From Here to Eternity, by Kyle Bobby Dunn

From Here to Eternity’ is the first full length album from Canadian composer Kyle Bobby Dunn since his 2014 long play, ‘Infinite Sadness’. 

The use of processed guitar and his passion for cinematic swells reaches new realms that are markedly more ominous and dense than his previous long play. Kyle Bobby Dunn also recruited prominent ambient composers and a handful of his favorite musicians to arrange their own instrumentation for several works on this release that add multiple layers of mystery and intrigue of the human mind and heart. Artists that contributed to this effort are: Benoît Pioulard, Simon Scott, Loscil, Pan-American, Wayne Robert Thomas, Isaac Helsen, Mark Nelson, Robert Donne, Maryam Sirvan, and Michael Vincent Waller. 

Kyle Bobby Dunn wanted this album to be very much about the eternal conflict with all human emotions and life circumstances and to somehow go even further than the concepts left behind on ‘Infinite Sadness’. The moods and sounds range from angelic choral elements to motion picture soundtrack epics; permeating the skeletal system of the listener with a sense of boundaries and mortality. There are also moments that capture the dynamics of the artist performing in the live setting perfectly and were engineered meticulously by Matt Rogalsky and Kyle Bobby Dunn himself. Truly a difficult album of unending loss, confusion, pain, identity, disease and even death, but also include the most reflective and warm moments of his career to date.

Releases May 3, 2019 

Composed & Arranged from 2012-2018 at The End in Mile End, Montreal Canada 

Art Arrangement by Adam Brooks 

Layout by Past Inside the Present 

Additional Mixing by Connor C. Ellis 

Mastered by Jeremy Bible 

All compositions recorded by Kyle Bobby Dunn except ‘Eternity, the Stars & You’ recorded and engineered at the Isabel Bader Center of Kingston, Ontario in November 2014 by Matthew Rogalsky. 

‘Boul. Gouin’ and guitar elements of ‘The Flattening’ recorded at Scofield Septic Tank and L’auberge de France in Mile End, Quebec – February 2016-2017. 

Organ and synth processing by J.H. Barsky on ‘Zendel Holiday Hangover Toccata’ recorded at his studio in Toronto, Ontario – January 2012.

n o i s_e

n o i s_e | a PostRock/Experimental/Ambient Mashup | 80:24

Gradiently noisy (because not all noise is loud & boisterous!), with gradually increasing intensity (plus, whenever I can get Schwalm, Fripp, Torn, Summers, Cline, Rypdal & Beck on a mix..!)

Track 3 was a late edition. The mix was technically “complete”, when I came across the ‘Remixing the World‘ project & decided to stack 4 of their found-sound tracks to add another dimension to the atmosphere.

This was a fun project to construct — as I wanted a softer feel to the “noise” (as opposed to, say, elements_gear) with a slow ramp-up to what could be described as “din”.

Happy listening!

Listen via Mixcloud or Hear.This

01 Fuantei – Track 3
02 Terje Rypdal – Dawn (custom extended edit)
03 Remixing the World (mashup)
……a. Walthamstow Glass Factory | b. Birmingham City University
……c. Distant Bells_Tomba Brion….| d. Berlin Ubahn U5
04 Christophe Charles – D-E-G-D (excerpt)
05 Harold Budd – Feral (Odd Nosdam remix)
06 Conrad Praetzel – Blue Poppies
07 J.Peter Schwalm & Stephan Thelen
……(w/ Eivind Aarset, Tim Harries & Manuel Pasquinelli) – Eris (edited)
08 Motorpig – Cryptic Passage
09 Robert Fripp – Seascape (Lichtenvoorde 13 Jun 2004)
10 Ümlaut – Insight
11 David Torn – Where’d I Bury that Stupid Clock (excerpt)
12 Das German Quintet (see track #7) – Haumea
13 ProjeKct Two – Is There Life on Zarg?
14 Andy Summers – Bitter Honey
15 Nels Cline Trio – Cropped
16 Jeff Beck – Head for Backstage Pass

earth mantra net label

earthMANTRA (eM) is a privately owned and operated ambient music label that exists for the sole purpose bringing high-quality ambient music to fans of the genre in a “Pay What You Want” environment.

https://earthmantra.bandcamp.com/

Best ECM Albums

The best ECM albums reveal why the label’s unique style and sound has made it one of the most forward-thinking jazz record labels of all time.

Published on March 15, 2021 | By Charles Waring

It wouldn’t be totally inaccurate to describe the German jazz label ECM as “the house that Keith Jarrett built.” After all, the American pianist’s 1975 album The Köln Concert has sold a staggering three and a half million copies and undoubtedly helped to establish – both financially and aesthetically – Manfred Eicher’s Munich-based imprint. More than that, Jarrett’s success transformed ECM into major contender in the jazz world, and the best ECM albums reveal an astonishing commitment to quality control that has more than ensured its place in the jazz pantheon.

But while Jarrett, who first recorded for the company in late 1971 and, 48 years later, still records for it, had a big part to play in the label’s success, it was producer Manfred Eicher whose vision made ECM a reality. Launching the company in November 1969 (with American pianist Mal Waldron’s album Free At Last), he steadily built ECM into one of the most unique labels in jazz, with its own distinctive sound, style, and look.

In 2019, ECM is still at the cutting edge of contemporary jazz, as our pick of the label’s 50 best albums prove. Think we’ve missed any? Let us know in the comments section, below.

Listen to the best of ECM Records on Apple Music and Spotify, and scroll down for our 50 best ECM albums.

Best ECM Albums: 50 Must-Hear Classics From The Legendary Jazz Label

50: Mal Waldron: Free At Last (1970)

On November 24, 1969, this well-regarded 44-year-old New York pianist/composer, who was then living in Europe, made history by leading ECM’s first-ever recording session. The resulting trio album, Free At Last, with its bold experimentation, encapsulated some of the musical virtues that later became synonymous with ECM’s unique philosophy.
Key track: “Balladina”

49: Julian Priester And Marine Intrusion: Polarization (1977)

An in-demand trombonist from Chicago, Priester has played with everyone from Dinah Washington to Sun Ra and Herbie Hancock, but only made a handful of solo albums. This was his second – and final – ECM album, recorded with a sextet in Germany. The music is by turns contemplative and energetic, but is sufficiently probing and cerebral to fit the archetypal ECM template.
Key track: “Wind Dolphin”

Full article

Vórtice, by Rafael Martini

Released November 29, 2020

Rafael Martini: Piano, Voz, Rhodes, Synths
Pedro Santana: Baixo
Yuri Vellasco: Bateria

Produzido por Rafael Martini

elements_brick by brick

elements_brick by brick | Jazz/Ether-Jazz/Avant Garde/Minimal | 69:06

An Avant-Garde/Experimental mashup (with a smidgeon of Jazz tossed in for balance) of texture & flavor. Using virtually the same artist roster, this is the follow-up to ‘Arid Desert Flower’.

The “bricks” were rearranged (last brick added was Chosen Spindle) at least three times before we set the mortar. It is, I think, the BEST iteration!

Links:
A New Wave of Jazz; Ensemble Ektòs; Matthew Whiteside; rand; Barre Phillips

Listen via Mixcloud or Hear.This

01 Dirk Serries & Asmus Tietchens – Höfner Akte 11
02 Guilherme Rodrigues & Dirk Serries – Landing II
03 Ensemble Ektòs – Semèia Kài Tèrata; parts 16 & 17
04 Matthew Whiteside – Quartet No. 6 (Remix)
05 Hydra Ensemble – Vista III
06 rand – Siegfried 2.0
07 Barre Phillips & György Kurtág Jr. – Chosen Spindle
08 Colin Webster & Matthew Grigg – Air Condition
09 Alan Wilkinson & Dirk Serries – Hobson’s Choice
10 Onno Govaert, Martina Verhoeven & Dirk Serries – IV_edit
11 Tullis Rennie, Cath Roberts & Dirk Serries – Found Within (excerpt)
12 Dirk Serries, Daniel Thompson & Martina Verhoeven – III
13 Dirk Serries, Anton Mobin & Quentin Stokart – 2.5

Invisible Cities Records

Nice aural offering from a small DIY record label based in the North East of England.
est. 2014

https://invisiblecityrecords.bandcamp.co

Counter, by SVR

Dense plumes of smoke slowly form an upward wall from some unfathomably deep abyssal opening beneath us. Shades of not just grey, but violet and port-wine burgundy, subtly backlit by slow flashes of silver light, exploding suns, holes in dimensional fabric, or even sparks from some infernal foundry, sunken like an iron tomb in the belly of Hell. These curious shapes and distant spasms of backlit depth, themselves seemingly sentient and alluring, indicate above all else a sensation of immense distance, time and space being traversed in a black and irradiated shortcut, a utility tunnel between the planes. We can only presume that, despite such distances being bridged in some non-Euclidean way, the reverberations we hear are indicators that this distance nonetheless exists. As this smoke-thing that seems to be much more than smoke now enters our lungs and singes our squinting eyes, we’re more deeply aware of a communion taking place, minds chained together instead of hands, slack-jaws murmuring drones in some sinful unison instead of recognizable language. Curvatures of planets we’ve never seen convey themselves first as horizon lines, dipped in alien twin-sunsets, before exploding in silent majesty like unfurling fractals in every color. Gigantic gravities suck us downward into a warmth that goes backward in time, some great returning to the womb calling us home, those intermittent cracks of light in the haze getting closer, wider, more familiar. Our minds as we knew them are now themselves memories and fragments of memories, artifacts from a different time, now merely spattered paint on an impossibly black firmament that swallows everything up not out of hunger or sustenance, but in becoming everything. 

Released October 2, 2020

W/P by SVR. Text and design by ABM&D. This is Psøma Psi Phi number ØΨΦXXXI. (c) + (p) SVR & Psoma Psi Phi 2020. All rights reserved.