Marsen Jules – Sinfonietta – At GRM

Marsen Jules’ (Martin Juhls’) new album ‘Sinfonietta’ is released barely a month after he released ‘At GRM’ on his own label.

It is interesting to note the difference between these two albums, as well as their similarities: in a way, the albums relate to each others like day relates to night.
But they also have a lot in common: in both albums, the notion of time is completely irrelevant.

Monolyth & Cobalt; Vitiello + Roden; Gateless Gate; How Hot is Your Cloud; Black to Comm
– shortlist –

Another shortlist for the last days of this year: beautiful soundscapes from Monolyth & Cobalt (Mathias van Eecloo, including reworks by many of his friends), Steve Roden & Stephen Vitiello, Gateless Gate (exploring the vast Siberian Landscape), How Hot is Your Cloud, and the surrealist music of Black to Comm.

Siren Song (Mix)

This mix is built around mysterious vocals. Vocals that may guide you, or lure you, into distances unknown.
Often, but not exclusively, female, and some of them not even human – like the beautiful flute-playing by Jean-Christophe Bonnafous, or the mysterious singing sound of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko that was recently discovered during the Rosetta space missions.
With just a little fantasy you can imagine the Philae Space Lander being attracted by the comet’s song – ultimately leading it to an untimely death.

Loscil – Sea Island

With its cinematic soundscapes, distant dub-techno references an subtly constructed ambient soundscapes, “Sea Island” is an album that defies genre tagging.
Maybe it’s because Loscil is defining his own ‘genre’ more strongly with every release.

Stephan Mathieu – Sacred Ground

The music of “Sacred Ground” is created for a documentary film (by Tim Grünewald and Ludwig Schmidtpeter) about the Wounded Knee and Mount Rushmore memorial sites in South Dakota:
“Two memorials in the heart of America. Two hours’ drive but worlds apart. Mount Rushmore is an icon of the United States, attracting millions of visitors each year. The Wounded Knee Massacre Site receives just a handful of visitors each day.”

It is also inspired by (and dedicated to) Florian Fricke, who created soundtracks with Popol Vuh for many Werner Herzog movies.