Markus Reuter @ Glaus Haus, by Dutch Rall

I’m a big @MarkusReuter fan (heavy Robert Fripp influence, but with his own unique sound). This is a soft & beautiful piece of ambient guitar from Mr. Reuter.

Check out his work with Stickmen (w/ Tony Levin & Pat Mastelotto) too.

Nest, by Arovane & Darren McClure

Will definitely be grabbing several choice tracks from this album…

______________________________________________________________________

“Nest” is the second collaboration between Arovane and Darren McClure. This time their focus was on the sonic possibilities of granular synthesis, turning sound into music and music into sound.

The album was named after a photograph taken by Arovane, which perfectly described the creation of the music: layers of twisted audio, processed and bent into new shapes and soundscapes. Each track title is a different type of nest building, just as each track was created through different approaches to granular synthesis.

credits

released July 1, 2017

Mastered by Porya Hatami.

Bipolarity

A new mix project, fresh from the studio:

Where does the dividing line between cognitive clarity (as a time/space/emotional issue), & cognitive dissonance reside? Further: how does cognitive dissonance, as regards genre selection, play into the mix-making process? Not that it’s a “serious” issue at all…different genres each have their own appeal – but I wanted to fuse several together on this project: Ambient, Experimental Ambient, Minimal Techno & Electronica – as opposed to one primary genre dominating the mix.

This project, honed from over 2 hours of original material*, spans the real/perceived distance between ambient & experimental techno/glitch and pushes gently, but firmly, upon the borders of multiple genres.

It’s a slightly caustic/scratchy amalgamation of sound, jump-started by the release of Focal’s remix project ‘Polarity‘…on Ultimae (which has served me over the course of 2 mixes: ‘mute space‘ & now this); plus a little help from my friends over @ Stroboscopic Artefacts.

[I think you’re going to enjoy it — it’s probably the best thing I’ve mixed this year!] | 78:53

01 Markus Guenter – Paragon
02 Triac – Day 2
03 Claudio PRC/Focal – Hyacinth
04 Steve Roach & Robert Logan – Ecdysis Activation
05 Hammock – Dropping Off (edit)
06 Dadub – Iridescent Fragment
07 Off.The.Sky – See Through and Through
08 Bob Ohrum – Subliminal Listening (edit)
09 Will Bolton – Canvas
10 Siavash Amini – Agarthini (edit)
11 Lucy & Rrose – Foil Gardens (edit)
12 Kinosura/Focal – Paradoxical Escape
13 Sendai – Geotope
14 Steve Roach & Robert Logan – The Biomechanoid Lifecycle Revealed (edit)
15 Speedy J – Caligula (w/custom ending segue)
16 Dadub – Life

[+ scroll to the page bottom for a bonus companion mix to this session]

D/L:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/iyjbpbspvow38ps/Bipolarity.zip?dl=0

(artwork restructured from the original on ‘Polarity)

This mix project* incorporates a satellite/companion mix, Hyacinth_6 (6 being the # of times I tweaked the audio-flow): produced from the overage, along with several tracks from my private “glitch-bin”. It has a running time of approximately 60 minutes & includes tracks from Steve Roach+Robert Logan, Focal (Polarity Remix), Si Begg, Scott Solter, Entia Non, Biosphere/Deathprod & AES Dana.

It’s available here as an exclusive download. : )

Bipolarity Journal Entry 3

‘Bipolarity’ (a mix project) will incorporate a satellite/companion piece, Hyacinth_6

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Surroundings, by Yann Novak

While not a huge fan of the long-form composition…this is extremely listenable & enjoyable. File under #Ambient, #FieldRecordings #Granular #Glitch #Drift

Surroundings originated as a site-specific sound performance commissioned for the Hamon Observation Tower at the de Young Museum in San Francisco by the Soundwave Biennial.

Surrounding uses the organic architecture of the de Young Museum as a point of departure by incorporate field recordings captured throughout Golden Gate Park and synthesized sounds created to situate themselves within the field recordings. This relationship between the field recordings and synthesized sounds is intended to echo the symbiotic relationship between the architecture of the de Young Museum and Golden Gate Park while creating a deep and meditative listening environment.

More…

Tags:
electronic ambient drone experimental field recordings installation microsound minimalism sound art

ever > more > other

Always.

Somi

Somi is the new full-length from Taylor Deupree following 2014’s Faint (12k1073/12k2025).

The release comes packaged as a CD inside a 20-page hardbound book of Deupree’s photographs that inspired the creation of the music. For the music, made with a small number of instruments (electric piano, glockenspiel, DX7, handheld cassette recorder) Deupree originally set out to create a follow-up to his classic album Stil.. Steeped in subtle repetition and soft electronic sound, Stil. explored themes of time and change. However, Stil. was created with purely electronic means – software synthesizers and looping algorithms which explored the then-novel frontier of DSP based “microsound.” With a strong desire to bring the aesthetics of Stil. to his current way of working Deupree used no software or automatic looping, instead opting for the imperfections of creating “loops” by hand. The result is warm and quietly decayed work of spare, discreet tones and dozens of interwoven slow polyrhythms that create repetitions that constantly fall apart and shuffle themselves back together. While these ideas of phase relationships are not new in music, nor to Deupree’s catalogue of work, it was the way he approached the composing that was different, and more challenging, than his work in the past. Wrapped up warmly in the sonics of cassette players and cheap built-in speakers, Somi’s dusty melodies sit quietly, but uneasily, and question the passing of time and present one of Deupree’s most alluring albums to date.

The process used to create Somi is discussed here as excerpted from Deupree’s writing inside the book:

In my early experiments with repetition I used a host of software-based looping tools which allowed me microscopic control over timing and repetitions. As my aesthetics and work veered toward the more natural and organic I began to incorporate acoustic and found sounds into my compositions. I found the natural variation and irregularities of acoustic instrumentation gave my loops a fragile subtlety that wasn’t available in software. Likewise, moving from software to hardware-based looping devices, and eventually tape loops, introduced a whole universe of beautiful imperfections that only made the repetition more varied and alive.

When I was conceiving the ideas for a new album, that would become Somi, I wanted to take the looping another step further into the imperfect and started experimenting with “hand-made” or manually created loops. With this technique, instead of using any looping devices at all, software or hardware, I would simply play phrases over and over, at a specified temporal division, for the length of the composition. What I found was that my “loops” still remained repetitive but now had the added irregularity of slight timing and timbral variations, because every note and every cycle was played by hand.

The further I explored this technique the more I found that the fewer notes I played during each cycle the better multiple passes and tracks would layer with each other. Each layer, each manual “loop” would also have different lengths. Perhaps the first would repeat every 19 seconds, and then the second every 12 seconds, and another at 64 seconds, and so on. I found as I stuck to a strict looping timer (as much as I could by watching it and playing by hand) notes from each layer would fall on top or in between previous tracks at random locations and create interesting relationships and phrases. Each layer would repeat at different intervals, the equivalent of having a dozen different time signatures in one piece of music.
– Taylor Deupree, April, 2016

Bipolarity Journal Entry 2

Further: how does cognitive dissonance, as regards genre selection, play into the mix-making process?

Swept to Only Skye

It began as 2 separate projects, made for personal listening via phone + ear-buds, neither of which would have achieved mix status – but they were similar enough that, to save space on my phone’s hard-drive, the 2 halves were combined.

Then a request for review from John Reedy (the lead off track) compelled me to add one of his compositions to the front of that combined project. I then added the Dreissk piece (thanks to Mike @ n5MD) to the end (post Torn) &, after a Tweet from Dave over @ low light mixes, decided to insert the High Plains composition at the mid-section and…I realized that I could almost see the Room* —  uhm…mix!

The cover art was morphed from the Dirk Serries release, the mix title a reference to same plus David Torn‘s excellent album – have a peek into the windows & see if you’re reminded of something…long ago!
;- )
70:40

01 John Reedy – Lost Dog
02 Ambient Landscape -Washed & Treated Twine
03 Taylor Deupree & Marcus Fischer – Buoy
04 Fictions and Poetics – A Cure for Sorrow
05 Last Days – Fading Shore
06 Kloob – Haunted
07 Mathieu Lomantagne – Tanto Loin Tanto Pres
08 High Plains – Hypoxia
09 36 – Saphron
10 I am Esper & Mystified – Disintegration 3
11 Svarte Greiner – The Marble (glass eye  remix;
interpolating Metro, Pt. 3 – A Winged Victory for the Sullen)
12 Dirk Serries – I Communicate Silence
13 David Torn – I Could Almost See The Room*
14 Dreissk – Find and Lose Again

D/L:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lr1p0vixjwddjij/Swept%20to%20Only%20Skye_.zip?dl=0

[window treatments courtesy of Physical Graffiti]

Bipolarity Journal Entry 1

Where does the dividing line between cognitive clarity (as a time/space/emotional issue), & cognitive dissonance reside?