Ambient/Piano/Relax

Format: CD, LP, Download | Releasedate: 05.09.2014

TRACKLISTING CD:

01.	So-Called Lover
02.	Care
03.	Oedland 
04.	You
05.	Jungholz
06.	Masquerade
07.	Walk On
08.	Dance To The Mallet feat. Lisa Bassenge
09.	Ein Engel Verschwand
10.	Dawning
11.	Gone
12.	Selfie

iTunes: geni.us/KasariTunes
Amazon: geni.us/KasarAMAZON

Arnold Kasar is a musical jack of all trades: in countless projects around the Berlin based label Sonar Kollektiv, the musician grown in the southern area of the picturesque Black Forest left his traces, among them Nylon, AtomHockey or with Volksbühne-player and latest Internet-Hype Friedrich Liechtenstein („Supergeil“). 
However, the trained sound-engineer is also capable of going solo, as he proved with his solo debut „The Piano Has Been Smoking“ in 2012. Now he returned to his first instrument and his timing couldn't be better, since the piano returned to new strength in the music world, as the numerous releases of pianists in the past few years have shown.

„I really hope that the timing is good, but I can't influence it. At last I do it for my own. When I started doing music as Kasar back in 2010, I just didn't know Nils Frahm or Brandt Brauer Frick. All these people weren't on the spot by then. I listened to Gonzales and of course Hauschka and Craig Armstrong were there, too. Yann Tiersen was totally famous at that time“, the pianist explains his view on his colleagues when he started making music by himself. But, with releasing his second album „Walk On“ at this point, he didn't intend to flirt with a hype. The piano, which has accompanied Arnold Kasar from his childhood on, always just fell out of the recordings in the past. Due to this enduring relationship to his first instrument he got bored of it. Instead, he preferred to dedicate himself to sample-based electronic music with his friend Friedrich Liechtenstein or making Nu Jazz in several musical projects around the world-famous Berlin based Sonar Kollektiv (home to Jazzanova, The Black Seeds or Solomun). But sooner or later the piano had to return to the centre of attention.

That was in 2010: at that point the work on the new LP „The Piano Has Been Smoking“ had started, being released in 2012 and fully concentrating around the piano. By then Kasar already used the technique of the prepared piano, which once was introduced by John Cage and nowadays is excessively used by Hauschka, among others. For this Kasar used erasers, tea bags or patches to manipulate the sound of the piano and to bring out unheard and exciting tones of his instrument. Only one song, the designated single „Put A Light On Me“, was supposed to have a vocal track, but after he didn't find the right voice for it, he simply sang it himself. Like this, for the first time the world got to hear the dark and melancholic timbre of Arnold Kasar. The desired airplay (i.a. Austrian „FM4“ or Berlin's „RBB RadioEins“) was achieved easily and from that moment on Kasar was delighted by the idea of singing on his own productions, since he had closed the chapter of producing an album on a prepared piano anyway. For this reason the comparison with an artist such as Hauschka, who made this technique the concept of his own creative work, is merely adequate. Kasar rather walks on, restless and always willing to try something new.

But this doesn't mean that he has to quit it completely: also on „Walk On“ one finds a few pieces with the support of the prepared piano, but this time the singing is clearly in the foreground. Like this, the whole vibe of the record changes: „I'd say the last record was way more a city record“ referring to the by then used techno-elements, for example, „and the new one is a record for the countryside.“, especially inspired by Arthur Russell's most intimate album „World Of Echo“. On this record the composer who rose to cult status in the past years leaves the disco era behind him and presents a fragile artist using voice, cello and a lot of reverb only: „A song like „So Called Lover“ mainly emerged from Arthur Russell listening sessions“, Kasar tells full of admiration for the musician who died of AIDS in 1992.

Other role models are surprising as well as comprehensible: „I like singers like the early Manfred Krug a lot, this warm and tender voice – of course, in German, but the way he sang – or Japan's singer David Sylvian, those were the things I acted on. Much songwriting-inspiration came from Wilco, Nick Drake, Aimée Mann or also Bill Callahan.

But how Kasar came to the definition „countryside record“ is a story of its own: „It is way more singing this time, that's a huge leap, it's much less electronics and there's more space. It's less town and much more landscape and for me it really is this countryside record. „Jungholz“ for example is the name of a village in the southern Black Forest, „Ödland“ is the name of the highest mountain in that area and „Ein Engel Verschwand“ is an adaptation of another village's name there called „Engelschwand“. „So Called Lover“ takes place in „a shady town in the shore“, which in a way is a reference to the Rhine, which could be the mentioned river, and this „whipping willow“, all these are things coming out of my memories, since I originate from that area. It's not autobiographic but I simply imagined how it was back then, sitting under the willow by the river. Partly I recorded the songs right there: „Ein Engel Verschwand“, „Jungholz“ and „Ödland“ and nearly all playbacks were recorded on the piano on which I practiced when I was a child. I always hated it to play this piano: a Hohner, awful sound, but once you used the felt pedal it got such an odd sound, really strange – that's not the sound of a great Steinway, but small and odd.“ So all of this isn't supposed to be autobiographic but without all these experiences Kasar gained in the depths of the southern Black Forest, „Walk On“ probably would never have come into being.

The song that gave the album its title was the first Kasar had written for „Walk On“, right after the release of his debut record. At this stage the theatre art graduate was in a downright stream of composing. Many songs were quickly outlined, however he took ages to get to the finished product. The production phase lasted – with interruptions – from spring 2012 to fall 2013. And since February this year the record is waiting to be thrown onto the market, but haste makes waste. Songs like those you find on „Walk On“, where the piano sounds like raindrops rolling down the scale, while there's an electronic tempest in the background („Ödland“), or which are so fragile they bring tears to your eyes („Care“) simply have to be released in the dying season.

But who thinks that everything on this album is melancholic and sad is proven wrong by „Dawning“, which isn't at all like the rest of the LP: with a jagged new wave beat, a sexy 80s sounding sax and an optimistic chorus, Kasar also shows his up-tempo side and gives some unmissable signs towards radio airplay.

A whole lot slower is the collaboration with long-time friend Lisa Bassenge, singer of Nu Jazz outfit Micatone and Kasar's colleague at Nylon. Together they sing the hypnotic „Dance To The Mallet“, which starts off jazzy, but also offers itself – with its electronic substructure – as a huge playground for remixers. However, the way this liaison came up is rather unspectacular: „One time we went out for dinner and I told her about the album I was working on and there she immediately offered her help if I needed some. So a few months later I called her and played the song to her and she instantly liked it. She wrote the lyrics to it and then we quickly recorded it in one take. Her musical director Paul Kleber is also involved in the song „You“ and Sebastian Borkowski from Jazzanova plays sax in another song. So it's sort of all around the Sonar Kollektiv and Micatone”. It stays all in the family.

www.kasarmusic.de | www.sonarkollektiv.com

Walk On

Oedland

iTunes

Kasar - Oedland

Debut album out August 21 on Hammock Music. Preorder: bit.ly/1HZ7uJj

Linen Garden Pt. 1 (feat. Hammock)

Album is out today. Spotify: http://spoti.fi/1U5h5Ss and Limited Edition: http://bit.ly/1HZ7uJj

A Distant Glow...

Debut album out now. Spotify: spoti.fi/1U5h5Ss and Limited Edition: bit.ly/1HZ7uJj

Blue Rose on a Windowsill

Download: https://slowmeadow.bandcamp.com/track/hananels-recovery

An excerpt from the short documentary "Vitals" by Director Jake Oleson: vimeo.com/148903586

All Music by Slow Meadow • Mix / Master by SM 

Cover art design by Slow Meadow (the illustration is a shot from an animation by Casey Drogin - (vimeo.com/caseydrogin)

Free Download

Hananel's Recovery (Free Download)

Lachrymosia

WAV / FLAC / MP3

Taken from "Sundur" out on Morr Music August 19th 2016
Buy the album: http://bit.ly/2aZaax6

Sundur

Buy the album

Pascal Pinon: 53

www.heronband.bandcamp.com 
 - Also available on iTunes & Spotify - All songs written by Heron
 - Recorded @ Kane Memorial Chapel in Kane, PA
 - Mixed by Matt Bayles(Minus the Bear, Pearl Jam, Caspian, Russian Circles) - Seattle, WA
 - Mastered by Ed Brooks(Fleet Foxes, REM, Heart, Death Cab For Cutie) - Seattle, WA

You Are Here Now

Shores

Waking up alone again
I can feel it in my blood and bone
you'll never know, you'll never know
I won't sleep until dawn
I just can't help it, I just can't help it

I'm alive, I'm alive again
I'm alive, I'm alive again

I'm alive, I'm alive again
I'm alive, I'm alive again

Waking up alone again
I can feel it in my blood and bone
you'll never know, you'll never know
Falling down to grass ripples
I feel it on my skin, I can't shake what I'm in
I've been wondering


I'm alive, I'm alive again
I'm alive, I'm alive again

I'm alive, I'm alive again
I'm alive, I'm alive again

Alive

Taken from the debut EP 'Epilogue' out June 2nd 2017

Listen/stream/buy here http://phonofile.link/epilogue-josin

Epilogue

Evaporation

This composition is inspired by the amazing Album "Riceboy Sleeps".
With Riceboy Sleeps Jonsi&Alex have created true beauty.
All Sounds are recorded and produced by myself.



Riceboy Sleeps (a tribute to Jónsi Birgisson & Alex Somers)

Today, breath-taking post-classical artist Poppy Ackroyd shares her brand new single ‘Paper’ taken from her first full-length album with One Little Indian Records, Resolve – out early 2018. A classically trained pianist, violinist, producer, and composer, Ackroyd turned heads in the neo-classical world with her previous works Escapement and Feathers, as well as her involvement in Hidden Orchestra (Tru Thoughts).

Having played alongside giants of the genre, Hauschka and Nils Frahm, the unique musician has returned, newly signed to Bjork’s label One Little Indian Records, fresh off the back of a mini-album Sketches, and set to release her brand new self-produced full-length record - her most ambitious and progressive piece of work to date.

Resolve

Paper

Mark Bradshaw - Negative Capability

'Everything Ascending’ sees Snow Palms newly re-minted as a duo, with mainstay David Sheppard’s signature glinting electronics and crystalline glockenspiels augmented by the modular synths, tapes, piano and production skills of Matt Gooderson, alongside vigorous, rhythmic clarinets and soaring vocal flights. Over ten minutes in length, the piece oscillates seamlessly between passages of mesmeric electronic pulse, choral-enhanced minimalism and immersive, gamelan-like ambience and precedes more new music later in the year.

Out 22/02/19. Pre-order here: https://VillageGreen.lnk.to/5P5jSWE

Snow Palms - Everything Ascending

The Living Layer + Vælv is taken from the new live album THE PIRAMIDA CONCERT by EFTERKLANG & COPENHAGEN PHIL - released June 10th 2013.

Order the limited deluxe vinyl release here: http://shop.efterklang.net/

The Piramida Concert by Efterklang & Copenhagen Phil was recorded live at Copenhagen's Royal Academy of Music Concert Hall in October 2012. Over the course of two sold-out nights Efterklang - plus Peter Broderick, Katinka Fogh Vindelev and Budgie (Siouxsie and The Banshees) - teamed up with classical orchestra Copenhagen Phil and German conductor André de Ridder to perform the Danish act's fourth album Piramida in its entirety. Staged for the first time at the Sydney Opera House in May 2012, the orchestral arrangements were written by fellow Dane Karsten Fundal and New York composer Missy Mazzoli. The Piramida Concert also features 'So', a song written during recording sessions for Piramida, and 'Vælv', a classical piece commissioned by Efterklang and composed by Karsten Fundal. The live performance was mixed to tape by Francesco Donadello in the Vox-Ton studio in Berlin.. The Piramida Concert will only be available digitally and as a limited edition deluxe double gatefold vinyl (one black, one white + CD inside), designed by Danish artists Hvass&Hannibal.

Efterklang & Copenhagen Phil - The Living Layer + Vælv

Helios - halving the compass

Listen/Download Kind Of Love: https://smarturl.it/pelorus

Say hi: pelorusmusic@gmail.com

Alive

Pelorus

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