Category: RECOMMENDATIONS

Matthew Florianz – Koude Handen


Koude Handen

Along with two other (dutch!) musicians Machinefabriek and Michel Banabila, Matthew Florianz is one of the three “all time favourite artists” in my last.fm profile.
This obviously means I was eagerly awaiting the release of Matthew’s new album “Koude Handen” (“Cold Hands”), his follow up to 2008’s “Maalbeek“. 

“Koude Handen” is presented as a free download from Matthew’s website – available as high bitrate MP3 or even as 24 bit FLAC (which, mind you, is even a better bitrate than standard CD can provide!). The album page also offers the complete artwork, as well as some beautiful promo videos.
And, to celebrate the release of this new album, Matthew also offers his previous release “Maalbeek” as a free download!

Solo Andata – Ritual

Although their debut “Fyris Swan” was released in 2006, Solo Andata gained the recognition they deserved with the release of the “Solo Andata” album on the 12k label in 2009.

The fact that their work was mastered by Taylor Deupree and Giuseppe Ielasi – household names in the world of ambient / electronic music – will probably have helped to attract the attention, but the music created by Kane Ikin and Paul Fiocco in itself was (is) impressing enough to immediately classify Solo Andata as ‘classic material’ of ambient soundscapes. 

Their new album, “Ritual” is the debut release of a brand new label: Desire Path Recordings.
And what a debut it is to start a new label with!

:Papercutz – Do Outro Lado De Espelho

Well here’s for something completely different!

Usually, ambientblog is not the platform to promote portuguese electronic pop music – however adventurous it may be. But after releasing Lylac – adventurous electronic cut-up pop music featuring Melissa Veras on vocals, :papercutz main performer Bruno Miguel  grew fond of the ambient genre (“much because of my love for movie soundtracks”) – and somehow managed to an impressive list of ambient music artists to rework the music on Lylac. 

To get you interested: “Do Outro Lado De Espelho – Lylac Ambient Reworks”  contains remixes by folks like Helios, Emanuele Errante, Simon Scott, Taylor Deupree, Autistici, Christopher Bisonnette, Jasper TX –  and that’s not even everybody on the list!

M. Ostermeier – Chance Reconstruction


Chance reconstruction

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 (also in 2010) on Parvo Art (Percolate) and on Hibernate (Lakefront).

Thomas Koener – Nunatak – Teimo – Permafrost


Koener

It’s not really a shame when you missed these albums when they were originally released in 1990/92/93.
Even though the original label (Barooni) was located in my hometown, I did not notice these releases until they were re-released on Mille Plateaux a few years later. 

With following album releases, Thomas Köner’s immersive drones found wider attention, and gained more and more recognistion. Albums like Kaamos, Daikan, Unerforschtes Gebiet, Nuuk and, more recently, La Barca) firmly established Köner’s reputation as the absolute master of immersive deep dronescapes.
And thus the interest in his back catalogue also grew. 

Recently, Type Records have re-released Köner’s first three albums on vinyl. For those that prefer the CD format, a 3-CD version of these remastered albums is now also available. 

So don’t let them pass you by this time: these albums are definitely classics of electronic and drone music!

Max Richter – Infra

Next to Johann Johannsson and Ólafur Arnalds, Max Richter is one of the pioneers of the ‘post-classical’ genre, a mixture of classical music, electronic sounds and rock music influences. 
Mostly the compositions in this genre are suble and not too complex, often slightly (ore not so slightly) melancholic – the kind of music that feels and sounds like it’s written to be a (movie) soundtrack.  

So it should not be a surprise that Richter’s Infra was originally written as a score for Wayne McGregor’s ballet as performed by the Royal Ballet.

Kyle Bobby Dunn – Rural Route #2


Rural Route

Shortly after his magnificient double album “A Young Person’s Guide to KBD“, Kyle Bobby Dunn delivers another two intricate drone tracks. This time on a limited edition 3″ CD-R (including immediate downloads). 

Compared to the double album, the two tracks on “Rural Route No. 2“ are sounding more ‘industrial’ and dark. Not exactly what you might expect thinking of nostalgic childhood memories…!