wow!!!!!!!!! This is amazing! So glad I found you!

On her third album, Berlin-based Dutch-Italian composer and sound designer Aimée Portioli, aka Grand River, asks what guiding forces might be driving, enticing, and affecting us. “All Above” is rooted in her deeply personal philosophy as an artist, blurring the boundaries between electronic music and acoustic music and sculpting familiar ambient forms into personal themes painted with rich emotional colours. Written painstakingly over the last two years, the album is the most ambitious and divergent set of music Portioli has assembled so far, with a wide variety of instrumentation (including voices, strings, organs, guitars, and synthesisers) focused around the piano. She‘s keen to assure listeners that while that instrument isn‘t always heard, it‘s constantly at the forefront of the album, shepherding its emotions and anchoring its mood. It makes sense then that on the opening track ‘Quasicristallo’, the acoustic piano is the first element we hear, recorded closely, so its characteristic rattle and creak can speak as loudly as the familiar tones themselves. When the music blooms into abstraction and processed electronics, it‘s almost imperceptible: reverb mutates into ghostly vapour trails, and distortion forms the keys into another instrument entirely.

“All Above“ follows 2020‘s acclaimed “Blink A Few Times To Clear Your Eyes“ and 2018‘s “Pineapple” released on Donato Dozzy and Neel‘s Spazio Disponibile imprint. Having garnered praise from outlets like Resident Advisor, XLR8R, The Quietus, Inverted Audio, and The Verge, Portioli operates in a unique space within the electronic music scene, straddling the art world and the wider electronic music scene. She‘s developed sound art installations for Rome‘s La Galleria Nazionale and the Terraforma Festival-related Il Pianeta, and has appeared at Barbican, MUTEK, Le Guess Who?, Kraftwerk, and other internationally renowned venues and festivals, often collaborating with Marco Ciceri on A/V presentations. Ciceri also maintains the visual identity of Portioli‘s label One Instrument, a concept imprint that asks artists to create music only using a single device. All this experience is poured into “All Above”, a richly visual album that‘s far more than just an imaginary film score. While on ‘Human’, her piano punctuates a rhythmic synthesised bassline and smudged choirs that can‘t help but trace out the silver screen. The composer is keen to clarify that she doesn‘t think of her music (or sound in general) in visual terms.

Portioli studied as a linguist and used her art to develop an emotional language that‘s not bound by expected cultural constraints. When she adds a different instrument or process, it‘s not to reference a visual cue but to mark a journey through different states of being. Each element embodies a different emotion or mood: the electric guitar represents strength or violence, synthesisers shuttle us into the dream world, and the acoustic instruments highlight intimacy and warmth – even heart. Read like this, the tracks are like meditative poems rather than cinematic vignettes.

Dedicated to Editions Mego founder Peter Rehberg, who died suddenly last year, “All Above” demands engagement and refuses to evaporate into the background. The album asks listeners not just to absorb the album as a whole but notice the cracks in the structure and discern the tension they cause. That‘s never more evident than on the closing track ‘Cost What It May’, a piece of music almost jarring when Portioli chops into noisy waves of electric guitar. In the wrong hands, this might sound like a power move – some rock posturing to act as a finale. But Portioli‘s expression is different. She‘s forcing a level of engagement that perceives the negative space as just as necessary as the saturated positive, and what could be more haunting and emotionally resonant than that?

All Above

Human

Grand River 'Human' (EMEGO308)

ELECTRIC LAP

an electronic song, armored with motor synth, moody arpeggiator and a bit of sound acceleration  design

Written by CIRC

ELECTRIC LAP

Zzzzzzzzzzzz... Shhhh... There's a baby sleeping in the house! 
Find the full tracklist and related episodes on NTS: https://www.nts.live/shows/under-sleepy-moon/episodes/under-sleepy-moon-11th-march-2024

Under Sleepy Moon w/ Yawning Portal 110324

https://old-technology.bandcamp.com/album/colour

Old Technology are proud to release the new album by Material Object ‘Colour’

Six synthesiser solos hand woven into one full spectrum analog audio adventure.

Available on cassette and digital download.

This is track one from the album : Crimson

Colour

Material Object - Colour

Born out of mere chance performance, the new collaborative record between Abul Mogard and Rafael Anton Irisarri is almost an inevitable outcome of their long-lived sonic relationship, and yet I’m still excited and jumping up with glee. It’s not often that I witness two of my favourite musicians come together to create something very special, so when they do, I approach it with a deep appreciation and focused regard. I’ve sung high praises for these two alone throughout the early years of their very successful musical careers: Raf, of course, and his 2009 debut on Miasmah (which I’m still listening to, by the way, as well as The Sight Below output), along with his continuous friendship and support, as well as partnership in curating Headphone Commute’s For Ukraine compilation; and Guido, whom I detected to be an amazing synthesist [rather than a retired factory worker from Belgrade] very early on, and who became an inspiration for my own modular journey and then, again, a friend. Search these pages, and you will discover plenty of coverage [written by a genuine human, may I add – should I use that tagline instead of “honest words on honest music”?]. So yes, I am all over this amazing piece [slightly shortened for this “premiere” feature], which is taken from their upcoming two-long-playing-track release on Irisarri’s own Black Knoll Editions, recorded between London, Rome and New York [the second piece is taken from their live performance at Centro de Cultura Contemporánea Condeduque in Madrid].

Impossibly distant, impossibly close

Place of Forever (AM Radio Edit)

TRACK PREMIERE : Abul Mogard & Rafael Anton Irisarri - Place of Forever (AM Radio Edit)

Today, I'm excited to share with you a new piece by the Icelandic composer Snorri Hallgrímsson, whom I've been closely following since his debut, Orbit, released by Moderna in 2018. Even back then, I could somewhat predict the trajectory of this young artist, who, as I said, has been drinking from the same pool of Icelandic inspiration which has quenched the thirst of some of the world's renowned composers, like Ólafur Arnalds and of course, the dearly missed Jóhann Jóhannsson. Hallgrímsson's sophomore release, I Am Weary, Don’t Let Me Rest, which I am playing right now as I prepare this writeup, was a particular favourite of mine, even as I recognised some of the subtle influence of the above master of the modern classical genre. In this specific case, that should be acknowledged as an enormous compliment - if Jóhann continues to be here through the music of others, I feel slightly better and not so forlorn. This spring, Hallgrímsson returns to Moderna with an original soundtrack for Guy Davidi's documentary called Innocence. "The film is a harrowing insight into what it's like to grow up in a heavily militarized state where military service isn't only compulsory but is seen as a moral and cultural obligation as well." I think the cover of a little girl handling a machine gun tells it all. And yet, it's Hallgrímsson's gorgeous music that takes it to a whole new level.

Innocence (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

The Girl in the Dark

TRACK PREMIERE : Snorri Hallgrímsson - The Girl In The Dark

CHARLI XCX - B2B X CLUB CLASSICS (KAVARI 4X4 MIX)

CHARLI XCX - B2B X CC (KAVARI 4X4 MIX)

Ultramarine (Demo)

Commercial Works 2004-2006

Etching - Promenade

music I love. from west to east. from remote times to 2017.
#ecstaticcomputation

Caterina Barbieri x NTS

Taken from th album 'Ecstatic Computation' releasedas LP and Download

Ecstatic Computation

Caterina Barbieri 'Fantas' (EMEGO 259)

CIRC makes electronic songs that tell so much with only a few elements without sounding repetitive. It's addictive and you just want more.

circ.music@gmail.com

ELECTRIC LAP

CIRC

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