Perfect mix between field recording and synthesis

Created on iPad with AUM, Harmony Bloom, Weeping Wall, KB-1, Nerd Synth, SpaceFields, BLEASS Reverb, Mononoke, otherdesertcities, Twin 3, Cascade

Mixed and mastered with Cubase 13 and Ozone 10, added some (Dawesome) Myth...

Inspired by Naviar Haiku 539:
https://www.naviarrecords.com/naviarhaiku539-the-cormorant-in-the-forest/

Photo by zenbytes (2013, Costa Vicentina, Portugal)

cormorant along the evening path - Naviarhaiku 539

Title track from Leafcutter John's new album, Resurrection(Pathway009)

A panoramic sound world of drifting vocals over a densely-processed terrain of mud-caked percussion and guitar, Leafcutter John’s new solo album, Resurrection, is a characteristically unique blend of the electronic and the acoustic, the hi-tech, the human and the homemade.
Resurrection is the sixth Leafcutter John album and his first solo release since 2006’s The Forest and The Sea CD/LP(Staubgold). In the intervening nine years, John has toured from Vietnam to Venice, appeared live with Beck Hansen and Imogen Heap, and provided the score for Crow, a major theatre project by Handspring (creators of War Horse). 

During this time, John has also maintained his permanent role as the unpredictable, electronic antagonist in Polar Bear, the twice Mercury Music Prize-nominated, genre-defying jazz band.
This new record marks fifteen years of releases by Leafcutter John. Born John Burton in Wakefield (Yorkshire, England), his highly original musical voice was first spotted by Mike Paradinas, label boss of Planet Mu Records. Over the course of his first three albums (2000-2003), John established and developed his idiosyncratic London-based studio, and his skills as an inventor of unusual instruments and extraordinary music software.
Resurrection begins with the sound of a single bell, in homage to one of John’s major influences, Bernard Parmigiani’s De Natura Sonorum (1976). From there, the album unfolds over five cinematically varied tracks, “like floating above a world in constant flux,” in John’s own words. In fact, aerial photographs of the Japanese tsunami of 2011 were a direct inspiration for the record.
“I would create complete, fully-formed compositions,” says John, “then later, I’d come back to them, playing the part of
the destroyer, scraping and smearing away elements, weathering, piling up and re-ordering them, as if they’d been hit by a natural disaster.”
Not content with the usual tools available to the electronic musician, John has created innovative new systems and techniques for both live performance and production. This includes a light-controlled instrument that allows him manipulate his live sound through gesture, flickering candles, flashing torches and pyrotechnics. For the track “Gulps,” John coded special software to layer huge swathes of sound. Using a recursive system, he created 7.1 billion layers of a recording of the North Sea, one for each human alive on the planet at the time of writing.
Featuring a guest appearance by Shabaka Hutchings (Sons of Kemet), “Gulps” is a poignant demonstration of John’s
approach: Hutchings’ intimate clarinet is gradually engulfed by a (literal) ocean of sound. This is sculptural sound design
where technological innovation is always at the service of the emotional impact of the music: deeply human at its root, and
mind-expanding in its ambition.

Desire Path Recordings
www.desirepathrecordings.com | leafcutterjohn.com

Credits
Written and produced by Leafcutter John, with Varpu
Kronholm playing additional percussion on “I Know You
Can” and Shabaka Hutchings playing Clarinet on “Gulps.”
“Endless Wave” contains elements of “Forest Of Spades” by
Strings Of Consciousness, used with permission.
Mastered by James Plotkin
Photography by Max Baillie
Design by Chris Koelle, Leafcutter John, and Varpu Kronholm

Distributed by Revolver

Leafcutter John - Resurrection

from 'Tiento de la Luz' [CD|LP|DIGITAL]
Denovali Records · den249
available in February on all format at [http://denovali.com/thomaskoner]

Tiento de la Luz

Thomas Köner - Tiento De La Luz 5

Forwind kicks 2016 off with three powerful new EP’s by Tokyo's Tomonari Nozaki. The first instalment 'Credence' is Tomonari's first new material on the label since his hugely well received debut 'North Palace' in 2013.

The new compositions see Tomonari experimenting with even denser layers of sound, morphing acoustics and chugging industrial rhythms, all while keeping his distinctive and much loved tape recorded sonics hissing and gestating away.


Pt.1

Track 1, titled 'Cuando El Misterio Es Demasiado Impresionante Es Imposible Desobedecer' taken from Leandro Fresco & Rafael Anton Irisarri's album, 'La Equidistancia'. Available April 10th. Pre-order now available: https://astrangelyisolatedplace.bandcamp.com/album/la-equidistancia

ASIPV008 - Leandro Fresco and Rafael Anton Irisarri / La Equidistancia

Leandro Fresco & Rafael Anton Irisarri / Cuando El Misterio Es Demasiado Impresionante...

'The Future is a Forward Escape Into the Past' is the latest album by Los Angeles-based multidisciplinary artist and composer Yann Novak, and his second for Touch. It considers the relationships between memory, time, and context through four vibrantly constructed tracks that push Novak’s work in a new direction while simultaneously exploring his sonic past. 'The Future is a Forward Escape Into the Past' is composed as a quadriptych – a single gesture broken into four parts – that meditates on the inevitable progression of time, our relationship to the past, and our distortion of the past through the imperfections of memory. The album will be released February 23, 2018 on the London-based label Touch. Available digitally and on CD, the physical version will be packaged in a gatefold sleeve as a limited edition of 500. For more information on the artist and release, please visit www.touch33.net.

The album’s conceptual roots stem from 'The Archaic Revival' by American ethnobotanist and psychonaut Terence McKenna. In it, McKenna theorizes that when a culture becomes dysfunctional it attempts to revert back to a saner moment in its own history. He suggested that abstract expressionism, body piercing and tattooing, psychedelic drug use, sexual permissiveness, and rave culture were proof of this default to a more primal time. The text’s idealism was influential to Novak in the ‘90s, but today the theory bears a darkly-veiled resemblance to the rise of nostalgia-driven nationalism. Regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with the signifiers of a ‘better time’ - McKenna’s idea highlights our propensity for selective memory, seeing history through the lens of memory instead of fact. On 'The Future is a Forward Escape Into the Past' Novak looked back at his own older works through this lens as inspiration.

“For this album I was interested in expanding into a more emotive compositional style and palette. In doing so, I was reminded that this was territory I had covered early on in my career — the whole process became a way to reconnect with my own past and history.”

The Album’s four tracks dynamically shift and surge, where time is rendered as material and momentum compels it into movement. Subtle distortion throughout the album ties the tracks together and echoes techniques explored in Novak’s 'Meadowsweet' (Dragon’s Eye, 2006). Tension gives way to a halcyon vision of place in “Radical Transparency,” immediately followed by the austere swells of “The Inertia of Time,” a piece that captures the twin impulse of generating optimistic beauty in harshly muted tones. Both tracks introduce subtle bass swells and stabs reminiscent of 'In Residence' (Dragon’s Eye, 2008). From there, the album grows darker with “Casting Ourselves Back into the Past,” and “Nothing Ever Transcends its Immediate Environment,” two icier tracks that preserve the album’s core: a layer of something long since passed that locks us into the very moment we inhabit. The latter introduces a processed vocal sample of Geneva Skeen, similar to Novak’s collaborative work with Marc Manning on 'Pairings' (Dragon’s Eye, 2007). The album is a study in perception and alteration, manipulation and awareness, effectively capturing Novak’s command of emotional texturing.

The Future is a Forward Escape Into the Past'

The Inertia of Time

Map 165 is a collaboration between Martin A Smith and Tim Hooper exploring disorganised sound, atonality, beauty and evocation. Following on from 2014’s The Fatigue of Sunlight and Wine (Voxxov) and their collection of live recordings A Foreign Country, we are pleased to announce the release of their latest album Of Adam Sleeping in the Lap of God. 

An ambient work in four movements inspired by the north portico of Chartres cathedral Of Adam Sleeping in the Lap of God melts stone into music using a series of field recordings, synths and guitars. 

Of Heaven and earth: 
The formless becomes formed. A swirling coalescence of themes and sounds. Through repetition a pattern appears. Order is created. Across a slow shimmering, four notes call out bridging the void. 

The deepest midnight blue 
The sound from the lowest point of the lake 
The silence of the space above the Earth 
The beat of the heart 

Of the firmament: 
A blissful disorientation. Shimmering, confusing, a wrapping inwards of time and rhythm with multiple refraction of the same themes overlaid but still apparent. 

It is the clangour of bells reflected off stone walls in an old town 
It is the beat of wings over a lake 
It is the confusion of walking in to a dark interior out of the brilliant sunshine 
It is the clamour of foreign languages in the market place 

Of the Sun and the Moon: 
Reflective and contemplative, with a receding sadness. Watching the last sun of Summer set knowing that Winter will be coming. 

Wind between the fingers of trees 
Dust settling in corners until Spring 
Hands resting upon the table 
Valleys filled with fine rain 

Of Eden: 
Neither afraid of night or morning. Each day welcomed; each day passing as easily as water in a river. The security of knowing what you like and trusting your judgement. Equal with all, afraid of none. Night comes blissfully again. 

The comfort of time passing 
The first moment of sleep 
Closing the door once home 
A friend’s voice 

Written and recorded by Martin A. Smith and Tim Hooper 
Assembled and Produced by Martin A. Smith 
Choir at Chartres Cathedral recorded by Helen Smith 
Recorded at Flying Boat Studio, Cambridge, UK 
Sleeve artwork by Katie English 
This is Rural Colours 84

Map165 / Of Adam sleeping in the lap of God (Snippets)

Premiering on the Ransom Note: https://bit.ly/2MyJojX

"An enchanting new album." - The Ransom Note 

Heinali is the alias of self-taught composer and sound-designer Oleg Shpudeiko from Ukraine. Now well established under the name he brings along his latest full length ‘Iridescent’ due for release on October 12th on Injazero Records. 

Having garnered rapturous responses to his earlier output and last year’s ‘Anthem’ Oleg continues to push the boundaries and experiment with altering mood and atmospheres of any space - with abstract yet deeply personal transmissions of ambient synthesiser work and subaqueous, minimal techno contortions. 

‘Iridescent’ consists of fragments of studio improvisation sessions recorded in 2016 and 2017, some of them recorded in one unedited take on a modular system and some layered and later morphed into compositions. As the title suggests Heinali crafts shimmering, incandescent portraits, rich in his unique characteristics and compositional liberty. 

Apart from the “musical sculptures,” that represent the bulk of this LP, Oleg was interested in the exploration of polyphonic capabilities of the modular system. ‘Rainbow Folding’, a loose homage to Terry Riley’s 'A Rainbow In Curved Air,' features an interplay of several independent, but distinct voices and their processed shadows — ‘ghost voices’. In 'Shadow Invention’ eerie atmospherics steal the spotlight and dominate the composition, ending in a cacophony of the ‘ghost voices’. 

Oleg says of the album, “it’s a kind of studio dairy. A reflection on the development of my relations with the hardware instruments and exploration of them as channelling vessels for my experiences and ideas.” 

“One can think of Iridescent’ as ‘musical sculpture’ analogy — when the body of music stays the same, but its surface is flickering with various colours over time — sometimes in a subtle manner, sometimes loud and clear. Or it can be understood in the context of various colours of polyphony, or as a liminal condition of the colour as if it’s being ‘stuck’ in the mist of twilight zone between neighbouring colour-states, so it can’t become a particular colour and is in a flickering kaleidoscopic state.” 

‘Iridescent’ bares Oleg’s style of sonic storytelling and austere, otherworldly textural embellishments that bring to mind Ben Frost, Akira Yamaoka, and Oneohtrix Point Never but also plants the seed for much more club ready electro. ‘Starling Reprise I’ is a scorching piece of ambient techno that conjures Four Tet, LTO and Susumu Yokota’s blissful, kaleidoscopic synth work whilst ‘Starling Reprise II’ retains the frosty, steely ambience that has become Heinali’s calling card. 

Cover artwork by Olga Gaidash.
Mastered by Taylor Deupree at 12k Mastering.

Pre-order

Heinali - Rainbow Folding

"Who Knows, Who Knew" is taken from the album Lies, Deception and Sin by Niskogradba.

Release date: 18.10.2018
Format: CD/Digital

All tracks sampled, looped and produced by Niskogradba 
between November 2017-March 2018 
Mastered by Roel Weerdenburg

Limited edition of 40, Professionally manufactured high quality CDr's, Handmade packages, hand numbered.
Different colored wallets with envelopes: Brown Kraft, Blue and Red.
Bigger and smaller sleeves, smallest size in transparant bag.
Photo's.

Order: https://shimmeringmoodsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/lies-deception-and-sin

Niskogradba - Who Knows, Who Knew (Taken from Lies, Deception and Sin - Out Now)

Adriaan de Roover, who is also known as Oaktree (check out a few of his excellent mixes for Headphone Commute), announces a new EP, titled Voor anderen, with which he joins a Belgian imprint, Dauw. The label has been on the forefront of delicate ambient music, working with graphic artist Femke Strijbol "to create a unique hand-made piece of art that flatters both the ear and the eye." With this new release, they welcome Maarten De Naeyer as a new in-house graphic designer to continue the visual identity while opening up the door to new artists. I continue to be happy with their choice of album covers, which "engage interactions between different art disciplines." The work of Adriaan nicely slots among the label's catalogue, with its soft blurry hues of minimalism, micro-drone and environmental sound. On the EP, elegantly combined organic textures blend with their electronic parallels, sweeping the wide-ranging frequency spectrum across glitters and bass. The selection features commissioned pieces between 2015-2018 "merging feelings of distance and proximity into melancholic sonic entities."

Voor anderen

TRACK PREMIERE : Adriaan de Roover - Voor Damiaan

Yann Novak (b. 1979) is a multidisciplinary artist and composer based in Los Angeles. His work is guided by his unique perspective as a queer autodidact. Informed by his partial color blindness and dyslexia, Novak uses sound and light to explore how these intangible materials can act as catalysts to focus our awareness on our own direct experience. Novak’s diverse body of work—audiovisual installations, performances, architectural interventions, sound diffusions, recording, and prints—invites participants to imagine how divergent our individual perceptions of reality can be.

His work has been experienced through performances at Brisbane Powerhouse, Brisbane (2023), Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha (2021); PICA, Portland (2019); Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2019); Desert Daze, California (2018); Fylkingen, Stockholm (2018); Iklectik, London (2018); de Young Museum, San Francisco (2016); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016); Vincent Price Art Museum, Monterey Park (2014); The Stone, New York (2011); LACMA, Los Angeles (2010); and Mutek Festival, Montreal (2007); among others. Novak’s work has been exhibited at Dimensions Variable, Miami (2020); Human Resources, Los Angeles (2017); The Getty Villa, Pacific Palisades, California (2016); The Broad, Los Angeles (2015); Commonwealth & Council, Los Angeles (2014); Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, California (2011); Soundfjord, London (2010); The Henry Art Gallery, Seattle (2009); and SFMoMA, San Francisco (2009); among others. His compositions have been released by Room40, Touch, LINE, 901 Editions, and Dragon’s Eye Recordings, among others.

Novak’s recent honors include the designation of Cultural Trailblazer by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (2021-2022), and the California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists (2019). He has participated in numerous artists residencies including Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio, Melbourne (2019); EMS Elektronmusikstudion, Stockholm (2018); Mountain School of Arts, Los Angeles (2015); Taliesin Artist Residency, Spring Green, Wisconsin (2014); Touch Mentorship Programme, London (2014); Jental Artist Residency, Sharidan, Wyoming (2010), among others. Novak’s work has been the subject of articles and reviews in publications including C Magazine, Drain Magazine, Inside Art, LA Weekly, Los Angeles Times, Neural Magazine, Signal to Noise, The Stranger, and The Wire, among others.

The Inertia of Time

Yann Novak

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