Although The Notwist generated a storm of hyped attention when releasing their Neon Golden album in 2002, that was never the music for me. And neither for this weblog, since it’s nowhere near ‘ambient music’.
My local record shop retailer recently insisted I’d listen to their recently released “Sturm” (Storm) soundtrack.
And right he was (Thanks Willem!)
Found Songs initially was conceived as a download-for-free internet-only project: 7-songs in 7-days.
But obviously the response was such that these songs, covering just over 20 minutes, are now releases in physical form too.
“From Twitter via Flickr to Traditional Record Stores”.
In fact, that feels a bit like if these songs did not really exist until they were released in the form of a 10″ vinyl limited edition, or as a Digisleeve limited CD edition.
Hey, we’re the online digital generation, aren’t we? Why bother with physical releases?
Wrong!
At first listen, the ‘post-classical’ music on Janek Schaefer’s new CD “Extended Play (Triptych For The Child Survivors Of War And Conflict)” resembles the quiet peacefulness of the compositions of Arvo Pärt – especially in the beautiful 24 minute piece “acoustic ensemble”.
But there are some disturbing details: most artist would go a long way to avoid the vinyl crackle-and-pops for a CD release like this. The parts of the acoustic ensemble piece are also represented as solo piano, cello and violin piece, which contain some stops and re-starts breaking the flow of the composition quite unexpected.
Janek Shaefer is, after all, not primarily know as a post-classical composer but as a ‘turntablist‘….
The installation picture on the cover explains the performance we hear:
One of the most anticipated concerts of this year coming up friday, 21: Stars of the Lid will be performing in Utrecht (my hometown).
There’s an extensive European tour proceeding, so quite a few people may have already seen the show by now.
In between the growing names of contemporary (post-)classic composers, Greg Haines’ debut stands out for it’s own style. It’s not trying to be too ‘classical’, because it’s more electronic than just that. But on the other hand it’s not exactly ‘ambient’ too (to continue the previous post about the ambient subgenres: we could define this music as ‘classbient’ – classy classic ambient 🙂 )
The record label Miasmah namedrops some of Greg’s inspirations: Arvo Pärt, Ryan Teague, William Basinski… If these names mean anything to you you know where to go. And dont’ forget Colleen for the sound of the glockenspiel.
This is a great cd for the dark winter days coming up!
