Tag: minimal

ambient music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Good Weather for an Airstrike, Offthesky + Man Watching the Sky, Eugene Carchesio, Max Wuerden

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. 

Lights

Good Weather for an Airstrike – Lights
“Good Weather For An Airstrike (the name comes from a Sigur Rós piece) is an ambient/post-rock project by Tom Honey from Winchester, Hampshire UK. The idea of the project was to create a collection of relaxing sounds which would help Tom alleviate the issues caused by suffering from tinnitus, which causes a ringing sensation in the ear and can often result in difficulty sleeping. Combining processed guitars, dreamy strings, piano, synths, drums, lulling drones and subtle field recordings, Lights is full of wonderful soundscapes that mix ambient, electronic, post-rock and neo-classical sounds perfectly.”

Afar, Farewell

Offthesky & Man Watching the Stars – Afar, Farewell
Experimental violinist Brendan Paxton joins Jason ‘Offthesky’ Corder on these “five gorgeous tracks of slowly evolving melody on a soft bed of processed guitar, molten strings and Offthesky’s deep and quirky signatures”.

other-music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Michael Gordon – Timber

To some, waves on the shore, leaves from a tree, flames in a fire all look the same.
Others can stare at this fractal beauty and find Zen-like peacefulness in the fact that this ‘sameness’ is just an illusion, because every single detail is different – and no single detail ever occurs twice. 

Michael Gordon‘s “Timber” may achieve the same effect in sound.  

“Timber” is scored for six “wooden 2x4s, each cut into different sizes, giving each one a slightly different pitch.” 
Called a “simantra“, this percussion instrument was first devised by composer Iannis Xenakis.

other-music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Johann Johannsson – The Miner’s Hymns

Created as a soundtrack for the Bill Morrison movie depicting the disembling of the North East England’s mining community (the movie DVD will be released in june), this CD version is recorded live at the Durham Cathedral with a surprising cast of a 16-piece brass ensemble, church organ, percussion and electronics (the latter pre-recorded to catch the reverberation of the cathedral itself and use it in the recording).
No string section – in instrumentation and style Johannsson returns to the time of “Virthulegu Forsetar” (Touch, 2004).

other-music, RECOMMENDATIONS

Peter Broderick’s Flickr Album

Peter Broderick is not afraid to try out some new directions. With his music (ranging from minimal electronics via minimalism to new-folk), as well as with the ways to distribute them.
Some of his records were released on fairly wellknown labels as Type and Kning, or on lesser known labels as Slaapwel Records and Fang Bomb. But also on cassettes, freely available mixtapes, and now even using Flickr (the  web 2.0 photo sharing site).

As far as I know, he’s the very first artist creating a ‘Flickr Album‘ this way.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Phill Niblock – Touch Strings

Though he’s not the only one working in this musical area (think of Eliane Radigue, her ‘Trilogie de la Mort’ especially, or Alvin Lucier with his ‘Music on a Long Thin Wire’), I can hardly think of anyone creating drones more ‘minimal’ than Phill Niblock does.

Phill Niblock (born 1933) has a vast catalogue of compositions exploring the essence of sound by asking the listener to zoom in almost indefinitely and forget about time. To the casual passer-by, the music may sound like it’s only one endless chord and if you don’t have the right mindset you’ll probably get extremely bored soon. But if you let the sound grab you, you’ll hear the subtle nuances and interplay of the interacting waveforms.