Ambient

Isolation, solitude, contemplation. These are the themes that discreetly weave their way through Disappearance, the first collaboration album between 12k’s Taylor Deupree and pioneering electronic composer and pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto. The two began their musical dialogue in 2006 when Deupree was invited to remix a song from Sakamoto’s album Chasm. “World Citizen” was the song and it sparked continued collaboration as Deupree contributed to two of Sakamoto’s activist projects: Chain Music (http://www.sitesakamoto.com/chainmusic/) and KizunaWorld (http://kizunaworld.org/english/index.html) (as a trio with Sakamoto and Stephen Vitiello.) With the convenience of both artists living in New York they kept in touch, released music on 12k (Willits + Sakamoto’s Ocean Fire) and, in April of 2012, performed live together at John Zorn’s club The Stone. It was this concert that planted the seeds for Disappearance.

The initial tracks for Disappearance were recorded at Sakamoto’s studio in New York City during rehersals for the April concert. The two immediately entered the same sonic mindframe that lead to hours of concentrated, hushed music. Sakamoto’s piano playing, both traditional and prepared, emerged as perhaps some of his most beautifully sparse in recent years, letting the sound of the room and shuffle of chairs take an active roll in the recording. Only the most minimum of essential notes, accentuated by silences and the scraping of the piano’s strings, plays alongside Deupree’s nuanced passages, created with analogue synthesizers, strings, and found objects. These warm, human tones became the means of communication between the two artists who effortlessly created a musical language.

The five tracks that make up Disappearance are delicate and composed, however, they’re not all peacefulness and placidity. Micro-tuned edges, bursts of noise, percussive prepared piano and the warble of old reel-to-reel tape keep the mood grounded and warm, turning it inward and asking the listener to reflect on their path. “Curl To Me,” the album’s final piece, is highlighted by the sounds of Ichiko Aoba, a major up-and-coming singer/songwriter from Tokyo. Both Sakamoto and Deupree have recently worked with Aoba in Japan and wanted her presence felt on the album. Emphasizing the solitude and stillness of the recordings, Aoba provided both her voice and the almost disturbingly intimate sound of her own heartbeat.

Disappearance is a soundtrack for holding breaths. Sakamoto and Deupree lay down worn roads, but don’t leave signs, for a journey woven together by the quiet celebration of the fragility of nature and life.

Disappearance

Jyaku

BUY ALBUM

A binaural recording of three tracks from my first 4DSOUND performance - Woven Ancestry, Meadows and Gravity Well.

Woven Ancestry is from the Human LP out now, available from iTunes at www.smarturl.it/MCHuman and on vinyl and CD from bit.ly/FIELDSshop. 

The experience will only work if you listen with headphones, and in a quiet location. Closing your eyes helps. Relax and let yourself naturally build a mental picture of your surroundings based only on what you hear.

ABOUT 4D SOUND

The 4D Sound System was designed and developed in Amsterdam by Paul Oomen, Salvador Breed, Luc Van Weelden and Poul Holleman. It comprises 16 columns with omnidirectional speakers at several heights in each column, and the columns spaced around the room in a 12 x 12 x 4m array.

They have designed Max for Live devices which provide a range of spatial controls within Ableton Live, as well as an accompanying visual 3D model of the space and sounds within it. This allows for a spatial composition/production process, whereby each piece of music is designed as a physical entity to exist within the space, as something that can be walked around inside and explored by the listeners.

The system is called "4D Sound" because it produces sound in all 3 spatial dimensions, as well as being able to move sounds through the space in time - the 4th dimension.

More mixes and info:  www.maxcooper.net
Photo by Henri Blommers

HEADPHONES ONLY: Woven Ancestry, Meadows and Gravity Well from Amsterdam 4DSOUND show

A sample of Andy Stott's grimy revision of BNJMN's "Nightvision."

Second Kiss

Nightvision

BNJMN - Nightvision (Andy Stott Remix) [excerpt]

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"British ambient band Marconi Union has drummed up the world's most relaxing song: Weightless is 8 mins 10 sec. of aural bliss" - Time Magazine, Best Inventions of the Year. 

"An excellent compilation from the always interesting Just Music" - The Sunday Times

"The Ambient Zone is an album that feels like the world is peeling away, layer by layer, into multi-colored panoramas, just for you" - Echoes (CD of The Month)

The Ambient Zone is a beautiful journey into ambient and electronica inspired by universal themes of calmness, purity, relaxation and enrichment where Weightless is coupled with some exclusive first releases and other blissfully ambient tracks from Just Music artists and alumni.

Created instinctively and intuitively by Marconi Union, Weightless has been claimed to have therapeutic properties in the way the track almost appears to have a heartbeat running through it which slows down very gently throughout the piece, encouraging a deep sense of relaxation in the body, It's use of specific rhythms, beep bass tones, frequencies and intervals induce an almost trance like state in the listener.

"The Ambient Zone is an album that just screams (albeit quietly) of pure class" - Fluid Nation.

Weightless (Ambient Transmission Vol. 2)

Weightless Part 1

Buy the album

Marconi Union - Weightless

Blondes - Pleasure (Andy Stott Remix)

Tom Waits (on Jim Wilson): "Wilson, he's always playing with time. I heard a recording recently of crickets slowed way down. It sounds like a choir, it sounds like angel music. Something sparkling, celestial with full harmony and bass parts - you wouldn't believe it. It's like a sweeping chorus of heaven, and it's just slowed down, they didn't manipulate the tape at all. So I think when Wilson slows people down, it gives you a chance to watch them moving through space. And there's something to be said for slowing down the world."

Source: "Woyzeck to run at Freud Playhouse". Daily Bruin (USA), by Andrew Lee. December 3, 2002

Find more on the recording on this link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023815586

Tom Waits on Tom waits talking about this recording - http://gloriousnoise.com/2008/tom_waits_interviews_tom_waits

More on the recording - http://hearingvoices.com/transcript.php?fID=142

You can buy original recording here - http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Chorus-Crickets-Jim-Wilson/dp/1932192077?tag=viglink124132-20

Original recording from the author - http://www.constancedemby.com/godscricketchorus_f.html

And more: http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2013/10/13/weekend-diversion-is-this-an-amazing-chorus-of-slowed-down-crickets/

Jim Wilson | God's Chorus of Crickets | crickets audio recording slowed way down

What happens when you stretch a deep house epic out 8 times? This! What sounds like breathing is elongated balearic percussion. Not me being weird. The original work is here: http://soundcloud.com/a_and_a/besos-de-alba/s-xAcDv

more versions here:
groove edit: http://soundcloud.com/a_and_a/besos-alternativos-demo 
beach slomo: https://soundcloud.com/bitsandoffcuts/besitos-inst
disco: https://soundcloud.com/bitsandoffcuts/besos-inst
drum & bass: https://soundcloud.com/bitsandoffcuts/glow-with-the-flow-dbdisco-edit

written by Adan Hill and Adrian McLaughlin
© http://soundcloud.com/aac 2012. All rights reserved.

Besos alargados

Another sneak preview from Christoph Berg's upcoming album 'Paraphrases'...

Christoph Berg - A Small Path Crossing

Cover version of "Until Then" I recorded with Benoit Pioulard this week. Benoit and I were working on our collaborative project this week and decided to record one of our favorite songs as a tribute. We were both extremely saddened by Trish Keenan's untimely death. She was a brilliant, talented artist and her music became a huge inspiration to both of us. R.I.P. Trish, we'll miss you.

Until Then (Broadcast cover)

Spotify: https://play.spotify.com/artist/6HYyeW4R4oZbUvkjG7t3qH

Join me on Patreon! www.patreon.com/owsey

A cover of Sun Kil Moon's "Carry Me, Ohio,"

Painting used: Dan Scurtu - Wuthering Heights

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Lyrics:

A million miles ago you seem 
Star that I just don't see anymore 

Lost on journeys we walked on 
Lost her voice is heard along the way 

Never going by your door 
Never feeling love like that anymore

Heal her soul, carry her, my angel, Ohio

Sorry that 
I could never love you back 
I could never care enough 
In these last days 

Her tears 
Fell on her pages found me out 
On her words I don't know what 
To do or say 

Wading through 
Warm canals and pools clear blue
The Tuscarawas flows into 
Prairie land 

Riding back 
To where the highway met 
Dead end tracks 
The ground is now cement and glass 
And far away 

Heal her soul, carry her, my angel, Ohio 

Lingering in 
What about the sweetness we knew 
What about what's good what's true 
From those days 

Can't count to 
All the lovers I've burned through 
So why do I still burn for you 
I can't say 

Never going by your door 
Never feeling love like that anymore

Heal her soul, carry her, my angel, Ohio

Ambient

Feanor