Lee's Oddities Playlist

Journey to Tranquil Horizons: The Serene Landscapes of 'A Path to Open Air II

Introducing 'A Path to Open Air II,' the evolution of Tobias Wilden’s 2013 album, 'A Path to Open Air.' This latest offering continues the introspective journey initiated by its predecessor, delving even deeper into Wilden's perception of nature and music. Through meticulously crafted multitrack compositions, Wilden conveys a profound connection to the environment, capturing the yearning for tranquility found in remote locales and the ambiance far removed from urban confines through atmospheric acoustic soundscapes.

Inspired by nature and landscapes, Wilden masterfully weaves together complex ideas and emotions. His pastoral ambient instrumentals gently unfold, employing acoustic/classical elements, from guitar, cello, double-bass, to even the Japanese traditional instrument Sanshin to create impressionistic musical sketches. Wilden seamlessly integrates orchestral and electronic elements to enrich his melodic storytelling. Wilden's style effortlessly oscillates between melodic allure and dissonant intrigue, challenging categorization. His intricate technicality is balanced by a delicate demeanor, engaging listeners with contemplation and depth.

From tracks like “Beneath the Stones” to “Encounters,” Wilden probes deep into hazy nostalgia with each subsequent piece. Through evocative playing, he paints aural landscapes existing between seasons and shifting moods, from the elegiac tones of “Spring Nomad” to the melancholia of “Tidelands.” Wilden's craftsmanship emerges prominently in every composition as he pushes the boundaries of acoustic guitar music, experimenting with layers of guitar to achieve a full sound without relying on alternate tunings—a notable departure from the album’s predecessor.

As the album unfolds, "A Path to Open Air II" emerges not merely as a collection of songs. Through Wilden’s use of tone and texture, he invites listeners to explore the quiet, resonating moods that lie beneath the surface of sound.

"A Path to Open Air II" will be available on LP, CD, and digital formats, set to release on May 31, 2024, via KITCHEN. LABEL. Gen Tanabe mastered this record at Studio Camel House in Japan.

Tobias Wilden - On The Surface (A Path to Open Air II)

Taken from 'Endling' by Qasim Naqvi
Order and stream it: https://idol-io.ffm.to/Endling

℗© 2025 Erased Tapes Records Ltd.

Endling

Qasim Naqvi - Plastic Glacier

Blurstem’s 'Remnants and Whispers' is an album of memory-of echoes and fragments, of moments gathered and reshaped, of the past carried gently into the present. Released on Fluid Audio, renowned for its exquisitely crafted physical editions, this collection of soundscapes and textures is imbued with nostalgia, intimacy, and the quiet weight of time.

The album weaves together the delicate and the vast, the small and the sweeping. Tiny, almost imperceptible guitar plucks flicker like candlelight amidst expansive ambient washes. The sonic palette moves seamlessly between lo-fi warmth and pristine clarity, embracing the imperfections of cassette recording and the wobbly, warbled charm of home videos from a lost era. Each track breathes with a human touch-organic instruments processed and reimagined, from tremolo strings pitched and resampled on “Tethered” to layers of sound that feel like old photographs brought to life.

At its heart, 'Remnants and Whispers' explores the idea of remnants-what we carry with us through life, the fragments of friendships, memories, and fleeting moments that shape who we are. Much like the album’s sonic construction-built from past sketches, ideas, and textures revived and given new form-the music mirrors the way we collect and reinterpret our own experiences over time.

This ethos extends beyond the music itself into its physical presentation, with Fluid Audio’s deluxe edition incorporating 1920s sheet music and book fragments as old as the 1890s-historical relics that feel like the perfect visual counterpart to the album’s themes of memory, loss, and renewal. The tactile nature of these artifacts deepens the listening experience, making 'Remnants and Whispers' not just an album, but a tangible connection to the past.

Mastered on Bartels’ late ’60s analog tape machine, the album’s final touch further enhances its warmth and character, adding an unmistakable depth and timeless quality to its sonic palette.

A meditation on change, nostalgia, and the beauty of imperfection, Remnants and Whispers is an invitation to pause, reflect, and listen-not just to the music, but to the quiet echoes of our own stories.

Music: Blurstem
Mastering: Bartels
Design: Crossley

www.fluidaudio.co.uk
www.blurstem.bandcamp.com

Blurstem - Along the Rails

Nueva Vida

I’ve been mesmerised with the sound of Deaf Center since the very beginning. I think it’s been more than 20 years now since their Neon City EP was released on Type. This is way before I even knew that behind the project was a Norwegian duo who started making music together as friends. This is before I knew their names to be Erik K Skodvin and Otto A. Totland. Before I listened to, admired, and celebrated their solo works on here. And, before I met each one in person, and of course, before we naturally became friends. This is precisely why, when it came to launching Headphone Community and deciding on who I should profile there from the start, I reached out to Erik and his partner Monique Recknagel (who runs Sonic Pieces imprint) to pitch them this idea (it was actually when I visited their mi-so shop in Berlin). This is why Erik is the currently featured artist for the month of May on Headphone Community (join for just $1 for an intimate journey!), and this is why I am premiering this track for you today. It’s been another long period of silence for Deaf Center, but the two long-form pieces on Reverie clearly show that they have not put their collaboration on hold. If anything, it has only evolved into a hypnotic meditation on Otto’s keys and Erik’s strings, guitar, effects, and atmospherics, designed for a very deep listening session. The recordings actually come from a live performance in October 2024 in Rabih Beaini’s studio, Morphine Raum in Berlin, during the 15th anniversary celebration of Sonic Pieces. This is less of an improvisation and more of a dialogue between the two friends who haven’t spoken in a while. It is truly magical, and I only wish I could be there to experience it live.

In “Rev”, deeply effected piano motifs reverberate and echo in the depths of the room, evolving through looping and electronics into a blissful, mesmerising cloud of (dis)harmony. The sound is reminiscent of the 7inch “Vintage Well” mixed with the basic elements of 2011’s “Owl Splinters”. […] The immediate duality of the two performers has rarely been so strongly felt, Totland’s deep melodic feeling is underscored by Skodvin’s abstract ambience and processing. Dark versus light, loud versus quiet – this has always been at the core of what makes Deaf Center a special project.

TRACK PREMIERE : Deaf Center - Rev (excerpt)

Golden Eternity (Marco Lucchi)Clean rework Henrik Meierkord

Henrik Meierkord is a Swedish artist based in Stockholm. His main instrument is the cello, although his work often incorporates viola, double bass, guitar and subtle electronic elements too. His sound blends the emotional pull of classical music with the meditative depth of Ambient and Henrik’s intuitive creative process draws inspiration from film scores, minimalist composers like Pärt or Ligeti, and Ambient pioneers such as Popol Vuh and Biosphere.

Italian composer Marco Lucchi from Modena brings plenty of experience to this collaboration, having been active in experimental and Ambient music since the late 1980s. A former music teacher and scholar, Marco's approach is grounded in kosmische music, minimalism and Ambient styles. In this album, he joins Henrik in a continuation of their longstanding creative dialogue. Swedish flautist and producer Pawel Kobak adds a third strand to this project, layering processed flute textures into some of Henrik and Marco’s evolving pieces.

The Book of Dreams explores themes of sleep and dreams. What began as a collaborative piece for the Sleeplaboratory5.0 compilation grew into a fully realised collaboration. Henrik and Marco exchanged ideas from across the borders, building lush, drifting pieces through a process of inspiration and response. Pawel's flute recordings, gently pitched, time-stretched, and transformed, were later woven into the fabric of this album. The result is an album that lives between the conscious and the unconscious, where layered strings, gentle drones, and evolving Ambient passages unfold slowly like distant memories.

Themes of restlessness and retreat run throughout the album, echoing the growing tension many of us can feel in modern life. It acts as both an ode and antidote to sleeplessness, intended not just for passive listening but as a contemplative aid. Whether heard during late-night solitude or the quiet morning hours, The Book of Dreams offers a space to wander, drift, and dissolve into stillness.

The Book Of Dreams

wlr185 Henrik Meierkord, Marco Lucchi & Pawel Kobak - The Book Of Dreams

For over two decades, the Osnabrück duo of Stephan Otten and Oliver Klemm has inhabited the sacred intersection of Krautrock's motorik pulse, ambient's expansive consciousness, and contemporary electronica's limitless possibility. Their approach to composition mirrors the architectural precision I've celebrated in my previous coverage on HC, where each element serves both structural and emotional purposes. In the liminal hours between consciousness and dream, Sankt Otten crafts sonic territories that feel both ancient and impossibly futuristic. "Die Gute Fee War Schon Da" (The Good Fairy Was Already There) emerges from their forthcoming album Tote Winkel like a meditation on synthetic breath. Long sighs and deep breathing from a machine that carries an undercurrent of foreboding beauty. This particular piece unfolds with the hypnotic inevitability of oncoming headlights—mesmerizing yet tinged with existential unease. Recorded predominantly live with Martin Schmeing spontaneously contributing DX7 textures, the track embodies Sankt Otten's evolution toward more organic creation methods. The fairy tale reference in the title suggests narrative completion. As their fourteenth album approaches on Denovali, Sankt Otten continues to prove that the most profound electronic music emerges not from technological innovation alone, but from the spaces where human vulnerability meets synthetic precision. Fans of synth-based explorations of future-retro sound will agree.

TRACK PREMIERE : Sankt Otten - Die Gute Fee War Schon Da

I don't think I will ever forget the first time I heard m.=addiction. I can also confirm that every time I played out that record, folks waltzed over to me to find out the name. Something mystical and enigmatic brought them over to music, making me feel like I was a snake charmer enchanting a cobra with the sounds of a pungi. The music of Dictaphone often evoked hazy spaces, full of jazzy smoke, lo-fi textures, and noir voices, occupying those distant corners of your memory where you felt glamorous comfort, charming enchantment, and warming delight. Since the 2002 debut, the Berlin-based duo of Oliver Doerell and Roger Döring released five more albums, all of which I think I have covered on Headphone Commute. And, in my humble opinion, their latest upcoming release is the closest to that special aura I felt nearly two decades ago. Unstable is Dictaphone's 6th full-length, where Doerel and Döring are also joined by Alexander Stoze (on violin) to mesmerise us with that special scent of future-retro nostalgia that seems to drift in the air like thick incense in a temple of soporific ghosts.

TRACK PREMIERE : Dictaphone - Desplendor

Disco Volante

Ma Meeshka Mow Skwoz

Welcome to my World

Story Of An Artist (Don't Be Scared)

Weird Waves

Goldmund - Of No Other

Charles Mingus Selected Favorites, Vol. 8

Weird Nightmare

F.S.Blumm & Nils Frahm - Gr 1 B

SONIC PIECES is a boutique record label based in Berlin. Every carefully selected release comes as a limited edition in genuine packaging, hand-crafted with locally produced and designed material. The label's musical output and unique artwork form a connection between each release that is both recognizable and challenging, while celebrating the difference and individuality of each project.

F.S.Blumm & Nils Frahm - Gr 1 B

sonic pieces

Recent comments

bananatak

stxry

NervousBirds

Related tracks