I’m taking another quick break in the midst of my Best of the Year feature to premiere this beautiful piece, and then, I promise, I’ll finish up publishing all of these year-end lists [only one more to go!] before the end of this week. Meanwhile, let’s all spend some time in the company of Vanessa Wagner, a French pianist who’s, in my humble opinion, doing something for the modern classical scene, what Martha Argerich did for the contemporary classical in the 20th century. It was indeed the debut recital of Argerich’s 1961 performance that thoroughly captivated me in her execution of Liszt’s Piano Sonata in B Minor [I still think it is the best rendering of that beautiful piece]. And it is Wagner’s solo piano virtuoso performances of music by Philip Glass, Nico Muhly, Suzanne Ciani, Harold Budd, and yes, even Brian Eno & Roger Eno, on this upcoming release on InFiné is what’s raising the bar for the next level of music appreciation from these present classical composers of the ambient and electronic music scenes. The imprint had previously showcased Wagner’s talent when she partnered with Murcof for Statea in 2016. Three years later, we were graced with Inland, on which Wagner played music by Bryce Dessner, Moondog, and Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch, among many others. For The Study Of The Invisible, Wagner continues her exploration of the minimalist repertoire, with many rare and unpublished pieces, some that have never been performed on the piano before. In today’s premiere, I’m sharing a composition by Ezio Bosso, an award-winning Italian composer who sadly passed away in May of 2020. This is a gorgeous minimal piece that resonates in the quietude of early morning and leaves behind the traces of melancholy, yearning for hope, and ultimately the acceptance.

More details, plus a video here: https://hcdi.gs/Before6

Before 6

TRACK PREMIERE : Vanessa Wagner - Before 6 [Ezio Bosso]

*We have reached 1000 downloads*

This track is now available to buy from iTunes, Amazon and the usual online places for a mighty 99c. Please pick it up and support us!

https://itunes.apple.com/de/album/healer-single/id808275959

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
ON TOUR IN GERMANY:

03.02.14 GIESSEN Muk 
04.02.14 KASSEL K19 
05.02.14 CHEMNITZ Weltecho 
06.02.14 BERLIN HO Berlin 
07.02.14 STUTTGART Freikonzert @ Marienkirche 
08.02.14 AUGSBURG Schwarzes Schaf 
09.02.14 DRESDEN Scheune 
12.02.14 POTSDAM Waschhaus 

Tickets: 
http://gastspielreisen.tickets.de/de/events/4531-me&amp;katfrankie&amp;mydrummer

Me&KatFrankie&MyDrummer - Healer

http://eileanrec.bandcamp.com/album/comets-coma

artist : aaron martin
album : comet's coma
date : 11.11.14
map point : eilean 17
color : blue

----------------------------------------------------------------

Pre-order : November 4th, 2014 / Official release : 11.11.2014
limited edition to 110 copies

----------------------------------------------------------------

All music composed, performed, and recorded by Aaron Martin between June and August 2014 in Topeka, Kansas //

Mastering : Fletcher McDermott //
Artworks : Laura Zalenga //
Design : Superfluxgrafizm //

----------------------------------------------------------------

Links :
www.eilean-records.com
eileanrec.bandcamp.com
aaronmartin.bandcamp.com
laurazalenga.de/en/

Gathered at the Edges

Consecrated Mud

Composed, Played & Recorded By Madeleine Cocolas + Monolyth & Cobalt.                                                                                                                Mixed by Monolyth & Cobalt in October 2015.

Madeleine Cocolas : piano                                                                                                                                                                                     Monolyth & Cobalt : strings, breathes on tapes, electronic devices,  effects processors, loop pedal, amplified objects.

Month Seven Project (Madeleine Cocolas + Monolyth & Cobalt)

From the album Sometimes out November 13, 2015 on Western Vinyl.  Vinyl LP format will be out on January 22, 2016.

CD/LP http://westernvinyl.com/shop/wv138
Bandcamp http://goldmund.bandcamp.com/album/sometimes
iTunes hyperurl.co/d3h29c
Amazon hyperurl.co/56ffvu

Rare live performance in New York on November 27th at Le Poisson Rouge w/ Lubomyr Melnyk

Golmund:
Label page http://westernvinyl.com/artists/goldmund
Twitter https://twitter.com/Goldmund
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/keith.kenniff
Instagram https://instagram.com/kenniffs/
Artist site http://www.unseen-music.com/

Live Performance:
November 27, 2015 - New York, NY • Le Poisson Rouge w/ Lubomyr Melnyk 

Raised in the rural town of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Keith Kenniff aka Goldmund started playing piano at age 20, while studying percussion at Boston’s Berklee College of Music.  Though he may not be a household name, Kenniff's evocative, distinctly American music has become quietly ubiquitous in the past few years, often appearing on NPR, in films, on TV, and in ads for Apple, Facebook, and Google among others.  As an artist who spends a great deal of his time producing music for others, it might be surprising to find out that when he has the opportunity to relax and re-center himself, he often chooses to produce music for himself.  Recorded over the course of three years, the material on his new album Sometimes functions as a journal, documenting brief moments in Kenniff's day when he could turn to the piano as a source of solace and unending creative possibilities.  Kenniff wrote and recorded everything on the album with the exception of the track "A Word I Give", which is a collaboration with preeminent Japanese pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto, who once described Goldmund's music as “…so, so, so beautiful…”.  

Kenniff's pseudonym is taken from the Herman Hesse novel Narcissus and Goldmund in which the Goldmund character leaves the cloister where he was living and studying in search of meaning for his life.  The story resonated with Kenniff when he was searching for a moniker to represent his solo piano work, "I think the way I approached the piano was in the same way: impulsive—searching and feeling things out in the dark."  On Sometimes he continues his explorations in the dark; each of the album's 17 pieces were improvised, and recorded in one or two takes, often late at night, after work-for-hire was finished, and the kids were in bed.  In an interview with NPR's Weekend Edition Keith Kenniff discussed his appreciation of Civil War era music, and it's ability to covey "…so much story in so few notes."  Similarly, these improvisations manage to be richly evocative despite their technical and compositional simplicity, using subtle details and dynamics to express what might otherwise be inexpressible.  

Throughout Sometimes, Kenniff fully employs the wabi-sabi aesthetic that has always defined Goldmund recordings.  "I like mistakes, I like when things don't go perfectly. I do have a tendency to want for things to be perfect and precise, but I have to also realize that a lot of things I like about music and art are very rough and impulsive, the slight imperfections that give something or someone a unique voice," says Kenniff.  He goes on to explain that these pieces served as a way for him to "step outside of whatever I was doing and return back to a place of discovery very much like when I first started playing."  As we follow him on his path of discovery, we get a glimpse into the world of a young man expressing his myriad feelings and experiences with honesty, and inherently imperfect gestures, which is part of what makes them so relatable and powerful — the local, for a few moments, resonating with the universal. 

Goldmund - "A Word I Give (featuring Ryuichi Sakamoto)"

An ode to the late Nick Talbot (Gravenhurst)

12.4.15

I first discovered Gravenhurst back in 2004 while exhausting the last of my pizza-serving paycheck at my local record store, Stinkweeds in Tempe, AZ. As I was thumbing through new releases, eerie, atmospheric-folk began to play over the store’s sound system. When Nick’s voice emerged from the fog, I was hooked. I purchased Flashlight Seasons that day and immediately felt as if I was let in on a secret. I listened to that album incessantly. To make extra money during this time I began to DJ weddings, mitzvahs and private parties.  The nights were long and the playlists were pre-chosen by the clients. When I climbed into my ’86 Honda Civic (nicknamed “the roller skate”) at the end of the night all I wanted to do was to cleanse my ears with Nick’s beautiful, intimate songs. His music was my companion; something I could count on when I was lonely. Although I never got a chance to see Nick perform or meet him in person, I felt like through his songs I knew him intimately.

Nick passed away a year ago today. At the time I coped with the tragic news by recording one of my favorite songs of his, “The Diver”. And while my version could never hold a light to the original, I recorded it with great sincerity and sorrow. I learned later that Nick had suffered from the seizure-causing disorder epilepsy, a disorder my mother also suffers from. That’s why I’m releasing the cover as a pay-what-you-want digital download via Bandcamp with 100% of the proceeds going to the http://www.epilepsysociety.org.uk/, the leading provider of epilepsy services in the UK though research, awareness campaigns, info. resources and expert care. Please consider donating a minimum of $1 for the song and help give people with this often debilitating disorder your support. 

With gratitude and fond remembrance, 

- Kael Smith

You can download the cover and donate here: https://muteforest.bandcamp.com/track/the-diver-gravenhurst-cover

Recorded and arranged by Kael Smith
Lyrics by Nick Talbot
Mastered by Taylor Deupree (12k)
Cover art by Lynn Vanlandingham
Original of "The Diver" appears on Gravenhurst's 2004 album Flashlight Seasons (Warp Records)


The Diver (Gravenhurst cover)

Out on Morr Music 2016-11-11
With his latest record, Notwist singer & guitar player, film soundtracker and label boss Markus Acher, aka Rayon, offers up a sparse, intoxicating LP of instrumentals.
As the name suggests, the spaces between notes here are treated with as much gravity as the notes themselves – arpeggios spiralling upwards, conflicting yet interlocking in a dizzying overlap of time signatures.
An obvious reference point is Javanese gamelan, with its ensemble of hand-beaten metallophones and bamboo flutes, pulling in all directions at once and yet, like a starling murmuration, maintaining shape as one, rippling whole.
Eschewing electronic equipment, the title track sees marimbaphone, piano and vibraphone appearing to mimic a delay pedal, giving the effect of rain falling with odd regiment into a singing bowl.
This melancholy but weirdly uplifting arrangement surfaces throughout the record, punctuated by mossy synth hums and subterranean rustling. Like much of Rayon’s work, “A Beat of Silence” beams across like a soundtrack for some forgotten documentary: dusty archive footage of cities being built and eroded in time-lapse seeming to flicker across the screen.

Closing tracks “To the Quiet”, a tentative, almost impossibly fragile ballad, and “Kona”, a stretched and mangled wash of orchestral drone akin to Plinth or Edmund Finnis, leave the listener fully enveloped, as this incredibly sensitive work draws to a close.

Richard Greenan (Kit Records, Devon Loch)

A Beat of Silence

Buy The Single

Rayon: Dots

Mario Batkovic self titled LP to be released on Invada Records on all formats 17/03/2017

Mario Batkovic - Quatere

From the album Music for Wilder Mann. Out january 26th
Specula records
www.tehoteardo.com

Teho Teardo - wilder mann

Part of the Radialnacht concert with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra @ Radialsystem,
May 3rd 2013

Teho Teardo - wilder mann

tehoteardo

Recent comments

ksenjalaginja

Related tracks