Belgian composer and sound artist Adriaan Swerts announces the release of his debut full-length album One in collaboration with piano and coffee records – a collection of twelve deeply personal compositions that, originally, were not conceived with the idea of ever getting released but that, like shards of ice, slowly floated together and formed an island of music.

Both a life-threatening accident – which caused his disability –and the passing of his grandfather confronted Adriaan with the fragility of life. Thematically, this album deals with the eternal, life fading away, death, and the afterlife. At the same time, it attempts to celebrate the beauty of love, life, nature and all that lives on earth. 

The characteristic sounds on this album are field recordings of natural landscapes Adriaan visited, which he transformed into instruments and used almost solely to compose. The piano and other acoustic instruments such as the harmonium and strings, as old but not forgotten classical friends, are the other elements that accompany these transformed natural sounds. Icelandic glaciers, geysers, Scottish lochs, waterfalls, oceans and more all found a home on this album. In addition, Swerts uses reel-to-reel tape processing to degrade the sound of the recordings and make them sound broken – a reflection of what his body feels like.

The artwork of the album similarly reflects Adriaan's focus on the theme of the fragility of life and nature. The cracks in the ice symbolise how easily something can be broken into pieces – just like what happened to his body after his accident – but can still be a whole. In addition, Adriaan crafted a videoclip for each piece of the album through the process of cymatics – the study of visible sound vibration and the transformational nature of sound and matter. He filmed the sound vibrations caused by his music in water, unveiling beautiful and unique geometric patterns for each composition. 

One comes out digitally and on limited edition CD on the 28th of October, featuring artwork and design by Celia Bayo.

Purchase

Adriaan Swerts - Broken Silence

Context and illustrations: https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/11/10/love-at-first-sight-szymborska-queirazza/

CONTEXT

"Love at First Sight" by Wisława Szymborska (read by Maria Popova)

From the forthcoming album 'At Sea' available from Fluid Audio
https://www.fluidaudio.co.uk/product/phil-tomsett-aaron-martin-at-sea

At Sea Preview

A Year of Living Painlessly- Phil Tomsett & Aaron Martin

Release Date: 10.11.14

Birthed between the burning fields of Kansas and the surreal landscape of the New Mexican desert, Black Vines is a dense layering of monophonic drones, delayed sitar and large scale cello arrangements. 

Combining the distorted and blackened influence of Aaron Martin’s recent solo and collaborative work with Joseph Angelo’s love of ragas, industrial noise and meditative minimalism, the eight elegiac strands of Black Vines are tribute to redemptive growth that occurs in the shadows.

Mastered by James Plotkin, featuring tracks reworked from the original parts by Dag Rosenqvist with stunning artwork by Chris Koell.

Packaging includes letter-pressed covers, glass mastered CD, 10 x limited edition prints on heavy card stock with glassine bags, all resting inside hand numbered, scented black envelopes. Limited edition of 200 copies!

www.fluidaudio.bigcartel.com/mailing-list

Black Vines - Shadows (Dag Rosenqvist re-work)

Poem text and context: https://www.themarginalian.org/2023/05/20/ada-limon-dead-stars/

Music: Bach Cello Suite No. 4 in E Flat, performed by Seraband Bourree (public domain)

POEM TEXT / CONTEXT

"Dead Stars" by Ada Limón

“Why does the world need a Piano Day? For many reasons. But mostly, because it doesn’t hurt to celebrate the piano and everything around it: performers, composers, piano builders, tuners, movers and most important, the listener.” – Nils Frahm

http://www.pianoday.org/

More About Piano Day

Not Over Yet (Piano Day 2015)

Pavel Karmanov - Funny Valentine - Maxim Novikov - Valentina Borisova

Background, context, and poem text: https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/01/31/protest-poem-ella-wheeler-wilcox-amanda-palmer/

CONTEXT / POEM TEXT

Amanda Palmer reads "Protest" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1914)

Snowdrops - Manta Ray OST (cd / dl) >> https://bit.ly/2ubi28a

"A haunting score by French keyboard-based duo Snowdrops" #screendaily // "An incredible achievement" #fluidradio // "One of the best works in the genre of the past years" #groove_mag // "The music is certainly emotional, with elements of Eno’s ambient works and classical piano pieces." #soundblab // "Manta Ray is especially well served by the subtle soundscapes created by French duo Snowdrops" #variety // "The haunting melodies and sound effects reverberate with an unspeakable pain and displacement in some moments, but also the magic of new connections and simple kindness in others." #CineVue

( excerpt : 'Weird dance' )

Weird Dance

Rabbi Lawrence Kushner is a long-time student and articulator of the mysteries and messages of Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition. Kushner says mysticism tends to appear when religion — whatever the tradition — becomes too formal and logical. “The minute mysticism becomes permissible, acceptable, possible, it’s an immediate threat to organized religious structures,” he says. “Because what mysticism does is it gives everybody direct unmediated personal access to God.” He is influenced by the Jewish historian Gershom Scholem, who resurrected Kabbalah from obscurity in the 20th century and made it accessible to modern people.

Lawrence Kushner is the Emanu-El Scholar at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco. He served for 28 years as the rabbi of Congregation Beth El in Sudbury, Massachusetts. He has been an adjunct faculty member at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles and also a commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered. His many books include God Was in This Place & I, i Did Not Know, Kabbalah: A Love Story, and I’m God; You’re Not: Observations on Organized Religion & Other Disguises of the Ego.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

On Being with Krista Tippett

Lawrence Kushner — Kabbalah and Everyday Mysticism

Nouvel Ep "I will go" - 7 titres
Live session au Studio Elixir, Toulouse

Composer & performer : Dame Géraldine
Clavier, voix : Dame Géraldine
Record, Mix, Mastering : David Tarabbia

I will go

Moi j'm'en fous

Groundbreaking Peabody Award-winning conversation about the big questions of meaning, hosted by Krista Tippett. Every Thursday a new discovery about the immensity of our lives — and frequent special features like poetry, music and Q + A with Krista.

Lawrence Kushner — Kabbalah and Everyday Mysticism

On Being Studios

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