2014 is a good year for Porya Hatami (based in Sanandaj, Iran).
After releasing two collaboration albums (with Lee Anthony Norris and Lcoma, respectively), and a solo album (“Shallow”) earlier this year, his new album “The Garden“ is now released on the Dronarivm label.
RUSS YOUNG – COMMON POND
On “Common Pond“, Russ Young recreates places, events and objects around him “by assembling manipulated audio sources – re-imagining the impression with sound”.
Each track has a different background story, like:
“‘Phil’s House’ is made from recordings of a friend’s 8 upright pianos he kept in his house.
I ended up erasing the notes leaving the mechanics behind. I think it sounds like rain on his roof or rain playing his pianos.”
“‘Lamy’s Sound and Light’ is a local ‘disco equipment’ rental shop at the end of my street. He leaves a cluster of neons flashing all night.”
With this approach, Young creates a new and refreshing concept of ‘environmental soundscapes’.
Before you start listening, answer this: what associations do you have with a band name like VLNA?
Personally, I prepared for somewhat ‘unpersonal’ and possibly even ‘harsh’ sounds when I started listening.
But I was in for a surprise:“Turquoise Threads“ is an ‘impressionist vocal’ album – an album with spoken words fragments, humming, whistling, intertwining with ‘a thick veil of atmospheric noir from threads of adapted violins, guitar’ (and electronic treatments).
“Mental Health Hotline” is the second ‘collaborative dialogue’ created together with Christophe ‘Klankschap’ Ywaska.
(The first was “Both Were Moving“, 2012).
Each selection a reaction to the previous addition means the story may have some unexpected turns and views… especially with over 50 samples crammed into this adventurous hour of sound!
Be prepared for a dazzling – and possibly somewhat disorienting – joyride…
Complex times breed complex albums.
A sign of the times, maybe.
Not unlike Matthew Colling’s album mentioned before, Lawrence English‘s new album “The Wilderness of Mirrors“ presents a “tectonic auditory offering, an unrelenting passage of colliding waves of harmony and dynamic live instrumentation”.
Matthew Collings (Scotland) has not only recorded and performed as a solo artist, but also worked together with Dag Rosenqvist (Jasper TX), Talvihorros and Ben Frost.
He has been performing live using custom-made software, and composed movie scores – such as a live score for “Man with a Movie Camera”.
“Silence is a Rhythm Too“ is his second solo-album, and it turns out to be quite different from its more ‘minimalist pop’ orientated predecessor“Splintered Instruments” (which is rereleased together with the new album).
D.RHÖNE – III (EXODE)
While creating music as Monolyth & Cobalt, Mathias van Eecloo saved some of his more abstract sounds with the filename D.Rhöne: “…a project to be close to the minimalist and repetitive music, the most closely to a drone state..
In 2012 and 2013 he self-released the first two albums under that same name, and now the third (and last) chapter is available as a free download. (There is also a very limited cd-release but that will probably be sold out by the time you’re reading this).
Lomechanik is a dutch independent experimental music label celebrating their 25th release with the compilation called “Places“: a ‘Name Your Price’ (!) download of 25 tracks (over two hours) especially created for this project by “old familiars as well as newly involved artists, with a certain place and/or memory as a starting point.”
“Souvenirs van de Woeste Grond“ (roughly translates as “Souvenirs from the Wasteland”) is a part of a landscape-inspired art project inspired by the Dutch province “Overijssel”.
“In this project two artists (Heidi Linck and Hans Jungerius) collected stories about the countryside landscape in order to save them from obscurity. In the second phase of the project eight different artists make a souvenir based on the collected stories.”
This particular album (available as digital download or limited edition CD released by the adventurous Esc.Rec label), is one of those ‘souvenirs’!
