Bernocchi, Budd, Guthrie – Winter Garden

If you are familiar with the works of Harold Budd together with Robin Guthrie  (Cocteau Twins) on earlier classics like Lovely Thunder, The Moon and the Melodies, The White Arcades and Before the Night Falls/After the Day Breaks, you will probably have a good idea what this new album sounds like.

Compared to these earlier albums, “Winter Garden” may hold no radical surprises. 
But in case of this particular album that is definitely meant as a positive remark: never change a winning formula, as they say!

Stillness [Mix]


Stillness

“Stillness”
image by imago2007

This mix obviously found its name from the lovely intro (and outtro) track by Nest.
Inbetween, there are many moments of ‘stillness’, too… Moments you may slowly drift off into the drones, letting your mind wander … to be pulled back again by some of the post-classical ‘anchors’ in this mix by Winged Victory For the Sullen, Human Greed, Vladimír Gódar, and Maya Beiser (member of Bang on a Can, with a stunning cello performance of the Djivan Gasparyan composition ‘Memories’).

Most of the tracks featured in this were released in 2011. But this mix is nót intended as a “Best of..” overview. That would result in a mix with an entirely different atmosphere (- and much longer, because one hour would not be enough to cover all the great releases I have enjoyed in 2011).

Maybe it’s a good way to start a new year with a small opportunity to retreat from current society’s turmoil, and to find some time to ‘cocoon’ to the sounds (and the sometimes fascinating depths) of ‘Stillness’.

Some word of warning, however: if this suggests this mix only contains warm, comfortable and pleasurable sounds, be prepared for some suprises.
I never said that “Stillness” always means “Comforting”…

Best wishes for 2012 to all of you!

Ben Frost & Daniel Bjarnason; Daniel Thomas Freeman; A Shadow; I8U; Sister Waize

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.

Solaris

Ben Frost & Daniel Bjarnason – Solaris
With the names of these two composers and the title referring to the classic SF movie, further introduction is completetely superfluous. This is “a quiet, stilled and all consuming symphonic suite at once as affecting and uncanny as the science- fiction classic that inspired it”. 
As mysterious as the movie, Solaris is “a journey into an internal world, into the self, a flux of wonder, horror, sorrow and tenderness, and a ravishing sensory experience”.

The Beauty of Doubting Yourself

Daniel Thomas Freeman – The Beauty of Doubting Yourself
With a title like that an album hardly needs any further introduction. The album starts off pitch black with track titles like “Dark House Walk” and “Staring into Black Water” (25 minutes!), but the ovarall atmosphere gradually gets lighter and more optimistic as does the instrumentation. Dark electronic settings slowly make way for mediaeval sounding string arrangements. Not many albums can present a sound palette like this in such a coherent style.

Matthew Florianz – Los


Los

Matthew Florianz is one of the dutch artists I have been following for a lot of years now – together with fellow experimenters like Rutger ‘Machinefabriek’ Zuydervelt, the ‘Piiptsjilling’ (Kleefstra) brothers and Michel Banabila. 
It’s funny mentioning them together, because their music is quite different. But all have their own definite ‘brand’ that identifies their music, all work tirelessly on their music, and – finally – all get international recognition for their works’ quality.

From these artists, Matthew Florianz (who started recording as ‘Liquid Morphine’ around 2000) may be the one whose music remains most close to the origins of ambient music as defined by Brian Eno.
In musical style, I mean, not regarding the ‘generative’ compositional aspect of much of Eno’s music. Florianz carefully constructs his music, paying attention to the placement of every little detail.

Various Artists – Festive Greetings…


Festive Greetings

Okay: Christmas and New Year’s Holiday are rapidly approaching – you’ve probably already had your share of the End-Of-Year Top 2000 lists (full of unsurprisingly position shifts of headliners like The Eagles and Queen) – Your “Last Christmas” and “Imagine”  singles are totally worn out – as has “Phil Spector’s Christmas Album“? Even the ZE Christmas Record (featuring Suicide!) is not surprising anymore?  

Well, maybe it’s time for a slightly different approach ….

Enter: “Festive Greetings from Hibernate and Home Normal”  – and be prepared for some surprises!

Leah Kardos – Feather Hammer

Sometimes an album comes along that is difficult to define, because it doesn’t seem to conform to what may be considered as a single ‘style’ or a ‘genre’.
Albums like that usually take a few extra listens to definitely make up your mind, but they prove to be the more interesting in the end – they don’t easily fit the current consensus because they create their own style definitions. 

“Feather Hammer” is one of such albums.

Specta Ciera; Sense; Pleq + Lauki; Ujjaya; Sequence 2

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.

Underpass

Specta Ciera – Underpass
Specta Ciera is the pseudonym for sound designer Devin Underwood from Cambridge, MA. “Underpass” is the latest in a line of 15+ releases combining ambient drones, field recordings and avant garde electronics. The four tracks on this (FREE) FeedbackLoopLabel release are warm, immersive and slightly dark. (In fact there are three tracks, because the title track returns in a Darren Harper mix). This great EP only scratches the surface of the compositional style and approach Specta Ciera employs, so it may be a good starting point for checking out his back-catalogue.

sense - selected moments

Sense – Selected Moments Vol. I
With his vintage synth sounds, Sense, aka Adam Raisbeck, brings back “the golden era of 90’s ambient music”. The sounds are beautiful analog, but the music itself is far from ‘retro’. The compositions are warm and nicely balanced. In Adam’s own words: It’s about selected moments of my life over the last 5 years and consequential realisations from looking at those moments individually it’s about change and growth its about opening hearts and healing. My ultimate goal is create an interface via my music whereby people listening to it will totally feel what’s happening and understand what I was feeling at the time I was making the music, it’s something that is to me – beyond-sonic.”

Michael Gordon – Timber

To some, waves on the shore, leaves from a tree, flames in a fire all look the same.
Others can stare at this fractal beauty and find Zen-like peacefulness in the fact that this ‘sameness’ is just an illusion, because every single detail is different – and no single detail ever occurs twice. 

Michael Gordon‘s “Timber” may achieve the same effect in sound.  

“Timber” is scored for six “wooden 2x4s, each cut into different sizes, giving each one a slightly different pitch.” 
Called a “simantra“, this percussion instrument was first devised by composer Iannis Xenakis.

Looped Exodus – The Near is Ending


Looped Exodus

Although ‘outsiders’ may think otherwise, ‘ambient’ music knows a lot of different musical variations. Referring to ambient music as one single genre is a bit like using ‘world music’ as a genre definition for all kinds of different ethnic music.
 
In fact, ‘ambient music’ is a rather undefinable collection of sub-genres. It ranges from deep-listening drones via eno-esque generative music to dance music and dub-techno, from acoustic improv to post-classical string ensembles, from 70’s cosmic psychedelica to new age tribal music.

The Near is Ending”  starts with a deep droney track, but then continues to combine some different kinds of electronic music to a surprisingly well-balanced album.