Tag: Electronic Music

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Giedrius Kuprevičius – Erotidijos

Giedrius Kuprevičius is a Lithuanian composer with roots in theater music.  Erotidijos has a rather long history, originally being released on cassette in 1994, but the latest release adds around 30 minutes of music, and is available on vinyl as well as download.

From his Bandcamp site:

Erotidijos is a haunting yet hypnotic tableaux Kuprevičius originally created for a Stanislovas Rubinovas theatre play staged in 1994 in Kaunas, Lithuania. The Lithuanian composer was one of the founding members of the pioneering electronic pop outfit Argo and has written dozens of scores for stage and film over the past several decades, imbuing his soundwork with a multitude of artful moods and emotive depth.

This is really going to appeal to fans of the Belgian record label Crammed Discs‘ sub-label Made To Measure, especially those works (for theater) by Steven Brown and Blaine Reininger.

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Jettenbach – Somniphobia [Remixed]

It’s nice to indulge in a guilty pleasure on occasion.  Growing up in Los Angeles, we were lucky enough to have a pretty good Industrial dance / EBM scene in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s.  The clubs were amazing, the girls stunning, the beats driving.

Jettenbach brings some of these older bands of the era to mind.  There are elements of Thrill Kill Kult, Skinny Puppy, and innumerable synth-pop bands.  For purposes of nostalgia, this was quite good.

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Amid The Ruins 1453 – Dyerwave Trilogy (All Dyerwave Tracks)

Dyerwave is a stand-alone genre sitting inside of synth-wave, which has produced a number of appealing artists who bring 1980s visual imagery and marry it to dystopian visions of the future.  The artist responsible for this release, Amid The Ruins 1453 is a Serbian composer and fellow Orthodox Christian who has expressed admiration for philosopher, Christian apologist, conspiracy theorist and radio talkshow host Jay Dyer.

The music is appropriately bleak, and would work well for fans of Vangelis (during the period he was composing the score for Blade Runner) and a more warped disco of Giorgio Moroder.  One could also add the influence of the later soundtrack music of Tangerine Dream to the list of musicians influencing this album, and sprinkling of snippets of Dyer’s voice throughout the recordings adds a nice touch to the music.

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Psycho & Plastic – Soundtrack 2: Pappel

I seem to be running into a lot of Berlin-school style musicians recently, but this is the first one I’ve run into who is actually from the Berlin area.  From Psycho & Plastic‘s Bandcamp site:

Award-winning German author Dalibor Markovi​​ć commissioned Psycho & Plastic to create an original soundtrack for his debut novel ‘Pappel. Die Geschichte eines Herumtreibers’ on the heels of their 2020 ambient masterpiece ‘Placid House’ and ‘Soundtrack 1: Schwelen’. Scheduled for a simultaneous release, book and album are deeply intertwined in form and content.

‘Soundtrack 2: Pappel‘ follows the novel’s tree-turned-human protagonist Konrad Pappel on his tour de force through 150 years of German history, equating each of the novel’s seven chapters with a track of the same title. The instrumental music mindfully mirrors the inner worlds and real life adventures of this unlikely character. Consequently, the album closely traces the book’s arc of suspense, its emotions and atmospheres. It is Psycho & Plastic’s most cinematic work to date, with orchestral timbres and arrangements directly referencing film scores. However, the Berlin-based duo does not stop there. From ambient serenity to claustrophobic dread, from organic explorations of freedom to gritty electronic rigidity, Psycho & Plastic weave their compositions across microscopic planes and cosmic expanses alike.

The music has a strong appeal both as an accompaniment to Marković’s work and as stand-alone music you can enjoy on its own merits.  This will appeal greatly to the Kosmische music, electronic music and prog fans who visit these pages.

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Wilfried Hanrath – The Sweet Scent of Dreams

This album has to be one of the more intriguing releases I’ve heard this month.  Wilfried Hanrath is a composer based in Wuppertal, Germany (home, if I remember correctly, to free jazz legend Peter Brötzmann as well), and grew up surrounded by some of the most radical music imaginable: Krautrock, jazz fusion, early German electronic music and perhaps a large dose of progressive and psychedelic rock.  The album showcases his influences in a stunning way, though I understand this album is more a reinterpretation of the works of others rather than a purely original album.  He crafts each song as though it were part of some non-existent soundtrack.  Really, another artist worth following.

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Celer – In Light Of Blues

Will Long is Celer, an ambient music composer living in Japan and therefore, a relatively close expatriate neighbor of mine.  He releases a lot of music, as is the fashion with some highly competent composers these days, but his work feels like a cut above.  Though this album has 12 tracks, they are rather short compared to some of his other albums, where one track can clock in at over an hour.  The material is dark, but not claustrophobic, and quite easy on the ears if you’re listening on headphones.  Really, consider following his Bandcamp site.  He’s constantly putting out something good.

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Various Artists – Lost Tribe Sound: Salt and Gravity Series

Readers who visit frequently know that I have a few artists and labels who I am happy to champion because they never let me down in terms of quality of music or their curating abilities.  I’m happy to add another label to this list: Lost Tribe Sound.

The label is based out of Wisconsin, and if you enjoy rich, resonating dark ambient music which blends field recordings seamlessly into their compositions, this label is going to keep your attention for a good long while.  The label releases music by such luminaries as Seabuckthorn, William Ryan Fritch and Tony Dupé, and now, they offer a series of releases via subscription.  Take this one seriously, as the music is stunningly rich.

The Salt and Gravity Series is a bundle of eight albums slated for release in October 22, 2021.  This sampler gives you a taste of what to expect.  As I understand it, water seems to be a running theme in this album.  The sounds on each track are rich, but as it stands right now, this particular track stood out for its musical ambience: Stilaan by Belgian composer ‘t Geruis:

The price for the bundle is about $40, but you receive:

• Instant download the songs previewed here
• A Subscription Discount of 10% off our retail price (Normally $50)
• Bandcamp DL codes for all 8 releases (emailed day of release)
• Discount code for 10% off all backcatalog and future releases through the end of 2022.

The curation of this label is phenomenal.  I look forward to hearing much more.

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The Ambient Drones of Bill Baxter – Dreamscape One

I can’t say that I’m able to find any hard information on who Bill Baxter is, but he releases an almost ridiculous amount of music.  Amazingly, the quality is consistently high.  The tracks are very long, but they’re quite engaging on a pair of headphones.  If you want to learn more about this mysterious figure, you can check out his Facebook page.

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Harald Grosskopf & Ramón Amezcua – Quetzalkrautl

¡Demasiado kosmiche…!  Two absolute legends in electronic music grace these pages with a combination whose name cracks me up, but whose music entinces.  Ramón Amezcua is best known under his nom de plume Bostich and is known as the godfather of the Nortec scene which combines hard electronic music with Norteño music and banda into a radically different form of the sort of electronica produced either Stateside or in Europe.  Harald Grosskopf played drums for progressive rock bands like Wallenstein, Ashra and appeared on quite a few albums by Klaus Schulze, as well as releasing Synthesist, which is today considered a classic in electronic music.  Decades on, both composers are still at the height of their compositional powers, though I must admit to liking the slightly nostalgic feel of some of these tracks.  It’s definitely music for the 21st century, but the old Kraut (and Norteño) in me can’t help but reminisce at how good these musicians have been for so very long.

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John Tejada & Ulrich Krieger – Silversonic

Two legends from rather different backgrounds collaborate on this EP.

Austrian-American DJ John Tejada is a legend in electronic music as has thrived in the scene as a sought-after remixer.  I had the pleasure of meeting him several times while working at a record shop in Los Angeles during the 1990s, and it pleases me to no end how far his career has taken off.

Ulrich Krieger is a composer, improviser and experimental rock musician from Germany whose work you may have heard either as a composer or interpreter of contemporary classical music with Zeitkratzer/ or as a member of such experimental rock bands such as Art Zoyd.

Track 3 is freeform and beat-less, showing Krieger’s compositional skill.  The piece stands out on its own, but in the hands of Tejada, he gives is a heartbeat that makes you want to move.  Two tracks are remixed by Josh Wink, and they are of excellent quality.

It’s releases like this which keep me interested in techno.  Bravo, lads.