Since 1993, Susumu Yokota has built an impressive catalogue of more than 30 albums, and numerous EP’s and 12″-es.
On Kaleidoscope he presents 16 new tracks, over 1 hour of music.
Yokota can’t be accused of making it easy for himself. But, even better: his musical ideas are still as fresh as if this was his debut release.
I guess I should start with a warning for regular visitors: this mix is different from what you’re used to.
First: it’s definitely not an “ambient mix”, although there’s quite a lot of ambience involved in this music.
Second: it’s not a compilation mix, but a mix featuring the music of one artist only: Michel Banabila.
Along with two other (dutch!) musicians Machinefabriek and Michel Banabila, Matthew Florianz is one of the three “all time favourite artists” in my last.fm profile.
This obviously means I was eagerly awaiting the release of Matthew’s new album “Koude Handen” (“Cold Hands”), his follow up to 2008’s “Maalbeek“.
“Koude Handen” is presented as a free download from Matthew’s website – available as high bitrate MP3 or even as 24 bit FLAC (which, mind you, is even a better bitrate than standard CD can provide!). The album page also offers the complete artwork, as well as some beautiful promo videos.
And, to celebrate the release of this new album, Matthew also offers his previous release “Maalbeek” as a free download!
Although their debut “Fyris Swan” was released in 2006, Solo Andata gained the recognition they deserved with the release of the “Solo Andata” album on the 12k label in 2009.
The fact that their work was mastered by Taylor Deupree and Giuseppe Ielasi – household names in the world of ambient / electronic music – will probably have helped to attract the attention, but the music created by Kane Ikin and Paul Fiocco in itself was (is) impressing enough to immediately classify Solo Andata as ‘classic material’ of ambient soundscapes.
Their new album, “Ritual” is the debut release of a brand new label: Desire Path Recordings.
And what a debut it is to start a new label with!
Together with the recent release of Rafael Anton Irisarri another recent Room40 release came to my attention: “A Path Less Travelled“ by Minamo and Lawrence English.
An album very well titled, since the five sonic electro-acoustic pieces on this album are indeed uncovering some musical ‘paths less travelled’
A collaborative mix by Muttley (Subversion Weblog) and myself.
The mix is divided in ‘sets’ getting shorter each round.
In minutes: 20-20-10-10-5-5.
Every ‘set’ (except the first, of course) is created as an associative reaction to the the preceding one.
If this album had been presented to me ‘blind’, without knowing anything about it, I doubt that I would have guessed that I was listening to the new Rafael Anton Irisarri album “The North Bend“.
I would probably have mistaken these rather dark repeating loops for a new William Basinski recording.
Though the title of Arve Henriksen’s opening track (Stille Veg, Quiet Road) was the working title for this mix, I finally decided to call it “Invisible Ink” – referring to the quote from Laurie Anderson’s track from “Homeland”, which may describe the confused global state (and – if you wish – the political state of Holland in particular):
Was the Constitution written in visible ink?
Has everybody here forgotten how to think?
Is this great big boat starting to … sink?”
But apart from this, this journey along the ‘Stille Veg’ may present some interesting encounters – some dark and mysterious, others enchanting and optimistic…
Well here’s for something completely different!
Usually, ambientblog is not the platform to promote portuguese electronic pop music – however adventurous it may be. But after releasing Lylac – adventurous electronic cut-up pop music featuring Melissa Veras on vocals, :papercutz main performer Bruno Miguel grew fond of the ambient genre (“much because of my love for movie soundtracks”) – and somehow managed to an impressive list of ambient music artists to rework the music on Lylac.
To get you interested: “Do Outro Lado De Espelho – Lylac Ambient Reworks” contains remixes by folks like Helios, Emanuele Errante, Simon Scott, Taylor Deupree, Autistici, Christopher Bisonnette, Jasper TX – and that’s not even everybody on the list!
