Lumino Pleco, by Gi Gi

Cinematic and spiritual sounds from Gi Gi, conjuring a quasi-religious trance and made entirely from samples – including Prince, Vangelis, Erykah Badu, and Miles Davis – warped, blended and smoothed over beyond recognition.

At times melancholic and at times hopeful, these lush textural soundscapes are worthy of an introspective listen; lights off, candle lit and somewhere comfortable.

credits

released January 7, 2021

Lyra, by Quiet Clapping

“A cloud gathers at the peak of a green mountain,
a living curtain of leaves that could have been a
garland laid to rest upon the brow of the stone
apex, where the clinging arms of roots recede and
give way to progressively whiter stone faces,
pockmarked and stoic, a wisdom of bones.

Beneath the Urth, the hollowed cavity of Hell
wells up, an ironclad chasm full with hot black air,
delivering the profane names of the great thralls
it has called downward, like a long hissing
poisonous tongue, curling into a meaningless
symbol, thrust into the narrowing ceiling of the
pyramid.

From a great distance apart, lowered eyes
consider the reverberant Urth, and the buried
dead. A hand turns, with an opened palm, and the
seas reply, enveloping the landscape, reclaiming
its long forgotten inheritance.”

– Brian Grainger –

Releases February 18, 2022

Music: Jonathan Deasy
Mastered by: Andrea Porcu
Original photography by: Nata Madilyan
Record label: Lᴏɴᴛᴀɴᴏ Series
Publisher: ROHS! RECORDS

Fill your tank . . .

All grades of ambient, glitch, drift, space, minimal, techno, classical, jazz, ether-jazz and . . . noise!

The Snipe & the Clam, by Burning Pyre & Canadian Rifles

The first full-length collaboration between Burning Pyre and Canadian Rifles, “The Snipe & The Clam” encapsulates a shared sensibility and vision. Initially seen together on the Vienna Press/Vaagner compilation “A Declaration” in 2019, which was followed up with a second piece last year on Burning Pyre’s Opal Tapes debut, “United Angels”, the two artists cultivate a unique aural world with a singular voice.

Taking a contemporary yet deeply romantic approach to ambient music, “The Snipe & The Clam” showcases a blend of luscious synth melodies and harmonics, set against a heavily organic dynamic backbone. An apt representation of both artists’ methods and modus operandi, opulent glimmering drones flow with a sense of narrative, contributing a magical watercolour-like quality to the album’s eight instrumental pieces. As if lightness met the restraint of a disciplined wrist – every sharp note a pensive flap of wings across its airy background.

“The Snipe & The Clam” often feels like an emotional exercise on the stoppage of time, gliding between loving gestures and precise crescendos, delivering both a flourish of exposition and a reflection on intimate moments. A definitive summit in each respective artists’ discographies until this point, “The Snipe & The Clam” is an elegy to tenderness and finding beauty in minute details.

A golden archway – come spring.

EN20 

credits

released April 30, 2021

Recorded by Christopher Macarthur and Rui Andrade between Newcastle upon Tyne and Porto, 2020-2021

Mastered by John Hannon
Photo by Elisa Azevedo

u n f o c u s e d [ r e d u x]

u n f o c u s e d [r e d u x] |experimental ambient/ambient/minimal/noise | 75:59

Part 3. Minimalist noise installations w/ cantilevered sonance & upended resonant frequencies; (inspired by the Disturbed Earth release, The Night has Lost its Shade)

Listen via Mixcloud or Sync

01 Medley:
…..a. Luigi Turra – Prisma 1 (introductory snippet)
…..b. Giuseppe Ielasi – its appearance, reflected by three copies (01)
…..c. Luigi Turra – Prisma 1 (edited extract)
…..d. Luigi Turra – Prisma 3 (excerpt)
02 Disturbed Earth – Cleveland (excerpt)
03 theAdelaidean – Slow Autumnal Sunrise (excerpt)
04 Steve Roach & Robert Rich – Persistence of Memory (for Dali)
05 Robert Davies – Benthos
06 Lammergeyer – Remnants
07 Tunnelwater — Chanting and Humming
08 Disturbed Earth – Apollo (excerpt)
09 Brian Eno – The Lost Day
10 The Rain Dogs – Towards the Sublime
11 Numina & Caul – The Memories Blend
12 El Wud — Worldline

“reflecting on ‘. . . on reflection’ ”

How would one circumnavigate a straight line between fullness . . . and sparsity? Between the delicate. . . and powerful?? Solidity vs. vaporousness???

I’ve been listening to “. . .on reflection”, a collaborative and engaging work between musicians William Basinski & Janek Schaefer; I’ve had it on ‘repeat’ for the last several days, and am mesmerized by the delicate balance between soft & firm, fluid & solid and ethereal & real-time aural construction. It immediately brings to mind the ambient collaborations between Harold Budd, Brian Eno & John Foxx; (that is to say: a powerful canon of composition*).

The five tracks dance to an avant-garde ambience that draws the listener into its interior web of mirrored cadence of piano & electronic meditation. The haunting, ofttimes sparse and meandering, melodies reverberate across an emotional landscape that yields only to the listener’s wonderfully imaginative, inner wanderings; i.e. what will you do; what will you accomplish and for what will you strive within this newly discovered, aurally rich world? Let the trinkling, tinkling melodies wash over you — then set your sights to new & broader horizons.

When all is said, done and listened to, it’s a crossroads: a juncture where delicately woven, nuanced tapestries of sound meet the shimmering reality of sublime compositional genius (and a highly recommended #ambient acquisition).

Bravo, gentlemen!

Available via the Temporary Residence record label on April 29th.

(*this album will be featured on an upcoming May/June ambient mix podcast)

Dutch Boy Paint, by Grotta Veterano

Pretty. Sparse. Beautiful!

___________________________

Cat.#: LONTANO-S-CD23
Release date: 15/4/2022
Format: CD, Digital

“Dear friends, as I wrote a few months ago in an email to Andrea, this album that you are going to listen to, is a single longform piece, and basically it can be briefly described as Japanese music played by an amateur orchestra of toy musicians. Sometimes these instrumentalists get the wrong note, get jammed, play notes that are too short or too long, and then resume their own way within the composition. Small and short events occur throughout the piece, sporadically and spontaneously. It takes a lot of patience, and perhaps a certain amount of distraction, to let this music flow in the air. A can of Dutch Boy Paint, consisting of basic lead carbonate and linseed oil.”
~Grotta

credits

Releases April 15, 2022

Music by: Grotta Veterano
Mastered by: Andrea Porcu
Record label: Lᴏɴᴛᴀɴᴏ Series
Publisher: ROHS! RECORDS

The Process . . .

#ambient/#experimental/#classical/#techno

Soundings, by Simon Scott

Soundings, his debut studio album for Touch (he previously released the live album ‘Floodlines’ in 2016 and re-issued “Below Sea Level” in 2017), finds Simon Scott, the composer and sound ecologist, using field recordings from various cities around the globe; modular synthesizer treatments; live strings and laptop electronics to create an album of transition and shifting time zones. The recordings were edited and composed in hotels rooms across the world as Scott was constantly on tour as the drummer for Slowdive, who successfully reformed in 2014. 

Hodos, the album opener, begins with 85 mph Storm Barney recordings, ending with the fading sounds of bellbirds and cicadas recorded in Brisbane 2018. “I took a home recording I made of Storm Barney in Cambridge, listening to it on repeat when I was flying from continent to continent. I wanted this to be the starting point of the process of musically documenting how much travelling I was doing”. This album was created from the US to Asia, South America to Europe and the Arctic Circle back to the UK via California. “Working in hotel rooms and on flights, listening to and editing the recordings I’d made from all of these distant cities formed the basis of the album. It’s the soundtrack to four years of my life in flux with constant change, jet lag, excitement and the seeming perpetual motion of travelling”.

credits

released February 22, 2019 

All tracks composed by Simon Scott 
Strings played by Charlie Campagna & Zachary Paul 
Artwork & photography by Jon Wozencroft 
Mastered by Denis Blackham

Grønland, by Glåsbird

Beautiful . . . from 2019.

Glåsbird returns following the debut EP ‘Drift Stations’ which was a digital only release on Whitelabrecs just prior to Christmas last year. The eagerly awaited full-length debut album is something that this currently anonymous artist has carefully shaped over a lengthy period of time and it is entitled Grønland. Those looking to the themes of the North Pole and travel through the treacherous Arctic Circle which were contained within Drift Stations, will see a pattern of travel or rather, migration developing. Next stop – Greenland, the world’s largest island as well as one of the most uninhabited landmasses on the planet, which is thanks to stark temperatures and the permanent ice sheet which occupies most of this land. 

Glåsbird imagined that they were assigned the task of scoring the soundtrack to a film about Greenland and spent a great deal of time researching the subject. Hours of documentaries, drone helicopter footage, NASA and satellite images, Instagram traveller accounts, 360° photos, web articles and maps were surveyed, to the point where this artist felt sufficiently immersed in this sub-zero but beautiful land. One such traveller/photographer who has physically witnessed the splendour of Greenland is Lennart Pagel, who kindly provided the cover image; the shot not only captures the essence of this country with its iced mountains, freezing lake and primary-coloured cabin but also there is a bold starkness which lends itself to this soundtrack. 

Two releases in and whilst we’re no clearer as to who is behind this project, it is clear that Glåsbird is becoming synonymous with storytelling and specifically travel or migration, if you prefer. 
The music itself adopts a Modern Classical approach with icy piano shards shimmering alongside glacial violin and cello drones as well as the occasional hint of grounding electric guitar. We’re told that the artist even recorded some sections of sounds to cassette before placing the tape in the freezer to give an added chill factor. 

We’ve decided that such an impactful concept would suit a special ‘gatefold LP’ style packaging that we’ve run a couple of times as well as an increased run of 100 copies. Where will the Glåsbird land next?  

credits

released February 9, 2019 

Written and produced by Glåsbird 
Mastered by James Edward Armstrong 
Photography by Lennart Pagel 
Packaging design by Harry Towell