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For it's 4th instalment and final addition to the May batch, Vaknar is enthralled to present 60+ minutes of selected organ music over two set of tapes, all coming courtesy of none other then Danish collage artist and musician øjeRum. øjeRum has been a favourite of the Vaagner/Vaknar hub for years, and it is with the utmost honour that we were given the chance to comply some old, new and unreleased organ works for this upcoming release, all of which will be presented via a double cassette box that will include a riso printed, fold out sleeve and feature work by both the label and the artist himself. -Vaagner What we listen to in this anthology of more than an hour are textures related to the minimalism of masters like Terry Riley, La Monte Young and Phill Niblock, as well as a fervent passion for the neo-classicism ambient of Erik Satie and Brian Eno . A reflexive maridation prone to states of static and decidedly spiritual interpenetration. Far away from the New age pseudo mysticism so in vogue. Here one can hear falls in profane and sweeping chasms built with an obscene simplicity. It´s not music (only) to listen to but with which to surround oneself and live forever. The word and concept music has been outdated for a long time. - Perú Avangarde
Khadim is a stunning reconfiguration of the Ndagga Rhythm Force sound. The instrumentation is radically pared down. The guitar is gone; the concatenation of sabars; the drum-kit. Each of the four tracks hones in on just one or two drummers; otherwise the sole recorded element is the singing; everything else is programmed. Synths are dialogically locked into the drumming. Tellingly, Ernestus has reached for his beloved Prophet-5, a signature go-to since Basic Channel days, thirty years ago. Texturally, the sound is more dubwise; prickling with effects. There is a new spaciousness, announced at the start by the ambient sounds of Dakar street-life. At the microphone, Mbene Diatta Seck revels in this new openness: mbalax diva, she feelingly turns each of the four songs into a discrete dramatic episode, using different sets of rhetorical techniques. The music throughout is taut, grooving, complex, like before; but more volatile, intuitive and reaching, with turbulent emotional and spiritual expressivity.
Not that Khadim represents any kind of break. Its transformativeness is rooted in the hundreds upon hundreds of hours the Rhythm Force has played together. Nearly a decade has passed since Yermande, the unit’s previous album. Every year throughout that period — barring lockdowns — the group has toured extensively, in Europe, the US, and Japan. With improvisation at the core of its music-making, each performance has been evolutionary, as it turns out heading towards Khadim. “I didn’t want to simply continue with the same formula, says Ernestus. “I preferred to wait for a new approach. Playing live so many times, I wanted to capture some of the energy and freedom of those performances.” Though several members of the touring ensemble sit out this recording — sabar drummers, kit-drummer, synth-player — their presence abides in the structure and swing of the music here.
Lamp Fall is a homage to Cheikh Ibra Fall, founder of the Baye Fall spiritual community. The mosque in the city of Touba is known as Lamp Fall, because the main tower resembles a lantern. Soy duggu Touba, moom guey séen / When you enter Touba, he is the one who greets you. After a swift, incantatory start Mbene sings with reflective seriousness. Her voice swirls with reverb, over a tight, funky, propulsive interplay between synth and drums, threaded with one- two jabs of bass. Cheikh Ibra Fall mi may way, mo diayndiou ré, la mu jëndé ko taalibe… Cheikh Ibra Fall amo morome, aboridial / Cheikh Ibra Fall shows the way forward, he gives us strength, he gathers his disciples… Overflowing with grace, Cheikh Ibra Fall has no equal.
Interwoven with Wolof proverbs, Dieuw Bakhul is a recriminatory song about treachery, lies, and back-biting. Over moody, roiling synths and ominous, lean bass, Mbene throws out fluttering scraps of vocal, as if re-running old conversations in her head. The music shadows her despair to the verge of breakdown, at one moment seemingly so lost in thought and memories, that it threatens to disintegrate. Bayilene di wor seen xarit ak seen an da ndo… Dieuw bakhul, dieuw ñaw na / Stop judging your friends and companions… A lie is no good, a lie is ugly.
Khadim is a show-stopper; currently the centrepiece of Ndagga Rhythm Force live performances. The song is dedicated to Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, aka Khadim, founder of the Mouride Sufi order. Serigne Bamba mi may wayeu / Serigne Bamba is the one who makes me sing. The verses name-check revered members of his family and brotherhood, like Sokhna Diarra, Mame Thierno, and Serigne Bara. Though Islam has been practised in Senegal for a millennium, it wasn’t until the start of the twentieth century that it began to thoroughly permeate ordinary Senegalese society, hand-in-hand with anti-colonialism. The verses here recall Bamba’s banishment by the French to Gabon, and later to Mauritania, in those foundational times. During exile, his captors once introduced a lion to his cell: gaïnde gua waf, dieba lu ci Cheikhoul Khadim / the lion doesn’t budge, it gives itself over to Cheikh Khadim. Deep, surging bass, steady kick-drum, and simple, reverbed chords on the off-beat lend the feel and impetus of steppers reggae. A reed plays snatches of a traditional Baye Fall melody; the dazzling polyrhythmic drumming is by Serigne Mamoune Seck. Mbene compellingly blends percussive vocalese, narrative suspense, exultant praise, introspection, and grievance.
Nimzat is a devotional tribute to Cheikh Sadbou, a contemporary of Bamba, buried in a mausoleum in Nizmat, in southern Mauritania. Way nala, kagne nala… souma danana fata dale / I call upon you and wonder about you… If I am overwhelmed, come to my aid. The town holds special significance for Khadr Sufism. An annual pilgrimage there is conducted to this day. The rhythm is buoyantly funky; the mood is sombre, reined-in, foreboding. Punctuated by peals of thunder, Mbene sings with restrained, intense reverence; huskily confidential, steadfast. Nanu dem ba Nimzat, dé ba sali khina / Let us go to Nimzat, to seal our devotion.
2026 repress. With Dub Techno firmly back on the menu in clubs the world over, Deadbeat, at long last, resissues what is perhaps his greatest collaborative work with Paul St Hilaire aka Tikiman. A true genre masterclass, as the name suggests, the album infinitely showcases two titans of the form at their very best, and 10 years on, remains a stone-cold classic. Re-cut by their old friend Stefan Betke aka Pole at Scape Mastering who first cut it to wax so many years ago, this 10-year anniversary edition is a crucial showcase of two masters at work.
Synthesist and composer Emily A. Sprague bridges intuitive sonic structures and expressive songwriting, yielding expansive terrains that are immediate and immersive. From early experimentation with guitar and keyboard as a teen, Sprague went on to form indie band Florist in the early 2010s, gaining a devoted audience, before expanding to environmental / ambient compositions under her own name in 2017. Her releases include several albums across both projects, most recently Florist’s Jellywish and Cloud Time in 2025, and now, the Double Moon EP. Limited edition 7” includes the exclusive bonus track “Dusk (How to Fly)” and a dub of “Double Moon” by Andras.
Third volume in Dave Huismans' stellar ex_libris series, further exploring the outer edges of deep house and leftfield music across three cuts in a total runtime of 25 minutes. The A-side offers up a rough-around-the-edges, spirited 4/4 beatdown epic, while the B1 & B2 venture into equally vivid world-building and fluttering wildlife curiosity. Limited edition - once again housed in lovingly hand-stamped, full-color sleeves. Design by Bernie van Vlijmen. Mastered and cut by Anne Taegert at D&M.
Brendan Eder follows up minimalist 70s-jazz concept with new ambient-neoclassical record, Therapy. On March 3, 2023 Eder released his third album, THERAPY; a collection of meditative compositions recorded mostly at a church in Southern California. The self-released album went on to chart at #6 in Billboard's Crossover Classical and was featured in The Guardian's "The Best Albums of 2023 So Far." Following 2021’s Cape Cod Cottage — Eder’s understated-jazz concept album under the guise of Edward Blankman, a retired dentist in the 1970s — for Therapy, Eder drops the alter ego and the drumset and explores more reverberant sounds with his ensemble of woodwinds. The result is a distinctive take on ambient music subtly interwoven with Eder’s affinity for 20th century classical and jazz.
Intergalactic Music Is Of the Outer Darkness It is rhythm against rhythm in kind dispersion It is harmony against harmony in endless coordination It is melody against melody in vital enlightenment (Excerpt from The Outer Darkness by Sun Ra) From Detroit’s techno resistance to Berlin’s elastic minimalism, Lusaka’s ancestral futurism to Chicago’s house communion, When There Is No Sun is a global recording project, uniting visionary electronic music producers to reimagine the universe of Sun Ra. One of the most radical musical pioneers of the 20th century, Sun Ra used jazz, electronics, poetry, and performance to expand the possibilities of sound, identity, and imagination. Commissioned by Omni Sound and curated by Ricardo Villalobos, the series brings together Underground Resistance, Chez Damier & Ben Vedren, Calibre, A Guy Called Gerald, She Spells Doom, Barış K, and Ricardo Villalobos himself. Drawing from Omni Sound’s recordings of Living Sky by the Sun Ra Arkestra and My Words Are Music, a spoken-word album of Sun Ra’s poetry, the producers pull fragments of sound and text into their own creative orbits, passing through the portal that Sun Ra opened into a realm where the impossible is possible. Invocations by Saul Williams, Anthony Joseph, Mahogany L. Browne, Abiodun Oyewole, Tunde Adebimpe, and Tara Middleton turn rhyme into rhythm and resistance into revelation. Rooted in deep reverence for Sun Ra’s legacy, yet reaching forward as a living, generative force, When There Is No Sun is not a tribute but a continuum, balancing the pulse of electronic music with the spirit of experimentation, embodying Sun Ra’s promise that ‘there are other worlds’ if you are willing to see them.
Intergalactic Music Is Of the Outer Darkness It is rhythm against rhythm in kind dispersion It is harmony against harmony in endless coordination It is melody against melody in vital enlightenment (Excerpt from The Outer Darkness by Sun Ra) From Detroit’s techno resistance to Berlin’s elastic minimalism, Lusaka’s ancestral futurism to Chicago’s house communion, When There Is No Sun is a global recording project, uniting visionary electronic music producers to reimagine the universe of Sun Ra. One of the most radical musical pioneers of the 20th century, Sun Ra used jazz, electronics, poetry, and performance to expand the possibilities of sound, identity, and imagination. Commissioned by Omni Sound and curated by Ricardo Villalobos, the series brings together Underground Resistance, Chez Damier & Ben Vedren, Calibre, A Guy Called Gerald, She Spells Doom, Barış K, and Ricardo Villalobos himself. Drawing from Omni Sound’s recordings of Living Sky by the Sun Ra Arkestra and My Words Are Music, a spoken-word album of Sun Ra’s poetry, the producers pull fragments of sound and text into their own creative orbits, passing through the portal that Sun Ra opened into a realm where the impossible is possible. Invocations by Saul Williams, Anthony Joseph, Mahogany L. Browne, Abiodun Oyewole, Tunde Adebimpe, and Tara Middleton turn rhyme into rhythm and resistance into revelation. Rooted in deep reverence for Sun Ra’s legacy, yet reaching forward as a living, generative force, When There Is No Sun is not a tribute but a continuum, balancing the pulse of electronic music with the spirit of experimentation, embodying Sun Ra’s promise that ‘there are other worlds’ if you are willing to see them.
Intergalactic Music Is Of the Outer Darkness It is rhythm against rhythm in kind dispersion It is harmony against harmony in endless coordination It is melody against melody in vital enlightenment (Excerpt from The Outer Darkness by Sun Ra) From Detroit’s techno resistance to Berlin’s elastic minimalism, Lusaka’s ancestral futurism to Chicago’s house communion, When There Is No Sun is a global recording project, uniting visionary electronic music producers to reimagine the universe of Sun Ra. One of the most radical musical pioneers of the 20th century, Sun Ra used jazz, electronics, poetry, and performance to expand the possibilities of sound, identity, and imagination. Commissioned by Omni Sound and curated by Ricardo Villalobos, the series brings together Underground Resistance, Chez Damier & Ben Vedren, Calibre, A Guy Called Gerald, She Spells Doom, Barış K, and Ricardo Villalobos himself. Drawing from Omni Sound’s recordings of Living Sky by the Sun Ra Arkestra and My Words Are Music, a spoken-word album of Sun Ra’s poetry, the producers pull fragments of sound and text into their own creative orbits, passing through the portal that Sun Ra opened into a realm where the impossible is possible. Invocations by Saul Williams, Anthony Joseph, Mahogany L. Browne, Abiodun Oyewole, Tunde Adebimpe, and Tara Middleton turn rhyme into rhythm and resistance into revelation. Rooted in deep reverence for Sun Ra’s legacy, yet reaching forward as a living, generative force, When There Is No Sun is not a tribute but a continuum, balancing the pulse of electronic music with the spirit of experimentation, embodying Sun Ra’s promise that ‘there are other worlds’ if you are willing to see them.
Acclaimed Californian harpist Nailah Hunter unites with debuting theremin player Alia Mohamed for a hauntingly minimalist performance of Harold Budd's "The Pavilion of Dreams". The rendition concept was initially conceived and performed by the two musicians for the Nov 3rd 2024 edition of Leaving Records' seminal outdoor community concert series Listen to Music Outside in the Daylight Under a Tree in Los Angeles California. Nailah Hunter writes: "It was such a blissful experience getting to play in the golden light of the park that afternoon with Alia. We’d been exploring this piece together for a few years prior to the performance. The uniquely curious and misty quality of the piece is what initially drew me in and the bold and imaginative changes voiced in the harp part are what kept me coming back for more. It felt euphoric to finally get to share our sonic vision with folks we knew already appreciated the original work."
William Basinski's epochal four-album box of slowly decomposing memories gets its long-overdue deluxe reissue, with liner notes from Laurie Anderson and a fresh mastering job from Josh Bonati.
Undoubtedly one of the greatest "ambient" albums of our era, 'The Disintegration Loops' is an enduring aesthetic touchstone. It didn't exist in a vacuum when it appeared in the early '00s, as the dust settled after 9/11, but Basinski's prescient meditation on decay in the wake of tragedy felt like a musical mark in the sand - a body of work that changed the way we think about repetition and tape saturation. The story goes that the composer, who'd been recording loop-based, minimalist experiments since the '70s, inspired by Brian Eno's 'Discreet Music' and Steve Reich's 'It's Gonna Rain', was going through his archive of reel-to-reel tapes when he realized the ferrite was flaking away from the plastic. Not willing to give up on the material, he recorded the output, letting the tape head destroy his pieces irreparably and adding reverb to the output.
Now, this would have been good enough without the additional context, but Basinski finished 'Disintegration Loops' on the morning of September 11, 2001, and played the first piece to his friends as they sat on the roof of his apartment block, watching agape as events unfolded. He used the footage he shot at the time for the covers of each disc, and the suite's solemn, thoughtful decline served as the unofficial soundtrack of our collective grief, an unfussy reminder of tragedy that plays out its haunted remnants of the past until they die, quite literally. There's been plenty of music that's aped Basinski's method since, and we don't doubt there'll be plenty more, but there's nothing quite like the original, and this latest remaster is the definitive version.
The fantastic disco/world music project from Bremen, Germany that was never meant to be. Formed by Bremen DJ Ralf Behrendt in 1982, Saâda Bonaire was a unique concept band centered around two sultry female vocalists (Stefanie Lange and Claudia Hossfeld) as well as dozens of local musicians culled from the local immigration center. Originally signed to EMI in 1982, their first and only single, “You Could Be More As You Are” was produced by legendary Matumbi, Slits and Pop Group producer Dennis Bovell in Kraftwerk’s studio in Cologne. Its fusion of husky female vocals, Eastern instruments, dub and African music aesthetics, drum computers and synthesizers remains unique to this day.
Saâda Bonaire compiles two songs from the original EMI single along with eleven previously unreleased songs recorded between 1982 and 1985. Also included are never before published photos, in depth interviews with band members, and a full gate fold cover for dedicated vinyl buyers. These lost recordings from the early eighties still sound fresh on today’s dance floor.
Japanese bamboo flute maestro and goat (JP) cohort Rai Tateishi makes an impressive debut statement with his holistic attempts to transcend the limits of ancient instruments to reveal gently delirious insights comparable with Jon Hassell, Phew, Bendik Giske, FUJI|||||||||||TA.
‘Presence’ is a triumph of improvised, elemental musicality that distills aspects of myriad folk traditions in pursuit of the artist’s own truth. For 40 minutes of singularly weird, locked-in performance, Rai Tateishi diverges his formative training in the shinobue (a bamboo flute) to applications for its elder sibling, the shakuhachi, and its distant relatives in the khene mouth organ of Northeastern Thailand and Laos, and even the Irish flute, with remarkable results returned from each.
Piece to piece, Tateishi adapts a spectra of unusual and extended instrumental experiments to articulate uniquely animist sound arrangements, with judicious use of a ring modulator and delay effects only subtly altering his sound in real-time, gelling the harmonics and smoothing off its contours. Some 15 years of studies and accreted knowledge of histories, timelines, and spirits are deftly tattered in the air and rebound in precisely complex ribbons that become all the more impressive by virtue of its in-the-moment recording.
Presented with no overdubs, the six works were recorded by label head and KAKUHAN/goat lynchpin Koshiro Hino across three days of adventurous improvisation capturing the breadth of Tateishi’s vision in a mix of succinct flights of fancy and one durational wonder where he really cuts loose. An opening piece of rapid percussive fingering and rasping sets the tone for increasingly intricate explorations of the shinobue, and bluesy cadence of a reedy Thai khene - antecedent of the shō - whipped into headier harmonic overtones, whilst his 5th piece for Irish flute best recalls Ka Baird or Michael O’Shea’s lysergic impishness, and a 13 minute closing piece most boldly fucks with folk and jazz traditions, in-depth and with the genre short-circuiting audacity of Rahsaan Roland Kirk.
Landing in the wake of prism-shaking works by Will Guthrie & Mark Fell, goat (jp) and Kakuhan; Tateishi’s ‘Presence’ more than lives up to NAKID’s impressive levels, unflinchingly operating by its wits with a verve and dare-to-differ moxie that gets at it from the first hit to the last, harnessing the kind of skill and ingenuity that’s distinctive but still strikingly minimal and overwhelmingly physical. It's a remarkable achievement.
Blood Blood Song continues East of the Valley Blues’ streak of sublime, future-forward acoustic fantasias. For years, the Toronto-based duo, comprised of brothers Kevin and Patrick Cahill, has excelled at an earthy and pensive brand of instrumental music inspired by notions of folk music as a global, rather than regional, idiom. While the duo’s elegant and unassuming virtuosity easily distinguishes East of the Valley Blues from its contemporaries of would-be Bashos and fledgling Faheys, it is the group’s telepathic improv that provides the certain x-factor that ultimately sets it apart from its peers. Throughout Blood Blood Song, Kevin Cahill’s percussive, prepared nylon string guitar---occasionally evoking the sound of a begena—remains in constant conversation with his brother Patrick’s nimble steel string abstractions. Though the stereo separation places the brothers on opposite corners of the stereo field—Kevin mostly on the right and Patrick mostly on the left—the two guitars often create the illusion of appearing to meet in the middle, where they blend into a single, dynamic sound. Blood Blood Song is an album of uncommon intimacy and grace. Of music that doesn’t so much develop as unspool. Music that blooms. - James Toth / Wooden Wand
On Minimalistic ethio 80’s and 90’s from audiotapes የሐር ሽረሪት, DJ Mitmitta threads together lo‑fi synth jams and cassette‑era instrumentals from unsung Ethiopian bands, where battered Casios and drum machines sketch hypnotic, pastel‑toned echoes of wedding halls and roadside bars.Minimalistic ethio 80’s and 90’s from audiotapes የሐር ሽረሪት is a love letter to a very specific corner of Ethiopian music history: the moments on old cassettes when the singer leaves the room and the backing band just keeps going. Curated by DJ Mitmitta, the compilation gathers a “lovely bunch” of mostly instrumental cuts from various groups working in the 1980s and early ’90s, all of them leaning on Casio keyboards, drum‑machines and cheap synthesized timbres to stretch a mood across the standard 60‑minute tape. Some of these tracks began life as filler - end‑of‑album jams laid down to round out running time - yet heard together they reveal a parallel universe of minimal, hypnotic ethio‑electronics that was hiding in plain sight on the B‑sides and fade‑outs of the cassette era.The focus is squarely on groove and atmosphere rather than virtuoso display. Simple pentatonic keyboard lines snake over rigid drum‑machine patterns; bass figures loop with small variations until they become a kind of trance; cheap synth brass and organ sounds approximate the colours of traditional ensembles in an unmistakably 80s palette. What might have been background in its original context moves to the foreground here, letting the listener hear how these bands translated classic Ethiopian modal language into a bare‑bones, garage‑electronic idiom. There’s a homespun futurism to it all: you can feel the constraints of the machines and the tape, but also the pleasure of musicians pushing those limits just enough to make the dancefloor—or the living room—sway.Mitmitta’s selection highlights a cast of names that deserve to be said out loud. Among the players whose tapes are tapped here are ይስሃቅ ባንጃው (Yishak Banjaw), ዘሪሁን ወዳጆ (Zerihun Wdajo), እልፍነሽ ቀኖ (Elfenesh Kano), ቴዎድሮስ መኮንን (Tewodros Mekonnen), ወሰንየለህ መብራቱ (Wesneylehe Meberatu), ስፈልግ አያሌው (Seflege Ayalew) and ታደሰ ላቀው (Tadsse Lakew) - artists better known, if at all, for vocal releases, but whose bands clearly relished the chance to stretch out when the mic was off. Here, their anonymous interludes become the main feature, revealing shared aesthetic threads: unhurried tempos, gently melancholic melodies, a fondness for repetition that never quite tips into monotony.The physical edition underlines the project’s tactile, cassette‑culture roots. Cover art comes from Skinny Digital, given grain and texture through risoprinting by If By Magic in Helsinki, Finland, while each copy is dubbed onto recycled tapes by Jouni “Kasettijeesus” Kontulainen. That choice isn’t just a retro affectation; it echoes the very conditions that produced the music in the first place, when blank cassettes were precious, nothing was wasted, and “extra” minutes became a playground for minimal synth experiments in an Ethiopian idiom. Spooling through these tracks now, you hear not only a treasure‑trove of lo‑fi ethio grooves, but the sound of time itself stretching and fraying on magnetic tape - a small, crackling portal back to another listening culture.
Simeon ten Holt's landmark minimalist opus Canto Ostinato has a known magnetism. The piece's captivating harmony and winding structure prove an adventurous enterprise for any like-minded players embarking down its path, and it was at this very threshold that Metropolis Ensemble's Andrew Cyr, musician/composer Erik Hall, and the members of Sandbox Percussion all found each other. Their ensuing undertaking marks a world-class collaboration that yields an expansive and beautifully detailed new presentation of ten Holt's iconic work. In 2023 the New York Times shined a light on Simeon ten Holt, the late Dutch composer mostly unknown to the American contemporary classical audience. Featured in the story was Erik Hall in his Michigan studio, whose enthrallment with Canto Ostinato had resulted in his acclaimed solo recording on the label Western Vinyl. Taking notice was Metropolis Ensemble artistic director/conductor Andrew Cyr. He promptly relayed the album to Sandbox Percussion—each of them GRAMMY-nominated ensembles sharing over a decade of work together—and invited Hall to join them in re-orchestrating the piece for an outdoor summer solstice performance at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Now jointly feeling the piece's pull, the team crafted a sweeping new large-ensemble arrangement over six months, bringing into its orbit The New School's Sandbox Percussion Summer Seminar, as well as composers David Leon, Ben Wallace, and Ledah Finck and the Bergamot Quartet. The result was a luminous adaptation of the score, complete with mallet percussion, woodwinds, strings, and piano, garnering a recommendation from NPR's Morning Edition and culminating in sunrise and sunset performances for an enchanted audience. The project's momentum carried straight into the studio, as a new recording became imperative—a permanent document of the team's collective ardor for the composition. Spearheaded by Metropolis Ensemble, produced by Cyr and Hall, and arranged by Hall, Leon, Wallace, and Sandbox Percussion’s Jonny Allen, the interpretation extracts and reframes every line, motif, and arpeggio from the original score, expanding ten Holt’s piano manuscript into a prismatic chamber array. Recorded by GRAMMY-winning audio engineer Mike Tierney, the performance was captured in New York, 2025. Sandbox Percussion's array of mallet instruments maintains a unified and gracefully athletic expression of the piece's duration, while David Leon's octet of woodwinds overlay a kaleidoscopic tapestry. Eighteen strings—led by award-winning violinist Kristin Lee—provide cinematic, otherworldly depth. And Erik Hall's concert grand piano threads through it all, a passionately reverent preservation of the piece's keyboard origins. Altogether, a breathtaking new form for Simeon ten Holt's already-monumental opus, each element serving the whole while driving towards a rapturous resolution. Canto Ostinato, long beloved in its native Netherlands, is still a flame just beginning to burn in the US; a world just beginning to be discovered. But its gravity is certain. And the cohort of Metropolis Ensemble, Erik Hall, and Sandbox Percussion is honored to bear the torch and help continue to draw listeners everywhere to Simeon ten Holt's masterpiece of minimalism.
There is a certain solace to be found in minimal music—a contemplative joy that emerges through sustained repetition and subtle variation. Solo Three, the slyly absorbing new album from Michigan-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Erik Hall, embodies that hypnotic charge while boldly reimagining a distinct selection of contemporary classical works.
Hall’s affinity for minimalism began decades ago, when as a jazz-studies drummer at the University of Michigan he first encountered Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians. The piece altered his trajectory completely. Years later, amid a creative lull, he revisited that formative work by attempting a solo reconstruction. Working alone in his home studio, Hall painstakingly recreated Reich’s intricate, interlocking architecture—supplanting the piece’s orchestral palette with his own keyboards, guitars, and synths—and performing every part himself without loops, programming, or sequencers.
That recording, released on Western Vinyl in 2020, arrived during the fraught early months of lockdown and resonated deeply with listeners. Pitchfork praised it for making “a minimalist standard freshly thrilling to revisit,” and it won the 2021 Libera Award for Best Classical Record. Even Reich himself wrote to congratulate Hall, saying he had “reinvented the piece.”
Heartened, Hall next turned to Simeon ten Holt’s Canto Ostinato, a sprawling work of Dutch minimalism built on repetition and euphoric harmony. His 2023 interpretation was hailed by Bandcamp Daily as “mesmerizing as patterns emerge, coalesce, and retreat,” and the New York Times highlighted Hall in a feature on ten Holt’s growing influence. The project led to a years-long collaboration with New York’s Metropolis Ensemble and Sandbox Percussion, confirming Hall’s place as an inventive new voice bridging classical and contemporary practice.
With Solo Three, Hall brings this trilogy to a sweeping close. Instead of focusing on a single composition, he weaves together multiple works by several visionary composers: Glenn Branca, Charlemagne Palestine, Laurie Spiegel, and a return to Steve Reich. The result is a rich, varied homage to American minimalism—at once reverent and exploratory. Branca’s “The Temple of Venus Pt. 1” unfolds in oscillating organ and prepared piano; Palestine’s “Strumming Music” becomes a meditative blur of felted piano and guitar; Spiegel’s “A Folk Study” is recast with acoustic warmth in lieu of electronics; and Reich’s “Music for a Large Ensemble” closes the album with a 16-minute, kaleidoscopic rush of overlapping melodies and jubilant rhythmic patterns.
True to his method, Hall performs and records every part himself, layering instruments one by one like sonic bricks. The approach is deeply human and quietly defiant in an age of faceless automation. “It’s just so much more compelling to actually play every note,” Hall says. “Those micro-differences between takes create a sort of living, breathing magic.”
That living, breathing magic fills every corner of Solo Three. It’s both a reverent ode to the composers who shaped Hall’s musical identity and a vivid reminder that minimalism’s hypnotic beauty—its patience, precision, and quiet emotional power—still speaks urgently to the present moment.
- Zach Schonfeld
