SONG 111

Luna

I may not trust the intarwebs, but I will surely trust my label. When it comes to discovering new music (to pop me out of my echo chamber and insistent feedback loop), it’s easy to get lost among the new releases. There’s just too much of everything, and it’s only getting harder to discern. Anyone can share their latest content. And anyone can upload with a click. There’s a reason for that. The companies that host it all have made it easy for a reason: to monetize your music. To turn your content into cash. On the flip side, the labels take their time. They are, in turn, investing in the artist. So when you buy into the label, you buy into their world. Past Inside The Present has been curating my journey since 2018, and I have learned to trust Zach’s choice in music. So when he backs North Carolina-based vocalist Angela Winter for her slightly avant-garde solo debut release for the label, I’m all ears. I write “solo” because in 2024, we’ve already heard her voice on a collaboration with the label boss himself, titled Mid Sky. Together, the duo navigated “a realm between the terrestrial and cosmic with organic drones and ethereal vocals“. In August, Angela returns with a full-length titled Forbidden Questions In Space, centered around ambient and drone improvisations, and of course, her voice, for a koan-inspired drift into the endless cosmos. If you’ve been following Headphone Commute, you know that I tend to focus on mostly instrumental music, often with a darker tint of sonic experimentation. Today, I select one of those pieces from her upcoming album to give you a taste.

TRACK PREMIERE : Angela Winter - Saturn, lightly

An electronic composition, sounds created using Pure Data and Audacity.

Untouched by Sunrise (naviarhaiku607)

Traditionally a real-time improviser, Thorn applies the same method here: live improvisation, spontaneous structure-building, and experimental mélanges of violin and code. Many of its foggy textures derive from Haze, a tool he developed for generating densely patterned lo-fi soundscapes.

A sonic memoir imbued with violin and experimental code, a curious doubling of terms begins at the churning waters of Necarney Creek merging with the Pacific. Unfolding from pure lyricism into machinic textures, the music summons the verdant twilight of the primeval forest and the glow of the city lights it ad-umbrates. The machinic is both refuge and trial in this work, though the final word is the fracturing, hard-driven logic-become-logistics that may signal a morbid dénouement.

Bandcamp

Seth Thorn - What Lies Before

Morning Passage

The Hill

eRecords is a digital record series created by Whitelabrecs, to run alongside our physical releases. These editions aim to transform the digital format into something that can be experienced in a similar way to a listener’s interaction with a real, white label vinyl record. Each edition includes a special PDF scrapbook including polaroids and liner notes.

We do not publish details about the concepts or production methods of a release, so that the liner notes and content in each scrapbook will give you the background of each edition in the series.

catalog: eR040
artist: louis gardner
release title: the lake
runtime: 22:57
location: cheltenham, uk

Louis Gardner - The Lake (excerpt)

wve-1202-estraval-mix

Gray Acres has always been a space for subtlety and restraint, distinct from the denser, more cinematic atmospheres of Hotel Neon. Where that project often explores process, technique, and narrative arcs, Gray Acres tends to be produced "in the moment" and stays still. It lets you think for yourself. Soft Erasure especially embraces that characteristic stillness.

This is the first full-length Gray Acres album since 2021’s “Dreams and Phantoms.” It’s a project that came together slowly with an intentionally light touch…more about dissolving sounds than constructing them. Subtraction vs. addition.

The title Soft Erasure came about as we noticed a recurring quality across the recordings: a sense of tangible things like guitars, pianos, and strings fading, softening, and slipping just out of reach as we shaped and processed them. The music feels like it’s constantly on the verge of vanishing, or being gently wiped away into an indistinct atmosphere. That idea of erasure not as violence, but as gentleness, decay, or transformation, felt like the right metaphor to latch on to. It speaks to memory, distance, and time, and how all of those forces shape and reshape our perception of sound and self.

Musically, this album is built mainly from resampled acoustic instruments: delicate piano lines, sustained strings, frozen and looped guitar textures. Much of the source material was recorded clean, then stretched, blurred, and layered until it became something abstract…like an impression of a song, or a half-remembered phrase. In some ways, we were trying to find the most washed-out and ephemeral version of each sound. The result is a record that is designed less for narrative and more for immersion.

If you’ve followed this project before, I think you’ll hear a natural continuation of its aesthetic. But if you’re new to Gray Acres, this is a great entry point. It’s music that tries not to demand attention, but rewards those who tune in closely for a while.

Gray Acres - Soft Erasure
Music by Andrew & Michael Tasselmyer
Mastered by Alex at Quiet Details

Gray Acres - Vestige

Out now: An On Bast - Nothing Shapes Everything
Format: CD, Digital

https://shimmeringmoodsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/nothing-shapes-everything

Released March 26, 2019

Written & produced by Anna Suda 
Mastered by Roel Weerdenburg 
Shimmering Moods Records 2019

An On Bast - Nothing Shapes Everything

*S O U N D S C A P I N G*
Contact: Shimmeringmoodsrecords@gmail.com

Other projects:
Slow Tone Collages 
https://soundcloud.com/analogue-chat

*Monthly Radioshow @ Resonance Extra: First Wednesday at 8pm / 21:00-23:00 CET www.extra.resonance.fm