B O W I E [2023] | Rock/Rock ‘n Roll/Pop/Glam | 83:59
“What’s that, . . . you don’t, uhm, care for Mr. Jones . . . ?? “ ;- D
This one was tossed in just for fun (I haven’t made a Bowie mix in nearly 10 years!).
Albums represented: Hunky Dory, Low, Diamond Dogs, The Man Who Sold the World, Reality, The Buddha of Suburbia, Outside,The Next Day,Scary Monsters, Aladdin Sane, Young Americans, Station to Station, Black Tie White Noise, Pinups + several 1-offs (tracks 1, 2 & 6).
01 David Bowie – The Drowned Girl 02 Momus – Where Are We Now (Bowie cover) 03 David Bowie – Life On Mars 04 Always Crashing in the Same Car 05 Big Brother 06 David Bowie & Gail Ann Dorsey – Planet of Dreams 07 David Bowie – The Man Who Sold The World 08 New Killer Star 09 Bleed Like A Craze, Dad 10 A Small Plot Of Land 11 How Does the Grass Grow 12 Fashion 13 Boss of Me 14 Fame 15 Right 16 Stay 17 Sound and Vision 18 Jump They Say 19 The Jean Genie 20 Queen Bitch 21 Don’t Bring Me Down (Pretty Things cover)
Domes is a collection of meditative pieces based around the cello. While not being her primary instrument, the cello holds a very special place for the artist. Throughout the past 2 years, Heather often felt the need to find moments of respite in response to the chaotic and turbulent times we all faced in that period. Her days started or ended with the cello. A single melody initiated a process in which new elements were gradually added to the initial loop until the sounds filled her up. This process and the instrumental nature of these pieces opened the path for self-reflection and enabled her to express emotions outside the world of words or lyrics:
“The cyclical nature of the loop combined with the sound feeling like it’s surrounding me feels serene and safe. My hope is that listeners experience this as well.” – Heather Woods Broderick
Domes is a documentation of that period and offers 7 pieces which to the artist feels like dense masses – strong grounding sounds that can hold weight or be used to disperse weight – in an emotional sense. The album title, Domes, reflects this idea as domes are made out of triangles – the strongest shapes in the physical world. Coincidentally, there are 7 different triangles. As such, the pieces on Domes each reflect a different triangle, a different strongest shape which offers the listener a solid basis to find rest and calmness.
Heather Woods Broderick is a composer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Growing up in a family of musicians, music took root in Heather’s life at a very young age. Evenings spent singing along to her parents folk music collection began to shape her sense of song as a child. After many years of classical piano training, she began to expand her musical toolkit by learning to play guitar, cello, and flute among others. Deeply influenced by rich tapestries of the natural world, she excels at crafting sonic landscapes that reflect both lushness and intimacy. Heather has released three solo albums to date, and over the years has recorded and toured extensively around the world with a multitude of artists including Sharon Van Etten, Efterklang, Alela Diane, Horse Feathers, Damien Jurado, Lisa Hannigan, Laura Gibson, and more.
An expressive showcase of Flavia’s highly developed and deeply researched sound. “Glitch” renders her unique cello augmented with extended techniques, voice, synth, field recording, loops and live electronics. An organic world where perfection flutters and distorts with a microcosmic grace. The work “Glitch” is focused on the aesthetic of interferences, errors, and sound granules in a melt of acoustics and electronics. A glitch, a fault in an electronic system, becomes a malfunction of the classical way of playing the cello, far from the classical music canons to deconstruct the cello sound into small sound cells to experiment with different possibilities, so much that almost all the record sounds come from the processing of the instrument. Perfection offers no incentive for improvement and mistake is to go further. However unpredictable it may be, it has its own harmony. Integrating the error in a musical composition makes the concept itself harmonic.
“The error is there to remind the inexhaustible complexity of reality”
Released June 8, 2022
Flavia Massimo is a contemporary cellist, sound designer and event curator, both trained in classical and electronic music. She composes soundtracks for exhibitions, audio-guides, dance and theatre performances and creates interactive art installations. Her intense schedule of live performances brings her to work with several well renowned artists of classical, pop and contemporary music in Italy and worldwide. She conducts the workshop “Artigianato elettronico del suono”, a theoretical and practical laboratory, guiding the audience in the creation of a personal sound through sound-walks, acoustic exercises, digital manipulation and processing of music and ambient samples. She worked, as sound designer, with the “ CRM”, music research center in Rome. She is the artistic director of ” Paesaggi Sonori”, an unusual festival of cultural events in exceptional naturalistic locations.
A 2 parter (remixed from the 2005 original & inspired by a recent interview by Rick Beato with Pat Metheny), that grew out of my use of Mr. Metheny within this current ‘elements’ series; though he often gets a skewed rap as a “Smooth Jazz” artist, I’d bet that (like track 13 from the Frankenstein Mix concept) more people are into his stuff than care to admit it…and…the man can play!
As I started digging through the stacks, I unearthed fifteen albums by either Metheny, his Group or side projects (some of which I haven’t played in several years). I attempted to keep the ratio of Jazz to South American-influenced beats fairly even…and started cutting so many songs that it eventually grew into a double set. Unfortunately I couldn’t use anything off ‘The Falcon & the Snowman’ soundtrack or ‘Zero Tolerance for Silence’, as they just didn’t fit the “feel” of this double-shot.
My favorite of all the albums represented herein has to be ‘Question & Answer’, recorded with Dave Holland on bass and Roy Haynes on drums; I can set that one on ‘repeat’ @ the office and go just about all day long.
Mixed, including spaces between many of the compositions, so as to enhance f-l-o-w (vs. chronology) with a new track added to the project from the 2005 original mix.
7A – Listen . . . via Mixcloud or Sync (part a; b will post in 2 weeks)
7A 01 Pat Metheny – Last Train Home (acoustic solo) (One Quiet Night/Warner Brothers-2003) 02 Pat Metheny/Charlie Haden – Cinema Paradiso (Beyond the Missouri Sky/Verve-1997) 03 Pat Metheny Group – If I Could (First Circle/ECM-1984) 04 Pat Metheny Group – Across The Sky (Imaginary Day/Warner Brothers-1997) 05 Pat Metheny (acoustic solo) – My Song (Jarrett) (One Quiet Night/Warner Brothers-2003) 06 Pat Metheny Group – Are You Going With Me? (Offramp/ECM-1981) 07 Pat Metheny Group -Into the Dream (Imaginary Day/Warner Brothers-1997) 08 Pat Metheny Group – Spring Ain’t Here (Letter From Home/Geffen-1989) 09 Pat Metheny Group – So it May Secretly Begin (Still Life Talking/Geffen-1987) 10 Pat Metheny, Jaco Pastorius & Bob Moses – Bright Sized Life (Bright Sized Life/ECM 1976) 11 Pat Metheny/Steve Rodby – Rain River (Secret Story/Geffen-1992) 12 Metheny, Holland & Haynes – Question & Answer (Question & Answer/Geffen-1990) 13 Pat Metheny/John Scofield – S.C.O. (I Can See Your House From Here/Blue Note-1994) 14 Pat Metheny/Kenny Garrett – Lonnie’s Lament (Pursuance/Warner Brothers-1996) 15 Pat Metheny Group – Last Train Home (Still Life Talking/Geffen-1987)
7B 01 Pat Metheny/Charlie Haden – The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (Beyond the Missouri Sky/Verve-1997) 02 Pat Metheny/Skaila Kanga – Tell Her You Saw Me (Secret Story/Geffen-1992) 03 Pat Metheny – Over on 4th Street (One Quiet Night/Warner Brothers-2003) 04 Pat Metheny Group – To the End of the World (We Live Here/Geffen-1995) 05 Pat Metheny – Cathedral in a Suitcase (Secret Story/Geffen-1992) 06 Pat Metheny Group – A Story within the Story (Imaginary Day/Warner Brothers-1997) 07 Pat Metheny/Kenny Garrett – Liberia (Pursuance/Warner Brothers-1996) 08 Pat Metheny Group – The Girl Next Door (We Live Here/Geffen-1995) 09 Pat Metheny Group – The First Circle (The First Circle/ECM-1984) 10 Pat Metheny / John Scofield – No Way Jose (I Can See Your House From Here/Blue Note-1994) 11 Pat Metheny/Gary Burton – Reunion (Reunion/GRP-1990) 12 Metheny Holland & Haynes – Three Flights Up (Question & Answer/Geffen-1990)
Xu & Darren Harper Arising & Ceasing Of Things [RTE021]
For the last three years, Italian sound artist Nicola Fornasari (Xu) and American counterpart, Darren Harper, have been involved in an ongoing and expanding collaboration. An immediate sense of kindred interest, both in sound and life, lead the two to pursue an ongoing musical partnership, culminating most recently with this project; A sound collage influenced deeply by impermanence and change within the natural world.
credits
released May 28, 2021
All music by Nicola Fornasari and Darren Harper Recorded between 2018 and 2020 Mixing: Darren Harper Mastering: Lee Yi Artwork: Meneh Peh
’Thanks’ is an album of simplicity, inspiration and most of all, gratitude, by synthesist and sound artist Fields We Found.
Performed live, the album utilises the space between swells of electronic and sampled tones, intertwining layers of charming melody. Humble in its expression, perhaps best described in the modest prose of the artist himself:
“To show my love and gratitude to everyone who’s helped me discover my true voice. Music inspired by memories and emotions entwined together, interactions and conversations buried in the past. Hazy nostalgia and dreamlike positivity, hoping to find connections between us all.”
Recorded straight to 1/4” tape using: Emu Emax HD, Korg Mono/Poly, Elektron Octatrack, Endorphins Shuttle System, OTO/Chase Bliss/CooperFX/Bastl effects, Roland RE-201, and various tape machines.
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All tracks composed and performed by Fields We Found Mastering by Ian Hawgood Photograph by Fields We Found Design by Ambientologist
The demotion of Pluto remains a topic of controversy more than a decade and a half later, but the now dwarf planet is hardly alone way out on the fringes of our Solar System. On their first collaboration, Transneptunian Planets, electro-acoustic composer J. Peter Schwalm and guitarist/composer/mathematician Stephan Thelen journey beyond the beyond to draw inspiration from the outer limits of the cosmos.
Transneptunian Planets further evolves the already innovative body of work that both Schwalm and Thelen have created for the label. Schwalm’s relationship with RareNoise began in 2016 with the release of his entrancing album The Beauty of Disaster, followed by the sound sculptures of 2018’s How We Fall and continued through collaborations with electro-jazz trio Chat Noir, Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen and guitarist Markus Reuter.
Thelen first came to RareNoise in 2018 with Vortex, which combined his minimalist quartet Sonar with the expansive guitarist David Torn. Two more meetings, Tranceportation Volume 1 and Volume 2, followed over the next two years. Under his own name, Thelen released World Dialogue in late 2020, collecting a decade’s worth of his contemporary classical compositions performed by the renowned Kronos Quartet and Al Pari Quartet.
Transneptunian Planets was built on a back and forth communication between the two composers, with each given complete freedom to build on, transform or mutate the other’s contribution. The music is also enriched by contributions from Norwegian guitarist Eivind Aarset and British bassist Tim Harries, both regular collaborators of Schwalm’s, and Swiss drummer Manuel Pasquinelli, Thelen’s bandmate in Sonar.
Releases June 3, 2022
J. Peter Schwalm : synths / voice / live treatments / electronic percussion / & programming Stephan Thelen : guitars / keyboards / granular synth & programming. Eivind Aarset : guitars / e-bow / effects Tim Harries : bass guitar Manuel Pasquinelli : drums / percussion. Nell Catchpole : voice samples on Sedna.
The follow-up to 2019’s ‘No Voices’, ‘Voices’ is a longform piece by Ian Hawgood and Stijn Hüwels based around vocals pitched and adjusted on reel delays with evolving guitar lines.
credits
released March 5, 2021
Written and produced by Ian Hawgood and Stijn Hüwels Cover art by Stijn Hüwels Mastered by Ian Hawgood
A meeting of beautiful minds. Land Systems and mara embed the depth and care of their real-life friendship into a series of exquisite and intimate ambient pieces built from synth tones, viola and delicate sound design.
Rather than combining, they have instead crafted this album by engaging in a playful dance of call and response, track for track.
The result is a nourishing listen, and a thoughtful meditation on the nature of human connection and friendship.
Ambient Landscape 