Fieldrecording by  klankbeeld

https://freesound.org/people/klankbeeld/sounds/636544/
https://soundcloud.com/klankbeeld

Sigma

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Good morning friends and fellow music lovers. Apologies for the silence on my end for yet another week. I’ve caught the virus once again. It seems to me, from now on, it’s something that we live with. I’m finally recovering, and it’s like waking up to being human. What better way to start anew than with some gorgeous music? I have been patiently awaiting to tell you about this upcoming release from Yair Elazar Glotman because I’m truly excited about it! On October 27th, this Berlin-based composer will release his next opus, titled Speculative Memories, via SA Recordings imprint. This piece of music is extremely textural, organic, and alive. The cinematic tendency to paint a wide-scaped narrative is not an accidental trait. Glotman has made a name for himself among purveyors of post-classical and dark ambient sounds with releases on Glacial Movements, Subtext, and Miasmah since 2014. He’s worked on film scores alongside the master, the late Jóhann Jóhannsson, and collaborated with many of the scene’s known names, such as Viktor Orri Árnason, Lucy Railton, and Mats Erlandsson, who appears on the new album as well. But Glotman stands out on his own, in this very personal, and introspective plunge into the memories. The pieces on the album are all associated with a specific recollection of the past, inviting the listener to venture deep into their own remembrance. The opening piece, which I am honoured to premiere for you today, is about a specific year – it is about 1998, which holds a special meaning for this artist. And although “the memories I ‘used’ as material for the music are of course not something anyone else can hear or read from the result, I hope that people can connect some of their own associations or memories to the words.”

Speculative Memories

A Year

TRACK PREMIERE : Yair Elazar Glotman - A Year

Vanessa Wagner first grabbed my attention when she collaborated with Murcof on Statea (InFiné, 2016). How can you not get mesmerized by her beautiful piano rendition of Aphex Twin's "Avril 14th" with Fernando Corona's electronic soundscape treatments? By the time this French pianist released her explorations of the minimalist repertoire with Study Of the Invisible (InFiné, 2022), I have already proclaimed her to be the Martha Argerich of the contemporary classical crossover genre. On the former, she performed music by Philip Glass, Suzanne Ciani, Harold Budd, and even Brian Eno & Roger Eno. Her new album, titled Mirrored and scheduled for release on November 25th, via InFiné once again, continues the solo piano studies of "graceful minimalism and rare finesse" with re-interpretations of works by Sylvain Chauveau, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Moondog, Philip Glass, and Nico Muhly - the latter of which I am premiering for you today. Low beautiful chords land on the keyboard of the piano with measured dynamics and balanced intent. Individual notes are given space to resonate and fade away. My favourite instrument is lovingly caressed, expressed, and captured, to truly become an extension of feelings within. Here, I must also give credit to the composition itself, which first appeared in Nico Muhly's Speaks Volumes (Bedroom Community, 2006). "The melody moves slowly, but when it moves, it spans octaves, rising like a giant architecture above the low, cycling chords in the background. Over the low, austere chorale, that melody has the heft of iron bells, tintinnabulant in a style that nods to Arvo Pärt." Wagner's rendition is closer, deeper, more intimate, and well-performed - something that lifts up this piece and makes it just a little bit better.

Mirrored

Quiet Music

TRACK PREMIERE : Vanessa Wagner - Quiet Music (Nico Muhly)

I find it absolutely fascinating and, at the same time, truly inspiring thought, that with the untimely passing of Jóhann Jóhannsson in February of 2018 (wow, almost four years ago now!), he still really lives on through the music he made. And not just through his own. And although he left an incredible void, it's not like someone just stepped into his shoes. Instead, a significant number of collaborators and followers that he touched through the years continued to carry his legacy through their own unique sound. His light didn't go out - it just exploded into hundreds of thousands of fragments of many other lights, that are now expanding, forming their gravity, and with time growing larger. And I sort of wonder if that would have happened if it didn't happen the way it already has. That is an absolutely fascinating and truly inspiring thought with which I opened this write-up. In today's track premiere, we have precisely just that. Danish composer Jonas Colstrup worked closely with Jóhann throughout the years, collaborating on scores for the Japanese films Blind Massage (2014) and The Shadow Play (2018). Inspired by the late musician's approach to neo-classical minimalism carried forth with the cinematic elegance, as well as the incredible score by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Alva Noto and Bryce Dessner for The Revenant (Milan, 2015), and contemporary compositions by William Walton and Arvo Pärt, Colstrup gently sculpts a sonic chrysalis of emotion, in which one wants to wait out all current angst. And if this was a blind listening session, you may have even thought I'd uncovered an unreleased Johannsson track, with those scaling chord progressions and the beautiful arrangements performed by the Budapest Art Orchestra and Theatre of Voices. But to be clear, once again, this is not a copy, made from a mould lifted from Jóhann's work. It is an unmatched gorgeous sculpture, on which you may find his imprint, still warm to the touch.

At The Crest

TRACK PREMIERE : Jonas Colstrup - At The Crest

Visions Of Two

****PRIVATE*****
Commande du photographe Laurent Pistiaux pour le livre NELL.


NELL.AudioBook

Glad to enjoy the Piano Day 2016 celebration.

I made this little piece of modern classical music for Nils Frahm's PIANO DAY 2016 playlist, which will be  announced on March 28, 2016.

On Youtube: 
https://youtu.be/pRmd70EF_nY
More details: 
http://www.pianoday.org/
https://www.facebook.com/pianodayofficial/


Enjoy your listening
http://sinoptikmusic.com/ 
https://www.facebook.com/SinoptikMusic

On Youtube

Sinoptik Music - Wings (Piano Day 2016)

out on September 9th at Dronarivm

order here: dronarivm.bandcamp.com/album/the-voy…ch-manuscript

After last year's sophomore release, The Faex Has Decimated, on Tympanik Audio, the Legiac project is back, but this time on the Russian based Dronarivm label, where the new album feels more at home. This time, the electronic duo of Roel Funcken and Cor Bolten take on a more meditative approach to their mildly glitch-infused, modular explored sounds, weaving in ambient textures, field recordings, and vast soundscapes. Titled after an early 15th century hand-written and illustrated codex, named after Wilfrid Voynich, the mysteries within this cryptic album can only be unlocked upon subsequent rotations, offering it up as a soundtrack to an enigmatic place, existing somewhere within imagination of these two prolific artists. The Voynich Manuscript slowly transforms its listener from a seemingly ordinary habitat, to a day-dream haze, to kaleidoscopic illusion - a sonic environment you thirst to visit once again...

all tracks written and produced by Roel Funcken & Cor Bolten
mastered by Jason Corder

Legiac - Ambikythera Mechanism (from The Voynich Manuscript CD)

Track taken from Christoph Berg's 'Paraphrases' album... 

Officially released today!

www.fluidaudio.bigcartel.com/product/christoph-berg-paraphrases

Christoph Berg - Interlude (remixed by aus)

Taken from the upcoming Margins album 'I Tired For Hours', forthcoming on Fluid Audio...

www.fluidaudio.bigcartel.com

Margins

Overcoming distance and solitude, Julia Gjertsen and Nico Rosenberg join from across the oceans for a tranquil new project. A precursor to their full EP on Moderna Records later this year, Los Océanos delivers an unmistakable quietude to prepare the mental palette for what is to come.

Find it here: https://bit.ly/2FyJ3Lq

A sense of floating on waves under an illuminated night sky, being rocked to sleep by its gentle caress.

The two started collaborating online, bridging the 8,000 miles between Norway and Chile. Beginning as a MAX/MSP patch designed by Rosenberg, Gjertsen supplied layers of piano improvisations, before the result being recorded to tape at a slower pace, giving it its serene, dream-like quality.

Julia Gjertsen & Nico Rosenberg - Los Océanos

some original solo piano pieces...  some mixes from my podcast... some exclusive track premieres...  and some tracks from the albums I review for Headphone Commute... Enjoy!

TRACK PREMIERE : Jonas Colstrup - At The Crest

Headphone Commute

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