Taken from 'Fringe' LP/Download (E064, Ecstatic 03/09/2021)

A gorgeous swell of intimate soundscaping from Felisha Ledesma on this simmering stunner for Ecstatic, despatching two extended, richly absorbing pieces weft from everyday detritius; synths, strings, voicemail, found sounds - hitting a similar spot for us as Ulla’s diaristic 'inside means inside me’ but with a more defined play of sound-as-light that gently and memorably tugs at the earlobes and heartstrings. 

Exploring a music of presence and ultra subtle inference, ‘Fringe’ is the 2nd release by Ledesma, student of Berlin's estimable Universität der Künste, following from a debut for Enmossed x Psychic Liberation earlier this year. Using AMQR - a software synthesiser built by Ledesma together with Ess Mattisson - both pieces here shimmer with elusive timbres that occupy a realm that feels lost between worlds - neither electronic nor acoustic, but more a sort of observational sound that radiates togetherness and warmth. 

Operating at insightful levels of synaesthesia, Ledesma poetically turns ostensibly humdrum sources into clouds of smoke - emails, voicenotes, walking along the water, a poem attached to an email, walking alone in New York during lockdown, going for a swim at sunset in the desert - all turn into a smudge of memory. When ‘Beamsplitters’ opens with a tangible human presence - a voicemail from a friend - it startles with its earthly pull, eventually getting lost in a tangled spool of found sound leaving just a trace of iridescent, intimate reverie. 

On ‘Golden Mirror’ Felisha gently diffracts a lonesome guitar phrase into a humming thizz with a steeply uncanny ability to jog the memory in a similar way to how olfactory stimulus can conjure feelings of nostalgia. It’s a trick familiar from an emergent new realm of lower case composers creating something like submerged, small scale symphonies that work counter to notions of classical excess or anodyne ambient, instead focusing on microcosmic, highly peronalised sort of worldbuilding that’s impenetrable, yet somehow entirely open.

Felisha Ledesma - Golden Mirror [E064]

Akari is the third album from Tokyo duo Illuha. Following 2011’s debut Shizuku (12k1067) and 2013’s Interstices (12k2028), Akari takes the next artistic step for the band. While Shizuku was recorded in the US and completed separately by the artists, Interstices captured the duo creating their exceptionally detailed music together live during a Japaneses tour. Akari, in turn, is the first studio album where Illuha recorded and mixed together, throughout the entire process. The beautiful st-robo studio in Tokyo put a collection of amazing equipment at their fingertips, from vintage mics and outboard gear to a vast collection of instruments, both acoustic and electronic. Their writing sessions were numerous and long with details meticulously obsessed over for nearly a year. The result is the most bewildering music Illuha have created to date. An album swimming with the most delicately tactile sounds and instrumentation that draws the listener in with hushed, motionless attention.

While Illuha’s Corey Fuller and Tomoyoshi Date are often drawn to the most sparse notes of Rhodes and Wurlitzer electric pianos, acoustic grand piano and guitar, the breadth of instrumentation is partially what makes Akari so abosrbing. They have succeeded in creating their own universe of sound, so beautifully recorded, where each element not only has its own space but connects and interacts so fluidly with the other sounds. It is as if they are placed perfectly by nature, the compositions are fluid and organic, a far cry from anything calculated or structured. It is this open space that the music exists in which in turn defines the music itself. There is ample room to breathe within this forest of gentle tines, bubbling analogue synthesizers, clicking percussion and quiet field recordings. This is subtlety at its most refined; hushed without being saccharine, distant without being morose.

Akari is the Japanese word for light. Conceputally the duo used this word as a guide, as if they were searching through the dark, trying to keep the light alive, as if one is cradling a candle doing everything in their power to keep it alight in a storm. It is this almost visceral sense of sheltering, of protection, that gives Akari a very human and personal sound whose intensely deep focus is as impressive as it is arresting.

Akari

Structures Based on the Plasticity of Sphere Surface Tension

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Structures Based On The Plasticity Of Sphere Surface Tension

This piece was composed and recorded between November 2013 and April 2014.

A new version of this track is part of the cassette "The Sky Had Vanished" released in July 2015 by Ecstatic Recordings.

https://ecstaticrecordings.bandcamp.com/merch/abul-mogard-the-sky-had-vanished-cassette-2nd-edition-white-cassette


My other works can be found at my bandcamp page:
https://abulmogard.bandcamp.com/


Desires Are Reminiscences By Now

Taken from the album 'Quixotism' released as CD and Download.

Oren Ambarchi 'Quixotism Part 5' (eMEGO 202)

A hazy, violet-washed morning on the coast. This track drifts like film grain across the sea — ambient, dreamlike, and timeless.

Violet on the mornings cheek (rough)

BEATRICE DILLON - Drum programming, electronics, synthesizer, bass guitar, field recordings

RUPERT CLERVAUX - Vibraphone, drums, percussion, field recordings, additional drum programming


A Different River Once - Beatrice Dillon & Rupert Clervaux

Folklore of Plants Vol.II - Venefic Garden

Moon Wheel — རྡོ་རྗེ་རྣལ་འབྱོར་མ་

Taken from the upcoming album Both Lines Will Be Blue, out July 12th on Smalltown Supersound. Produced by Carmen Villain. Flute performed by Johanna Scheie Orellana. Mastered by Matt Colton.

Observable Future

track from Miaux's 'Black Space, White Cloud' LP

Miaux : Lunar Surface

"Reiterations" by First Tone from "Reactions" 2xLP/Digital due out October 2019.

"Reiterations" by First Tone

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