Category: other-music

ambient music, exclusives, other-music

Paul Sharma – Embers

Paul Sharma‘s Embers is a beautiful electronic composition based on the Indian midnight raga Malkauns, and thus is very suitable for midnight listening (The Raga Guide indicates Late Night: 12 – 3).

“Malkauns is a serious, meditative raga, and is developed mostly in the lower octave (mandra saptak) and in a slow tempo (vilambit laya).”
(Wikipedia)

On this version the vocals are more in the middle octave as that suits Rajesh’s voice, but there are instruments at the lower (and sub-lower) to compensate. The vocal piece starts with an alap (free or rhythmless tempo) and then a slow tempo vocal.

“It is a majestic and somewhat introverted pentatonic raga, which seems to have undergone quite a transformation over the centuries. Superstitious musicians describe it as a raga with supernatural powers, and some believe that it can attract evil spirits.”
(The Raga Guide)


other-music, other-news, RECOMMENDATIONS

Charles Spearin – The Happiness Project


http://www.happiness-project.ca/about.php

It’s not ambient, and it’s only remotely electronic.
Still, when I discovered this album last week (it was released in march this year), it left me completely speechless and utterly fascinated.  
 
The Happiness Project is a concept created by Charles Spearin from Toronto, known by some for his contributions to Do Make Say Think and Broken Social Scene.

For this project he has been interviewing some of his neighbours in downtown Toronto, and used their recorded voice to create the musical track.
In these sample-laden times that in itself  does not sound very spectacular, but Spearin focussed on the melody of the voice and doubled it with a musical instrument fitting the voice. The pitch of the voice is never changed, but rhythmic and melodic patterns are created by repeating some of the phrases. Thus resulting in a sparkling and engaging kind of experimental jazz music.

ambient music, other-music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Various Artists – Hope

The brand new Fluid Audio label kicks off with a promising start: a compilation album donating 50% of its profits to charity. (Toybox Charity foundation, supporting latin america’s street children).

One may wonder how much funds this may raise in times where ambient musicians hardly make enough money to break even on any physical CD release.
Just realising the fact that the ‘average Guatemalan street kid’ has an average life expectancy of four years should make you buy this album.
But the music included proves to be rewarding too – raising expectations fairly high for future releases on this label.

ambient music, other-music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Solo Andata – Solo Andata

A few years ago, ‘Ambient Music‘ used to be almost synonymous to ‘Electronic Music‘ in regards of instruments chosen and production process.
But gradually, acoustic instruments crept in, maybe as a reaction to laptop concerts proving to be quite boring – throw in a ‘real’ musician playing a ‘real’ instrument (cello is favourite for its sound) and any live show is far more interesting to watch.  

A lot of this music can hardly be called ‘ambient’ any more. Some of it is modern classical music, some of it has firm roots in ethnic folk music or even folk psychedelica…

Enter Solo Andata. Australian duo (Kane Ikin and Paul Fiocco), creating great ambient soundscapes which are as much ‘electronic’ as they are ‘acoustic’, still definitely also ‘ambient music’.
Their second album (Solo Andata) is released on the 12k label, mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi and with cover art by Taylor Deupree. Any more recommendation needed?

ambient music, other-music, RECOMMENDATIONS

The Lights Galaxia – Global


Global EP

Obviously, since it’s very hard to earn a living (or even a part of it) from creating ambient music, a lot of musicians creating this kind of music offer it for free.
From their own websites,  through netlablels or using archive.org, bandcamp.com or one of the many alternatives for sharing music.

So if you take some time to do a good search you may find quite some nice music (and a pile of rubbish too).

ambient music, other-music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Frank Rothkamm – ALT


http://www.rothkamm.com

Frank Rothkamm is a composer as well as a conceptual artists. You can tell when visiting his website, but also when reading the promo text for this new CD: “He cultivates enigmas <…>In fact, Rothkamm is a magician, a prestidigitation theoretician, and a carny all in one”.

Wow. Big Words. Want more? Read [here]!

But luckily he’s not without humour. His discography boasts 21 releases – among which Opus Spongebobicum, a set of piano variations on the first ten notes from the “Spongebob Squarepants” theme song. (Don’t know it, but I’d love to hear it!)

His latest release, ALT is released on the Baskaru label. It is a collection of ‘analog computers & algorithms’, created between 1989 and 2009.

ambient music, MIXES, other-music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Beautiful Companions: Dakota Suite

The End of Trying

‘The End of Trying’ is not a ‘typical’ Dakota Suite Release. Unlike most Dakota Suite albums (except 1999’s Navigators Yard) it is fully instrumental, with Chris Hooson, David Buxton and Colin Dunkley playing piano and David Darling playing cello.
The latter fact may indicate the mood of the music on this album: it is extremely delicate, heartbreaking melancholic music.
A ‘classic’ release that immediately struck me when I first heard it in the beginning of this year.

The track titles indicate the overall mood of this music: How Could You Let Me Go, Things We Lost Along The Way, All The Love I Had Was Not Enough, A Quietly Gathering Tragedy, and not forgetting “Een Langzaam Lekkende Wond‘ (A Slow Leaking Wound) which reminds us of the fact that Chris Hooson lived in Holland for quite a few years.
This beautiful sad music is clearly not meant to brighten up your day. But it might soothe your sadness with rays of hope shining through empathic, understanding themes and fabulous cello sounds. 

‘The End of Trying’ is one of the most beautiful albums I have heard this year, and it even gains strength with the companion CD that was released shortly after the release of the original: “The Night Keeps Coming In”.

exclusives, other-music, other-news

"Friederich Remixed" by Banabila


radiolines

In december 2008, dutch musicians Frans Friederich and Michel Banabila met each other performing on the ‘RadioLines’ performance, organised by the (now almost deceased) radio programs Folio and Supplement.

Three musicians performing simultaneously, while live-mixed by one of the radio-makers. The musicians had no influence on the resulting mix in any way (there even was a possibility they were playing their parts without it being heard at all).
(The musicians brave enough to take this risk were Michel Banabila, Frans Friederich and Floris van Bergeijk – the resulting music can be found and downloaded [here].)

For edition “P” of Frans Friederich‘s Recyclopedia, a series of 26 multi-styled CD’s (one for every single letter of the alphabet), Michel Banabila created a beautiful remix, inviting dutch trumpet player Eric Vloeimans to play the additional trumpet part.
This track is unclassifiable: it’s jazz, pop, electronic, fourth world and maybe even more.
It is also a perfect example of what can happen when open-minded musicians work together for the sake of music, not caring about whatever expectations there may be!