Castles In Space are a label whom I just stumbled into over the past few days, and I’m liking what I’m hearing from them a lot. This particular piece of hauntology comes from Jonathan Sharp, a composer who is, like me, a child of the 70’s. He split his time between Cumbria and London, and the music reflects his memories of those years long gone by.
The indubitable Far Out Records have produced what might be my favorite record of 2023, a guitar album by Brazilian guitarist and fellow Los Angeleno Fabiano do Nascimiento. I’ll let the label’s crack promo team describe this absolute beauty of a record below: “Adopting Hermeto Pascoal’s concept of Universal Music, a rejection of nationalistic tendencies in order to express all of one’s musical influences all at once, Fabiano avoided leaning too heavily on any particular musical language, without denying his own musical roots. After studying classical piano as a child, the Rio de Janeiro native discovered the guitar aged 10.…
Our friends at MuteAnt Records have released an utterly weird and wonderful new release. Jacques ‘n’ Their Box actually understand how to craft songs out of noise, making this album far more pleasant than most experimental music.
On December 1, the maestro will again collaborate with Arnold Kasar (whom he paired with on a Deutsche Grammophon release 5 years ago) on a new album of piano and electronics. Judging by the two tracks available for listening, this will be perfect winter music to meditate to. From the Bandcamp release site: “Five years after their first and critically-acclaimed collaborative work in the form of their full-length album “Einfluss” (Deutsche Grammophon), Roedelius & Arnold Kasar now release their second album “Zensibility” on the Berlin-based label 7K!. This new work encompasses eight collaboratively composed instrumental tracks, eight modern call-and-response pieces…
Jeff Gburek’s latest album is not a departure from his carefully crafter work, but a continuation of his honing sounds together, weaving them in a way that the early musique-concrète composers could not have imagined. Drones, pulses and the sounds of Burgas, Bulgaria, are blended to produce an immersive soundscape. Yet another fine work.
Mirt, a Polish experimental artists, offers up sound recordings from Thailand. From his Bandcamp site: “This is another part of an ongoing series of recordings made on Tarutao island. This time, the entire album focuses on the overall soundscape of the island and is a collection of random recordings I made during last trip to Tarutao National Park. Tracks 1 and 3 are recorded from a drop rig with no human presence on site and seem particularly interesting. Although these are not binaural recordings, I recommend listening with headphones.”
Igor Yalevic has produced some of the most gentle and relaxing field recordings and ‘ambient’ music to come out of Ukraine in recent memory in his latest album, Etudes. From his Bandcamp site: “Etudes is Yalivec’s sophomore album. His 2021 album Still Life came out on Polar Seas Recordings and has long since been sold out. Yalivec’s more esoteric electroacoustic project with guitarist Sergey Yagoda is called Gamardah Fungus and exorcizes a more cosmic and heavier consciousness. Etudes is remarkable in it’s ability to walk a middle path between the overtly melodic and arpeggiated Still Life and the heavy duty…
A haunting release, this one. Imagine dark experimental music mixed with war-ravaged architecture in what was one of the most beautiful cities in the world during the 1970s, Beirut. This is the terribly beauty Mayssa Jallad offers. From Ruptured Records’ Bandcamp site: “The album comprises two parts. Part A: Dahaliz, is a stroll in the city, where Jallad tries (and fails) to follow an old map. Musician Youmna Saba is a companion in this journey of remembering the once winding corridors (“Dahaliz”) of the city, destroyed by new developments since the 1960s. Empty skyscrapers propel her onto a past filled…
From Mike Benoit’s Bandcamp site: Shane Beck & I are here once again here to bring you the next Forgotten Magus album. We both hope you enjoy this as much as we do, and thank you for listening…it means the world to us. Forgotten Magus is Mike Benoit & Shane Beck, the last American poet. Be sure to look into Shane’s many other projects as he can be found all over the bandcamp world and is well worth listening to. Shane is an amazing poet and I am honored to work with him.
One of the great joys of my vocation is discovering musicians I would probably never otherwise encounter. Enter Corrado Maria de Santis, courtesy of our dear friends at Lost Tribe Sound: “Corrado Maria De Santis, an Italian guitarist, skillfully combines the raw spontaneity of improvised guitar with computer-generated sounds, crafting captivating sonic landscapes characterized by ambient drones and glitch-infused textures. Having contributed to various notable music labels, he now presents his inaugural album on Lost Tribe Sound. ‘Over a Long Time,’ is a deeply personal collection for Corrado, capturing an extended and challenging period of life surrounding the passing of…