From July of 2021 we have a release from the French ambient project Esmez. The gentle, dulcet sounds of each of these four tracks have made for very pleasant Sunday listening, and would really appeal to fans of Brian Eno’s earlier ambient works. For Esmez’s motivations on making the album, Continue Reading
Soundscapes
Various Artists – Unexplained Sounds Group – 7th Annual Report
Unexplained Sounds Group has had another stellar year releasing ambient, experimental and post-Industrial music from around the world in 2021. We had the pleasure of reviewing their mid-year compilation on July 28, and now that the year is complete, USG end the year by giving us 35 tracks from artists Continue Reading
Jagath – Samadhi
Jagath is a field-recorded ritual ambient act from Perm, Russia who use handmade instruments, scraps and metal to make their dark, dank industrial sounds. As quoted from their Bandcamp site, “We do this to share our vision of decaying postindustrial age, to unleash the spirit of deep beyond-world and unveil Continue Reading
Jeff Gburek – Gendhing Rebaban
As we near the close of a challenging 2021, we’re graced with a release by composer Jeff Gburek which features a rebab, a spiked fiddle. It’s an instrument he studied in Indonesia under Pak Suhardi, blended with synthesizers and electronic bloops and bleeps which left me feeling like I was Continue Reading
Jeff Gburek – Trans Beskid Radio Volume 4 Extended
The last week I was in the United States before heading off to China, I watched MEV (collecting Alvin Lucier with Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum, may their names be ever remembered) and Kayhan Kalhor the weekend before. It was an incredible week of music before heading to more surreal Continue Reading
Perila – How much time it is between you and me?
Perila i(Alexandra Zakharenko) s a composer from Berlin of Russian roots releases one of the heaviest and, frankly, bleakest albums of the year. I spent today trying to unwind a bit as the snow looked pleasant, but after watching Juraj Herz’s The Cremator, hearing this album left me in a Continue Reading
Jacaszek & Kwartludium – Catalogue des Arbres
Michał Jacaszek is a Polish composer joined by the Kwartludium, a contemporary classical music quartet who, until coming across this recording, I had never heard of previously. Jacaszek, the quartet, and the musicians who supplement this recording make a very tense, yet totally organic series of an electroacoustic series of Continue Reading
Flora Yin-Wong – Holy Palm
After coming across an interview over at The Quietus with the London based composer Flora Yin-Wong, I wasn’t quite sure of what to make of her work. The new album they discussed, Holy Palm sounded fascinating, less so by the interviewer’s rather tepid questions but more so by the evocative Continue Reading
Santiago Fradejas – The Light Through The Springs
The guitar, all by itself, can serve as tool for making a haunting orchestra’s worth of sounds. My good friend Santiago Fradejas, now resident in Kent, of all places (!) presents a mini-LP’s worth of brooding, swelling, lilting soundscapes. There is a menacing element tying the album together, as though Continue Reading
Cousin Silas – Dreamsville
Cousin Silas is one of my favorite guitarists, and I can’t think of many who are better at making such mellow soundscapes. This is one of his latest albums, and his massive body of work is consistently good. Really consider looking him up on Facebook and following his massive release Continue Reading