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Physical: geographic-north.com/cassette/midnight-colours/
Digital: geographicnorth.bandcamp.com/album/midnight-colours
Catalog #: GN48
Cassette, limited to 100

Rafael Anton Irisarri is an American multi-instrumentalist composer, record producer, mastering engineer, and curator living in the state of New York. Irisarri embodies a new kind of composer: one who “exists in an undifferentiated welter of pop, techno, and classical,” according to Pitchfork. 

His recorded output heavily utilize bowed guitars, piano, strings, synths, field recordings, voices, and electronic instruments, creating dense clouds of blurry, hypnotic sound. Described by Drowned In Sound (UK) as “one of contemporary ambient music’s most celebrated practitioners,” Irisarri’s music often has a mournful, elegiac quality where ostinato phrases tap into minimalist ideals while atmospheric layers of effects suggests a more cinematic approach. In all, his compositions are deeply emotive and epic, like a symphony recording that’s been rescued from attic entombment after half a century. 

Irisarri’s latest work 'Midnight Colours' comes after a starkly stunning run of releases on Ghostly, Morr, Room40, and Umor Rex, among others. The eight new songs were conceived as a sort of soundtrack to the “Midnight Clock or Doomsday Clock” – a symbol which represents the likelihood of a man-made global catastrophe. Recorded in 2017, when the Clock was at 2½ minutes-to-midnight (the second-closest to midnight since the Clock’s start in 1947), 'Midnight Colours' permeates with the melancholy of memories resurfacing as you get close to the end of life: the regret, the closure, the uncertainty, the anxiety, and so on.

The result is perhaps Irisarri’s most moving and introspective work to date, unfurling a sort of epiphany symphony and sounding like a sunrise in slow motion. Irisarri experimented with the use of heavily “degraded” tape, played through a mis-aligned Otari 8-track tape machine that was constantly on the fritz. “I felt using tape gave the music a particular texture & character, like when you watch old news reels from the 1950’s, you know those that talk about the H-bomb, and how we are all doomed,” he explains.

Opening suite “The Clock” and “Falling Curtain” offer an elegiac dirge into the unknown, soldering on with humanity but pessimistic reality. “Oh Paris, We Are Fucked” retreats into a blur of mournful curiosity, while “Circuits” brings a glimmer of tragic hope. “Every Scene Fades” is brimming with eerie beauty and a distant, heaving rhythm that perfectly contrasts the morbid optimism of “Two and a Half Minutes.” “Drifting” and “A Ruptured Tranquility” bring a soberingly sense of reality, closing out 'Midnight Colours' harrowing narrative.

Rafael Anton Irisarri – "Circuits"

Live@attic

Hroshvalur - Live@attic 11.05.18

Boban Ristevski - The turn of the screw (Album Preview)
Releases: June 8, 2018 
Format: CD/Digital

Pre Order: https://shimmeringmoodsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-turn-of-the-screw

The title of the album - ' The turn of the screw ' bears a resemblance to, of course, Henry James. And the fourth track ' Conchis ' is directly inspired by one of the main characters of the John Fowles' amazing novel ' The Magus '. Having in mind the title and the atmosphere of the first track - ' Practical Magical Evocation ', it can be said that the whole atmosphere of the album is intended to be or sound magical. Let's hope for more to come in the same vein.

Mastered by Roel Weerdenburg

Boban Ristevski - The turn of the screw (Album Preview)

Ashlar are British duo Wil Bolton from London and Phil Edwards from The Wirral, Liverpool. They began collaborating around 2011 ahead of their debut release ‘Saturday Drones’ on Time Released Sound and followed this up with ‘St. James' Gardens’ on Hibernate Recordings in 2014. 

These albums were the result of lazy Saturday afternoons spent in various public houses in Liverpool’s Georgian Quarter which were followed by evenings spent jamming in Wil’s studio. In the early days, both artists were residents of the city, meaning impromptu recording sessions could be arranged with relative ease. However, after the first two albums Wil relocated back to London, which meant that when they began to work together again, a very different approach was necessary. Instead of jamming and producing together, they worked remotely, usually initiated by the sharing of recordings, which were then added to, processed and bounced back and forth until the final tracks emerged. 

With ‘Distant Scenes’ most of the sounds began as piano loops (played by Wil) and acoustic guitar parts (played by Phil), which were heavily processed and re-processed several times using both software effects and guitar pedals. Where the first two albums featured environmental sounds from the local area, the field recordings here were made by both artists separately, in wildly varied locations including Japan, Korea and the UK. 
Unlike their initial work, this new method of working has taken a great deal longer to fully realise, given that the process was less immediate and more meticulous. 

Distant Scenes is an album built around distance, time and space as their different recording locations inspired new but separate ideas. A warm but blurry canvas has been woven over a four year period, as time has rusted the memories of the good old days spent jamming on their earlier albums and newer ideas have been corroded into a melancholic fuzz.

Distant Scenes

wlr042 Ashlar - Distant Scenes

Back again on the audio series we have Schacke.
He needs no further introduction, enjoy this ambient set to start of your week.

Fast Forward Audio Series #20: Schacke

Dark Willows- A dark ambient track with an unsettling tone over a calm  reverb piano foreboding !

Dark Willows

New music every week! Don't forget to follow for updates!

@richardlabrooy
www.youtube.com/channel/@richardlabrooy


© Richard Labrooy

Flicker

The past few days in New Delhi have been decidedly dreary – cold and wet, with a lingering blanket of rain. It's also the ideal weather to park yourself by the window and sit back and reflect, and Sugam Khetan aka 4lienetic's mix for Wild City is perfectly suited to that.

Dark and ambient, with spatters of ethereal sounds of nature and rain, the mix pulls you deep into a contemplative trance right from the get-go. That's to be expected, as the hour-long set comprises almost solely of 4lienetic's original music, exceptions being a couple of remixes and edits.

The Mumbai-based producer, who creates music under the monikers 4lienetic and 2 A.M Talk, has been prolific with his releases, which range across the spectrum of ambient, future garage and chill out music. Influenced by artists like Brian Eno, Nils Frahm, Burial and Olafur Arnalds, his tracks are particularly emotive and lay heavy emphasis on ambience and piano.

The mix starts off with deep, melancholic tracks, laden with liquid atmospheres and compelling textures. However, the solemnity intermittently parts to reveal flecks of light, offering glimmers of hope in an otherwise dreary ambience. This is music meant for quiet reflection and patience, to be consumed with heavy doses of contemplation. And it's a rewarding experience – especially as the ambient music gradually melts into drone and future garage, which comes as a welcome, wholly satisfying change.

Head here for tracklist and further info:
http://www.thewildcity.com/mixes/11369-wild-city-164-4lienetic

Wild City Mix

Wild City #164 - 4lienetic

He's cute and funny, and smart and lovely,
And he's here
And i'm here too
In this planet that's ending so very soon
And climate will change,
But my love for joji will stay the same
It's mellow it's good, with a hard-hitting kick
It's conflicted just how he likes it
And maybe,
I need someone like joji

Seldom i see this character arc
Desexualised asian men are a start,
This feeling is not new to my heart,
But i think i'll be slow dancing in the dark
I feel like my head's so far away
Into the distant valley of replay
My head is a mess but i guess this is
Worth the attention

Joji
He's cute and funny, and smart and lovely,
And he's here
And i'm here too
In this planet that's ending so very soon
And climate will change,
But my love for joji will stay the same
It's mellow it's good, with a hard-hitting kick
It's conflicted just how he likes it
And maybe,
I need someone like joji

And maybe,
I need someone like joji.

joji

Constant Measures

Please enjoy on your own music system and at your own peril but no requests at dj sets pleaseeeee. xxx

Rangeela (BLOT! Monochromatic Remix) Rangeela OST

Right Now(feat. Mateus Seth)

Ineffably

Ineffably Ft. Ale

Pigments, this track is an ode to, and is named after one of my favourite instruments by Arturia! This tracks main elements were written and composed using mainly this one powerful sound engine / synthesiser, that's awesomely rich and powerful in its sound design and music production capabilities!

As an Ableton Certified Trainer and Music Technology Educator, I hoped for this track to showcase some of my music production skills and an application of techniques I often teach to my students who are aspiring composers, electronic music producers, sound designers and audio engineers. 

I hope you like what you hear, please leave a comment as I would love to hear your thoughts on it. Thank you!!

Also on the plus, the kick was entirely designed using just Ableton Live's Operator and Drum Bus device one that's super powerful and sonically amazing to sculpt drums and even other sounds with.

Pigments

A basic Ambient melody , which builds up bar by bar , to become an epic  orchestral score .

The Cold Eclipse

Polar Drift Releasing on May 3rd across all digital platforms
Link below
Ambient Music Improviser , experimenting with sounds. If you like something here, please do add it to your playlist and of course do follow my Soundcloud account for more ambient music. Suggestions and comments welcome. You can reach me at electronicgharana@gmail.com
New ambient album - Ambient Hamlet available across all digital platforms

Dark Willows

Eashwar Subramanian

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