Warmth In Winter

Canto Ostinato is the new volume of classical minimalism from musician and producer Erik Hall. Written for four pianos in 1979 by Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt, the piece is freshly framed as an intimate, hour-long solo performance consisting of multitracked grand pianos, electric piano, and organ. Modern yet warm, ethereal yet tangible, Hall’s Canto Ostinato expertly bridges a revered piece of meditative concert repertoire with a tactile and highly personal studio setting.

Chicago-born and Michigan-based, Erik Hall is known as a multi-instrumental pillar for the groups NOMO, Wild Belle, and his own songwriting moniker In Tall Buildings. He has composed music for feature films, and as a producer/engineer he has shaped records for Natalie Bergman and Western Vinyl labelmates Lean Year. In a 2020 creative pivot, he chose to reinvent composer Steve Reich’s monumental contemporary classical masterpiece Music for 18 Musicians as a solo undertaking, applying the piece’s score to the familiar keyboards, guitars, and synthesizers in his studio. “At the time I think I was working through my identity as a musician and an artist,” Hall explains, “and on a level there was some sort of exorcism of a long held pop spirit.” The album was celebrated for being “freshly thrilling” and “legible in history but assertive of the moment” (Pitchfork) and “beguiling, meditational, and magical” (Electronic Sound). It won the 2021 Libera Award for Best Classical Record, and it quickly joined the canon of the piece’s quintessential recordings.

“There is a pseudo-meditational benefit to working on a longform piece that’s built on repetition,” Hall says. “Every stage— from internalizing the music, to executing the performance, to editing and mixing the record— requires deep and sustained presence of mind. I’ve always been drawn to a hallucinatory combination of harmony and repetition, and I found the entire process addictive.”

An apt second chapter, Canto Ostinato is inherently vast, and its score gives great creative license to the performer. Comprising 106 sections, complete freedom is given to repeat each one as many or as few times as desired. Additional leeway is given with regard to dynamics, articulation, and even instrumentation. On the heels of his previous, rather maximal arrangement, Hall chose to limit this album’s palette to three foundational keyboards of his studio: a 1962 Hammond M-101 organ, a 1978 Rhodes Mark I electric piano, and his family-heirloom 1910 Steinway grand piano. “This particular piece brought the added challenge of rekindling my dexterity as a pianist, something I haven’t maintained in earnest since I was a teenager,” he admits. The ensuing five-note rhythmic motif— the piece’s primary building block— is steady and workmanlike, forgoing virtuosic flare for depth, texture, and resonance, and eventually giving way to the stunning gratification of a gorgeously lyrical left turn.

As with Music for 18 Musicians, Hall employed no loops nor quantization nor any programmed or sequenced instruments of any kind. Every part was performed live in a room and captured with microphones, one at a time, each informed by, and reacting to the last. In this way the record breathes with interplay and an organic humanity, complete with flaws, noise, and the faint sound of turning pages. The recording quality is nonetheless toneful and saturated, characteristic of Hall’s production style and straying from the usual transparency of classical albums by using gear with tubes, transformers, and various stages of compression in the signal path. Always there is unmistakable realism and the feeling of being present in the room, sitting among the keys, hammers, and tines.

Ten Holt said: “Time, patience and discipline are the prerequisites for making a genetic code productive." His landmark composition provides Hall once again with a wondrous space in which to reverently embody this sentiment and deftly convey the elegant beauty of this music.

Erik Hall - "Canto Ostinato - Sections 17 - 30"

Pye Corner Audio - Machines Are Obsolete

If you, like some of our RBMA participants, live in a densely populated metropolis, you know that driving late at night is one of the most liberating experiences you’re apt to have. British multi-instrumentalist Tay Salem distills the feeling of that unimpeded movement, that dark freedom, on “Highway”. Beginning with a series of moody chords, Salem then builds a grid of crisp, propulsive drums, warbling guitar and keys that glint with the promise of a seemingly never-ending series of green lights.

Apply now for Red Bull Music Academy Berlin 2018: redbullmusicacademy.com/apply

Various Assets – Not For Sale 2016

Tay Salem - Highway

Yet another Samaris remix, can't get enough of the Samaris sound..

Original: https://samaris.bandcamp.com/track/t3mp0

https://soundcloud.com/samaris
www.muted.is

New Muted LP's coming soon to a store near you

Samaris - T3mp0 (Muted Remix)

Datashat - Die Autos (2014)

ZILLA - Whatever It Is

Holy Worms

Lay Llamas – Holy Worms (Radio Edit)

Our fourth Kolibri Sinfonie comes from the one and only Rain Dog who fully enthused us with his original approach full of broken beats, genre-mash ups and deep bass-scapes.

Follow Rain Dog here:
Soundcloud: @rain_dog
facebook: facebook.com/pushedbuttonaudio/
bandcamp: www.realraindog.bandcamp.com
website: projectmooncircle.com/artist/rain-dog/

About Rain Dog:
'Having originally studied as an artist, Rain Dog has spent recent years experimenting with production software, building speakers, composing music for indie shorts and making beats out of various small bedrooms scattered across the north of England. 2014 saw him release his debut album ‘Two Words’ through Project Mooncircle, garnering him widespread praise throughout the electronic music scene. With overwhelming support across the BBC Radio networks, XLR8R, VICE, Hyponik and having been featured on Tru Thoughts edition of Label Love, he continues to fly from strength to strength. Ever-evolving and developing his lowslung melodic compositions he finds inspiration in the most unlikely of places, leaving his next moves a thing of excited anticipation.'

Tracklist

KOSI-004 • Rain Dog • May 2018

https://dublab.com/archive/anenon-non-projections-12-08-20

Pelican Daughters - Aurascape
Ana Roxanne - A Study in Vastness
BAS - Bass Clarinet Improvisation
Teguh Permana & Jonny Nash - Daun
Oliver Coates - Caregiver part 4 (spirit)
Actress - Public LIfe
Maia Asshaq - Son
Chris Abrahams - Surface Level 
Abdullah Ibrahim - Mindif
Carman Moore - Love Trouble
Julie Byrne & Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Love's Refrain
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - A Portrait Of You At Nico's Grave, Grunewald, Berlin (For Bill K.)
Picnic - Basket
Ned Rothenberg - Minutia
John Coltrane / Rashied Ali - Jupiter
Autechre - Pen Expers
Grouper - Headache
Sun Ra / Walt Dickerson - Visions
Orcas - Until Then
Spaceways Inc - We Travel The Spaceways
Steve Tibbets - Vision (live 1985 yt rip)
Broadcast - Until Then
Paul BLey, Evan Parker, Barre Phillips - Variation 5

Non Projections 8 December, 2020 / dublab.com

The Red Bull Music Academy is a world-travelling series of music workshops and festivals: a platform for those who make a difference in today's musical landscape. Here, you'll find exclusive downloads and streams from Academy participants, family, and friends.

Tay Salem - Highway

Red Bull Music Academy

Related tracks