Taken from 'Fringe' LP/Download (E064, Ecstatic 03/09/2021)

A gorgeous swell of intimate soundscaping from Felisha Ledesma on this simmering stunner for Ecstatic, despatching two extended, richly absorbing pieces weft from everyday detritius; synths, strings, voicemail, found sounds - hitting a similar spot for us as Ulla’s diaristic 'inside means inside me’ but with a more defined play of sound-as-light that gently and memorably tugs at the earlobes and heartstrings. 

Exploring a music of presence and ultra subtle inference, ‘Fringe’ is the 2nd release by Ledesma, student of Berlin's estimable Universität der Künste, following from a debut for Enmossed x Psychic Liberation earlier this year. Using AMQR - a software synthesiser built by Ledesma together with Ess Mattisson - both pieces here shimmer with elusive timbres that occupy a realm that feels lost between worlds - neither electronic nor acoustic, but more a sort of observational sound that radiates togetherness and warmth. 

Operating at insightful levels of synaesthesia, Ledesma poetically turns ostensibly humdrum sources into clouds of smoke - emails, voicenotes, walking along the water, a poem attached to an email, walking alone in New York during lockdown, going for a swim at sunset in the desert - all turn into a smudge of memory. When ‘Beamsplitters’ opens with a tangible human presence - a voicemail from a friend - it startles with its earthly pull, eventually getting lost in a tangled spool of found sound leaving just a trace of iridescent, intimate reverie. 

On ‘Golden Mirror’ Felisha gently diffracts a lonesome guitar phrase into a humming thizz with a steeply uncanny ability to jog the memory in a similar way to how olfactory stimulus can conjure feelings of nostalgia. It’s a trick familiar from an emergent new realm of lower case composers creating something like submerged, small scale symphonies that work counter to notions of classical excess or anodyne ambient, instead focusing on microcosmic, highly peronalised sort of worldbuilding that’s impenetrable, yet somehow entirely open.

Felisha Ledesma - Golden Mirror [E064]

The key to understanding today’s #MusicalMinute can be found in ‘Clattering Chatter’ posted on the 17th.  Both tracks share PCS 7-z38, but this latest version sees Pareto’s influence with the notes in the woodwind growing progressively more abundant.  Can you hear the changes happen?  What do you think?

26 Aug 25 Data Flood

Unsettled Minds is a sweeping collection of orchestral adaptations that transform Beethoven’s Appassionata themes and beyond into symphonic meditations for restless souls. Each movement embraces turbulence and tenderness: brooding strings hover on the edge of silence, woodwinds whisper with searching fragility, and brass resound with fateful grandeur. Expanding Beethoven’s architecture into Rachmaninoff-like romantic musings of lush textures and cinematic dramas that capture the beauty and unease of an unsettled mind — where moments of stillness are broken by storms of emotion, and melodies carry both torment and transcendence. 

Performed in the imagined voice of Europe’s greatest orchestras, this album is an invitation into a dream state where longing, unrest, and fragile nobility collide.

13. Drama Undoings

Excerpt from Pierre Bastien's Live album ''The Mecanocentric Worlds of Pierre Bastien'' out on 27th October on Vinyl and Digital.

More info at www.discrepant.net

Pierre Bastien - May Yam (Excerpt from The Mecanocentric Worlds of Pierre Bastien)

PIOTR KUREK 'Polygome' (LP/DL)
Release date: 29th March 2019

Cat.#: HITD 046
All songs written & Produced by Piotr Kurek
Mixed by Devin Greenwood @ Honey Jar, NY
Mastered by Mike Grinser @ D&M, Berlin
Artwork by Florent Groc

www.handsinthedarkrecords.com
www.handsinthedarkrecords.bandcamp.com

PIOTR KUREK - Polygome

From the 2011 album "Sentimental Favourites" – originally released on Dekorder. Available digitally on Bandcamp at the nice price of pay what you want.
https://andrewpekler.bandcamp.com/album/sentimental-favourites

Sentimental Favourites

Name your price

The Twilight Of Your Smile

Taken from Futuro (Music for the Waldorf Project) released on 2LP and download 01/02/19.

• Not Waving’s engrossing, highly original soundtrack to Sean Rogg’s world-renowned art/theatre project
• Ambient tonal works and abstractions written between 2013-2018
• Mastered and cut at D&M, Berlin.
• Limited edition vinyl with full colour insert featuring photographs by Lee Arucci
• RIYL Laurie Spiegel, Steve Roach, Brian Eno, Shuttle 358

’Futuro’ is Not Waving’s sublime synth/ambient soundtrack to one of the world’s most intense art/theatre experiences: Sean Rogg’s radical immersive artwork ‘The Waldorf Project’ - fusing choreography, spatial design, music and performance into a cohesive experience.

Drawn from more than 20 hours of material made for the project between 2013-2018, ‘Futuro’ finds Alessio Natalizia exploring a style of tonal and spatial minimalism that works as a fine palette cleanser from much of what you’ve heard from him in the past. 

While not a new solo album, per se, the long form, Eno-like results of ‘Futuro’ demonstrate the full wingspan of Not Waving’s obsessive knowledge and emotive feel for electronic composition, making it in some senses one of the more substantial and unusual releases in his catalogue to date.

BUY!

Not Waving - Emotion 1.4 Decontamination [ELP040]

Taken from the upcoming album Both Lines Will Be Blue, out July 12th on Smalltown Supersound. Produced by Carmen Villain. Flute performed by Johanna Scheie Orellana. Mastered by Matt Colton.

Observable Future

track from Miaux's 'Black Space, White Cloud' LP

Miaux : Lunar Surface

Get this + the original here https://carmenvillain.bandcamp.com/

So High You're Mine (2020 Rework)

Artist: Masayoshi Fujita & Jan Jelinek
Album: Bird, Lake, Objects
Label#: faitiche03
Format: LP/DL

Vinyl repress of faitiche03 & 13 available on July 17th 2020!

Queried on his favourite word in the German language, Masayoshi Fujita will pick ‘getragen’ – without a sliver of hesitation. Further questioning will reveal that he loves the term’s semantic signifiers, its inherent sense of “expansive, deep, quiet and sombre.” And yet, ‘getragen’ leaves plenty of room for interpretation: depending on context, it might also indicate wearing apparel or the state of being carried – two more mundane interpretations that I would rather keep from him.
Does Masayoshi’s own definition, however, apply to Bird, Lake, Objects? Only to a limited extent. Compared to previous Faitiche releases, Bird, Lake, Objects is certainly the most ‘getragen’ of them all. Nevertheless, this is by far not the first association that comes to mind. From a distance, these tracks seem rather introspective, cautious even – and reflect the recording situation: deliberately pared down, reduced to a single microphone in space and a separate track for all other instruments, each movement and action is chronicled by the treacherous mike. This confronted me with some unexpected and unfamiliar problems. For example, we had to swap out the seating in the studio as my favoured chair had a characteristic creak. Other, external influences proved to be beyond our control: fire engine klaxons, street noise and footfall became part of the recordings and their improvisatory nature. Each movement required careful orchestration, fully aware of its irrevocable nature. Space itself was always present and an audible entity, except on "Stripped to RM" (recorded without a microphone or vibraphone track). After extensive deliberations, we decided to forgo the vibes on this piece – a very similar version had already been released in 2008 (on the compilation Enjoy The Silence, Mule Electronic, 2008).

PIOTR KUREK - Polygome

Hands In The Dark

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