Category: RECOMMENDATIONS

The Black Dog – Music for Real Airports


Music for Real Airports

“Music for *Real* Airports…” ?? Reading the liner notes, I guess another proposed title for this album could have been “*Real * Music for Airports” :

“…a contemporary reply to Brian Eno’s work from the 70s.“
“…a more accurate update to Eno’s work, and a to a degree, a riposte.”
“…Some members of The Black Dog were disappointed by Eno’s treatment of the subject in 1978 and have been considering how to produce a more meaningful response ever since.”

Wow…The Black Dog re-defining and upgrading the classic album that practically defined the ambient music genre???

Joe Frawley – Left Cincinnati

After exploring various diversions of his musical art-form, Left Cincinnati feels like a ‘return to form’ of the sounds Joe Frawley presented on his 2008 album “The Hypnotist“.

The desolate piano sounds from the opening track Plain Yellow Dress immediately bring you to deserted playgrounds of your mind, with cutup fragments and almost ungraspable vocal samples.

Chihei Hatakeyama – A Long Journey

The cover: a vaguely faded photograph of a red-headed girl swimming. 
Titles like: “Morning Arrive on the Island”, “The Moon Reflecting On The Surface Of The Ocean”, “Within New Trees”, “A Quiet Pond”, “Haze From The River”.
The sound: light-natured, never dark or threatening, perfectly in line with the track titles..

“A Long Journey“ by Chihei Hatakeyama  is a great release to celebrate the fresh Spring season.

Ian Hawgood – Slow Films in Low Light

Headphone Commute recently published a beautiful mix created entirely of tracks published on the Home Normal label. Although all tracks in the mix are interesting enhough to check out the full CD’s, I had to restrain myself when visiting the label website. 

So I decided to start by ordering the latest release by Ian Hawgood (also Home Normal’s label owner): “Slow Films in Low Light“.

Optofonica #1


Optofonica

The Optofonica Project – platform for synesthetic media and sound spatialization – started in 2006 in Amsterdam. They have presented their immersive works on Sonar and Sonic Acts, presenting surround cinema and the Optofonica Capsule which must have been quite an impressive experience!

Cliff Child – Einn


Einn

Though Cliff Child may sound like one person’s name, it’s actually two: Iceland’s Sjorn Björnsson (creating the sounds) and Robjn (producing the tracks and creating the artwork).

In anticipation of the first, self-titled, album to be released this summer, they offer their first 6-track EP ‘Einn’ as a free download. Find it on SoundCloud.

Or, if you prefer, get it from their weblog at http://cliffchild.wordpress.com/.
This weblog also contains some fascinating videos to go with the sound…(of which “The Middle” is my absolute favourite!).

Steve Brand – Circular Scriptures

Circular Scriptures is the very first (and until now: only) release of a brand new label: Relaxed Machinery, a label owned by John Koch-Northrup (previously a co-owner of AtmoWorks), claiming that “all artists receive 100% of their release”.

That fact alone sounds like a good enough reason to track down this album on one of the major download outlets or get it as CDR from the Hypnos store.

Brian Eno’s Generative Apps


Trope

Because I was stupid enough to leave my beloved Cowon D2 MP3-player in the train (and no one was honest enough to return it), I had to decide about a new MP3 player. 
I am definitely not an Apple fan (for reasons I will not elaborate here), but I was tempted to go for the (G3 32 Gb) iPod Touch, simply because of all the extras it has to offer besides the simple MP3 function.

The first app to go for was Brian Eno’s “Bloom” – only to discover that Bloom was recently followed up by Trope, also created by Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers.
A third offspring of this generative music applications is “Air“, containing the vocal samples of Sandra O’Neill.
The good news: obtaining all three of these apps will not even cost you EUR10 ($13)!

All three of these programs are very simple to use, but incredibly effective in its ambient beauty: start it, create a mood, tap the screen for generative seeds and then just let the composition flow…

Kyle Bobby Dunn – A Young Person’s Guide to


KBD cover

When it comes to ‘classical droning’, Stars of the Lid are the reference point. While there’s some debate whether their music is Brilliant or Boring, they simply prove good music can be both.

Comparisions always are a bit risky – as music deserves to be judged by itself, not by comparision.
To me, ‘A Young Person’s Guide to Kyle Bobby Dunn‘, the new double CD by the Canadian composer Kyle Bobby Dunn (now residing in New York), has the same touching quality as most of Stars of the Lid’s music, that’s why I had to mention them.