage and Nebulo. Seems to me like the next obvious place for Pleq is Tympanik Audio. Meanwhile, if you're not familiar with U-Cover, be sure to check out the label's past releases from Quench, Lusine ICL, Tim Koch, Kettel, and Lackluster. There's also Ontayso's box set, Project 24 Hours - 24 CDs of field recordings, recorded in one day at Geel in Belgium. Talk about one long Sound Postcard! Visit Pleq's Myspace to hear many of his free releases and get a taste of his sound...

See also Two and a Half Questions with Pleq

myspace.com/pleq | u-cover.com/cdr

Two and a Half Questions with Pleq

2011-02-23T07:09:00.000-08:00

Where does your alias, "Pleq" come from, and what does it mean?
“Pleq” means nothing in particular. In fact, it is just a collection of letters submitted and matched entirely by accident. Secondly, I didn't want to duplicate existing names. So the creative process took me almost a week, then I started looking on the Internet to see if something like that exists. I found different words with unknown meaning for me, and the only thing that stuck in my head was the name of bulbs (hehe).

Please talk a little about your latest record, My Life Begins Today, and specifically its dedication to people suffering from multiple sclerosis.
This is one of the most important records in my life. For me, it is a continuation of the previous one, issued a year ago, also by U-Cover - "The Metamorphosis”. You can recognize the same melancholic-glitch like atmosphere. I came up with the idea to dedicate my album to people suffering from multiple sclerosis, and it was just after the fashion show at which I was invited to make music. Ewa Amroziak's Fashion Show "SOS communication" was combined with the charity auction; then I learned a lot about multiple sclerosis, I thought that I could actually help by making music. Some of these records will be put up for charity auction, which is being prepared for 2011.

Your work has been released by a handful of labels. Is there one specific label that you wish it to be signed to?
Yes, it is true. I try not to be limited to any specific label that is why I don't establish permanent contracts. You know, it's quite a difficult question. I don't want to jinx it as I carry on preliminary talks with some labels. Once I dreamed about labels, now I hold discussions with them about releasing albums in 2011.

It seems to me that your work would be a perfect fit for Mille Plateaux's "Clicks & Cuts" series. Who are some of your current musical influences?
Yes, one of my tracks was on the Click & Cuts 5.1 Paradigm Shift (The Bonus Package). I am very pleased by that, but on the other hand, it is just the bonus package. There are no particular artists after which I pattern myself. I listen to all kinds of music, not only electronic music. Recently, I’ve been delving into drone.

[ - s n i p - ]

Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute

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See also Headphone Commute's review of My Life Begins Today

myspace.com/pleq

Podcast : Clem Leek - Cold Air

2011-02-23T07:07:00.000-08:00

Well, it's that time of the year... The crowds gather in shopping malls across the globe to drop some cash on their beloved. The cold air strips the branches off their dead leaves. The minds reflect on all of their accomplishments through the year. And the snow slowly falls... To help you gather your being into contemplative state of mind, we present you with our last Podcast of 2010 from Clem Leek. On this exclusive mix for Headphone Commute, Clem selects his favorite ambient and modern classical pieces from some of our all time favorite artists. We really enjoyed this one, and we hope you do as well!

See full track listing, plus stream or download the mix on Headphone Commute

Be sure to check out our Two and a Half Questions with Clem Leek.
Read also Headphone Commute review of Holly Lane.
Also, check out Clem Leek’s Sound Postcard!

clemleek.bandcamp.com | myspace.com/clemleekofficial

Two and a Half Questions with riverrun

2011-02-23T07:01:00.000-08:00

Interview with Daniel Land of riverrun, Engineers and Daniel Land & The Modern Painters

Can you provide us with some background on the locations referenced in song titles?
A lot of the track titles are names of places in the South West of England that I associate with my childhood or adolescence. I grew up on the edge of Exmoor national park, which is a really beautiful part of the country; very empty, and quite bleak and melancholy. That landscape really haunted me as a child, and had a profound effect on my imagination, I think. Some of the other tracks are named after nearby places in North Somerset where my mother’s family had a seaside holiday home – those are the "Doniford Beach" and "West Quantoxhead" pieces. I lived alone for a whole summer on Doniford Beach, and without sounding too corny, that time had a very strong affect on me in terms of my personal development, my ability to appreciate solitude, and to feel connected to the landscape and area. A good deal of the mood of that time went into this record, I think. I was really on a kind of nostalgia trip with this record, and so some of the tracks, like "Where We Walked" for example, are named after some pretty personal things; when I was making that track I was thinking back to a time when I was 17 years old, and a long morning walk I took on Doniford beach with a guy who shortly afterwards became my first boyfriend. That was pretty crucial day for us, but while we were walking, I remember him randomly suggesting that "Where We Walked" would be a good track title for my kind of music. For some reason that stuck in my head, and seeing as the memory of that walk was in my head when making the piece, it seemed right to finally use it as a track title.

Please describe your production workflow. What software and hardware did you use?
I hardly used any software or hardware, actually. It was mainly made on tape. The album was made out of a series of ambient recordings I’ve been making on tapes for many years now, nearly fifteen years actually, going right back to my school days. The compositional process mainly consisted of collaging these various sketches, layering them on top of each other, and finding out which ones fit together. To do that I had to transfer the original recordings from my old four track tapes into a digital format, but aside from converting them and importing them into Adobe Audition, I didn’t tamper with the tracks very much at all. The original recordings had a lovely lo-fi, tape-y quality that I wanted to retain, and there was very little processing involved other than what went down onto the tape at the time of recording.

What instruments were employed to create riverrun's dense atmosphere?
I normally just worked with my guitars and some really cruddy, broken down keyboards! Quite often they were detuned or transposed to extremes so that I could get some really interesting, bass-heavy sounds, and I re-pitched and slowed down a lot of things digitally. I used various old percussion instruments, like an old rainmaker and some bells, and I had some field recordings that I threw into the mix. But there weren't any really unusual instruments being used; it was mainly a case of using conventional instruments more as noise-generators than in their usual capacity. One of the things I’m most happy with was being able to use my voice in a really interesting and subtle way; there are some vocals on the record, but you’d never notice them as such, because they’ve been bent out of shape by various effects and treatments. In fact, some of the things which sound like animal noises are actually me, just slowed down or processed beyond recognition! I really enjoyed using my voice that way.

Can you tell us the meaning behind Pentimento? It seems to perfectly describe the music.
It's an art term and what it means, basically, is an artist painting on top of a previous painting. With some paintings it’s quite apparent that the artist has changed their mind halfway through the process, maybe because they changed the structure of the composition, or just because they thought the first version stank and needed to be painted over! Hahaha. I thought that the process of making this album was kinda similar to that, because I made the album like it was one big canvas, as one continuous audio file. Each time I added a new musical element, I did a complete mixdown of the whole thing, and deleted the component files... this meant that once I had added something, I was unable to remove it or change it, a bit like in painting where your only real choice is to paint over the things you don’t like. Now, I think most musicians would say that this is an absolutely suicidal way of working, and I’d certainly agree with that! But what was interesting for me was that it really, really worked for this style of music. I liked putting myself in the position of being unable to retract mistakes and of being unable to go back into the mix to "fix things up". I became very skilled at painting-over things - as it were - and if I did something I was not entirely happy with, I would just add more stuff on top of it, to ensure that the part I wasn't so happy with was pushed further back in the mix. What this means is that the whole history of the work is present at all times, even the mistakes - and "behind" the record is a whole level of subliminal detail, right at the fringes of perception, of stuff I wasn't so happy with. I really like that, actually. It gives the record depth. It’s a bit like that Brian Eno trick of mixing something almost "out of earshot"; I’ve totally stolen that idea from him.

[ - s n i p - ]

Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute

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Interview by Elizabeth Klisiewicz exclusively for Headphone Commute.

See also review of Pentimento in our Sound Bytes feature.

myspace.com/danielland | danielland.bigcartel.com

Sound Postcard : Rafael Anton Irisarri - Jerusalem

2011-02-23T06:59:00.000-08:00

No no... our Sound Postcard series is not over yet! Far from it - we have many interesting submissions to share with you from all of your favorite artists!!! Today we have an entry from one of our all time favorites - Rafael Anton Irisarri. From his amazing debut, Daydreaming (Miasmah, 2007), to the latest releases, The North Bend (Room40, 2010) and Reverie (Immune, 2010), RAI continues to warm our hearts with his breathtaking modern classical compositions. And as if that wasn't enough, his side project, The Sight Below, also manages to clock in on our favorite rotations with his releases on Ghostly International - Glider (2008), No Place For Us (2008), and It All Falls Apart (2010)...

Listen to this Sound Postcard on Headphone Commute

myspace.com/rafaelantonirisarri | irisarri.org

The Green Kingdom - Prismatic (Home Assembly Music)

2011-02-23T06:57:00.000-08:00

Michael Cottone has been quietly making music under The Green Kingdom moniker since 2006, and with each release he further refines his brand of introspective ambient bliss. His latest album, Prismatic, was released in September by Home Assembly Music and was mastered by Taylor Deupree. Cottone skillfully uses digitally enhanced acoustic guitar, strings, bells, and a myriad of samples and field recordings to create his compositions. Within his arrangements, melody and space work in tandem in an attempt to manifest what Cottone has called an “optimistic nostalgia” for the listener – an aural experience that can provide a momentary reprieve from the frenetic, fast-paced world that surrounds us. And indeed his music is perfect for contemplative mornings and quiet evenings, where the vibe is to “slow down” and to “reflect”, and while listening this comes about quite naturally, as the familiarity of his work launches you back into memories of warm summer evenings past and gone, while at the same time, makes your heart beat ever faster for the future. There's a strong sense of optimism in Cottone's music that is useless to attempt to describe in words, the expressive rhythms and melodies he creates speak for themselves. With tracks like “Wetlands” and “The Largest Creature That Has Ever Existed”, Cottone works with guitar, piano, and bells and establishes incredible mood and subjective wonder, while with “Radiance Reflected” and “Bonfire (tec)”, he adds a subtle 4/4 beat underneath it all, simulating your heart beating buoyantly for the future you envision for yourself. There is also a strong underlying sense of being connected to nature – to the woods that border our cities and towns, to the birds that fly unseen above our heads, and to the sun-drenched afternoons we take for granted until the bleak days of winter have surrounded us. Prismatic is one of the finest ambient albums of 2010, and a prime example of electronic and organic sounds working together so effortlessly. Fans of Helios, Nest, The Boats, Kiln, and Susumu Yokota should check out The Green Kingdom immediately. The album also comes with a bonus disc of remixes from the likes of Insecto, Fieldhead, The Declining Winter, The Boats, and bvdub, and is an excellent addendum to the subtle beauty of Prismatic. Check it.

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Review prepared by Matt Leslie (Inaudible) for Headphone Commute.

See also Two and a Half Questions with The Green Kingdom

myspace.com/thegreenkingdom | thegreenkingdom.wordpress.com

Two and a Half Questions with The Green Kingdom

2011-02-23T06:54:00.000-08:00

Prismatic and last year’s Twig and Twine both offer the listener warm, meditative soundscapes that seem to attempt to tap into the simplicity and wonder of nature. Your music seems to typify a night spent lying on the beach gazing up at the stars, or a quiet afternoon hike in the woods. Where exactly do you draw your influences from when composing your music?
I think you have a sense for what I’m trying to evoke. We do have a couple parks close by and even a small wetlands area in our neighborhood which I enjoy visiting - though not as often as I would like to. More than anything, I would just like my music to be an escape for the listener as much as it is for me—that feeling of having a little sound world to mentally explore. I also constantly listen to a lot of different types music, so the way those influences combine, filtered through my own musical “voice” also subliminally affects what I do somehow.

You live in the Motor City, and what I find interesting is that your music stands in stark contrast to many contemporary Detroit techno and electronic musicians. Some of the artists on Ghostly (like Kiln, Twine, The Sight Below) are working in a somewhat similar vein, and obviously there's always been an element of ambiance that's part and parcel of Detroit techno (the work of Neil Ollivierra's Detroit Escalator Company being some of my all time fave), yet you have stripped away most of the traditionally 'electronic' sounds from your own music for a much more natural and organic feel. So I guess what I'm wondering is how does the history and city of Detroit fit into your musical aesthetic?
I would like to balance and also blur the lines between the two ideally (electronic vs. organic influences). The past couple years, I’ve really been delving into Theo Parrish’s catalog. I really like the way he combines found sounds, samples and traditional instruments with a more organic feel. Moodymann as well. I don’t live downtown, but the city itself can definitely be an influence if you’ve spent some time there—there is beauty, decay, soul and history that people not from the area might not understand. I guess the aural equivalent might be the juxtaposition of random/noisy textures and more structured melodic content in some of my music. I like all of the more contemporary artists you mentioned a lot as well – particularly Kiln. The way they combine texture, melody and rhythm in their work is really amazing. I feel like they are really underrated to be honest. I correspond with Kirk from Kiln via email occasionally, I was quite blown away to find that he had been listening to my stuff—very humbling.

Besides recording music as The Green Kingdom you also do work as a graphic designer and sound artist. How do these varied artistic disciplines feed off each other?
I find that a lot of visual artists often also have some type of musical outlet as well. I think there are a lot of parallels—they both involve combining various elements into one cohesive whole: layering, positive vs. negative space, colors vs. tones or instruments, etc. I think I’m more of a minimalist when it comes to graphic design though. It always takes a little more effort for me to strip things back to the essential elements in the audio realm.

There seems to be an innate spirituality in your music. The closing track on Prismatic is called "A Prayer" and many of your tracks seem to be solemn and subtle invocations towards something more or something 'beyond' (for lack of a better term). Am I reading too much into it or is this something you are consciously trying to evoke?
No, you are spot on with that as well. I am a practicing Catholic which is maybe not as common in the experimental music world? I don’t know… I think there is a somewhat spiritual or reflective vibe present in my stuff, but I don‘t really think about anything too much while making it. The beauty of instrumental or abstract music is that it is open for interpretation, the listener can create their own meaning and associations.

[ - s n i p - ]

Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute

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Interview by Matt Leslie (Inaudible) for Headphone Commute.

See also review of Prismatic

myspace.com/thegreenkingdom | thegreenkingdom.wordpress.com

Event : In Between Time : Hecker, Frost and Ekoplekz

2011-02-08T11:00:00.000-08:00

The tenth iteration of Bristol's In Between Time Festival of "Live Art and Intrigue" has just wrapped up. This year they made the very respectable programming decision to show international sonic heavyweights Ben Frost and Tim Hecker with native Bristolian, Ekoplekz (recently signed to Peverelist's Punch Drunk label.) The Arnolfini Auditorium was an ideal venue, neither too cozy nor too cavernous. The audience gathered around a satisfyingly bare-bones stage and the space filled up nicely without getting overly crowded.

Ekoplekz was a solid opener. His sound navigated a space between the mechanical and the organic, taking hulking, driving percussion reminiscent of heavy machinery and punctuating it with random quirky chirps and warbles that were just echo-y enough to stay on the artificial side of life. He flirted with rhythm without ever falling completely into it. He also incorporated very classic synth frequencies, particularly via voice modulation, which were fun but, for the most part, a bit heavy-handed - they didn't integrate particularly well with the rest of the sound and as a result were somewhat distracting. Some light, fluttlery snare textures here and there, on the other hand, were a really enjoyable nod to Peverelist. Overall, it was an engaging, well-executed sci-fi-esque performance, and it didn't hurt that you could tell he's completely in love with sounds and was generally having a blast.

Hecker used absolutely minimal lighting - only what he needed to see what he was doing - which made it that much easier to pick up on the delicate micro-textures of his opening moments. He built up layers thick and fast, though, and quickly had us suspended in a dense, deeply spatial environment. Some endlessly stretched organ couldn't help but lend a degree of spirituality, a reference to something eternal, but there was definitely tension and evolution throughout. He played with the liminal a bit, pushing some of the frequencies beyond what the speakers could handle (or using frequencies reminiscent of this), evoking palpable opposition between the restrictions of the hardware and the unrealized potential of the sound. At other times everything was incredibly compact, a tight sonic canvas onto which he threw various intriguing elements. Periodically, the pressure of all those layers was completely released into airy, shimmering tones, with the contrast lifting us into a kind of sonic weightlessness. This was really the underlying structure of the performance - a rich and impossibly slow, irregular pulsation between heavy and light.

Ben Frost, as has been noted, throws you out into the wilderness. True to form, he tapped into a somewhat sadomasochistic dynamic in which he used sound, particularly percussive elements, almost as a kind of violence - and the audience loved it. (If the calls of 'louder' and 'more' were anything to go by. Hurt me, hurt me do it again?) The reason it was good pain is he didn't rely on brute force. His menacing landscape was complex, built in part out of howling, mutated electric guitar, and he moved us through it with an astute sense of timing that lent itself well to live performance. There was, overall, more of a theatric element to what Frost presented. He made use of intense lighting and he certainly had stage presence. He improvised a lot, which meant not everything came together all the time, but when it did, it was a very ecstatic darkness. Simple, repetitive piano loops appeared from time to time, almost as a refrain. They offered a stability, a gentleness and, eventually, a familiarity that made you feel as if you might have found your way home from the wild. But this sense of relief was always fleeting. The notes were inevitably consumed by yet another wave of dissonant chaos against which they proved themselves to be a totally ineffective shelter. So no happy endings, but a thoroughly enjoyable story nonetheless.

Hecker and Frost were in good form with performances that, as would be expected, were not for the faint of heart nor delicate of ear. Neither went easy on the Arnolfini, which was great because the sheer physicality - the vibrational pressure and potential for actual pain - is something that simply can't be experienced outside their live shows (unless you've got far more cash than most of us to spend on your personal sound system.) There were moments when the two artists worked with a very similar dynamic. Namely, when earbone-crushing low frequencies were laced with ethereal, hauntingly lovely fragments and there was an intense merging of pleasure and discomfort. As far as where they differed, it's probably fair to say that Hecker presented a more abstract, timeless quality while Frost's work was slightly more narrative.

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Text and photography by Kyra Kordoski for Headphone Commute.

Two and a Half Questions with Ben Frost
Two and a Half Questions with Tim Hecker

inbetweentime.co.uk

Brian McBride - The Effective Disconnect (Kranky)

2011-02-08T09:46:00.000-08:00

In a strange turn of events I came face to face with a bee today. It was about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and a bee slowly landed on my mouse right when I was reaching out for it. It looked weak and wasn’t at all spooked by my sudden movement. The coincidence is that I was meaning to review Brian McBride’s new album the Effective Disconnect all week, but never got to it. This album is the official soundtrack for the movie The Vanishing of the Bees, a documentary investigating Colony Collapse Disorder, a condition that is currently threatening the bees and the welfare of the people around them. I feel as if this bee was suffering the consequences of this now widespread disease. For many people Brian McBride does not need an introduction. As one half of the duo Stars of the Lid, famous for their cinematic drones, he has been around in the minimalist ambient scene for almost two decades. Together, they literally have been setting the tone for contemporary musicians working in genres ranging from modern classical to drone. But even after hearing many artists working within a similar genre, there is no beating the real thing. And so after releasing his widely praised first solo effort When the Detail lost It’s Freedom (Kranky, 2005) in 2005 he now presents us the Effective Disconnect. Although on first listen this record does not seem to stray far from the sound STOL got famous for, this cd does convey a very specific change in style. The on and off swelling layers of sound are still there, but there is a decreased emphasis on repetition. Instead, Brian introduces many different themes that seeminglessly flow over into each other. And even though the slow movements and stretched-outness of themes used to be one of the fortes of STOL, a increased emphasis on melody treats the listener to a very rustic yet emotional listening experience. While striving to present the listener with a a piece that justifies the gloriousness of the bees through hopeful themes, the mood of the music quickly turns into a heavy and emotional account. I feel that “With Several Tries (in an Unelevated Style)” really conveys the gloomy tenor of the documentary. And the following track “Supposed Essay on the Piano (B major piano Adagietto) ” builds on this with a French horn melody that is supported by a sustained string section in the background. For me the pivotal piece is “Beekeepers vs. Warfare Chemicals”. The track starts with a high pitched chime-melody and goes on with a build up of strings that finally culminates into an almost aching piano piece. After this, we are introduced to the protagonists of the documentary through isolated bee wisps that fill the silent elements of “I Know That You Don’t Like the Future Like I Do”. The slow purring sound the bee makes, feels as if this bee is also contemplating landing on someone’s computer mouse. I read in several reviews of this cd that the change to more rapidly changing melodies is a bad thing. They were longing for the stretched horns and guitar-based drones that SOTL once brought to us. But Brian McBride has been moving away from this form of composing in favor of a multitude of motives and this was already noticeable in When the Detail Lost It’s Freedom (Kranky, 2005). I feel that this new direction is proving fruitful and as I get more familiar with the sounds, their influence over my mood increases. It’s an excellent record and a welcome addition to the record collection of anyone that likes Tim Hecker, Brian Eno, and Stars of the Lid.

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Review prepared by Caspar Menkman for Headphone Commute.

Read our Two and a Half Questions with Brian McBride

kranky.net/artists/mcbride | brainwashed.com/sotl
kranky.net | brainwashed.com/kranky