It’s hard to keep up with so much great music out there.
Here’s a selection that brings you from modern classical to futuristic dub (via reel-to-reel tape delay)!
Hightlights from Monochromie; Visionary Hours; Peter Grech; Northumbria and Mogano
Music for “Wine Time” … Music for Marrakech Taxis … Drones for every day of the Week … and finally drones for a Future Terrain and to get lost completely …
More than ever before, it seems female artists are rightfully claiming their own space in experimental electronics.
Hot on the heels of the surprising Sleepstep album by Dasha Rush comes All In All – a new release by Cio D’Or (who’s track Distanz also saw a beautiful remix on the recent Sonae album).
Sleepstep and All In All are a perfect match, exploring the same musical areas of experimental yet atmospheric techno, pushing the boundaries of (dub-) techno into new and adventurous territories.
At first listen, her new album Sleepstep (subtitled ‘Sonar Poems for my Sleepless Friends’) does not sound like a ‘typical’ Raster-Noton release… maybe because her sonar poems are ‘feminine, subtle and personal reports’ – nothing like the usual concepts of electronic music created by nerdy, predominantly male tech-wizzards.
But as the album progresses, the musical soundscapes get more abstract and gradually prove Dasha’s perfectly at home on the Raster-Noton label.
Catching up with another shortlist: this time presenting albums by Forrest Fang, New Composers, Caught in the Wake Forever, Marsen Jules and Lucas Alvaredo
Thomas Newman is the widely acclaimed composer of more than 50 film and television scores, earned no less than twelve Academy Award nominations and six Grammy Awards for an impressive list of movies that are not exactly of the lesser-known kind.
Just to name a few: American Beauty, The Shawshank Redemption, Finding Nemo, Wall-E, The Horse Whisperer, The People vs. Larry Flynt…
Rick Cox is a composer and multi-instrumentalist, explorer of ‘prepared electric guitar’ techniques, who has played with the likes of Ry Cooder, Jon Hassell, and is no stranger to creating film music himself…hence their connection.
Knowing this, I expected to hear some well crafted and slick ‘movie soundtrack music’.
But I was wrong!
Drones, soundtracks and atmospheric sketches for the changing seasons…. with new music from Inner Vision Laboratory, Strom Noir, OfftheSky, Atrium Carceri and Colbets
Monty Adkins he often chooses a single instrument to work with and then starts exploring its possibilities and manipulating its sounds.
And while the starting point and sounds are very different to begin with, he manages to create a ‘sound-field’ that is immediately recognisable.
“Unfurling Streams”, his recent release on Crónica, is based on recordings of percussion instruments made by Jonny Axelsson (a much praised percussionist with impressive experience in playing contemporary music by composers like Stockhausen, Ligeti and Kevin Volans) and Monty Adkins himself.
This month’s edition focuses on new music from some ‘para-ambient’ releases: not exactly ambient by definition, but definitely atmospheric.
Introducing new albums by Dasha Rush, Yamaoka, Juxta Phona, Forrest Fang, Piano Interrupted, Cass., Bill Seaman, Biosphere, Matthew Mercer and Ah! Kosmos.
