VAAGNER

Subliminal moments, suspended fragments, caught between time zones. Comprised from a selection of soundscapes created by Aleksandra Zakharenko throughout various stages of last year, 7/37/2.11 acts as an auditory journal chronicling the fluctuating states of vague ambiguity the artists faced during the unprecedented turmoil of 2020. Press: Perila casts her slow burn, drowsy magic on Vaagner’s A Sunken Mall sublabel, drawing on the ambiguous nuance of daily life for another diaristic entry to her quietly expanding, precious catalogue. Continuing to occupy a personalised corner of the contemporary ambient sphere, somewhere between Félicia Atkinson and claire rousay’s liminal tone and Burial’s South London nightscapes; Perila transmutes fleeting feelings into a singular sort of ephemeral ambience richly textured with field recordings and laced with her signature spoken recitals (here edged from ASMR and into more audible room volume), slowly venting her thoughts. If you’ve had even half an ear on this realm over the past few years, we hardly need to describe it any further - but suffice it to say that this one is a deeply satisfying entry to the microcosm. The album is a more serenely intimate experience then much of what we’ve heard from Perila before, relaying observations in low-lit settings that settle the listening space to her tenor. ‘Long Dizzying Air Through a Balcony Door’ lures in with long, healing, sferic pads, and ‘Amorphous Absorption’ feels to drop the temperature a few degrees, condensing into icier drips. The title and spare tone of ‘Haven’t Left Home 4 4 Days’ is uncannily on the mark - we know that feeling all too well - with a dream-pop tone recalling Teresa Winter at her quietest, with ‘Crash Sedative’ surgeon off any slumber feels with beautifully quizzical, whimsical flurry of keys, but the final send off leaves us in ‘1 Room’, with what sounds like a stray Theo Parrish chord sequence drifting in from the street, as the day blurs into the next.

Billed as a sequel to 2022's '7.37/2.11', 'The air outside...' diffuses its predecessor's ambiguous synthscapes with loose-limbed slowcore improvisations, prioritising vulnerability and falibility. RIYL Laila Sakini, Grouper, Bianca Scout or Ulla. If Perila's immense, immersive double album 'Intrinsic Rhythm' was too much to swallow in one sitting, this one's a little more digestible. The prolific Berlin-based assembled 'The air outside...' from sessions recorded between 2021 and 2023, but they play remarkably coherently, revealing a more fragile, serendipitous side of her personality. Made mostly using guitar and voice, it's music that's not overthought or overproduced, as if we're getting a direct line into Perila's reality - even the title betrays its unpretentious approach. On opener 'Over Me', Perila loops reversed guitar notes, picking out a rough, detuned bassline and barely singing. Her faded voice mouthes out a wordless, improvised lullaby descends into a well, reverberating as she stumbles across the notes. Not ambient exactly, it's more like evaporated, decelerated post-rock - day zero Grouper crossed with Bark Psychosis. And that description holds on 'Barefeeter', even when Perila switches to piano, playing unsteady, muted phrases as the room rattles around her. A song begins to materialize as she sings textured coos, but never completely emerges. 'Gooshy' is more surprising still, playing out like Jandek with dissonant strums that quiver around dissociated vocal expressions, and on 'Fossil', she uses the same philosophy without resorting to live instrumentation, disrupting oozed pads and whisper-singing over the horizontal soundscape.

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