The Construct

Wanted to get this final 2019 mix-posting up prior to the enveloping of Jingle Bells & White Christmas: a mixed-genre conglomeration, constructed on & off, for the past year & 1/2  (a tune here, another there); this is eclectic & electric . . . w/ a little post-rock, Jazz & Ambient tossed in – for a meandering, mashed-up, aural adventure.

Save up the tracks you cut from your assorted projects – when you get enough of ’em, you can cash them in for a brand new mix!
79:36

01 Markus Reuter & Sha – 0100 (excerpt)
02 The The – Lung Shadows
03 Jack Hertz – Blizzerman Airs
04 Northcape – Deep Strata
05 1 Mile North – Life Indoors
06 Brian Eno – The Real
07 Marcin Wasilewski – Oz Guizos
08 Vijay Iyer Trio – Starlings
09 Mark Selig – Call of the Divine
10 Exit Abacus – Industrial Property Office
11 Off the Sky – Tight Phases of Pollen Inertia
12 Zahn, Hatami & Mcclure – Prysma
13 Jakko Jakszyk, Robert Fripp & Mel Collins – This House
14 Jack DeJohnette, Matt Garrison & Ravi Coltrane – Alabama
15 Stefano Battaglia & Michele Rabbia – Monasterium

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It is . . . balloon!

End Game by Sana Obruent

Sana Obruent is Paul Lopez.

Recorded at the TSC Hideaway Studio – Somewhere In California –
May – November: 2018.
Thank you Electro Harmonix, Fender & Tascam. No synthesizers or keyboards are used in this recording.
Cover Photograph Used By Permission c/o @ALMCA PHOTO HOUSE. Photograph Taken In 1978 – Lyon, France.

@All Rights Reserved
BMI Music – Sanctus Music Ltd – 2019.

We often find ourselves reminded of a lost memory that we relive when stimulated by an old photograph, song, scent or perhaps while visiting a forgotten place. In compiling this latest collection I have created a personal audio scrapbook of sound and feelings from my past for all of you to find enjoyment and most importantly contemplation.

Thank you to all of the listeners here and beyond who have continued to show their love & support for the music of Sana Obruent.

None of this is possible without you.

Released April 23, 2019

Singulum, by France Jobin

Quantum physics inspires me to draw a parallel between the
fundamental building blocs of physics, sounds and music. I put field recordings through a series of editing and manipulation processes which result in very different sounds from their origins. These manipulations affect time, timbre, harmonics and the essence of each sound, whereas composition influences how they relate to each other.

Singulum represents an unattainable goal, the process of decay while
conserving a continuation of information.

All sounds recorded at various locations in North America, Europe, and Japan and at EMS (Stockholm) using the Serge and the Buchla 200 modular synthesizers as well as the Nord Modular.

Released February 19, 2016
Cover image: Mark Hogben.
Thank you to EMS (Stockholm), Sporobole (Sherbrooke), EMPAC (Troy), Andreas Tilliander, Argeo Ascani, Fabio Perletta (Farmacia 901), Ennio Mazone (CConfin).
Special thanks to Richard Chartier and Mark Hogben

Entropia, by Banabila & Machinefabriek

Michel Banabila and Rutger Zuydervelt (aka Machinefabriek) have been collaborating since 2012. Although they both reside in Rotterdam, they (besides coming together for coffee) prefer to use the old file-swap-way of working. With each album, sounds and song drafts are frantically sent back and forth, in a short but super intense timespan of a week or two. This spontaneity is clearly audible throughout their music, with each album having its own distinct character. 
After the tight, post fourth world of ‘Macrocosms’, their fifth album ‘Entropia’ veers into much rougher terrain, adding distorted field recordings, bursting noise, nasty jump cuts and an overal sense of chaotic abstraction to the mix. ‘Entropia’ is definitely one of their more challenging efforts, an adventurous yet coherent sonic journey. 

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Machinefabriek is the alias of Rutger Zuydervelt. His music combines elements of ambient, noise, minimalism, drone, field recordings and electro-acoustic experiments. He issued albums on various renowned labels such as Staalplaat, 12k, Important, Glistening Examples, SOFA music and Miasmah. 
Besides making albums and performing live, Rutger also composes music for films and dance performances. 

Michel Banabila is a sound artist & composer and has produced music for films, documentaries, theatre plays and dance. His work varies from minimal loop-based electronica, fourth world, and neoclassical pieces, to drones, experimental electronica, tribal ambient, and tape music. His work has been released internationally by labels like Bureau B (DE) and Séance Centre (CA). 

www.banabila.com
http://www.machinefabriek.nu 

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Released January 3, 2019
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Music by Michel Banabila and Rutger Zuydervelt, 
Rotterdam, September-November 2018 

Trumpet samples on Getaway by Mattheus Hemelrijk 

Artwork by Michel Banabila 
Mastered by Marlon Wolterink at White Noise Studio 
Inside Photography by Mathias Van Eecloo 
Design by Rémi Verdier 

Leaves Stories (ice), by Emmanuel Toledo & Lauri Hallikainen

Leaves Stories (ice) is the third opus of the series “Leaves Stories”. 

Frozen lake, booming ice is the exquisite playground provided by Lauri, over which Emmanuel digressed and come back with mechanical sounds, old organs, ARP2600 synthesizers and diffusion effects. 

This work is based around those ‘false awakening’ experienced after exhausting walks in such landscapes.

Released March 15, 2015

Sun Rings remix

Sun Rings remix | Classical/Neo-Classical |Noise | 78:17

A classical/post-rock (w/traces-of-ether-jazz) mashup that’s been on the studio project board since the Sun Rings album was released this past August on Nonesuch records: composed by Terry Riley for string quartet, chorus, & pre-recorded spacescapes (electric & magnetic field plasma waves);
performed by the Kronos Quartet with Volti).

The mix was challenging from a creative perspective (segmenting, layering, overdubbing, edits & mini-mixing) — but was. in the end, as satisfying as it was difficult!

The mini-mixing (a mix within a mix) incorporates a new process we’re using: #blackboxsound: the project is segmented into areas of focus, broken down separately & mixed. The segments & edits are then brought into the final mixdown file & assembled (and often reassembled) until the desired audio environment is achieved. Each segment gets its own audio “box”, so to speak – the boxes are then opened & unleashed into the final deliverable.
Notes, by way of a text file MUST accompany each section of the mix, lest we forget exactly what we’ve used for the final track-listing.

The name originates back to the ‘black_elements‘ mix session, where we first began using the process, but never had a name by which to identify/communicate the process.

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RBSPA BvBu 120911 1800 whistlers

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01 Ekca Liena – Glockenspiel for Juno
02 Sun Rings: Ouverture de la cacophonie:
……w/Wings/Pink Floyd/King Crimson/David Bowie/Kronos Quartet
03 Kronos Quartet – Hero Danger
04 Heiner Gobbels – The Coast (interpolating TONUS’ Amplitude (excerpt))
05 Kronos Quartet – The Electron Cyclotron Frequency Parlour
06 Kronos Quartet – Earth Jupiter Kiss
07 Kronos Quartet – One Earth, One People, One Love (edit)
08 David Bowie – Some Are
09 Kronos Quartet – Earth Whistlers (edit)
10 Markus Reuter/Matangi Quartet – Netcong 63
11 Yo Yo Ma – Tcherepnin, Cello Suite; 4: Vivace
12 Kronos Quartet – Planet Elf Sindoori
13 Benedict Taylor & Anton Mobin – Lay in the Low (viola/computer)
14 Kronos Quartet – Venus Upstream (w/ghost overdub finale)
15 Andy Summers – Oceans of Enceladus

#BlackBoxSound [TM]

Signals Bulletin, by ASUNA & Jan Jelinek

Watching the Japanese sound artist ASUNA playing the organ, some people might be surprised. ASUNA is no virtuoso flying over the keyboard in a rage. Instead, with the calm gestures of an office worker, he cuts strips of adhesive tape to the correct length before sticking them onto the keys of his instrument. In this way, large clusters of keys are held down, creating a dense and sustained range of frequencies, while the sound artist continually prepares further sets of keys or removes tape again. I have rarely seen a more convincing performance concept, with such a power to fascinate.

“I first met ASUNA when we both gave a concert at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, his home city. He performed the organ drones as described above and I immediately knew I wanted to collaborate with him. Six years and five meetings later, we completed Signals Bulletin. The album includes both joint improvisations and compositions, recorded in Berlin, Kanazawa and Kyoto.

Whether using prepared organ, Casio keyboards or mechanical plastic toys, ASUNA creates rich textures of sound that barely change over long stretches of time. It is a music without breaks. For a while, I was unsure how my loops made using modular synthesizers and live sampling fitted here – until I realized the role I had to take in this duet: I would provide the rhythmically pulsating foundation over which his dense continuums could unfold.

The result is harmonically drifting superclusters that put us into a meditation-like state. It can perhaps be compared to Automatic Writing – a mode of creative expression floating somewhere between concentration and distraction. Both the structure of our pieces and our approach to our instruments allow a similar “absence”: we let the machines play and repeat themselves – while we, in a mild form of trance, adopt the role of observers, intervening only occasionally.

It is no coincidence that ASUNA owns a collection of Doodle Art – drawings jotted down during conversations or while talking on the phone. It is said that works made like this point to the unconscious and reveal pet motifs – because a doodler always inadvertently returns to his or her favourite themes. The artwork for Signals Bulletin features pictures from the collection, in this case sheets of paper from the pads provided in stationery shops to test out pens. The special quality of such doodles is that the jumble of drawings is the work of a collective whose individual members do not know each other. Layer by layer is added, by someone different each time – until it becomes a dense cluster of lines and symbols …”

Jan Jelinek, Berlin 2018 

Released April 5, 2019

Remote Redux (24bit), by James Murray & Francis M Gri

This is an elegant & evocative work. Murray & Gri develop a rich tapestry of ambient sonance — inducing the listener to delve deeper into the aural canyons of their collaborative slabs of quietude. The album, though firmly rooted in finite, recorded work, is nearly generative in its progression; and draws the active listener into a labyrinth of mesmerizing, beatless rhythm.

It presents worlds of sound that literally reverberate in the ebbing distance, even as the next wave envelops you in another, echoed, aural return — like a warm, resonant ambient hug.

We liked the environment so much that we replaced the closing composition (by a major, long-time running ambient sound-sculptor) with a track from Remote Redux on a recent mix – which can be found here.

The album can be ordered here, or at the link below, & is highly recommended!
~Ambient Landscape, November 2019
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James Murray and Francis M Gri’s Remote Redux is a delicate and original response to distance and closeness as expressed by the Japanese concept Ma, known also as negative space. It’s a place of elegant dimension where Gri’s graceful piano motifs and bowed guitar figures are carefully framed within the free flowing surrounds of Murray’s warm synth sequences and nuanced sound design.

Having released each other’s work on their Slowcraft and KrysaliSound imprints James and Francis naturally extended this exchange into a remote London-Milan collaboration. The resulting debut is an unhurried collection of exquisitely crafted minimal ambient, tender and contemplative, a listening experience that simultaneously explores and distorts our awareness of separation and togetherness.

• Released October 17, 2019
• Written, arranged, mixed & produced by James Murray & Francis M Gri
• Audio mastering by Vincent Villuis | Ultimae Studios (studios@ultimae.com)
• Artwork Design by Arnaud Galoppe & Vincent Villuis
• Photo credits : Welcomia

The Chroma Plateau, by Numina

With twenty releases to his credit, Jesse Sola, the lone creative force behind Numina, has been crafting compositions of electronic ambient sound spaces for nearly two decades. During that extensive career, Numina has defined – and refined – a signature sound realized from a collection of hardware synthesizers, effects, and a custom modular Eurorack synth system.

The latest in this personal exploration of electronic expression is Numina’s debut solo release on the Spotted Peccary label, THE CHROMA PLATEAU. This spacey, ethereal journey is a deep listening experience where wondrous ambient-electronic spaces fill a vast sonic canvas, unleashing faraway and introspective states of mind. Complex synthesized evolutions, wispy bell tone soundscapes, and foundational analog drones coalesce into a complete presentation of ephemeral moments and expansive soundworlds.

With its gentle use of minimal sequences and sparse compositions, THE CHROMA PLATEAU easily finds it’s place within the firmament of traditional spacemusic albums, and with track titles like “Intergalactic Traveler,” “Beaming Up The Fossils,” “Bringer of the Beings,” “Sky Descender,” and “Living in the Clouds,” the listeners thoughts may be tempted to imagine the heavens. However, even though there is some direction implied by the track titles themselves, Sola hopes to leave the details open for interpretation. “I never want to invoke any feeling, emotion, or direction on how my music should or should not be interpreted by the listener. This music is meant for any occasion the listener chooses – sleeping, hiking, star-gazing, philosophizing, commuting, etc. – a soundtrack for one’s current activity.”

No matter how the listener chooses to interface with the music, THE CHROMA PLATEAU is most certainly filled with deeply inspiring and beautiful moments, constantly evolving as the scenery of Numina’s refined sonic palette unfurls to reveal a marvelous mosaic of colors and dreams. 

Rreleased February 9, 2018

s e r e i n

serein – The supposed fall of dew from a clear sky just after sunset; mist or fine rain falling from an apparently clear sky.

Mixed using compositions from the Serein & Silent Records labels (+ 1 track/ea. from 12k, ECM & Ultimae*), this focuses on a return to the realm of ambient.

Artwork courtesy of . . . uhm, I forget.
80:10

01 France Jobin – Solitude 2_excerpt
02 Olan Mill – Spare Smoke Template
03 Stephen Vitiello & Taylor Deupree – Second Variation
04 Strië – 87 Billion Suns
05 Donato Wharton – In A Mute Scape
06 Rag Dun – That Place that Is, Is Not
07 Segue – Frozen
08 Benoît Pioulard – Alogia
09 Hibernis – Hibernis Bells
10 Nest – Koretz’s Meteor
11 Kryshe – Auflösung
12 Colorlist – Electricity
13 Lingua Lustra – Redshift
14 Michele Rabbia, Gianluca Petrella & Eivind Aarset – Styx
15 Imprints – Wardenclyffe Tower
16 Benjamin Dauer & Specta Ciera – Ice Train
17 James Murray & Francis M. Gri – Redux * (excerpt)

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[* Upcoming album review]