Dakota Suite & Emanuele Errante – The North Green Down

The deepest grief can often inspire the most impressive art. 

The albums of Dakota Suite are not the ones to celebrate the happier moments in life, as can be seen from their titles alone.
They commemorate sadness, loss, pain, fear and loneliness.
But the (mainly acoustic) instrumentation also always leaves room for hope, for acceptation of the way life is. 

Previous Dakota Suite releases have brought some timeless masterpieces, like “The End of Trying”  and its remix companion “The Night Keeps Coming in” (you can still stream the Folio Radio show compilation of these two albums).
Dakota Suite’s latest release “The North Green Down” may prove to be their most impressive work to date. But the foundations of this album is of heartbreaking sadness once again…

Pleq – Ballet Mechanic + Good Night 2

Ballet Mechanic

According to Pleq (Bartosz Dziadosz from Warsaw, Poland)“Ballet Mechanic”  is “his most personal, abstract and intellectual work to date, never to be repeated.”

“Ballet Mechanic” contains six tracks, over 70 minutes in total, “inviting the listener to travel through crackle, screech, squeak, sizzle and subtle drones”. 

Some of the tracks have a natural feel, like if it was created from field recordings instead of electronic sources. Other tracks  sound like distant machines humming while doing their work. 
All kinds of subtle shifts are happening in the immersive sound spectrum, but you’ll only become aware if you submerge yourself in the sound. The overall atmosphere is very calm and relaxing.

Shinobu Nemoto – Melting Loop Trip


Melting Loop Trip

“Melting Loop Trip” by Shinobu Nemoto (from Kanagawa, Japan), should not be missed by anyone enjoying long-form drone music. 

It is released as a handmade 4CDR release if you want a physical copy, but it can also be downloaded (for free!) from the Resting Bell netlabel.  

It’s a massive download including sixteen loops, each loop between six and thirteen minutes long, totalling over two-and-a-half hour of deep drone listening.

 A fairly extreme release in size ánd content.

Michel Banabila – The Latest Research…


Research - Cover

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.

Dustin O’Halloran – Lumiere


Lumiere Cover

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!

Clem Leek – Home Outside

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 – Wolf Notes

*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’.”

Fovea Hex – Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent (Mix)


Fovea Hex

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.