Tunng and Pinkunoizu toured together across mainland Europe and the UK in September/October 2013. To celebrate, the two bands remixed a track from each of their most recent albums.

The original of 'The Great Pacific Garbage Patch' is taken from Pinkunoizu's 'The Drop' - https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/the-drop/id668541365 
The original of 'Embers' is taken from Tunng's 'Turbines' - https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/turbines/id642832029

Tunng - Embers (Pinkunoizu remix)

From the album, 'South Wind,Clear Sky,' out now on Second Language Music.  www.secondlanguagemusic.com

Perhaps still most widely recognised for Dreaming With Alice, his 1972 psych-folk debut for RCA Italy as a 19-year-old art student-troubadour, Mark Fry has been turning his creative gaze on the world, and alchemising its elements into shimmering, quietly visionary works of art, ever since. Certainly not an artist who dances to the music of time in any conventional sense, Mark, a respected, and collected, painter, most often to be found holed up in his Normandy farmhouse studio, allowed more than three decades to glide by before recording Alice’s follow up, 2008’s Shooting The Moon. His subsequent musical activity has been frenetic by comparison.

Mark’s beguiling, Arcadian-flavoured 2011 Second Language album, I Lived In Trees, recorded in collaboration with The A. Lords – musicians from a more recent generation of psychedelic-folk experimenters – proved a major critical hit, demonstrating that Mark Fry’s musical stock lay not only in the Paisley-hued haze of his Aquarian Age youth, but also in the full glare of the postmodern, internet-facilitated present. A series of concerts in Japan and Scandinavia, and a widely reported ‘supergroup’ London showcase, featuring members of Mercury Rev, Super Furry Animals, Tunng and Lemon Jelly, further evinced the subtle but inexorable diffusion of the Mark Fry legend, something abetted by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme airing an interview with Mark in the wake of Trees’ release.

All of which brings us to Mark Fry’s latest, most exquisitely realised musical offering to date, South Wind, Clear Sky. Sung with that now familiar alloy of cool restraint and wondering innocence, and passingly reminiscent of the kind of English pastoralism associated with the likes of Kevin Ayers or Bill Fay, the album’s leanly arranged yet immersive songs are propelled by Mark’s glinting, plangent guitars and deliciously embroidered by John Parker’s double bass, Angèle David-Guillou’s piano and backing vocals and Katie Lang’s French horn, all bound together by producer Guy Fixsen (My Bloody Valentine, Stereolab) into a delightfully iridescent whole. For all its finely honed arrangements, and the translucence of its recording, South Wind, Clear Sky is still very much the work of the man who made Dreaming With Alice; the mature Mark Fry’s feeling for wonderment and magic, for the dreamlike and the innocently surreal, is just as pervasive, and persuasive here, only more focused, and etched against a more luminous, even heavenly canvas.

Where the lyrics on his last album found Mark reaching up through the summer branches toward an azure sky, here that celestial dimension provides the focus for eight shimmering chamber-folk essays whose wistful narratives of flight and fancy and empyrean romance purr and soar with a stately grace, like the ‘Aeroplanes’ of the album’s richly melodic opening track.


Mark Fry - Aeroplanes

from 'Blossoms In Red' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den243
available in October on all formats at [http://denovali.com/ensembleeconomique]

Based in Californian Humboldt County, Brian Pyle wanders the world on his countless travels. Far from being restless, he has his very own Pylesque way of travelling. Much like a Lynchian version of Hemingway, he has an eye for the thin layer between restlessness and relaxation, gloom and serenity. Wherever he goes, he ardently absorbes these nuances, rarefies them and moulds them into a seamless array of glimmering styles, from drone and ambient to shoegaze and post-wave, giving birth to yet another creation of his prolific Ensemble Economique project.
On his by now eleventh album and fourth Denovali release "Blossoms In Red", Pyle combines and perfects elements of his previous output into a cohesive narrative. The opener "From The Train Window, Red Flowers On The Mountain" is a surprisingly scarce ambient piece, which feels like an almost infinitely stretched precious moment of time. Despite being austere, it is warm, sublime and incredibly captivating and after listening to its full 8 minutes, one cannot help but to rewind and replay. Having barely escaped this seductively infinite loop, one encounters the title track "Blossoms In Red" featuring Portland electronic duo Soft Metals. Starting off with a characteristic sluggish programmed beat, one is immediately overpowered by the onset of the towering combination of a warm bassline and a shimmering synth ambience. As the track flows, these elements writhe around each other in a delicately beautiful fashion, absorbing the materialising wailing guitar which almost sounds like an ethereal voice, as well as the occasional melodic and rhythmic accents. The next track sees this guitar return in a rather pure form. "On The Sand", featuring jack-of-all-trades Peter Broderick, is essentially just reduced analogue drums, electric guitar, a simple vibrating bassline and hoarse almost spoken vocals. Slowly and methodically, these constituents form a captivating erotic ritual, much like a beguiling and hypnotic mandala procession of imperturbable blissful individuals on the beach. As proven on numerous occasions, Pyle can easily lead all his trumps in the presence of female lead vocals, and "Blossoms In Red" makes no exception. Indeed, "You, By Candlelight" is easily the best Ensemble Economique track with female vox to date. Pyle manages to embed the vocals just in the right minimal amount of instrumental layers, making the track radiate an elusive tranquility. The fifth and closing track "Nothing Is Perfect" is a classically tinged piano piece with only very little processing and sparse field recording samples. With all pieces of the album, Pyle manages to create tracks which feel like being composed only of two or three layers of sound, that are nevertheless allowed to develop a life cycle which seems incredibly long - track lengths vary from 6:30 to 8:10 - but still feels just right. Thus "Blossoms In Red" is probably Ensemble Economique's most minimalistic album, but at the same time - or maybe just for this reason - his most skilled work.

Blossoms In Red

Preorder / Buy

Ensemble Economique - You, By Candlelight (feat. J Moon)

Inverted Truths

Federico Durand ~ Jardín de invierno 
label : Spekk (Japan) 
design : mondii 
artwork : Cecilia Afonso Esteves
master : Chihei Hatakeyama 
release date : September 18th. 2016 (WORLDWIDE) 
cat : KK032 / format : CD 

PREORDER : https://naturebliss.bandcamp.com/album/jard-n-de-invierno

【先行販売予約開始!!】 
NBストア限定 2016.9.18リリース！ 
日本でも大人気のアルゼンチンの音楽家フェデリコ・デュランドの新譜が登場！本人も「かなりのお気に入り作品」と話すように、これまでのどの作品よりも静かでありながら、どの作品よりも情緒を感じさせる、もの凄い境地に達しております！「昼寝のための音楽集」から始まったフェデリコの音の旅は、まるで天国に辿り着いたかのようです。アートワークは同郷アルゼンチンの人気イラストレーター Cecilia Afonso Estevesによる描きおろし。 

〈作品解説〉 
スペイン語で「冬のガーデン」と名付けられた本作は、大自然の中へと引っ越しをしたフェデリコの新しい（音楽の）環境を表しており、壮大な凍てつく大きな家の中にスタジオをこしらえ、変わりゆく景色を背景に創作に取り組んだ。そして、全ての楽曲にはその情景を現す、自然にまつわるタイトルが付けられている。本作の特色は、その場の空気感を捉えるために、僅かなサウンド・パレット（カセットやオルゴール、シンセなど）を机の上に並べ、１回のテイクによって全て録音されており、後ほどの編集やミックスも行われていない。そうして大自然の中で放たれた雪の結晶のような小さな音の連なりは、ひんやりとした空気の中へと消えてゆき、本人が語るようにアルバム全体に山の中の古い家の魂が宿っている。マスタリングはフェデリコとの共演経験も持つ畠山地平氏。 

〈Chihei Hatakeyama 推薦コメント〉 
『この作品はFederico Durand の数ある作品の中で最も静謐である。素晴らしく愛らしい細やかなメロディがサウンドスケープの合間から溢れ出し、その様は天使の歌声を聞くようである。恐らく天国というものがあるとしたら、このような音楽が鳴っているんじゃないだろうか。そして、この作品を作る精神、想像力に驚嘆した。研ぎすまされた精神は剣の達人、例えば柳生石舟斎のような音の振る舞いを生み出すものなんだなと改めて思った。ある意味、ここに音は鳴っているのだけど、鳴っていないというか、このCD の中に入っていない音も想像して楽しめる傑作だ。』 　 

〈Federico Durand フェデリコ・デュランド プロフィール〉 
www.federicodurand.blogspot.com 
SPEKK からのファーストアルバム「La siesta del ciprés」が全世界で大ヒット。のち12K など世界中のレーベルから矢継ぎ早に新作をリリースする傍ら、Optiope のTomoyoshi Date とのMelodia、Nicholas Szczepanik とのEvery Hidden Color など注目アーティストとコラボレーションも活発に行っている。電子音楽のようなサウンドでありながら、日常や山で採取したフィールド・レコーディングやギターなどの楽器音をさりげなく取り込む、とても有機的なアプローチで作曲。アルゼンチンのアーティストに多く見受けられる、情調感をもった楽曲はここ日本でも人気が高く、「アールグレーの紅茶が大好きと」語る素朴な人柄同様、どこかキュートで優しい味わいが特徴である。 2014 年には初のジャパン・ツアーを成功させ、同年4 月に発売されたSPEKK からのアルバム「El Estanque Esmeralda」は瞬く間に完売、年を追うごとに全世界にて人気を確立している。

Un gran bosque rodea el monoblock

Tompkins Square is very proud to announce the signing of Welsh multi-instrumentalist, Gwenifer Raymond. Hailing from Cardiff and now residing in Brighton in the South of England, Raymond began playing guitar at the age of 8. 

Her debut album, You Never Were Much of a Dancer, is out on Tompkins Square in early 2018.

Sometimes There's Blood

EGYPTOLOGY "Sur Les Autres Mondes" (LP/DL)
Release date: 23rd March 2018

Cat.#: HITD 036
All tracks composed, performed & recorded by Stéphane Laporte & Olivier Lamm
Mixing @ Red Bull Studio, Paris
Mastering by Mike Grinser @ Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin
Images by Lucien Rudaux
Layout by Jean-Philippe Bretin

Label, orders: www.handsinthedarkrecords.com

EGYPTOLOGY - Wunder Der Schöpfung (Merveilles de la Création)

Artist: Nick Zammuto
Title: Tonight We'll Go For A Ride
Album: We The Animals: An Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Release Date: November 9, 2018 Digital / February 8, 2019 Physical

Pre-Order: www.temporaryresidence.com/products/trr308

We The Animals is the award-winning new film from Jeremiah Zagar (In A Dream). Based on the best-selling novel by Justin Torres, We The Animals is Zagar’s first narrative feature. It reunites Zagar with Nick Zammuto, the renowned composer and co-founder of beloved collage-pop pioneers, the Books. Inspired by the film’s setting in rural upstate New York – and influenced by the early ambient electronic music that galvanized the Books two decades ago – Zammuto pairs that earthen, wooded isolation with dynamic pulses of customized electronics and sparse, crystalline layers of melodic soft synths. The juxtaposition is arresting, and gives the soundtrack a unique heft befitting of its subject matter – and betraying of its minimal instrumentation. Beautifully edited and sequenced to act as both a companion to the film and a standalone album, We The Animals: An Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is as subtle as it is startling, and succeeds in making even the heaviest emotions feel momentarily weightless.

We The Animals: An Official Motion Picture Soundtrack

Nick Zammuto - Tonight We'll Go For A Ride

From the album A Separation Of Being by JOYFULTALK

JOYFULTALK
A Separation Of Being
180gLP/CD/DL
CST150

cstrecords.com/cst150

A Separation Of Being

JOYFULTALK • "Part II - Pixelated skin"

**taken from the upcoming Zelienople album "Hold You Up", coming March 13th on Miasmah.

"For their first album in 5 years, Zelienople turns on the current time with a record of low-key decaying songs wrapped in hypnotic, driving rhythms.

The Chicago based trio is back with a stunner of an underground pop album. Their most reverb heavy bombast is gone in favour of pure earth bound intimate tunes that feel like they summon the spirit of the late Mark Hollis. Shrouded tribal percussion and rippling vocals are at the forefront, while looped atmospheres echo in the distance.

Since the release of their last album, vocalist Matt Christensen has been known for pouring his soul out in countless bandcamp releases of singer/songwriter, experimental and ambient offerings. It's hard to keep up with him, but one can't but to admire the dedication and extremely high quality of it all. Mike Weis on the other hand is less prolific, but has become a focused student of Korean Shaman and Buddhist music, often performing in zen based percussive rituals when he's not involved in side projects of improvisational music. Brian Harding is perhaps the most anonymous of the three, yet he is the steady, grounding element on bass that keeps them as one. Together, they create a beautifully realised own voice that feels especially close on their new album. Hold You Up is like a slow walk through a withering world, though one with a sense of refuge. This is music with heart - navigating darkness through light."

Hold You Up

Zelienople - You Have It

Music Inspired by the book "The Outlaw Ocean" by Ian Urbina.

"Music can express the unknown, like feelings beyond words. This music reflects the mystery and magnitude of the ocean, but below the surface of the sound is a story of heartbreak and healing. For me, this music is about grieving problems beyond our control while inspiring change within ourselves in order to make a difference." - Christopher Willits

The book, "The Outlaw Ocean", reveals the dark secrets of the high seas and, in doing so, illuminates hope for change. Author Ian Urbina listens to the voices of the unknown, salvaging stories and mapping their ethical murmurs for others to discover.

Download: https://shop.christopherwillits.com/track/the-unknown-sea
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/7iZrVACezmJTAP5BF3tSbD?si=t8XKUvKKTIuaaXeh_7JMfg
Website: 
https://www.christopherwillits.com/

Viola - Charith Premawardhana
Guitar - Christopher Willits
Production - Christopher Willits
Mixing and mastering - Christopher Willits
Produced at Overlap Studio in Oakland, CA
Inspired by The Outlaw Ocean by Ian Urbina

The Unknown Sea

Independent record label based in London.  2009 - present day.