Experimental Music

[Music] Arturo Stàlteri – From Ajanta to Lhasa

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This release comes as a very pleasant surprise! Arturo Stàlteri (Italian bio) is a pianist and composer of incredible ability whom I came across at least 30 years ago when finding a record by his early project, Pierrot Lunaire, who release a couple of progressive rock masterpieces.

This new album (and I’m not really sure if it is a reissue or something that was sitting in the vaults for 40 years) compares well with minimalist composers influenced by Eastern culture like Terry Riley, Philip Glass and La Monte Young.

This really is a minor treasure. I’d be very interested to see if Stàlteri has a few more hidden albums waiting to see the light of day.

[Music] Jeff Gburek Projects – Polish Soundscapes

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Today has been a good day to start working on a few projects, potentially a more professional podcast complete with investment in decent equipment, so I started going through older links and MP3s I had in my hard drives.

The disc digging led me to a release from 2016 from American expatriate composer (now residing in Poland), Jeff Gburek. He has been featured here before, and is one of our favorite active sound artists. This album serves as something of a travelogue of Poznań, Poland, perfect for our rainy day here in Brno.

For my taste, the best composers allow me to close my eyes and imagine a film to match a great soundtrack. Jeff never fails at providing me with this opportunity to make such images in my head.

[Music] Various Artists – Anthology Of Persian Experimental Music Vol. II

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September 4 is one of those Bandcamp Fridays where the company doesn’t take its normal commission in order for the artists to either make a bit more money or donate it to the cause of their choice. Though well over 1,500 releases flooded by email inbox today, there was one which came to me from a dear friend of the blog, Raffaele Pezzella (owner of the incredible Unexplained Sounds Group, whose compilations never fail to impress.

This one is a second batch of Iranian dark ambient and experimental music composers, featuring such maestros as Xerxes The Dark, Reza Solatipour, Force Ignore and a host of names which are not only new to me, but who have managed to capture my interest rather quickly.

Today, of all days, is a fine one to introduce yourself to a fresh batch of music from Iran’s dark ambient wellspring.

[Music] Ellen Fullman & Theresa Wong – Harbors

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Lawrence English of Room40 Records has never, not once, disappointed me in showcasing a magnificent new release. This one is a collaboration between Ellen Fullman and her long string instrument collaborating with Theresa Wong, who adds a warm layer with her cello.

From the Bandcamp website:

Harbors is a collaboration of composers Ellen Fullman (Long String Instrument) and Theresa Wong (cello), which draws inspiration from the soundscapes, stories and atmospheres that manifest around bodies of water that propagate exchange. Structured around the extended harmonics of the open strings of the cello, Wong and Fullman utilize subsets of these tonal areas to create distinct sonic environments within the piece.

Fullman’s Long String Instrument, a stunning installation of over forty strings spanning seventy feet in length, places the performers and audience inside the actual resonating body, transforming the architecture itself into the musical instrument. Wong has developed techniques that take the cello beyond tradition into a vocabulary more closely rooted in the sounds of the natural world. She captures material electronically, layering textures amplified throughout the space which form an immersive field where figure and ground are in constant flux.

The piece reveals an orchestration of shifting drones, aberrant melodies and glistening atmospheres. Harbors has reverberated many spaces around the world, including: Click Festival, Helsingør, Denmark; Transformer Station, Cleveland; MONA FOMA, Tasmania; Centennial Hall, Sydney Festival; The Lab, San Francisco; and Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.

https://room40.bandcamp.com/album/harbors

As I am now settled in Brno, Czech Republic, these reviews will start making a comeback, and there are plans for new projects afoot. More on that later.

[Music] Ruheman – Slight Collapse

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Ruheman is the monicker of Bristol-based producer Sam Bates. Today must have been a good day because bright, sweeping ambient music in the vein, ever so slightly, of Brian Eno’s “Thursday Afternoon,” with more atmospherics and a touch of field recordings, was precisely what I was looking to hear. I don’t know much about Sam’s background, but if this is his first proper EP, he has a rather good future ahead of him.

Dissecting Table – Between Life and Death — NOISEXTRA

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Japanese industrial psychosis plows through the wastelands in the form of Dissecting Table’s “Between Life and Death.” We are fully on board for Ichiro Tsuji’s unique industrial art and have a blast digging into his post apocalyptic sounds. Hop into a flamethrower-equipped car and crank this dystopian masterpiece. Everyday is one more day of insanity.…

Dissecting Table – Between Life and Death — NOISEXTRA

[Music] Various Artists – Meticulous Midgets Magazine 2020

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Meticulous Midgets is a magazine out of Russia who did me one of the kindest honors by doing a sketch on the blog. I am delighted to return the favor by covering their survey on not only the Russian electronic, avant-garde, experimental and indie music, but a few tracks from the United States, Spain, France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Croatia, The Netherlands and Great Britain as well. This is a compilation whose broad scope equals that of my colleague Raffaele from Unexplained Sounds Group.

I expected to hear good headphone music, and I am happy to say that the comp delivers handsomely. There are three standout tracks for me:

The whole comp makes for solid listening, but just by hearing these three tracks, you can hear the depth and scope of the sort of music Meticulous Midgets covers. They have made a fan out of me.

[Music] FANT^MS ~ Roomtones — a closer listen

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What do Frédéric Nogray, Lee Patterson and Pali Meursault (FANT^MS) have in common? All are fascinated with sounds that would normally remain unheard. Nogray specializes in industrial crucibles forged into singing bowls; Patterson prefers springs, motors and chemical reactions; Meursault focuses on failing neon light and other electromagnetic activity. Under natural circumstances, one might expect their […]

FANT^MS ~ Roomtones — a closer listen

We had to take a hiatus due to some unforeseen personal issues popping up, but we’re happy to be back, starting with giving a nod to our colleagues at a closer listen who give us a taste of experimental composers Frédéric Nogray, Lee Patterson and Pali Meursault collaborating as FANT^MS.

[Music] Gacha Bakradze – Quick Dreams

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This has to be one of the most poorly tagged albums I have ever encountered on Bandcamp, and I’m happy for it.  I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I first played Quick Dreams, a release by Georgian composer Gacha Bakradze, but I knew about 20 second into it that it wasn’t going to be techno or house.  It’s definitely an ambient record, and quite a shimmery and pretty one as well, but you find acoustic guitar, rock-ish structures, and a very calm, warm air around this disc.

[Music] RRUFF – Impresiones

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RRUFF are a band based in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.  Though they are tagged as “dungeon-synth,” there is a dark, rather pleasant, atmospheric, air about this two-track album.  The work seems to come from a performance-oriented project focused on the ideas of Joan Fontcuberta regarding the state of photography and image.

From the band’s Bandcamp page:

Today photographs have ceased to be a memory to be ephemeral. The massification of photography has led us to a new situation in which it is not so important to own as to share. We live or perceive through the screens, which, like the shadows of Plato, are now our access to reality.

Perhaps it is because she was on my mind today, but the second track reminds me of American composer Pauline Oliveros, of blessed memory. RRUFF are in good company.