A patch played on LinPlug's new synth Spectral. The recording consists of two instances of the same patch that are mixed in post-recording. Spectral is a very nice new synth, but it is complicated (for me) to get reliable results without polishing it up in the mix.

Glittering dawn (Zz3)

Akari is the third album from Tokyo duo Illuha. Following 2011’s debut Shizuku (12k1067) and 2013’s Interstices (12k2028), Akari takes the next artistic step for the band. While Shizuku was recorded in the US and completed separately by the artists, Interstices captured the duo creating their exceptionally detailed music together live during a Japaneses tour. Akari, in turn, is the first studio album where Illuha recorded and mixed together, throughout the entire process. The beautiful st-robo studio in Tokyo put a collection of amazing equipment at their fingertips, from vintage mics and outboard gear to a vast collection of instruments, both acoustic and electronic. Their writing sessions were numerous and long with details meticulously obsessed over for nearly a year. The result is the most bewildering music Illuha have created to date. An album swimming with the most delicately tactile sounds and instrumentation that draws the listener in with hushed, motionless attention.

While Illuha’s Corey Fuller and Tomoyoshi Date are often drawn to the most sparse notes of Rhodes and Wurlitzer electric pianos, acoustic grand piano and guitar, the breadth of instrumentation is partially what makes Akari so abosrbing. They have succeeded in creating their own universe of sound, so beautifully recorded, where each element not only has its own space but connects and interacts so fluidly with the other sounds. It is as if they are placed perfectly by nature, the compositions are fluid and organic, a far cry from anything calculated or structured. It is this open space that the music exists in which in turn defines the music itself. There is ample room to breathe within this forest of gentle tines, bubbling analogue synthesizers, clicking percussion and quiet field recordings. This is subtlety at its most refined; hushed without being saccharine, distant without being morose.

Akari is the Japanese word for light. Conceputally the duo used this word as a guide, as if they were searching through the dark, trying to keep the light alive, as if one is cradling a candle doing everything in their power to keep it alight in a storm. It is this almost visceral sense of sheltering, of protection, that gives Akari a very human and personal sound whose intensely deep focus is as impressive as it is arresting.

Akari

Structures Based on the Plasticity of Sphere Surface Tension

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Structures Based On The Plasticity Of Sphere Surface Tension

This very expressive bass synth patch for Native Instruments FM8, called "Moog bass" by Andreas Franz, inspired me to make this tune in a mellow chill out but still rhytmical style. The flute patch I made out of two female vocal samples from the DreamVoices pack for Alchemy.


Talk sweetly in the night

12 x 45 sec tasters from Inside The Rain Chamber, released 5 December 2014 on Alex Tronic Records.

01. Voyager
02. Sagarmatha before falling
03. Capsule
04. Luminance
05. Landing lights
06. Islands
07. Neon east
08. Hidden leaves
09. Tokyo tipping point
10. Twilight of tears
11. A year without sun
12. Weightlessness

Heavily effected shakuhachi and keyboards provide moody atmospheres over which fragments of Japanese language are sliced and processed.  Grainy textures blend with 
filtered beats, occasional sparse, reversed fretless bass, found sounds and traces of bowed-in guitar.


Inside The Rain Chamber - 12 x 45 sec tasters

Another sound sketch. Begun whilst trapped by snow for a month and written in a studio that was a toasty 10 Celsius. I had to pause once the temperature dropped to 6 Celsius.

A heavy fall

Inspired by the NASA probe New Horizions on its mission to Pluto, and beyond.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html


To Pluto, and beyond

The sound reminding of a communicationradio transmission is played on the Roland JP-8000.

A Brown Scale Of Distances

from Collected Dust by Marcus FIscher (Tench, Jan 2012)

Cold Days

18 with a bullet

Albert Speer : Vision of Space : BBC2

A new piece by Jan Bang featuring Arve Henriksen taken from the forthcoming album "Narrative from the Subtropics" due for release on September 6, 2013.

Jan Bang: samples, programming
Arve Henriksen: trumpet, vocal
David Soler: guitar samples

Sinking Ship

“Altered Carbon”, was released in November 2008 on Alex Tronic Records (ATR) and is a collection of downtempo tracks, close to a purely electronic mood. “Weightless Hours”, released in June 2012, moved towards electro-acoustic territory and introduced the processed shakuhachi that has since become a key characteristic of my sound. On “Inside The Rain Chamber”, which will released 5 December 2014, I have worked to make my sound ever more textural.

Glyph, Artefact and Between Her Dreams are from Altered Carbon.  Curtain of Rust, Sub Rosa and Sheltering Skies are from "Weightless Hours". I use shakuhachi, guitar and fretless bass to make many of the textures on the latter and most of "Inside The Rain Chamber". 

The "Cloud Altlas" set features tracks that have not made it onto albums and are free downloads. 

My one minute pieces for the Vox Novus 60x60 project feature in the 2009, 2010 and 2011 International mixes as well as a 2010 UnTwelve (microtonal) 60x60. 
http://www.voxnovus.com/60x60/60x60_Dance.htm

Over the last couple of years, I have also been making remixes for Alex Tronic Records and Nice'n'nasty.

My mix work also appears on 'Fated Stars", featuring vocals by Asa Seljestad, on the album 'To Infinity' by Alex Tronic.

(Inside The Rain Chamber cover image by Natashah Azim)

Inside The Rain Chamber - 12 x 45 sec tasters

Neu Gestalt

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