We have finally cleared out the backlog of great music and present some new episodes.
Episode 711 features music from The Jesus and Mary Chain, Zola Jesus, Duster, Sangre Nueva, Dialect, The Bug, Cleared, Mount Eerie, Mulatu Astatke & Hoodna Orchestra, Hayden Pedigo, Bistro Boy, and Ibukun Sunday.
Episode 712 has tunes by Mazza Vision, Waveskania, Black Pus, Sam Gendel, Benny Bock, and Hans Kjorstad, Katharina Grosse, Carina Khorkhordina, Tintin Patrone, Billy Roisz, and Stefan Schneider, His Name Is Alive, artificial memory trace, mclusky, Justin Walter, mastroKristo, Başak Günak, and William Basinski.
Episode 713 brings you sounds from Mouse On Mars, Leavs, Lawrence English, Mo Dotti, Wendy Eisenberg, Envy, Ben Lukas Boysen, Cindytalk, Mercury Rev, White Poppy, Anadol & Marie Klock, and Galaxie 500.
Skolavordustigur Street in Reykjavík photo by Jon (your Podcast DJ).
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Pauline Oliveros and Guy Klucevsek's Sounding/Way was originally released on cassette in 1986 and has been out-of-print ever since. This LP was cut by John Golden and pressed at RTI in order to achieve a quiet, dynamic pressing.
The Sounding/Way concept was simple. Each artist would write a piece for two accordions and then they would perform them together. Thus, side A contains Guy Klucevsek's "Tremolo No. 6" performed by Guy Klucevsek and Pauline Oliveros. Side B contains Pauline's composition "The Tuning Meditation," also performed by both Pauline and Guy.
This is the second release in an on-going effort between Important Records and the Pauline Oliveros Trust to maintain and promote the music, philosophy and legacy of Pauline Oliveros.
Guy Klucevsek is one of the world’s most versatile and highly-respected accordionists. He has performed and/or recorded with Laurie Anderson, Bang On a Can, Brave Combo, Anthony Braxton, Anthony Coleman, Dave Douglas, Bill Frisell, Rahim al Haj, Robin Holcomb, Kepa Junkera, the Kronos Quartet, Natalie Merchant, Present Music, Relâche, Zeitgeist, and John Zorn.
Pauline Oliveros, composer, performer and humanitarian is an important pioneer in American Music. Acclaimed internationally, for four decades she has explored sound - forging new ground for herself and others.
Through improvisation, electronic music, ritual, teaching and meditation she has created a body of work with such breadth of vision that it profoundly effects those who experience it, and eludes many who try to write about it. Oliveros has been honored with awards, grants and concerts internationally. Whether performing at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., in an underground cavern, or in the studios of West German Radio, Oliveros' commitment to interaction with the moment is unchanged. She can make the sound of a sweeping siren into another instrument of the ensemble.
"On some level, music, sound consciousness and religion are all one, and she would seem to be very close to that level." ~ John Rockwell
"Through Pauline Oliveros and Deep Listening, I now know what harmony is. It's about the pleasure of making music." ~ John Cage
"The Entertainer is Alex Twomey's first album since 2012. Many have been waiting and, finally, here we are! During the silence, Twomey’s keyboard work has germinated into a more framed compositional structure, beaming with orchestral strings, woodwinds, and brass. Eleven cinematic settings and bouncing refrains mark this LP. Alex describes the album as, "vignettes alluding to a vague narrative regarding one’s idea as an artist." A somber beauty is penned.
Alex previously recorded as Mirror to Mirror and operated the record label Jugular Forest from 2004-2012. I first met him in 2010 during a large concert in Santa Cruz, CA. Alongside Twomey, myself, Kyle Parker (Infinite Body), Matthew Sullivan (Earn), Pedestrian Deposit, Mike Pollard, and Peter Friel performed that night. Alex's performance was a thick ocean of chords, a penetrating grace that I can still recall. Everyone has since bloomed from the ambient roots of that time in their own way. Alex has held onto utilizing the keyboard, albeit as a tool to build a larger musical world. A legend to the map.
On this album the melodies dance as twinkling bulbs along a retired parade float. A dark comedy, a tragic smile. Love found in the rough of it all."
Important Records announces Vibe, the new LP from Extended Organ, the Los Angeles-based quintet associated with the Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS).
Vibe, Extended Organ’s first full-length studio LP since 2000’s XOXO was recorded in April 2016 by members Joe Potts, Fredrik Nilsen, Paul McCarthy, Tom Recchion, and Alex Stevens. The album consists of two side-long tracks, "Hate" and "Vibe," recorded live at LACM Studio in Pasadena, California by acclaimed engineer André Knecht.
On Vibe, the band employs prepared piano, junk percussion, Joe Potts' Chopped Optigan, electric guitar, voice, Rheem organ, various electronics, and homemade instruments. Each track is improvised, then assembled and edited without overdubbing in studio. The music moves with velocity and direction revealing surprises at every turn. The resulting sound is ominous, humorous, harmonious, chaotic and at times quietly erotic. This is abstractly powerful music.
The highly provocative cover image, created collaboratively by Joe Potts, Fredrik Nilsen, and Tom Recchion, is shrouded inside a unique laser-cut outer sleeve. Like the music contained within, the cover reveal is a beguiling experience in and of itself. This intriguing package was art directed and designed by Tom Recchion.
Formed in 1994, Extended Organ produces a dynamic otherworldly ambience which can be simultaneously hilarious and frightening. Joe Potts lays down a carpet of sound using and his self-engineered drone instrument, the "Chopped Optigan," over which Paul McCarthy performs vocal and guitar improvisations channeled and processed by Alex Stevens. Alex also adds his own keyboard triggered synthesized sounds. Tom Recchion, renowned as an inventor of homemade instruments, a free improviser, and an accomplished composer of acoustic, electronic and tape music, performs an array of sounds folding lush beauty and horror sensibility into the matrix. Fredrik Nilsen plays an antique Rheem Mark 7 organ along with electronic sound and recordings created by Mike Kelley. Kelley was a member of the group from 2000 until his death in 2012 and continues to be a contributing member by virtue of sound recordings he provided before his death; "In case I can't make a gig, I can still play."
The LAFMS formed in the early 1970s around a loosely knit group of like-minded musical improvising sound experimenters in eastern Los Angeles who discovered their mutual interest and banded together to design modes of self production and distribution of recordings and publications, helping to develop and propel the DIY movement. In the ensuing 45 years the LAFMS has gone on to create dozens of records and groups (including Doo-Dooettes, AIRWAY, Le Forte Four, Smegma, John Duncan and Extended Organ), hundreds of concerts, festivals in both US and Europe, a full-scale gallery retrospective and volumes of artwork, sculptures, homemade instruments, videos, recordings, and other ephemera.
With Breach, Zeno van den Broek totally disrupts the world of glitch and electronica with an energy we have never heard before. Breach dives into chaotic systems and creates a manifestation of the recent events of protests and riots across the globe. The album and live audiovisual performance explore the build up and release of tension, anger and energy in a new form of pitch black metal electronics and dense polyrhythmic structures. Utilizing electromagnetic recordings of communication devices and found footage of uproars, Breach establishes an intense experience by putting the beholder in the center of a system on the verge of breaking into chaos.
"Breach testifies to the blackened sounds of tectonic shifts shaking the worn habits of society’s nature and nurture. NOW! blares from metal screens. As stability is a long-lost illusion and equilibrium stands at odd angles, Breach screams: Come out and play. Offers on billboards: Tables filled to the brim, a riot in excess. Over there! Look, out of the window: The movement of revolutions per minute in a rapidly changing landscape where as below so above can very well be the next trending hashtag for barricade-progressive action. If not thought.
Breach sloganeers: Your anger is a gift. Breach unleashes: What was kept pent up, creeping slow like glacier ice, but advancing surely as the scorching lava that entombed Herculaneaum. Leaving behind the spiked blast of unloading, Breach does not represent — fashions disruptive events: compositions of chaos in flux. Breach breathes the frantic fumes and pulsates with the moving noises of electromagnetic rebels in the streets:
This, the density of today. For Breach is manifest."
Seabuckthorn is the solo work of Andy Cartwright since 2009.
Exploring various approaches on guitars, with fingerpicking, bowing and slides, often with layered accompaniments.
Crossing, his 8th solo album, is focusing on ambient spaces created by bowed resonator guitar. It was recorded in his home studio in the French Alps with the expectancy of becoming a father.
After the release of her sublime, critically acclaimed sophomore solo album Penelope Two, Penelope Trappes and Houndstooth are pleased to announce Redeux; an album of top-drawer reworks of tracks from Penelope Two, which showcase not only the intrinsic brilliance of Penelope's composition and performances, but also her far-reaching and all-encompassing musical influences and significance.
"There were no preconceived notions of how the reworks would work together, just total freedom. I'm absolutely in love with all of these! I never really thought I'd get the chance to collaborate with such an array of creative artists who have inspired me, but at this point, I’ve learned to never say never" explains Penelope.
On Redeux, Penelope Two's themes of life and death and of hope and dismay are still prevalent, being brought to the surface in myriad ways. Scottish post-rock legends Mogwai stretch out "Burn On" into a scorching, warbling drone that flips the original sombre subtlety for grandeur and in-your-face majesty. Factory Floor member Nik Colk Void offers up a wayward, statically charged reworking of "Nite Hive" which reimagines the track's solemn beauty as a heads-down roller and Throbbing Gristle's Cosey Fanni Tutti's dystopian, avant-garde and jazz tinged electronics are deployed alongside her signature Cornet to flip the album single "Carry Me."
Other reworks are proffered by Shelter Press label founder, producer and visual artist Félicia Atkinson, off the back of an incredible 2018 for both her and the label. Félicia’s rework of "Burn On" digs for the skeletal awe by stripping away many of Penelope's multi-layered effects and pushing the bare vocals to the front with manipulated field recordings. Houndstooth mainstay Throwing Snow demonstrates his ineffable brilliance, delivering an elastic yet powerful subdued rework of "Farewell." Icelandic multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Jófríður Ákadóttir aka JFDR injects nimble rhythms and guitar into piano ballad "Maeve."
Poppy Ackroyd, composer, violinist and pianist, Hidden Orchestra member and One Little Indian signee transposes "Kismet" onto the piano adding eerie percussive embellishments. Savages producer Jonny Hostile takes "Farewell" and utilizes the space within to add more noise and energy. Oneohtrix Point Never, Ben Frost and Tim Hecker collaborator and Sigur Ros' musical director Paul Corley, delivers a forlorn take on "Nite Hive," whilst Swedish techno duo Aasthma (Peder Mannerfelt and Pär Grindvik) - the former of the pair having just finished work on live version for tracks on Fever Ray's "Plunge" world tour - take album single "Connector" to an entirely different realm. Adding rattling drum patterns and skidding synth leads which overthrow the sober original to a joyous dancefloor slayer.
Sound In Silence is happy to announce the addition of øjeRum to its roster of artists, presenting his new album Alting Falder I Samme Rum.
øjeRum is the solo project of musician and collage artist Paw Grabowski, based in Copenhagen, Denmark. For over a decade, he has been producing his sublime music, ranging from atmospheric ambient to experimental folk, having released several albums and EPs on labels such as Fluid Audio, Eilean Rec., Shimmering Moods Records, Champion Version, Unknown Tone Records and many others.
Alting Falder I Samme Rum consists of six new compositions with a total duration of about 45 minutes, captivating the listener with its atmospheric textures and melancholic soundscapes. Grabowski creates one of his best albums to date, built around loops of minimal synth melodies, layers of lush pads and swells of hypnotic drones. Alting Falder I Samme Rum is a gorgeous album with a feeling of nostalgia and meditation, carefully mastered by George Mastrokostas (aka Absent Without Leave) and highly recommended for devotees of William Basinski, Brian Eno, Harold Budd and Tim Hecker.
Sound In Silence proudly announces the addition of HIN to its roster of artists, presenting their debut Warmer Weather EP.
HIN is the new ambient/electronic project of two school friends, Jerome Alexander (Message To Bears) and Justin Lee Radford (The Kids And The Cosmos), based in London and Los Angeles respectively. Jerome Alexander is already known for his ambient/folktronica project Message To Bears, having released four highly acclaimed albums, an EP and a split album with The Soul’s Release, either self-released or on Dead Pilot Records. HIN’s debut is Alexander’s second appearance on Sound In Silence after the, already sold out, Moments EP under his own name J.R Alexander, back in 2012. Justin Lee Radford has cultivated extensive collaborations with film makers, environmentalists, astronauts, scientists and social activists whilst composing music for film, VR, commercials, art installations and theatre. In late 2018 he released a 2-track single of solo piano pieces under his own name and is currently working on the debut EP of his project The Kids And The Cosmos. Alexander and Radford, along with their childhood friend Maximilian Fyfe (Paint Splat Faces), also collaborate on the project Human Suits composing original scores for the documentaries of Planetary Collective.
Warmer Weather EP is made up of five captivating tracks, with a total duration of something more than 20 minutes. HIN’s debut deals with feelings of isolation, environmentalism and friendship and is a perfect mix of dreamy electronica, elegant dream-pop and soothing ambient. Utilizing wistful guitars, warm pads, hazy synths, enchanting electric piano melodies, deep bass lines, gentle male and childlike female vocals, intricate beats and glitchy electronics, HIN create an EP full of emotive textures and sublime soundscapes. Warmer Weather EP is a brilliant release that will appeal to anyone moved by the music of artists such as The Album Leaf, Múm, Epic45 and of course Message To Bears.
Spiral Wave Nomads is the newly formed duo of multi-instrumentalist Eric Hardiman (Rambutan, Century Plants, Burnt Hills) and drummer Michael Kiefer (More Klementines). As a new duo, their first record is surprisingly a fully formed excursion: an excellent balance of structure and improvisation, and a sound that never stands still, but also demonstrates consistency and focus from song to song. The final product is a complex, yet entirely enjoyable suite of enveloping psychedelia that engages without bludgeoning.
Being familiar with the wide array of Hardiman's other, more experimental projects, Spiral Wave Nomads is comparably more conventional, and overall more laid-back in sound, but by no means dull.The six songs are anything but stagnant, with all having a sense of improvisation pretty prominent throughout, but there is little in the way of unexpected outbursts or unconventional effects to be heard.Right from "Blue Dream" this is apparent in the multitracked guitar performance, with shimmering guitar chords paired with more distorted tones and Kiefer's shuffling rhythms.
The core of "Vanishing Edges" is similar, with the drums subtly punctuating the interwoven layers of distinct guitar tones that all go off in different directions, yet still sound unified together.There is an almost classic country like twang to "Floating on a Distant Haze" but with some vaguely Eastern tones there as well, the final product is entirely unique, with a loose improvised jam feeling throughout.The same can be said for the concluding "Patterns of Forgotten Flight", which features Hardiman again layering distinctly different, yet compatible melodies over Kiefer's spacious, subtle drumming.Even though it is just a duo, the sound is far richer and demonstrates just how well the two can essentially improvise with themselves.
The overall mood of the record may be consistent and at times conventional, but there is clearly room for some experimental flourishes to be heard as well.The fragmented rhythms of "Elysium" immediately set a different mood for the song, as does the heavier guitar treatments feature prominently throughout.It still has a jam vibe to it, but on the whole it is one that is looser and less conventional, dipping more into experimental improve territories. The nearly 12 minute "Wabi Sabi" is another more unconventional work, with Hardiman adding some distinct sitar to the mix, contrasting his more traditional sounding guitar performance quite nicely.The rhythms come across as less structured and more free-form, with the whole performance sounding a bit more sprawling and less contained.
Spiral Wave Nomads may feature Eric Hardiman in a bit more of a conventional role than his work as Rambutan or the blown out jazz trio with Jeff Case and John Olson, but the work is no less innovative or distinct.He and Michael Kiefer have clearly outlined a specific sound for this record, and it is a great one.There are no harsh outbursts, face melting guitar leads, or drum solos, but instead it is a consistent, pleasant bit of psychedelic rock that manages to stay on the enjoyable side of jam band territory.
The themes of urban spaces, isolation, and alienation abetted by digital technology on BLOODYMINDED link directly with Solotroff’s solo synth excursions of late, with the addition of The Myth of Community to the series coming just before this album.Listening together, those feel almost like the early fieldwork for this final project, with notable similarities and differences.While those recordings are sparse approximations of the inhuman concrete, glass and steel elements of the city via analog synthesizers, here the sense of isolation brings in the dense populace of an urban area. The first song "Precise Surfaces" is the opposite extreme of the synth work:multiple vocals all over the mix, yelling and screaming from left, right, and center above a traditional power electronics backing of extreme low and high frequencies makes for a very maximialist sound.However, there is the sense the vocals are disconnected from each other and also not necessarily directed at anyone in particular, resulting in a sense that I am just hearing the raging snippets of conversation from passing strangers above a standard urban din.
This is a structural approach that features prominently on "Degrees of Order" as well, and while this vocal style is not necessarily new for the band, it is so conceptually fitting for this album that it functions at an entirely new level.The same feeling is captured on "Rapid Breath," where the staccato synth undulations are blended with layered vocals and screams that make for a wonderfully chaotic pairing to the otherwise rhythmic feel."Flooded Interiors" is also constructed on a rhythmic pulsation of synth, which is also balanced by the harsher, distorted vocals.
As a band, BLOODYMINDED's work has always been anchored by Solotroff's vocals, and that is no different here.However, one of the most unique facets of the band is the fact that the vocals are usually rather clear and up-front, rather than buried under layers of distortion and effects.While often delivered at a manic pace and in multiple layers, they are largely understandable and when not, there is always a lyric sheet to clarify.Most of the lyrics here are couplets or short statements, pairings of buzz words or technical terms that emulate the fragmented information overload of today's social media and click-bait headlines.Shouted phrases like "dehumanizing undercurrents," "subsistence and surplus," "sowing division," and "the iconography of defiance" make the thematic elements of the record even clearer.
Vocals are prominent, but the same meticulous attention to detail goes into the synths as well."Tunneling" features heavy feedback that is nicely mixed with a widely varying sound to the electronics that stay consistent and structured, but clearly not just simplistic loops or noise that is allowed to run untouched."The Self and the Sublime" is slower and more textural, with the noise passages beautifully layered and evolving from beginning to end.There is an almost song-like structure to "The Future State of the Body" within the wet synths, overdriven bass line, and what almost seems to be an actual melody buried deep on "The Pace of Our Development," complete with French vocals by Xavier Laradji.The album closes on the title song which, besides putting the band in the elite club of artists that have both an album and song which are also the name of the band (i.e. Bad Company and Black Sabbath), ties everything together well, with its manic vocals within a hollow, empty mix that feels like rage that no one is around to hear.
Chicago is the perfect place for BLOODYMINDED to have been recorded.As the home of the eponymous Chicago School, significant sociological research has developed from the area that has no doubt informed the underling concepts of this record.Specifically, Robert Park and Ernest Burgess's 1925 theory of urban ecology, and its influence on Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay’s social disorganization theory (1942).A cornerstone of modern criminology, this theory posits how densely populated urban cities lead to an even greater sense of isolation; a seemingly contradictory effect, which in turn leads to anomie, disenfranchisement, and crime, which makes for an interesting sense of circular unity given the band's early work focusing on the true crime genre.A growing body of contemporary research has also demonstrated the magnifying impact digital and social media has had on this phenomena.I can think of no better audio examples of social disorganization than BLOODYMINDED, which makes it a fascinating work that bridges the gap between sound art and sociological theory. Easily a masterpiece of noise and experimental music that not only is the band's greatest work to date, but also among the most fully realized albums of the genre.