When the clouds :: The longed-for season

When the clouds :: The longed-for season
Genre : Shoegaze, Electronica

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01. The Dawn and The Embrace
02. Rise On
03. Flooding River
04. November Song
05. The Place Where This Path Leads
06. The House of Sleep

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When the Clouds is the recording project of artist and producer Franceso Galano of Salerno, Italy. Francesco has a strong passion for art which has led him from an early age and culminated in his decision to study Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. At age 13, he had his first brush with making music via a broken acoustic guitar which he'd received as a gift from his uncle. From that moment on, his life was divided by two passions: art and music. While playing in several bands as a teenager, he also began composing music on his own. Francesco released his first demo in 2004, under the name Eid Ethyca, called “White Noise, Awake Memories”. This early project was close to the musical dimension he'd later finesse as When the Clouds. One notable difference being, voice was an important component to the song structure. With When the Clouds he's focused more on sound, spending time studying and obsessing over musique concrète's textures, noises and glitches. As a result he's steered towards instrumental music, and began to incorporate acoustic instruments in his sound. His focus on more organic sound, he's started to make extremely narrative instrumental electronic music that in and of itself tells a story. In each of these tracks, each listener could define in words or images something different. Inspired by the pastoral beauty of nature and its evocative power that holds sway over him, When the Clouds' very name can be left open to interpretation, just as any viewer can find shapes or meaning in the clouds themselves as they pass overhead. The Longed-For Season is a six track tapestry that reveals more and more of itself with each listen. Equal parts restraint, masterfully crafted tension and euphoric release that will leave listeners lost in thought. RIYL: Mum, Telefon Tel Aviv, The Soul's Release.

Ginormous - The Sound Of Love Impermanent

Ginormous - The Sound Of Love Impermanent
Genre : Ambient, Electronica, Indie

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01. Every Tooth Is Bared (With Rohner Segnitz) 01:48
02. North-Part 1 06:40
03. Joy When You Come (With Rohner Segnitz) 05:08
04. If The Sky Had Stich Marks 05:36
05. Fallen For Lovers-Part1 03:11
06. So You'll Know Where I Am 06:24
07. Lycanized (With Rohner Segnitz) 01:20
08. North-Part 2 (With Deru) 05:17
09. The Splendor Of Gretel 01:29
10. Fallen For Lovers-Part2 (With Bryant Landers) 04:48
11. Hollow Ashes 05:02
12. A Darkness By Day (With Rohner Segnitz) 04:42
13. The Sound Of Love Impermanent 05:13
14. A Feather Is Re-Glued To The Flight 01:37

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"a few years before the making of this album, lisa wahlander introduced me to the choreography of maria gillespie and her company, oni dance. i immediately connected with maria's work, and was especially drawn to her music selections. i asked lisa to give maria my first two albums as well as a deru album from my good friend ben wynn. some months later in the summer of 2006, maria incorporated my track "to reveal interiors" and deru's "only the circle" into her beautiful, haunting piece "la hora de salir." it was the first time that either ben or i had seen dance choreographed to our music. since i listen to and create my music largely in solitude, i never realized that the experience of having my work filtered through other artists' minds and bodies was something i so craved.

by the fall, the transition to a new studio coupled with a hectic professional life had slowed progress on my third album, "at night, under artificial light." around this time, maria invited lisa and me to a dance performance at the ford amphitheater in hollywood. before the show maria mentioned she was working on a new piece and asked if i would write the entire score. she was accustomed to creating choreography first and adding music late in the process, but with this new work she wanted to start with the music and use that as inspiration for the choreography. i said yes on the spot.

i started working on a sketch the next day, even before i had the benefit of maria's direction. just from seeing her work and hearing the music she selected in the past, i felt like i had enough to go on. i played the sketch to maria and she said, "that's it. that is the main theme of the piece." that sketch became the title track on this album. i put my "artificial light" project on the backburner and started churning out more sketches for maria, with her direction and input.

unlike the sluggish work of finishing my album, the dance score poured out rapidly. creating music for someone else's purposes seemed to be all i needed to gain momentum again. not only did it satisfy a longstanding desire of mine to make more spacious and patient music, but it was also a welcome occasion to incorporate the talents of friends, providing a home for some unfinished, collaborative sketches, and motivating us to make some new music together.

i produced more music than maria could fit in her dance, so we had to cut tracks and edit the remaining ones down to fit into a tight half hour. that process was painful, but i got through it with the knowledge that i would eventually craft a full-length album from the work produced for the score. the dance, titled "the splendor of gretel," premiered to a sold out audience at the ford amphitheater in july 2007. seeing maria's stunning work set to the music i created for her that night was a deeply moving experience."

- bryan konietzko, december 2009 -

even if you will never have the opportunity to watch the dance score, this album works perfectly as a mindscape soundtrack. electronic sounds, classical strings, guitars and gentle vocals are the components for this fascinating work of art. stylistically, 'the sound of love impermanent' can be described as an amalgam of ambient and contemporary orchestral music enriched with the addition of post rock structures. a remarkable release by a well-respected artist - give it a try!

The Boats :: Sleepy Insect Music

The Boats :: Sleepy Insect Music
Genre : Ambient, Electronica, Experimental

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1. palais glide (2006)
2. understand (2008)
3. victor silvester plays for a party (2006)
4. veleta two step (2009)
5. there are tunnels where we live (recorded 2007 / released 2008)
6. birthdays (2003)
7. i did not sleep so soundly (2003)
8. raindrops (2010)
9. on the level (2008)
10. italics mine (2008)
11. george herbert leigh mallory (2009)
12. louise (boats remix) (2008)
13. if all else fails (2008)
14. why you wanna do this (2005)
15. the arrow home (2008)
16. big ben banjo band sing song (2006)

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The Boats are of course the well known duo of Craig Tattersall and Andrew Hargreaves, now joined by Danny Norbury on cello, as well as Chris Stewart and Elaine Reynolds on vocals. Craig has previously recorded under Hood, the Archivist and The Remote Viewer, runs the Cotton Goods label and co-runs the excellent Moteer and Mobeer labels with Andrew Johnson. Andrew Hargreaves records as Beppu and co-runs the Lacies’ label with his partner, Alice. As The Boats they have released various works on Moteer, Our Small Ideas, Flau (’Faulty Toned Radio’) and of course, Home Normal with ‘Words Are Something Else’. The newest member to The Boats as of 2009 is the very talented Danny Norbury. He regularly works with Library Tapes, as well as being one-half of the duo Le Lendemain (with David Wenngren aka Library Tapes), and he has also recorded solo projects for Ono, Static Caravan and last year’s wonderful Light In August release on Lacies’.

A little while after the release of ‘Words Are Something Else’, Andrew, Craig, Danny and myself came together to talk about playing some shows both in the UK, as well as a tour in Japan. It just felt like a nice natural progression really as they are rarely known to play many live shows, and to get them to come to Japan meant a lot to both them and I. What culminated was the great Home Normal night in December (2009) at Café Oto in London, with Danny Norbury and The Boats headlining a very special event indeed. As we met up for the first time in person then, we confirmed how much we wanted to organise the Japan tour and so pushed on with the aid of our mutual friends Yasuhiko Fukuzono (aka Aus) and Masami Shimomura (p*dis).

During the various meetings, phone calls and emails back and forth, we decided that it would be a perfect time to release something of an ‘unknown’ overview of where The Boats are at and what they have done over the years. Yasuhiko Fukuzono (who also runs Flau) and I decided that it would be entirely appropriate to do a one-off collaborative release between Home Normal and Flau, as we are such closely tied labels, mutual friends with The Boats, and as a way of coming together for an album release to tie in with our combined Boats and Danny Norbury Japan tour in May of this year. The result of all this is Sleepy Insect Music, a compilation of unreleased or very limited edition works on compilations and Our Small Ideas, an unreleased remix and reworking of previously released work (’raindrops’). As such it is an essential collection of work for Boats fans and new listeners alike, a wonderful summary of who The Boats are, or the perfect introduction, however you want to view it.

The Boats are: Craig Tattersall and Andrew Hargreaves
With Danny Norbury (Cello on 2, 4, 8, 11, 15) Chris Stewart (Vocals 2, 8, 15)
Elaine Reynolds (Vocals 7)
Remixing: Nive Nielsen (12)

Recorded and Mixed by The Boats at various times and places between 2003-2010
Mastered by Miles Whittaker
Compiled from The Boats Archive Drawer by Theodore and Hamblin

1, 15 Originally appeared o the Our Small Ideas EP ‘Stenography’
5 Originally appeared on the Flau Compilation ‘Little Things’
9, 10, 13 Originally appeared on the Our Small Idea EP ‘Saturation, Hum and Hiss’
11 Originally appeared on the [parvoart] recordings compilation ‘[parvo] art’
12 An unreleased remix of Nive (http://www.myspace.com/nivenielsen)

1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16 Written by Hargreaves/Tattersall
2, 8, 15 Written by Hargreaves/Tattersall/Norbury
12 Written by Nive Nielsen

Manual :: Drowned In Light

Manual :: Drowned In Light
Genre : Shoegaze, Electronica

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1 Warm Circuits 1:17
2 Afterimages 4:33
3 Biarritz 6:54
4 Phainomenon 9:44
5 Drowned In Light 3:43
6 Empty Inside 4:39
7 Pulsations 7:10
8 Morning Glass 1982 6:14
9 Slow 2:32
10 Blood Run 6:23
11 Sabishisa 2:19
12 Issa 5:04

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Manual, a.k.a. Jonas Munk, is a producer from Odense, Denmark specializing in a unique brand of warm, organic music that fuses elements of new and old, electronic and hand-played, analogue and digital. He made his debut 10 years ago with an EP on Hobby Industries, followed by a handful of releases on Morr Music, both as Manual and with Icebreaker International, as well as his band Limp. Later, Munk signed with Californian label Darla and expanded his work into the area of minimalist ambient music while still perfecting the original Manual sound.

While completely unknown in his native Denmark, Munk is considered an influential artist in the circles of dreampop and electronica, touring all over the world, and collaborating, with artists including Ulrich Schnauss, Robin Guthrie (Cocteau Twins), Auburn Lull and, perhaps more surprisingly, members of Tortoise and Sunburned Hand of the Man. He has also scored a number of documentary films and undertaken production work for other bands and artists. Aside from collaborations, two minimalist ambient albums and a rarities collection from 2007, “Drowned in Light” is the first Manual album in five years. It is also Manual’s first for Make Mine Music, the pioneering artist-led co-operative label that is also home to releases by Piano Magic, Library Tapes, July Skies and Epic45.

Manual’s style has been described as "one of the most recognisable in electronica". At the core of this lies an ongoing desire to fuse electronic music with the structures and compositional elements of rock and pop, and an insistence that electronica can be fresh and innovative without flowing with the latest trends. Never have Munk’s unique strategies been more apparent than on his new album “Drowned in Light”, an ambitious work that showcases Munk’s talent for adventurous compositions, his finely-tuned production skills and aptitude for sound-design. On this latest album, drum machine loops and shimmering guitars (electric, acoustic, 12-string and flamenco) are bathed in analogue synth and modular effects, creating a lush, intoxicating sound that looks back to the 1970s and 1980s without a hint of the usual sleek irony or hip retro-revivalism, whilst simultaneously looking forward to a time when boundaries between programmed and played, and synthetic and organic, have become obsolete.

The family tree of “Drowned in Light” begins with Harmonia, Ash Ra Temple and Ennio Morricone in the 1970s, Durutti Column and Cocteau Twins in the 1980s, through to Seefeel and Slowdive in the 1990s. Manual continues this lineage and pushes into new territories. A prime example is “Biarritz”, where analog synth sequences that could belong in a Tangerine Dream excursion blend with elements of modern electronica, exotica and echoes of 80s’ synth pop. In a similar fashion “Phainomenon” rolls along like a mid-70s Ash Ra Temple jam until halfway, where the mood breaks and the track enters classic dream pop territory, leading to a dizzying climax. “Blood Run” and “Afterimages”, meanwhile, arguably possess some of Munk’s finest guitar playing, whilst “Pulsations” is, without doubt, the most cosmic, distorted and swirling psychedelic moment in the Manual catalogue.

In some ways “Drowned in Light” reaches back to the early Manual days of “Ascend”, a result of Munk’s rediscovered love of working with analogue gear. It is a diverse set, though, bound together by a warm, crystalline production and Munk’s signature guitar playing. Composition and craftsmanship on this level is such a rarity in an overcrowded sea of electronic music. This is the perfect album to accompany any journey into spring…

Past praise for Manual:

“...Sonically, it’s Seefeel meets Sons And Fascination era Simple Minds meets Kevin Shields meets David Sylvian; in other words, it inhabits a world where boundaries blur and where sounds collide and move within and around each other to make something instantly, comfortingly recognizable yet with an abstract sense of the new.” - Tangents Magazine

“The musings of so many of his peers feel conceptually thin and prefabricated in comparison to Manual's wandering, curious anthems.” – Pitchfork

“Think of My Bloody Valentine, but lighter than air. Or think of what Air's soundtrack to The Virgin Suicides might have been like if they spent more time at the beach. Or think about Brian Eno, if he surfed and liked drinks with exotic names and umbrellas in them. Think about Tangerine Dream: their name even more than their sound… and you've got a beautiful, awe-inducing force of nature.” - Erasing Clouds Magazine

“A painstaking labour of love that principally takes Durutti Column and the Cocteau Twins as its key templates and weaves their chiming matrix into a celebratory carnival of lush colour coded ambient structures of the type so rarely heard these days. All at once sensual, invigorating, heart stopping and quite simply perfect.” - Losing Today Magazine

Flica - Telepathy Dreams

Flica - Telepathy Dreams
Genre : Ambient, Electronica,

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01. Commes
02. Drun
03. Hie
04. In Dreams
05. Ind
06. Istatic
07. Midnight Waving
08. Seing
09. Stairs

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Just like it seemed, at one point, as though every single MySpace-site on the web had been pimped with Thomas' MySpace-editor, one can't help but feel that there's a construction kit for contemporary Post-Classical and Electronica artists out there somewhere. Scores of albums filled with brittle backwards loops, fluffy field recordings, stuttering Guitar samples and deconstructed dabbers of acoustic instruments are being released each day, all carefully packaged in impeccably designed digipacks and distributed in limited, but anything but puny quantities. One should assume that the genre must by default be repeating itself, but remarkably, there are still plenty of producers out there capable of coming up with new forms from the same elements: Yuki Kaneko's „Rut“ (And/Oar) was a visionary free-floating continuum of constantly changing outlines, for example, and at the end of last year, Fjordne's „The Setting Sun“ established itself as the one album everyone could agree on, spanning a grand, conceptual arch from airy Ambient to deep, nocturnal chamber music.

Within this rapidly growing community, Eu Seng Seto has taken on the role of the dreamer. Clearly immersed in the familiar aesthetics of the aforementioned Sound Art scene, his pieces are as immediate and emotional like pop songs, feeding from bittersweet harmonies and undeniable hooks. His albums are anything but installational perpetuum mobiles, which he will lazily put into motion with the click of a mouse and which will continue playing by themselves until someone pulls the plug. Instead, there was a real and tangible human factor shining through previous full-lengths „Nocturnal“ and „Windvane & Window“, unanymously displaying a pronounced preference for timeless values like composition, arrangement and thematic development over technical gadgetry, sound fetishism and complex layering. Instead of focing his audience through an increasingly algebraic web of loosely drifting motives and indecipherable timbral relations, Seto was drawing listeners in with his refined melodies, captivating them through subtle but effective tension archs and a subcutaneous rhythmical pulse, never too obvious to be bland yet always manifesting itself with a healthy dose of physicality.

On „Telepathy Dreams“, published independently but professionally distributed through a network of specialised retailers, Seto is taking this recognisable and highly refreshing style to perfection. You can clearly hear how several of these tracks were written from the perspective of a Pianist, with delicate layers of drones and micro-clicks entwining themselves around romantic chord progressions, how they are moving towards a resolution instead of just aimlessly lingering in the air. Even an outwardly pure Ambient piece like „Hie“, built on little more than a richly resonating organ drone, a field of joyfully ringing harmonics and a deep Bass swell, is carried by a distinct narrative told through a carefully measured melody on the baby grand which gradually surges to blissful cascades of euphoric notes. On other occasions, his preferences are becoming even more openly visible, as electronic manipulations are turning into accompaniment to almost classical compositions and percussive pulses coalescing into slow, Rock-like rhythms.

On the other hand, Seto is by no means as „incapable of Sound Design“ as he apparently likes to believe himself. In fact, „Telepathy Dreams“ benefits greatly from his capacity of melding the worlds of textural experiments and songwriting into a completely organic amalgam. Just four-minute short „Drun“ is a perfect example. Starting out with thick, beguilingly perfumed drones, the second part of the track superimposes a framework of sensual grooves and erotic Wave-Guitars on this foundation, turning the music into a slice of touching Dream-Pop akin to what some of the leading bands on legendary British imprint 4AD were doing so compellingly in the mid-80s and early 90s. And even though some of the longer cuts on the album seem to be yearning for a liberating outburst of orchestral fortes and emotional cescendi, nothing ever rises beyond the level of a whisper. It is this reticence which marks Eu Seng Seto as a wanderer between between the worlds of Sound Art and Composition: In his world, one can't exist without the other.

Akira Kosemura - Grassland

Akira Kosemura - Grassland
Genre : Ambient, Electronica,

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01 Grassland
02 Petrarca
03 Light
04 Marriage
05 Xiao Ge Er
06 Little Dipper
07 Ballet
08 Over The Horizon
09 Just A Few Minutes
10 Amour
11 Ensemble

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LOSCIL - Endless Falls

LOSCIL - Endless Falls
Genre : Ambient, Electronica, Experimental,

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1. Endless Falls
2. Estuarine
3. Shallow Water Blackout
4. Dub For Cascadia
5. Fern And Robin
6. Lake Orchard
7. Showers Of Ink
8. Graupel (vinyl Only)
9. Kinematics (vinyl Only)
10. The Making Of Grief Point

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One of Kranky's longest standing artists, Scott Morgan returns for a fifth album for the label, and it's quite superb, even by Loscil's already high standards. Regular Kranky followers will no doubt find themselves suitably bewitched, but this music's equally likely to appeal to followers of BJ Nilsen, Stephan Mathieu, Kyle Bobby Dunn and Celer. Endless Falls is bookended by recordings of rainfall, something which mirrors the droplet-obscured sleeve. This sort of imagery is a handy visual metaphor for ambient music of this variety: in the photograph a form of interference displaces the content of the picture as its true subject, and so it goes in Loscil's music. While Morgan's string sections and looping melodic gestures make up the fabric of these recordings it's the muffling and masking of them that draws the true beauty out of this music. 'Estuarine's minimal and plaintive piano phrases wouldn't be nearly so alluring were they not partially hidden away from you, and the stretched-out violins of the title track only function as beautifully as they do because they're cradled by a low, warm hum of filtered out, ambient sound matter. Rather than merely revelling in protracted linear drone exercises, Morgan latches his music to subtle rhythmic elements throughout the album, most prominently highlighted by 'Dub For Cascadia' - whose melancholy chord surges, crackling waves of static and contoured bass throbs sound like Stars Of The Lid playing along to something from the first three Pole albums. It's difficult to contemplate such a thing, but Endless Falls might be that rarest of things: an album whose best track is a spoken-word piece. In this case Destroyer's Daniel Bejar takes to the mic for the nine-minute closing piece. 'The Making Of Grief Point' is nine minutes of dramatically-charged, glitching, Biosphere-like drone, spun from downplayed neo-classical instrumentation and filtered loops, all accompanying Bejar's typically elliptical, digression-prone and fractured lyrics. Wonderful stuff throughout - highly recommended.

Aidan Baker – Blue Figures

Aidan Baker – Blue Figures
Genre : Ambient, Electronica, Experimental,

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1 Figures Part 1 19:52
2 Figures Part 2 17:52
3 Untitled Drone 15:12
4 Gathering Blue 12:28

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“[CA] after weeks of delay, the new massive live album from Aidan Baker is finally available ! it consists of two live sets (70 min +), one with “figures” and the other with an unreleased drone and “gathering blue”. both sets recorded last spring during his extensive european tour, solo or with Nadja.
i have to confess that i’ve never been a sucker for live albums, it’s pretty rare when i find them really interesting or better than the original studio versions. but of course, there are a few exceptions and Aidan Baker is one of them. his live performances are always surprising, not to say amazing. and his previous live albums are perfect exemples of what he is capable of when he’s on stage. you already know the songs but it’s always a bit different, there are variations, extensions, improvisations. Aidan dig in his own material to find a new vision. and you won’t be disappointed here ! last but not least, the sound quality is stunning.”

Ruxpin - where do we float from here?

Ruxpin - where do we float from here?
Genre : Ambient, Electronica, Experimental,

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01 I Saw Her Standing There
02 Her Body Smells of Cinnamon
03 We All Carry Our Ghost
04 Chasing Dandelions
05 Those Angel Wings Look Comfortable
06 My Tricycle Can Float from Planet to Planet
07 She Danced the Waltz
08 Where the Wild Things Are
09 She Played This Song for Me When I Was Five
10 I Noticed You Hovering Above Me
11 The View Looks Good From Up Here
12 Underwater Playground (Starfishes are invited)
13 The Boy Who Gazed at the Eclipse
14 Who Did You See in the Mist®
15 A Sunrise (and They Turned into Stones)
16 Now I Turn To You

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Due to an overwhelming demand, Ruxpin's "Where Do We Float From Here?" (originally released in 2009 on n5MD's digital imprint Enpeg Digital) is being rereleased on CD. Ruxpin is Icleandic electronic music composer Jonas Thor Gudmundsson and Where do We Float From Here? is his 6th long play. Gudmundsson has released on labels such as Uni:form Recordings, Elektrolux and Mikrolux, had many compilation appearances and has done many remixes for artists such as Mum and Worm is Green. Ruxpin's sound is firmly planted in the classic braindance subgenre of IDM. Although, there is an undeniably Icelandic twist to the music and enough emotion to fit within the n5MD emotional ethos. Where Do We Float From Here? is 16 tracks of finely tuned, well crafted electronica from a highly underrated artist.

SubtractiveLAD - Life At The End Of The World

SubtractiveLAD - Life At The End Of The World
Genre : Ambient, Electronica, Experimental,

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1 Beginning Again 4:37
2 Those Who Lose Dreaming Are Lost 6:13
3 Summer In Your Mouth 7:13
4 Ne Plus Ultra 5:56
5 The Deep And Lovely Quiet 5:23
6 Nautilus 5:32
7 With Eternal Lids Apart 6:46
8 Once The Stars Have Been Washed From The Sky 8:27
9 Life At The End Of The World 3:14
10 Always Ending 9:53

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In the beginning, it was impossible to predict subtractiveLAD's musical evolution. It was as if his first album 'Giving Up The Ghost' was the initial splash from a pebble thrown into a pond and each subsequent album a ripple which grew broader in scope, became less disruptive and more meditative. They have all had one key aspect in that Stephen Hummel, the man who records as subtractiveLAD, has always been genuine in the projection of emotions in his music. He does record for the ever emotionally driven n5MD imprint after all. On "Life At the End of the World," Hummel's 6th album, percussive elements, pretense of genre, and theoretical pollutants that could cloud the candid nature of this current ripple in Hummel's pond are a thing of the past. The result is one of subtractiveLad's most lush yet thread bare albums to date. Eno could be referenced, although Hummel now prefers the guitar as his main instrument. Further, "Life At the End of the World" is not all ambient movements and variations on a theme. At the three quarters point the album takes a tense turn with passages that would not be out of place on albums from Ben Frost or Jasper Tx. One wonders what is really at the end of Hummel's world? "Life at the end of the world" is Hummel's catharsis, anxiety, and joy. We can hear that he is at a crossroads in his life and subsequently has created his largest most majestic ripple in the pond yet.

Ian Hawgood - Slow Films In Low Light

Ian Hawgood - Slow Films In Low Light
Genre : Ambient, Electronica, Experimental,

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01. A Film by Federico Durand
02. A Film by Pan Am Scan
03. A Film by The Remote Viewer
04. A Film by Danny Norbury
05. A Film by Color Cassette
06. A Film by Geskia!
07. A Film by Hannu
08. A Film by Yuri Miyauchi
09. A Film by Miko
10. A Film by The Green Kingdom
11. A Film by Library Tapes
12. A Film by Ten and Tracer
13. A Film by Chihei Hatakeyama
14. A Film by He Can Jog feat. Nick Sanborn

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‘Slow Films In Low Light’ is a collection of remixes and re-workings by friends and artists from my now deleted album ‘Soundtrack To A Film In My Head Which Will Never Get Made’. The original album was released on the lovely Rope Swing Cities but I decided I wanted it to be a temporary release given the nature of the album. RSC and I decided to do a small release to coincide with the original, as a limited run CD-R featuring re-workings and remixes of the pieces by friends, namely The Remote Viewer, Geskia!, Ten and Tracer and Pan Am Scan.

Over time it became apparent that this project needed to spread its wings, and with lots of support from the lovely Yasuhiko Fukuzono (Aus), and other close friends, I decided to ask more friends to join in with the project. I’m so lucky that all the friends I wanted and asked agreed to be involved, creating highly unique pieces from the original sources (sometimes changing them completely). As such I suddenly found myself with this amazing album, featuring past, present and future Home Normal, Tokyo Droning and Nomadic Kids Republic artists and good friends.

The grand result is a really nice review of where Home Normal is at in some ways I guess, as well as highlighting where I am at musically too, albeit through the voices of others who know me. One of the results of these artists giving their time and enormous talents so freely to this was that I decided that this release should be for charity.

In 1982 my father set up The Archway Foundation, a charity that focused on helping those in various walks of life who are deeply affected by loneliness. They hold weekly social events, organise dinners, visits, drivers to take people to places and all sorts of support work. I grew up attending and helping out the various events, but have less to do with them after my parent’s retirement and my moving away from Oxford. In these difficult economical times, charities, which rely on the donations of others, are suffering terribly. But these people still need all the support they can get, so I guess I just figure that, even if it’s a small level of support we can provide, at least we can try.

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.

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.

VA - Hibernate Sampler Vol. 1

VA - Hibernate Sampler Vol. 1
Genre : Electronica, Ambient,

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1) Porzellan - Rosen (11:21)
2) Ian Hawgood - The Marbled World (5:28)
3) Lexithimie - Scale 1 (4:56)
4) Hakobune - Late Spring (14:33)
5) Storm Noir - Cicada Queen (4:56)
6) Simon James French - Misery (4:28)
7) Tom White - Moredon Cooling Towers (4:20)
8) Northerner - The End OF December (6:03)
9) Chihei Hatakeyama - Gray Hued Sky (4:44)

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Celer - In Escaping Lakes

Celer - In Escaping Lakes
Genre : Electronica, Ambient,

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1.A Less Distinguished Tributary
2.Seagrass
3.Mentioned Fumes
4.The Light Obtainable In Spaces We Share
5.Extending and Directly Below
6.Inoffensive Sets of Misdirection
7.Calculated Din
8.Wetness Is Close To Likeness
9.Horizontal Reflections
10.Australis
11.A Buoyant Object, That Rests and Moves In Such A Way
12.When Recounting Futures, Don’t Fail To Mention Me

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It's becoming increasingly difficult to write about Celer's music. The duo's output has been coming our way at a steady rate in recent months and their music seems to be converging on the extremes of ambient fragility. Far away from the more usual drone recordings that come our way, Celer's music is incredibly bold in its gentleness and the demands it makes on you as a listener. There's a lot going on over the course of this forty minutes, and to get the most out of it you'll have to tune in carefully, but even the most casual level of exposure to this music seems to slow down time. The dynamic range stretches between quietness and lulled imperceptibility, wafting in and out of earshot unless you really crank the volume and it's this coquettish, elusive quality that makes Celer so magical, and places them on a different plane to most other practitioners currently operating in a similar field. While comparisons to Stars Of The Lid and Stephan Mathieu have previously been thrown around these pages, the sheer enigmatic stillness and overwhelming ambiguity of this music makes them a whole other prospect. Highly recommended, as ever.

Siberian Railway - Tokio blues

Siberian Railway - Tokio blues
Genre : Electronica, IDM, Indie,

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1-Naoko
2-Watanabe
3-Midori
4-Reiko
5-Hatsum

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