Matt Elliott - Failed Songs

Matt Elliott - Failed Songs
Genre : Folk
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01. Mellow
02. Eulogy For Liam
03. Melange
04. South Canadian Sea
05. Song To Child
06. Lament
07. Wedding Song

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Richard Skelton - Landings

Richard Skelton - Landings
Genre : Ambient, Experimental, Electronic
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01.Noon Hill Wood [08:27]
02.Scar Tissue [01:56]
03.Threads Across The River [08:20]
04.Greens Within Brook [04:27]
05.Of The Last Generation [07:07]
06.Undertow [06:27]
07.Voice Of The Boooon [07:27]
08.Rapture [02:01]
09.Pariah [04:44]
10.River Song [06:38]
11.Remaindered [05:35]
12.The Shape Leaves [07:02]

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Having recorded a significant body of work under various guises including A Broken Consort and Clouwbeck, Richard Skelton returns with a brand new and long anticipated album under his own name. Following on from 'Marking Time' (originally released via Preservation in 2008 only to be reissued on limited vinyl by Type over the summer), 'Landings' is an album steeped in the wild rural landscape of Skelton's surroundings. Over the span of just a few releases he's managed to establish a language all his own, standing apart from the dominant currents within the neo-classical, ambient and post-rock genres and becoming known for a bowed-string variant of modern classical music of his own making. From the first jagged strokes of 'Noon Hill Wood' you're instantly aware that you could only be listening to a Richard Skelton record - the hugely expressive, deeply mournful string arrangements writhe and overlap, squealing with harmonic overtones as if the strings were being sawn into. After only a few early playthroughs, Landings feels like a more ambitious and substantial package than previous Skelton outings thanks to an expanded instrumental palette and a duration that permits the exploration of a more complete and varied narrative. 'Scar Tissue', for instance, features tumbling minor-key guitar fragments, creaking along in some unspecified woodland exterior - you can often hear site-specific soundscapes of the natural world captured in the background during these recordings, and in truth the music is as much about these unusual, deeply atmospheric recording locations Skelton chooses as it is the instrumentation itself. On 'Green Withins Brook' you can hear gentle waves of concertina droning melodiously over the babble of a stream, while 'Voice Of The Book' is leant a reflective ambience by the dimensions of the ruined, ancient farmhouse in which it was recorded. Additionally, this odd and characterful locale is coloured by incidental knocking sounds that seem to emanate from the corners of the mix. Even during the less obviously in-situ productions there's an almost spooky presence hanging in the air between notes. 'Of The Last Generation' and 'Threads Across The River' are imbued with some kind of intense and palpable aura - if not an outright sense of place. Throughout Skelton's catalogue you'll hear pieces masked in naturalistic reverb, as if he's trying to distance his music from the listener - blurring the edges with a soft-focus mist, and that effect is put to especially good use during the closing moments of Landings: the detached and austere guitar of 'Remaindered' is like the ghost of a Nick Drake song while 'The Shape Leaves' serves as hauntingly aloof exit music. Perhaps even more so than on prior works, here Richard Skelton proves himself to be more than just a modern-classical outsider and consolidates his status as an auteur with a singular vision; Landing feels like the album he's been building up to for some time now. Amazing music.

Chihei Hatakeyama - A Long Journey

Chihei Hatakeyama - A Long Journey
Genre : Ambient, Experimental, Electronic
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01. morning arrive on the island
02. waves
03. confession
04. the moon reflecting on the surface of the ocean
05. within new trees
06. a quiet pond
07. the distant sound of a bustle
08. calm
09. white light
10. haze from the river
11. the dance of the sea

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Having enjoyed a busy and very fruitful 2009, Chihei Hatakeyama is set to kick off 2010 in much the same manner. Last year the Tokyo microsound composer delivered exceptional albums for Room40 and Under The Spire, now he's on the verge of releasing another pairing of long-players over the next couple of months. The first of these comes via the dependably excellent Home Normal imprint, and bases itself upon field recordings made on a trip to San Francisco in 2006. Appropriately, the record is titled A Long Journey, and takes on the feel of a dreamlike sequence of scenes from different locations. The record begins with 'Morning Arrive On The Island', whose hazed-over tones are incredibly warm and welcoming, focusing more on Hatakayama's processed guitar tones than any environmental or field recorded sounds. 'Waves' changes that to some degree, latching onto a sense of place with its denouement of filtered incidental recordings, while 'Confession' dissolves crowd noise into a misty stupor of drones - somehow making an everyday, street-bound racket sound like a beautiful auditory happening. Similarly, 'Within New Trees' You can hear a variety of montaged recordings evaporating into luscious, lulling tones, while 'The Distant Sound Of Bustle' goes largely unconditioned by any post-production, instead becoming a duet between street-side location noises and Hatakayama's delicate piano musings. There are eleven excellent compositions here - let's hope both Home Normal and Hatakayama himself can maintain this standard over 2010.

Konntinent – Opal Island

Konntinent – Opal Island
Genre : Ambient, Experimental, Electronic
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01. Opal Island
02. Surrender number
03. Dry eyed
04. 44 55 33
05. Frost Fair
06. Sabotka the dreamer
07. Jansson’s Temptation
08. Numeral
09. Lossless
10. Collo & Orro
11. White Horse Falls
12. Uncertain steps to an unknown end

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Among many obvious definitions of the ‘heart’ is this: ‘the vital center and source of one’s being, emotions, and sensibilities’.

It’s the first word I think of when I hear the work of Antony Harrison (the man behind the Konntinent moniker). And when you listen to his work, its really obvious why.

The Konntinent sound is very much based on micro-elements I guess, at least this time around. Unlike his earlier drone-based work, ‘Opal Island’ has much more of Antony’s guitar playing to the fore, as it does the gorgeous vocals of Lisa Madisson on ‘Dry eyed’, as well as Antony’s own beautifully subtle singing. It has odd rhythms coming in and out, piano, weird glitchy sounds and tones I can’t quite place. Its all in the craftsmanship you see. Its very rare to come across an artist who actually makes ‘songs’ which can also be defined as ‘pieces’ – and as such his work is so hard to place.

All I am left to do is to go back to the image of the heart. In Japan, there is a faux-English usage of the word, made adjective…the Japanese say ‘heartful’. Its on billboards, products and people use it all the time. Its basically used to describe something which is full of emotion and induces said emotion in others. Whilst the word admittedly does my head in when I am in Japan, in a nice and concise way it covers my feelings for the music Antony Harrison creates. Opal Island is a very ‘heartful’ album, as Antony is himself a very ‘heartful’ artist and songsmith. And whilst linguists will not initially thank me, after hearing this record, you just might get what I mean.

Ian Hawgood

Eluvium – Similes

Eluvium – Similes
Genre : Ambient, Experimental, Electronic
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1. Leaves Eclipse The Light
2. The Motion Makes Me Last
3. In Culmination
4. Weird Creatures
5. Nightmare 5
6. Making Up Minds
7. Bending Dream
8. Cease to Know

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The long-awaited follow-up to the acclaimed Copia, Eluvium takes a courageous creative leap with Similes, an 8-song album featuring three key musical elements previously uncharted by Eluvium: percussion, a verse-chorus song structure, and singing. For a celebrated experimental musician, it was just about the bravest and scariest direction to go. In this way, Similes is the most truly experimental Eluvium album yet, and also the most accessible. Written, performed and recorded as always by Matthew Cooper in his own Watership Sounds studio, Similes marries Eluvium's trademark dream-like aura with Cooper's unique, laconic vocals, akin to an especially contemplative Ian Curtis with trace reflections of Magnetic Fields and Brian Eno. It is the most daring - and ultimately most rewarding - work of Eluvium's impressive and prolific career.

Amiina - Re Minore EP

Amiina - Re Minore EP
Genre : Electronic, Post Rock, Ambient
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01. ásinn
02. Risturinn
03. Tvisturinn

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Amiina is a band based in Reykjavík Iceland. At present the band counts six people - Edda Rún Ólafsdóttir, Hildur Ársælsdóttir, María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir, Sólrún Sumarliðadóttir, Magnús Trygvason Eliassen and Guðmundur Vignir Karlsson (aka Kippi Kaninus). The bands origins go back to the late 1990s when four girls studying string instruments at the Reykjavík College of Music formed a string quartet, playing classical music, but increasingly moving on to playing all sorts of music with various bands in Reykjavík. In 1999 the quartet joined Icelandic band Sigur Rós on stage. The collaboration has continued ever since with amiina contributing strings to Sigur Rós’ music on tours and in the recording studio on the albums ( ) , Takk and Með Suð... In 2004 amiina’s first EP AnimaminA was released, followed by the Seoul single (2006), the album Kurr (2007), a Lee Hazlewood collaboration on a 7” vinyl Hilli (at the Top of...) (2008) and the limited release EP Re Minore (2009). In the autumn of 2007 drummer Magnús Trygvason Eliassen joined amiina on tours, adding percussion to the band’s textures. A few months later in early 2008 a collaboration between Kippi Kaninus and amiina was established while preparing a show together for the Reykjavík Arts Festival. The merging of Kippi Kaninus' electronics and rhythms with amiina's sounds and Magnús' percussion became the starting point for more established collaboration between the six musicians.

Autechre – Oversteps "FAKE"

Autechre – Oversteps "FAKE"
Genre : Electronic
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01. r ess
02. ilanders
03. known(1)
04. pt2ph8
05. qplay
06. see on see
07. Treale
08. os veix3
09. O=0
10. d-sho qub
11. st epreo
12. redfall
13. krYlon
14. Yuop

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Autechre have announced details surrounding their tenth full-length album, Oversteps.

As was the case with their previous nine efforts, Rob Brown and Sean Booth will follow up 2008’s Quaristice by releasing through their long term label home Warp. Although we’re in the dark at this stage as to how the record is sounding, if its predecessor is anything to go by, expect it to surprise and frustrate in equal measures. What we are sure of, though, is that the lads from Rochdale will embark on an extensive tour of the UK and Europe in support of the LP. Starting out at Manchester’s Pure venue on March 11th, the party will swing by—among many others—Minehead (for Bloc), Glasgow, Paris, Ljubljana, Copenhagen and Amsterdam, before ending up at an as yet unannounced London venue on April 10th.

Those who still dabble in the black arts will be pleased to learn that the album will be made available as a deluxe vinyl edition, which means 180 gram discs, housed in a debossed rigid slipcase, with a 900mm x 600mm double-sided poster also thrown in for good measure.

Rochdale’s bleep and squeak merchants Autechre have announced details of their beautifully packaged 10th studio album. Released via Warp, their long term home, there is plenty to say about Oversteps as long as it involves the packaging and the pressing of super high quality 180gm vinyls.

Housed in a special slip case, and with each record having it’s own dedicated cardboard sleeve, Oversteps sounds like an IDM pervert’s wet dream. Also included is a poster of the album art printed on Offenbach paper, an mp3 version of the album and the choice of two WAV versions of the album – 24 or 48 bit resolution.

Absolutely no word on the music however, though I would hazard a guess that it will be challenging, electronic and please as many people as it alienates.

Autechre will be performing at various shows and festivals in support of Oversteps through in March and April, including the Bloc Weekend in Minehead, Copenhagen, Paris and Glasgow, before finishing up with a secret show somewhere in London.

Syntaks - Ylajali

Syntaks - Ylajali
Genre : Electronica, Ambient, Shoegaze
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1. twentytwohundred
2. love camp 23
3. phantasmogoria
4. she moves in colors
5. buio omega
6. blue sunshine
7. mistral moon
8. the shape of things to come
9. dark night

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Over a century ago, Norwegian author Knut Hamsun proposed a new creative ideal, a form of literature that would take the intricacies of the human mind as its main object, effectively describing “the whisper of the blood and the pleading of the bone marrow.” One hundred-plus years later, Danish duo (and avid Hamsun devotees) Syntaks have taken up Hamsun’s agenda with single-minded purpose, naming their new album after a character in Hamsun novel Hunger, recording it just blocks from where Hamsun wrote his masterpiece, and taking the author’s ambitious mission statement as their own. The album in question, Syntaks’ luminous Ylajali, crackles with emotion and imagination, giving form to its creators’ vibrant inner lives. In Ylajali’s beautifully scorched sonic landscape, acres of drones run beneath Anna Cecilia’s wordless sighs; beats crunch like autumn leaves while synthesizers swell, flourish, and disappear. Songs either tramp through hazy forests until they fade into the dark (the Boards of Canada-esque “Love Camp 23”), or stack tone upon tone like translucent building blocks, building to forceful, near-operatic crescendos (the epic “She Moves in Colors”). Syntaks’ Jakob Skott is a drummer by trade, and his percussion—both live and programmed, but always lent an otherworldly sheen—plays the sinister counterpoint to Cecelia’s tender melodies. “The Shape of Things to Come” typifies Syntaks’ dreamlike musical logic, drifting through fields of placid melody until sheets of guitar noise, metallic snares, and choir-like vocals rush in. Once the storm passes, all that’s left is the sun, glinting through the mist. Hamsun would be proud: Syntaks’ Ylajali is an ambient pop album as dense, emotionally complex, and, ultimately, as mysterious as the human mind; and like any great mystery, Ylajali keeps its audience engrossed until the bittersweet conclusion.

Language of Landscape - 'Memories Fade Under A Shallow Autumn Snow

Language of Landscape - 'Memories Fade Under A Shallow Autumn Snow'
Genre : Electronica, Ambient
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01 And The Rain Embraced Our Closing Words
02 Contemplating Departure In Wake of Clear Light
03 Speaking Between Truth and Denial

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Languange of Landscape is Chris Tenz and Cory Zaradur, two Calgary-based friends whose relationship was borne from a mutual fascination with the music of Last Days, Keith Kenniff, Max Richter and other prominent members of the electroacoustic alumni. 'Memories Fade Under A Shallow Autumn Snow' was initially concepted as a severely-limited monthly series. Just fifteen hard copies of these beautiful sounds exist and Phantom Channel is delighted to dedicate its innaugral 2010 release to this highly talented pair.

Tom White – In Poor Visibility

Tom White – In Poor Visibility
Genre : Electronica, Ambient
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1. Global 02:26
2. On Sundays 04:52
3. Cecil Andrew 12:04
4. Over Familiar 05:26
5. A Pardon 03:28
6. Visibility 05:00
7. Moredon Cooling Towers 04:20
8. Destitute 03:45
9. Nobody In The Water 02:

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Tom White continues to go from strength to strength with another absolutely marvellous album, this time on UK homegrown label Hibernate. What I like is the way he’s becoming more and more refined with each release, yet he’s lost none of the earthy goodness that made me sit up and pay attention in the first place. It’s good to hear him so comfortable with longer compositions, such as the 12 minute ‘Cecil Andrew’, and yet he’s still equally at home with the shorter pieces as well. A deep and melancholy sound pervades his work which I find particularly appealing and there’s a scratchy, organic sound to the work here that gives it a ‘realness’ that suits the kind of music he’s writing. There’s beauty, certainly, and also plenty of melodic elements, but I think he’s at his strongest when he’s delivering the kind of soundscape / textural work that he’s become more and more known for. Live processed guitars and electronics provide much of the underlying texture and with edits layered on top it creates a spellbinding mixture of clean and musty, dark and light, beautiful and strangely dissonant. This combination is the real strength of his work and, as ever, listing each track would undo a lot of the work that’s been put in to make it coherent as a whole. Each track is a small work of sonic art on its own, yet together it makes for a totally complete sounding full album. Simply put Tom White is an exceptionally exciting prospect on the UK improv / electronic scene and this album merely confirms just how good he is. A massive and resounding recommendation.

Minamo – Durée

Minamo – Durée
Genre : Electronica, Ambient
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01 Elementary Domain
02 When Unwelt Melts
03 Individual Synesthesia
04 Helical Scenery
05 Help Ourselves
06 Be Born
07 First Breathing At Last
08 Beginning

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Back in 1999, on the forefront of the Japanese electronic/acoustic microsound scene, was the then two-piece live improvisation band Minamo (two more members were added in 2001 to make the current four-piece lineup). Their live concerts helped pioneer this hybrid of delicate and natural instrumentation with microscopic electronics and subtle digital processing bringing an organic richness to a genre that threatened to remain coldly digital. Fans of Minamo not lucky enough to see them create their music live have enjoyed their studio albums and collaborative releases which captured these performances and processed them into hypnotic drones and electro-acoustic soundscapes.

Durée, their last studio work since 2007’s collaboration with Tape, and their follow-up to Shining on 12k (12k1031, now out of print), takes influence from the French philosopher Henri-Louis Bergson’s concept of “pure durée,” an idea that one’s consciousness is a constant flow and not something that can be divided, reversed, or measured. Minamo used these ideas in creating their music, despite the contradiction of the time-stamped CD format, to try to subvert the ideas of compartmentalized “time” and “space.” With a strong sense of non-linearity and flow taken from Bergson’s ideas, Minamo have created a colorful, skittering wash of music, noise, and texture that embraces a sense of out-there-ness.

Minamo are Yuichiro Iwashita (acoustic guitar, percussion), Namiko Sasamoto (keyboards, saxophone, percussion), Keiichi Sugimoto (electric guitar, computer, nintendo, bells, recording/mixing) and Tetsuro Yasunaga (percussion, harmonium, analog synthesizer, pedals, small instruments). Like all of their music, Durée was recording during long, live, improvisational sessions and later finessed and mixed in the studio for release. Their process this time around, however, was much more analog than before. While they have always incorporated guitars, computers and synthesizers into their work, Durée captured performances created with an abundance of acoustic and percussion instruments and analog synths, keeping digital effects to a minimum and preferring the dirty sound of guitar pedals. The process this time around came easier due to the natural musical communication built between the members over the past 10 years. Durée simply finds more playing and interaction than editing and programming as compared to previous releases and, according to Sugimoto, is finally the mark where Minamo wants to be, and a template for work to come.

Durée, which will be released worldwide on January 12th, 2010, has the distinction of launching the new design of the 12k digipack which subtly updates the austere white package to a more unified and understated play between simple type and photography.

Pantha du Prince – Black Noise

Pantha du Prince – Black Noise
Genre : Electronica, Ambient
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1. Lay In A Shimmer
2. Abglanz
3. The Splendour
4. Stick To My Side
5. A Nomad’s Retreat
6. Satellite Snyper
7. Behind The Stars
8. Bohemian Forest
9. Welt Am Draht
10. Im Bann
11. Es Schneit

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Rough Trade is very pleased to announce the signing of electronic musician and producer, Pantha du Prince. Pantha Du Prince fuses house, techno, shoegazy electronica and psychedelic electro-acoustic soundscapes into music that is at once both beautiful and bewitching.

On his new album, Pantha Du Prince, who lives in Berlin and Paris, claims: music slumbers in all matter; any sound, even silence, is already music. The mission, then, must be to render audible what is unheard and unheard of: black noise, a frequency that is inaudible to man. Black noise often presages natural disasters, earthquakes or floods; only some animals perceive this “calm before the storm.” Black noise is something archaic and earthy. The music on Black Noise balances precariously on the slippery threshold between art and nature, between techno and folklore, which lends it a certain spectral and intangible aspect.

Black Noise also features a couple of special guests; Noah Lennox of Animal Collective sings on “Stick To My Side” and Tyler Pope of !!! and LCD Soundsystem plays bass on “The Splendour.”

Wereju - The Way Of The Cross

Wereju - The Way Of The Cross
Genre : Electronica, Ambient
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1) He Knows That Time Is Short (15:24)
2) Forsaken (4:45)
3) Halo Wrapped In Thorns (8:56)
4) The Nails Go In (7:55)

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This is the fifth release of Wereju's label "Idrone Park" like all Idrone park releases this comes in a black cardboard card with photographic artwork on it. the CDr itself is white. It has a photo of a cross on a mountain and in the inlay you see jesus crawling with a cross on his back. This music is all about suffering. carrying your own personal cross on your back.
A very heavy album like i am used from Wereju. Wereju itself means in Russian "I believe" which is an interesting addition to this album from this man from Ireland. The first track is called "He knows that time is short" which is a 15 minute slow evolving and mourning piece, soaked with sadness and pain. It is also the most melodic and melancholic piece of this album. The middle part is very dark but at the ending it gets more euphoric, like a man who knows he will die finally accepting his own fate. Track 2 "forsaken" is a short 5 minute track. This track is very cold and distant. "Halo wrapped in thorns" the third is a 9 minute track which gets more dark and violent then the others, the sound gets harsher and harsher and deeper and darker. Suffering and nothing else. The end piece is called "the nails go in"which is cold, dark and very empty. Like all the pain has gone, aswell as all emotions, a dead man hanging on his cross.

Chihei Hatakeyama – The Secret distance of Tochka

Chihei Hatakeyama – The Secret distance of Tochka
Genre : Electronica, Ambient
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01.dot 02:46
02.wave and window 07:01
03.monologue 03:43
04.outside of Tochka 07:45
05.monologue II 03:35
06.inside of Tochka 11:04
07.bonfire 03:39

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Terms like “busy bee” were invented for artists like Chihei Hatakeyama. Living just outside of Tokyo, Sound Sculptor Hatakeyama has worked in straight-forward Rock environments (with a couple of bands while still at school), electronic ensemble constellations (as part of Opitope with Tomoyoshi Date or the constantly fluctuating line-up of improvisatory formation Copa del Papa) and as a solo artist (releasing his debut on respected label Kranky in 2005). He also organises regular Sound Art events and is co-head of the Kualauk Table-imprint, documenting some of the most rewarding sessions at these performances. Having just moved to a new home, he has now entered his most productive creative phase and his most prolific period as a recording act: Current projects “Saunter” and “The River” have already been reviewed on tokafi over the past weeks and another new full-length, “The Secret distance of TOCHKA” is out now on Boid. All of them are conceptual in some form, even though this term does not carry the typical analytical connotations attached to many comparable productions: “Saunter” (On Room40) deals with the Chinese painting style “Sansui-Ga” and “The River” with the philosophical idea that you can never “enter the same river twice” (famously proposed in “Apocalypse Now”). With this in mind, we sat down with Chihei Hatakeyama to talk about the interrelation between sounds and ideas.

No connection!

I have just moved to a new place and still with no internet connection.... i,ll try next week to upload some records as usually.

G