Artist: Giant Claw
Album: Mirror Guide
Format: Digital / Vinyl
Release: May 7 or 14, 2021

Music by Keith Rankin
Visual art by Ellen Thomas and Keith Rankin
Mastered by Starkey

Artist Statement:

I have been recording Mirror Guide off and on since my previous album Soft Channel came out in 2017, working on pieces in my spare time while co-running Orange Milk Records and trying to make a living as a freelance visual artist. 

I wanted Mirror Guide to feel less frenzied than some of my previous music, and decided to use a hyperreal string sound as a lead instrument the rest of the sounds could orbit around. I improvised long stretches with the digital instrument and picked moments that elicited some emotional response in me as the foundation for each piece. It helped to imagine a small synthetic ensemble playing every additional part, considering the choices an individual might make if they were focused primarily on their instruments’ role within the group. 

In my improvised sessions I also gravitated towards what I called a ‘bouncing ball’ rhythm - later described to me as an exponential rhythmic sequence. After thinking about how genres often center around a core rhythmic pattern I adopted the sequence as another consistent feature for the album. 

In the past I’ve cut up pop acapellas as vocal elements, but on Mirror Guide decided to work with several artists I had come to know from three very different music scenes. I traveled to Pittsburgh for a few days and recorded with vocalist Tamar Kamin (from the band the Van Allen Belt) generating hours of improvised and lightly prepared melodic material that I later edited into several songs. I also incorporated more poetic almost spoken word vocals from Japanese musician and photographer NTsKi and a small segment of screeching moans from fellow Ohioan Diana Gruber. 

More generally I found inspiration from artists like Paul Lansky, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and the range of emotion in the music of Geinoh Yamashirogumi Orchestra, best known for scoring the Akira soundtrack which is a longtime favorite. I was also encouraged to complete Mirror Guide through conversations with the late composer, tape collage pioneer, and friend Noah Creshevsky, who gave me several boosts of confidence after hearing early versions of the music.

Giant Claw - Mir-Cam Startup

Pan Daijing - Jade 玉观音
Format: LP / DL
Cat.No. PAN 113
Release Date: 4 June 2021
Purchase: pan.lnk.to/Jade

What if a song was not a culmination but a singe, an imprint, or a crater left in the wake of creative process? On her new record “Jade”, Pan Daijing composes at a different scale than that we’ve come to know. Since the release of her groundbreaking LP “Lack” in 2017, Daijing has expanded her operatic vision into a series of major commissioned exhibition-performances at institutions including the Tate Modern, Martin Gropius Bau, and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Developed for full casts of opera singers and dancers, and reaching for an all-encompassing durational experience of intensity for both performer and audience, the development of these works was for Daijing as emotionally disarming as it was thrilling. In order to continue accessing her own limits, Daijing had to develop a place of sanctuary within her own practice.

Its nine tracks written and recorded over the last three years, “Jade” is the sound of solitary release and refuge, of creative self-sustenance. Written without the imperatives of direct address to performers or audience, “Jade” speaks inward, while inviting a kind of rhetorical listening. The artist draws on materials familiar from her previous work: namely, ascetic electronic textures that rumble and pierce, and voice bent in irreverent directions. In place of catharsis, however, her arrangements here linger in tension, extending curiosity towards the delicate void that nourishes extremes. They toy with the minor capacities of song: repetition, chant, observations that conclude without resolving.

“Jade” comes from a vulnerable place, tender as in an undressed wound caught in the midst of healing over. Vocals, mostly Daijing’s own, arrive as wordless sequences of notes soaring alongside a drone, or plain laughter, or in a few places spoken word. What is said or sung provides fragments of experience and reflection. In the process of piecing together these fragments, the listener is confronted with the tender parts of her own. “Solitude is like an immense lake you’re swimming through,” says Daijing of these songs. “Sometimes you dip your head in and sometimes you lift it above. On album centerpiece “Let,” she speaks to us over the sound of rippling water, returning between anxious scenes to a refrain: “I take my bath in the ocean.” We are not just consuming Daijing’s story; we are being invited to join her in the water.

The album is mixed and mastered by Rashad Becker, featuring artwork by Pan Daijing, cinematography by Dzhovani & design by NMR.

@pan-daijing

Jade 玉观音

Pan Daijing - Clean 一月 (PAN 113)

Doon Kanda - Nastasya

Polygon Window - Bike Pump Meets Bucket(2023729)

Guest mix by Danish composer, producer, guitarist and vocalist ML Buch.

https://www.instagram.com/mlbuch_

Tracklist:

00:00 	Greta Eacott - WOODWIND & BRASS
04:10	LA Timpa  - Pomisea
09:55	Smerz - Vi om, om vi
2:10	        ML Buch - River mouth (pitched & sped up)
16:06	Alllivone - Always Been
19:08	Jura - Measures Of Its Own
25:40	Spresso - Day Out
27:21	Otto Benson - Mutations
30:44	Brandy - I Am More
34:03	Mohammad Reza Mortazavi - Tears of a Fakir: op1
36:53	Klein - Blow the Whistle
41:40	Alexandre Desplat - Timpani
42:52	Molina - Scorpio
46:00	Gwen Stefani - Cool
49:01	ML Buch - unreleased
50:32	Charlemagne Palestine - DINGGGDONGGGDINGGGzzzzzzz ferrrr 		SSSOFTTT DIVINI TIESSSSS!!!!!!!!!

ML Buch @ The Lot Radio 06-21-2024

193193 is a concept piece composed at tempo 193 — a playful nod to the Zen monk Ikkyu-san (一休さん), who spent his final years in Kyotanabe.

Originally written with marimba in mind, inspired by the surprising popularity of my piece "Blocks for Marimba", the music also carries rhythmic minimalism that works well for piano and electronic arrangements.

After receiving a listener's question about Sleep Induction, I later added two alternate versions: one using the “Gentle Sine Bells” synth preset, and another arranged with softer dynamics for sleep and relaxation. These versions gained unexpected popularity.

The cover art is a flat fill of hex code #193193, linking the color visually to the title and tempo.

193193 (For Gentle Sine Bells)

Devil's Way

Title comes from Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath song. 
Composition contains 4 samples from fellow artist froggy5’s song: “rejoice in the small - i plant my food seeds in the window”

LIVING JUST FOR DYING feat. fr0ggy5

Kendo

from album "Too Many Voices" (2016)
https://www.discogs.com/Andy-Stott-Too-Many-Voices-/release/8444700

Too Many Voices

Andy Stott - New Romantic

Eartheater - Inclined_dpe0 remix

РАСПУСТИТЕ ВАШИ КРЫЛЬЯ

Doon Kanda - Nastasya

SCORPION SKUF