Apart from running his excellent Audio Gourmet netlabel (check their beautiful compilation album “Hidden Landscapes” if you didn’t already), Harry Towell a.k.a. Spheruleus also releases his own music on different labels.
Resting Bell netlabel recently released his latest short (23 min) three track album called “Forgotten Outland“.
For those familiar with the work of Michel Banabila (and if not: you may check this mix presenting a broad range of his work), his new album “The Latest Research from the Department of Electrical Engineering” may come as a noisy surprise.
Created entirely from electrical sound sources that are fiercely mixed and meant to play LOUD, this has nothing much to do with his gentle ‘world-ambient’ output. In his catalogue it is loosely connected to the two “Spherics” released, that also contained strictly electronic music. But it’s different in sound and in using thumping industrial beats.
By now, we can safely speak of a “school of composers”, creating neo-classical, romantic, sometimes melancholic chamber music (sometimes with some electronic elements too): people like Max Richter, Johann Johannsson, Sylvain Chauveau and the like.
Music that sounds like the soundtrack of a movie you want to see just because of the soundtrack…
Dustin O’Halloran is no ‘newbie’ in the genre. He wrote the scores for Marie Antoinette (2006) and An American Affair (2010), and has released two “Piano Solos” albums on Bella Union.
With this new release “Lumiere“, Dustin O’Halloran definitely settles firmly between the masters of the genre!
The Rural Colours 3-inch CD subscription series continues to deliver high quality releases, most of which are sold out immediately after their release.
Luckily for those that do NOT have a subscription to these physical releases, they continue to be available as digital downloads through Bandcamp.
“Home Outside” is Clem Leek‘s contribution to the Rural Route series: it was released on january 23 as part of ‘subscription pack 7’ (and of course quickly sold out too).
*AR is the “collective pseudonym” of Autumn Richardson & Richard Skelton, and “Wolf Notes” is their first abum together.
But *AR is also “an archaic place-name element found in river names. (…) It is thought to mean ‘starting up, springing up, setting in motion’ “.
A further quote from the liner notes explains what this music is about:
It “is inspired by the landscape of Ulpha – a region of spare, rugged beauty in the west uplands of Cumbria, in Northern England. Wolf Notes derives its title from the word ulpha itself, while it is understood to mean ‘the hill frequented by wolves’.”
When I read that a new Fovea Hex album will be released in the “Very-Imminent-Future”, this revived fond memories of their 2007 box set called “Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent”.
Two quotes may introduce this fascinating collection: Brian Eno thought these were “Some of the Most Extraordinary Songs I’ve heard in Years”, and The WIRE aptly summarized it this way: “If Emily Dickinson had ever been allowed to make a record, this is probably what it would have sounded like”.
These comments are all about the songs, but I was also impressed by the way Fovea Hex combined the (unmistakable English) “folk” tradition, their sweet sounding but very strange and mysterious vocal poetry, with a daringly experimental sound backing – even to the most extreme on the stretched minimalist remixes of the Hafler Trio (Andrew McKenzie) on the bonus versions included in the original limited special edition.
Most ambient music deals with more or less imaginary landscapes -like, for example, the two compilations recently reviewed: “Hidden Landscapes” and “Underwater Noises“.
This is definitely not the case for both Topofonie albums by Enrico Coniglio (who also contributed to the Underwater Noises compilation), that are inspired by Venice and its lagoon.
“A polymorphic portrait of what Venice is today, one moment decadent and melancholy, then romantic, rowdy, colourful and chaotic. Postcard of a thousand postcards, photos of a thousand photos…”
But, just as Venice is not like any other city in the world, Salicornie (and its predecessor: Areavirus ) is not like any other ‘ambient’ album.
What exactly happens at the moment night changes back into day again, when darkness slowly retreats and light comes back in?
Are we aware of what happens outside, at that time of day most of us are still sleeping?
What sort of animals or creatures are hiding from the light, and what sort finally dare to come out again?
Would we discover “Dawn Secrets” when we’d leave our own safe and familiar surroundings?
To be honest, I did not start this mix with this theme in mind…it just ‘dawned’ on me when listening to it when it was almost finished…But from the start, I wanted this mix to have a strong ‘environmental’ feel (but not only include field recordings).
The Audio Gourmet netlabel, run by Harry Towell – a.k.a.Spheruleus- quickly became one of the major netlabels on the ambient music scene. At time of writing, their impressive catalogue presents about 30 releases, most of them E.P.’s, around 15 minutes long, and thus created to fit your daily coffee/tea break perfectly.
Though Audio Gourmet have a clear policy about what they want and what they don’t want (no beats!), the musical horizon broadens with every release. For example, the forthcoming release by Paper Relics (Harry and Stuart Towell), ‘Recovered Artefact’, would be better described as ‘improv folk guitar’ than ambient music.
