1.00.1

https://xaerarch.bandcamp.com/track/nihil

Xaerarch - Nihil

Release date: 3rd February 2023
Format: Cassette, Digital

mahorka.bandcamp.com
https://mahorka.org

"Esaminazioni Cosmiche" was written and composed between January and February 2021 during a period of introspection, about the world I lived in (and still live in) all through an external, cosmic gaze.
This album is dedicated to the Italian ambient minimalist movement of the seventies and eighties..

Music by Andrea Porcu
Artwork by Angel Draganov

previews. Music For Sleep - Esaminazioni Cosmiche | Mahorka

I FINALLY got my "digital" copy of Tony Oxley's seminal record "February Papers" to play today. I got it on some blog years ago. I still have my vinyl copy but little access to my turntable. This is one of the best recordings of free improvisation ever released. Here's the track "Brushes" just to prove a point. For solo percussion and electronics, 1977. Essential listening.

Tony Oxley - "Brushes" from February Papers

Available via Imprec.com

Mo H. Zareei (mHz) returns to Imprec/Cassauna with Proof Of Identity, an album of pulsating, pattern-based electronic pieces that evolve in ways reminiscent of Steve Reich's early work or Philip Glass' Music In 12 Parts. With Proof Of Identity, Zareei confronts issues surrounding identity and authorship in composition specifically when created by non-Western musicians. He simultaneously tackles orientalism and the normative take on identity politics. 

Artist's Statement: 

More than a decade ago, I made a piece of beat-based electronic music and titled it "Middle Eastern IDM" for a course assignment. After listening to it in class, my professor asked what was Middle Eastern about it. It was only a year after I had left Iran to study in the US, and I didn't know that I could say "I am. I made the piece". So I went back and superimposed a sample of Egyptian protest chants on top of the piece, to make it "sufficiently Middle Eastern".  

What prejudiced conservatism and performative liberalism share is gatekeeping practices that box one in a preconceived state of otherness. While the former overtly regards that otherness as inferior, the latter exoticises it through patronising paternalism. To me, it is especially troubling when exclusionary practices are driven by some form of overzealous "diversity and inclusion" agenda. If you don't fit the diversity box they've made for you, too bad. It's your fault for being "insufficiently diverse". "Poor thing, you've been colonised!", they tell you, as they claim ownership over a collection of frequencies and rhythms. When you look at who gets to decide if something's indigenous enough, you see how decolonisation itself has been colonised.

When you listen to this piece, I'm very happy for you to keep in mind that it was made by someone from Iran. But I might need to clarify that this piece has nothing to do with sufism and the whirling dervishes, the interweaving patterns of the Persian carpet, the poetry of Rumi, or Islamic architecture. And if you hear those moments of "non-western" sonorities, that is because I have constructed this piece from samples of a piece of Iranian traditional music – an overplayed piece that was all over TV and radio while I was growing up Iran, one that I never found particularly inspiring or interesting. Here, I have tried to make it more interesting by completely taking it apart and reconstructing it through my personal compositional techniques, aesthetic preferences, and a wide range of musical influences. So in short, while this piece might not sound like your archetypical Iranian music, I assure you that it is Iranian enough. 

bio

Mo H. Zareei aka mHz is an Iranian electronic musician, sound artist, and researcher, based in Wellington, New Zealand. Using custom-built software and hardware, his experiments with sound cover a wide range from electronic compositions to kinetic sound-sculptures and audiovisual installations. Regardless of the medium, Zareei’s work aims to highlight the beauty in the basics of sound and light production and reductionist audiovisual elements that draw inspiration from physical and architectural principles. Over the course of his PhD, he developed a portfolio of works focused on the intersections of sound art and Brutalism. 

Zareei has presented his work at international venues and festivals such as ISEA (Montreal/Vancouver/Dubai), SETxCTM festival (Tehran), NIME (London), Modern Body Festival (The Hague), ICAD (New York), and NZ Festival (Wellington), to name a few. His installation “Rasping Music" was the recipient of the 1st prize for Sound Art at the last iteration of the international Sonic Arts Award in 2015 (Italy).

Under the moniker mHz, Zareei’s electronic music projects have been published via LINE (US), Important Records (US), leerraum (CH), and Kasuga Records (DE).

mHz - Proof Of Identity (Part I) - Tape

MARTINA BERTHER / PHILIPP SCHLOTTER, Matt, LP

Release date: September 29, 2023
Catalogue nr. – HG2305
Red vinyl, ltd. to 200 copies
Hallow Ground

hallowground.bandcamp.com

Tracklist:
1. Unruhe (14:10)
2. LFO 1 (07:55) – Single release on September 1
3. Gallia (05:03)
4. LFO 2 (06:26)
5. Frachter (05:10)

Credits:
Music by Martina Berther (bass, organ) and Philipp Schlotter (synthesizer, organ)
Recorded by Flo Götte at Reformierte Kirche Matt (GL)
Pre-Mix by Roland Wäspe
Mastering and Post-Production by Lawrence English
Cover photo by Andrea Ebener
Band photo by Jeremie Luke
Design by Laurin Huber

///

Martina Berther and Philipp Schlotter are prolific in their respective ways, having been active in pop and jazz music, respectively, as well as playing in bands and exploring the outer fringes of sound art or composing music for film. Their first joint album »Matt« was recorded over the course of four days in a church in the Swiss village after which the album was named. Berther and Schlotter worked with the buildingʼs organ as well as synthesizers and electric bass to follow an experimental approach that oscillated between composition and free improvisation. The five pieces, recorded directly to tape by Flo Götte without any additional overdubs, are characterised by an intimacy and rawness that calls to mind the introspective atmosphere of Hallow Ground label mateʼs FUJI||||||||||TA or mastering engineer Lawrence Englishʼs latest album for the Swiss label. »Matt« is the result of two versatile composers and musicians executing minimalist ideas by giving them plenty of space to unfold.

The album opens with »Unruhe,« a composition that is based on the twelve-tone technique. Using a stopwatch to ensure the adherence to the pre-determined temporal intervals between the individual notes, Berther and Schlotter used the church organ and synthesizers for an ominous piece that traverses different moods and levels of intensity throughout its 14-minute run time. »LFO1« and »LFO2« are different variations of the same concept: Based on a synthesizer preset and structured by an organ drone, two tone generators slowly fall silent, resulting in elegiac pieces that call to mind the work of Éliane Radigue. »Frachter« and »Gallia« put more emphasis on percussive elements. Again working with organ as well as Bertherʼs prepared electric bass, this improvisation comprises interlocking textures that sound almost menacing on »Frachter,« while they create a very different atmosphere on »Gallia.« These notable discrepancies in sound and mood are even more astonishing if you consider that the two pieces are based on the exact same recording, played at different speeds.

As two variations on the same idea with very different results, these two pieces perfectly represent how the duo effectively creates emotionally affective sound worlds with very few means. Berther and Schlotterʼs conceptual minimalism yields rewarding, multi-faceted aesthetic results. »Matt« is an intimate album, marked by a sense of vividness and spontaneity, but also the product of compositional conciseness.

Matt

MARTINA BERTHER / PHILIPP SCHLOTTER - LFO 1 (HG2305)

British musician Jo Johnson’s debut solo album for Further Records, Weaving, betokens an exciting presence in the world of minimalist composition. 

“Ancestral Footsteps” opens the LP with cascades of cyclical harp-like sounds, an homage to one of Johnson’s primary inspirations: Alice Coltrane. Channelling rigorous new age and mesmerizing Riley-esque/Reichian minimalism, the piece accrues heft and intensity, with occasional bursts of synthetic, tribal clapping until it fades out with cinematic flourish. The title track gradually alters simple guitar and keyboard phrases, along with a chiming motif that multiplies in a hall of mirrors. The disorientating arpeggios form moiré patterns against colossal bass notes. The mood lightens considerably with “Words Came After Music,” whose sweeping strings and drones could take you to whatever your idea of heaven is. Interestingly, the title of the piece is inspired by an anthropological theory Johnson stumbled across that musical ability predates language in humans. With its sombre, undulating synths and lustrous highs and lows, “In the Shadow of The Workhouse” plumbs profound emotional depths. Epic closer “Silver Threads” starts as an almost silent retreat in the vein of Laurie Spiegel's Appalachian Grove or Eno and Budd's The Pearl with the faint hum and buzz of telegraph wires, until four minutes in a stoic pulse and suspenseful chiming motif arise, buttressed by glowing synth sighs and the LP's only percussive thumps (think Incunabula era Autechre). 

While inspired by the "serious music" of Arvo Pärt, Wim Mertens and others, Johnson’s mandalas of tone mantras offer a playful, DIY sense of adventure, as you might expect from the former guitarist for incendiary punk group Huggy Bear and a long-term co-organizer of London’s Bleep43 techno club night and label. Weaving condenses Johnson's long love affair with free jazz, minimalism and electronic music and this unique ambient composition is invested with powerful emotional resonance.

In the Shadow of the Workhouse

Recorded by Josh Kay & Romulo Del Castillo
Designed by Josh Kay
Mastered by Dietrich Schoeneman
Fernando Subirats sings & plays tabla on Frendano  
Dogness contains samples from Kettel's "My Dogan" 

A Schematic / Detund joint-release
Catalog # SCH079 / DUCD02
© 2011, Schematic Music Company
Published by Light Of Man, BMI

Demissions limited digipak compact disc available from Detund on 7/14/11
Phoenecia - Good Man Bones EP (featuring an exclusive vinyl-only track) available from Detund on 7/7/11

Two-Part Invention For Bodhran & Computer

Heller - Gas

Tom Recchion - Gentlewomanly Grace (Excerpt)

Nurse With Wound - The Dadda's Intoxication

Chaotica

Tom Recchion - Doomed Ships

Part of the soundtrack for De Gouden Draak by theater company De Roovers (2016)

DGD03

aliēnus presents a new compilation comprising new and not so new faces on our beloved planet Earth.

This time, we'd like to emphasize that truth is beyond consciousness and consciousness implies duality. Consciousness would imply that one is conscious of the truth, hence separate from the truth.

Some wise humans reckon no one can know the truth, but can be in the truth.

Music wise, you'll find some warm tones that evoke deep and ethereal feelings in the listener. It took us some time to pick specimens capable of delivering these highly sought-after emotions.

"...For the most part, the traditional epistemologies within the human context always have a dual scope comprising a subject and an object. Consciousness is the interaction between these two and relies heavily on the point of observation. Therefore, these simplistic and illusory tools will keep humankind from being in the truth forever..."

Mastered by José Rico

Figments of Duality

Buy @ bandcamp

Figments Of Duality (CD compilation, ALICD003)

WARNING: Do not listen to this with headphones alone in a dark room while dancing in circles. Many people have reported severe delusions, out of body experience and space-time warping.

Caravan

from the 1st album "small sounds" in 1999.
composed by miki yui.

BeauWien

From Sines, available now from Muzan Editions on cassette tape and digital.
https://muzaneditions.bandcamp.com/album/sines

Appropriating their name from the first culture of the old world to explore the new, Phoenecia, aka Josh Kay & Romulo Del Castillo, was inaugurated in Miami in 1997. The pair had previously recorded under the Soul Oddity moniker, releasing an album & a series of 12-inch singles for the US major label Astralwerks. In late 1996 they founded Schematic Music Company, a record label which would go on to carve a distinct niche in the landscape of modern music by debuting releases from some of the most notable & influential electronic musicians of the twentieth century. In 2001 they released a full-length album entitled Brownout, which in the words of the late Tim Haslett was "Phoenecia's magnum opus, the place where the ideas found in the preceding records are allowed to come to full fruition... the compositions are cinematic, in the respect that the tracks are heavily influenced by the sound design of film, as opposed to the score". This album marked a decisive break from Phoenecia's rhythmic past & set the trajectory for the sound they would continue to develop over the next decade in their most recent albums Echelon Mall & Demissions.

Two-Part Invention For Bodhran & Computer

phoenecia

Recent comments

Eva Ribbing

Caoimhín Ó Murchú

encymoverflow

Moket

Related tracks