DR-76 : The Green Kingdom - Empyrean CD / DL
Due out on July 18th
dronarivm.bandcamp.com

'Empyrean' is the third in a trilogy of albums on Dronarivm. Whereas Expanses might be evocative of vast landscapes and Harbor the feeling of floating on gentle waves, Empyrean seeks to transcend the Earthly realm altogether. The album differs slightly from the previous two in that piano plays a larger role in many of the tracks, bringing an ethereal modern classical feel to the Green Kingdom sound at times. Although the mood ranges from pensive to lighter pieces, the intent was to provide soundscapes that elevate one's midstate to the clouds above.

mastered by Ian Hawgood

Buy CD / DL

THE GREEN KINGDOM - With You

German sound pioneer Hans-Joachim Roedelius and American composer Tim Story join Erased Tapes as Roedelius & Story with their new album 4 Hands out February 25, 2022.

Pre-save and pre-order it on LP · CD · DL here: https://idol.lnk.to/4hands

4 Hands, an intimate and surreal musical conversation on the piano, is an example of all the warm yet otherworldly beauty that can come from approaching a shared love for a singular instrument from overlapping directions.

Recorded sequentially but on one and the same grand piano, Roedelius laid down a few impromptu piano études in May 2019 whilst visiting his transatlantic friend Story. Tim then learned all their intricate phrasings to add his own parts in the following months. 4 Hands encapsulates rippling minimalistic patterns and delicate, ghostly interactions with surprising harmonic twists. Roedelius’ intuitive and instinctive approach based in improvisation, paired hand in hand with Story’s deliberate distilling of ideas over time, creates two sides of an engaging and thought-provoking conversation that seems to evolve and deepen with each successive listen.

The first single Spirit Clock received its name from Erased Tapes founder Robert Raths, born out of a conversation around timing: “to me this term perfectly describes what’s going on here. There is this invisible bond, this very strong energy between Ach and Tim whenever they make music together that’s still perfectly intact even when they are dimensions apart. This metaphysical intersection of four hands on one and the same mechanical instrument at different times, something so technical yet deeply spiritual, is what fascinates me.”

4 Hands

Spirit Clock

Roedelius & Story - Spirit Clock

Taken from the upcoming album 'Gaze Into The Sun', forthcoming on Fluid Audio...

Gaze Into The Sun

Szymon Kaliski - To Linger

Support and follow @Wickerbird on Bandcamp here: https://wickerbird.bandcamp.com/album/the-sea-weaver

Wickerbird is the atmospheric dream-folk project of Blake Cowan, started in the wild foothills of Mt. Rainier. It began as a means of relating the understanding he found wandering the woods, told in distilled daydreams and wrought within the distant strands of tranquil, wistful guitars and cavernous, haunting harmonies.

His prior work includes The Crow Mother (2012), The Westering (2013) and The Leaf Maker (2015) — collections of music that are steeped in allegories of disillusionment and transition, casting personal insights under layers of natural metaphor and mythical imagery. 

Where this past work concerned itself with forest-bound introspection, examining the forces of change in their capacity for growth, Wickerbird’s upcoming full-length record The Sea Weaver shifts its perspective outwards to the horizon, reckoning instead with the destructive aspects of change. 

While his vantage remains lodged in those same diminishing natural spaces, The Sea Weaver instead explores his relation to the rapidly unraveling human context that envelops him and in doing so, contends with a haunted acceptance of being bound to its fate. It is a collection of threadbare elegies for the end, as overheard through the walls of a crumbling house. 

With gauzy, liminal atmospheres, stark finger-picked melodies, reverberant choirs, and mythologized natural imagery, Wickerbird makes an accounting of what emotions remain – when the anger and fear of a stolen future have long burnt off.”

The Sea Weaver

in altar wine

Wickerbird - in altar wine (from The Sea Weaver)

Today I'd like to introduce you to Laurel-based (Mississippi, US) neo-classical composer, pianist, and synth (and breakfast food) enthusiast, Jameson Nathan Jones. Perhaps "an introduction" is the wrong term here since Jones appeared on these pages back in 2021 with his beautiful piece, "Places We Could Have Gone", which I have featured on this Piano Day Special. He's got a handful of releases on his Bandcamp page, with the 5-track Carried EP appearing on Bigo & Twigetti imprint in May 2019. He's now off to release a full-length on an independent label, Fractured Capstan, scheduled for December 2nd, and I am excited to premiere a track titled "Kept" from the upcoming album, Somewhat the Same. The result is a very humble "collection of sonic experiments created with no cameras, no recording engineers, and no intended end-game or subsequent expectations," and it is moving in its honesty, sincerity, and warmth. Here, gently guided modular synth arpeggios are accompanied by soft piano keys, a touch of distorted lead swarms, and driving percussion to create a melodic journey through voltages and space. It's a beautiful marriage of organic and synthetic, and I think that when you hear this piece, you will appreciate my choice for today's track premiere. 

"Kept" was among the first tracks written in an empty church during the first lockdown. It started with some simple piano ideas, which I layered using the same felt upright featured in my 2018 release, "Sanctuary Sessions." The piano sits in the church's large, reverberant sanctuary, and I've always found that some kind of magic happens when recording such an intimate sound in such a large space. As was a common theme for this album, those initial recordings were fleshed out back at my studio, where I created a bed of tape loops from samples I had made of the church's magnificent pipe organ. While the organ features much more prominently on other tracks, I find the instrument's string celeste stops to be so stunning I tried to work them in almost like a reverb-drenched synth pad at various points throughout the record. Several layers of synths and eurorack percussion continue to build through the climax before it fades back to its humble beginnings."

Somewhat the Same

Kept

TRACK PREMIERE : Jameson Nathan Jones - Kept

Taken from upcoming DR-84 : Dag Rosenqvist - 'Lexika' CD
due out on December 16th
dronarivm.bandcamp.com

Lexika is a soundtrack to an imagined sci-fi movie set in deep space. It started with an image of a completely silent explosion in space. From that image I created a narrative of sorts, where a story unfolded as I set out to create the music that would become Lexika. With Lexika I’ve tried to step outside of myself and look at life, the universe, and our fragile existence from another vantage point. The themes of the album – grief, sorrow, hope, perseverance – are themes I come back to repeatedly though. This time they’re just framed in a slightly bigger picture.

When I close my eyes and listen, I see supermassive black holes. I see the Oort cloud, asteroids hurtling through endless black, the Andromeda galaxy, a radiant supernova, the redshift at the end of the universe. I see the endless vastness of space, I see Voyager II leaving our solar system and I see Mercury as a tiny dot in front of our sun. I see a story that unfolds forwards and backwards simultaneously through time where we – humanity – are both part of it and not. How, from the cosmic perspective, mankind’s existence is so brief that you’d miss it if you blink. And how that also makes it so precious.

- Dag Rosenqvist

Dag Rosenqvist - Automata

“I could hear everything, together with the hum of my hotel neon. I never felt sadder in my life.” - Jack Kerouac, “On the Road” (1957)

In chapter 13 of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” we find Sal in a Los Angeles hotel room with his new girlfriend, Terry, soon after they’ve decided to hitchhike back to New York with the $10 they share between them. Staring out the window in a sleepless fit, Sal observes a domestic dispute across the street: the humming neon sign of the hotel is an audible element amidst the police’s questioning, family’s sobbing, and city’s howling sirens, all of them blending together in an oddly poignant moment. 

This idea of sound adding context and emotion to human experiences is the foundation of Hotel Neon. The project formed in 2012 under far less desperate conditions than Sal’s, but it has always been anchored in the practice of recording musical responses to the current moment. The chord progression of “A Lament,” for instance, was recorded in the hours following the breaking news out of Sandy Hook on December 14, 2012. Ever since then, we have continued to create soundtracks for specific settings and situations in our lives.

“Hotel Neon 10: Reworks” is a reflection on the 10th anniversary of our debut self-titled album, which was released on July 30, 2013 in a batch of 100 cassettes. Initially a loose collection of minimal drone experiments with no intention for follow-up after the tapes ran out, Hotel Neon has morphed into the central musical identity for each of us, leading to friendships, experiences, and purpose that we could never have imagined at the time.

This is not simply a remaster or remix; HN10 has been entirely reworked from the ground up. You will notice that some of the essential elements and structures from the original songs come through, but we made a concerted effort to build on those early ideas and present a new album with our current tools, techniques, and experience.

We deeply appreciate your support, and thank you for listening.

Music: Hotel Neon (Andrew Tasselmyer, Michael Tasselmyer, Steven Kemner)
Mastered: Rafael Anton Irisarri
Design Daniel Crossley

Hotel Neon 10: Reworks

Hotel Neon - Dust And Drag

https://cosmicleaf.gr/releases/571/straight-theory
https://cosmicleaf.bandcamp.com/follow_me
https://www.patreon.com/cosmicleaf
https://cosmicleaf.gr/playlists
https://cosmicleaf.gr/tag/63/free-download/releases


Check our playlist:
Psychill Blossom 🌸 Псайчил / псайбиент / Psybient
https://www.submithub.com/link/psychillblossom
Psychill Blossom is a vibrant journey through psychedelic chillout, psybient, and downtempo soundscapes. Blending ethereal melodies and deep grooves. Let the music guide you beyond the ordinary. #Psychill #Downtempo #Psybient


Maluns - Glimpse (Guitar by Ramun)

Atrem-Shadow Land-The Bone Cart

Music inspired by the dystopian futures of Blade Runner, I Robot and all the wonderful Science Fiction of the Past and Future.

NEXUS 28 - SILICON HEAVEN

Download the full EP https://lucyclaire.bandcamp.com/album/collaborations-no-2

Lucy Claire ft Alev Lenz - Every Single Child (Tom Adams Remix)

Dutch independent label focused on contemporary ambient / modern classical music.