What a beautiful tone! I really like this track!

Verdant Veil

Star

From the album Sometimes out November 13, 2015 on Western Vinyl.  Vinyl LP format will be out on January 22, 2016.

Pre-order:
CD/LP http://westernvinyl.com/shop/wv138
iTunes hyperurl.co/d3h29c
Amazon hyperurl.co/56ffvu

Rare live performance in New York on November 27th at Le Poisson Rouge w/ Lubomyr Melnyk

Golmund:
Label page http://westernvinyl.com/artists/goldmund
Twitter https://twitter.com/Goldmund
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/keith.kenniff
Instagram https://instagram.com/kenniffs/
Artist site http://www.unseen-music.com/

Raised in the rural town of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Keith Kenniff aka Goldmund started playing piano at age 20, while studying percussion at Boston’s Berklee College of Music.  Though he may not be a household name, Kenniff's evocative, distinctly American music has become quietly ubiquitous in the past few years, often appearing on NPR, in films, on TV, and in ads for Apple, Facebook, and Google among others.  As an artist who spends a great deal of his time producing music for others, it might be surprising to find out that when he has the opportunity to relax and re-center himself, he often chooses to produce music for himself.  Recorded over the course of three years, the material on his new album Sometimes functions as a journal, documenting brief moments in Kenniff's day when he could turn to the piano as a source of solace and unending creative possibilities.  Kenniff wrote and recorded everything on the album with the exception of the track "A Word I Give", which is a collaboration with preeminent Japanese pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto, who once described Goldmund's music as “…so, so, so beautiful…”.  

Kenniff's pseudonym is taken from the Herman Hesse novel Narcissus and Goldmund in which the Goldmund character leaves the cloister where he was living and studying in search of meaning for his life.  The story resonated with Kenniff when he was searching for a moniker to represent his solo piano work, "I think the way I approached the piano was in the same way: impulsive—searching and feeling things out in the dark."  On Sometimes he continues his explorations in the dark; each of the album's 17 pieces were improvised, and recorded in one or two takes, often late at night, after work-for-hire was finished, and the kids were in bed.  In an interview with NPR's Weekend Edition Keith Kenniff discussed his appreciation of Civil War era music, and it's ability to covey "…so much story in so few notes."  Similarly, these improvisations manage to be richly evocative despite their technical and compositional simplicity, using subtle details and dynamics to express what might otherwise be inexpressible.  

Throughout Sometimes, Kenniff fully employs the wabi-sabi aesthetic that has always defined Goldmund recordings.  "I like mistakes, I like when things don't go perfectly. I do have a tendency to want for things to be perfect and precise, but I have to also realize that a lot of things I like about music and art are very rough and impulsive, the slight imperfections that give something or someone a unique voice," says Kenniff.  He goes on to explain that these pieces served as a way for him to "step outside of whatever I was doing and return back to a place of discovery very much like when I first started playing."  As we follow him on his path of discovery, we get a glimpse into the world of a young man expressing his myriad feelings and experiences with honesty, and inherently imperfect gestures, which is part of what makes them so relatable and powerful — the local, for a few moments, resonating with the universal. 

Goldmund - "As Old Roads"

bit.ly/2iyCn3I

"Evolution" is a collection of blurry reflections, an emotional journey through memories of love, and loss.

▒ CREDITS ▒

Enthusiastically written, painstakingly recorded, carefully mixed and diligently mastered by Francesco Berta

▒ Flute: Luke Howells

▒ Bassoon: Mike Summers

▒ Violin: Liam Raw

▒ Cello: Aríanna Hönnudóttir

░ SPECIAL THANKS ░

My family, Sara, Kieron, Isaac and my prehistoric friends.

Additional thanks to Piero and Simone for their late night last minute mixing advice: I hope all the kick drums sound louder now.

Evolution

Download on Bandcamp

Adagio

Autumn

Seadailer

Olan Mill - Seadailer

NOME II

From VA - Sleeplaboratory1​.​0 by Whitelabrecs label
https://whitelabrecs.bandcamp.com/album/sleeplaboratory10

‘Sleeplaboratory1.0’ is a sixteen track cross section of modern Ambient artists touching on everything from minimalist drone and modern classical cinematics to electro acoustic and synth influenced works. It is released in a run of 100 physical copies, as we’ve chosen to create a ‘gatefold LP’ styled CD package, complete with beautiful artwork provided over 4 panels by our regular collaborator Federica Jeanne de Luca. The album is also available digitally in a range of formats, carefully mastered by Tim Diagram who also contributes a track as Maps and Diagrams. 

This album is intended as a relaxing companion for either conscious or sub-conscious listening, with contributing artists briefed to create something vacant which is likely to induce sleep. Harry selected the artists with the theme in mind and to help them understand his vision, he shared a link to Janek Schaefer’s ‘Lay-by Lullaby’ released on 12k back in 2014. It is an album which has been a huge part of his personal sleep routine, with him playing it at low volume on his iPod in bed ever since it was released so it seemed to be the perfect starting point. 

Harry’s motivation behind creating this sleepy album was primarily due to his fascination on the relationship between Ambient music and sleep: Robert Rich, Max Richter and Tanner Menard all performed notable sleep concerts for starters. Harry was particularly honoured when Janek Schaefer agreed to provide the opening track to this accumulation of calming works and it was he that introduced the National Geographic edition at the time which had a large article about the science of sleep and how it sits in modern society. 
Additionally, Harry was expecting the arrival of his first child during the production stages of Sleeplaboratory1.0 and he wanted the album to be particularly calming for babies. 

We will not make any recommendation on how our listeners might best enjoy this record and so it’s down to you to choose the best environment to listen, whether this be late at night with headphones, on a loud system or perhaps played through Bluetooth speakers in and around your home.

Deep Phase

Filament

The Something Else

Based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Jacob Pavek first visited modern classical music at age 21. After earning a degree in Music Composition, Pavek released his debut album ‘Bloom’ in 2012 -a collage of pieces written for piano and cello. ‘Bloom’ enjoyed an early success with select works performed by The San Jose Orchestra in 2013, and other tracks featured in the Emmy Award-winning documentary "Haiti Love" in 2014 (produced by Dana Johnson and filmed by Dan Huiting).

Since the release of Bloom, Pavek developed his craft further, honing in on the sounds that come from deep down in the subconscious from sitting down at a piano. These sounds formulated his 2015 sophomore release 'Illume'. 11 songs comprised of piano and violin, Illume feels less of a collage of works and more of a cohesive experience with each track blending into the next creating it's own world. The rich grand piano and Leah Ottman's soaring violin performance make it feel as it you were sitting in a dimly lit, empty cathedral. Illume is a clear evolution of Pavek's ability to write from the modern day romantic's psyche, allowing the listener the relation of their own past experiences.  

NOME II

Jacob Pavek

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