The Quietened Mechanisms, by A Year In The Country

The album is an exploration of abandoned and derelict industry, infrastructure, technology and equipment that once upon a time helped to create, connect and sustain society.

It wanders amongst deserted factories, discarded machinery, closed mines, mills and kilns and their echoes and remains; taking a moment or two to reflect on these once busy, functioning centres of activity and the sometimes sheer scale or amount of effort and human endeavour that was required to create and operate such structures and machines, many of which are now just left to fade away.

The CD and Bandcamp download include accompanying notes on the tracks by the contributors.


The Quietened Mechanisms is released as part of the A Year In The Country project, a set of year long journeys through spectral fields; cyclical explorations of an otherly pastoralism, the further reaches of folk culture and the spectral parallel worlds of hauntology – a wandering amongst subculture that draws from the undergrowth of the land.

As a project, it has included a website featuring writing, artwork and music which stems from that otherly pastoral/spectral hauntological intertwining, alongside a growing catalogue of album releases.

Accompanying the music releases is a book called A Year In The Country: Wandering Through Spectral Fields which gathers and revises previous writing from A Year In The Country alongside new journeyings.

The book and the written posts on the site are intended to draw together and connect layered and, at times, semi-hidden cultural pathways and signposts, journeying from acid folk to edgelands via electronic music innovators and pioneers, folkloric film and photography, dreams of lost futures and misremembered televisual tales and transmissions.


“…the first book of it’s kind to catalogue all these disparate strands, many of which cross over time and space to influence one another.” DJ Food

“…an essential field guide to a distinct aesthetic that remains loosely defined, like a fluttering night moth that would die if pinned down.” Ben Graham, Shindig!


On A Year In The Country and its previous music releases:

“A Year In The Country quietly go about their business releasing beautifully packaged music that is influenced by folk, electronica, drone as well as by landscape, time and place… each have themes running through them, tying the music together and seemingly telling a story as they unfold.” Terrascope

“…another exquisitely packaged affair… murky and ominous as befits the guiding thematic: places that are spectrally imprinted with past conflicts and struggles… a conceptual compilation of excellently eerie electronic music…” Simon Reynolds, author of Retromania and Energy Flash

“A Year In The Country… operating like some sinister rustic arts and crafts movement manifesting online via a Wi-Fi connected scrying mirror… an almanac of unearthly sonics to tide you through the winter nights.” Shindig!

“…a response to British folk traditions that acknowledges the history without seeming beholden to it.” John Coulthart, Feuilleton


www.ayearinthecountry.co.uk

Released October 2, 2018

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#SomeBraveApollo

Last year (2018) marked the 25th anniversary of the release of this album.
I had a fleeting thought about this project, but it lay dormant in my head until several months ago: a re-working of Brian Eno’s landmark classic ‘Apollo‘.

The original title for this project was ‘Apollo on my Mind’ (it was later changed after I decided to close with the Diamond Dogs track); because back, w-a-y back, in the deep recesses of my mixological cranium . . . Apollo has ALWAYS been on my mind; shaping, guiding & navigating; & providing a pathway (as well as a way out) through the din.

I relied heavily on my own mix back-catalog: (what tracks had I utilized with Eno, & specifically Apollo, over the years?}. In some cases (noted in the play-list), I purposefully targeted excerpts from previous mixes (both ambient & ether-jazz), coupled with infinitely long segues, to achieve an Apollo-like aural atmosphere. Several of the tracks (where indicated*) were custom “built”; that is reconstructed, echoed, fitted with slightly longer intro/outtros; I built the last track (Bowie) first – – which was a lot of fun – blending a rock track with an ambient intro & a back piece (molded noise) due to the original, abrupt ending.

My approach to albums is that, while the compositions themselves may be great, the ordering of tracks, as well as the overall atmosphere, leaves MUCH to be desired. So I reorder & mix them with like-minded tuneage until I get something I can listen to again . . . & again. Incorporating layered tracks, ghost-editing, over-dubbing up the ying-yang & fragmented/edited tracks, I now present it for your listening pleasure
(IF you enjoy this sorta’ thing, that is . . . ).

The full Laibach STUMM433 track/video (released on MUTE) can be found here & here.

And, finally . . . one more tip of the hat to David Robert Jones (1947 ~ 2016)

01:21:07

Download or Mixcloud

01 John Cage/Laibach – STUMM433 (excerpt)
02 Richard Chartier – Central (for M.Vainio) excerpt
03 Ambient Landscape – Matta’s Secret*
04 Daniel Lanois (ARR) & Brian Eno – The Secret Place
05 Ambient Landscape/Lowlight Mixes – Slow Decay* (excerpt)
06 Brian Eno – Matta
07 France Jobin – Singulum n_
08 Ambient Landscape – Sans Serif (opening excerpt)
09 Brian Eno & Daniel Lanois – Stars
10 Jaja – Aurigae (edit)
11 Brian Eno & Daniel Lanois – Under Stars
12 Cinchel – Drinking Tea on the Couch, Staving off a Fever
13 Brian Eno – An Ending (Ascent) w/*intro wash
14 Loscil – Monument Builders
15 Ambient Landscape – Blade Running – rework* (excerpt)
16 Zahn, Hatami & McClure – Byte
17 PCM – Par
18 David Bowie – Big Brother* (extended gibberish mix)

Sony 40th Anniversary Walkman’s Surprise Feature is a Scene-Stealer!

by David Phelan from Forbes.com.

Sony has announced a new Walkman to celebrate the gadget’s fortieth anniversary. It’s snappily called the NW-A100TPS Walkman and here’s all you need to know about it.

What was your first Walkman? If you had a music player before you had a smartphone, it’s likely it was a Walkman. When it first launched, seeing people wearing headphones as they walked down the street was just weird.

But everyone got used to it very quickly – especially when they sampled the joy of listening to your music as you walked along, and with good audio quality, too.

Of course, back when the Walkman first arrived, and for years after, the optimum portable format was the cassette. Whether you carried a bag full of tapes bought from your favorite store, or scrupulously put together mixtapes, the Walkman gave you the freedom to carry your music like never before.

Nowadays, almost everyone carries their music in their smartphone, although it’s true that Apple hasn’t given up on the iPod, for instance, refreshing the iPod touch range earlier this year. So, the announcement of a new Walkman isn’t entirely surprising.

What is surprising, however, is exactly what Sony has done with it.

Sony’s music players have traditionally been known for extremely good audio quality, beating many smartphone music players hands down. Which is a good start.
The new model, I can confirm, sounds terrific, with rich detail in vocals, a light touch with mid-tones and solid, enjoyable bass.

But the look is as important as the sound with this model, and here’s why. A special soft case comes with the player which means it closely resembles the very first cassette player, the TPS-L2, released in July 1979.

Because it was a cassette player, it had a little plastic window on it so you could see the tapes rotating slowly inside as the music played.

Well, not only does the soft cover absolutely make the Walkman look like a real classic, but it has the peek-a-boo window, too.

And when you look through it, oh my, there are those cassette cogs turning inside. If that sounds a bit baffling, just open the case. Yes, it’s a cassette player, you think. Has Sony taken leave of its senses?

As you think that, just tap the tape. Don’t worry, you won’t jog the music because then the trick is revealed: it’s not a cassette, of course, but a touchscreen with a perfect video representation of tape. As you tap it, the image is replaced by a modern interface, with album art, track details and play and pause functionality.

It’s a cute trick, and it works beautifully. There’s something so idiosyncratic about this visual effect that it almost feels like only Sony could have done this. Other companies might not have had the imagination, and especially the wit, to do something as fun as this.
There’s something so idiosyncratic about this visual effect that it almost feels like only Sony could have done this. Other companies might not have had the imagination, and especially the wit, to do something as fun as this.

But this is a splendid player with a super-cool, if gimmicky, extra.

The storage isn’t huge – 16GB – so you can’t have your entire music library on it. And many people will want to stick with just their phone. Unless they listen to how good this sounds.

It hits stores in November.

This still works (in my basement gym)

r 3 d @ c T i 0 n

Longer-form ambient landscapes + drones — a mix where a portion of every song has been deleted, edited, ghosted over or withheld from the listener’s ear. Given the country in which I live, it would be easy for the reader to ascertain from whence the inspiration for this project, an inadvertent follow up to 2015’s ‘r u s t‘ mix, originated.

The cuts, splicing, insertions & omissions all served to make this a navigable mix. Most of the compositions were entirely too long to be included in their original format. That being said, I’m sure you’ll find that this flows smoothly with almost imperceptible transitions between compositions, as well as where the “drop-outs” & ghost-editing occur. It’s an effort to Make Mixing Great Again (#MMGA)!!

The cover art was crafted from a 300 foot view of the redactions contained within the Mueller Report; a creative piece of American political fiction itself based upon an unearthed copy of an old Mother Goose nail-biter, entitled The Tale of the Steele Dossier (which was bought & paid for by the [ultimate] loser of our 2016 presidential campaign).

Fabrication, it would seem, has its drawbacks . . .

Some of the oral r3d@cTi0ns can be heard ever so slightly on the project’s final track.

Peace out, ;- ) !
76:22

Download

Project Notes

01 Michael Trommer – Phonopuls.01
02 Alessandro Adriani – Casting the Runes
03 Excerpt: Framework Radio’s #677 mix
04 Michele Rabbia, Gianluca Petrella & Eivind Aarset – Flotsam
05 France Jobin – Singulum__m (excerpt)
06 Steve Roach – Deadwood
07 Steve Roach & Loren Nerell – Para.Terra
08 Lorren Stafford – Inching Glaciers (edit)
09 Oophoi – Walpurgisnacht
10 Seofon & Steve Roach – Rev. 20-13 Teknos (fragment)
11 Freq. Magnet – Nitrous
12 SINthetik Messiah – AN-02
13 Rag Dun – The Place of Potentials
14 Benjamin Dauer & Specta Ciera – Shadows Emerging

Immediate Horizon by Alessandro Cortini + Lawrence English

Having become mutual admirers of each others work; English of Cortini’s Sonno and Cortini of English’s Wilderness Of Mirrors, the pair were very pleased to receive an invitation to collaborate together.

Following a number of months exchanging compositional ideas and materials, Cortini and English met in Berlin several days ahead of the festival and commenced an intense period of rehearsal and arrangement. The resulting piece, Immediate Horizon, traces their shared interests in harmony and texture. It is a work that meditates on saturation and the ruptures that occur when harmonic elements are stacked. Immediate Horizon’s five pieces swell and burst in a perpetual sense of pulse.

This LP is a live recording, made at the premiere of the piece during Berlin Atonal, held at Kraftwerk in Berlin.

Released November 30, 2018

This edition is published by the fine folk at Important Records

Still Pieces, by Ian Vine

Recently I have written a series of pieces that are concerned in one way or another with the presentation of unique, and yet similar, events or objects. 
In this work there are twenty-four pieces for flute(s), accordion, acoustic guitar(s), piano, electronics, which combine to form an hour-long work.

The pieces can be played in any order; there are 620,448,401,733,239,439,360,000 permutations. 

total time: [60:00]

Releases December 24, 2018 

flutes: Jennifer George 
accordion, guitars, piano: Ian Vine 

flutes and guitars recorded at first moon, UK, September 2018 
accordion and piano recorded by lunar module in Oregon, USA, August 2018 

mixed and mastered at first moon by Ian Vine, November-December 2018 

many thanks to KAG for the use of her accordion and piano 

Deconstructing Brian Eno’s Music for Airports

Here’s a site that deconstructs and reconstructs Brian Eno’s classic Music for Airports album; additionally you can play with the files yourself!
___________________________________________________________________

In 1978, Brian Eno released Ambient 1: Music for Airports, a landmark album in ambient and electronic music. Although it wasn’t the first ambient album by any means, it was the first album explicitly released as an ‘ambient music album’. The album was essentially a continuation of Eno’s experimentation with the tape machine as a compositional tool, as well as his exploration of generative music, music created by systems. In this article I’ll discuss how Music for Airports was created, I’ll break down and recreate the tracks 2/1 and 1/2, and hopefully give you some ideas about how to adopt this approach yourself.

Eno’s experiments with tape loops go as far back as 1973’s (No Pussyfooting), a collaboration with King Crimson’s Robert Fripp that employed an early experiment in sound-on-sound tape looping. For the recordings, Fripps’s guitar was run into two tape machines feeding into each other. The musical material runs back and forth between the machines, creating longs delays akin to modern loop pedals. The length of the delay was set by the physical distance between the two machines.

More . . .

About Time, by Le Berger

Samuel Landry has been working to distinguish his craft under the guise of Le Berger for quite a few years, mostly self-releasing digital-only records, mostly flying below the radar. But last year, the world at large saw what Landry was capable of on his solo debut physical release, Music For Guitar & Patience on Home Normal, which was his most ambitious and fully realized release to date. 

About Time is the follow up to Music For Guitar & Patience, another digital-only self-released record, and it sees Landry moving towards an even grander sound. It’s a double record in the truest sense, two songs that are roughly 40 minutes long, with two bite-sized bonus songs, and its drone as majestic and intimate as anything you’ve heard. Centered around the concept of time being beyond the grasp of our minds, these songs are teeming with the utmost refinement, smooth slow burning meditations on the truths and absolutes of the unknown, eschewing the shock and awe wall of noise treatment for ethereal minimalism that breathes life into the ubiquitous and otherwise inert Cosmic Dust, Landry achieves an unequalled perfection with poise and intentionality. 

– Justin Snow 

N.B. All funds gathered from the digital sales of this album will be invested in my brewery project. If you wish to learn more about said project or fund it directly please go to www.indiegogo.com/projects/les-gueux/x/13483044#/

Released April 11, 2016 

Not words & somewhat music by Le Berger 
Cover artwork by René Margraff

Anticipation of an Uncertain Future – various artists

Released January 1, 2017

As we move into the unpredictability of 2017, “Anticipation of an Uncertain Future” is a compilation taken from our recent and upcoming releases. 

Featuring tracks from albums by Max Ananyev, Covarino/Incorvaia, Endless Melancholy, Adrian Lane, Aaron Martin, Poppy Nogood, Ales Tsurko, Visionary Hours and Richard Youngs, “Anticipation of an Uncertain Future” aims to distract the listener’s attention from the absurdity of the times we live in … even just for 40 minutes. 

For more information about the tracks, albums and artists, visit: www.preservedsound.com/news/various-artists-anticipation-of-an-uncertain-future

 

Photo by Musa Musavi: www.flickr.com/photos/musamusavi/16726445067

Drop Me in the Water . . .

Mmm . . . looks like we didn't coin the term #EtherJazz for nuthin'!

5.31.19 on @ECMRecords

🎧 pic.twitter.com/FHaAc8k6IZ

— Ambient Landscape (@AmbientLndscape) May 28, 2019