MUSIC

Finally compiled on CD, Mark Fell & Will Guthrie’s Infoldings / Diffractions is an inspirational, almost 80 minute long study in four parts, informed by Gamelan and South Indian Carnatic musics. Essential listening if you’re into Autechre, Michael Ranta, The Necks, Milford Graves. Infoldings / Diffractions combines synthesis and acoustic percussion in unpredictable, pointillist arrangements where Guthrie plays against patterns derived from Max MSP patches by Fell. The album’s four longform expositions are in this sense different to the man-machine concept of Fell’s acclaimed ‘Intra’ album, where he triggered performances by Portugal’s Drumming Grupo De Percussão to play a metallophone designed by Iannis Xenakis. Here, the pair find common and sometimes contrasting purpose in a probing of rhythmic signatures, with groundbreaking results. Recorded at HFG, Karlsruhe (where Fell is guest professor), and finished later in respective isolation, the pieces were edited from iterations of call-and-response between Fell’s rhythmic patterns and Guthrie’s overdubs. They effectively propose beguiling solutions to electronic music’s problems with grid-lock, using generative processing to make physical actions seem unfeasibly effortless, while melting the computer’s clock to a real-time, free-hand syncopation. Taking the influence of gamelan and fusing it with the fractal computer music that Fell has obsessively picked-at over the last four decades, the duo zoom into a sound that’s completely captivating; mutating into polyrhythmic outer-realms and eerie universes of microtonality that are hard to fathom in a single sitting. There are trace echoes of free jazz hanging from the rafters, the post-everything chatter of Humcrush and Food drummer Thomas Strønen’s mind-expanding solo material or even Autechre at their most confounding. The genius here is that just as you convince yourself that the music could only possibly have been generated by a computer, Guthrie’s unmistakably human flex edges into focus - playing with perception and expectation in the most wild, liquid way imaginable.

The folk arts of Japan, including music, are an ever-evolving wonderland. Riyo Mountains, a Tokyo-based folk song research/DJ duo, is actively documenting the folk music of various regions in Japan; here they present the fifth in their series of musical documents on EM Records. This particular release focuses on the thunderous drums and powerful vocal phrases of the singular Nanyatoyara dance and song, featured at summer festivals in the northern prefectures of Iwate and Aomori, places with long winters that engender joyous summer celebrations. Nanyatoyara has been a part of local summer festivals in this region for hundreds of years, always evolving. The recordings here, with versions from 2002, 2015 and 2023, featuring impassioned and enthusiastic residents young and old, illustrate the gradual changes which occur over time, all the while adhering to the core and soul of the dance. The pounding, insistent drums and the call-and-response vocals generate a propulsive, irresistible momentum, a jubilant celebration of life and the bounty of summer. Available on CD and DL; the CD version includes a 20-page booklet featuring English liner notes with translations of the lyrics. Here comes the summer!

Riyo Mountains:
Japanese folk song DJ duo formed by Takehiko Satō and Takumi Saitō. They are resident DJs at the renowned party "Soi48". They produce the Japanese folk song mix-CD series entitled "Riyo Mountains Mix" and also direct and supervise the reissue series of Japanese folk music on EM Records, including the releases "Yumi-kagura", "Sakai Ishinage Odori", "Kizaki Ondo" and "Osharaku".They have appeared as DJs at many events/radio programs including NHK, NTS (London) and Japanese traditional festivals.

After the box-office failure of my second film Aparajito ("The Undefeated"), I was a bit undecided about what kind of film I should make next. After thinking about it, I decided to make a film about singing and dancing. I chose a popular short story, Jalsaghar, about the last days of a feudal baron who loved music. I was lucky enough to be able to employ important singers and musicians for this film. As a composer, I chose the great sitar virtuoso Vilayat Khan, who was ably assisted by his younger brother, Imrat Khan, also a sitar virtuoso. Both together provided superb solos and duets for the film's background music, which, with the exception of the violin, uses only Indian instruments. The entire background music is based on raga.

When we established Balmat in 2021, neither of us could have imagined that within two years, we’d be putting out an album by one of our musical heroes: Mike Paradinas, aka µ-Ziq. The British producer has been an inspiration to label co-founders Albert Salinas and Philip Sherburne since the 1990s. In fact, his album-length remix project The Auteurs Vs µ-Ziq was one of the very first pieces of electronic music that Philip bought, way back in 1994. To have the opportunity to release his music now feels like a real full-circle moment. Paradinas, of course, needs no introduction. Under a slew of aliases, chief among them µ-Ziq, the British artist revolutionized leftfield electronic music in the 1990s—coincidentally, this year marks the 30th anniversary of his debut album, Tango N’ Vectif, for his friend and sometime collaborator Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label—and his label Planet Mu has built up a formidable catalog of visionary, forward-looking records, mapping virtually every corner of the electronic spectrum. With 1977, he turns the clock backward in a sense, and not just with the album’s title: Rooted in classic ambient and electronic sounds, these 15 tracks evoke the anything-goes spirit of the early ’90s, before the tools and tropes had calcified into cut-and-dried styles. There’s no shortage of familiar sounds on 1977. There are echoes of raves and chillout rooms and transmissions from the fringes of techno; there are detuned synths and glistening reverb tails and, above all, gauzy vox pads, the eerie glue that holds it all together. The title, he says, is meant to invoke a general sense of nostalgia, bookmarking a year in his boyhood when he became more self-aware. More than anything, 1977 sounds like µ-Ziq distilled: Stripped of his signature breakbeats and customary chaos, Paradinas’ first-ever strictly (well, mostly) ambient album presents the essence of his music in a whole new light. Along the way Paradinas touches on dark-ambient drones (“Marmite”), horror-film themes (“Belt & Carpet”), jungle breaks (“Mesolithic Jungle”), and even house music (“Houzz 13”), which marks the first bona fide dance-floor moment on Balmat to date). Yet the album never—to our ears, anyway—feels expressly retro. Rather, Paradinas plucks timeless sounds out of the ether and gives them a gentle tap, spinning them into unexpected new orbits. At times, 1977 feels like an experience of extended déjà vu: When we first listened to it, we had the sense that we already knew this music. It was as though we had heard it years ago, perhaps on a battered cassette tape lent to us by a friend, and been searching for it ever since. We hope you feel the same.

Merengue Típico: Nueva Generación! delves into the heart of Dominican merengue, a genre whose significance often eludes the spotlight. Bongo Joe's venture into unexplored terrain takes us to the Caribbean, specifically the Dominican Republic, shedding light on its musical tapestry. Curated by Xavier Daive, aka Funky Bompa, the compilation unveils rare '60s and '70s gems, providing a glimpse into a transformative period following the fall of the Trujillo regime. With over 20 years in the Dominican Republic, Xavier Daive meticulously sources original 45s, offering a snapshot of merengue's evolution during a creatively charged era post-Trujillo. The genre's roots, dating back to the 19th-century Dominican Republic, predate salsa, establishing its unique identity with the introduction of accordions via German trade ships. The genre's classic típico configuration emerged in the mid-'60s, leaving a lasting impact on its evolution. Focused on the explosive '60s and '70s merengue típico scene, influenced by genre pioneers like “Tatico” Henríquez and Trio Reynoso, the compilation showcases technical finesse and high-speed rhythms. Tracks like Rafaelito Román’s "Que Mala Suerte" embody the genre's infectious energy. Aristides Ramírez’s "Los Lanbones" adds a touch of humor, cautioning against pub freeloaders. Merengue Típico: Nueva Generación transcends the realms of a typical reissue; it's an immersive journey into the roots of Dominican merengue, expanding its narrative beyond borders to enrich the global musical landscape. This compilation goes beyond individual tracks, providing a historical and cultural context, enriching our understanding of the genre's evolution in the Dominican Republic during a crucial period. Designed for both connoisseurs and wild dancefloors, this compilation is not only a historical and cultural exploration but also a treasure trove for DJs seeking to infuse their sets with the vibrant rhythms of merengue típico.

Born in 1966, Uday Bhawalkar studied Dhrupad for more than 12 years, following the traditional method of transmission from guru to disciple (guru-shishya parampara), under the supervision of Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar and Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar, and in 1987 was awarded the Dagar Swarna Padak prize by the legendary Ustad Nasir Aminuddin Dagar Sahab of Senior Dagar Brothers – all three of them members of the Dagar Family who have been passing on this music tradition since the 15th century. In addition to performing at the most prestigious classical Indian music festivals since a young age, Uday Bhawalkar has collaborated internationally with artists from different music traditions, amongst whom the choreographer Astad Deboo and the Ensemble Modern of contemporary music. He has also contributed to the soundtrack of films such as Cloud Door by Mani Kaul, Mr & Mrs Iyer by Aparna Sen, Anahat by Amol Palekar, and more. AngelicA invited Uday Bhawalkar to perform in Bologna twice, in 2008 and 2019. Despite a decades-long career his production has been poorly documented on records, and it is now enriched by Raga Yaman (IDA 053), on which he is accompanied by Manik Munde on the pakhavaj (a two-headed horizontal drum) and by Aniruddha Joshi and Chintan Upadhyay on tanpuras. The recording is not of one of his concerts in Bologna (during which he performed the same raga), but of a rendition of the same piece considered particularly significant, which had been privately pressed on CD by Bhawalkar only for personal use in 2006. Raga Yaman is a raga, based on an heptatonic scale, considered one of the most important and fundamental of the Hindustani tradition. It is often the first to be taught to students, but it also offers great opportunities of improvisation, and it is a raga that has been recorded by historic artists such as Ustad Vilayat Khan, Pandit Pran Nath (in the Yaman Kalyan variant), and Uday’s maester himself Zia Mohiuddin Dagar, on one of his CDs from 1991 in which one of the two accompanist on the tanpura was Uday himself.

After to have been released on our other imprints/labels eilean rec. (2015) and IIKKI (2017), it was obviously evident to host the new masterpiece from Masaya Ozaki, "Mizukara", his fourth release. A beautiful immersion in the variety of his sounds imprints, using some field-recordings, electro-acoustic and textures to give his excellence to the ambient range. Masaya Ozaki is a New York/Iceland-based composer born in Niigata, Japan. His work examines the idea of space as a transient entity, the subtleties behind small moments, the sensitivity of the ephemera, and the future of sound in an exceedingly materialistic world. He often finds inspiration in nature, the fragility of human interactions, and the momentums behind them. Masaya's artwork materializes as field recordings and compositions for ensembles, film, dance, visual, and experimental arts. ‘’This Album is a reflection of my current life in Iceland. Where does the self begin and where does it end ? ‘’

Echoes, Spaces, Lines collects Trans-Millenia Consort, Plot Zero, and Spectre, the first three albums by the late West Coast composer, healer, and medium Pauline Anna Strom. Exploring all corners of the multiverse through transpersonal form and freedom, Strom’s first three albums share a singular sensibility, different streams flowing from the same oracular font. Echoes, Spaces, Lines establishes Strom’s rightful place in the canon of great synthesists. Restored and mixed from the original reels by Marta Salogni, newly remastered, and adding Oceans of Tears, a fully realized but previously unreleased album exclusive to this box set, these are the first official reissues and the definitive encapsulation of Pauline Anna Strom’s prolific and visionary early work. This four LP box set includes a 12-page booklet containing liner notes, an unearthed interview with Strom, and unseen ephemera.

Following on from last year’s acclaimed Vrindavan 1982 by rudra veena master Z.M. Dagar, Black Truffle is thrilled to present a pair of archival releases from the Dagar Brothers, among the most revered 20th century exponents of the ancient North Indian dhrupad tradition. The vocal duo of Moinuddin and Aminuddin Dagar (sometimes referred to as the ‘senior’ Dagar Brothers to distinguish them from their younger siblings, Zahiruddin and Faiyazuddin Dagar), belonged to the nineteenth generation of a family of musicians in which dhrupad tradition has been kept alive through patrilinear transmission, each generation undergoing a rigorous education of many years’ duration that can include singing up to twelve hours each day.

Famed for the meditative purity of their approach to dhrupad, the Dagar Brothers helped to keep the tradition alive in the years after Indian independence in 1947, when the royal courts that had traditionally patronised dhrupad musicians were abolished. Many Western listeners were first introduced to dhrupad by the Dagar Brothers’ tour of Europe in 1964-65 and their LP in UNESCO’s ‘Musical Anthology of the Orient’ collection, both organised by pioneering musicologist and scholar of Indian culture Alain Daniélou. Documents from this tour are especially precious, as Moinuddin Dagar passed away in 1966. Unheard until now, Berlin 1964 – Live (released alongside BT114, a newly discovered studio session from the same trip) documents a concert held at the Charlottenburg Palace in September 1964.

Accompanied only by Moinuddin’s wife Saiyur on tanpura and Raja Chatrapati Singh on pakhawaj (a large double-headed drum), the brothers present stunning performances of two ragas stretching out over 65 minutes, exemplifying what a journalist at the time called the ‘pristine severity’ of their style. Much of each piece is taken up by the alap, the highly improvised exposition section where the notes of the raga are gradually introduced as the singing builds in intensity. As Francesca Cassio points out in her extensive liner notes, both performances are somewhat unorthodox in beginning with the raga scale being sung in its entirety, ascending and descending; this is probably, as she suggests, a strategy to introduce the European audience to the language of the music they are about to hear. From there, both ragas settle into alaps of breathtaking beauty, with the two brothers trading long solo passages that move gradually from extended held notes at the bottom of the scale to animated melodic variations as it ascends in pitch. Within the atmosphere of meditative attention, the range of melodic, rhythmic, and timbral invention is remarkable. Especially on the opening ‘Rāga Miyān kī Todī’, the final moments of the alap find the voices at a peak of intensity, their microtonal ornamentation taking on an ecstatic, warbling quality. Only once the wordless, free-floating alap is over and the composition proper begins to the brothers sing in unison, joined by the pakhawaj for a rhythmic section that in both ragas develops gradually into a propulsive display of melodic invention and metrical nuance. Accompanied by detailed liner notes and striking archival images, Berlin 1964 – Live is a rare document of these masterful exponents of one of the world’s most profound musical traditions. 

Dream Walker is an album intended for late nights. For those moments when you are ready to let go of your physical self and transcend momentarily into another world. Dream Walker is also an album about someone who can walk between dreams. One who can surpass the boundaries of reality and slip into unseen worlds. A visitor who is writing a sonic story with every step he takes. Dream Walker is also a love letter to all the music I love. I set out to make something that sounded good to my ears with no preconceptions or limitations, so it wears its influences on its sleeve. When you listen, if you start to feel like you know, then you know. Every sound was made with hardware, mostly synthesizers, in 2023. It is also true that it was made by attempting to enter a trance state while recording each of these tracks and letting the subconscious take control to put a touch of otherness in the mix. And that is that. I hope you enjoy this record. It was always intended to end in this form and to find a way into your ears. Believe Walker, believe. –Carlos Giffoni, November 2023

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” —Pascal Graham Lambkin (of Shadow Ring fame) returns with a long awaited epic double LP, Aphorisms, his first major solo outing since Community (Kye, 2016). Recorded mostly during the early winter months of 2022, in post-pandemic New York and post-Brexit London, Aphorisms assembles the sonic detritus of daily life into hauntingly intimate aural soundscapes. Made between Lambkin's residence in East London and Blank Forms in New York, Aphorisms superimposes the two spaces onto one another creating an imaginary stage where his musical dramas unfold. A transatlantic mediation on the rooms where Lambkin has lived and worked, Aphorisms summons up hallucinatory vistas by way of the composer’s collage technique, layering field recordings, piano, guitar, percussion, vocal fragments, and repurposed elements on top of one another in double, triple, and quadruple exposures. Like the Shadow Ring’s Lindus (Swill Radio, 2001)—recorded between Folkestone and Miami—Aphorisms ruminates on estrangement and displacement, catching Lambkin as he returns to London after two decades of living in the States, in his words, “leaving home to return home.” Aphorisms continues Lambkin’s synthetic-naturalist approach to sound-making, twisting disparate and unique elements together to create the sensation of a coherent sonic space. At the heart of his practice is the illusion of form, whereby Lambkin combines sonic elements, documenting the moment that they coalesce into music only to disintegrate back into incidental sound. The album is centered around two pianos, one in New York and one in London, sounding together as if through the ether, creating a spectral atmosphere that Lambkin fills with melodic snippets, fragments of songs, spoken-word musings, and guttural barks or “the animal purity of voice,” as he has it. The superimposition of the two spaces is maximized in the album's closing titular track, where, much like on earlier works such as Salmon Run (Kye, 2007) and Softly Softly Copy Copy (Kye, 2009) fragments of familiar melodies float through the mix as though being played from afar. Aphorisms is Lambkin at his best, extending methodologies only hinted at previously and taking his now-idiosyncratic mission statement to a new chapter. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

Blank Forms, a curatorial platform and non-profit organization dedicated to the presentation and preservation of experimental performance, is proud to announce the arrival of its latest collection of works by Catherine Christer Hennix and Masayuki Takayanagi. Don Cherry (1936-1995), a pioneer of free jazz as the right-hand man of Ornette Coleman, and his wife, Swedish visual artist/designer Moki Cherry (1943-2009), have been attracting attention for their collaborations with Coltrane. Don's music, Moki's art, and the family's life in the Swedish countryside of Tågarp were integrated into one comprehensive entity in the miraculous reissue of Organic Music Theatre. This reissue features the historic premiere of the piece at the 1972 Festival de Chateauvallon in Chateauvallon, southern France, mastered from tapes recorded during a live broadcast on public television. It is a mastered reissue of a tape recorded live on public television. The performance marked the beginning of a communal and "mystical" period that would culminate in soundtracks and other works. Performing in this outdoor amphitheater were such luminaries as Moki Cherry, Christer Bothén, Gérard "Doudou" Gouirand, and Naná Vasconcelos, as well as Swedish friends who accompanied them on their trip to France, and Copenhagen Christiania A dozen or so adults and children participated, including Swedish friends who accompanied me on my trip to France and Det Lilla Circus (The Little Circus), a Danish puppet theater based in Copenhagen Christiania. It was truly a breathtaking sound world!

Emotion and Reason. Past and present.
The pianist Nobuko Kondo, who highly integrates conflicting elements to create a well-honed musical world, plays richly flavored Bach. While Kondo has expanded her international activities through first and second prizes at the Artur Schnabel Competition and prizes at the Busoni International Competition, she has also been active in premiering new works and performing contemporary music, including Stockhausen's works, Bach has always been present in her activities.
Included on this CD are six works that were featured in a 2014 recital and garnered rave reviews from all quarters. Each of the six works encompasses a completely different style, and Kondo sublimates them with a high degree of emotional and rational integration, while maintaining the philosophy of the works themselves. The unique, one-of-a-kind, and solitary Bach resonates from a unique piano and contemporary perspective.

[1]-[2] Chromatische Fantasie und Fuge d-moll BWV903
Fantasia
Fuga

[3]-[4] Fantasie und Fuge a-moll BWV904
Fantasia
Fuga

[5]-[6] Ricercar a 3 / Ricercar a 6 aus dem „Musikalischen Opfer“ BWV1079
Ricercar a 3
Ricercar a 6

[7]-[12] Capriccio B-dur sopra la lontananza de il fratro dilettissimo BWV992
1. Arioso. Adagio
2.
3. Adagiosissimo
4.
5. Aria di Postiglione. Allegro poco
6. Fuga all’imitatione di Posta

[13]-[16] Vier Duette BWV802-805
Duetto I e-moll BWV802
Duetto II F-dur BWV803
Duetto III G-dur BWV804
Duetto IV a-moll BWV805

[17]-[19] Concerto nach Italienischem Gusto F-dur BWV 971
1.
2. Andante
3. Presto

[20] Ricercar a 6 aus dem „Musikalischen Opfer“ BWV1079 (Bonus Track)

Nobuko Kondo
D. in Instrumental Music from Tokyo University of the Arts. D. for her thesis and performance of Stockhausen's piano music, and received the Bunka Hoso Music Award. She was awarded the Bunka Hoso Music Prize, and studied at the Berlin University of the Arts as a scholarship student of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) from 1986 to 1988, graduating with the highest honors. He won a prize at the Busoni International Competition and was awarded the Nancy Miller Memorial Prize at the William Kapell International Piano Competition in 1990. He has performed with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra Berlin, Haydn Orchestra (Italy), Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo University of the Arts Orchestra, and many others. In 1993, she began the recital series "Piano Music of the 20th Century". In recent years, she has also concentrated on the works of J. S. Bach, especially her recitals in 2000 and 2005 of the complete works from "The Well-Tempered Clavier, Volumes I and II", which were highly acclaimed. She has also released the CDs "J.S. Bach Toccata Complete Works," "New Viennese Music School Piano Works," and "Nobuko Kondo Plays J.S. Bach" (specially selected for "Record Geijutsu"), which have been well received. In April 2017, he spent a year in Berlin as a long-term overseas trainee at Kunitachi College of Music, where he conducted research focusing on Beethoven's piano works. She is currently a professor at Kunitachi College of Music.

A timeless minimal ambient masterpiece that was released only in CDR in 2003.

Before coming to Europe, in 1970, pianist Manuel Villarroel was a vet in his native Chilli. A few years later, as leader of the Machi Oul Big Band, he returned to the animal kingdom. A very specific kind of animal, for sure, the Quetzalcoatl, also known as the Feathered Serpent. What is behind this title (also the name of one of the three original compositions on this album released on the Palm label in 1976), is first and foremost a sort of homecoming… After discovering the jazz of Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Miles Davis and John Coltrane, Villarroel was taken by the free jazz which was all the rage at the time in America and Europe, and this would inspire the first version of his Machi-Oul, project. This was a septet, with which the pianist would record, in 1971, the tremendous Terremoto (re-released by Souffle Continu FFL085). After this masterstroke Villarroel was invited to record with Perception (Perception & Friends) and with Baikida Carroll (Orange Fish Tears). While these were notable contributions, Villarroel was already looking into other combinations. “I had to deal personally with my situation as an expatriate, without disavowing it. I tried not to betray my roots, I tried to translate into my music what was essential to me, to reflect my origins – Latin America, its musical and above all human feelings – while remaining faithful to jazz, which is the mode of expression of the musicians in the group”. This then is the ‘homecoming’ we mentioned, which would incite Manuel Villarroel to compose what he would call “structured free music”. In January 1972 the pianist enlarged his formation to reach the size of a real big band: the Septet became the Machi-Oul Big Band. Three years later in January 1975, with producer Jef Gilson at the helm, fifteen musicians including those from the old Septet (Jef Sicard, François and Jean-Louis Méchali, Gérard Coppéré) worked on a rare form of jazz. From togetherness to dissonance, we danse to it “Bolerito” then shake it up on “Leyendas De Nahuelbuta”. As for the concluding serpent, it is a piece which is impossible to pin down: “Quetzalcoat” is as impressive as it is difficult to grasp. To remind ourselves of this, lets listen to it again.

To abandon animals for music – and avant-garde jazz at that –, could seeming shocking to some people. However, it is exactly what Manuel Villarroel did, as he was a vet for three years before leaving his native Chili for Europe and a career in music. And though the animals may have suffered, the world of music can be grateful. Born in 1944, Manuel Villarroel lent an ear to the best pianists from North America: Oscar Peterson and Erroll Garner then Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and Cecil Taylor. Manuel left Santiago in September 1970 to participate in the Contemporary Music Workshop in Berlin. To pursue his musical career, he rapidly decided to remain in Europe. The following year in Paris, Manuel began a quartet with saxophonist Jef Sicard (who would also play with his brother Patricio, in the Dharma Quintet). But the group would rapidly expand: Villarroel and Sicard added Gérard Coppéré (saxophone), William Treve (trombone), François Méchali (bass) and Jean-Louis Méchali (drums). And with the arrival of Sonny Grey, a Jamaican trumpeter heard ten years earlier with Daniel Humair, the Matchi-Oul Septet was complete. Complete and ready: on May 8th, 1971, Matchi-Oul was in the studio for Gérard Terronès’ Futura label. The septet recorded seven of the pianist’s compositions. A succession of tracks which flow magically from one to the next: from the first drum strokes to the last deep notes of the bass, the successive waves roll over the piano and whistle through the wind instruments. And when they all come together it gives even greater force to Villarroel’s beautiful songs. Terremoto is a masterpiece of collective expression: but what else could we expect from a “supergroup’’ of this stature?

Recorded in 2007 and 2008, Cursory Asperses was created with cassette tape recordings of water sounds from various rivers, streams, lakes, beaches, and pools, combined with direct to tape instrument recordings from synthesizers, an organ, cello, piano, and bowed instruments. Instead of traditionally mixing these, at the time we were interested in software, using free Mac OS Classic programs such as Audiosculpt and Soundhack. Before we had a DAW, before VSTs, we used non-realtime convolution processing through software, using the water recordings as an impulse for the instrument sounds. The instrument sounds were "arranged" (by adding silence before, during, or after) in layered, visual swathes, to create an audio interpretation of the movement of water and waves, slowly evolving and shifting, for a meditation on deep and focused listening. Opposed to passivity, where sounds become lost in distant tones and layers upon layers are misinterpreted as single, meaningless tones. Or, it's just as meaningless as the passing of water, the flow of rivers - the crashes of sparkling ocean waves, all those sounds that we recognize. The tones are unpolished, left in their fuzzy form, with the high noise crushed into the deep. Behind the swells, and under the depths is a longing, or a lack thereof. It's passing by, no different than it was years before.

When words trail off at the beginning of claire rousay’s “everything perfect is already here,” ornate instrumentation is waiting to fill a void left by the breakdown of language. Yet it becomes clear as we trace rousay’s collaged sonic pathway that breakdown, of meaning and also of melody, is also a place to rest. everything perfect… is made up of two extended compositions that cycle between familiarity and unknowing. There are seemingly infinite ways to feel in response to these pieces of music, which shift tone across their languid duration, earnest like a familiar song but unbound from the emotional didacticisms of lyrical voice and pop form. rousay builds a fluid landscape around the acoustic contributions of Alex Cunningham (violin), Mari Maurice (electronics and violin), Marilu Donovan (harp), and Theodore Cale Schafer (piano), whose respective melodies weave gently in and out, sometimes steady, sometimes aching, sometimes receding altogether in deference to less overtly musical sounds. That is, percussive texture in the form of unvarnished samples and field recordings: the rattle and rustle and the stops and starts of life unfurling, voices sharing memories nearly out of reach, doors closing, wind against a microphone. Everything comes from somewhere in particular, possessing the veneer of the diaristic, but sound’s provenance is secondary here and so these details become tangled and fused. On this release I hear such details not as individual ornaments or stories but the collective architecture of the greater composition. It’s an architecture that is not quite formed and thus full of openings out to the world unfolding. “The world unfolding,” that’s a kind way of saying change, movement, loss, transformation. Things rousay here indexes, not without shards of desire or pain, still somehow what I hear is coarse peace in the in-between. These two pieces sweep you away and then bring you to earth, but which is which, anyway? Where am I now? What is different outside of me? What is different inside of me? Um. I think. everything is perfect is already here, like the answers to these questions, is loose and beautiful in surprising ways. The music guides a certain experience of the world around. In claire’s music there is this marriage—not just a pairing or juxtaposition but an interrelationship, an eventual confusion—of song/texture, narrative/abstraction, figure/ground. Everything comes from somewhere in particular but not just the voices, the field recordings, the what is being said or meant, what matters is “the where you are now.” There are so many ways of anchoring oneself in the present, some have to do with fantasy or storytelling and some with accepting what is. These two compositions find peace between these modes. They sweep you away and then bring you to earth, but which is which, anyway? Their mode of feeling is inquisitive. Where am I now? What has changed outside of me? What has changed inside of me? The music, like the answers to these questions, is loose and beautiful in surprising ways.

Opening the window, I look at the light, it connects me to something more vast. Felicia Atkinson’s music always puts the listener somewhere in particular. There are two categories of place that are important to Image Language: the house and the landscape. Inside and outside, different ways of orienting a body towards the world. They are in dialogue, insofar as in the places Atkinson made this record—Leman Lake, during a residency at La Becque in Switzerland, and at her home on the wild coast of Normandy—the landscape is what is waiting for you when you leave the house, and vice-versa. Each threatens—or is it offers, kindly, even promises?—to dissolve the other. Recognizing the normalization of home studios these days, she revisited twentieth-century women artists who variously chose, and were chosen by, their homes as a place to work: the desert retreats of Agnes Martin and Georgia O’Keefe, the life and death of Sylvia Plath. Building a record is like building a house: a structure in which one can encounter oneself, each room a song with its own function in the project of everyday life. At times listening to Image Langage is immediate, something like visiting a house by the sea, sharing the same ground, being invited to witness Atkinson’s acts of seeing, hearing, and reading in a sonic double of the places they occurred. In an aching moment of clarity in “The Lake is Speaking,” a pair of voices emerge out of the primordial murk of piano and organ, accompanying the listener to the edge of a reflective pool that makes a mirror of the cosmos. “I open my feet to fresh dirt, and the wet grass. I hold your hand. You hold his hand. In the distance without any distance. The comets, the stars.” At other times, listening to Image Language is more like being in a theater, the composition a tangle of flickering forms and media that illuminate as best they can the darkness from which we experience it. On “Pieces of Sylvia,” a noirish orchestra drones and clatters beneath and around a montage of vocal images, stretching the listener across time, space, subjectivities. Atkinson says that Image Language is like the fake title of a fake Godard film. There is indeed something cinematic about Atkinson’s work—not cinematic in the sense that it sounds like the score for someone else’s film, but cinematic in the sense that it produces its own images and language and narratives, a kind of deliberate, dimensional world-building in sound. Image Langage is built from instruments recorded as if field recordings, sound-images of instruments conjured from a keyboard, instruments Atkinson treats like characters, what she calls “a fantasy of an orchestra that doesn’t exist.” And then, speaking of Godard, there are the monologues, operating as both experimental-cinematic device and a literary style of narration. Voice can be a writerly anchor or a wisp of a textural presence. Atkinson’s capacious and slippery speech plunges into and out of the compositional depths, shifting shapes, channeling the voices of any number of beings, subjectivities, or elements of her surroundings—not unlike her midi keyboard, able to speak as a vast array of instruments. Image Langage is an environmental record, in the vastest sense of the world. It is about getting lost in places imagined and real; it registers, too, the dizzying feeling of moving between such sites. It puts forth a concept of self that is hopelessly entangled with the rest of the world, born of both the ache of distance and the warmth of proximity. — Thea Ballard, 02.2022

Trances, Jules Reidy’s follow-up to the celebrated World in World (2022), takes place in between states, tracing a kind of restless movement in search of—or is it away from?—a center. The twelve tracks shift between fragment and epic, returning to familiar phrases between forays outward into uncertain expanses. Through its exploration of the cyclical movements of grief and emotional turbulence, Trances produces a sonic world as raw, absorbing, and surprising as anything Reidy has created to date. Trances’ primary instrument is a custom hexaphonic electric guitar tuned in Just Intonation. Reidy’s combination of fingerpicked phrases, open strums, and corrugated processing push on the grammar of guitar-driven experimentalism, locating expressive heft in open-ended harmonics and the odd angles formed by overlapping elements. Chords are slowed and stretched as if to examine their resonance, then overtaken by subterranean motion. The effect is that of oceanic depth, but the rippling that passes between the compositions’ sedimentary layers often takes on a metallic edge. The addition of synthesizers, sampled 12-string guitar, field recordings, and half-submerged autotuned voice further denaturalize the compositions. Reidy’s vocal interjections—their particular linguistic content rendered inaccessible—are based on counting and self-observational techniques for bringing oneself back into the present; at times Reidy’s picking also assumes a mantra-like quality, though ultimately the flow of the composition subsumes both. There is a heavy sense of the strange throughout these songs, which bleed at their edges into a continuous, questioning whole. That Reidy’s compositions here have a tendency to engulf the listener, like a wave or a squall, can be variously comforting and disorienting. Either way, we are fortunate to follow Reidy on such a journey.

Ndox Electrique results from the collaboration between François R. Cambuzat, Gianna Greco (also known for their work with Ifriqiyya Electrique), and the n'doëp community in Senegal. The project originated from the duo's quest to trace the origins of North African rituals, which led them to the Lebu community in Cap-Vert, an isolated region at Africa's westernmost point. The album seamlessly blends the duo's electronically-infused avant-rock with the intense, ritualistic vocal chants and rhythmic percussion of the n'doëp ceremony. It serves as a captivating bridge between these two musical worlds, capturing the essence of this cross-cultural collaboration. The text also highlights the challenges of merging Western rock and experimental influences with the sensibilities of their Senegalese collaborators, ultimately resulting in a unique and powerful musical experience. "Ndox Electrique" transcends cultural boundaries, immersing listeners in the enchanting sounds and mystical narratives of Western Africa.

In August 2022, Australia-based, French born fourth-world music legend Ariel Kalma was invited to participate in BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction series of special collaborations. The program pairs artists who have not previously worked together to create new music cooperatively. Kalma was quick to suggest working with two musicians whom he had never met – International Anthem recording artists Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer, whose critically-acclaimed duo debut 'Recordings from the Åland Islands' had been released just a few months earlier. An invitation was sent to Chiu and Honer, which was received with great enthusiasm, as Chiu had long been a fan of Kalma’s work, even citing him as a major influence on his approach to electronic music composition. The essential structure of the Late Junction collaboration was that the artists would work together to create around twenty minutes of music. They began passing music back and forth, some that Kalma had started, and some that Honer & Chiu had started, with each adding to or editing the track before returning it to the other. The music would only go back and forth a few times before being finalized. After meeting their twenty minute goal for the program (four pieces total), the three musicians were satisfied in what they would present and sent along their work to the producers of Late Junction. However, there was a nagging suspicion that this wasn’t the end of the story. There were several pieces that they had nearly completed but that weren’t sent for inclusion in the radio program, and there were many ideas for refining those pieces that had. With this in mind Kalma, Chiu and Honer agreed that they would continue to work together to try to push the music further. The freshly minted trio felt like there was much more to be said and more work to be done. The Late Junction program was broadcast in September of 2022. Simultaneously, Kalma, Chiu and Honer began expanding upon the music they had started for the purpose of the broadcast, working diligently on the music for several months. After meeting their twenty minute goal for the program (four pieces total), the three musicians were satisfied in what they would present and sent along their work to the producers of Late Junction. However, there was a nagging suspicion that this wasn’t the end of the story. There were several pieces that they had nearly completed but that weren’t sent for inclusion in the radio program, and there were many ideas for refining those pieces that had. With this in mind Kalma, Chiu and Honer agreed that they would continue to work together to try to push the music further. The freshly minted trio felt like there was much more to be said and more work to be done. The Late Junction program was broadcast in September of 2022. Simultaneously, Kalma, Chiu and Honer began expanding upon the music they had started for the purpose of the broadcast, working diligently on the music for several months. Their collective approach to this work was born in improvisation and realized via collage-based editing. The end result brings several distinct musical moments — recorded sometimes decades apart — into conversation with one another, forming new narratives from building blocks of old ones. There are snippets of improvised playing from each musician, edited together with recordings that Kalma had made in the 70s at GRM, and even moments of audio notes — like Kalma explaining his ideas — that would make it into the final mixes. Their collective approach to this work was born in improvisation and realized via collage-based editing. The end result brings several distinct musical moments — recorded sometimes decades apart — into conversation with one another, forming new narratives from building blocks of old ones. There are snippets of improvised playing from each musician, edited together with recordings that Kalma had made in the 70s at GRM, and even moments of audio notes — like Kalma explaining his ideas — that would make it into the final mixes. Ultimately, the collection of music highlights the work of all three musicians, intertwining the contextual immersion heard on Chiu & Honer’s 'Recordings from the Åland Islands' with an intergenerational reverence for (and the undeniable presence of) Kalma’s decades-spanning body of work. It is work that has definitively enshrined him as one of the true, transcendent pioneers and sages of new age and fourth-world music. That reverence is affirmed by the album title chosen by the group — "The Closest Thing to Silence" — which is taken from a quote by Kalma included in a documentary by RVNG Intl (as part of their release of the 2014 compendium/retrospective An Evolutionary Music). Perhaps coincidental, Kalma’s quote was a slight modulation of a legendary ECM Records motto, as he said: “Music is the closest thing to silence.” Ultimately, the collection of music highlights the work of all three musicians, intertwining the contextual immersion heard on Chiu & Honer’s 'Recordings from the Åland Islands' with an intergenerational reverence for (and the undeniable presence of) Kalma’s decades-spanning body of work. It is work that has definitively enshrined him as one of the true, transcendent pioneers and sages of new age and fourth-world music. That reverence is affirmed by the album title chosen by the group — "The Closest Thing to Silence" — which is taken from a quote by Kalma included in a documentary by RVNG Intl (as part of their release of the 2014 compendium/retrospective An Evolutionary Music). Perhaps coincidental, Kalma’s quote was a slight modulation of a legendary ECM Records motto, as he said: “Music is the closest thing to silence.” The Closest Thing To Silence is an album-length collaboration between fourth-world music icon Ariel Kalma and the recording duo Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer, which evolved from a twenty-minute selection pieces they recorded in 2022 for BBC Radio 3’s ‘Late Junction’ program as part of a scheme that places together artists who have never worked together before. Chiu and Honer, who both cite Kalma as a huge influence on their work, beautifully fit into Kalma’s vision.

This is the Medium's 2nd ambient compilation album.We offered this compilation to 24 artists from all over Japan, Canada and Shenzhen who have a great expression of ambient music, and it has finally come to fruition.