Ambient / Minimal / Drone
1286 products
Here is a hidden gem from the 1990s, a sparkling cyber-ambient-Mandarin pop collection produced by Henry Kawahara, the master of cyber-occult music, with silky vocals from Shanghai-born vocalist Xiao Yun Wu. Originally released on CD in 1994 on Kawahara’s own HMD label, the Xiao Yun project was launched by Kawahara and his trusted colleague Keisuke Oki, who plays keyboards on the album. Kawahara handled the production, along with guitar, keyboards and programming. And of course, the crowning glory is the voice of Xiao Yun: lovely, floating, ethereal. The singer arranged the songs, which range from versions of previously released Kawahara solo pieces to Mandarin pop classics. All songs are given Kawahara’s cyber-occult sheen, which may evoke visions of the cosmopolitan Asia of near-future science fiction. Available on vinyl and digital download, this album will transport you, via 1994, to a sparkling future.
Xiao Yun are
Xiao Yun Wu: vocals
Henry Kawahara: keyboards, guitars and computer programming
Support: Keisuke Oki (keyboards) and Keiichi Hasegawa (percussion)
Produced and engineered by Henry Kawahara
Arranged by Henry Kawahara and Xiao Yun
Recorded at Ecosystem Sonic Division/Fukuoka, 1993-1994
Download card includes bonus track "Revelation."
Cindy Lee is the brainchild of singer / guitarist Patrick Flegel. While some may know Flegel from their time spent in Canadian experimental indie band Women, Cindy Lee has spent the past four years crafting songs that push and pull in opposing directions – from tales of tragedy laced with haywire distortion to moments of breathtaking beauty.
On Malenkost, Flegel combines everything that makes Cindy Lee so essential: heart-wrenching romantic pleas, rough shards of noise and twilit ballads. Featuring the lo-fi pop single "A Message From The Aching Sky," Malenkost sounds like Deerhunter playing The Supremes or vice versa.
Superior Viaduct's imprint W.25TH presents the first of many Cindy Lee releases. Spectral and timeless, the music of Cindy Lee is hauntingly familiar yet of another plane, a magical collision of Brill Building hooks and uncompromising No Wave.
Dominique Lawalrée (b. 1954) is a composer born and based in Brussels. First Meeting is Lawalrée's first archival release to date. Culled from four different albums originally self-published on his private label Editions Walrus, circa 1978-1982, this compilation highlights the composer's unique sense of ambient and minimal composition. Originally considered for release on Brian Eno's Obscure Records, Lawalrée's music is now no longer hidden.
In this collection the listener finds the sounds of piano, synthesizers, percussion, wurlitzer, organ, and voice, all performed by Lawalrée. Using these tools Dominique creates miniature themes that gallop across the speakers in slow motion, stretching our normal sense of dynamics and color, effortlessly widening the stereo plane. On “Musique Satieerique,” Dominique pays homage to the influence of Satie with simple repeated piano figures and a lush field of organs and flutes. And on other selections, like “Le Maison Des 5 Elements,” he takes a more wistful, ambient approach, layering keyboard lines, and invoking found/tape sounds to create a hypnogogic world of his own. Childlike in its playfulness and surreal to the bone, the music spins like a carrousel placed inside the Rothko Chapel. Lawalrée’s sense of timbre, tone, and overarching composition is like an impression of a home movie whose charm lies in its knowledge of intimacy, shared by few. An incantation of innocence.
"a quiet, understated music that is both touching and elegant" - Gavin Bryars