Various Artists – Hope

The brand new Fluid Audio label kicks off with a promising start: a compilation album donating 50% of its profits to charity. (Toybox Charity foundation, supporting latin america’s street children).

One may wonder how much funds this may raise in times where ambient musicians hardly make enough money to break even on any physical CD release.
Just realising the fact that the ‘average Guatemalan street kid’ has an average life expectancy of four years should make you buy this album.
But the music included proves to be rewarding too – raising expectations fairly high for future releases on this label.

Allegaar (mix)

According to my dictionary, ‘Allegaar‘ translates to ‘Hotchenpotch‘ – but I can imagine there may be a better word for that!?

Just like the previous mix (“Leftover Mix“), this 2008 mix has no special theme, it’s just a collection of tracks mixed together fairly randomly. But in their new context the tracks seem to start to tell their own new story!

Celer – Close Proximity…

This could have been one of the shortest reviews of this weblog: I simply could state that this music induced some of the deepest sleeps I experienced when listening to ambient music. And please don’t doubt that that is meant as a true compliment!

Even the found environmental sounds included in the tracks could not disturb the peaceful quiet and the balanced harmonies of this music. And most of the real-time environmental sounds merging in from outside can’t either.

This fact alone makes this album one of the most impressive I heard this year.

The Leftover Mix (mix)


Leftovers (Photo by Muffet)

Though the title may give the impression that this mix consists of ‘second choice music’, that is definitely nót the case!

These tracks did not find their way to a 2007 Folio radio show, but were too good to stay unnoticed. So I used them in this ‘2007 end-of-year’ mix. It serves these tasty ‘leftovers’ as one uninterrupted delicate stew.

Solo Andata – Solo Andata

A few years ago, ‘Ambient Music‘ used to be almost synonymous to ‘Electronic Music‘ in regards of instruments chosen and production process.
But gradually, acoustic instruments crept in, maybe as a reaction to laptop concerts proving to be quite boring – throw in a ‘real’ musician playing a ‘real’ instrument (cello is favourite for its sound) and any live show is far more interesting to watch.  

A lot of this music can hardly be called ‘ambient’ any more. Some of it is modern classical music, some of it has firm roots in ethnic folk music or even folk psychedelica…

Enter Solo Andata. Australian duo (Kane Ikin and Paul Fiocco), creating great ambient soundscapes which are as much ‘electronic’ as they are ‘acoustic’, still definitely also ‘ambient music’.
Their second album (Solo Andata) is released on the 12k label, mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi and with cover art by Taylor Deupree. Any more recommendation needed?

Be Still (mix)


left

No special theme for this mix…just flowing, quiet music…

This mix was broadcast paired with ‘Final Sleep‘ in june, 2007.

In this mix the title is taken from the Adrian Klumpes track.

The Lights Galaxia – Global


Global EP

Obviously, since it’s very hard to earn a living (or even a part of it) from creating ambient music, a lot of musicians creating this kind of music offer it for free.
From their own websites,  through netlablels or using archive.org, bandcamp.com or one of the many alternatives for sharing music.

So if you take some time to do a good search you may find quite some nice music (and a pile of rubbish too).

Final Sleep (mix)


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No special theme for this mix…just flowing, quiet music…

The title obviously comes from the track by Svarte Greiner.

(This mix was broadcast paired with ‘Be Still‘‘ in june, 2007, which will be published next week).

Frank Rothkamm – ALT


http://www.rothkamm.com

Frank Rothkamm is a composer as well as a conceptual artists. You can tell when visiting his website, but also when reading the promo text for this new CD: “He cultivates enigmas <…>In fact, Rothkamm is a magician, a prestidigitation theoretician, and a carny all in one”.

Wow. Big Words. Want more? Read [here]!

But luckily he’s not without humour. His discography boasts 21 releases – among which Opus Spongebobicum, a set of piano variations on the first ten notes from the “Spongebob Squarepants” theme song. (Don’t know it, but I’d love to hear it!)

His latest release, ALT is released on the Baskaru label. It is a collection of ‘analog computers & algorithms’, created between 1989 and 2009.