Ambient

[Music] Various Artists – Anthology of Electroacoustic Lebanese Music

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When he’s not working on his own music as Sonologyst, Raffaele Pezzella of Unexplained Sounds captures a lot of attention by releasing travelogue compilations covering the best of experimental and dark ambient music from various countries and regions. This one may well be his crowning effort.

All of these, with the exception of Sharif Sehnaoui, are unfamiliar names, but the sounds, which range from slow, churning, rhythmic drone to post-Industrial noise, the compilation introduces what I’m hoping is an energetic crop of new music composers whose influence will spread quickly both inside and outside the Levant.

Could a Syrian or Iraqi electroacoustic scene be next?  I surely hope so!

Sharif Sehnaoui

[Music] Hviledag – Minder i Fire Satser

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Hviledag is the moniker of Anton Friisgaard, who has an EP due for release on September 22.

Listening to it, it seems Anton has captured the spirit of the best of 1970s Kosmich Musik out of Germany (think Cluster/Kluster and the solo releases by Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius [RIP], Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze during their peak in the mid-1970s, and even pre-robot Kraftwerk).

Don’t think, however, that this is some boring copy of the masters.  Anton brings fresh ideas to the genre.  The recording quality, however, is so familiar and comfortable to me that if this release were to come out on vinyl, I would be thrilled to listen to it and place it along with the greats mentioned earlier.

[Music] Ataşehir – Colorful Places to Live and Play

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Ataşehir is the side project of Sumatran Black, an expatriate residing in the Anatolian side of Turkey.  The music roaring out of my speakers sounds, in part, like a black-ambient version of a 1950s B-Movie sci-fi soundtrack (trust me, this is a high compliment, considering my brother and I grew up as fans of the film genre and the music it produced) and a touch like the end of the movie Solaris, where film composer Eduard Artemiev goes into a drone which grows louder and louder until it crescendoes.

There is an amusing irony that the song titles, as Ataşehir mentions on his site, “are taken from aspirational advertising slogans of various residential developments from around the world.”

There is a bleak, black beauty to this album.  It ends with a progressive-rock length final track clocking in at 48 minutes. Colorful Places to Live and Play Bandcamp Exclusive Compilation Version. . As it turns out, it is the least brutally dark track on the album, making for a pleasantly drony listening experience.

[Music] Silent Island – Stormvalley

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I want to thank István Csarnogurszky, guitarist of Silent Island and musician in several amazing post-rock bands, for this new little gem of an album. His guitar playing is as fluid as ever, and as much as I like instrumental guitar albums, Csarnogurszky is ably supplemented by Gábor Károlyi on bass guitar and Mike Vecchione, who provides drum loops.

Dense, but not overwhelming. A very pleasant album to think to, but it can take you places if you want to concentrate solely on the music.

[Music] Necromishka – The Space Between Us

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This is another weird, nearly terrifying, yet wonderful work from the nexus of musicians floating around Tel-Aviv and involving Tamar Singer.

Necromishka continue the neofolk tradition, mixing it with some of the hallucinatory vibe which gave early Current 93 its power.  The vocals in Beast of Prey, for instance, are slowed down to something so eerie that they should have belonged to a character in a David Lynch movie.

The other tracks give the feel of the soundtrack that should be made, if anyone is insane enough to try it, of Isadore Ducasse’s ur-Surrealist masterpiece, Les Chants de Maldoror.

[Music] Nhung Nguyen – Nostalgia

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Sublime isn’t quite a strong enough word to describe the stylings of pianist Nhung Nguyen.  She comes to me from her experimental music background something I thank my friend and colleague C-Drik for), but this particular release, my favorite of her substantial back catalog, is something that would have done Andrei Tarkovsky (the famed director of the magnificent movie, Nostalghia) proud.  It is a perfect album to simply relax to and let the mind wander a bit.

[Music] Sieben – Crumbs (reviewed by Santa Sangre)

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Much respect to Peter Marks of Santa Sangre Magazine for reviewing my favorite Apocalyptic Folk violinist (and very cool chap) Matt Howden.

[Reviewed by Peter Marks] Ah just look at him on the cover in his Sunday tea time best. Flip the panel and you’ll see how thin the veneer is as a Guy Fawkes mask and full fencing uniform greet you; there can be no doubt that we’re living in extraordinarily perilous times with one guy […]

via Sieben – Crumbs — Santa Sangre

[Music] Various Artists – 1​+​1​=​X

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A hearty congratulations to Erased Tapes who turn 10 years old this year. This compilation features 20 exclusive tracks from their mighty roster, and not one is a disappointment.

1. Qasim Naqvi – Brutal Moderna 04:18
2. A Winged Victory For The Sullen – Long May It Sustain 04:20
3. Rival Consoles – Ritual Song 05:10
4. Nils Frahm – Frau Dehlholm 03:05
5. Daniel Thorne – Iroise 05:47
6. Daniel Brandt – Blackpool Sands Forever 05:11
7. Douglas Dare – Darling 08:13
8. Michael Price – Eyn Hallow 04:17
9. Kiasmos & Högni – Zebra 03:43
10. Ben Lukas Boysen – Pending 04:44
11. David Allred – Ahoy 04:49
12. Anne Müller – Bel Tono 03:30
13. Lubomyr Melnyk – Palisade I 17:03
14. Hatis Noit – Inori 04:44
15. Masayoshi Fujita – Spaceship Magical 04:05
16. Högni – Máni 03:56
17. Peter Broderick – The Perpetual Glow 05:23
18. Arthur Jeffes & Nils Frahm – Up Is Good 05:35
19. Daniel Brandt – Blackpool Sands Forever (Rival Consoles Remix) 04:27
20. Penguin Cafe – Wheels Within Wheels (Greg Gives Peter Space Remix) 06:09