@0 EP1

Mt Baker

Canto Ostinato is the new volume of classical minimalism from musician and producer Erik Hall. Written for four pianos in 1979 by Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt, the piece is freshly framed as an intimate, hour-long solo performance consisting of multitracked grand pianos, electric piano, and organ. Modern yet warm, ethereal yet tangible, Hall’s Canto Ostinato expertly bridges a revered piece of meditative concert repertoire with a tactile and highly personal studio setting.

Chicago-born and Michigan-based, Erik Hall is known as a multi-instrumental pillar for the groups NOMO, Wild Belle, and his own songwriting moniker In Tall Buildings. He has composed music for feature films, and as a producer/engineer he has shaped records for Natalie Bergman and Western Vinyl labelmates Lean Year. In a 2020 creative pivot, he chose to reinvent composer Steve Reich’s monumental contemporary classical masterpiece Music for 18 Musicians as a solo undertaking, applying the piece’s score to the familiar keyboards, guitars, and synthesizers in his studio. “At the time I think I was working through my identity as a musician and an artist,” Hall explains, “and on a level there was some sort of exorcism of a long held pop spirit.” The album was celebrated for being “freshly thrilling” and “legible in history but assertive of the moment” (Pitchfork) and “beguiling, meditational, and magical” (Electronic Sound). It won the 2021 Libera Award for Best Classical Record, and it quickly joined the canon of the piece’s quintessential recordings.

“There is a pseudo-meditational benefit to working on a longform piece that’s built on repetition,” Hall says. “Every stage— from internalizing the music, to executing the performance, to editing and mixing the record— requires deep and sustained presence of mind. I’ve always been drawn to a hallucinatory combination of harmony and repetition, and I found the entire process addictive.”

An apt second chapter, Canto Ostinato is inherently vast, and its score gives great creative license to the performer. Comprising 106 sections, complete freedom is given to repeat each one as many or as few times as desired. Additional leeway is given with regard to dynamics, articulation, and even instrumentation. On the heels of his previous, rather maximal arrangement, Hall chose to limit this album’s palette to three foundational keyboards of his studio: a 1962 Hammond M-101 organ, a 1978 Rhodes Mark I electric piano, and his family-heirloom 1910 Steinway grand piano. “This particular piece brought the added challenge of rekindling my dexterity as a pianist, something I haven’t maintained in earnest since I was a teenager,” he admits. The ensuing five-note rhythmic motif— the piece’s primary building block— is steady and workmanlike, forgoing virtuosic flare for depth, texture, and resonance, and eventually giving way to the stunning gratification of a gorgeously lyrical left turn.

As with Music for 18 Musicians, Hall employed no loops nor quantization nor any programmed or sequenced instruments of any kind. Every part was performed live in a room and captured with microphones, one at a time, each informed by, and reacting to the last. In this way the record breathes with interplay and an organic humanity, complete with flaws, noise, and the faint sound of turning pages. The recording quality is nonetheless toneful and saturated, characteristic of Hall’s production style and straying from the usual transparency of classical albums by using gear with tubes, transformers, and various stages of compression in the signal path. Always there is unmistakable realism and the feeling of being present in the room, sitting among the keys, hammers, and tines.

Ten Holt said: “Time, patience and discipline are the prerequisites for making a genetic code productive." His landmark composition provides Hall once again with a wondrous space in which to reverently embody this sentiment and deftly convey the elegant beauty of this music.

Erik Hall - "Canto Ostinato - Sections 17 - 30"

Hearing Music

Going Through the Veil - Becoming a Swan

Yet another Samaris remix, can't get enough of the Samaris sound..

Original: https://samaris.bandcamp.com/track/t3mp0

https://soundcloud.com/samaris
www.muted.is

New Muted LP's coming soon to a store near you

Samaris - T3mp0 (Muted Remix)

from the album 'semblance' available on kranky 07/20

semblance

forma 'new city'

MATstudio 1

In Strange Company He Spoke Softly

Order Sunset at: https://ghostly.com/products/sunset
or at the retailer of your choice: https://ghostly.lnk.to/christopher-willits-sunset

Sunset

Christopher Willits - Coast

WRWTFWW Records is honored to announce the much anticipated reissue of Satoshi Ashikawa’s undeniable classic of Japanese environmental/ambient/minimalism, Still Way (Wave Notation 2). The album, available on vinyl (first time since 1982) and digipack CD (with one bonus track), comes with a cover artwork by Hiroshi Yoshimura and liner notes by Midori Takada, Satoshi Ashikawa himself, and Irish producer Gareth Quinn Redmond (whose Still Way-inspired album Laistigh den Ghleo is being released simultaneously on WRWTFWW).

Initially released in 1982 as part of the Wave Notation series*, Still Way is, without a doubt, a seminal Japanese environmental/ambient/minimalism album, often mentioned alongside Midori Takada’s Through Looking Glass and Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Green as one of the genre’s most important pieces.

"Like the moment of stillness, after the wind passes through the garden, when the rain stops for a brief second…" Notably inspired by Erik Satie’s Furniture Music and Brian Eno’s ambient work, Satoshi Ashikawa aimed to compose music "intended to be listened to in a casual manner, as a musical landscape or a sound object…not something that would stimulate listeners but music that should drift like smoke and become part of the environment."

The result is simply phenomenal, subtle minimalism and emotional elegance exquisitely orchestrated by Satoshi Ishikawa and his team consisting of his wife Masami Ashikawa (on flute), Midori Takada (on vibraphone), Yuko Utsumi (on harp), Tomoko Sono (on piano), and Junko Arase (on vibraphone).

In conjunction with Still Way, WRWTFWW is releasing Laistigh den Ghleo, a companion album by Irish ambient/minimalist composer Gareth Quinn Redmond, inspired by Ashikawa’s approach.

*The Wave Notation series also includes Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Music For Nine Postcards album.

芦川聡 Satoshi Ashikawa - Still Way (Wave Notation 2) [TRAILER - WRWTFWW030]

A Son

pan•american 'memphis helena'

We are thrilled to announce our latest release, a reissue of the 1987 hidden gem Resonance, by Japanese pianist Yumiko Morioka. Originally released on Akira Ito’s ‘Green & Water’ label Resonance remains her only solo record - a truly stunning, timeless collection of compositions that deserves to find a new audience in 2020. 

Just a little over two years ago, Yumiko was fortunate to escape with her life when a neighbour woke her in the middle of the night to tell her that wildfires were closing in. Thirty minutes later her California home, along with all her musical recordings and equipment, was destroyed.

Now back living in Tokyo, where Resonance was created, she is doing well and is excited that her music is being given a new lease of life. It’s our great fortune that Yumiko, and the music she recorded back in 1987, survived and we’re honoured to be able to share the remastered recordings with the world.

Resonance draws influence from the popular environmental music culture prevalent in Japan during the late 80s, but it’s also heavily inspired by Western musicians like Erik Satie and Brian Eno. Listening today, it still feels fresh and pertinent; like the great pioneers of classical and ambient music, there's a timelessness to Resonance - a comforting, familiar feeling, as if these melodies have always existed.

Resonance will be released on limited edition vinyl & digital on April 15th. You can pre-order the album here: https://metronrecords.bandcamp.com/album/resonance

Yumiko Morioka - Komorebi

Order 'Cast' at: https://ghostly.com/products/cast
Or at the retailer of your choice: https://ghostly.ffm.to/heathered-pearls-cast

In Strange Company He Spoke Softly

jonny nash

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