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Beginning with 2012’s Leland New York artist Francis Harris has been doing a deep dive into the sonic swells and contrapuntal granularities that articulate our most abstract, and sometimes slowest moving, virtualities. Through found sound, analog synthesis, and concise instrumentation Harris has delivered works that transcend the diagrammatic exposition often found in electronic music in an attempt to redraw the landscape of how such music is received and understood. Rather than valorize the fragment, the ambient, even in some cases the song, Harris’s albums offer networks of complex interiorities that endeavor to act as whole worlds unto themselves replete with memory, possibility, loss, and a radiant albeit tenuous hopefulness for the future. 

While previous albums, most notably Leland and Minutes of Sleep (2014) as well as two albums released as one half of the duo Aris Kindt (most notably the stellar Swann and Odette from 2017) have relied on singular thematic and narrative drives that were often of a personal, collaborative, or hermetic in nature, Thresholds is an album that aspires to sonic universality and the presentation of a fully formed psychoacoustical world. That being said it is not an “album of ideas”. Inspired by the ecological and political upheavals of the present and the role of speculative thought as an avenue of global transformation Thresholds is the work of a mature artist fully in control of his powers. Both expansive and nuanced the album widens the aperture of the affective possibilities of the electronic assemblage; themes skip from one track to the next, elevating and informing each other in tangible fields of abstract figuration. The titles, while often heady, concisely allude to strategies implicit in the construction and arrangement of the works: Cut Up, within the context of the album, is exactly that. Luck Takes a Step juxtaposes stately synths with just the right touch of playful fluctuation and latent atonality. The title track itself is a knotted mass of uncertainty and propulsive beats the breakdown of which is a nervous series of fits and starts that resonate not just within the track but as the fulcrum of the entire album: the threshold of our Threshold: 

“…we are caught up in our own original transversals of time to the point of dissolution, and that which remains a part of the contrivance of ourselves is ultimately that which crosses the threshold and is somehow, miraculously, reconstituted on the other side of it. Because it is via the threshold that we can best observe the conditions of experience as lived even as we cross to the other side of understanding, rejoining the ancient equilibriums of which we, in our depths, are comprised.” (From the liner notes) 

No track overstays its welcome and with the help of standout vocalist Eliana Glass, and instrumentation by Dave Harrington, Mark Nelson (Pan American), Will Shore, Greg Paulus and Gareth Redmond, and mixed by Phil Weinrobe, the result is a dizzyingly pure inward gaze that is first and foremost an album about connection.

Thresholds

New Pastoral

Francis Harris - New Pastoral

Speculative Nature Of Purposive Form

Francis Harris - Speculative Nature Of Purposive Form

Francis Harris - Thresholds

And Everything Is One Thing After Another

Francis Harris - And Everything Is One Thing After Another

www.openlab.fm | 106.4FM in Ibiza & Formentera
Check the full tracklist on our website:
https://openlab.fm/news/open-sesame-024-sadeedo

This month's show reaches from the blissful heights of Spiritual Jazz and soothing Japanese Groove to the depths of the club with Amapiano and similar dirty bass music. Join us for the ride! 
With new music from Oki Kano, Melting Pot, Tom Blip, Sublime Frequencies, Muzzy D Pilot & PPU.

https://soundcloud.com/sadeedomusic

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Open Sesame 024 - Sadeedo

It's dark in the forest. Especially in the »northwest«. You have to adjust all your senses. But once you have, the forest will take you in his arms. The forest will protect you. Just like Daniel Herrmann's first album for Live At Robert Johnson will protect you.

Herrmann is far from being unknown in the world of music - let alone in the art or photography world. In the music field, he is probably much more known under his Flug 8 moniker where he released five albums on Disko B, Doxa Records, Ransom Note, and Acid Pauli's Smaul Recordings. Under his given name, Daniel Herrmann's relationship with LARJ's label boss Ata Macias goes way back. As an artist and photographer Herrmann was the only one allowed to take pictures inside Ata's ROBERT JOHNSON club, thus creating an iconic series of pictures of clubbers and club life in general. Herrmann’s pictures of the partying punters themselves were presented as wallpaper all over Robert Johnson back in 2002.

With »Enroute« Herrmann enters new territory: It is his most ambient work up to today. And yes, it is a piece of work created during the lockdown. Herrmann's studio is situated in the outskirts of Frankfurt, near the forest - a quite remote place already in-between the Taunus mountain range. Imagine life during the lockdown in such a place … This is where Herrmann set up his former basement studio in the large living room with a variety of instruments besides a cozy fireplace spending warm light and warmth. A warmth that despite its seemingly rather "cold" atmosphere can be heard all over »Enroute«. Once you soak in the sounds (or get soaked into the sounds) of the first tracks like album opener »northwest«, »Fly By Wire« or the 11min »Dark Trace« you might feel this warmth too. A cold warmth you could say, yet a warmth that only modular systems and synthesizers can create.

There is a change of mood with »Intercontinental« - literally as it seems that Herrmann indeed is on an intercontinental journey here despite the strolls and long walks in silence through the Taunus forest. This is also the place where Herrmann took many photographs of the forest and its trees (to be seen on his Instagram account) - and the picture on the cover: This spooky yet fragile high seat in the mist in front of those trees. Yet darkness alone is not dominating this album. Even during these dark days, there was a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. And it shows in the beauty of »Bouncing Rays«.

»Enroute« is done all alone and in total isolation. And one can hear it. But it also invites the listener to be a part of this lonely world. And we all know that being lonely is made easier with someone on your side - »enroute« to a better place. A place that isn't lonely at all.

PS: For all digital music lovers we have included two bonus tracks: The GLOK remix of »Bouncing Rays« and Herrmann's clattering and creaking tune »Economy« - enjoy!

Flug 8 - Enroute LP - Snippet

Resident Joe Morris digs deep this month, exploring trance-inducing electronica that emerged in the early nineties. Is it ambient, techno, new age or acid? Perhaps the answer lies somewhere between these styles. Tune into Shades Of Sound to find out as Joe joins the interconnecting dots between these spaces.

SHADES OF SOUND W/ JOE MORRIS - 6 APR 22

Virgil (@nodurians) recorded live at Platforma Wolff on 17.03.2022.

Virgil at Platforma Wolff • 17.03.2022

Previously posted, but back by popular demand!
This vinyl DJ mix was picked up as Resident Advisor's mix of the day a few years back.
Lot's of tasty numbers in this one.
Enjoy.

Recorded @ AER HQ...

Bookings: www.introdjbookings.com

MILES SAGNIA - ERGONOMIX

Rafael Mamedov is performing as Raf.  Dj and producer who mostly plays Deep House, Techno, Downtempo. He is also 1/2 of Gulfkeepers project which they run together with Andrei Kadomtsev  aka BarBQ.  Raf lives in Vilnius and is a resident of Minimal Mondays now.

Follow the artist:
https://soundcloud.com/raf-neva-deep
https://www.instagram.com/rafnevadeep

Guestmix 100: Raf (LT)

(metamorphosis)

Scissor & Thread is cut from a different cloth than your average dance imprint.

Francis Harris - And Everything Is One Thing After Another

Scissor and Thread

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