Fire! Orchestra - Enter Part Four

Heavy Calm animated music video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDSoox28iBQ&feature=youtu.be

Heavy Calm

from 'Nomad Frequencies' [CD|2xLP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den237
available on all formats at [http://denovali.com/johnlemke]

An ardent moulder of sound, John Lemke began carving out a very unique music blend on his debut album 'People Do' (2013) and its follow up EP 'Walizka' (2014). Informed by his work as a sound designer & composer for documentary films and his natural inclination towards fusing rhythm with rich textures and emotive melodies, he set out on a musical path that had been long in the making and is ever evolving.

The quest for unusual, inspiring sound sources has always been at the heart of John's process, however the genesis of his second album 'Nomad Frequencies' was rooted in much more inadvertent circumstances. In the summer of 2014, forced to indefinitely evacuate his Glasgow flat and studio due to structural damage from one hour to the next, with nothing more than a laptop and a bag of clothes, John embarked on a six month odyssey of soul searching, couch surfing and spending an extended period of time in his old hometown of Berlin for the first time in years - it was to be an odyssey that would help ferment and distill the ideas of his second album on which work had just begun. 

A year of particular global turmoil and upheaval, combined with John's personal, albeit very minor, 'displacement', caused a lot of questioning, frustration and anger, which somehow found its way onto the new material: a more confrontational, at times aggressive sound, paired on the other hand with a yearning for harmony, balance and space. Other influences came less from the world of music, but rather in visual form, through the densely textural art of Anselm Kiefer and the political, yet poetic musings of film maker Adam Curtis.

Intent on refining his sound toward a more minimal, bolder style, John set out to limit his sonic palate to a handful of carefully chosen elements. At the centre of this new direction remains the muted piano already introduced on his debut, but in a much more purified and raw form. This organic base is adorned by the warm fuzzing and wavering of analogue synthesisers, tape echoes, meditative tuning forks, field recordings from John's 'exile' period and percussion based on his rigid approach to sampling, which started developing on 'Walizka'. The guiding principle of his orthodox style of recording and sampling is to only use home-made sounds by utilising his own field recordings, applying contact microphones or hydrophones to objects and instruments, running them through different kinds of speakers and re-recording the sounds to arrive at a 'lived in' quality, often misunderstood as plainly 'lo-fi'. Touches of viola and woodwinds parts (Kim Moore of WOLF and Andrew Baker respectively) provide melody fragments and subtle details throughout the journey.

With John's healthy disregard for genre boundaries, the array of influences on 'Nomad Frequencies' is vast, but never over-powering. From the meditative tuning fork that starts proceedings on 'Of Elsewhere', the dub echoes to the hints of minimalism, free jazz explosions to the Lynchian atmospherics, all elements serve nothing more than the album's narrative journey between friction and harmony, best appreciated in its entirety. A rhythmic backbone collides with rich ambience and melody, often infectious and jarring at the same time, forging a soulful whole which most likely only reveals its true self after multiple spins.

Nomad Frequencies

John Lemke - Vessel

Previously unreleased adaptation of the Twin Peaks classic.
Credits:
Martyn Heyne - Piano
Rafael Anton Irisarri - Guitar, Rhodes, Synths & Cymbals
Benoit Pioulard - Vocals,  Bass, Field Recordings
Valerie Trebeljahr (Lali Puna) - "Now it's dark" phone message
Mastered at www.blackknollstudio.com
Many thanks to Martyn Heyne for uncovering this one too!

O R C A S - Into The Night

SWOD
new album " DREI " on City-Centre-Offices ( MORR )
release date : 25.11.11


Swod " DREI " fragments

Taken from 'At The Dam' LP by Mary Lattimore, out March 4, 2016.

Pre-order at The Ghostly Store: http://www.theghostlystore.com/collections/music/products/at-the-dam
Or at the retailer of your choice: https://Ghostly.lnk.to/mary-lattimore-atthedam

At The Dam

Mary Lattimore - Jimmy V

Hauschka Kosminen Zeigler live at Radialsystem on 13 September, 2015.

With the celebrated experimental pianist Hauschka, the Finnish percussion wizard Samuli Kosminen and the cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, former member of the legendary Kronos Quartet, UM:LAUT brought together three exceptional and internationally renowned musicians for the first time ever in Germany: Entirely based on free improvisation and the exploration of space with sound and rhythm...

Special thanks to the artists for a great performance, to Michael Buchholz for the amazing sound and to Carlo Grippa for mastering this tune.
Recorded at Radialsystem, Berlin.
Published with permission of the artist.
Photo: Ioana Taut

Hauschka Kosminen Zeigler @ UM:LAUT - Live Snippet 2

Japanese vocal performer Hatis Noit will release her enigmatic EP Illogical Dance via Erased Tapes worldwide on 23rd  March 2018. The arresting 4-track record creates unique song-worlds with transcendent vocal interpretations that at once deconstruct and recombine Western Classical, Japanese folk and nature’s own ambience atmosphere. Illogical Dance also features Björk-collaborators Matmos, who were so impressed with Hatis Noit’s recordings, they volunteered to edit the lead track Illogical Lullaby. 

Hailing from the distant Shiretoko, a small town in Hokkaido, which is the largest island in north Japan, Hatis Noit’s accomplished range is astonishingly self-taught, inspired by everything she could find from Gagaku — Japanese classical music — and operatic styles, Bulgarian and Gregorian chanting, to avant-garde and pop vocalists. The sounds she created on Illogical Dance, co-produced by Haruhisa Tanaka and Matmos, bring to mind the experimental vocal patterns of Meredith Monk with the attentive production of Holly Herndon.

It was at the age of 16, during a trek in Nepal to the Buddha’s birthplace, when she realised singing was her calling. While staying at a women’s temple in Lumbini, one morning on a walk Hatis Noit heard someone singing. On further investigation it was a female monk singing Buddhist chants, alone. The sound moved her so intensely she was instantly aware of the visceral power of the human voice; a primal and instinctive instrument that connects us to the very essence of humanity, nature and our universe. 

The name Hatis Noit itself is taken from Japanese folklore, meaning the stem of the lotus flower. The lotus represents the living world, while its root the spirit world, therefore Hatis Noit is what connects the two. For Hatis Noit, music represents the same netherworld with its ability to move and transport us to the other side; the past, a memory, our subconscious. It is the same for Illogical Dance, a set of transformative songs that taps into our most primal instincts. 

“The human voice is our oldest, most primal yet most powerful instrument. I use it to describe nature’s many sounds, a language that isn’t logical. Yet it forms a beautiful conversation that isn’t restricted to words like the human language is. I want my music to remind us of that.” — Hatis Noit

Wanting to interpret and mimic the sounds Hatis Noit hears in nature, Illogical Dance is as unpredictable, beautiful and mysterious as the world around us. Each track is made up from multi layers of vocals, all improvised and without words, before being carefully pieced together. Astonishingly no samples are used throughout, even the sound of crushing leaves came from Hatis Noit’s own vocal chords. The result is a stunning array of sound sculptures that see her switching between multiple styles with great ease. From the sweet operatics on Illogical Lullaby, the manipulated vocal loops duplicating electronic production on Anagram c.i.y. to the primordial chanting call to arms of Angelus Novus, a 10-minute odyssey that features whispering and leaves crunching, it showcases Hatis Noit’s full range and introduces a truly original artist. 



After participating in a memorial and appreciation ceremony tailored to the withdrawal of the evacuation area in Fukushima on 31st March 2017, Hatis Noit collaborated with renowned visual artist Nobumichi Asai on a project titled INORI (prayer) which they premiered live as part of an Erased Tapes showcase at Mutek Japan in Tokyo. 

Having recently moved to London and performed a first string of UK shows, followed by a special live performance at the Milan Fashion Week and Mutek Japan appearance, Peter Broderick has invited Hatis Noit to support him at the Jazz Cafe on April 15th. She’s also been announced as part of this year’s Sea Change Festival line-up, and asked to participate in a workshop with the London Contemporary Orchestra.

Illogical Dance

Buy 12" / CD / DL

Hatis Noit - Illogical Lullaby

Pre-order Fallen Trees on LP/CD/DL: http://radi.al/MelnykFallenTrees

Continuous Music pioneer and literal force of nature Lubomyr Melnyk releases his new album 'Fallen Trees' on December 7th. Known as ‘the prophet of the piano’ due to his lifelong devotion to his instrument, the new album coincides with Melnyk's 70th birthday. 

Cascades of notes, canyons and rivers of sound: there’s something about Lubomyr Melnyk's music that channels the natural world at its most awe-inspiring. In Fallen Trees the connection with the environment continues, taking its cue from a long rail journey Melnyk made through Europe. Glancing out of the window as the train passed through a dark forest, he was struck by the sight of trees that had recently been felled. “They were glorious,” he says. “Even though they’d been killed, they weren’t dead. There was something sorrowful there, but also hopeful.” That sense of sadness touched by optimism infuses the album, too: rarely has Melnyk made music so shot through with melancholy and regret, but which sounds so rapt, even radiant.

The five-part, 20-minute Fallen Trees is one of the most ambitious and demanding pieces he has ever created. Though the music is – as ever – Melnyk’s own, Fallen Trees once again features a number of Erased Tapes artists. Japanese vocal artist Hatis Noit, whose first EP Illogical Dance came out to much acclaim earlier this year, lends ethereal vocals, floating mysteriously above the surface of Melnyk’s eddying piano lines before diving far beneath. Other contributors include Berlin-based cellist Anne Müller, a sometime collaborator with Nils Frahm, and American singer David Allred, the most recent addition to the label family. “More than any of the albums that I’ve done, it’s a real collaboration,” Melnyk insists, emphasising how much he owes to his producer, Erased Tapes founder Robert Raths.

It is true to say that there is nothing quite like Melnyk’s work: a unique musical pioneer, he has defiantly carved his own path. “I don’t say to people I’m a composer,” he declares. “I don’t know what I am.”

Melnyk composes, as he plays, at the piano, feeling out lines and individual rhythmic cells that bubble, undulate and gradually expand into vast, interlinked frameworks. Asked to describe what it’s like to live inside his music, he says “my whole body is transformed as I play, it honestly feels like that. My fingers feel like the winds of the world; it feels like you’re physically transcending dimensions.”

Despite the autumnal hint in its title, there’s little suggestion of Melnyk slowing down. Having received critical acclaim and co-headlining the prestigious Royal Festival Hall as part of the Erased Tapes 10th anniversary celebrations, after many years his audience is now both global and growing. The composer is finally gaining a momentum in his career that matches the vibrant, highly active energy of his playing.

Fallen Trees

Son of Parasol

Buy LP/CD/DL

Lubomyr Melnyk - Son of Parasol

Warner CD - Steve Reich - Different Trains - III After The War

Everything Ascending

"The London Steve Reich Ensemble is an outstanding group of young musicians.
They have a superb feel for how to play my music. Their performances pulse with life" Steve Reich

The London Steve Reich Ensemble is the only group in the world that composer Steve Reich has allowed use of his name besides his own group. Founded and led by the artistic visions of Vincent Corver & Kevin Griffiths. Pianist/CEO and Conductor/Artistic Director.

The group came together in 2005 at the Royal Academy of Music in London, receiving immediate high acclaim from the Academy itself for its impeccable performances in the first year of its existence. The LSRE has moved forward in the years, performing throughout Europe’s renowned venues such as the London Duke’s Hall, Tonhalle Zurich, KKL Lucerne, Schönbergsaal The Hague, Cheltenham Festival UK and many others.

The LSRE received the Diapason D’Or Award for its first CD under the CPO label, only 2 years later being contracted under Warner Classics (Formally: EMI Classics) for its second CD. The CD includes the string ensemble pieces Triple Quartet and Different Trains by Reich, conducted by Kevin Griffiths for acoustic ensemble. The CD also features the World Premiere arrangement of the 1973 work “Six Pianos” by Steve Reich, now released under the new name “Piano Counterpoint” in 2012. A work that received its World Premiere Performance on The Pearl – Qatar in December 2012, by Vincent Corver, who was personally commissioned by Reich to make the arrangement. In January 2013 the work was taken into the official hire-library of the music publisher Boosey & Hawkes. Various global premiere performances are due throughout 2015 and 2016.

The Ensemble has set new ways in the collaboration with the London Royal Ballet, and the choreographer William Tuckett. A new world premiere choreography has been set for 2016. 

The London Steve Reich Ensemble is known for performing not only Steve Reich, but programming his music alongside other repertoire, complimenting the music of Reich. The performances are recognized by international critics for their intense vitality and precision, whilst keeping the natural flow of sound and where the repeat is not performed as a repeat, but as a micro incremental development.

Steve Reich's style of composition has been hugely influential to many composers and musical groups. He is also equated as the Andy Warhol of classical music. Described by The Guardian as one of "a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history". Many critics including Kyle Gann quoted "may...be considered, by general acclamation, America's greatest living composer".

Warner CD - Steve Reich - Different Trains - III After The War

London Steve Reich Ensemble

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