Lost In Ladakh

From the album Voids, available November 4, 2022 on Western Vinyl
Pre-order / stream https://lnk.to/qwWosSOI

Voids

Old Fire - "Don't You Go ft. Bill Callahan"

thanks for listening:

https://barstoolastronaut.com/smashedn2stillness

Space Tourism

Smashed Into Stillness

Good morning! Today I have a track premiere for you from the wonderful INNI label out of Reykjavik, Iceland. As a quick reminder, I’ve previously featured their releases by Christopher Royal King & Nico Rosenberg, Atli Örvarsson, and Rose Riebl, the latter two of which have then showed up on my Best of the Year selections – so you can tell that I’m a fan. Today I’m honoured to introduce you to another very interesting project (and, more importantly, fantastic music) born out of a collaboration between Jónsi (of Sigur Rós), Sin Fang (of Seabear), Alex Somers and Kjartan Holm, who’ve come together to create a soundscape that parallels a perfumery in Reykjavik, owned by Jónsi’s family, called Fischer. You can check out a Financial Times article covering this shop as the essence of Iceland, titled “Cult Shop: the scents of Sigur Rós“. But fandom aside (who hasn’t fallen in love with everything from Iceland yet?) the nine tracks of the first entry on INNI, titled Sounds of Fischer Vol. 1, are delicate, tender, and exquisite in their fragility, creating soft atmospheres for mornings and for nights. I can’t say anything about the perfumery, although the above article describes one fragrance using terms such as “smoke in the air, tarred telephone poles, mowed grass, a beached whale and tobacco leaves with notes of black pepper and Icelandic Sitka spruce.” I particularly like the following sentence: “Jónsi’s experimental approach to scent composition is comparable to his avant-garde musical process, both resulting in peculiar notes and enveloping overtures.” I wonder if that line can be inverted. I’ll let you be the judge. And now, let’s hear the music!

"Fischersund from Iceland is a family-run business that harnesses a collective of artisans at the intersection of scent, shop, gallery and art. Fischersund sells fragrance products inspired by the clean, unique nature of Iceland using herbs and oils harvested in the Icelandic wild via the most environmentally friendly solutions and materials for the modern lifestyle. Jonsi is the nose and has a passion for perfumery following a self-taught journey of learning (one of his fragrance organs is in the Reykjavik shop)."

Sounds of Fischer Vol. 1

Beitilyng

TRACK PREMIERE : Jónsi, Sin Fang, Alex Somers, Kjartan Holm - Beitilyng

Good morning and welcome to just another day in August. What will you do with your time today? Me? I'm going to spend about an hour sharing this amazing track with you. Then I'll go for an hour-long walk in the park, and listen to my own track which [I think] I finished last night. Yesterday I dug out one of my older synths (it's the Novation Nova) and pushed myself to extract some beautiful ambient swells from it. I think I've succeeded, at least in my way. Composing music could be a very solitary experience for me, and even though it is immensely therapeutic and often very much reflective, it does, on occasion, get a little bit lonely. It's like saying something to no one in particular, but once it's said, it does "feel" better. Even if there's no one to say something in return. But I do miss conversations. Conversations about music and conversations with music, in an abstract sort of language between two composers sharing a vision and sculpting a tale. This is where Vince Pope's idea of collaborating with numerous artists from around the world really resonates. He acknowledges our current predicament and beyond by accepting that we are "... divided by language, ideas, history, but united by the desire to create music..." For his truly collaborative release, titled Together Apart, Pope gathers artists from a wide representation of musical genres, including Dmitry Evgrafov, Stefano Guzzetti, Sophie Hutchings, and many others on his 12-track album, to use music as the means to connect us again -  "music, the language that all of us understand and that needs no translation."

Together Apart

Concrete Clouds

TRACK PREMIERE : Vince Pope, Lambert - Concrete Clouds

Here's a diffused ambient piece I made reimagining elements of Mozart's opera 'Così Fan Tutte' (So Do They All). I was interested in exploring material from the original piece and finding relationships between new and old. I was inspired by the idea of giving those elements from the past a new context, shifting them into modernity.

Written by SINK, Mozart
Arranged, Performed, Produced and Mixed by SINK

Mastered by Aneek Thapar

Artwork by Tjitske Oosterholt

Lyrics from Mozart's original opera:
Soave sia il vento,
tranquilla sia l'onda

Gossamer

Regen is the 2nd single from my forthcoming "Unlearning" LP out 10.07.22 

Pre-order "Unlearning" LP: https://alekfin.bandcamp.com/album/unlearning

Additional streaming links: https://linktr.ee/alekfin

Credits:
Music by ALEK FIN
Label: @MysteryCircles
Mastered by Dave Cooley for Elysian Masters
Artwork by Wilmer Murillo

Lyrics:
Don't understand it through my heart
Don't complicate it from the start
I'm regenerated

Regen - Single

Regen

Pre-Order LP

From the EP Copper Hills, available October 28, 2022 on Western Vinyl
Pre-Order / Stream lnk.to/elskavon-copper-hills

Elskavon - "Copper Hills"

Do you know those carefree summer evenings? Maybe just yesterday was one of them. When the air is warm, everything is calm, and the only sound is gravel under your feet as you walk an empty track across the fields. "Silence" is for that feeling.

I started working on it back in early spring, when evenings like that were still far away. Adding some of my own recordings (like birds chirping and the crackling of fire) already brought a sense of nostalgia and made those moments feel closer.

Musically, it’s simple: a few piano chords from an improvisation, layered with more piano and some airy synths. The atmosphere and most of the percussion come from everyday sounds: for example, a bicycle rack as a hi-hat, a watering can as a snare, and an incoming train turned into a riser.

The goal: music that feels like silence. I hope you enjoy.

Silence

Untouched Places.

Ocean of Pines is a cinematic ambient journey for deep inner work forest air and shoreline light in slow motion. Designed for plant-medicine ceremonies (truffles, ayahuasca) and quiet introspection, each piece moves in gentle breaths: handpan, felt piano, soft strings, e-bow guitar and warm analog pads, woven with subtle field recordings (leaves, wind, waves). No harsh transients, no sudden shift only spacious pulses and long decays to keep you grounded while being carried along.

Footsteps in Fern Mist

complete albums available on spotify, bandcamp, apple music, etc:

https://www.barstoolastronaut.com

all inquiries:  info at barstoolastronaut.com

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Smashed Into Stillness

Barstool Astronaut