Peter James, Wil Bolton, Tomoko Sauvage, Five Pieces, Elements 01

In the Shortlist sections, I will mention some of the albums that I enjoyed listening to, but couldn’t find the time (or the right words) for a “full” review for. Still, I think they deserve your attention: use the links to find more info and hear previews.

Landfall

Peter James – Landfall
Well-balanced, deep and extremely relaxing drones on this 25th Relaxed Machinery release.
“I’ve always considered landfall to be a part of a journey, not the final part, or the start, just a part of it …. Not now. Not then. Just sometime, somewhere, someplace. “

Under a Name...

Wil Bolton – Under A Name That Hides Her
Combining drone backgrounds with environmental sounds and sparkling guitar themens, Wil Bolton manages to create music that sounds every bit as fresh as the cover image indicates.
“He wanted to create something that sonically presents his nostalgia, sounding submerged or decaying, as if heard through a veil the way memories and images become distorted over time. The album title ‘Under A Name That Hides Her’ is a quote from ‘The Space of Literature’ by Maurice Blanchot and is a reference to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.”
(Vinyl album; release date May 16)

Various Artists – Escala 2.3

It was a rather casual remark from Pleq, promoting his own track on this set, that led me to Escala 2.3 . 

Following his advice, I found an amazing set of 3 albums, presented by the Escalared netlabel and Sísmógrapho Radio 3 from Spain. 

46 tracks of new ambient, drone, soundscape and electro-acoustic music – over 4 hours of music in a free download package … you can even choose to download it in MP3, OGG or FLAC format!

Restive – Generative 2

Ever since Brian Eno himself introduced the SSeyo Koan Generative Music software (way back in 1996!!) I have been interested in the Generative Music concept: music that is ever-changing, evolving from a single “seed”, consistent through musical parameters defined by the ‘artist’, the creator that has to refrain from influencing the ‘path’ of the music once it has left off.  

For his release Generative Music I, Brian Eno chose the most radical medium possible: a diskette containing the software, only reproducable when using the correct hardware (the SoundBlaster AWE32 soundcard: I actually bought one of those just to be able to reproduce Eno’s Generative Music!!).
Which sadly means you’ll have a hard time now to reproduce this music as it was intended then. 

This represents the dilemma for musicians creating Generative music. Apart from using it in sound installations, there is no way to distribute the music in its generative form, since every recorded medium stops it from being generative (= different with every new performance).

Which does not mean that a recorded ‘instance’ of generative music is not interesting to listen to….on the contrary. But, like a photograph compared to movement, it is a ‘frozen’ capture of an ongoing (musical) process.

Dub Jay: AMFM

Ambient musician Warren Sulcs, known to some under the name Dub Jay, created this album about a year ago. But finding a record label for his music proved increasingly difficult, as most ambient musicians can probably confirm.

So after a while he decided to just share the album to those interested.
And I really think this album is interesting enough to be heard – so you may grab your chance and listen to it too!