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]

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

Oren Ambarchi 'Quixotism Part 5' (eMEGO 202)

2nd track on 'Intact' (Jj funhouse, 2016)
http://www.jjfunhouse.com/catalogue/jj010

Data

Suzanne Ciani
Fish Music
FKSP011 (Finders Keepers Records)
7" | MP3

As the first and only dedicated label to liberate the private, non-commercial artefacts from Suzanne Ciani’s groundbreaking Ciani Musica studio vault, Finders Keepers Records presents an incredible cryogenically suspended slice of precious precocious immersive fledgling synthesis for this ultra limited RSD 2107 title.Ironically well removed from the intension of phonographic application in its original inception, this anti-pop wash of marine biology modular synth sound design was originally proposed by a very young Ciani for exclusive infinite loop airings in a giant mid-American shopping mall aquarium in 1977.
Potentially conjuring ambient scenes from the consumerist satirical Dawn Of The Dead while sonically ushering a genuine desire for total musical science reevaluation/revolution via a decidedly mainstream portal, the Fish Music project is a striking eerie example of how Ciani’s “Subversion With A Smile” approach led to a long career breaking boundaries in formal music technology, film scoring, the advertising industry and gender equality – all of which has continued to fuel her passion and channel her life lust and artistic appetite much to the benefit of future ambitious trajectories of music.
Owing much to the memory of genuine synthesiser maverick Don Buchla this conceptual release is very much the product of artistic America at its progressive halcyon but, with its illustrious and idiosyncratic composition, communicates subtle undertones of Suzanne’s feminine Italian origins which seldom reside outside of the efforts of Roman library composers like Casa, Tomassi, Raskovich and siblings Antonioni and Maria Teresa Luciani. Presented here as an isolated one-sided pressing on aquatic clear vinyl and including the original press release and a press cutting this limited release proceeds a wider series of unreleased Ciani work for 2017. File under… water.

A RECORD STORE DAY 2017 EXCLUSIVE

www.finderskeepersrecords.com
https://finderskeepersrecords.bandcamp.com/album/fish-music

Fish Music

Suzanne Ciani - Fish Music

Experimental cinema sonics, electroacoustic research practice and shadowy wind instruments come together to form this unique interpretation of the mythical city of gold. Utilising rare, half forgotten Soviet era synthesisers Vladimir Karpov creates immersive soundscapes under the name XYR. The Formanta mini keytar and the Alisa 1377 lend Karpov’s music strange, seldom heard atmospheres which the St. Petersburg native then combines with field recordings, toy percussion and wood flute to further build upon his utopian narratives.

Part concept album, part nod to Popol Vuh, his attempt to channel the thematics of the ancient tale of the Muisca people through his modest home studio left a lasting impression on us here at 12th Isle and we’re proud to present a selection of the tracks on vinyl for the very first time. Originally confined to just 25 cassette tapes, for this edition we have assembled some of the most inspiring tracks from the sessions as well as the bonus closing piece ‘Aguirre Song’. Immediately engaging, sincerely heartfelt and strikingly original, these are recordings we have returned to time and time again.

Limited edition LP comes housed in screenprinted sleeve. ‘El Dorado’ recorded April – August 2014, originally released via Illuminated Paths (March 2015).

https://12thisle.bandcamp.com/album/x-y-r-el-dorado

ISLE003

XYR - El Dorado LP (ISLE003)

Track 1 from Lea Bertucci 'Metal Aether' [NNA108]
Available February 9th, 2018 on Vinyl, CD & Digital formats.
Order: http://nnatapes.com/available-releases/lea-bertucci-metal-aether

Metal Aether

Lea Bertucci "Patterns For Alto"

Andrea Taeggi—Zimní Král (12" vinyl LP)

The music on this record was made using a vast array of rare analog machines Andrea had the chance to work on at the Willem-Twee synthesis studio in Holland (built with the iconic Studio di Fonologia RAI as a blueprint). Most of the percussive sounds come from an Analog Computer, which has been rarely used only as a music instrument (its main purpose was flight simulation). In fact, during the Cold War times it was also used as measurement tool by civil engineers and even by the army. 
To my knowledge, very few artists have given a new context to the such device, which I have found absolutely unique-sounding and gave me enough inspiration to compose a whole new album focused on it. 

At present, no one has ever officially released music recorded at the Willem-Twee synthesis studio.

The music on this record further explores cyclical, minimal and hypnotic concoctions – a particular  investigation focused on unusual rhythms that Andrea had already started on his well-received ‘Mama Matrix Most Mysterious’, released on Type in 2015. Think walls of subfrequencies, snappy rollercoasters of the mind, labyrinths in hyperspace & snakes eating their own tails.

Zimní Král means “Winter King” in Czech and was the epithet given to Frederick V Elector Palatine (king of Bohemia), the last of a legacy to actively support alchemy as a means of studying reality, the self and their inter-reflections.

All music by Andrea Taeggi
https://andreataeggi.wordpress.com

Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M Berlin

Forthcoming on SM-LL Sept 1st, 2018
http://www.sm-ll.com

Dinergy (SM-LL, Sept 1st)

"Superlifer" by Gary War from upcoming Jared's Lot LP. 

"Superlifer" by Gary War

This is track ONE on THE BLACK BOOK which is a 3 LP comp of stuff we love, and compiled to celebrate 20 years of iDEAL, ok? Its here rather soon. But we needed to share this with you tonight. Cover design by Philip Marshall.

JASSS - PARENTAL YOUTH (from "THE BLACK BOOK" IDEAL175 3xLP compilation)

Artist: ASUNA & Jan Jelinek
Album: Signals Bulletin
Label#: Faitiche18
 
Faitiche is delighted to announce the release of a new collaboration between the Japanese sound artist ASUNA and Jan Jelinek: the album Signals Bulletin brings together joint improvisations and compositions made over a period of three years in Berlin, Kyoto and Kanazawa. ASUNA’s meandering organ drones merge with Jelinek’s pulsating synthesizer and field recording loops to create dense superclusters that span broad harmonic arcs.

-

Watching the Japanese sound artist ASUNA playing the organ, some people might be surprised. ASUNA is no virtuoso flying over the keyboard in a rage. Instead, with the calm gestures of an office worker, he cuts strips of adhesive tape to the correct length before sticking them onto the keys of his instrument. In this way, large clusters of keys are held down, creating a dense and sustained range of frequencies, while the sound artist continually prepares further sets of keys or removes tape again. I have rarely seen a more convincing performance concept, with such a power to fascinate.

I first met ASUNA when we both gave a concert at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, his home city. He performed the organ drones as described above and I immediately knew I wanted to collaborate with him. Six years and five meetings later, we completed Signals Bulletin. The album includes both joint improvisations and compositions, recorded in Berlin, Kanazawa and Kyoto.

Whether using prepared organ, Casio keyboards or mechanical plastic toys, ASUNA creates rich textures of sound that barely change over long stretches of time. It is a music without breaks. For a while, I was unsure how my loops made using modular synthesizers and live sampling fitted here – until I realized the role I had to take in this duet: I would provide the rhythmically pulsating foundation over which his dense continuums could unfold.

The result is harmonically drifting superclusters that put us into a meditation-like state. It can perhaps be compared to Automatic Writing – a mode of creative expression floating somewhere between concentration and distraction. Both the structure of our pieces and our approach to our instruments allow a similar “absence”: we let the machines play and repeat themselves – while we, in a mild form of trance, adopt the role of observers, intervening only occasionally.

It is no coincidence that ASUNA owns a collection of Doodle Art – drawings jotted down during conversations or while talking on the phone. It is said that works made like this point to the unconscious and reveal pet motifs – because a doodler always inadvertently returns to his or her favourite themes. The artwork for Signals Bulletin features pictures from the collection, in this case sheets of paper from the pads provided in stationery shops to test out pens. The special quality of such doodles is that the jumble of drawings is the work of a collective whose individual members do not know each other. Layer by layer is added, by someone different each time – until it becomes a dense cluster of lines and symbols ...
Jan Jelinek, Berlin 2018

ASUNA & Jan Jelinek: Relief, Pt.1

The sound on this release has been examined and produced throughout March and April 2019 in Frankfurt am Main during a music-residency initiated and hosted by "Künstlerhaus Mousonturm" and MMODEMM.

Written and Produced by Asuna Arashi

Asuna - Cloud River Seen From The Window

Spectrum Spools was a label based out of Cleveland, Ohio and Vienna, Austria created by John Elliott and Peter Rehberg to bring you limited edition vinyl from the finest in forward thinking modern music.&#13;
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Have a look at the folks we follow, some are artists past, present and otherwise like-minded.