Good Weather for an Airstrike; Seconds Before Awakening; Aspectee; Ryonkt; Fog Lake

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.

Good Weather for an Airstrike - Underneat the Stars

Good Weather for an Airstrike – Underneath the Stars
Tom Honey (Hampshire, UK) originally set up Good Weather for an Airstrike to create deliberately soothing music to help ease the tinnitus problems he suffers from. His main influences are artists like Sigur Ros, Eluvium, Hammock and Stars of the Lid. “Underneath the Stars” melds “dreamy strings with hints of fragmented guitar tone, soft drones and a set of subtle field recordings.”

Nine

Seconds Before Awakening – Nine
As Seconds Before Awakening, Michael S. Walley creates a “soundtrack for dreams and dreamers alike”. “Nine” – the 10th album in the series that started counting from Zero –  is a 59 minutes long, slowly evolving deep drone. “I almost feel like this is the sound of nebulae and galaxies frozen for us to contemplate the shifting energy and interplay between matter and nothingness. These sounds remind me that infinity is real, here and now.”  
[Free Download]

The Dwindlers – Allegories

Following up Leonardo Rosado’s “Mute Words“, this is the second release on the Heart and Soul label, which was founded to release projects that combine music and poetry. 

The Dwindlers are a duo consisting of Michelle Seaman, poet, and Benjamin Dauer, composer and multi-instrumentalist. Although they have been working together since 2002, “Allegories” is their second album, following up their 2010 debut release “Dreams”.

Szymon Kaliski + Stefan Wesolowski – 281011


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This collaboration by Szymon Kaliski (electronics) and Stefan Wesolowski (violin) – released as a limited  (50 only) edition on Few Quiet People – was commissioned especially to promote the new spatial audiovisual controller called the Dodecaudion.
A gesture-based controller which, by the looks of it, can best be described as some sort of nowadays Theremin. 

Listening Mirror – Resting in Aspic

Although relatively young (they formed in the beginning of 2010), Listening Mirror (a duo consisting of Jeff Stonehouse and Kate Tustain) is quickly becoming a ‘reference point’ in environmental ambient music.

Basically, their new album “Resting in Aspic“ is a collection of previously released material (although in different versions, remastered by Wil Bolton, and also including a new track: “Without Saying Goodbye”).
But together, these tracks are a perfectly balanced album – a great introduction for those new to Listening Mirror, and a welcome addition to those that were already familiar with their style.

Simon Whetham – Mall Muzak


Mall Muzak

The original Muzak, aka Elevator Music, may represent all the music you don’t want to listen to actively.
Intended and created as unobtrusive music played in shopping malls, designed to make you feel good and spend more money without realising you hear anything at all, this kind of music definitely has it’s own -conceptual-  kind of charm.  

Simon Whetham’s  latest release,  “Mall Muzak” is about the exact opposite of that kind of music.

Machinefabriek + Celer – Maastunnel-Mt. Mitake

Well here’s a little gem that will definitely be a collector’s item quickly: 

Celer (Will Long) and Machinefabriek (Rutger Zuydervelt) – two giants of the ambient-electronic improv scene – met and performed together in Tokyo in 2010, and decided to collaborate on these tracks about a year later. Exchanging an reconstructing each others audio files has resulted in this 7″ vinyl release: “Maastunnel-Mt. Mitake“.
An impressive, though short, ‘audio bridge’ between Rotterdam and Tokyo.

Hior Chronik, Kane Ikin, Marcus Fischer, Nils Quak, Karol Gwozdz

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.

Hior Chronik

Hior Chronik – Unspoken Words Spotify
On his second album, Hior Chronik (Greece) combines the finest elements to create a well-balanced palette of ambient soundscapes, acoustic elements and melancholic themes. 
The enthousiastic recommendations by Hauschka (“Definitely a part of my soundtrack for this year autumn and dark winter times.”), Nils Frahm (“Essential experimental music!” ), Sawako and Will Long (Celer) may indicate that this is an album that should not be missed. And it definitely is!

Contrail

Kane Ikin – Contrail Spotify
Also known as half of the Solo Andata duo, Kane Ikin presents his first solo project as a 4-track EP release: two tracks on a clear vinyl 7″, the other two as additional download tracks. For this 20+ minute album, “he recorded everything through and onto old technology — aged analog consoles, reel-to-reel tape — and all heard through a hazy science fiction filter.”

 

Markus Mehr – In

Markus Mehr‘s new album “In” is the promising first part of a trilogy: it will be followed by “On” (june 2012) and “Off” (january 2013), so the entire trilogy will take an exact year to complete. 

“In” features two long tracks, “Komo” and“Ostinato”, about 25 minutes each.
At first listen, two albums come to mind that explore a similar compositional process: Gavin Bryars’ “Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet” and William Basinski’s “Disintegration Loops”. 
But the comparision fails, because Mehr chooses quite a different approach to ‘minimal loops repeating’.

Interesting Collaborations

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.

Night Blossom

The Beautiful Schizophonic & Yui Onodera – Night Blossom
The Beautiful Schizophonic (Jorge Mantas, Portugal) and Yui Onodera (Japan), two renowned sound artists,  continue to refine their collaborative work that started in 2009, with “Radiance”. 
Immersive, yet restrained, beauty. 

Woven Tide

From the Mouth of the Sun – Woven Tide
From the Mouth of the Sun is the name of the first project of Dag Rosenqvist (Jasper TX)  and Aaron Martin. Just mentioning these two names should raise your interest!
“Out of the charred embers of dusk Woven Tide emerges with an incandescent glow. Each glimmer cast by the sustained notes of ebony keys, the taut strings of the cello, and the rampant buzz of guitar lights our way, gives us hope, brings us into the dawn of a new day. As From The Mouth of the Sun, the duo act as our torchbearers, scrawling messages along the walls of an elongated cave, toiling through the decayed remnants of fetid matter to create eight illuminating pieces.”