Curtain Seller

Somehow I feel that artists of all media [and particularly, musicians] have always dealt with the concept of the "end of time". Whether it's through the destruction of our own planet, some unknown apocalypse, or the universe as we may never know it, post the inevitable human existence [it all will end, after all, right?]. These thoughts, and the resulting output, are then brought on by a blip in our own very linear timeline that makes us wake up for a moment from the cycle of being and ask, "Is this it?" Perhaps a bit of existentialism never hurt anyone to refocus their energy on what truly then matters. [What truly matters to you?]. We've all experienced this, especially with our own latest global crisis, which still continues to ripple, mutate, and destroy, even as I type out these words [my friends in Shanghai are particularly distressed]. It's no wonder that so much latest output from musicians across the globe has been reflecting this temporary state of humankind [just check out the themes of the many new posts on Headphone Commute, like this Requiem or We Will Live On]. So I'm not surprised, and indeed, a bit delighted, to be bathed in an expression of human extinction by the Montréal-based Tunisian composer, multi-instrumentalist and sound designer Haythem Mahbouli, with his second album for the Japanese Schole label, titled Last Man On Earth. Across the eight pieces, "the album envisions man's final journey on our home planet and invites its listeners to immerse themselves into his last harrowing conquest." This is a beautifully produced and orchestrated journey, which leaves me aching with memories of Jóhann Jóhannsson again [and I do not just mention his name lightly], with its cinematic tendency to blend elements of electronic and modern classical genres, featuring synthetic and organic instrumentation, including a choir by the Budapest Scoring Orchestra. Today I'm giving you a taste of what you can experience on the entire album with this short track, titled "The Great Flood."

Last Man On Earth

Last man on earth

TRACK PREMIERE : Haythem Mahbouli - The Great Flood

Something That Looks Like Stars

eRecords is a digital record series created by Whitelabrecs, to run alongside our physical releases. These editions aim to transform the digital format into something that can be experienced in a similar way to a listener’s interaction with a real, white label vinyl record. Each edition includes a special PDF scrapbook including polaroids and liner notes.

We do not publish details about the concepts or production methods of a release, so that the liner notes and content in each scrapbook will give you the background of each edition in the series.

catalog: eR020
artist: harry towell
release title: photo synthesis
runtime: 12:55
location: morton, lincolnshire, uk

Photo Synthesis

eR020 harry towell - camellia

Burnt Island

Tracklist

01. Tatsuro Murakami - In Her Absence
02. Glacis - Some Truth About Numbers (The Green Kingdom Interpritation)
03. Far away Nebraska - Lontananza
04. Wil Bolton - Folding Triangles
05. Naps - How Long Will This Go On 
06. 't Geruis - Away Away
07. Anthéne & David Cordero - Ebb Tide
08. Ian Hawgood & David Cordero - An Influx Of Dreams Curtailed By The Softest Of Voices
09. James Osland - Two Tiny Sparks Of Life
10. Altars Altars - Family's Downstairs
11. Betts(JP) - Yosde 05

348. Sleepy Sunday Podcast (Elm Records)

Tracklist

01. Tomotsugu Nakamura - Heliotrope
02. Suisen - Sunken Moon
03. Tapes and Topographies - Reflections in a glass eye
04. The Seaman & The Tattered Sail - Dusk
05. Andrew Tasselmyer - Perspectives
06. Ciro Berenguer - Lago
07. M. Grig - Form
08. r beny -  Echo's verse
09. Simon Scott - Nigh
10. Rafael Anton Irisarri - Daybreak Comes Soon
11. Stijn Hüwels - Tomodachi (patrick)
12. Foresteppe - s01e04

351. Sleepy Sunday Podcast (Elm Records)

Hey, you remember the Icelandic independent imprint called INNI Music, yes? It opened up with Atli Örvarsson's You Are Here back in 2020, and then there was Rose Riebl's Do Not Move Stones in 2021, followed up with Jónsi, Sin Fang, Alex Somers, Kjartan Holm's Sounds of Fischer Vol. 1 a year after, all of which have consistently made to my Best of the Year lists, in every single year. Right. So, yes, this is the same Holm from that Jónsi (of Sigur Rós fame) collaboration, this time with a solo release. Hailing from Reykjavik, Kjartan Holm is a musician and a film composer with half a dozen scores under his belt. This album, titled HORIZON, was originally written for a same-named documentary about the late Icelandic painter Georg Guðni, "whose innovative interpretations of forms and ideas paved the way for a renaissance in Icelandic landscape painting." The music, as conveyed in a piece I am premiering for you today, is capturing the vast and sprawling atmospheres, blending abstract textures with ethereal melodies in pastel haze, shifting tones, and wide brushstrokes. You don't even need to look up the paintings to see the resemblance (but I recommend that you do). Lovely tonalities to get lost in on this one, and I recommend that you pick up the album, in just a few days...

HORIZON

Limitless Pt. II

TRACK PREMIERE : Kjartan Holm - Limitless Pt. II

wask

🔗 Listen & support:
Spotify · Bandcamp · YouTube · more → linktr.ee/amb1Matt3r

🎧 Music for:
sleep · deep focus · meditation · inner drift · slow time · space dreaming

📎 Tags:
#ambient #drone #granular #spacemusic #sleepmusic #darkambient #soundscape

Norien

A liminal and haunting journey into a world where the last wish lingers in the shadows..
stream/buy: https://fanlink.tv/lastwish
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soundcloud: @inlirium

last wish

stream/buy

Technology and imperfection. The raw and the processed. Curator and curated. Solo explorer and gregarious collaborator. The life and work of Taylor Deupree are less a study in contradictions than a portrait of the multidisciplinary artist in a still-young century.

Deupree is an accomplished sound artist whose recordings, rich with abstract atmospherics, have appeared on numerous record labels, and well as in site-specific installations at such institutions as the ICC (Tokyo, Japan) and the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (Yamaguchi, Japan). He started out, in the 1990s, making new noises that edged outward toward the fringes of techno, and in time he found his own path to follow. His music today emphasizes a hybrid of natural sounds and technological mediation. It’s marked by a deep attention to stillness, to an almost desperate near-silence. His passion for the studio as a recording instrument is paramount in his work, but there is no hint of digital idolatry. If anything, his music shows a marked attention to the aesthetics of error, to the short circuits not only in technological systems but in human perception.

And though there is an aura of insularity to Depuree’s work, he is a prolific collaborator, having worked with the likes of Stephan Mathieu, Christopher Willits, Kenneth Kirschner, Eisi, Frank Bretschneider, Richard Chartier, Savvas Ysatis, and Tetsu Inoue.

Deupree dedicates as much time to other people’s music as he does to his own. In 1997 he founded the record label 12k, which since then has released over 80 recordings by some of the most accomplished musicians and sound artists of our time, among them Alva Noto, Steve Roden, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Steven Vitiello. Many share with Deupree an interest in stark minimalism, but the label has also found room for, located a common ground with, the acoustic avant-garage, the instrumental derivations of post-rock, and the synthetic extremes of techno.

And collectively, the cover jackets to the 12k album releases have served as an ongoing exhibit of Deupree’s photography, its lofi aesthetic, with an emphasis on damage and wear and antiquated tech, closely paralleling his music. (His photos have also graced numerous books, design anthologies, and other recordings and projects.)

Deupree continues to evolve his sound with an ambition and drive that is masked by his music’s inherent quietude. He approaches each project with an expectation of new directions, new processes, and new junctures.

Something That Looks Like Stars

taylordeupree

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