Once again: good news for ambient freebie hunters!
While traditional distribution for ambient music gets more difficult than ever, the artistic quality of netlabel releases only seems to increase. Here’s one of the latest proofs of that.
If you’re in or maybe even anywhere near Holland (Amsterdam) between february 25 and 28, you definitely should not miss Sonic Acts XII – “Spatial Explorations in Art, Science, Music and Technology.
This bi-annual festival must be one of Holland’s most important event in experimental electronic music. But not ‘just’ music: the multimedia event also presents expositions, installations, conferences, sound walks, and of course a lot of other immersive aural experiences.
If you check their website, the about page states “haygurlhaygyrl wuddup wuddup/Bah-bah-bah, bah-bah baranne“.
Thieves of Zozo obviously are not yet fully ready yet to present their debut album “Never Knows Best” in full.
Luckily, their myspace page has a bit more info.
Isolate is the first mix published on ambientblog.net created by a guest.
Muttley (Michael Buckingham) is actively maintaining the Subvert Central weblog (hosting 60+ mixes now!), and also contributed some mixes to the Low Light Mixes weblog that I’m sure you are all familiar with.
Isolate is a continuous mixtape focussing on drone tracks. It’s a great mix to listen to at night (and falling asleep to).
Peter Broderick is not afraid to try out some new directions. With his music (ranging from minimal electronics via minimalism to new-folk), as well as with the ways to distribute them.
Some of his records were released on fairly wellknown labels as Type and Kning, or on lesser known labels as Slaapwel Records and Fang Bomb. But also on cassettes, freely available mixtapes, and now even using Flickr (the web 2.0 photo sharing site).
As far as I know, he’s the very first artist creating a ‘Flickr Album‘ this way.
The Hibernate Sampler did a fine job: I was so impressed by the quality of the music that I ordered a batch of albums from the label. All of them were interesting enough to be reviewed here (and maybe I will).
But as much I enjoyed them, Porzellan‘s The Fourth Level of Comprehension was the one I played most repeatedly.
Porzellan is Francis Cazal. Classically trained composer and baroque violinist. The latter may be a bit confusing, since none of the music is very ‘baroque-as-we-know-it’.
But, firmly rooted in classical composition techniques, Cazal obviously knows how to create a compelling composition.
Contemporary electronic music is firmly rooted in Germany – I guess no one will argue that.
So is No Accident in Paradise, a four person “Live Ambient System”, or freeform ambient music project.
No Accident in Paradise combines live electronics and keyboards with sampled electronic music recordings and rather stunning visuals by Robert Seidel. They perform at unusual locations that perfectly fit their music: check the video of the Therme Bad Schandau performance (below) for a good impression!
Paul Sharma‘s Embers is a beautiful electronic composition based on the Indian midnight raga Malkauns, and thus is very suitable for midnight listening (The Raga Guide indicates Late Night: 12 – 3).
“Malkauns is a serious, meditative raga, and is developed mostly in the lower octave (mandra saptak) and in a slow tempo (vilambit laya).”
(Wikipedia)
On this version the vocals are more in the middle octave as that suits Rajesh’s voice, but there are instruments at the lower (and sub-lower) to compensate. The vocal piece starts with an alap (free or rhythmless tempo) and then a slow tempo vocal.
“It is a majestic and somewhat introverted pentatonic raga, which seems to have undergone quite a transformation over the centuries. Superstitious musicians describe it as a raga with supernatural powers, and some believe that it can attract evil spirits.”
(The Raga Guide)
For those of you that like their minimal ambient backgrounds combined with piano music (like Helios/Goldmund, Max Richter or Nest) this is a great gift: the 45 minute album “Memories Fade Under a Shallow Autumn Snow” by Language of Landscapes is saved from oblivion and now offered as free (!) download by the Phantom Channel label.
