Wil Bolton - Time Lapse (Hibernate, 2010)

mp3 / 320 / 103mb / rs | rel. nov 2010 | hibernate

Collapsed Chimes from Wil Bolton on Vimeo.

Boomkat:

"Hibernate records continues to dominate the pastoral ambient wasteland with this latest missive from Boltfish co-owner Wil Bolton. Better known as glitchy IDM feller Cheju, on ‘Time Lapse’ Wil strips down his sound to come up with something far more measured and beautiful than anything in his back catalogue. Beginning with the reverberating electronics of ‘Falling Away’ this sets the tone for the album, with distant field recordings sitting beneath echoing melodies. Somewhere in-between the electrified shoegaze of Manual and the melancholy electronics of Vangelis, Wil navigates his sound into more acoustic territory on ‘Corrosion’ and into deep, haunting drone on ‘Slate’, but the rich melodic sense is the glue that holds the record together. Bolton might not be breaking any new ground on ‘Time Lapse’, but his production skill and ear for melody make this a thoroughly enjoyable cinematic listening experience.."

Food - Quiet Inlet (ECM, 2010)

mp3 / 320 / 111mb / rs | rel. apr 2010

review from bbc:

Quiet Inlet is Food's second album as a duo after the departure of Arve Henriksen and Mats Eilertsen in 2004. The group is joined this time by trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær and noise/ambient guitar star Christian Fennesz. Together they've produced a sumptuous and strikingly original record.

Thomas Strønen's percussion conveys a strong sense of the exotic. His playing is characterised by a sense of Zen-like space, each moment focused upon as it unfolds. He's able to switch from powerhouse rhythmic drive to reflective precision in the flicker of an eyelid. Factor in his deployment of effects and post-processing and he becomes an exciting and thoroughly intriguing performer.

Tenor and soprano saxophonist Iain Ballamy initially seems a very different proposition. His work is highly melodic and grounded in mainstream jazz, but like Strønen there's a strong sense of reflection and concentrated participation. This is a duo that really listens to each other. Ballamy contributes a swooning, and at times breathtaking, sense of keening beauty. It's the contrast between the two players that makes the music such an intriguing success.

Both Chimaera and Cirrina feature enthralling duets between Ballamy and Molvær, the former dipping and arcing like a swallow in slow motion while Molvær traces mournful vapour trails in a deep blue sky. Mictyris begins in muscular agitation, like a bad dream sci-fi movie, but unexpectedly evaporates into melodic, wistful fragments. Final track Fathom features Fennesz's faraway vibrato guitar and subtle coloration.

Quiet Inlet reveals a technologised rhythmic approach distantly related to jungle and two-step as well as connections with 1970s Miles Davis recordings, such as Big Fun's Great Expectations and Recollections. Food's music is a magical hybrid of technology and improvisation, Europe and America, ambience and dance." --Colin Buttimer

Styorfoam - The Point Misser (Morr Music, 2000)

mp3 / 320 / 100mb / rs | rel. 2000

still a love affair.

release note from morr:

"Maybe it's because of track titles like `Words Never Spoken' or `Heaven Is Burning', but I guess it has got more to do with the music and its magic hitting you like a kiss. Styrofoam's `The Point-Misser' makes you feel at ease, even at home. Inspired by a novel called 'The Sea Came In At Dawn' by Steve Erickson, Arne van Petegem's (famous for his work as `Tin Foil Star') does not care about writing a soundtrack for our oh-so modern times. Or maybe he does and the result does just not match your expectations. Leaving behind the obvious clicheé's of modern electronic music, especially the DSP-madness spreading like a virus among musicians around the world, Styrofoam concentrates on how catchy, deep and, at the same time, overwhelming a little melody can be. It can make you cry and smile at the very time. It can even make you burst into tears - good tears, though. Tears giving you new strength and hope to look for new ways of coping with your day-to-day life. Styrofoam bombardes you with feelings, emotions and snippets straight from the soul. Like in Erickson's novel, it is "time for a personal act of revolt. time to throw your oh-so-highly intellectualized sense of chaos into a true chaos of the heart and senses." Too right. And with Arne van Petegem's new album, the revolt is on its way."

Twine - Twine (Ghostly International, 2003)

mp3 / 320 / 147mb / rs | rel. oct 2003

Greg Malcolm and Chad Mossholder alchemize haunted voices, percussive static, and vaporous textures into nine hypnotic soundscapes. classic.

Peter Broderick & Johan G Winther - Re_Create Series Vol.1 (Tendervision, 2010) 7"

mp3 / 320 / 28mb / rs | rel. nov 2010 | tenderversion.com

tenderversion.com:

"For Vol.1 in the Re:Create Series we are very happy to introduce an exciting collaboration project to you called Peter Broderick & Johan G Winther on Johan G Winther & Peter Broderick. We can hear the two musicians tenderly performing their songs with violin, guitar and glockenspiel a.o., but most prominent may be their use of a small choir of voices. In their collaboration they never actually play together. Instead their playful project is about creating several kinds of artistic checkpoints arranged as a chain of mirror-like events making them switch roles and perspective with each other back and forth until they suddenly end up right back where they started, figuratively speaking…"

trip to pyongyang

i spent a week traveling in north korea in october. if you want to see some pictures from this closed workers paradise, please head over to my flickr account!

Tobias Hellkvist - Evolutions (Home Normal, 2010)

mp3 / 320 / 123mb / rs | rel. apr 2010 | homenormal.com

listened a lot to this album last months. love this kind of raw, slow, acoustic, melancholic drones. sounds even better now in dark december.

Release description:

"Tobias Hellkvist is a multi-instrumentalist from Sweden. To date he has released two full-length albums, Evolutions being his third.

Whilst much of Tobias work has previously revolved around acoustic guitar elements, Evolutions takes us into denser minimalist textures. That isn’t to say the acoustic elements are absent from Tobias’s latest work, as the subtle use of guitar, zither, accordian and glockenspiel processing throughout the whole album shows. It’s simply that the acoustic elements in Evolutions are more subtly woven into the fabric of the beautiful dirge-like textures.

The Silent Ballet called Tobias ‘one of Sweden’s best kept secrets’. With two limited self-releases to his name, it’s not hard to see why. Tobias’s music is incredibly mature, deep and yet seems to carry an innocent soul with it at the same time. I think it’s probably this that caught me the most when I first heard Evolutions. It’s also very rare to hear such a talented musician, with a keen ear for dense drone structures, to lay open the acoustic elements, never processing them too much, if at all.

So how do I sum up such an album? Is it ambient? Is it drone? Is it folk? Well, truth be told its all of these and so much more. It’s a work of great patience, beauty and gentleness, the archetypal Home Normal release in many ways. With amazing artwork from the highly talented Anna Johansson, it’s an incredible work and a real honour for Home Normal to put out the first widely distributed album by such a talented artist. Let’s just hope he isn’t just one of Sweden’s ‘best kept secrets’ for too much longer."

Brian Eno - Small Craft On A Milk Sea (Warp, 2010)

mp3 / 320 / 128mb / rs | rel. nov 2010 | warp.net

Note byBrian Eno:

''The work in this collection is a result of an occasional collaboration between myself, Leo Abrahams and Jon Hopkins. The two of them are gifted young player/composers whose work, like mine, is intimately connected to the possibilities and freedoms of electronic music. Over the last few years we've worked together several times, enjoying exploring the huge new sonic territories now available to musicians. Mostly the pieces on this album resulted not from 'composition' in the classical sense, but from improvisation. The improvisations are not attempts to end up with a song, but rather with a landscape, a feeling of a place and perhaps the suggestion of an event. In a sense they deliberately lack 'personality': there is no singer, no narrator, no guide as to what you ought to be feeling. If these pieces had been used in films, the film would complete the picture. As they stand, they are the mirror-image of silent movies - sound-only movies.'' --Brian Eno

Asuna + Opitope - Sunroom (Students Of Decay, 2010)

mp3 / 320 / 108mb/ rs | rel. july 2010 | studentsofdecay.com

from label:

"This is the first collaborative full-length release by Japan’s Opitope, the duo of Chihei Hatakeyama (Kranky, Room40) and Tomoyoshi Date (FlyRec), and Asuna (spekk, Headz). Listeners familiar with Opitope’s majestic 2007 release “Hau,” or any of the more recent output by Asuna, Hatakeyama or Date, will find much to love here. Across the albums’ nine tracks, gossamer webs of treated sound (made from all manner of plaintive piano, rubbed strings, delicately picked guitars and evocative accordian, vibraphone and sampling) hover, resonate, ebb and disperse. Paradoxical as it may seem, there is a painstaking effortlessness to this music. In some ways, “Sunroom” feels like a perfect followup to “Hau,” with one critical distinction. Where that previous release, as with Asuna’s wonderful “THIS” double disc and much of Hatakeyama’s recent solo work, focused principally on textures and abstraction, here an added emphasis is placed on songcraft. Ultimately, we might best situate these recordings alongside Date’s 2008 masterpiece “Human Being,” as there is, to be sure, a similar playfulness, deftness of juxtaposition, accessibility, and sincere reverence to be found in the radiant compositions of “Sunroom.” Throughout the album’s duration, the masterful, capable hands of Date, Hatakeyama and Asuna, craft miniature, effervescent gems of songs which swell and bloom like the changing of seasons or the passage of time in memory."

Siskiyou - Siskiyou (Constellation, 2010)

mp3 / vbr-high / 58mb / rs | rel. sep 2010 | cstrecords.com

description from label:

"Siskiyou is the new group led by former Great Lake Swimmers member Colin Huebert in collaboration with Erik Arnesen (who still plays with the Swimmers). The group is based in Vancouver, Canada where Huebert has recently settled after a stint working on an organic farm following his departure from the Swimmers. This is their eponymous debut album.

Colin sent us a first collection of songs in early 2010 just as the bitterest months of Montreal winter were setting in. Working like glowing embers on us all season long, gaining warmth and radiance with every listen, the humble intimacy and composure of these recordings steadily drew us into the deeper tension between economy and epiphany humming at the core of the tunes. Emotionally direct, marked by an underlying darkness and doubt about relationships (to each other, to the environment, to mortality) without overreaching lyrically or musically, and without overriding the quiet exuberance embedded in every melody – the songs compel.

It was no surprise to learn that Huebert had channeled these songs with immediacy and austerity, recording dozens of tunes at home with only voice and guitar, generally within minutes of their conception, as an exercise in unmediated documentation. From this audio sketchbook, Huebert and Arnesen began building gently ornate arrangements on top of various tunes, recording overdubs in itinerant fashion in hallways, stairwells, bathrooms and parks throughout the Vancouver area. Banjo, piano, accordion and electric guitar play the lead roles in adorning Colin’s initial acoustic guitar sketches. The resulting collection of songs thrums with a scrupulous lo-fi backwoods energy and restraint. The music has been described as perfectly conjuring the lush, crisp yet often chilly landscape of the Pacific Northwest, and we tend to agree. "

Simon Scott, Machinefabriek, Relmic Statute & Clem Leek LIVE @ Hebden Bridge 19 May.

all respect to Hibernate who offer this live event for free! and what a line up! don't miss out if you're around. I've been listening a lot to Clem Leek and Relmic Statute lately and i really love what the're doing. i've put up some music from them in earlier posts. be sure to check them out if you haven't already!

all info you need about this show over at Hibernate

LOiLF Playlist March 2010

download / rs / 166mb / my recent favourites, enjoy!

Artist - Track
Album / Label

01 Itacha Trio - Untitled 10
Tesla Verses The Night / Under The Spire

02 M. Ostermeier - Lost Weekend
Lakefront / Hibernate

03 Anna Rose Carter - Grey Lady
Silver Lines / Schedios

04 Tape & Bill Wells - Fugue 3
Fugue / Immune

05 The Moving Dawn Orchestra - Spring: Hymn/Hymn
Dials / Fluid Audio

06 Espen Eriksen Trio - To Whom It May Concern
You Had Me At Goodbye / Rune Grammofon

07 Henning Schmiedt - wolke zehn
Wolken / Flau

08 Fabio Orsi - Part 3
Winterreise / Slow Flow

09 Scott Tuma - Hope Jones
Dandelion / Digitalis

10 Federico Durand - El mundo secreto de la montana
La siesta del cipre's / Spekk

11 Shinkei + Mise_En_Scene - Abstr.B.,No.2 Remixed By Yukitomo Hamasaki
Scytale / mAtter

12 Ian Hawgood - A Film by The Green Kingdom
Slow Films In Low Light / Home Normal

13 Pausal - Song from a Cloth Pocket
Pausal EP / Highpoint Lowlife

14 Ryonkt - Day 6
Window To The Room / Under The Spire

Mathias Delplanque - Parcelles 1-10 (Bruit Clair/001, 2010)

removed by request / 320 / 112mb / rs | rel. jan 10 | bruitclair.com

label says:

"Parcelles 1-10 is Mathias Delplanque’s 7th solo album under his own name. This album is the sequel of Le Pavillon Témoin, which was released in 2007 on the Greek label Low Impedance; it is also the first part of a trilogy, the second opus of which, Parcelles 11-20 (Stalker), is presently being produced.

The Parcelles (“Plots of Land” in French) are musical pieces that are halfway between folk, musique concrète and ambient. They were recorded in studio in live conditions (direct soundtakes, no re-recording). Mathias Delplanque uses the computer as an instrument it itself, along with other tools such as the melodica, the guitar, the zither and small percussions. Instruments are played, treated and recorded in the same process, thus giving birth to protean and uneven musical fragments."-bruitclair.com

Offthesky - Hiding Nature (Home Normal/012, 2010)

mp3 / 320 / 87mb / rs | rel. feb 10 | homenormal.com

i think this is the best release so far from home normal (and home normal is an awesome label). love it!

Release description by label boss Ian Hawgood:

"Well, what’s to say about Jason Corder? He’s been pretty much my favourite artist since I first heard his Resting Bell release, ‘Rare Decay’. Of course I love lots of music but rarely has an artist put out so much amazing work, under various monikers, as Jason. I love his work so much, I am releasing him across all my labels – Home Normal, Tokyo Droning and Nomadic Kids Republic. That’s how varied his work is, and gosh darn it, why not?

Jason has been with the Home Normal ‘project’ (as I initially termed it) since its inception. The early pieces from Hiding Nature were with me at the end of 2008 and were one of the main reasons for starting the label. He spent the past year finalising it and, I have to say (and I know I may be biased here), I think this is his chef-d’oeuvre.

The album is obviously an offthesky record, with its minute attention to detail and its beautiful, often creeping, sometimes sporadic, bursts of melody. Essentially Jason’s plan was to make an album of heavily processed vibraphone pieces, yet it became so much more featuring clever use of warbly guitar tones and textures throughout, and incredible haunting vocal arrangements on ‘Frozen Fountain’, for example. It ranges from the melodic brilliance of ‘Hand Held Lightly’ to the more experimental playfulness of ‘Clockwort’, from the guitar chords mixed with bleeps of melody on ‘Little Subtle Secret’ to the delicately processed vibraphone of ‘Rest But Not Least’.

Its a complete listening experience by one of the most talented producers around today, an astonishing record and the most fun I have heard in melodious experimentation in some time, maybe ever. As Jason himself says, ‘Enjoy this with your nearest breathing thing’. And I have, and I will, again and again and again and…"

Takahiro Kido - Fleursy Music (Plop/4, 2008)

mp3 / 320 / 113mb / rs | rel. feb 2008 | myspace

a favourite ambient album from 2008. listening to it now and then, especially track 6, 7 and 9, love that piano.

What the label says:

"Fleursy Music" is a breathtakingly beautiful album by young Japanese composer. He creates music by merging electronics with many type of acoustic instruments such as piano, organ, violin, viola, cello, trumpet, sax, clarinet, flute, guitar, glockenspiel, accordion, melodion, drums and percussions. These instruments are remarkably well textured as he records in very unique situations - like in the tunnel, mountains, abandoned hotel lobby and concert halls - capturing the natural reverberations of the atmosphere. And after recording, he processes and carefully layers these sounds in his computer to obtain the perfect combination. The 10 tracks here were selected among over 150 compositions he made during these 2 years."

Sustainer - Vertice (Escala/015, 2010)

mp3 / 320 / 65mb / rs | rel. feb 10 | escala | myspace

Notes from label:

"Vértice is the new work from Alex Alarcón under his Sustainer alias. After publishing as a producer with various works focusing on the dancefloor during his early years, it´s wasn’t until 2008, that he showed a growing interest in the more minimalist experimental side. Currently centered in the study of random-self generated sounds with modular systems, acustic instruments, and field recordings. Alex debuts for escala NetLabel with a subtle work closer to 12K label aesthetic with the help of Giuseppe Ielasi at the mastering process. These three new tracks suppose a breath of fresh air to our catalogue and confirms Sustainer as an authentic value inside the current electronic scene."

------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE

i liked the Vertice album so much so i tracked down some other releases by Sustainer and found this beauty at the addSensor netlabel from sep last year. This is wonderful stuff as well!

Sustainer - Puerto (addSensor, 2009)

mp3 / 320 / 72mb / rs | rel. sep 09 | addSensor

from label:

"Through a single note sampling and after succesive processings, Alex Alarcón aka Sustainer, shows us his intimate and landscaping world. "Puerto" is a sound journey designed to transport yourself to a stage of synthetic origin with natural result.

Ambient sound from the port to scape from reality.

This work was mixed at low volume in order to listen it in silence.

Stands out the audio mastering that is chargeable to Guiseppe Ielasi.

We leave an open port to continue the connection..."

Clem Leek and the Schedios label

mp3/320/rs - Clem leek - Through The Annular (Schedios/001, jan, 10)

mp3/320/rs - Clem leek - Snow Tales (Not on label, feb, 10)

Clem Leek and his new label Schedios is a recent discovery for me, and so great this is! personally, his music affects me in a really sad and introvert way, opening up inner doors to my thoughts and feelings. i feel closeness to myself and the ongoing life around me when listening to this. it's both so sad and so beautiful. i hope you check this out, and keep an eye open for both Clem Leek and the Schedios label. and don't miss the second release from this label, the already much talked about debut by Anna Rose Carter, out tomorrow!

here's some links for you to check out:

schedios.co.uk

clemleek.bandcamp.com

myspace.com/clemleekofficial

myspace.com/annarosecarter

and here's a review i read at headphonecommute.com:

"First up is a five track EP from Clem Leek. Consisting of four numbered Snow Tales and a remix, this collection of modern classical and ambient pieces is a sublime journey into the mind of this up-and-coming musician. Each piece has been composed in just two days, while Leek was observing the snow falling outside of his house. The release is accompanied by six beautiful photos, that Leek took with his Polaroid camera as soon as it started snowing. I close my eyes and listen to the tales. Somewhere in the background there is a roll of thunder. Ambient soundscapes, stringed instruments and endless pads swirl beneath the gentle piano keys and drifting vocals to evoke the feelings of stillness, falling, and contemplation. Oh, and did I mention that the EP is available as a FREE digital download from the one and only Experimedia? What else can one ask for? Don’t forget to also grab Clem Leek’s debut EP, Through The Annular, which is available from his own label, Schedios, and his bandcamp page. Also, looks like Clem Leek will be performing alongside Simon Scott and Machinefabriek on May 19th, 2010 (more info). Fans of Max Richter, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Nils Frahm and Keith Kennif will surely enjoy."

Nos Phillipé - Nos Phillipé (Black Atlas/001, 2010)

mp3 / 320 / 116mb / rs | rel. jan 10 | blackatlas.org

"Nos Phillipé (Jonathan Webb and Robert Hopps) construct highly immersive compositions by combining processed raw material, sound collage and electroacoustic improvisations around a cohesive and focused sonic narrative. Throughout the three pieces on the album, Nos Phillipé interweave an array of carefully crafted drones, tones, heavily distorted effects and detailed layered textures to create an intensely claustrophobic and tangible aural environment. These three pieces act as the constituent parts of the duo’s definitive sound to date. Formed in late 2004 the pair’s recorded output consists of one self released limited edition CD-R and a CD (’Shh… Camille’) released on Mark Wastell’s Confront Collector’s Series label in January 2008. They have also shared live billing with the likes of Oren Ambarchi, Evan Parker, Sudden Infant, Henrik Rylander, Max Eastley, Jason Kahn, Eddie Prevost, Charles Hayward and Lol Coxhill amongst others." - Black Atlas.

Relmic Statute - Morning Tapes (Hibernate/010, 2010)

mp3 / 320 / 138mb / rs | rel. feb 10 | hibernate

it's been on repeat all evening here while i was reading "Garde Manger, the art and craft of the cold kitchen" and sometimes glanced the silent TV picturing moments from the olympics. a lovely album that put me in the best of mood this calm evening at home.

btw, cd of this is still available at the friendly Hibernate

and this is what the Norman says:

"Morning Tapes is a CD by a Leeds based sound artist called David Horner. He's going under the moniker Relmic Statute here, supplying the listener with beautiful, eerie & spacious atmospherics, field recordings, acoustically enhanced industrial tinkering & haunting blankets of audio drift. His music is brilliantly balanced between meditative calm & the poignancy of dawn, another day is awakening and this journey can be seen to symbolise both reflection & hope for the approaching day ahead. Some smashing work here, pretty evocative in all its minimal, ponderous majesty. Ltd to 200 on the ever popular Hibernate."

Relmic Statute live 11th March, Hebden Bridge, UK. more info