Ben Fleury-Steiner; Darren Harper; Max Corbacho; Chronotope Project; Ophion

In the Shortlist sections, I will mention some of the albums that I enjoyed listening to, but couldn’t find the time (or the right words) for a “full” review for. Still, I think they deserve your attention: use the links to find more info and hear previews.

Ben Fleury-Steiner

Ben Fleury-Steiner – Clearings
The sound of these three tracks are as mysterious as the album cover image – especially in the yearning loop of the opening track ‘Wind Up Bird’s Lament’.
“Ben’s sound (drawn from both electronic and acoustic sources including electric kalimbas, small modular synthesizers, guitar drones and effect pedals) always embraces a sense of “somewhere”, sonically, always warm with tons of layers and subtle details.”

Darren Harper

Darren Harper – Passages for the Listless and Tired
Although the title of this album may suggest you need to feel ‘listless and tired’ to enjoy this album, the truth is that most, if not all, people might benefit from listening to these calm and thoughtful drones. The album starts slow and dreamy, but gradually builds to a wash of noise in the end, as if to wake you up into the real world again.
“Drawing from both electronic and acoustic sources, his compositional output is based entirely on experimentation and improvisation, with a strong emphasis on minimalism, and often reflects a desire for a greater understanding of nature and self, and the relationship therein.”

26 Shades of Darkness (Mix)

The sheer volume of the Headphone Commute’s ‘…And Darkness Came’ compilation – issued as a charity fundraising for the victims of Hurricane Sandy, and boasting 87 tracks (over 6 hours) of music – was also a kind of invitation to create a mix from it.
Presenting a wide range of music from well (and lesser) known artists – covering most of the ambient/electronic/post-classical/improv spectre, the compilation is an overview and ‘who’s who’ of what’s happening at this very moment.
Its diversity of sounds and musical ideas will appeal to everyone with open ears.

Yuya Ota – Arctic April Mother


Arctic April Mother

Presenting “glacial and isolationist ambient”, the Glacial Movements label – run and curated by Alessandro Tedeschi – has presented over 15 albums since 2006, from artists like Lull, Rapoon, Francisco López, BvDub, Loscil, Pjusk, Celer and then some.

Different kind of artists, different kind of sounds, but what they have in common here is the “glacial feel and atmosphere” – which is often described as cold and desolate.

Their latest release (digital only this time)is “Arctic April Mother“by Yuya Ota from Tokyo.

DJ Olive – Balm


Balm

DJ OLIVE (Gregor Asch, aka The Audio Janitor) has been around for quite a while.
He was a founding member of WE (TM), originator of the “illbient” genre tag – but his musical scope obviously is much broader than “just” ambient music. He has been working with people like turntablist Christian Marclay, Ikue Mori, Kim Gordon, Yuka Honda and Jim O’Rourke. His latest release,“Thwis“, featuring vocalist Honeychild Coleman, is a collection of electronic dub tracks. But that is not the release I want to talk about here and now (since it’s not exactly ‘ambient’).
For now, I want to focus on his “Balm” release: presented as “a collection of Sleeping Pills”.

William Basinski and Richard Chartier


Aurora Liminalis cover

With about 60 releases since 2000, the LINE (L-NE) IMPRINT label has built a firm reputation as “a programmatic sound platform with a strong inclination towards the visual arts and multimedia, born from the desire to take the tactile qualities of audio installations from the gallery space to listeners’ living rooms.”

Curated by Richard Chartier, LINE not only releases impressive sound art CD’s, but also DVD’s and Artwork Prints.

With its focus on audio/multimedia installations, mostly electronic by nature, LINE aims at the more ‘serious’ –  investigative – listener: this is definitely no ‘pop-ambient’ label. If you insist on comparisions, the label may be best compared to Raster-Noton, in style and artistic approach.  

At the start of 2013, LINE announced an impressive series of new releases, of which the new collaboration by William Basinski and Richard Chartier may obtain the most attention.
But in fact, the other releases deserve your attention as much. I’ve combined the four latest releases in these two posts, demonstrating the versatile output of the LINE label.

AGF, Simon Whetham


Source Voices

AGF – Source Voice
The LINE SEGMENT series is a series of releases on the LINE label “which will highlight some, perhaps, very non-LINE-like works. Works that stray from the norm…(The LINEnorm, that is, because most music on Line itself definitely strays from ‘the’ norm, too!).
AGF’s “Source Voice“ is the second release in this Line Segment series.

AGF (Antye Greie-Ripatti, born in East-Germany but now living in Finland) has worked for more than a decade “releasing experiments connecting voice, deconstruction of language, perception, and sound processing”.
If her name is new to you, you may have some interesting research to do: she has been working together with artists like Vladislav Delay, Ellen Alien, Gudrun Gut and Eliane Radigue (amongst others),

Pinkcourtesyphone; Inventors of Aircraft; Julien Demoulin; An Moku; Esa Ruoho

In the Shortlist sections, I will mention some of the albums that I enjoyed listening to, but couldn’t find the time (or the right words) for a “full” review for. Still, I think they deserve your attention: use the links to find more info and hear previews.

Elegant & Detached

Spotify

Pinkcourtesyphone – Elegant & Detached
I had not realised until now that Pinkcourtesyphone is actually Richard Chartier – sound artist and curator of the LINE-label (more about that later).
This is the second full release from Pinkcourtesyphone in 2012, together with “Foley Folly Folio”. Compared to the works he releases under his own name, the Pinkcourtesyphone obviously gives room for some more playful, associative and humorous soundscapes, or “much more open to accident, failure, surprise and emotional/ironic juxtaposition of things” as he stated in the Headphone Commute interview. But that does not mean these soundscapes should not be taken seriously: they are very adventurous and cinematic, so this 70 minute album is a delightful pleasure to listen to.
“The callers voice whispers a wistful yet false love-letter to the cinema of aesthetics from a distant place concerning the things you did… and things you need to have done.”

Krill.Minima – Sekundenschlaf

Sekundenschlaf

Krill.Minima is one of the aliases of Martin Juhls ,who is also releasing as Marsen Jules and Falter, (not to mention his Wildach Sonnerkraut alias.)

From all these aliases, Marsen Jules is obviously the most well-known.
The Krill.Minima music is of a somewhat different kind, but also very dear to Juhls’ heart – especially for live performances.

Philippe Lamy + Pleq (3 Titles)


SlowFast

Philippe Lamy (France) is an artist combining various art-forms. He’s a painter, but also teaches ‘plastic arts’ at the School of Architecture in Toulouse. He started creating music about ten years ago, “feeling that his paintings and music resonate together”.
His soundscapes indeed resemble paintings: they are incredibly detailed, almost organic, including a wide dynamic range of sounds.

His latest solo album,“SlowFast“, is recently released, following up two recent collaboration projects with well-known Polish artist Pleq.