Just yesterday I shared the news of a recently released album by Sinemis (that's Sine Buyuka) who is the founder of Injazero Records. And today I'm happy to follow up that announcement with a sequel release to the acclaimed Volutes (2020) by Snowdrops, which is a French-based chamber duo of Christine Ott and Mathieu Gabry. For this follow-up, they are joined by violist Anne-Irène Kempf, who also appears on this seventh and last piece on the album, which I am premiering for you today. Here, the piano, played by Ott, and the Rhodes in the hands of Gabry, create a soft fabric of acoustic harmonies that lift up the veil with strings and lush pads. It's a gentle track, which slowly evolves into an ever-expanding space where it disperses into the ether. "The piece develops a lot around repetitive but evolving motifs played by all three," says Gabry of music on "Mémoires Élementaires". "We are more and more distant from each other, but still connected. The viola played by Anne-irene takes the lead, and the Rhodes dissolves into a deep magma. The phrases slow down, and the reverberated space becomes larger." Perhaps the most cinematic out of the seven tracks on the album, the piece beautifully concludes this sonic painting which is a crossover genre, somewhere between modern classical, post-folk, and electro-acoustic music.

Missing Island

Mémoires élementaires

TRACK PREMIERE : Snowdrops - Mémoires Élementaires

Coming soon on Fluid Audio...

Music: Fields We Found
Mastering: Ian Hawgood
Design: Daniel Crossley

Paths

Fields We Found - Retrieve

This album consists of unreleased tracks. Some were not suitable for labels or collaborations, others were just outtakes that I refused to include in any works.

When I listened to them again, they sound interesting. I think my subscribers will find them interesting as well.

Produced by Hidekazu Imashige
Cover Art by Hidekazu Imashige

The Forgotten Music

Levitation

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Earlier this year, I launched [or, rather, repurposed] a new column called Flashbacks, in which I revisit music I covered 15, 10, and 5 years ago by going through my archives, selecting a favourite of each month, and updating the relevant content. What has become a bit striking and slightly unnerving about this process is the reflection on the passage of time. I couldn’t believe that many of my favourite albums were already over a decade old! It feels as if only yesterday I discovered a new artist and hailed their debut, but, in reality, it was ten years ago. Ten years! Can you fathom the difference between being 12 years of age and then becoming 22? It feels like a lifetime of memories [during that particular time], which we are all still reliving throughout the years. Ten years ago is when two brothers, Andrew and Michale Tasselmyer, and a friend, Steven Kemner, formed a project they called Hotel Neon, taking its name from a quote in Jack Kerouack’s book “On The Road”. In the summer of 2013, they released a batch of 100 cassettes collecting “a loose collection of minimal drone experiments.” Two years later, the album was remastered by Ian Hawgood and re-released on his Home Normal, which got noticed by Stationary Travels and subsequently, yours truly. Today, I am happy to premiere a track from an upcoming 10-year celebration of this project, with each track being entirely reworked from the ground up to be unique and familiar.

Mastered, this time, by the one and only Rafael Anton Irisarri, the album will be released on July 31st via the beloved Fluid Audio. Please take note that the Book Edition is strictly limited (only 100 unique copies of each!), stamped, hand-numbered, and even scented (!) to create a cherished little package. More details on the contents, and of course, a link to pre-order, can be found on this Fluid Audio page: https://hcdi.gs/44KeNE2

Hotel Neon 10: Reworks

Deprivation

TRACK PREMIERE : Hotel Neon - Deprivation

Tracklist

01. Anthéne -  Balance (featuring Fields We Found)
02. Glåsbird - Kata
03. Old Amica - Signal
04. Tomotsugu Nakamura - Heliotrope
05. Will Samson - Beatrijs' Theremin
06. Far away Nebraska - Lei
07. Jason Calhoun -  Small Circle
08. 't Geruis - In Purple
09. Arovane - Endett
10. Sonmi451 -  Hyperbole
11. Shuttle358 - Meteor heart

349. Sleepy Sunday Podcast (Elm Records)

Tracklist

01. Tomotsugu Nakamura - Heliotrope
02. Suisen - Sunken Moon
03. Tapes and Topographies - Reflections in a glass eye
04. The Seaman & The Tattered Sail - Dusk
05. Andrew Tasselmyer - Perspectives
06. Ciro Berenguer - Lago
07. M. Grig - Form
08. r beny -  Echo's verse
09. Simon Scott - Nigh
10. Rafael Anton Irisarri - Daybreak Comes Soon
11. Stijn Hüwels - Tomodachi (patrick)
12. Foresteppe - s01e04

351. Sleepy Sunday Podcast (Elm Records)

Hey, you remember the Icelandic independent imprint called INNI Music, yes? It opened up with Atli Örvarsson's You Are Here back in 2020, and then there was Rose Riebl's Do Not Move Stones in 2021, followed up with Jónsi, Sin Fang, Alex Somers, Kjartan Holm's Sounds of Fischer Vol. 1 a year after, all of which have consistently made to my Best of the Year lists, in every single year. Right. So, yes, this is the same Holm from that Jónsi (of Sigur Rós fame) collaboration, this time with a solo release. Hailing from Reykjavik, Kjartan Holm is a musician and a film composer with half a dozen scores under his belt. This album, titled HORIZON, was originally written for a same-named documentary about the late Icelandic painter Georg Guðni, "whose innovative interpretations of forms and ideas paved the way for a renaissance in Icelandic landscape painting." The music, as conveyed in a piece I am premiering for you today, is capturing the vast and sprawling atmospheres, blending abstract textures with ethereal melodies in pastel haze, shifting tones, and wide brushstrokes. You don't even need to look up the paintings to see the resemblance (but I recommend that you do). Lovely tonalities to get lost in on this one, and I recommend that you pick up the album, in just a few days...

HORIZON

Limitless Pt. II

TRACK PREMIERE : Kjartan Holm - Limitless Pt. II

Marsen Jules - The Empire Of Silence 

Buy this now: oktaf.bandcamp.com
(CD inludes download of a 38 minute bonus track)

Ten years after his debut-album “Herbstlaub“ on CCO, german ambient composer Marsen Jules takes us to his “Empire of Silence“. An impressing soundtrack to the epic power and  beauty of nordic snow and ice-landscapes. Thereby he sounds even more elegiac, warm and romantic as ever before. This might be a result of a strict reduction to bittersweet symphonic string-sounds. Sounds which Jules elapses like a prism on the timeline and lets them meander on the slightly on the listeners eardrum. While others are still talking about “modern classic“, Jules is already moving on the particle-layer through the sound-continuum. Diving deeper into the sounds then ever before, he lets the frequencies mirror on the sound spectrum with an impressing precision. Actually there is not much space for “real“ silence on the album. Instead the epic sounds of “The Empire of Silence“ seem to unfold their archaic euphoria best at high volumes. An euphoria that carries everything away and occupies the whole space. For the track titles of the eight gems on this album Jules refers to different Words for snow in Inuit language, of which the legend says there are dozens. While the melancholic openers “penstla“ (the idea of snow) and “tlaslo“ (snow that falls slowly) still travel on soft ways, the album raises to its full euphoria with “kayi“ (drifting snow) and “skriniya“ (snow that never reaches the ground). With its epic magic the nine minute long “katiyana“ (night snow) thrills the listeners attention while “naklin“ (forgotten snow) brings a short inhale. The album finds its peak with the ecstatic glisandi of „chathalin“ (snow that makes a sizzling sound as it falls on water) and finds its finish in the beautiful and lofty “ylaipi“ (tomorrow´s snow). For everyone who is still not satisfied fully after this 55 minute journey through nearly endless stringlisandi, we recommend the 45-minute bonus track which comes as digital download with the cd version on bandcamp.

Oktaf Bandcamp Store

Marsen Jules - The Empire Of Silence (Album Preview)

Introversion

Recording sessions from 13/03/2025 - 12/11/2025.
presets, mixing, processing and editing: Pier WILL.
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🛠 - Made with MOOG & Modular / Multi-tracks / No I.A. / No samples.
🎹 - Composed, arranged, performed, produced by Pier WILL & 4H09
🔲 - Cover art - Pier WILL - Pinterest
🙏 - Acknowledgements - Ableton, AKG, Arturia, Audacity, Cantabile,
Focusrite, Hewlett Packard, Korg, Logitech, Marantz, M-Audio, MSI, 
Sony, SoundCloud, Teac, Techniks, Yamaha.
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How to tell you...

Originallly released on 28th October 2023.

Reissued today as it is the 85th anniversary of the Coventry Blitz on 14th November 1940.

Tracks inspired by the two beautiful cathedrals in the city of Coventry. One, built in the late 14th and early 15th centuries was destroyed in the Coventry Blitz, on 14th November 1940.

A new cathedral was designed by architect Basil Spence and work began on the construction in 1956. After six years the new cathedral was consecrated and opened six years later in 1962.

The new cathedral is a striking modernist design and has been described as stark and beautiful and even brutal and beautiful.

It is a stunning building, both inside and out, and I would highly recommend visiting if you are ever in the city.

Coventry Cathedral: Out Of The Ashes

Foundation Stone

Focusing on experimental genres, we aim to provide a space to share in the creative process and spread the experience of inner exploration through musical expression.