A selection of ambient, modern classical, and electroacoustic works for Autumn 2019.  Closed on November 18, 2019

Photo by Eberhard Grossgasteiger on Unsplash
https://unsplash.com/photos/KX6ECaHP6wQ

Field Journal Comapnion | Autumn 2019

Order 'Thousands of Eyes in the Dark' at: https://ghostly.com/products/thousands-of-eyes-in-the-dark

Thousands of Eyes in the Dark

Emily A Sprague - Mesa

Untitled 28 was a sculpture, video and sound installation created in 28 days by artist Marie-Louise Jones and composer Lucy Claire. It was exhibited in July 2017 at Here East in London as part of Gavin Turk and Anna Maloney’s show, Inside Out. 

The music reflects each sculpture in the installation and explores themes of duality and pairs through atmospheric binaural recordings, beautiful violin melodies and vocal textures. The materials used in the physical installation; wood, stone and metal play a prominent role in the soundtrack and the sounds created when collided together were used to create unusual textures which were weaved into the piece.

from 'Glam Tear Stain' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den322
available on all formats at http://denovali.com/davidnorland

David Norland is an Emmy-nominated English composer living and working in Los Angeles. Most recently he composed the score to the current HBO film “My Dinner With Herve” (HBO 2018) starring Peter Dinklage and Jamie Dornan.

His work with Emmy-winning director Sacha Gervasi includes the award-winning documentary "Anvil! The Story Of Anvil", (which won the IDA Best Feature award, an Emmy award, the Indie Spirit Best Doc award, and numerous other best doc awards around the world) as well as the score for “November Criminals” (Sony 2017) starring Chloe Moretz and Ansel Elgort. David Norland was also the music supervisor for the movie "Hitchcock" featuring Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren & Scarlett Johansson.

Since 2010 he has composed much of the music for US broadcasting giant ABC’s primetime news documentaries. His work for ABC is broadcast in the US and around the world on a daily basis.

Having been a chorister from an early age, singing daily in Westminster Abbey, and a boy treble in The Elizabethan Consort of Voices, a touring choral group of the time, he also composes choral music. His electronic band Solar Twins was signed by Madonna to Maverick Records, and rode high on the US dance charts, and his record writing, production and mixing work with Jamaican legends Sly and Robbie has been nominated for a Grammy.

"Glam Tear Stain" is the first real solo full length of David Norland. It combines electronic influences, elements of his film scoring work and more intimate, minimalistic piano and string arrangements.

"The music I want to make has changed over time - from imitation baroque pieces as an 11 year old chorister, through guitar pop with my first teenage bands, experimental sonic works with my first rudimentary recording equipment in my early 20s, through electronics, drum and bass, and reggae, leading finally to piano, choral, and string music informed by my film scoring work.”

"Glam Tear Stain" is simple melodic and tonal music for for piano and strings, filtered through the electronic, spatial, and experimental lens of Norland's earlier musical endeavors - and on a personal level was made over a time of profound sadness, change, and acceptance. It’s more unapologetically emotional than other music in the broad neoclassical field, and often stranger, too, drawing from influences as diverse as Future Sound Of London and 16th century English choral music.

"Glam Tear Stain" is the first album of a series of further solo works that David Norland will be releasing via Denovali over the next years.

Glam Tear Stain

David Norland - Agate Or Barium

Taken from the upcoming album 'Chapters' on Fluid Audio...

Music: Und_Ne
Mastering: Ian Hawgood
Design: Daniel Crossley

www.fluidaudio.bigcartel.com/mailing-list

Chapters

und_ne - Chapter 5

From the album A Light Below.  Available October 11, 2019 on Western Vinyl.

Pre-Order: http://hyperurl.co/2frc3y

“For my last record I built software and performance methods that let me wield modern electronic forces using acoustic instruments: my violin and percussion. Using custom violin processing, kick drum triggered synths, tuning forks, hi-hats, triangles, and bells, I created a space for truly contemporary and highly expressive instrumental narratives, often surrounded live with vivid video. Using no overdubs, pre-recorded tracks, clicks, or looping, this music dismissed electronic music’s grid, reclaiming time as a first order expressive element, flexing it, while doubling down on the performance aspect of this performance art. The music brought me around the world, from Tbilisi, Georgia to Havana, Cuba, and many points between, ever-refining my ideas for what might be next.

”A Light Below holds those truths as, now, self-evident. From this place I departed for territory even more emotionally ambitious, more dramatic. I’m also pushing my instrument’s technique further. Slow, heartrending lyricism remains on tracks like “Known By Heart” and “What You Must Make Of Me” but there is also the angular, high-energy bariolage of “Your Slow Moving Shadow, My Inevitable Night” and the beat-driven hocketing of ”I, Autocorrelations” where my violin processing creates “mirror selves” that ricochet around me in a propulsive, somatic trance.

“Since the last LP, my technique for tuning forks also earned some attention (and an honest-to-God tuning fork sponsorship). Again, I wanted to push the musical possibilities here, dialing those gestures in to create locked, luminous polyrhythms alternating with left hand pizzicato. I combined these methods with cascades of triggered synths in “The Resonance Canons”, an 11 minute trip ending in complete vulnerability—as the tuning fork loses its resonance, I continue knocking it against my bridge, a final ostinato built from processed noise and resonant wood.

“The goal of all this isn’t to be tricky or “smart”. I’d hope the music already clued you in, I’m most interested in what deeply moves the heart. This world is fucked; we need new methods we can believe in to trade stories, to share laughter and pain. This record is a conduit for a lot of personal darkness I only hope gives some voice to your own. Along with my daughter, it’s also the light that kept me living, down there in the studio after she’s asleep, looking for new ways to be.“
– Christopher Tignor

Tignor has released 9 LPs across the Western Vinyl and New Albion labels to critical acclaim within the classical and experimental communities. He has collaborated with numerous artists at the boundaries of popular music including Keith Kenniff (Helios), Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, John Congleton, and post-rock titans This Will Destroy You. While a young artist in NYC, Tignor mixed bands at CBGBs, was an assistant to La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, and served as the technical director for 9 years for a New Music festival produced by Phillip Glass. Tignor discovered computers through his college electronic music studio (as a creative writing major), subsequently obtained his Masters in computer science from NYU, proceeded through Princeton's PhD program in music composition, and was later recruited for a software engineering position at Google, where he has worked since 2011.

A Light Below

Christopher Tignor - "The Resonance Canons"

Pools

Enfolding

Jim Perkins - Enfolding

Moments of improvisation captured and reorganized.

Happy Occident

Fake Magic Is Real

Fake Magic is Real

Game of Thrones: The Last Watch

It’s Raining, Pt. 1

Track taken from the upcoming album 'Still Life', forthcoming on Fluid Audio...

Composed mixed and arranged by Edu Comelles using samples from rehearsals with Música Trobada Ensemble of Baroque Music. Samples feature harpsichord, violins and countertenor voice. Electric bass by Isabel Latorre recorded in Valencia in 2019.

www.fluidaudio.bigcartel.com/mailing-list

Still Life

Edu Comelles - Lament

PRE ORDER AVAILABLE - 
https://thesisproject.bandcamp.com/album/thesis-16-ben-lukas-boysen-martyn-heyne

Ben Lukas Boysen - editing, zen garden.
Martyn Heyne - guitar, organ.

Composed, mixed, and mastered by Martyn Heyne + Ben Lukas Boysen at Lichte Studio Berlin.
Additional engineering by Matthias H. Franz Hahn. Vinyl cut by Mike Grinser.

Thank You!
Gregory Euclide, Matthias H. Franz Hahn, everyone at Manners McDade, Erased Tapes Records & Publishing, Claudia Gödke, and Karolina Zenobia Heyne.

Dedicated to Frieda and Frau Bellmann.

THESIS 16 - Ben Lukas Boysen & Martyn Heyne - 03 Crest And Trough

"Photographs from a Moving Car" is the first single off of Sontag Shogun's forthcoming Floréal EP. Floréal will be released on cassette and digital by Beacon Sound on November 15, 2019. Floréal is about slow change, forced change, and longing for what we may have left behind in the process of change.

Digital: 
https://sontagshogun.bandcamp.com/album/flor-al-ep
Physical: 
http://www.wearebeaconsound.com/shop/floreal-cassette
 
This track was recorded by Seth Manchester at Machines With Magnets in Pawtucket, Rhode Island during the It Billows Up sessions in February 2018. Additional vocals were recorded by Laura Naukkarinen at her home in Kimito, Finland. "Photographs" was the seed that germinated a garden of collaborative fruits leading to what will become a full-length LP by Sontag Shogun and Lau Nau in 2020... 

Ian Temple, piano
Jeremy Young, oscillators, tapes, music box
Jesse Perlstein, voice, field recordings, electronics
Laura Naukkarinen, voice

Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll.
Design Direction by Andrew Neerman.

Published by Beacon Sound (BNSD042)
www.wearebeaconsound.com
www.sontagshogun.com

Sontag Shogun & Lau Nau - "Photographs From a Moving Car"

James Murray and Francis M Gri's Remote Redux is a delicate and original response to distance and closeness as expressed by the Japanese concept Ma, known also as negative space. It's a place of elegant dimension where Gri's graceful piano motifs and bowed guitar figures are carefully framed within the free flowing surrounds of Murray's warm synth sequences and nuanced sound design.

Having released each other's work on their Slowcraft and KrysaliSound imprints James and Francis naturally extended this exchange into a remote London-Milan collaboration. The resulting debut is an unhurried collection of exquisitely crafted minimal ambient, tender and contemplative, a listening experience that simultaneously explores and distorts our awareness of separation and togetherness.

Written, arranged, mixed & produced by James Murray & Francis M Gri
Audio mastering by Vincent Villuis | Ultimae Studios (studios@ultimae.com)
Artwork Design by Arnaud Galoppe & Vincent Villuis
Photo credits : Welcomia

REMOTE REDUX

Lontano

Download

JAMES MURRAY & FRANCIS M GRI | Lontano

Drift (CEEYS Rework)

Now available to preorder: asip.me/asipv020

Taken from Olga Wojciechowska's release on ASIP titled 'Infinite Distances', released November 4th 2019. 

Initially put together in memory of a family member, Olga Wojciechowska’s new album, 'Infinite Distances' is built around a similar-sounding melody that appears across the backbone of the album - the sign of something that won’t let go. Opening with ‘Images Imprisoned Within You’, the beautiful orchestral piece sets the tone for a potentially optimistic journey. But the album, with its changes in direction and varying emotion portrayed throughout the seven tracks, somehow always ends up at the same place. It was a memory Olga couldn’t shake. 

Told through several different approaches, varying from expansive modern-classical pieces, to more experimental and electronic touches in tracks like ‘Memory Of The Pioneers’ and ’Starless Water’; ‘Infinite Distances’ is a personal recollection that spans the emotions surrounding the feelings of loss; the highs, the lows, the polaroid-like happy memories, the ones that you never want to let go, and those that will never quite fade away. 

In contrast to the inspiration behind the album, the artwork from Marco Vannini brings a vivid and subjective aspect to the release, whilst maintaining the idea of fragmented and juxtaposing memories together in one place. 

As a true multi-instrumentalist, Olga has produced as Strië, for Serein with ‘Perpetual Journey’ (2018) and previously as her true name Olga Wojciechowska for the likes of Time Released Sound. Olga has also produced alongside Erik Skodvin on Sonic Pieces, collaborated with Greg Haines and reworked Nathan Fake on Ninja Tune. Olga can also be heard in the more contemporary space with commissions by Oslo Opera House and the Royal Opera House.

ASIPV020 Olga Wojciechowska - Infinite Distances [Digital Masters]

Olga Wojciechowska / Images Imprisoned Within You (ASIPV020)

'The Undivided Five', out now on Ninja Tune: https://awvfts.lnk.to/fiveSo

Follow A Winged Victory For The Sullen -
Spotify: https://found.ee/awvfts-sp
Apple Music: https://found.ee/awvfts-am
Instagram: https://found.ee/awvfts-ig
Facebook: https://found.ee/awvfts-fb
Twitter: https://found.ee/awvfts-tw
Youtube: https://found.ee/awvfts-yt
Bandcamp: https://found.ee/awvfts-bc
Soundcloud: https://found.ee/awvfts-sc

The Slow Descent Has Begun

To shed some light about how the piece was created, Will has shared some insight into how he went about approaching the concept of Scale.

'Throughout my career I've almost exclusively relied upon my ability to perform and record all the elements of my arrangements through multi-tracking as the means for realizing my compositions.

Because of this I am all too familiar with having to wrangle with proximity effect (how close an instrument or sound source is to the diaphragm of the microphone) and how can either aid or negatively impact a compositions sense of space and convincing ensemble qualities.

When Jim Perkins approached me about contributing to this compilation and mentioned the overarching theme was "scale" I immediately thought of how I might use proximity effect as a guiding identity for a composition.

For this project I decided to disassemble a few music boxes and experiment with using some of my larger instruments (my harp, Concert bass and kettle drum) as resonators for the boxes and mic'ing them at a good distance away from the attack of the tines giving these tiny little instruments a sound far more resonant than they would've had in there original cases. I pitted these ideas against the sound of the highest register of several larger instruments (Harp, Contrabass, cristal bichet and piano) playing the very highest register they could muster, mic'd them extremely close with small diaphragm mics to emphasize the attack and smallest minutiae of performative gestures. I continued to build on this inversion of physical size and pitch relationship for all the subsequent overdubs and arrangement (bass clarinet playing super high multi-phonics, the viola being tuned down a whole fifth and playing two octaves below the basses artificial harmonics etc etc)

It was a joyful little exercise and the tonality and spirit of the peace represents that enjoyment, I think!

Scale

William Ryan Fritch - Disproportionate Joys

Taken from the Green and Grey (expanded)(released 29th November 2019):
https://recordstoreday.com/SpecialRelease/11874

@theleaflabel

Green and Grey (Expanded)

Salt Point

Finding calm in an age of information overload can be hard. To close our eyes, take a deep breath, and be fully present is such a treasure. Jacob David's piece Dvale was born in just such a moment...

♫ https://orcd.co/dvale

Dvale

Stream/Download

Jacob David - Dvale

This year is already shaping up to be full of amazing music, as many of my favourite labels seem to be saving up all of their best for their “end of the year” celebration. And why shouldn’t we celebrate? We’re entering a whole brand new decade! And now, I am extremely excited to announce [drum roll, please!] a brand new album by the one and only Bersarin Quartett!!! I am most thrilled about this new release from Thomas Bücker mostly because his first three numerically titled albums are still on my heavy rotation, and because, having previewed “Methoden Und Maschinen” before it drops for you on November 29th, I can say with conviction that you’ll simply love it! I don’t even need to use big splendid words [actually, I have much to say about the beautiful album itself, but you’ll have to await my full coverage], so hear for yourself in this exclusive premiere!

"The Bersarin Quartett continues to stand for the outing of a complex musical subconscious. […] Minimalism and bombast go together. Constantly developing and entangling contrasts, paradoxes and contradictions are the motor. Constantly caught between two sides."

Yes, I’m aware, that this single short piece is a teaser for a more rounded gorgeous collection of tracks which you’ll have to await (why not pre-order?) for a couple of more weeks. The album is also available on a splendid turquoise coloured vinyl, as well as on a 12″ and of course, digital and CD, directly from Denovali store. I also recommend that you revisit Bersarin Quartett’s past three albums: Bersarin Quartett (2008), II (2012), and III (2015), as well as read In the studio with Bersarin Quartett. All covered on headphonecommute.com That is all for now, I’ll be back with more on Methoden und Maschinen later!!!

Methoden und Maschinen

TRACK PREMIERE : Bersarin Quartett - Wie von selbst

Here's one of the 8 absolutely beautiful tracks off the upcoming collaborative release between Japanese violinist Hoshiko Yamane (Tangerine Dream), and Icelandic based Swedish musician Mikael Lind. Available this Nov 24th...

Hoshiko Yamane & Mikael Lind  "Spaces In Between"    Flow Plus Cycle

Stationary Travels is a personal music blog covering ambient, electroacoustic, modern classical, post rock & experimental music.  Outside of ST, I enjoy a variety of other genres which you may see mixed in here as well.  Please feel welcome to follow along on Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress (links below).  If you are an artist and would like to submit something for consideration of promotion or review, you can message me to discuss the details. 

 "He who does not travel, who does not read, who does not listen to music, who does not find grace in himself, she who does not find grace in herself, dies slowly" - Martha Medeiros