Current Ambient I keep on coming back to

A Memory with a Big M

Andrew Pekler

Ambient Electro

Marco Lucchi : piano
M.Nomized : electronics
James Hill : trumpet

for "piano patterns" vol. 2 https://soundcloud.com/marcolucchi/sets/piano-patterns-vol-2

marzo 2021

Marco Lucchi, M.Nomized & James Hill - #9

DAVID GRANSTRÖM, Empty Room - LP

Release date - April 2th 2021
Catalogue nr. - HG2102
Format - Vinyl / digital
Hallow Ground

hallowground.bandcamp.com

Tracklist:
1) Obsidian 09:22
2) Aeon 10:56
3) Sapphire Visions 04:50
4) Occultations 10:08
5) Transience 04:45

Credits:
All tracks composed, recorded, performed and mixed by David Granström 
Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi
Photography by Aron Mattsson
Cover design by Greenpointless

///
On »Empty Room,« David Granström works with slow transformations, cyclical and isometric patterns as well as just intonation as a way to create harmonic stability, allowing his long-form pieces to develop their own unique temporal and spatial qualities. A prolific figure in Stockholm’s experimental drone scene and a collaborator of Hallow Ground label mates Maria W Horn and Mats Erlandsson, the Swedish composer navigates through moments of quietude and crushing volume on these five tracks. Sonically and atmospherically, the pieces on »Empty Room« simultaneously call to mind Fennesz’s most meditative work or the physical experience of seeing Sunn O))) live, blending guitar recordings and synthesised sounds with forceful effects similar to those of Mario Díaz de Leon’s Oneirogen project while still being as moving and delicate as Alessandro Cortini’s solo work. The album is marked by melodies and harmonies that are the product of a peculiar working process that turned the composer into an intent listener collaborating with, rather than simply using technology. 

Having been invited by the self-organising artist group The Non Existent Center for a residency to Ställbergs Gruva, a defunct iron ore mine in Sweden’s Bergslagen region, Granström took his guitar as a starting point for his compositional work that heavily relies on real-time sound synthesis. »I seldomly use the instrument as a sound source in the final compositions and rather transcribe and orchestrate the harmonic structures using sound synthesis,« he explains. »On this album however, I chose to include the actual recordings of the guitar in order to extend the spectra between non-referential synthetic sounds and embodied referential sounds.« Working with precise tunings in order to blend the timbre of the synthesis with the harmonic structures of the composition, he created composite sound objects in which the harmonic elements blend into each other. 

Through the re-amplification of synthetic musical materials from the inside of the abandoned mine, his original compositions were enriched with site-specific sound qualities before he further refined them in a singular working process. Granström works with algorithmic and generative processes, using the SuperCollider programming environment and thus blurring the lines between generative and creative forms of composition. »One of the things that I like about this way of working is that it creates a distance between myself as a composer and myself as a listener of the music that is produced entirely by the system,« he says. Granström’s technologically aided eschewing of the conventions of composing doesn’t make the end result any less personal, however. By listening again and again to the newly generated output, Granström simply took on a different role in the process of finalising the music, with the technology and the sounds becoming his co-authors. 

By creating systems that generate music, he gains a new perspective on (musical) time, says Granström. »There doesn't have to be a fixed length to the music at all,« he explains. »And by writing music with this in mind, my focus tends to shift towards writing cyclical structures that gradually change and transform over time.« Simple parts, in other words, that emerge as the five complex wholes that form »Empty Room,« a record that itself seems to take on different forms with every new listen.

DAVID GRANSTRÖM - Occultations (HG2102)

"Make the Secrets Produtive" is taken from "Fold Unfold", Katrine Grarup Elbo´s debut album. Handmade LP and CD editions available April, 2021.

Fold Unfold

Katrine Grarup Elbo - Make the Secrets Productive

@federsen(San Francisco, United States)

Federsen plunges us through this set in a rhythmic journey sprinkled with Dub sounds that let appear sunny and beautiful landscapes.

Tracklist: 

I.  Ohm Series 002 04 Roger Gerressen
II . David Delgado - Free Until Four(Steve O'Sullivan Remix)[L.E.T]
III. Giacomo Pellegrino - Error 002 [PURISM]
IV. AFTAHRS - Less Input [Dubøka Records]
V. Irv.in - I Remember You(Sativa Remix) [Gliese Records]
VI. Naom - Ngc 6210 [Gliese Records]
VII. Schulz Audio - Delta Uniform 
VIII. Roger Gerressen - Holding Thoughts  [Yoyaku]
IX. Traumer & Priku - Operation(Unreleased Mix) [Berg Audio]
X. Moreon & Baffa ft. Mirus -  Multicultural Travels  [Berg Audio]
XI. Janeret - Air  [Berg Audio]
XII. Moreon & Baffa - Penzar (Ion's Drive-Stab Dubnology Quest For Visions) [Visionquest Records]
XIII.  Echo Inspectors & Silver Ash ‎- Mad Roy (Bluetrain SpecialnEdition Dub)[Primary Colours]
XIV. Tetelepta - Heal Yourself [ESHU Records]

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Melifera Podcast ⬢ Federsen

Based on Franco Battiato's L'Egitto Prima Della Sabbia

L'Egitto dopo La Cicala

Variations w/ KMRU - 12th July 2021

Artos Eleven - The Aleyrac River 
The Aleyrac River [Artos Eleven (Self-release)]

Produced by Arthur Bohl aka Artos Eleven
Mastered by Mattias Fridell
Artwork by Artos Eleven
Released from Aleyrac, France
Release Date : August 11th. 2021

The river of Aleyrac is the river along which La Vallée Électrique festival is located. I used to play there when I was a child. Some monks had built the priory of Aleyrac on the source of this river.
Water can be seen rising from the ground inside the ruins of this little church. At that time, the river was said to be sacred and its water could heal.

Artos Eleven (Aleyrac, France)
https://soundcloud.com/artos_eleven
https://www.facebook.com/arthur.flashball
https://www.instagram.com/artoseleven
https://artoseleven.bandcamp.com

Oslated.
http://www.oslated.com
https://soundcloud.com/oslated
https://oslated.bandcamp.com
https://formaviva.com/oslated

The Aleyrac River

Support & Buy

Artos Eleven - The Aleyrac River [Artos Eleven]

music for parking garages, vol 12:  UNITEDSTATESOF 100% surf

Release date: 10/09/21

If you would like to review this release, please email info@astralindustries.co.uk

180g vinyl//leaflet included//mastered by Noel Summerville//original artwork by Theo Ellsworth.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As one chapter closes, another opens. Following the passing of group member J.Derwort in 2019, Hanyo van Oosterom’s legacy work brings about the next evolution of the Chi project: Son of Chi. AI-25 sees subtle developments in the sound and expansion of tonal vocabulary, whilst retaining the organic instrumentation and rapturous dreamtime narratives. Flourishes of piano float elegantly with poise, and long-drawn flutes breathe life into the shifting landscape. Shadows play in the thick vegetal overgrowth, the air is heavy with the scent of age-old evocations. Speakers drift in and out of undulating reverie, forgotten transmissions from the repository of consciousness. Against the wide backdrop of the harsh and wild unknown, a feeling of peace resides within. Night and day gradually collapse into one another, as loops of lapping textures glisten quietly with mystical beauty.

Pre-order

Side A

From Am Shhara's Shinsoko, available now for pre-order:
https://muzaneditions.bandcamp.com/album/shinsoko

Am Shhara - Ano

Gruth is set to release his 3rd solo album, this time via Temporize. Scenes From  was written between 2018 and 2021 in Brazil and follows Gruth’s debut album Laments released in 2018, and his second album Somnum Exterreri.. Written as a two-act play, 'Act I, Scene I - Wake In Fright' is the opening track and captures Gruth's light, euphoric sound that perfectly transitions from the final moments of Somnum Exterreri. 


words: https://www.asifnoway.com/premiere-gruth-act-i-scene-i-wake-in-fright-temporize

Scenes From

Premiere: Gruth - Act I Scene I; Wake in Fright (Temporize)

From the album Sounds From Phantom Islands:
https://andrewpekler.bandcamp.com/album/sounds-from-phantom-islands

Bandcamp

Taprobana

Artist: Andrew Pekler
Album: Tristes Tropiques
Format: LP/DL
Label#: Faitiche14
Release date: November 11th

Faitiche welcomes back an old friend: Andrew Pekler was the musical director of the 2011 album Ursula Bogner – Sonne=Blackbox (faitiche05 lp/cd/book). Known for his albums on Senufo Editions, Entr’acte, Dekorder, Kranky and other labels, Andrew Pekler’s new work Tristes Tropiques is now released by Faitiche. Tristes Tropiques is an album of synthetic exotica, pseudo-ethnographic music and unreal field recordings.  

Find out more about Andrew Pekler’s Tristes Tropiques in the following interview:

Jan Jelinek: You’ve titled your album Tristes Tropiques – a reference to Claude Lévi-Strauss’ famous account of his travels among native peoples in the Mato Grosso. If I remember correctly, the book can be read in two ways: as an ethnographic study of indigenous Brazilian tribes, and as a critique of anthropological methods. What exactly about Tristes Tropiques inspired you? The melancholy travelogue, or the formation of a new, critical school of thought?

Andrew Pekler: Both. Lévi-Strauss’ constant reflection on the purpose of his work and the often melancholy tone of his writing constitute an internal tension which runs throughout the whole book. Tristes Tropiques is many things; autobiography, traveler’s tale, ethnographic report, philosophical treatise, colonial history. But ultimately, it’s the author’s attempt to synthesize meaning from fragments of his own and other cultures that resonated most strongly with me – and led me to a new perspective on how I hear and make music. 

JJ: Listening to Tristes Tropiques I noticed a certain oscillation between references, which is what I really like about it. Obviously, your music alludes to the beloved fairytale kitsch of exotica, but it also repeatedly shifts to a mode of ethno-poetic meditation music that seems to have no beginning or end. Where do you yourself locate the tracks gathered here? 

AP: As a listener and as a musician, exotica music of the 1950s and 60s has always been a constant reference point and inspiration. And perhaps my listening has been ‘ruined’ by exotica, but as I have dug deeper into ethnographic archives of ‘traditional’ music, I’ve come to the realization that all recordings that evoke, allude to, or ostensibly document other musical forms have a similar effect on my imagination: I am most intrigued when I perceive some coincidentally familiar element within the foreign (a tuned percussion recital from Malawi that immediately brings to mind Steve Reichian minimalism, or the Burundian female vocal duet that sounds uncannily like a cut-up tape experiment, etc.). I suppose this album is an attempt to recreate the same kind of listening experience as what I’ve described, just with the electronic means that I have at hand. 

JJ: I know that you perform Tristes Tropiques not only as music, and that there is visual and spatial aspect to the presentation. Can you reveal more about this?

AP: I made an accompanying video – mainly close-up footage, shot in Thailand, of various tropical flora. The video was recorded at very slow speed and this gives the plants, flowers, trees, bamboo, etc. the appearance of rather abstract objects. In live performance, this abstracting effect is further emphasized through real-time modulation of the colors, brightness and other parameters of the video image. There is also an installation version of the video that is meant to be projected on multiple screens / walls and with its own soundtrack of heavily manipulated field recordings captured in the same locations in the jungle.  

JJ: We can get an idea of what this looks like from the beautiful video stills on the back cover of the album.

Andrew Pekler: Theme From Tristes Tropiques / Avian Modulations / Life In The Canopy

Gibbons of Siem Pang Protected Forest recorded by Adrian Stoeger
Andrew Pekler - Untitled / Insect March
Alessandro Brivio - Untitled
Jake Meginsky - Vandals + Waldkautz Balz recorded by Walter Tilgner 
Mike Kitcher - Processed Snippet of "Congo Traditional 1952 & 1957" # 8
Yannick Dauby - 蛙界蒙 + Francis Bebey- Sanza tristesse
Unnamed Aka Pygmy Singer - Dikoboda sombe (Hut song solo) + Morton Feldman - Samoa
Hanno Leichtmann - Primitiva 4
Three Legged Race - Tyrant (loop) + Lieven Martens Moana - A Subtle Landscape + Knud Viktor - Images
Luluwa people of Congo - Wa Kabwala Wa Beena Luluwa + Andrew Pekler - additional sounds 
Andrew Pekler - Synthetic Gamelan & Frogs
Yas-Kaz - Psychopomp + Tor Dietrichson - The Conjurer + Asmus Tietchens - Vektor 2 R
Rupert Clervaux & Beatrice Dillon - Study VII for Samplers and Percussion + Louise Lawler - Birdcalls
Günter Sommer - Hörmusik + Jake Meginsky - Four Zopas
Native Instrument - Live at Atonal 2016 + Cluster - Rote Riki (loop)
Pierre Henry - Continuum + Adam Asnan - Rev Sets 11
Hamza El Din - Song With Tar + Yannick Dauby - A Pattern Which Connects B
Gamelan Son of Lion - Gamelan II
Geinoh Yamashirogumi - Agba'a
Andrew Pekler - Humidity Index / Khao Sok (chopped and screwed)
Gibbons of Siem Pang Protected Forest recorded by Adrian Stoeger

Fourth World Problems II

'Zinnen' from the upcoming Release 'Moto Perpetuo' on Marionette.

Video by Frode&Marcus: https://vimeo.com/315931008

Written and Produced by Benjamin Kilchhofer and Michael Anklin
Cat. no.: Marionette09
Format: 12” Vinyl (180g) + Digital
Release Date: March 2019

Moto Perpetuo

Zinnen

Kilchhofer Anklin - Zinnen (Moto Perpetuo LP)

Artist: Andrew Pekler
Album: Sound From Phantom Islands
Label#: Faitiche20
Format: LP/DL

Faitiche is delighted to present a new album by Andrew Pekler: Sounds From Phantom Islands brings together ten tracks created over the last three years for the interactive website Phantom Islands - A Sonic Atlas. With his 2016 album Tristes Tropiques, Pekler created a highly unique cosmos of ethnographic sound speculations. Sounds From Phantom Islands continues and simultaneously expands this concept: finely elaborated chordal motifs float like fog over fictional maritime landscapes. A masterpiece of contemporary Exotica.

Phantom islands are islands that appeared on historical maps but never actually existed. The status of these artefacts of European colonial expansion from the 15th to the 19th century oscillates between cartographic fact and maritime fiction. Sounds From Phantom Islands interprets and presents these imaginations as a quasi-ethnographic catalog of music and synthetic field recordings. The pieces on this album are based on recordings made for Phantom Islands - A Sonic Atlas, an online interactive map developed with cultural anthropologist Stefanie Kiwi Menrath.

Andrew Pekler: Description Of Rain (Over Frisland)

Artist: Frank Bretschneider
Album: abtasten_halten
Label#: faitiche21
Format: LP/DL
Release: Sept 18th 2020

Faitiche is delighted to present a new album by Frank Bretschneider. abtasten_halten was made as part of the raster.labor installation first presented at CTM Festival in 2019. It is perhaps the most radical work in Bretschneider’s distinctive oeuvre: abtasten_halten is a self-generating composition for synthesizer modules whose sole sound source is the movement of two VU meter needles. The resulting percussive sounds coalesce into rhythmic combinations – all random, without repetition. The album resembles a meditation on infinite rhythmic variation. abtasten_halten is Frank Bretschneider’s first release on Faitiche.

"One sound can give birth to thousands of tones through self-fertilization." Pierre Henry, 1982

Frank Bretschneider on abtasten_halten:
abtasten_halten (sample_hold) is a largely self-generating composition for a modular synthesizer system. Self-generating here means that as soon as a current flows, the various modules interact, but within limits set by the composer via the connections between the modules (patches): timing, tempo, timbres, dynamics. These conditions are kept variable to a certain extent or left to chance, so that the composition created is always similar but never the same. On the one hand, the use of random generators opens up possibilities that would not otherwise have been considered. On the other, it offers the fascination of the unfinished and the unique: totally unexpected musical events that you might hear only once.
abtasten_halten combines my preferences for percussive music in general and electronic music in particular. Largely avoiding repetitive structures, the piece is more like a free improvisation, quiet and diffuse, but also extremely dense, in ever-changing contrasts and transformations.
The tone generators are two modified VU meters whose needles, driven by trigger impulses, create a simple one-bar pattern by hitting against a metal spring that is connected to a piezo element (thanks to Gijs Gieskes / Gieskes.NL). The tempo is continuously varied over a period of about ten minutes by several mutually modulating LFOs, ranging from about 0.06 Hz up to the lower audio range of about 18Hz.
The percussive sounds thus obtained are then passed through low-pass filters with moderate resonance and random frequency modulation to additionally colour the sound. Further processing is then executed by an echo module whose tempo and repetitions are again determined by random parameters. Finally the audio signal is occasionally enriched with reverb to add more spaciousness to the sound.
The concept for the installation raster.labor was developed by Olaf Bender, Frank Bretschneider and David Letellier. Many thanks to raster - artistic platform.

On Frank Bretschneider:

Frank Bretschneider works as a musician, composer and video artist in Berlin, making mainly electronic work based on complex rhythmic structures and interlocking textures, whose many-layered sound is inspired by the experimental set-ups of modern physics, often supplemented by perfectly synchronized computer-generated visualizations. In 1986, he founded AG Geige, one of the most influential underground bands in East Germany. In 1996, he co-founded the label raster-noton and has since released many solo albums.

Frank Bretschneider: abtasten_halten C

From Atlas der Gedanken, available now on cassette tape and digital.
https://muzaneditions.bandcamp.com/album/atlas-der-gedanken