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Fountains of Joy

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perfect (beautiful piano)

Generations in Play

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Taken from Kasper Bjørke Quartets forthcoming album "The Fifty Eleven Project"

Buy Single: KompaktRecords.lnk.to/LineOfLifeSD
Pre-order Album: KompaktRecords.lnk.to/TheFiftyElevenProjectSD

On October 19th Kompakt presents a new LP and audiovisual venture by Danish producer Kasper Bjørke and close cohorts. Epic and in length but always captivating, ‘The Fifty Eleven Project’ is an entirely ambient concept album, that interprets and evokes the emotional rollercoaster Kasper experienced, from his cancer diagnosis and throughout the five years of regular check-ups. The week of album release marks his second anniversary of getting the all-clear.

The base of the album was composed on vintage analogue synthesizers, reverbs, echo and sequencers – using the computer solely as a recording device – by Kasper and synth wizard Claus Norreen, in the latter’s Copenhagen studio.

The violins, violas and cellos are composed and played by the Italian composer Davide Rossi, who has also worked with Ennio Morricone, Jon Hopkins, Röyksopp, The Verve and Goldfrapp.

The piano parts are composed and played by Danish musician Jakob Littauer (of Kompakt labelmates Jatoma) on an old upright piano in a studio, and on a Steinway Grand Piano in the concert hall at the Royal Danish Music Conservatorium.

From Max Richter’s ‘SLEEP’, Hannah Peel’s ‘Mary Casio: Journey To Cassiopeia’, to much of Brian Eno’s ‘Music For Installations’, ‘The Fifty Eleven Project’ continues in a rich vein of work by contemporary composers which explores a situation/condition, and is made with functionality and healing in mind.

The visual side of ‘The Fifty Eleven Project’ is made in collaboration with the culture laboratory Prxjects and acclaimed LA based artist/filmmaker/photographer Justin Tyler Close, who has created art films for each of the album’s 11 tracks - plus one music video, including clips from all 11 films. The 11 films will be assimilated into a video exhibition at Klub in Copenhagen from 12th – 21st October. The ambition is that the installation will tour Europe and the US in 2019.

Furnished in an exquisite fabric box, this 180 gram 3LP clear vinyl box is presented by cover art created by world-renowned artist Landon Metz, further cementing the release’s multidisciplinary links to the art world.

Buy/Stream

PREMIERE: Kasper Bjørke Quartet - Line Of Life

Purchase: geographic-north.com/cassette/dont-look-now/
Catalog #: GN51
Cassette, limited to 300

Geographic North proudly presents 'Don’t Look Now,' our second frightening foray into Halloween-inspired sounds to delight and dismay throughout the season. Featuring 90 minutes of haunted, hellish hysteria composed by some of the most abominable names in ambient music, the compilation nearly splits at the seams with grotesque grace. 

All proceeds from this morbid mirth go directly toward youthSpark, an Atlanta-based non-profit that works directly with, and protects, at-risk youth from exploitation, abuse and trafficking in the Southeastern United States.

http://youth-spark.org/

The compilation opens with “The Visitor,” a peculiar prologue that portends potential peril ahead and one of two bookends concocted by Arp, who serves as the compilation’s crypt-keeper of sorts. As the fog begins to swell, Ka Baird’s “Clearing” brings a trickle of overcast textures and exquisitely disorienting organ tones. Algiers shatter into the scene with brooding vehemence, sounding like a biting mix of John Carpenter and the Pop Group. Perennial witching hour heroes Anjou bring a moonlit mantra of eroding melodies that blossom with decay. “Sada,” composed and performed by Clarice Jensen, steers the action deep into the underworld, projecting an inverted soundscape of smeared beauty. Western six-string virtuoso Danny Paul Grody carries the bizarre bewilderment into an open den of shimmering, pristine melody and resonance. The first main passage is nailed shut by “Cement Dossier,” one of three anonymous and obscene chapter breaks from the Geographic North house band. 

Next up, Christina Vantzou and John Also Bennett unfurl a hypnotic hymn of rustic kosmische bliss that balances a deathly mix of paranoia and resolution. Eluvium’s “Surrounded by Illusion” is a mini-epic of textural maximalism that only confirms the Pacific NW ambient godhead’s emotional prowess. Jefre Cantu-Ledesma summons the ghost of Hildegard von Bingen for an organ-filled interpretation of “O virtus sapientiae” that’s both life affirming and devastating. 

Robert Donne (Labradford, Anjou) crafts a pummeling waltz of soot and emaciation with “Rakkauslaulu,” a stinging salute to Mika Vainio. Ilyas Ahmed offers an ice-cold hand to lead you through the ornately crumbing decay of “Local Blues,” blurring itself almost too perfectly into the eerie, almost too comforting calmness of Félicia Atkinson’s “Little Things.” Richard Chartier assumes his Pinkcourtesyphone guise for a purely cinematic lapse into the netherworld. The incognito amusement continues with “Stabbing,” an extended, slow-motion scene that brings some of Suzanne Kraft’s most volatile and vile work to date.

“Thunderhead,” a menacingly paced slow burn from Moon Diagrams (Moses Archuleta of Deerhunter), could be the soundtrack to the most alluring haunted house you’ve ever seen, while Roberto Carlos Lange’s “Indian Rope” casts a curiously charming spell of glitter and gloom. Vancouver’s own Secret Pyramid crafts a bewitching bereavement from the North, permeating everything it touches with bedeviled beauty for an unforgettable climax of bleak allure. Arp returns again to bookend 'Don’t Look Now' with “Love Theme,” a fitting epilogue that reflects on the receding haze with hopeful optimism.

Although the sun has finally rose, plenty of shadows remain.

Suzanne Kraft - Stabbing

Eighteen months on from his last new release, Vancouver-based singer / composer Ian William Craig returns with between-albums release that collects together eleven unreleased tracks. Entitled 'Thresholder', the record sees Craig return towards the smudged and scoured beauty of his 2016 opus, 'Centres'.

Recorded, produced and mastered by Ian William Craig himself, the origins of these tracks span a period from 'A Turn of Breath' to 'Centres'. Some were recorded at Ian's old studio on Vancouver's UBC campus, some at home, and one even recorded on tour in a giant secret underground cistern in Sweden.

'Thresholder' will be released on 130701 on November 2nd.

Full info: 130701.com/release/thresholder/

Thresholder

pre-order

Ian William Craig - Some Absolute Means

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Pieni, Machione’s second album, means “small” or “little”. This title was inspired by an essay written by Japanese author. In the same fashion that Machione’s first album portrayed the western area of Tokyo, the artist again plays an array of instruments, such as the gut guitar, clarinet, banjo, and reed organ. His compositions and musical stylings show a deep emotional bond to pieces of scattered memories – scenes, and adventures from his childhood, and the loneliness of living alone in Tokyo. Machione precisely paints musical visions of each, and together, they reveal his persona in this evocative album. A child’s toy boat made of bamboo leaves drifts down a small rivulet, an exploration by following a rope between the steel towers. The tones from a music box sprinkled through the album evoke images of colorful pebbles. A prepared guitar’s song paints a pattern of blurred light. TC2610, repsold, water harp bell, broken, untuned and an old, decorative object…the songs that these unique instruments sing fluidizes our senses, and swings our imaginations. This panorama exhibited before us by Machione are scenes from a small town, one that you might have visited some time.

Machinone - Hanayoubi / 花曜日

French composer Sylvain Chauveau’s new album Life Without Machines, a set ofshort compositions using Barnett Newman’s series of abstract painting The Stations of the Cross as visual scores, is set for release on 17th April 2020 through FLAU.

Known for very minimal compositions for acoustic instruments, electronics andsometimes vocals, with a focus on quietness and slowness; Sylvain has released records on labels such as FatCat, Sub Rosa, Type, Les Disques du Soleil et del’Acier, Brocoli and performed live across Europe, Canada and USA, Russia and Asia.

The title of his new album, Life Without Machines, expresses the fact that ourlives are entirely assisted by machines (for everything we eat, wear, transport,build, watch, listen…) which require a permanent, colossal use of energy – mostlyfossil fuels, whose combustion constantly sends CO to the atmosphere. The title₂suggests that this can’t last forever: living with less (and finally without)machines may have to become a collective decision in the future or (moreprobably) a consequence of a combination of crisis (both energetic, economicaland ecological).

Composed by Sylvain and performed by french pianist Melaine Dalibert, thereare a total of 15 pieces, yet only 14 will appear on the tracklist (one hidden track ishearable after a period of silence at the end of track 14). This mirrors the stonegarden of Ryoanji in Kyoto, where there are 15 stones but from any point of viewone can only see a maximum of 14 at the same time.

Sylvain Chauveau -        e

Released Date: 23rd October 2020
www.arboristmusic.com

The Mountain Will Come To You

Available now on all major streaming services.

The Boy

Bandcamp

Taken from FST182 Remember Fun - Contentment
Out on LP/CD on 16.04.2021

Contentment

Never

Remember Fun - Never

Self taught musician, playing and composing for Acoustic Guitar and Piano. 
New album out on Vinyl and CD: https://lnk.to/apathtoopenair2

Contact: tobiaswildenmusic [at ] gmail com

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Tobias Wilden

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