bestsellers
CATHERINE CHRISTER HENNIX
Live at the Grimm Museum: Volume One
Important Records
CD // £12.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: IMPREC342
Sonic Acts' maiden release is a collaboration with Important Records presenting Catherine Christer Hennix's extraordinary live recording of 'Blues Dhikr Al-Salam', made on sunday 14th August at The Grimm Museum, Berlin. Swedish-American composer Christer Hennix is regarded among the elite of 20th and 21st century minimal composition, spending the 1960s studying the work of Iannis Xenakis and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and later becoming a noted disciple of Pandit Pran Nath and La Monte Young in the 1970s. Coincidentally, this piece was first premiered at Young'… Read more
PHILIPPE PETIT & FRIENDS
Home Normal
CD // £9.99
NOW: £6.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: HOMEN035
**Six-panel digipak designed by Bas Mantel** For his cinematic, miasma-like opus 'Cordophony', intrepid French composer Philippe Petit has assembled a stellar cast including (but not limited to) the talents of Reinhold Friedl, Nils Frahm, Aidan Baker, and James Johnston for one of Home Normal's most striking releases. Petit deftly handles "processed acoustics/field recordings/foundsounds + electronics + turntables & glass manipulations + percussions + synths/piano + balloons" while his seventeen piece personnel contribute all kinds of cello, electric harp, vibraphone, tibetan bowls, f… Read more
EN
STUDENTS OF DECAY
LP // £10.99
NOW: £7.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: SOD96
Sun-dappled dream-drone miniatures of major scope from West Coast space cadets Maxwell August Croy ad James Devane. The follow-up to their 2010 debut for Root Strata (the label Croy co-runs), Already Gone finds En achieving incredible heights of emotion and psychedelic transport, most notably on the glistening, prismatic 'The Sea Saw Swell' and the title track, which has a liturgical sweep that makes us think of Fennesz as his most lyrical and expressive. It's divine stuff, no two ways about it, and highly recommended to fans of GAS, Motion Sickness Of Time Travel and Stars Of The Lid.
Recorded live at the Music Research Centre at the University of York, 'Leyfdu ljosinu' is the latest full-length from Icelandic cellist Hildur Gudnadottir, and follows 2009's phenomenal 'Without Sinking'. Again we are treated to Gudnadottir's delicate melancholia, but unlike its predecessor, 'Leyfdu ljosinu' is one single piece, recorded in one take with absolutely no post production to meddle with the sublime nature of the tonality itself. This gives the album a rare sense of levity and depth, and a pacing that many so-called 'experimental' artists attempt but few manage to truly mas… Read more
HILDUR GUDNADOTTIR
Touch
MP3 Download // £5.99
FLAC Download // £6.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: TO90D
Recorded live at the Music Research Centre at the University of York, ‘Leyfdu ljosinu’ is the latest full-length from Icelandic cellist Hildur Gudnadottir, and follows 2009’s phenomenal ‘Without Sinking’. Again we are treated to Gudnadottir’s delicate melancholia, but unlike its predecessor, ‘Leyfdu ljosinu’ is one single piece, recorded in one take with absolutely no post production to meddle with the sublime nature of the tonality itself. This gives the album a rare sense of levity and depth, and a pacing that many so-called ‘experimental’ artists attempt but few manage to tru… Read more
FILFLA
SOMEONE GOOD
CD // £8.99
NOW: £4.95
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: RMSG013
Filfla is yet another alias of Keiichi Sugimoto (aka Minamo, Fonica and FourColor) and under this moniker he explores his love of electronic pop music. You should probably know what to expect, as the focus is definitely very Japanese; twinkling melodies and choppy guitars are bend and moulded into chirping three minute pop songs with all the cascading harmonies you could possibly jam into the scant duration. In fact at times it’s like hearing Youtube favourite Nyan Cat reworked by Steve Reich, and that can only be a good thing, right?
CELER
Celer
MP3 Download // £4.99FLAC Download // £5.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: CELER046
"Time passes quickly, and memories all but disappear. Some of the most intimate moments are shuffled aside, later sometimes discovered again only by accident. Merkin, possibly one of the most personal albums that we ever made, for one reason or another, never came to an official release. It was recorded in 2007-2008 in Las Vegas and California, and later mastered by John Twells. For about a year after it was sent and given to friends and labels. By 2012, nearly 5 years had passed since it's creation, Danielle had been gone for almost 3 years, and the album had passed through 3 different labels, in t… Read more
RICHARD SKELTON
Type Recordings
CD // £7.99
NOW: £4.95
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: TYPE055CD
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 … Read more
ÓLAFUR ARNALDS & NILS FRAHM
ERASED TAPES
MP3 Download // £2.49FLAC Download // £3.49
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: ERATP042DL
Here’s a bit of a surprise – as a Record Store Day exclusive, Erased Tapes regulars Olafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm have put together this gorgeous EP and what a corker it is too. I know, I know – you’re expecting some lush piano and delicately orchestrated melancholy strings aren’t you? Well you’re probably looking in the wrong place, Arnalds and Frahm have ditched the ivories here in favour of electronics, and as the opening piece suggests it has more in common with Tangerine Dream than Erik Satie. Haunting clipped arpeggios drift through crackling radio noise and rumbling percuss… Read more
CELER
Celer
MP3 Download // £0.99FLAC Download // £1.25
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: CELER-ON1
Review to follow shortly…
CELER
Celer
MP3 Download // £1.50FLAC Download // £2.50
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: CELER026
Review to follow shortly…
VARIOUS / MOTEER
Moteer
MP3 Download // £1.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: MOTEER SAMPLER
Moteer is one of those priceless labels that over the last few years has fashioned a small, carefully built home of it’s own in the sprawling electronic music scene. A Moteer release sounds like a Moteer release, and even though in recent months their reach has seen them move from Burnley to Japan and beyond, each record seems to be perfectly suited the label’s warming, picturesque outlook. They humbly began with a simple 12” from Northern Lads John McCaffrey (who would go on to release the Part Timer album) and Johnny Russell recording under the pseudonym Clickits, and this paved th… Read more
PETER BRODERICK
Type Recordings
CD // £7.99
NOW: £3.95
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: TYPE044CD
In his earliest days as a recording artist, Peter Broderick assembled two CD-Rs based on sketched recordings committed to tape with old, worn-in microphones. The discs were labelled "4 Track Songs" and got bundled off to Type Records' headquarters. This was a first taster of the work that was just around the corner for Broderick, and the music gathered together for these two volumes encompassed all areas of Peter's work; you can hear the building blocks of both the Float and Home albums in these sketches, accounting for the full breadth of the young polymath's creative endeavours - as a… Read more
LEYLAND KIRBY
Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was (Deluxe Triple CD Edition)
History Always Favours The Winners
3CD // £15.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: HAFTW001CD
*AN INCREDIBLE TRIPLE CD PACKAGE CONTAINING OVER 4 HOURS OF MUSIC, HOUSED IN A CUSTOM OUTER CARD SLIPCASE, WITH INDIVIDUALLY PACKAGED CD'S INSIDE FEATURING ORIGINAL ARTWORK BY IVAN SEAL* Finally packaged together for all the non-vinyl believers, or simply those who are too glum to get up and turn the record over, Leyland Kirby's 'Sadly The Future Is No Longer What It Was' triple CD crate-set brings the series to an epic close, or an opening, depending on your perspective. For folk who have followed the arc from The Caretaker through to Le… Read more
RICHARD SKELTON
Type Recordings
MP3 Download // £4.99FLAC Download // £5.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: TYPE055
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… Read more
NILS FRAHM
ERASED TAPES
MP3 Download // £4.50FLAC Download // £5.50
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: ERATP018
This wonderful thirty-minute album from pianist Nils Frahm was originally intended as a Christmas present for his friends and family, but as a marker of just how commercialised Christmas has become, Frahm has now resorted to peddling it in the middle of summer to any old punter with £13.99 to their name. And that's excellent news for all concerned. As thoughtful as it would be to distribute this exclusively as a gift amongst his loved ones, the world is a (slightly) better place for this album's wider availability. Frahm's piano playing is in a similar mold to Gonzales' Solo Piano, also in… Read more
NILS FRAHM
Wintermusik (Erased Tapes Edition)
ERASED TAPES
LP // £13.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: ERATP018LP
This wonderful thirty-minute album from pianist Nils Frahm was originally intended as a Christmas present for his friends and family, but as a marker of just how commercialised Christmas has become it's again being sold for cashmoney, this time on the Erased Tapes imprint. And that's excellent news for all concerned. As thoughtful as it would be to distribute this exclusively as a gift amongst his loved ones, the world is a (slightly) better place for this album's wider availability. Frahm's piano playing is in a similar mold to Gonzales' Solo Piano, also inevitably brin… Read more
SCOTT TUMA
Dandelion (Expanded CD Edition)
DIGITALIS
CD // £7.99
NOW: £4.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: Digi061CD
*Expanded CD Edition - includes over 35 minutes of material not featured on the vinyl edition of this album* Another highly anticipated release from the excellent Digitalis imprint - this time from Boxhead Ensemble's Scott Tuma who manages to weave a sound that incorporates dense and unsettling field recordings with Takoma-esque porchside strums, wiry violin, rhythmic metal scrapes, music-box interludes, Location recordings, Shortwave signals, spectral banjo plucks and distant piano sequences. The first thing we hear is the exaggerated whirr of phased tape treatments opening u… Read more
Pimmon, the prolific godfather of Australian electronics, makes an overdue and excellent contribution to Lawrence English's Room 40 imprint. 'The Oansome Orbit' is surely his most harmonically developed work to date, tempering his taste for distortion and electronic abstraction with a richer compositional bent which makes for an engrossing and unique listen. We'd best let Pimmon say a few words; "The Oansome Orbit is about connection and disconnection. In playing with micro loops of sound - macro listening worlds are made; universes of white noise wash, blurry melancholic tones, jagged granula… Read more
**RE-PRESS. Includes free download code redeemable from the label** "A balm for troubled minds", "Unparalleled", and "Poised to become something of a sensation", are all phrases used to describe the unmistakably beautiful music of Nils Frahm. We're used to hearing Nils tickling the ivories but for 'Juno' he was encouraged by close friend and label mentor Peter Broderick to sketch something for the titular instrument. The result is two utterly sublime pieces transposing the skills of Nils onto an instrument he rarely uses, but evidently should do more often. There's an almost Aphexian melancholy to bo… Read more
JACASZEK
Ghostly International
CD // £13.49
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: GI147CD
Sublime, crackle-infused chamber constructions from the wonderful Jacaszek. The Polish composer is engaged in an ever-deepening dialogue with the European classical tradition, and Glimmer is his most satisfying tranmission yet, elegantly combining baroque instrumentation with subtle but commanding electronic interventions. The music is too composed and compelling to be called ambient, though the mood throughout is reflective and sombre: across trembling harpsichords, clarinets, flamenco guitar and strings, our man draws a curtain of crackle, dirt and reverb, recalling the unheimlich dub strategies of … Read more
EYVIND KANG
Ideologic Organ
MP3 Download // £3.99FLAC Download // £4.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: SOMA004
Ghostly chamber music and occult minimalism from Eyvind Kang, new on Stephen O'Malley's Ideologic Organ imprint. Kang is probably best known for his contributions to Sunn O)))'s Monoliths & Dimensions; Visible Breath captures two pieces performed by Kang's 10-piece ensemble in Seattle in 2008, and a third piece, 'Thick Tarragon', recorded in Summer 2011 with pedal steel and cello. The delicate but unsettling 'Visible Breath' is dominated by the droning, otherworldly brass of Stewart Dempster (trombone), Julian Priester (trombone) and Cuong Vu (trumpet), while 'Monadology' feels like it… Read more
KANE IKIN + DAVID WENNGREN
KESH
CD // £8.99
NOW: £5.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: KESH017
Kane Ikin (Solo Andata) meets David Wenngren (Library Tapes) in a blissed-out cloud of shoegaze ambience for Kesh Records. 'Strangers' is the first time they've met on record and hopefully not the last. They both approach the project from similar backgrounds in the wide-open fields of electro-acoustic minimalism to create six patient, beautifully glacial compositions. Unfortunately we're stuck for info, but we can discern traces of piano, guitar and other strings meshed into their crisply diffuse scapes, painting airy melodies and breathing rich, spacious harmonics across a still, bu… Read more
EN
STUDENTS OF DECAY
MP3 Download // £4.99FLAC Download // £5.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: SOD96
Sun-dappled dream-drone miniatures of major scope from West Coast space cadets Maxwell August Croy ad James Devane. The follow-up to their 2010 debut for Root Strata (the label Croy co-runs), Already Gone finds En achieving incredible heights of emotion and psychedelic transport, most notably on the glistening, prismatic 'The Sea Saw Swell' and the title track, which has a liturgical sweep that makes us think of Fennesz as his most lyrical and expressive. It's divine stuff, no two ways about it, and highly recommended to fans of GAS, Motion Sickness Of Time Travel and Stars Of The Lid.
CHRISTIAN NAUJOKS
Dial
MP3 Download // £6.99FLAC Download // £8.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: 0827170274280
**Dial's lone singer/composer presents the follow-up to his deeply refined debut** "Recorded by Tobias Levin at the Laiszhalle Philharmony Hamburg a dense concert atmosphere sets the tone. Stringent seriality is combined with that Romanticism of the minor key which one also finds in a certain corner (and a more popular one) of modern twentieth-century piano music; in the likes of Michael Nyman, Wim Mertens, Arvo Pärt, John Cage and György Kurtág. Deep contemplation and solemn expression paired with intellectual clarity. Each note has weight, and every sound a purpose. Unlike… Read more
INSECT FACTORY
FABRICA
LP // £14.99
NOW: £8.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: FABREC015
**Edition of 300 on 140g wax** Beautifully patient and organic ambient composition for fans of William Basinski, Tape Loop Orchestra, Imaginary Softwoods or early OPN from Jeff Barsky (Insect Factory), a split release on Brooklyn, NY's Fabrica Records and his own eponymous imprint. 'Melodies From A Dead Radio' first reveals itself through a sensitively smudged patina of ferric blur on the breif 'Globes', where an oncoming slow motion wash of FM synth and suppressed distortion release gaseous harmonic vapours. Senses intoxicated, 'Radio Forecast' then emerges, seemingly built… Read more
NICO MUHLY
BEDROOM COMMUNITY
MP3 Download // £2.99FLAC Download // £3.40
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: SELUR02
Bedroom Community present the first of three 'Drones' EPs from Nico Muhly. The 'Drones' were originally commissioned by the Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival and produced by Nico's fellow Icelander Valgeir Sigurdsson with Bruce Brubaker accompanying on piano and Nadia Sirota on Viola. Nico explains the concept best: "I started writing the Drones pieces as a method of developing harmonic ideas over a static structure. The idea is something not unlike singing along with one's vacuum cleaner, or with the subtle but constant humming found in most dwelling-places. We surround o… Read more
CELER
Celer
MP3 Download // £7.99FLAC Download // £9.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: CELER022
Review to follow shortly…
WINDY & CARL
Kranky
MP3 Download // £6.99FLAC Download // £8.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: krank024
Windy & Carl epitomise everything that's so alluring about the Kranky label, starting off with a basic premise and ending up with a sound that's so rich it's almost impossible to digest in one sitting. Carl Hultgren and Windy Weber produced "Depths" back in 1998, but it may as well be a blueprint for the delicate weave of ambience and acoustic drones that distinguish the whole drift movement these days. Deep, aquatic, moving ambience of the highest order. Essential purchase.
STARS OF THE LID
and Their Refinement of the Decline
Kranky
MP3 Download // £8.99FLAC Download // £9.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: krank100
Not a band who ever do things by halves, this latest opus from Stars Of The Lid is a mammoth two cd (or three vinyl) set and is breathtaking for the entire duration. You see, although some might level that Adam Wiltzie and Brian McBride have really stuck to the same style since their inception, they have in my opinion been moving steadily forward with each release and have gone from whispering post-shoegaze guitar drones to something altogether more grandiose. It would be crass to describe the music as cinematic, but the first thing that strikes me about "And t… Read more
SAWAKO
Anticipate
MP3 Download // £5.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: ANTICIPATE 003
Sawako's previous forays into lowercase audio sculpting have been published by such estimable imprints as 12k, and/oar and Community Library. This latest collection of pieces finds the Tokyo-based sound artist on top form too, shaping small, domestic-sounding pieces culled from a variety of location recordings, incidental noises and instrumental ramblings. Sawako has much in common with similarly-minded Japanese artists like Mondii, Ken Ikeda, or even Moskitoo and Piana, albeit devoid of any dominant vocal presence (despite the freeform utterances on 'August Neige' these pieces are focussed on abs… Read more
OUR SLEEPLESS FOREST
Resonant
CD // £12.99
NOW: £6.49
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: RESCD028
Having first come to public attention via the Type Records compilation 'Free The Future', South London trio Our Sleepless Forest have prepared a full-length for Resonant, home of the chilliest post-rock sounds around. This lot make an especially ambient variant of that particular genre though, setting their tuneful guitar runs amongst a backdrop of various outdoorsy sounds, as on 'The Tinderbox', which is fleshed out with sounds from echoing spaces and tweeting birds. None of this sounds particularly fresh or original on paper, but Our Sleepless Forest pull it off with more of … Read more
WINDY AND CARL
Darla
MP3 Download // £4.95FLAC Download // £5.95
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: DRL027
Released as the second instalment of Darla's Bliss Out series back in 1997, this album has aged unbelievably well. Antarctica could be a how-to guide for fashioning timeless, organic drone music, and the first lesson here is that you really don't need much in the way of electronics or fancy equipment to make a statement. The opening piece sprawls across 22-minutes of shimmering, horizontal guitar, while crunching loops - sounding like trodden-on snow - carve out a rhythmic element, ultimately resembling the kind of approach Biosphere has been known to adopt for his own fro… Read more
THE PHILIP GLASS ENSEMBLE
ORANGE MOUNTAIN
MP3 Download // £10.99FLAC Download // £12.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: 0049
Written between 1971 and 1974, Music In Twelve Parts has been declared by Glass himself to contain "many of the structural and harmonic ideas that would be fleshed out in my later works." This music can be viewed as a modular entity, effectively cataloguing the various repetitive strategies that made up Glass' minimalist armoury up to that point in his career. Music In Twelve Parts remains the lengthiest concert piece in the Philip Glass Ensemble's repertoire - an exhausting experience for listener and musician alike, testing endurance over the course of protracted… Read more
HELIOS
Type Recordings
MP3 Download // £3.99FLAC Download // £4.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: TYPE042
His full-length follow-up to the Eingya album, Keith Kenniff's Caesura finds the Type veteran exploring electronic arrangements to an even greater depth than ever before, blending an incredibly detailed approach to beat making with exquisite harmonies and instrumental melodies derived from an array of acoustic arrangements. Caesura is the sound of electronica grown up: no longer is the sound palette restricted to a few soft synths and plugins - here Kenniff takes guitars and recordings of percussive found sounds, blending them all together in a highly organic blend of synthesis, sampling and conv… Read more
KOEN HOLTKAMP
Type Recordings
CD // £7.99
NOW: £5.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: TYPE035CD
This long awaited debut album comes to us from Koen Holtkamp, one half of revered New York recording duo Mountains. Having had a brief taster for his work as part of the 'A Room Forever' record label / art project earlier this year, we already had some idea of the luxuriously warm drones and field recordings that would make up his full-length, but 'Field Rituals' really has turned out to be an album of quite exceptional scope and beauty. We've always been engrossed and charmed by field recordings, whether on the purist level perfected by the likes of Chris Watson, or via the atmospheric bac… Read more
Vinyl back in stock! At last, the wait is over. Christian Fennesz's follow up to 2004's Venice is upon us, and it's not likely to leave anyone disappointed. The ten-minute title track gets the album underway, opening tentatively with flickers of noise and digital debris crackling like fireworks in the distance. Soon a flood of symphonic guitar and electronics overwhelms the mix and we're reintroduced to the signature sound world that's unique to this man's music - he's one of the most imitated electronic artists out there, and yet you can always pick out the real thing from a line-up of clones.… Read more
MURCOF
The Leaf Label
MP3 Download // £6.99FLAC Download // £8.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: BAY59E
It's safe to say that Mexican ex-pat Fernando Corona started a whole movement of classically-influenced electronic music when he dropped his incredible debut album 'Martes' back in 2002. With clipped and perfectly manipulated glitchy beats to rival anything emerging from the Mille Plateaux or Raster Noton stables and the kind of strings you'd expect to hear on a Kieslowski movie, Corona introduced many electronic music fans to the sounds of orchestral bliss and a subgenre was born. Before long we heard the textural explorations of Marsen Jules, the Badalamenti-inspired hum of Deaf Center and the po… Read more
HELIOS
Type Recordings
MP3 Download // £3.99FLAC Download // £4.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: TYPE011
Having hit the shelves running with last year's piano-sodden 'Corduroy Road', the hard-working Keith Kenniff has slipped out of his Goldmund guise to reassume the Helios mantle and put together this lambent LP of expansive instrumentation and froth-flecked electronics. A student at Berkley College of Music in Boston, Kenniff's style may benefit from a firm understanding of what is required under-the-bonnet in terms of technical considerations, but never does he let the more austere elements of formal musical training encroach on the utterly sublime compositions that stretch as far as the eye can se… Read more
PAUSAL
BARGE
MP3 Download // £6.99FLAC Download // £8.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: BRG008
From the label that brought you The Fun Years, UK duo Pausal cue up their new album, Lapses, an outstandingly follow-up to their eponymous EP, released recently via Highpoint Lowlife. Given that we're currently experiencing a seemingly overwhelming supply of high quality ambient and drone releases, it's hard to separate the great from the merely very good. Lapses certainly makes a case for a position in the former of the two categories, not for being exceptionally experimental or new in its approach, but because it's such a consummate work that oozes musicality and a mastery of the art. 'Vemead … Read more
THE SIGHT BELOW
Ghostly International
MP3 Download // £6.99FLAC Download // £8.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: GI102
*Digital edition includes bonus track 'Splénétique'* Rafael Anton Irisarri's best known project, The Sight Below, returns with a follow up to the 2008 debut, Glider. The album garnered praise across the board for its integration of rich ambient textures with a technoid sense of urgency, prompting many to hail Irissari as a successor to Wolfgang Voigt's Gas project. 'It All Falls Apart' underlines that such comparisons don't really tell the full story when it comes to The Sight Below's music. The two opening tracks, 'Shimmer' and 'Fervent' establish a beatless soundscape of … Read more
ÓLAFUR ARNALDS
and they have escaped the weight of darkness
ERASED TAPES
MP3 Download // £6.99FLAC Download // £8.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: ERATP022
The stock of this young Icelandic composer has risen dramatically within a relatively short period of time, and although this is only the second album proper from Olafur Arnalds, there's been a healthy amount of anticipation building up to its release. And They Have Escaped The Weight Of Darkness takes its name from a line in Bela Tarr's Werckmeister Harmonies, a film that Arnalds cites as a major inspiration all round for this album, and knowing that certainly invites you to draw parallels between the stately, elegant pacing and proportions of the res… Read more
SEAWORTHY & MATT ROSNER
12K
CD // £7.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: 12K1062
A brilliant new collaboration from two of Australia's leading electroacoustic practitioners, Two Lakes finds Seaworthy's Cameron Webb joining forces with Matt Rösner for an album based upon the sounds of the coastal ecosystems of Lakes Meroo and Termeil in New South Wales. The duo set about collecting detailed location recordings of the various lakeside habitats and environments, capturing sound from forest regions, streams and beaches at different times of day. Hydrophones as well as more conventional mics were used to document the natural sonic activity, and the two musicians even fou… Read more
RAFAEL ANTON IRISARRI
IMMUNE
MP3 Download // £2.50FLAC Download // £3.00
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: Immune 010
Arriving around the same time as his greatly anticipated return as The Sight Below, this new LP from Rafael Anton Irisarri shows a different side to this talented composer/producer. 'Lit A Dawn'is a typically dense and immersive composition that integrates pensive, tentatively paced piano figures with arcs of vaporous background ambience. The compressed and muffled quality of the recording only heightens the impact of the music itself: as slow and purposeful as it may be, it somehow also feels as if its on the verge of rupturing or breaking at the seams. After this lyrical opening… Read more
BVDUB
Tribes at the Temple of Silence
Home Normal
MP3 Download // £6.99FLAC Download // £8.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: HN023
The consistently good Home Normal label presents what must be the most engaging and lushly complex album to date from Brock Van Wey aka BVDub. Drifting slightly away from the vast dub scapes he's reputed for, 'Tribes At The Temple Of Silence' is a sumptuous suite of drone/loop-based ambient electronics with a keener sense of pop sweetness and taste for tempered beats. A first sign of things to come occurs on 'A Quiet Doorway Opens', setting the four walls of his sound to a more intimate environment. 'The Past Disappears' gives the first convective flush of emotion with a slo… Read more
Review to follow shortly…
LUUP
EXPERIMEDIA
MP3 Download // £6.99FLAC Download // £8.99
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: expcd015
Led by flautist Stelios Romaliados, Luup is a collective of vocalists and musicians bringing self-described "shimmering folk tendencies" to bear on neo-classical compositions. It really avoids the trite and cloying vibe of so much similarly oriented fare, opening itself up to eerie loop effects, jazzy inflections, artfully glitched percussion and tremulous string arrangements; we end up with an electro-acoustic music that's full of detail, drama and emotional resonance, but which leaves enough space for reflection. 'Spiralling's spooked celtic ambience recalls the classic 4ADism of This Morta… Read more
DONATO WHARTON
A White Rainbow Spanning The Dark
Serein
MP3 Download // £3.95FLAC Download // £4.95
HOME LISTENING / MODERN CLASSICAL / AMBIENT
Cat. Number: SERE11-2
We haven't heard much from Donato Wharton since his brace of City Centre Offices LPs in 2004 and 2006, but the Cardiff-born, Stuttgart-raised and currently London-based artist has been busy in the interim, concentrating on his work as sound designer and composer for theatre and dance. Indeed, A White Rainbow Spanning The Dark is inspired by the endless air and train-miles that he's racked up along the way - beautifully evoking the listlessness and melancholy of the airport, the hotel, the foreign city, of hours spent in transit and liminal space. With track titles… Read more
