Fortresses guides a pensive, ethereal meditation on the passage of time with his debut release, Eve, on Dragon’s Eye Recordings. 

A day may be observed by exact moments, counted down by the hands on a clock; or, its progress might be witnessed through less immediate means—a shift in shadows, the sky’s hue, the air as it warms and cools. 

In this sense, Fortresses both measures the day with exactitude, and honors its slower unfoldings. Each of Eve’s three carefully crafted compositions allow the listener to hone in on a singular element, or lean back into a wider gentle drone. One can pinpoint a hint of static, or drift with a melodic looping hum as it phases in and out again. 

In his own words Fortresses offered us some insight into the making of Eve: 

Eve formed slowly during a self-reflective and transformative period in my life. The songs stand as a personal document of the time they were made and the rituals that gave shape to them—watching the seasons change from my studio window, letting the colours and qualities of light inspire the compositions; and long walks in East London’s natural and urban areas where I would listen to rough edits of the tracks and record open-air sounds that blended well with the music. 

With this music, the process is compositional and very deliberate, as opposed to improvised or open-ended. The tracks are manipulated guitar and synth lines, meshed with both raw and processed field recordings, and broken chords and melodies made with a Mellotron iPhone app.

Fortresses - June

Stream & pre-order the album: https://idol.lnk.to/aura

Japanese voice artist Hatis Noit announces her much anticipated Erased Tapes debut album Aura, out June 24, by sharing its wordless yet universally speaking title track as premiered by Mary Anne Hobbs on BBC 6 Music. Astonishingly all songs on the record were created using her voice only.

The album title Aura was inspired by the German philosopher Walter Benjamin who used this term to describe the fundamental essence of art, which he believed is strongest in its original form, only happening once. Hatis agrees with this particular aspect as she realised, “during the pandemic, I really struggled. As a singer, I’m not very good at working on the computer. I much prefer doing live performances in physical spaces. Being with people, sharing the same space with them and feeling the atmosphere and energy of that moment, inspires me every time. To me, art is that — that shared moment.”

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 represents the spirit world, therefore Hatis Noit is what connects the two. For Hatis, music represents the same netherworld with its ability to move and transport us to the other side; the past, a memory, our subconscious. Through this first offering, Hatis Noit revokes a haunting memory of getting lost in a forest in her birthplace Shiretoko, Hokkaido.

“One to watch: Hatis Noit — with her ethereal crossover of mystical and modern, this Japanese artist has been moving audiences to tears” — The Guardian

Aura

Hatis Noit - Aura

Track taken from the album "Euplexia" due out April 18th 2014.

Having spent the first half of 2013 working on two site-specific installations; UnThread in Southend, and After the Flood as part of Hebden Bridge Arts Festival, Isnaj Dui (aka Katie English) presents the follow up to 2012’s ambitious year-long Duodecim project.  Euplexia, Isnaj Dui’s most recent studio album, sees a return to the raw, edgy sound prevalent in earlier works, yet combines this with the maturity of composition which English has refined over the years.

With Euplexia, Isnaj Dui has drawn on aspects of her installation work and the journal-like nature of Duodecim to combine field recording and sampling alongside her trademark concert and bass flutes and dulcimer.  Using coil pickups, dictaphones and other electronics to build unstable textures and throbbing basslines, English has created a soundscape that is at once serene and grating.  Whilst the trademark schizophrenic nature of tracks is in check, this album also sees a move towards more dissonant harmonic structures and high frequency playing on the flutes.  The CD comes packaged in a hand-printed sleeve. 


isnaj dui / fjoeg

Here are four tracks from The Flood, by The Lyre Ensemble, with Stef Conner on vocals, Andy Lowings on lyre, and produced by Mark Harmer.  

Read about it here: 
http://www.newsweek.com/what-did-ancient-mesopotamian-hits-sound-something-291543

Order album here:
http://lyre-ensemble.com/admin/?page_id=93

The Flood

Twin Color (vol. I)

Fight

This is an edit of Side A of the forthcoming Zenjungle Album "Fragmented Lives", to be released on 19.01.2018 on ultra clear transparent 12inch with a reverse-printed sleeve, beautiful in haptic and optic.

Fragmented Lives

Midira Shop

Zenjungle - Fragmented Lives (Anticipation Edit)

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

from the album 'submers' available on double lp for the first time 11/23

submers

loscil 'argonaut I'

Dead Man Soundtrack - Neil Young (Official)

Fanu remix of The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble's "XTabay".
A part of a 5-track EP that was released on Oct 10 to celebrate TKDE's new tour.
Grab the whole EP at http://shop.tkde.net/album/xtabay

The Flood

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