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Longform Editions Label Pack (Web)
 Жанр: Ambient, Drone, Experimental, Glitch, Techno, Minimal, Electroacoustic, Free Improvisation, Abstract, Modern Classical Страна-производитель диска: Sydney, Australia Год издания диска: 2018-2023 Тип издания: WEB Издатель (лейбл): Longform Editions Аудиокодек: FLAC (*.flac) Тип рипа: tracks Продолжительность: 56:24:56 Источник (релизер): Qobuz Наличие сканов в содержимом раздачи: cover Longform Editions is a curatorial music practice created to foster and celebrate immersive listening experiences for the musically adventurous. Launched in 2018, Longform Editions was founded by Andrew Khedoori and Mark Gowing, based on the collective experience of their long running Preservation label. The organisation was originally born out of a desire to enable a deeper attention to listening utilising contemporary digital music delivery systems. Longform Editions was not conceived as a record label, rather it is more like an ever-evolving group show at an art gallery, but online, with music.  Tracklist:01. Richard Youngs - Daybreak (31:40) 24Bit Richard Youngs has been involved with music for most of his life. He discovered the power of the art form by thumping the family piano as an angry 5 year old. In the intervening 45 years he has attempted to harness the same experimental, naive, playful power in his live performances and in all of his 140 releases. This creative openness has led him to explore different musical genres. He is a solo artist who also works with a diverse range of artists. He has collaborated with Alastair Galbraith and Makoto Kawabata (Acid Mothers Temple) among others. He was the bassist for Jandek’s inaugural live performance at Instal 2005, and plays as a duo with Damon Krukowski (Galaxie 500; Magic Hour; Damon and Naomi). He attempts not to repeat himself, every leap of faith is an expression of Richard Youngs’ essential Youngs-ness. Artist’s notes: I have always been a fan of long-form music. As a teenager, pre-internet, when try-before-you-buy wasn't an option, the worth of a record could often be determined by its track durations. Back then, even splicing together entirely disconnected sections seemed to improve just about any music, my younger-self believing that it made for a deeper listen. My listening has changed over time. I would like to think I can hear now what should and should not be presented in longform, what should be discreet, what should be edited, what should be allowed to run its natural course, what should be extended. And, once heard, this recognition can be acted upon or – when feeling perverse – ignored. Longform allows a freedom to roam, broadening possibilities. And so, when I was invited to be part of this project I was in. For a while I'd been sitting on some recordings of street noise, wondering how I could ever use them. They were, I guess, field recordings. Played at double speed they acquired a Brands Hatch edge, a far cry from the easy sitting-by-a-stream new age ambience of many field recordings. Sped-up they gave me a direction too. On ‘Daybreak’ I have added a sporadic ebow bass and an occasional monophonic synth. The street noise carries the piece. The duration is determined by the tape length – one large reel at 15ips. It's mixed through a desk I have had since a teenager. There is no outboard and stereo panning. It is as direct and primitive as I could possibly make it. I wake up in a city, not by an ocean, and I wanted to capture the sound of my early morning. Listen to it however you want. Or ignore it. released June 15, 2018 
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Upgrayedd Smurphy - #Interdimensionalmagic (20:09) Prolific and unpredictable, Upgrayedd Smurphy draws on turbulent urban atmospheres and her own emotional inner space within them to make a sprawling, textured techno coursing with bass, rage and serenity. While she played on Casios and turntables as a kid and later joined synthpunk band Post-Pastel and acid-house-pop group Supermad, Jessica Smurphy never expected herself to DJ massive #CDMX parties, propelled by the excitement of live performance. As DJ Smurphy, her off-kilter, anti-genre sound brought her into a community of electronic boundary pushers and transformers. Her album A Shapeless Pool of Lovely Pale Colours Suspended in The Darkness manifests its name and more – speedy atmospheric patterns elevated by echoing synth lines and vocals. She recently spent time living in south Los Angeles, a perception-altering experience that's heightened the intensity of her music and inspired Upgrayedd Smurphy, an enhanced name to match a sound she's upgraded in depth and scope – with her HYPNOSYS release, she intertwines wide awake external urban chaos with personal subconscious complexities. Artist’s notes: This piece is a mutation from a series of mutations of productions. It started from #PENINSULA (my self release upcoming album), which is an interpretation of the experience of living in the tropical Peninsula de Yucatan, in Mexico. This album explores different rhythmic sounds in order to make a whole dance piece that fully stimulates the spectator to move, since I personally loose mobility during my stay in the peninsula, I created this music to stimulate others and my own body to move. It's also in this piece where I integrated the act of dancers during my live shows, to create an extension of my own body and communicate more thru the music and body movement. The live experiment went really well, we got really good response from people, and us – dancers and me – loved to worked together, then we collaborated in two other different pieces that they presented as live performances for theater. The first play was AVATARS presented by Dilery Sanchez and Dalia Xiuhcoatl, young talented dancers from Mexico, they presented a choreography inside of a placard at the facade of La Teatreria theater, in colonia Roma, Mexico City. The concept of this was the avatars that people create to face social media and its relation with technology, here the music mutated to a more abstract experimental kind of production, coming from the dance rhythmic beats from #PENINSULA. IDM (INTERNATIONAL DANCE MACHINE) was the second piece, directed by Dilery Sanchez and Azhreel Sierra, and with the collaboration of more dancers, actors and lighting artists. The concept of this piece was a mixture of androgynous and animal corporality with the interaction of abstract black and white geometric light/laser show, presented in Contemporary Creation Contest in Mexico. I took the initials of the original piece and mutated them into a new name #InterDimensionalMagic as a parallel meaning for the musical part of this performance. The inspiration for this name is how music can mutate into totally different pieces for totally different shows, situations and people, coming from the same source, as well how music can be interpreted completely different when more artists are involved. The essence of each of the artists gets injected into the pieces and the results are richer, I see that phenomena as magic, since the life energy and creativity of the people is what gives the music a path and a sense. Longform Editions is the last link of a chain of collaborations that makes this pieces go through almost different dimensions. It was meant to be that the piece was originally 20 minutes long for the performances and I saw an opportunity to mutate it and put it out in a Longform platform that’s more for deep listening. It went from an album format, to a festival show, to a live performance on the streets, to a formal contemporary dance play, to a deep listening release. Trespassing borders and absorbing the creative forces of all the ones involved. I found it amazing the ways these pieces have been shifted not only musically, but also through different platforms and formats. In this last one, the music takes you to places, it's not anymore the beats from the #PENINSULA, it takes you to different dimensions, shapes, scenes and feelings, I would say that this piece has it's own consciousness and I am only a medium that has the tools to let it transform freely in order to be more than the production of a single musician. #InterDimensionalMagic is the result of mutations with the intervention of several creative energies. released June 15, 2018
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Lee Noble - Q (27:21) 24Bit Lee Noble (b. 1983 Nashville, TN) is a composer and artist whose audio work has focused on the in-between places of music forms, where synthesizer composition and folk traditions start to meet. He is designer and co-founder of the label imprint No Kings, and he has has performed at venues and festivals throughout the US, Europe, and Japan including Sonihouse (Nara), MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary (Los Angeles), the Wire’s Adventures in Modern Music Festival (Chicago), Hopscotch Festival (Raleigh), Rewire Festival (Den Haag), and Issue Project Room (Brooklyn). His music has been released by Muzan Editions, Pale Blue Records, Bathetic Records, Hands in the Dark, Patient Sounds, and Moon Glyph among others. He currently lives and works in Minnesota. Artist’s notes: Carolee Schneeman (talking about her film “Fuses”) describes being “free in a process which liberates our intentions from our conceptions”. By meditating on an improvised action for a sustained period, I hope to approach this state. At a point, engaging with music can transcend circumstance and become an entry point to an open plane, where author and audience have the same freedom and responsibility. Q For synthesizer and electronics Recorded 1 February 2018 Mastered by Conrad Burnham released June 15, 2018
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Liz Durette - Improvisation, March 2018 (21:43) 24Bit Liz Durette is a musician and visual artist, previously based in Baltimore but currently a long-term nomad in the USA. She plays improvised music on electric piano – her stated genre is psychedelic classical. Other than music, she also makes poster art and a TV show called Station Rainbow. Artist’s notes: The first section of this piece is working out a pattern of playing a broken line, split between two hands, as a way of playing fast fractured chords in an open structure with a melody sometimes coming through. It feels good to play. Shifts into a few directions. I keep the chords in the center of both hands, which overlap, and use the pinkies to go high and low for the melody and bass. Then it goes, in a similar pattern, downward, chromatic, with the pedal now. Three quarters through then it goes gentle schmaltz to pastoral from there on out. Any thinking about longform music leads straight to the issues of attention and perception, which is ultimately all you have in life, and so the subject quickly becomes an existential, and, by extension, spiritual, enquiry. Sorry, haha! It’s heavy but it’s fun, too. I don’t think anyone should prioritize any length of music, long or short. If the music is good then it’s the right length, and we’re compelled to pay attention. But, when nearly all of us are internet addicts and our attention span is fried, then we’re really limiting our field of perception and might want to reset, so we can be open to listen to everything. That said, listening to lengthy music shouldn’t be a chore either, or a martyr’s act – if music is good then it’s easy to listen to, no matter the length (even if it’s “difficult”). If it’s no good you should turn it off right away. I’m happy to contribute to Longform Editions. It’s interesting, because it seems to be addressing the problems which arise because of listening to music online, while itself being an online platform. I’m glad they’re doing it, and curious to see the results. released August 15, 2018
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Norm Chambers - Itinerant Pattern (30:03) Emerging from a love of early electronics, concrete/tape music, soundtracks and early new age, Norm Chambers – formerly working as Panabrite – creates worlds of sound that touch on many elements and moods, from spatially motivated ambient to aspects of minimalist composition and improvisation. Chambers utilises an array of synthesiser equipment to achieve his sounds, in addition to field sounds and occasional acoustic elements. Artist notes: My goal with this piece was simply to utilise the extended length to let a piece open up over time, slowly build up into something dynamic and then travel through different textures/zones. I chose to layer simple patterns, some that may often have a moment where they may appear slightly out of sync or following a different path. I love clean and simple sine and bell tones juxtaposed against random noise and other textures, and discovering what comes through in the din. I am a fan of minimalist pieces in general, and hearing different patterns playing off each other – often creating a “phantom” sound – is very satisfying. For the backbone of the track I have employed a "virtual" mallet section that runs through various sequences, accompanied by organ chords creating sustained melodic tension. This concept of traveling through sound is simple but very evocative, lending itself to fantastic daydreams while driving, walking, or performing other daily tasks. I find my mind can focus much more when immersed in a long, sustained and slowly unfurling piece of music; equally in the background but with the mind somehow focused. Patience can be rewarded by soaking in the repetitive patterns and little melodies that often appear out of nowhere. I don't intend to present this piece as a sort of aural “healing” or any such gimmick, but simply an experiential activity. released August 15, 2018
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Caterina Barbieri - Sogno Che Suona (20:54) Caterina Barbieri is a Berlin-based Italian composer who explores themes related to machine intelligence and object oriented perception in sound through a focus on minimalism. Caterina explores the psycho-physical effects of repetition and pattern-based operations in music, by investigating the polyphonic and polyrhythmic potential of sequencers to draw severe, complex geometries in time and space. Artist notes: These three pieces, all together in a sort of suite, are rooted in a similar tuning, a sort of harmonic matrix, but the way the notes and timbres are combined together is generative. It's in just intonation, very slow and anti-climactic. released August 15, 2018
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Paul Mac & Andy Ranzten - The Currawong Shall Return (35:50) 24Bit We are best known as long-running rave duo Itch-E & Scratch-E, but have collaborated under a number of aliases over the years, including the ambient moniker, Screensaver. Since Itch-E & Scratch-E was put on the backburner around 2010 (its flame is never quite extinguished), we have pursued solo careers, and so rather than dust off Screensaver for this track, it made more sense for us to go under our own names. We will continue to collaborate from time to time as long as Paul lives within walking distance of a pub. Artist notes: We wanted to write a piece using the call of the Currawong, one of our favourite birds. We combined this with other sounds, massively time stretched and detuned, but the Curranwong remained the 'hero' or 'diva' of the track. We stripped the birdsong down to just a few tendrils of sound, and these very pure notes punctuate the piece at regular intervals. Although the sounds is very stripped back, it's still recognisably a bird – it has that eerie quality. Also featured in the track, heavily detuned and time stretched, are various sound effects selected for their squeaky and reverberative quality, such as sneakers on a basketball court and a person yelling 'hello!' at a distant cliff. We didn't do the track in real time: we laid down the sound effects and field recordings, added an effect we both liked, then overlaid them visually on the sequencer to approximate a long form structure of about 33 minutes. Deep listening is a form of listening that is blank, unstructured, synchretic and purpose-free. You can move around and do things. it's doesn't have your primary focus. It affects your mood from the side, relaxing and sharpening your awareness. You can study, write, or do the dishes. Musicians write a lot of purpose-built music just to stay alive, so this is a refreshing change. released August 15, 2018
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Saariselka - Ceres (17:45) 24Bit There is an old Norse myth that says the great northern glaciers stored energy until they burst with fluorescent light, creating the Aurora Borealis. Saariselka is inspired by the meeting of earth and light, where slowly moving land masses merge with enveloping light fields. This sonic collaboration is between composers Marielle Jakobsons (Fender Rhodes, organ, synthesisers) and Chuck Johnson (pedal steel guitar and treatments). Chuck Johnson is an Oakland, California based composer and musician. He approaches his work with an ear towards finding faults and instabilities that might reveal latent beauty, with a focus on guitar, experimental electronics, minimalism and soundtrack composition. Recordings of his work have been published by VDSQ, Trouble in Mind, Scissor Tail, Merge, and Three Lobed, among others. Marielle V. Jakobsons is a composer and intermedia artist based in Oakland, CA. Her compositions evoke minimalism with melodic drone and enveloping polyrhythmic soundscapes of synthesizers, strings, and voice. She has published recordings and toured internationally on Thrill Jockey, Mexican Summer, Students of Decay, Digitalis, Important Records, among others. Artist notes: Ceres is inspired by whiteouts, where the rhythm of your breath and body become a container for experiencing the fine gradations of your surroundings. The process of creating this piece was one of learning how to get out of the way, and of emphasizing the use of space and decay to alter one’s perception of time. With a skeleton formed by a simple chord progression, we focused on the compelling sonic subtleties of the pedal steel guitar, Fender Rhodes electric piano, and a Yamaha electric organ. One of the many profound lessons I learned from my studies with Pauline Oliveros was the concept of truly existing inside the sound. Rather than thinking about a sonic structure as a horizontal timeline as in a score or audio editing software, or as a vertical stack of frequencies as depicted in a spectrogram, Oliveros’ approach invites us to exist inside a piece as if it was a three dimensional structure that surrounds the listener like a sphere. In fact, in her meditation exercises she encouraged participants to think of any sonic environment as a composition that is always available if one is willing to listen. These ideas inform my music making to this day. (Chuck) released August 15, 2018
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Matthewdavid's Mindflight - Marimbza (59:44) LA composer and Leaving Records label founder Matthew David McQueen is largely known for his experimental production including releases on Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder label. After nearly a decade of evolution, Matthewdavid's Mindflight is at once a powerful statement of identity and a new door into cosmic consciousness. Marimbza is generative re-sampled MIDI marimba and field recordings. Deep listening is huge – it assists with sleep, centeredness, stillness, being present, slowing down, relaxing. Most all of the music I'm making currently is free-flowing and potentially endless. Timelessness through music. Thank you Laraaji. released October 17, 2018
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Cruel Diagonals - Monolithic Nuance (18:59) 24Bit Megan Mitchell composes unsettling, ethereal music under the alias, Cruel Diagonals. A jazz and classically trained vocalist, Mitchell performs and creates in numerous capacities. Some of her current endeavors include acting as proprietor of the left-of-field music index for non-male composers, Many Many Women, and researching, visiting and documenting places of abandoned industry with her field recorder and camera in tow. Her debut full-length album, Disambiguation, was released via Drawing Room Records on vinyl and digital formats, alongside her EP, Pulse of Indignation, cassette. Artist notes: This was my first piece incorporating Eurorack modular synthesis into my process, though the rest of the elements of my usual composition approaches are there; field recordings gleaned from various industrial spaces, layered vocals, and attention to spatial orientation as guiding principles. The title itself, "Monolithic Nuance", speaks to the way in which I've interpreted the more sociopolitical aspects of Deep Listening as an embodied practice. Deep Listening espouses this notion that there is the tendency to commit one's energy toward a global attention, as opposed to a focal attention. This can be applied, of course, to the practice of listening, by honing in on the focal attention of the ear and picking out a tone within an otherwise chaotic environment; it can also be done by choosing to listen to a voice that is suppressed, silenced, or otherized. I think Deep Listening strives to encourage its practitioners to embody both this global (monolithic) and focal (nuanced) philosophy in approaching music, pure sound, and compassionate acts toward others. I've been thinking about this concept a great deal in the context of this seemingly human tendency to create a "pure" definition of what a person can or cannot embody based on some identity they have projected, and I attempted to explore these tensions and harmonies within this piece as well. released October 17, 2018
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Midori Hirano - Improvisation For Piano In Summer 2018 (30:09) Midori Hirano is a Japanese musician, composer and producer based in Berlin since 2008. She started learning the piano as a child, and this triggered what was to later see her study classical piano at university. Therefore her productions are based on the use of acoustic instruments such as the piano, strings or guitars, but yet experimental and an eclectic mixture of modern digital sounds with subtle electronic processing and field recordings. She has been releasing her albums under her own name on Noble Records and Sonic Pieces. She is known also as MimiCof focusing on electronic-experimental music and has performed at festivals including CTM Festival, Boiler Room Berlin, LEV Festival, etc. Artist notes: This piece consists of three different 10-minute-long tracks I played and recorded with the piano by completely improvising. Normally when I compose music, I always put different kinds of layers on each recordings and editing a lot with some electronic elements with a traditional idea of structuring sounds. But this time for Longform Editions I wanted to do only an improvisation just to make something simple, intuitive, and pretty raw but honest including mistakes on playing or noises which are the part of your life. It’s like a collection of analogue photos which you will never be able to edit afterwards. For me deep listening is like walking or traveling, since I sometimes forget what I heard some minutes ago, but also want to come back to hear that at the same time. released October 17, 2018
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Yamaneko - Aquarius Echo Chamber (23:00) 24Bit Since breaking through with 2014’s critically-acclaimed debut album, Pixel Wave Embrace, Yamaneko has been one of the key electronic artists combining club music with ambient aesthetics – with a sound equally inspired by grime, new age ambient, video game OSTs and techno. Despite being his first release, Pixel Wave Embrace was acclaimed and influential and is often referred to as a cult classic – praised highly by Dummy, Dazed, Resident Advisor, FACT, Tiny Mixtapes, Juno Plus and Fader, and played in sets by Objekt, Kassem Mosse, Peverelist, Mr. Mitch, Logos and Mumdance, who referred to the album as his favourite LP of 2014. Since the album’s release, Yamaneko has performed twice on Boiler Room, contributed mixes to Dazed and The Fader, hosted sporadic shows on NTS and Rinse FM, and is a resident DJ at New Atlantis. His second album, 2016’s Project Nautilus, was a darker, less inviting album but equally acclaimed – in Resident Advisor’s words, a series of “singular soundscapes from unexpected sources”. Yamaneko has also released three well-received experimental ambient albums and an exclusive mix of his own productions for Truants under the alias Talbot Fade, and is one half of Yaroze Dream Suite with Mr. Mitch. Yamaneko’s third and most recent album, Spa Commissions expanded on his ambient beginnings and was based on environmental music originally composed for a spa in Europe. Artist notes: I've been increasingly interested in making music that could be used as a sort of mood enhancer in certain environments or while doing another conscious activity outside of simply listening to the music. I wanted something fairly soft and unobtrusive, but still memorable, affecting and as immersive as the listener chooses it to be. I try to create subtle motifs and melodic hooks that ease in and out of focus and become more reassuring as the track progresses. This particular track is equally inspired by background music in aquariums, progressing through an RPG's world map (and retreading steps to find secret new places that weren't there before), and pretty much everything you find in astrology shops. I like the process of really getting to know a piece of music inside and out. The initial buzz from a melody that strikes you and the repeated listens, becoming familiar with each turn and change in tone. What I appreciate most from longer pieces of music is how much longer and rewarding that process is. It gives the artist more space to add context, depth and nuance to whatever it is they're trying to communicate, and the listener more things to become attached to or surprised by, even after multiple listens. released October 17, 2018
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Ekin Fil - Windblow (20:48) 24Bit Ekin Fil is the solo moniker of Ekin Üzeltüzenci from İstanbul. Ekin started her music career playing keyboards and singing in bands before going solo. She has been releasing albums on LP, digital and cassette formats on American and English labels as Ekin Fil since 2007, performing live in various countries like Germany, Poland, Belgium, Malta, Austria and Holland other than İstanbul. Ekin loves to bring acoustic elements like guitar with electronics in a minimal and affective ways. Apart from her solo albums and other recordings, she has been composing music for short and long feature movies for a while and was awarded "best original film music" for her first movie soundtrack "Kaygı" at SİYAD, 2017. Artist notes: Windblow corresponds to an audible feeling of the mingling of different perspectives of an image or various perceptions of a sound from different angles. released December 12, 2018
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Cham - Pocco (20:51) Artist's notes: I live two hours drive northwest of Tokyo, and my studio is at the foot of a mountain inhabited by spirits. A further hour away from there is a forest at the foot of a famous active volcano. It's just an oddball place to live! I'm better known as a house DJ under another alias in Japan. But it is necessary for me to get balance. After the party is over I like to spend time alone. I like to walk the dog and listen to the sounds of the forest. Cham is there in such day-to-day. And this is something that is in the most inner surface of my musical multiple personality. This work was influenced by the ringing sound of the forest inhabited by me, and also the voice of animals that live there in the background. The feature of this music is determined by moment and consciousness, and it leads to a deeper musical experience. Longform Editions has made me remember this. released December 12, 2018
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Steam Vent - * Swells (23:27) Del Lumanta b.1989 is an artist and musician based in Sydney, Australia. They are interested in skillshare and intersections between art and music through independent community processes. Their other music projects include: Gas, Call Compatible, Cutlery, Video Ezy (Paradise Daily), Skyline (Nice Music), Basic Human (Meat Spin) and Honey. They coordinate Double Vision, a series of free-form gigs showcasing the practice of DIY, sound and ‘other’ musicians and currently facilitate All Girl Electronic, a free electronic music production workshop program for young women, trans and non-binary youth from Western Sydney at Information and Cultural Exchange, Parramatta. Artist notes: * Swells was composed and recorded while staying between Melbourne and Brisbane for almost four weeks during the winter of 2018. It was the longest period I had been away from home and I became homesick after the first week away. Between bouts of social fatigue and restlessness, I would find comfort in the lightless intimate spaces of the homes I stayed. Approaching the piece, I was interested in exploring digital/synthetic guitar sounds. Most conversations I’ve had about them are to do with how tacky they sound – are they really that bad? The first few notes were punched in at random and the piece slowly evolved by making parts that responded to and/or overpowered one another. Extended or deep listening has always enabled me to be more attentive particularly toward difficult music and other mediums like visual art and reading. It’s nice to catch the finer details I often gloss over on first encounter. released December 14, 2018
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Marja Ahti - Entering A Cloud (20:28) 24Bit Marja Ahti is a composer and sound artist based in Turku, Finland. Ahti works with acoustic sound material combined with synthesizers and electronic feedback in order to find the moments where sounds start to mutate, mimic each other or communicate. She makes music that moves in associative patterns of mutating textures and warping harmonies – rough edged compositions that are rich in detail. Ahti has been working under the moniker Tsembla for almost a decade and recently in her own name. She also works as a duo, Ahti & Ahti, with her partner Niko-Matti Ahti, and as an organizer in the Himera work group. Artist notes: Entering a Cloud draws inspiration from cycles of liquid in the atmosphere and in the body. Trickling, running, seeping, evaporating, crystallizing, melting, coagulating, gathering mass and carrying resonance. At the base of the cloud, vision is limited. The mountain carries and climbs. released December 12, 2018
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Nozomu Matsumoto - Phonocentrism (20:00) Nozomu Matsumoto is Tokyo-based artist and curator. Nozomu has done curation for "Tokyo Art Meeting VI TOKYO: Sensing the Cultural Magma of the Metropolis" The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, 2015. His sound design work includes Nile Koetting’s “Sustainable Hours” at Maison Hermés, 2016 and “FUKAMI, une plongée dans l'esthétique japonaise” at Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild, 2018. Nozomu released remarkable first vinyl "Climatotherapy" and début for The Death of Rave in 2018. Climatotherapy also developed as a performance installation in collaboration with Nile Koetting in "ASSEMBLY" at Somerset House in 2018. Artist notes: We forget the voice, kill and destroy everything. We are protected from real pain. Measurement of threats, regulation of safety zones. This is an environmental forecast for streaming music – reconstruction of destructive lyrics and sound. All sounds are produced from the sound bank. Composed by CEMETERY, DJ Obake, Emamouse, H.Takahashi, Hegira Moya, Hideki Umezawa, Kazumichi Komatsu, Kenji Exilevevo, LSTNGT, メトロノリ(Metoronori), Rina Cho, toiret status, Y.Ohashi, Yoshitaka Hikawa Produced [Assistant] by Nozomu Matsumoto Voice by Sumiko Matsumoto released February 13, 2019
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Nicola Ratti - K1/K2 (20:23) 24Bit Nicola Ratti: Born in Milano in 1978. Musician and sound designer active for years in the experimental fields. He has performed live in Europe, North America and Russia and his albums had been released by labels such as Room40, Where To Now?, Boomkat Editions, Shelter Press, Die Schachtel, Entr’acte, Senufo Editions, Holidays Records, Anticipate, Preservation. He is currently working with Giuseppe Ielasi with whom he formed the project Bellows. Since May 2015 he is one of the curators at Standards, an experimental sound research gallery located in Milano, in 2016 he founded Frequente, an art organization based in Milano devoted to sound art and experimental performances. He is a founder member of NeitherSound, a Milan based company active in design and sound productions for exhibitions, performing arts and movies. He’s currently working as sound designer and live sound technician with Romeo Castellucci – Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio and Silvia Costa. His last album “The Collection” was released by Room40 in October 2017. Artist notes: This track is the result of a residency in Katowice at Biuro Dźwięku Katowice during June 2018, the purpose of the residency was to prepare a quadrophonic live performance for the final event, I composed a long piece focused on the repetition of few elements and on the movement of other few through the room via the 4 system speakers. The audience was in the center, immersed in an uncanny but comfortable atmosphere give by a foggy room with a daylight, I wasn't visible, playing behind a curtain. The goal was to invite the audience to listen and focus on the acoustic environment I set up for them in a deep way. I'd like to say thank you to Piotr Ceglarek, Souzan Bajtos, Jan Dybała Jr. More than ever, it's time to sit down and listen. released February 13, 2019
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Matchess - Fundamental 256 Hz (37:04) Whitney Johnson is a musician, composer, and writer based in Chicago. She performs, improvises, and collaborates through the viola, as well as vocalization, organ, and electronics. In her solo work, Matchess, she considers the reproduction of sound and meaning through a range of historical material processes, including reel-to-reel tape looping, cassette tape sampling, and field recording. With the limited palette of a 1960s Ace Tone organ, viola, an analog drum machine, and voice, she crafts a sound collage of transient songs on a bed of droning ambient noise. She has recently collaborated in improvised and composed settings with Circuit des Yeux, TALsounds (as Damiana), Gel Set (as Simulation), Couteau Sang (as Surfactant), Lia Kohl, Macie Stewart, Brett Naucke, Ryley Walker, Bitchin Bajas, Lea Bertucci, and Sarah Davachi. In tandem with her music practice, she received her doctorate in the sociology of sound from the University of Chicago, writing a dissertation on the cultural value of embodied sensory perception, particularly in the discipline of sound art. Artist notes: Fundamental 256 Hz takes the listener through four stages of simulated brain activity by creating binaural beats at descending speeds. The first movement features a sine wave oscillator, tuning forks, and voice creating Beta waves, the speed of the brain in conscious activity. The next section introduces a viola in just intonation – harmonically tuned fifths and octaves around the 256 Hz fundamental (128 Hz, 170 2/3Hz, and 384Hz) – to create Alpha waves, a relaxed waking brain state. The second half begins with an Arp synthesizer assisting the creation of Theta waves, the brain speed in a state of deep relaxation or just before sleep. We have some of our most unique ideas in a Theta state. The final movement reintroduces dissonant voices to induce a state of Delta energy: dreamless sleep. It was difficult to make the final movement; several times I fell asleep at the mixing board during the transition to the Delta phase! Deep listening plays with the notion of attention. When changes take place very slowly, only a skilled meditator could hold the sound in conscious attention for the entire duration. I find myself drifting between deep listening and absorptive hearing: Deep Listening – Absorptive Hearing Conscious – Subconscious Attentive – Detached Intentional – Intuitive Consumptive – Receptive Alert – Languid Discriminating – Equanimous released February 13, 2019
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Felicity Mangan - Stereo'frog'ic (20:06) 24Bit Felicity Mangan is an Australian sound artist and composer based in Berlin, Germany, since 2008. In different situations such as solo performance, collaborative projects with other musicians or installation, Felicity plays her found native Australian animal archive, either through a stereophonic system or often via hand-made speakers made from recycled or displaced objects. Felicity has presented work in various setting including Opera Mexico city, Berlin Atonal, CTM Berlin, Ableton Loop summit. Mangan also released a debut EP, ‘CAMO’, with her duo project Native Instrument on Shelter Press. Artist notes: The title Stereo'frogi'ic is a play on the word stereophonic – to play with the illusion of multi-directional audible perspective – in this case presenting a quasi-bioacoustic sound piece, crafted from found recordings of frogs, insects, a recording of an animal scattering in the bushes and other 'vocal' animals wavering about in a stereo field. This piece was recorded and edited in the summer of 2019. I have used slightly modified animals sounds to create aural illusions, morphing the perception of animal and machine generated sounds or raw recordings and digitally effected sounds. I wanted to create a tempo that would mimic something similar to the meditative sense you can experience from the flow or sound of the wind and other elements, when you are sitting in an open field while recording. released February 13, 2019
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Rimarimba - Sea, Shore, See, Sure? (1:02:30) I (Robert Cox) was born, a few miles from where I now live, in 1953, grew up on a farm and was educated locally. During my working life I was a shipping agent, van driver, ice cream salesman, record shop owner and builder in various parts of the UK. An interest in music, electronics and guitars began in my teenage years which I have not been able to shake off yet. As an outlet for my music I formed Unlikely Records in the early 1980s and released records and cassettes of my and other people's music for several years. Rimarimba albums have been released on Unlikely, Cordelia, Hamster and most recently RVNG Intl. Retirement from paid work has enabled me to return full time to being a minor cult artist – how lucky am I? I have been married twice and have three children and three step-children. My wife, Viv, says her role is to keep me grounded, remind me to eat and take me for a walk by the sea when I have been in the studio for longer than is good for me. Artist notes: I live on the coast. The inspiration came from daily walks by the sea. The background ever changing drone is the restless sea, the cellos are the breaking waves, their 'gritty' sound quality is the pebbles washing back down the beach and the higher pitched twiddly things are the circling sea gulls. Although 'real' waves have a frequency of 7–8 per minute and, yes, approximately the seventh one is often the biggest I have slowed mine down as they sounded too fast at 7–8/m. Think of these as long Pacific rollers breaking on a distant shore. Unlike most of my compositions this one has no percussion. The whole beast was made from acoustic and electric guitar parts recorded onto a Tascam DP32. Many had their initial attack removed and some were looped on an Electro-Harmonix 45000 looper. The 'strings' were produced by feeding some parts through an Electro-Harmonix Mellotron pedal. A Yamaha SPX 2000 processed many of the parts in various unspeakable ways until they 'felt' about right. A Lexicon Reverb worked its magic as only Lexicon can. About half of the parts play in reverse at various points. The guitars used were a Furch SJV 121 Lux acoustic 12 string, hand made in the Czech Republic in 1997, and a Gibson ES335 electric, made in Nashville, USA in 1987. Both were tuned in open C – CGCGCE. This is an age of ever shortening attention spans driven by the constructs of our online world. News is delivered as headlines to skim across with little in the way of in depth explanation or examination. The so called 'long read' pieces in online news sites are no more than the first two columns of a four page article in the Sunday newspapers from a few years ago. Ebooks do not convey the same experience as print on paper. Without the physical presence and weight of a book digital information can feel as ephemeral as television advertising. Wikipedia, good though it is, does not allow for the chance discoveries that come from turning the page in a reference book or encyclopedia. Saving a link in order to return to an online article is not the same as remembering the piece about electrons is about one third of the way through the volume E–G a few pages after the picture of the Egyptian statue. Whilst static art is still, well, static and you can gaze upon and contemplate a painting or a sculpture for as long as time permits how many do so when we are conditioned by the predominance of moving images. Slow cooking is a healthy reaction to fast, commercialised, food. Likewise both walking and cycling (slow travel) rather than driving make for a deeper experience of the journey. A long piece of music be it a symphony, an ambient work or a jazz suite creates a mindscape in which the listener can lose and find themselves as their attention wanders and returns. It can trigger a memory in that moment at 37 minutes which is different the next time they hear it because they almost inevitably arrive at that moment having taken a different path through the piece. Today the bass line, tomorrow the percussion figures, the day after the unfolding harmonies. This takes time to achieve, time that is not available in a three minute pop song. The listener who allocates enough of their time will find an hour immersed in a piece of music is at least as beneficial as a long soak in a warm bath. released April 17, 2019
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Lau Nau - Amphipoda (20:09) 24Bit Lau Nau (Laura Naukkarinen) composes music for films, theatre and albums, makes workshops and sound installations and travels around the world performing. In her work she combines electroacoustic approaches, found objects, field recordings, folk instruments, classical instruments, analogue synthesisers and her own voice. Her music is imbued with a cinematic breadth of vision and her idiosyncratic, finely honed sound world builds on fragile, spectral otherness. She has been nominated for various prestigious prizes in her home country Finland and won the main Femma prize 2018 with her fifth album Poseidon, released in Europe, USA and Japan. Artist notes: The piece is recorded at Elektronmusikstudion EMS in Stockholm with their big Buchla 200 system in 2018. I was there for a short residency studying how to compose the changes in the Baltic Sea into music. This composition is inspired by how the biomass of plankton vary in the Baltic depending, for example, on the entering saline pulses from the North Sea, the oxygen levels and the temperature of the water. The work has been supported by The Arts Promotion Centre Finland, Taike. released April 17, 2019
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Lieven Martens - Deo Gratias Triginta Sex (31:08) Lieven Martens (Lieven Martens Moana, formerly Dolphins Into the Future) is a composer and observer. Through various recording techniques he creates a conceptual form of programme music that travels beyond the pure description. His works are narrative stills and personal impressions; encounters with objects and thoughts; equally embracing and denying external theories; using the inconveniences of certain techniques and circumstances as the potential creative force; citing history without trying to be a keeper of the tombs of tradition. Amplified with text and pictures, the exotic viewpoint now and then takes a central position. In various ways this hybrid concept is a conductor for questions, critique, adjustment, or for mere amplification. Over the past few years he has been performing all over the globe. From Mexico City, to Tokyo, Niigata, Lisbon, Lecce, Honolulu, Brussels, et al. Between 2009 and 2012 he released several albums under the Dolphins Into the Future moniker on various record labels (Not Not Fun, USA; Fonal, Finland; NNA Tapes, USA; et al). His first LP under his birth name—titled Music From the Guardhouse—was produced by KRAAK (Belgium) in 2013. In 2015 he self-published a compilation of outtakes and sketches produced on various formats, called Songs of Gold, Incandescent. In March 2017, Idylls came out on Pacific City Sound Visions (USA) in co-production with his own Edições CN. And in October 2017, the prolific EM Records from Japan released Three Amazonian Essays, a modern classical reinterpretation of the Spanish cult classic Amazonia by Finis Africae. These albums received critical acclaim from the music media. Next to these activities, Martens runs a private press on which he releases records and editions; and he has been writing commissioned music for ensemble, submitted music for national radio, for film, and for art exhibitions. Furthermore, he’s been presenting his work in the form of lectures at music and art schools. Martens collaborates with fellow artists like Francesco Cavaliere, Roman Hiele (as Hiele Martens), Floris Vanhoof, Spencer Clark and Mia Price (aka Miaux). He also hosts a monthly radio show on the internationally acclaimed LYL Radio from Lyon and Paris, France. In 2016 he received a grant from the Flemish Department of Culture. Artist notes: Johannes Ockeghem (1410–1497), born in Saint Gislain, Hainaut, Belgium, wrote one of our nation’s greatest hits. Deo Gratias is a canon for 36 singers and apparently he wrote this particular song as kind of a joke or game; quickly “between the soup and the potatoes” as we would say in Dutch. Some say Ockeghem had in mind that a much larger number of people should perform this piece, but it was considered too complicated to find enough experienced singers, to make the piece correct measure-wise, et al. Let’s open Logic X Pro and try and see if we could help Ockeghem to make this vision a (simulated…) reality. Since this is a creation for deep and/or extended listening I selected a sligtly longer version of the song rendered by Paul Van Nevel and the Huelgas Ensemble, and layered and sequenced this 36 times in row. Every new sequence starts more or less according to Ockeghem’s original transcript. Small detail… in the version of the Huelgas Ensemble no more than 18 voices are singing contemporarily. As soon as the first voice of the fourth (bass) chorus reaches its final note every voice "freezes" at its current line in the melody. The layering of these sounds in the computer let the overtones shine and the human breathing and whistling create pretty rhythmic parents. The project shows that Ockeghems original idea is kind of genius—however you layer this music, the final result, be it a bit dense and somewhat congested drone, is still very harmonic. Inspiring. At first I started cutting, trimming and pitch correcting parts, making the piece a more correct rendition of the original four canon idea. But then I realised that the best manner to execute this version is to keep it simple and short, between the forementioned “soup and potatoes”. So here goes with all the gentle flaws… At certain points you hear the same part overlaid eleven times. Thus 11 × 18 singers = 198 singers! Here’s to making Ockeghem’s grand vision come to (simulated) life. Deep listening is: Thinking Listening Enjoying Creating Manifesting Realising All of the above None of the above released April 17, 2019
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Kate Carr - City Of Bridges (36:17) Kate Carr has been investigating the intersections between sound, place, and emotionality both as an artist and a curator since 2010. During this time she has ventured from tiny fishing villages in northern Iceland, explored the flooded banks of the Seine in a nuclear power plant town, recorded wildlife in South Africa, and in the wetlands of southern Mexico. She also runs the label Flaming Pines. Artist notes: This piece is the result of nearly a month spent in the Canadian city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan during Autumn. I was in Saskatoon to develop a new work and much of my time was spent wandering around this city, which I discovered was also referred to as the 'city of bridges' recording various bridges, as well as streetscapes, the South Saskatchewan River, and people vibrating various structures in Saskatoon, raised pavements, the bridges themselves, and this very cool and narrow pedestrian and train bridge. I have been interested for quite a while now in the ways people contribute sonically to the making of particular spaces, and so this was my focus here. In this recording you will also hear various recordings from cafes I visited in Saskatoon, and the soundtracks I encountered there, I should hat tip The Underground Cafe where I went almost every day. There is also the bass throb from one guy's car who stopped to pump out some thrash metal-ish sounding music, but from the outside all I could hear was this muffled thump, which I found quite hilarious and excellent and also there is a sample from the Saskatoon-based band Waitress, who are a very excellent band I met while there and who allowed me to use a snippet of one of their tracks for this piece. Apart from some very minor edits this piece was performed as it is live in my studio in Brixton, London using field recordings from Saskatoon alongside vibrating wires, strings, squeaking magnetic tape, a zither, shakers, a gong and an owl horn. It is based loosely on the performance I gave in Saskatoon for the Sounds Like Festival in October, 2018. This piece could only come about with the help of a number of people and organisations, so a very big thanks to: Paved Arts, Travis Cole, David Riviere, Lenore Maier, for bringing me to Saskatoon, my cool studio, and my temporary bike courtesy of Lenore, and Sounds Like Festival Saskatoon, Chad Munson, Lindsey Roo and Tod Emel for hosting me so well, showing me round, having me play, and for all the lovely chats, beers, late nights. Finally a big thanks to Janice Weber and Kalon Beaudry from the band Waitress who I was lucky enough to see play, and who let me use a sample from their track Cry Baby from their album Delay Our Time. You can find them on bandcamp here: waitress1.bandcamp.com My thoughts on listening are very strongly influenced by my practice as a field recordist, and the intersection this work has had with my experience of space and place. I am interested in how we discover or come to know, construct or even invent a place, a home, a new space through listening, and the ways in which listening as a practice can contribute to an appreciation and constructive engagement with ideas of difference in all its many guises. I guess I am in this way interested in the ways we come to know and construct our ideas of ourselves and others via listening, and the ways in which we build our ideas of space, the spaces in which we live, meet and encounter each other in listening. I think I should here also acknowledge actually the work of my PhD supervisor Salomé Voegelin who has written a lot about listening, and in her work I think there are many very interesting ideas about what listening is or can be, but one of the best, at least for me and what I am interested in, is the way in which listening can give us access to a world which is maybe not now, or not yet, but which could be, so in this sense listening as a way of expanding our ideas of the possible. I have always been extremely interested in the ways we think about possibilities, and I like to think about the ways sound and the practice of listening can augment our ideas of what the world is, and how it could change. I think in my own work, not just through these ideas about listening, but in composing I like to make works which at least for me make me think about inhabiting a world which is somehow a little bit different, richer, somehow more intense and strange and beautiful, and which for me I build for myself through these practices of composing and listening. released April 17, 2019
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Danny Paul Grody - Sunrise, Looking East (17:48) 24Bit Danny Paul Grody is a solo musician and founding member of San Francisco based bands Tarentel and The Drift. He is a self taught guitarist, and the melodies at the core of Danny’s songwriting bring to mind his love of West African Kora, Takoma style fingerpicking and all things minimal, repetitive and hypnotic. Artist notes: Until recently, early mornings have been an elusive time of day. I've never considered myself much of an early riser so catching the sunrise was a rare occurrence. When I became a father earlier this year, my orientation to time (among other things) has changed profoundly. One of the unexpected joys in this shift is waking up early enough to appreciate the transition from night to day. The nursery room happens to face east where the sun rises here in California. Getting the chance to share this moment with the little one has become one of my favourite rituals of the day. This piece is my attempt at capturing the experience. It was recorded in two phases. First, I tracked a drone using layers of electric organ, synthesizer, field recordings (captured at sunrise) and bowed twelve string guitar. Then I improvised alongside the drone using an acoustic twelve string guitar tuned to a variation of the open B tuning. The arc of the piece approximates the time it takes for the sun to move from a soft glow to being fully visible above the horizon. When I think of deep listening, my mind immediately goes to composer Pauline Oliveros, often credited as being the founder of Deep Listening. In her own words Oliveros simply describes the process as "a way of listening in every possible way to everything possible to hear no matter what you are doing." Her spirit of wonder with sound is something I connect very much with and have drawn inspiration from. For me, deep listening is opening my ears to sound with curiosity regardless of the setting. It is a practice I engage with on a daily basis, be it on the bus commute, strolling through the park, or in how I listen to and create music. released June 19, 2019
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Kajsa Lindgren - Undercurrents (40:20) Kajsa Lindgren (b.1990) is a composer and sound-artist mainly working with field recordings and different ways to perform them, often through spatial, multichannel distribution. Her work includes electroacoustic compositions and sound installations, as well as compositions for acoustic traditional instruments. By often using interviews as a method when composing and field recordings as the material, she has found a way to work with expectations and traditions when it comes to the process of composing and the performance itself. Combining interviews and field recordings has therefore shown to be an effective way for her to open up different ways to approach the process of exploring subjects and environments through sound. Kajsa Lindgren is a composer educated in both western contemporary art music and electroacoustic composition and holds a Bachelor (2015) and Master (2017) in Electroacoustic Composition from the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. Artist notes: First of all, I wouldn’t say that Undercurrents is minimalistic. It’s minimalistic when it comes to the “amount” of material. But the composition, or soundscape, is not. For some maybe it’s even the opposite of how you think about deep listening music. But for me as the composer the process itself has been very much about extended and deep listening. About this time last year (January, 2018) I made an important decision at the beginning of the process of my album WOMB (Hyperdelia) which I continue to live by. It was that the process had to be something that I enjoyed and made me feel calm and present. But also when it came to the music itself. The process while composing Undercurrents has been quite similar. And it is a piece that at this point has taken many forms. There has been one main constant when it comes to sound material and structure – the vocals. The difference has been the length and ways to perform or present the different forms. This has lead to the vocals being spread and stretched out further apart in time, repeated and processed in different ways, presented slightly different each and every time it occurs. The piece focuses on putting the listener and myself in a state of mind, some kind of flow (not necessarily a pleasant one at all times since it can be a bit intrusive at some occasions). It actually began as a piece in three shorter parts, then an 8 minute long piece and I’ve also performed it live in a semi-improvised, longer version. So it’s based on the same material but I’ve been thinking a lot of time and letting the structure be without some kind of direction, and more like slow, moving currents. There are layers and separate sounds slowly shifting into each other such as voices, saxophone, cello and underwater field recordings. It’s the first piece in a long time where I haven’t used interviews as a method and gone “strictly” on instinct and feeling. And it’s the first time I’ve re-used sound material to this extent, which is quite liberating and interesting creatively speaking. Soothing, even. To really get to know and work with the material for a long time and not be so hung up on always presenting something new with everything you create, which can be quite stressful. And I think that has a lot to do with what the original idea was with this material, which was about trying to articulate something that you don’t really have words for, when what you’re trying to express doesn’t really come through. This opened up a lot of possibilities to work with and process the material in detail. You could say that extended listening is what I work with when working with field recordings. Both while finding, recording and composing them. About listening techniques and finding relationships to sounds and sound environments, but also when it comes to the technical equipment I use (such as specific microphones). So in that sense it’s very much about learning and sharing, since I often find subjects, situations or environments to explore and present with my music. But, as in this piece, I think it can also be about repetition of limited material. Extended or deep listening in a way also requires some kind of willingness to experience the music – whether pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. And that is something, a state of mind, I wish the listener to experience or achieve while listening to Undercurrents. It’s not entertainment, and I think it can both require something of the listener, but also the opposite and let the listener be and sort of float between the modes and moods in the music. released June 19, 2019
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Ahnnu - The Dreaming Arrow (22:33) Los Angeles-based producer Leland Jackson's work as Ahnnu blurs the lines between abstract hip-hop and experimental ambient music, incorporating field recordings and found sounds into hazy soundscapes. Sometimes his recordings include tape-smudged beats, but others are merely suggestive of rhythm, dissolving elements of hip-hop and dance music into amorphous, cloudy tone poems. Jackson, who also produces juke/footwork under the name Cakedog, initiated the Ahnnu project with a series of beat tapes in 2011. Early releases such as Couch and Prohabitat garnered acclaim and cult status, and Ahnnu's visibility increased in 2013 with the release of Battered Sphinx (NNA Tapes) and World Music (Leaving Records). Additionally, Ahnnu and D/P/I released She Was No Tame Thing, a mixtape created entirely from samples of Drake's album Nothing Was the Same. Ahnnu's second Leaving Records tape, Perception, was released in 2015, and both of his albums for the label were issued as a double LP during the same year. Family Jams, Vol. 3, a split cassette with Ohbliv, was released by Rap Vacation in 2017. Special Forces, Ahnnu's second NNA Tapes release (and first to be issued on vinyl), followed at the end of the year. Artist notes: The first step to the piece was to build a limited initial palette of sounds using a soft synth that then would be used to create a series of short arrangements. The sounds were intended to express a language of tonal, gestural and percussive effects in their presence and slow evolution throughout the piece. In its arrangement I wanted to create a juxtaposition between passive moments and frenetic bursts in the piece that would break up the composition in a serendipitous way. Accordingly, the patterns were put together in quick succession to build this environment and fit the approach for long form listening. The extended listening format gave a special direction to the piece in that it motivated a breakdown of sounds and activity, which informed the final mood of the piece. In this, the sounds take on a continuous process of alteration and their interactions create impulsive musical pockets that disperse and resurrect in new ways. The title 'The Dreaming Arrow' is inspired by the poem 'The Arrow and The Song' by H.W. Longfellow in that the piece presents a course of expression that is resolute in its freedom, and in this case the arrow undergoes a dream sequence where the sounds find form in its transformation. I wouldn’t recommend a listener to listen to a piece of music too closely, especially if there is a sense that the music is insisting one to do so in its cadence or performance. Perhaps to achieve an underlined ‘depth’ to these types of works is to instead allow a roaming of one’s attention, and yet still be available in a discrete sense. Consequently, it’s probably best not to anticipate or search for the ‘music’ within the piece, but to immerse oneself within an ecosystem of both internal, external worlds. released June 19, 2019
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Primitive Motion - Cradle Of The Horizon (23:12) Primitive Motion is a duo based in Brisbane, Australia. They have released five albums, including most recently House in the Wave (Bedroom Suck Records, 2018). Artist notes: This work follows the thread of two live Brisbane performances in late 2018 that explored the acoustic properties of disparate performance spaces: one indoor at Milani Gallery in response to the gentle hues of large scale paintings by Rosslynd Piggott in her exhibition Rose, Rose and a Shadow of Violet; and the other outdoor in the Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens at the Liquid Architecture event Why Listen to Plants? While the acoustic cocoon of the gallery offered a shell to the ear in which to create interior seas, the garden amphitheatre opened the cage for sounds to take flight. Despite the similar instrumentation and musical narrative of the two improvisations, the sound drew breath from the air around, and the ringing cymbal lived different lives in each location. This recording is a third iteration of the work and an amalgam of internal/external elements, the sound captured both indoors at our respective home studios and outdoors in locations ranging from Japan to nearby Peregian Beach. Perhaps you might like to put the shell to your ear through your headphones or lie on the grass with a speaker. In and out, woven sound, one is the image of the other. Recorded between February and May 2019 at Woodburn Laboratory and Kindling House, Brisbane, Australia. Sandra Selig: voice, cymbals, Bolivian flute, glass bowl, plastic bottle Leighton Craig: synthesiser, voice, field recordings, clarinet, metal bottle released June 19, 2019
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Frank Bretschneider - Sweet Water Pools (33:41) 24Bit Frank Bretschneider is a musician, composer and video artist in Berlin. His work is known for precise sound placement, complex, interwoven rhythm structures and its minimal, flowing approach. Bretschneider’s subtle and detailed music is echoed by his visuals: perfect translated realisations of the qualities found in music within visual phenomena. Bretschneider was raised in Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz), where his aesthetic developed as he listened to pirate radio and smuggled Beastie Boys tapes in the former East Germany. After studying fine arts and inspired by science fiction radio plays and films he began experimenting with tape machines, synthesisers, and modified guitars in 1984, as well as exploring the possibilities of exchange between visual art and music by various means such as film, video and computer graphics. In 1986, after establishing his cassette label klangFarBe, Bretschneider founded AG Geige, an influential East German underground band. They released three albums before splitting in 1993. In 1995, Bretschneider and fellow AG Geige member Olaf Bender founded the Rastermusic record label which eventually merged with Carsten Nicolai’s noton to form raster-noton in 1999. Bretschneider has released his work (in addition to raster-noton) on various labels including 12k, Line, Mille Plateaux or Shitkatapult, and contributed to some well-known compilations like CLICKS & CUTS on Mille Plateaux and raster-noton’s 20' TO 2000 series, the latter won the Ars Electronica Golden Nica. His album RHYTHM was among The Wire magazine's top releases of 2007. Besides his commitments as a musician, Bretschneider is an accomplished producer: his production "In The Woods There Is A Bird…" for Olaf Nicolai won the prestigious Karl Sczuka Prize for Radio Drama / Art in 2017. Artist notes: In July 2014, I spent two weeks at EMS in Stockholm to work with the local Buchla and Serge synthesisers. Two months later, I was invited to explore the 4DSOUND system for a performance at ADE Amsterdam. I thought the EMS recordings would be perfect for a multi-channel sound project, so I cut them into pieces and moved them to my Elektron Octatrack sampler. I began to build parts and patterns, scenes and sequences to manipulate the raw material in terms of speed and pitch, as well as filters, delays and loops. And finally, I found myself in an 8,000 m² empty warehouse in Siemensstadt, Spandau, where 4DSOUND was based at the time. After familiarising myself with controlling the complex system, I decided to take advantage of the unique situation and made recordings. In the end, it's an analogue synthesiser sound source treated with digital sampling technology rendered through a three-dimensional sound system with over a hundred speakers in a thousand square feet of empty space. I'm not sure if it's music, maybe more of a piece of sound design, or a study in space… Everything is constantly moving and changing, suddenly stopping or changing in another direction, forming meshes and grids of sounds and noises again to end up in a repeating loop for a few seconds, or meandering around a core, eventually exploding in a cascade of sound particles. And sometimes it just sounds like Sweet Water Pools… Details: Two stereo recordings of the same performance on September 24, 2014, at FST Industrie GmbH, Berlin Spandau; made with two Sony PCM M10 portable recorders, one equipped with Luhd PM-01 Binaural microphones, the other using the built-in microphones. Headphones recommended. One of the many functions of music is to listen to it. I grew up in a time when the vinyl album became the most important format, when pop music became prog rock, jazz rock, kraut rock, with many references to and from classical, contemporary and improvised music – music forms in which the long form is the rule rather than the exception. As a listener, I always found it exciting to immerse myself in a torrent of sound that would take me on a journey to new, unexplored areas. With headphones on or in front of two good speakers, at home or at a concert. As a musician, although I occasionally combine several short pieces into a longer composition, I have always found it difficult to build pieces over 7 minutes. It seems the extended format works better with projects that were not originally intended for release, such as live performances or installation / sound art, like the other two works I've done in the past, which in my opinion deserve the term "deep listening": Kippschwingungen, a piece that uses the legendary Subharchord synthesiser; and Isolation, which was originally composed in 2012 for a sound installation in a former solitary confinement cell. released July 18, 2019
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Alison Cotton - Behind The Spiderweb Gate (20:39) 24Bit Alison Cotton is a classically trained viola player based in London, working with improvisation and composition. As well as her recent solo work, she is one half of the Walthamstow based songwriting partnership, The Left Outsides. She spent almost the last two decades performing in bands and collaborating with other musicians. Her collaborative album with Michael Tanner (Plinth) in 2016, with its quietly levitating drones pointed the way to her first solo record. Her debut album ’All Is Quiet at the Ancient Theatre’ was released in 2018 on cassette on Bloxham Tapes, followed by a vinyl release on Cardinal Fuzz (UK) and Feeding Tube (USA). As well as the viola, she uses an array of other instruments (her voice, harmonium, percussion, recorder, omnichord, shruti box and piano) to create long, haunting folk drones. Many of her pieces are created for, and named after spaces, whether real or fictional, and often of another time. As she plays, she focuses on the image of these places (‘A Tragedy In the Tithe Barn’, ‘All Is Quiet at The Ancient Theatre’, ‘The Bells of St Agnes’ and her recent piece, ‘Behind the Spiderweb Gates’). In 2017, she composed and performed the soundtrack to artist Jessye Curtis’ film, ’36 Dramatic Situations’ as well as playing a live accompaniment to the film at the Chelsea College of Art Degree Show. In 2018, she was commissioned by the BBC to compose and record a soundtrack to accompany the Muriel Spark ghost story, ‘The Girl I Left Behind Me’ which was broadcast on Gideon Coe’s BBC6 Music show at Christmas. This composition is planned for release later in the year on Clay Pipe Records. All Is Quiet At The Ancient Theatre was selected by Luke Turner as one of The Guardian Writers Albums of the Year, by Jude Rogers as one of the Guardian Folk Albums of the Month and placed at number 49 in The Quietus Albums of The Year in 2018. Artist notes: My music usually evolves from a story, often about a place I've visited, enhanced by the help of the imagination. The story will develop while I improvise and immerse myself deeper and deeper into the piece, using a kind of tone painting to express this. Behind the Spider Web Gates draws inspiration from a house I happened upon in rural southern France last year. An imposing, dramatic, tall dark Gothic house with mysterious, black spider web-shaped gates at the entrance to the grounds. The piece is divided into three parts. The first part depicts the tranquil ascent up a rocky path surrounded by ancient woodland. A calm, minimal, single-noted drone on the viola is soon enhanced by layers of plainsong-style vocal chants. This is followed by the introduction of a melodic viola line symbolising the sound of bird song and nature which surrounds me. This phrase serves as a motif throughout the whole piece. The chime of the singing bowl represents the distant sound of church bells, being transported towards me by the wind. The second part brings into focus the ornate, looming Gothic spires of the house. The spider web gates are soon in clear view – and a sense of fear enters my subconscious mind. This is symbolised by the repetitive, menacing, single high note on the piano. The more serene vocal chants at this stage are placed to restore a sense of calm to the piece. A local had told me that the grounds were accessible to the public. My inquisitive mind tells me to open the spider web gates and enter the garden… For the third part of this piece, piercing viola harmonics denote my turning of the heavy, rusty handle of the huge, imposing gate. The single piano note is reintroduced, as the sense of fear within grows stronger. The melodic viola motif, which has been present throughout the piece, is now accompanied by a harmonium playing a haunting countermelody to further intensify this sense of foreboding. And as the large oak door to the Gothic house slowly creaks open, a new set of more chilling viola harmonics dramatically bring the piece to a close. For me, playing extended or deep listening music allows me more freedom to explore and improvise – a lack of time restriction opens up more possibilities. Due to the extended length, a recurring melody or motif can have more impact when reintroduced into the piece, surrounded by more space, and often triggers the emotions of the listener when it reappears. If I have lots of ideas before recording a long-form work, these can be presented more subtly and minimally to the listener as the piece unfolds – they can be more drawn out, painted on a larger canvas. There is also more space to introduce new textures and instruments without the piece becoming too busy. Focusing on longform music as a listener, as I become immersed in a piece I often also begin to hear background noises – such as distant lawnmowers in neighbours' gardens, car alarms or sirens in nearby streets – and subconsciously incorporate them in the piece I’m hearing. I've endeavoured to include similar types of sounds and drones into this piece and also hope that listeners will hear their own distant sounds – and that they might also become a part of my piece in their minds. I’d love that to happen. Recorded by Mark Nicholas. Mixed by Mark Nicholas & Alison Cotton released July 18, 2019
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Sun Araw / Mitchell Brown - Fluid Array (27:04) 24Bit Sun Araw is the working title of a musical project helmed by Los Angeles-based artist Cameron Stallones. Sun Araw has released a number of well-received and consistently innovative albums, with his eighth, The Saddle of the Increate, released by Sun Ark Records (an imprint of Drag City) in 2017. Structural and spiritual inspiration for Sun Araw comes primarily from investigation into the nature of experience by the transformative power of simple observation. The goal has always been the creation of a psychedelic music, by which is meant a psychotropic music: not an aesthetic sensibility but a method of discontinuous experience. Supporting every Sun Araw composition is the fact of mantra: the ability of repetition with attention to change the perception of a melodic object. By means of this constantly changing perception, the possibilities of improvisation become infinite. More recent works attempt to effect the mental activity of the listener even more physically and investigate the expansion of the time-experience when the composition removes a fixed place from which to listen. Since the project's inception in 2007, eight full-length LPs, three EPs, six cassettes, and innumerable collaborations have emerged, partaking in a musical spectrum spanning psychedelic drone and melted afrobeat, warped dub and minimal composition, all the while remaining distinct from any possible genre classification. In 2012 a posthumous split 7" with minimalist psychedelic legends Spacemen 3 bent the circle of influence into a spiral. Sun Araw's releases have been praised in Wire Magazine (who selected Heavy Deeds as one of the top 50 records of 2009, On Patrol in the top 50 of 2010, and Ancient Romans in the top 50 of 2011), The New Yorker, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Uncut Magazine, Mojo, Pitchfork, and beyond. Sun Araw has toured extensively domestically and abroad, performing in Europe, Russia, Australia, Mexico, South America, and Canada. In early 2011, Cameron and M. Geddes Gengras traveled to Jamaica where they recorded and produced Icon Give Thank, a collaborative album with roots-reggae legends The Congos, which has led to a live performance at the Barbican in London and a concert in Manhattan with Lee Scratch Perry. While in and around Kingston, Cameron and Ged also began producing dancehall singles and tracking local vocalists under the name Duppy Gun Productions, and are currently releasing this material with the help of Stones Throw Records. Cameron creates the artwork for each release, writes liner notes, and has started a photographic series of books and videos and a radio show under the heading: Second System Vision. Artist notes: In 2015 for the album Gazebo Effect, Mitchell Brown and I conceived a "music system" which would allow me to improvise with several instruments while running through a 1/4" reel-to-reel tape machine that Mitchell was controlling and manipulating in realtime. The system we developed gives him the ability to dub pieces of my playing onto a repeating tape loop, sometimes allowing me to hear my playing before it's recorded, other times not. Sort of like playing an instrument into a wood-chipper. The general principle has held strong for years in our collaboration, although the equipment has been continually modified and optimised. The joy in this sort of setup is simple: mediated desire. The player makes a move, but what returns to the ears as audio is not quite the move that was made, it has been modified by the tape system. This is something that happens regularly in human experience: desire or will become modified by physics or the desire of another, and the difference between the original move and what "returns" holds a clue about the nature of the medium in which we find ourselves. Mitchell and I have found that mimicking this principle in our improvisational system continuously yields surprising and beautiful results, and makes us both better performers as we learn to adapt to and frolic with the medium in which we find ourselves. Longform music and the act of listening deeply are incredibly powerful tools for the modification of experience. Surface level attention acts sort of like a dog, it sniffs something, decides what it is, and kinda plods away looking for another smell. The best deep-listening music gently suggests, by weight of some sort of internal vibrancy, another, deeper return of the attention. Each subsequent return of the attention gives something back: at first just the energy that would have been spent wandering off, but before long a gentle glow can develop, and a sound that perhaps has not changed (say, in an Elaine Radigue monolith) now holds three extra colours that it didn't before. It's not long before looking deeper becomes its own reward, and soon bestows the most important quality of all: a distinct modification in the normal feeling of time, which is the harbinger of all the best sorts of human experiences. released July 18, 2019
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Laura Luna Castillo - Cepheid Variables (19:28) 24Bit Laura Luna Castillo is a multimedia artist currently based in Puebla, Mexico. She began her artist practice through photography, later developing an interest in video and film. Luna studied several diplomas on cinematography, screenwriting, and photography in Puebla, Mexico, and Prague, Czech Republic. While working on ways to express ideas through film and photography, she became interested in exploring other media, such as sound, sculpture and hybrid art forms. Laura completed her BA Hons. on Fine arts and Interactive Media at Prague College, which allowed her to combine traditional visual arts methodologies with new technologies and programming time-based projects. In 2017, Laura completed her MA in fine arts, specialising in sculpture. Through these convergences of time-based media, music, sculpture and narrative languages, Luna explores the mechanisms of memories, imagination and the perception of inhabited spaces through multiple angles and temporalities. Artist notes: A Cepheid variable is a type of star that pulsates radially, varying in both diameter and temperature, producing changes in brightness with a well-defined stable period and amplitude. This piece is an exploration on pulsating sounds, field recordings and samples. It is inspired by the way pulsating forms can help measure time, distances and serve as beacons. Where there is chaos, a pulsar remains as the only stable source of information. I believe that through longform pieces, the sounds that make up a composition are able to develop a more intimate dialogue with the listener. They come with a mindset of letting the sounds evolve at their own pace, sometimes with unusual rhythms and tempos. Working on a longform piece can be bit challenging, but ultimately a very rewarding process. The time to explore and fully develop the qualities of melodies or monotonous sounds is within the process of creating a soundscape. I think that some sounds can become more interesting through deep listening. Our ears begin to re-interpret a long lasting sound, and multiple, hidden tonalities, either imagined or existent, begin to emerge, giving the piece a quality of never being quite the same on each hearing. released July 18, 2019
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Pan•American - Nightbirds (17:06) 24Bit Mark Nelson is a guitar player, songwriter and producer who lives and works in Evanston Illinois. He releases records as Pan American and as part of the duo Anjou and the trio Labradford. He plays live shows whenever he can. Artist notes: Nightbirds is a meditation for lapsteel guitar. It combines brief, looped sections and melodies played in response to the loop beds. The challenge for me is to create something that tells a story and follows a horizontal logic without traditional structure or chord changes. I’ve always tried in my music to simultaneously have an architecture in place – a beginning, middle and end, but still give it the feeling of infinity. Sounds impossible now that I’ve written it down, maybe it is! Nevertheless, this is another offering and tribute to that ideal. I think the mysteries around how we listen to music and how it affects us emotionally are much more compelling than details of its creation. Hopefully by placing an emphasis on listening we can offer a slight correction to the emphasis often placed on process and personality. How sound and music hit the human heart is such a wondrous enigma – that opening-up that we can feel through music and sound is the whole point of all the work I do. Listening is composition. released August 21, 2019
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Bitchin Bajas - Demeter (25:20) 24Bit Bitchin Bajas is a trio from Chicago consisting of Cooper Crain, Rob Frye and Daniel Quinlivan. Blending electronics and acoustic instruments to create meditative, textured and pulsating compositions since 2010. Releasing many cassettes, side long jams and double LPs over the years, the Bajas have always embraced the long form music structure, allowing the listener to go deep, detaching from reality in the moment, without the feeling of time lost. This is our Longform Editions piece, Demeter. Dig. Artist notes: It's important to have an outlet for music where time isn't an issue. released August 21, 2019
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Lisa Lerkenfeldt - 29° (20:02) 24Bit Australian artist Lisa Lerkenfeldt’s multi-disciplinary work embraces musique concrète, environmentalism, noise, found objects and the cinema of Marguerite Duras in the composition and imagining of her live post-digital, post-industrial landscapes. Concerned with intimacy and technology her performances and recordings employ feedback, electronics, objects and field recording to generate new experiences in sound and gesture. She has exhibited sound and performed at Supersense Festival, MPavilion, Liquid Architecture, Melbourne Fashion Week, Mona Foma and Gertrude Contemporary. She is also a member of noise duo, Perfume. Artist notes: 29° is a suite of modern classical instrumentation and experiments on magnetic tape. The piece explores the duality of the wind through a season of field recording summer storms at a post-industrial beach. Listening is cinematic, like a landscape unfolding. My field recordings are a collection of perceptions. released August 21, 2019
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Hegira Moya - Palace (20:38) Hegira Moya is the project of Tokyo-based composer Shota Abeki. Artist notes: Deep listening sometimes brings up encounters with unexpected emotions. When your speed changes, you will visit a certain place. released August 21, 2019
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Greg Fox - Stone Pillar (48:15) 24Bit Greg Fox is a multi-instrumentalist, interdisciplinary artist, and teacher born and based in New York City. A versatile and prolific creative, Fox studied percussion with Guy Licata, Thurman Barker, Marvin “Bugalu” Smith, has a B.A. in Integrated Arts from Bard College, and has toured, recorded and released numerous records with Liturgy, Guardian Alien, ZS, Ex Eye, Skeletons, Teeth Mountain, Dan Deacon, Colin Stetson, Ben Frost, and many more. Fox’s solo work is concerned with finding and creating gestural points of procedural interaction that reconcile seemingly unrelated interstitial spaces, using sound to create and describe emotional and geometric architectural territories. Using the drums as a main interface of communication, in tandem with Sensory Percussion, Fox describes, animates and accesses hidden synesthetic landscapes. Artist notes: Stone Pillar is a long modular synthesis recording with drums added at the end. Concentration practices are good for the mind – the meeting place of physical existence and consciousness. released October 16, 2019
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Index - Flux (32:17) 24Bit Index is an artist associated with Touch who is a keen field recordist, multi-instrumentalist and mastering engineer. This piece follows a debut show playing live at Tome Records in London in early 2019 and an untitled one minute loop created for Thesis Project's 'Recurring' series. Field recordings recorded by Index. Published by Touch. Artist notes: Surrounded by arborescent structures and infiltrated by aural debris I chose the contradictory flux of Tokyo to create a compositional frame to represent juxtapositions. A place where old traditions splinter and collaborate as nature and technology morph and merge into the flux of moving sonic worlds. We are in constant flux. Everything (forever) changes and has motion. Listening is everything. released October 16, 2019
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Anna Peaker - Realm Of Perfume And Lights (17:45) 24Bit Anna Peaker is an artist based in Leeds, West Yorkshire who began to experiment with sound 2016. Her work centres around loops and melodies using keys and found sound to create microcosmic soundscapes. Artist notes: The piece was developed around recordings exploring registration and extended tones using the church organ at the Old Seacroft Methodist Chapel in Leeds. My aim was to explore the physical effects of the sonority of the instrument and somehow translate that. A heaviness and unease, then eventual lift. Sound reflects a feeling or thought which can weave slowly into a narrative. released October 16, 2019
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Alexandra Spence - Immaterial (23:10) 24Bit Alexandra Spence is an artist and musician from Sydney, Australia. She makes performances, compositions and installations based on (everyday) sound and listening. Alex's practice draws from phenomenology, psychogeography, and acoustic ecology to examine the ways in which our individual notions of place and identity are shaped and mediated through sound. Through her practice she reimagines the intricate relationships between the listener, the object, and the surrounding environment as a kind of communion or conversation. Her aesthetic favours field recordings, analog technologies and object interventions. (she holds the pseudo-scientific belief that electricity might actually be magic) Alex has performed and presented work in Australia, Canada, Europe, and Asia, including the Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver; Late Junction on BBC Radio 3; SoundCamp festival, London; Ausland, Berlin; Contemporary Musiking Hong Kong's Sound Forms festival, Hong Kong; Ftarri, Tokyo; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; NOW Now festival, Sydney; Firstdraft Gallery, Sydney; and Liveworks festival with Liquid Architecture, Sydney. Her debut album Waking, She Heard The Fluttering, recently released on Room40, received critical acclaim in The Wire Magazine and The Quietus. Artist notes: Earlier this year I spent a two-month period on residency in Hong Kong. I was instantly drawn to the colour and vibrancy of the city, as well as to certain materials and objects that kept reappearing on my explorations. Billowy, gauzy construction cloth that covered spiny bamboo scaffolding, the devastatingly-inviting colourful-sheen of single-use plastics, discarded durian husks, the deep blue night-time sky made hazy/dreamy/luminous from neon lighting, lush and vibrant green foliage… I was thinking about the small variations in the repetition of these materials, as well as the repetition of certain images and sounds. The phasing on/off flash of orange construction lights lining long stretches of road; the rhythmic phasing of multiple pedestrian crossing beeps heard simultaneously. the overhead circling of the kites (seabirds) in the sky; the below-water circling of plastic bags in the harbour. For a little while now I’ve been cultivating an obsession with the relationships between sound, material/object and texture. How feeling can inform listening, how listening is feeling, and how this felt-listening can alter our perception of things as we are taught to ‘know’ them. For me listening is acknowledging the intrinsic connections between our surroundings and ourselves. If we acknowledge the vibrancy and resonance of everyday objects how might this change our actions and thinking around them. "My hunch is that the image of dead or thoroughly instrumentalised matter feeds human hubris and our earth-destroying fantasies of conquest and consumption. It does so by preventing us from detecting (seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling) a fuller range of the nonhuman powers circulating around and within human bodies." Jane Bennett in Vibrant Matter It occurred to me, whilst writing this and listening back, that not only are materials amplified in Immaterial but certain sounds appear almost material in themselves, such as the squeak of shoes on basketball courts, and the droplets of rain on foliage. These sounds seem not to belong to shoe or court, rain or leaf, but are formed in the entwining to become a thing in themselves. It is this connectedness through sound that I am fascinated with. Through sound unequal forms can be connected: mic distortion disguises itself as crinkling plastic bags that blends into the crackling sound of shrimp underwater. Sound waves traverse through our bodies and our surroundings, forming knots and vibrations and connections and confusions. In sound material blends with the immaterial and new imaginaries can be made, for me this is a way out. Immaterial was composed in parallel to these thoughts. Like silky-soft milky tea tasted alongside a crispy-sweet pineapple bun. Cantonese overheard (voices in the background) Here! Here! (uncle) Walk after the 2nd team pass! (voice in a speakerphone) I want to ask if I can have reports from other colleagues. (response) Your colleague’s there. Hurry up. What’s fucking wrong with you? You sure you don’t want it, Brother Tong? No! I’m seeing my daughters now. I am walking, on my way to see them. (a man probably talks about drinks) (the other man) How about yourself? (woman’s voice in a speakerphone) Please speak. (This probably is a phone conversation between two construction workers) Hey (a name) tell me when you find it. Buy in Yau Ma Tei where they sell that stuff. …Yeah, yeah. Tomorrow, I’ll… You do your search and I do mine. Now Kyun Kee said it was fine being a little bit short. It won’t be a problem if you tuck in the aluminium tube, otherwise it will be fucking ugly. You do your search and I do mine. Whoever finds it makes a call, alright? (music: Love in Deep Autumn by Alan Tam) …the love is dead and lingers in my heart. Reminisce myself in the memories... See if you go... yeah, see if you go by the east or by the west. I’ve been there once a long time ago… Thank you to Karen Yu for playing some percussion heard on this track, and for taking me on a Chinese-gong shopping trip. Thank you to Nerve and Wendy Lee at 20α (Twenty Alpha) for their support and loan of quality time with an Arp 2600. Thank you to Fiona Lee and to soundpocket for sharing thoughts on field recording, and taking me to special locations. Thank you to龢wo4 and Li Yan Chung for their English translations of the Cantonese overheard whilst field recording. Thank you to the Hong Kong Arts Centre, Asialink Arts and Create NSW for granting me this residency. And to Remy Siu and Contemporary Musiking Hong Kong for introducing me to the local scene via Sound Forms Festival. Thank you to my relatives Luke and Sarah for allowing their recorded voices to participate on this track. Thank you to the HK music+art community and to the new friends made. Thank you also to my friends, family, partner and cat. The week I left Hong Kong was the first of protests that are still going. I support Hong Kongers in their determination for civil and political rights. All sounds heard on Immaterial (excepting one recording of clarinet) were recorded in Hong Kong between April and June 2019. Composed, performed, recorded and mixed by Alexandra Spence Additional percussion by Karen Yu Mastered by A.F. Jones at Laminal Audio released October 16, 2019
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Olli Aarni - Haalea (44:22) 24Bit Olli Aarni is a self-taught experimental musician living in Vantaa, Finland. With his music he aims to condense reality into magic. Aarni has released over 20 LPs, CDs and cassette tapes on four continents. Artist notes: This piece is about early morning light, shape-shifting clouds, two-dimensional birds and empty space. It's my interpretation of a certain kind of dawn, when the light is just bright enough to make the sleep slightly thinner and restless. When making music, I often listen to sounds and adjust them bit by bit until I start to connect with them emotionally. At best a sound can be a canvas for the listener to project their feelings and ideas in multiple ways again and again. I usually work on pieces for a long time because I want to wander inside them and let them become part of my daily life for a while. I recorded this at home in Vantaa, Finland and in Q-O2, Brussels and Elektronmusikstudion, Stockholm during 2014–2019. released November 12, 2019
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Nickolas Mohanna - Throwing The Chain (22:01) 24Bit New York based artist and composer Nickolas Mohanna deploys various media to blur the borders between music, sound and sculpture, producing works from environmental and internet sounds, guitar and homemade sculptural instruments. He is also the founder of the publishing project Run/Off. Artist notes: This piece is an extension from a sonic practice; where my raw materials are gathered less from a social or public site, but rather from the sensory topographies of a vibrant ecosystem. I wanted to reveal the chance encounters from a collage of field recordings to explore phenomena of birth, evolution, and decomposition. These themes are inherent in the movements of sound and become potent improvisational forms to create a kind of unfolding system, within a system; ad infinitum. The field of deep listening is such, that the mind rests in the totality of being; where there is nothing but awareness in spirited moments of clarity. And in this awakened consciousness there is only truth. released December 11, 2019
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Grand River - Light Index Opening (19:24) 24Bit Aimée Portioli, also known as Grand River, is a Dutch-Italian composer, poly-instrumentalist and producer based in Berlin. While mainly connected to the fields of electronic music and sound design, her compositions transcend these genres. Her work is known equally for her film scores as for her experimental and ambient projects. Influenced by classical minimal music Grand River’s work integrates a large variety of sound structures and symphonic calculations, often blurring the lines between traditional composition and research-based modernism. Aimée also runs the record label One Instrument. Artist notes: This piece is a dialogue between acoustic-organic and electronic sounds which are created in a way to be harmonically combined, as if part of a same world where both such opposite musical sources coexist. Composed with a Schimmel Classic 16 acoustic upright piano, Make Noise Telharmonic, Morphing Terrarium E350, Mutable Instruments Clouds, Eventide H3000, Yamaha DX7, Moog DFAM, Lexicon MPX100 and foley recordings. Recorded and composed in Berlin, Germany in Autumn, 2019. Deep listening has become to me a necessity, both as a listener and composer which helps me to be more mindful and aware of what I experience. I consider it a precious and beautiful tool that enhances my daily life. released December 11, 2019
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Antti Tolvi - Just Gong (30:44) Antti Tolvi was born at the farm in Panelia, small village at west coast of Finland. Antti works as composer, performer and sound artist and has been one of the main figures in underground music scene in Finland since 2002. Antti has played over 300 shows around world in three continent. There is thirteen solo records under Antti´s name and Antti has been part of over fifty record as composer and/or musician. Last year Antti has made many sound art installations to galleries around Finland and worked with wide range of different arts; performance, dance, puppet theatre, light art, films… Antti has also organized sound art festival Kiilan Äänipäivät since 2014. Antti´s other profession is working as Qigong and mediation teacher. Antti has studied Taiji, Qigong and Zen meditation since 2002 with various teachers and has been teaching since 2010. Artist notes: Just Gong is recorded with one take on one sunny autumn morning in our home Kemiö Island Finland. Playing with gongs is maybe a bit different than playing some other instruments. You do something and then you listen and notice how it response. You literary follow the sound. Sound may variety pretty much depending a day, place, temperature and so on. So it’s a very alive instrument in a way. And gong is very total instrument because the whole instrument is just one piece. No interfaces. No boundaries. Just one. I think the gong might be the one of the oldest noise/drone instruments in the world. The first signs of gongs are around 3,000 years ago in China. After more than decade of daily meditation, deep listening, or I like to call it just listening has become one of my main practices. In just listening I just listen. And not just sounds around me, but also my inner world. Feelings, though, tensions, everything what arises to my conciseness. And idea is to just listen them, let them come and let them go. See the constant transformation. And to be able to see the transformation, you need to listen for a while. And what you will hear? Just life all around. One huge life. Just gong… This piece is played with a Wuhan 44 inch Wind Gong and recorded with Soundman Binaural Microphones to Zoom H5 recorder. Mastering made my dear friend Pentti Dassum. released December 11, 2019
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Jasmine Guffond - Current Harmonics (15:56) 24Bit Jasmine Guffond is an artist and composer working at the interface of social, political and technical infrastructures. Focused on electronic composition across music and art contexts, her practice spans live performance, recording, sound installation and custom made browser add-on. Through the sonification of data she addresses the potential of sound to engage with contemporary political questions. She has released solo albums with the Sonic Pieces and Karl Records labels. A new full-length album is released on Editions Mego in March 2020. Artist notes: Current Harmonics was initially a 28 channel composition and site specific sound installation for Reservoir electronic arts festival in July 2019. Located at the Linachtalsperre dam in the black forest, this hydroelectric power station was built between 1922 and 1925 in the industrial region of Baden-Würtemberg. I composed a piece in MaxMSP using the frequencies generated by the current harmonics of electricity. The fundamental frequency for Germany being 60 hertz, current harmonics are positive multiples of the fundamental frequency, just like the functioning of harmonics for sound waves. Most hydroelectric dams operate via the force of water falling at such a rapid rate so as to mobilise the turning of large electro magnets attached to a rotor. This in turn produces a flow of electrons. To mimic the motion of falling water intrinsic to the functioning of the Linachtalsperre dam, I employed a descending movement between the frequencies of the current harmonics of 60 hertz. Deep listening for me is to focus uniquely on sound, and thereby on the moment. Akin to an alternate state of consciousness perhaps not unlike forms of meditation. The deeper one listens the more one hears, as quiet sounds gain presence and a universe of sound, new to the listener, is unveiled. released February 12, 2020
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Pablo's Eye - Tentative D'épuisement D'un Lieu Parisien (18:52) 24Bit Pablo’s Eye is a Brussels-based international collective of musicians and artists who share a vision to make magic through music. 2019, coincidentally, marks the 30th year of Pablo's Eye's loose existence. Their common goal has always been to create a feeling of travelling in time and space, by going from past memories to future hopes. Their aim remains to express the ideal and explore the real through both personal and global stories. Back in the 1990s, Pablo's Eye were signed to Swim~ records and Extreme records but the project was relatively dormant in its recorded output throughout the 2000s until 2018, when Ziggy Devriendt began curating a series of three compilations for his Stroom〰 heritage label, one of which 'Bardo for Pablo' received a glowing review on Pitchfork and the coveted banner of 'Best New Reissue.' Pablo's Eye don't really endeavour to be a band, it is more a temporary atmosphere, like a taste, like a dream… Artist notes: One of our greatest pleasures is trying to translate our view of the world into sounds and music. We have always been inspired by different languages and cultures, spoken words and Richard Skinner's writings in particular. “October 1974, the French writer Georges Perec spent three days at Le Café de la Mairie in Place Saint-Sulpice, Paris, recording everything that passed through his field of vision: the people walking by; the buses and school cars caught in their routes; the pigeons moving suddenly en masse; a wedding (and then a funeral) at the church in the centre of the square; the signs, symbols, and slogans littering everything; and the darkness that eventually absorbs it all. He called this exercise Tentative d'épuisement d'un lieu parisien, 'An attempt at exhausting a place in Paris'. A wonderful exercise in observation and description.” Text by Richard Skinner. Extract from Joiners: Essays, Reviews & Interviews, Vanguard Editions 2019. Recorded and reprinted with permission of the author. Deep listening is intense listening, immersive and environmental. A deeper awareness of the things around you. The city with its social life can be perfect for a deep listening experience. We’ve tried to relive sonically with Georges Perec in mind our drifting away at the Place Saint-Sulpice in Paris, a special place in our heart. For this project Pablo's Eye are: Axel Libeert, Luc Laret, Marie Mandi, Johan Coopman and Richard Skinner. Music composed, recorded and mixed by Pablo's Eye at Soundscube Studio, Brussels, August 2019. released February 12, 2020
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Botany - Fourteen 45 Tails (29:38) 24Bit Botany is the musical title of Spencer Stephenson, an Austin-based producer and multi-instrumentalist whose work uses drum-heavy sample-based hip-hop as a prism through which to refract psychedelic folk, spiritual jazz, kosmische, and sound collage. Inspired by the work of forebears like Four Tet, Madlib, and Jay Dee, Stephenson began experimenting with DAWs and samplers more than half his life ago at age fifteen. After landing on Pitchfork’s now-defunct Forkcast in 2009, Stephenson signed to the label Western Vinyl and soon after released an EP in memory of his mother who had recently taken her own life in light of a diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer. In the following years, Stephenson briefly relocated to a remote farm outside of Austin to begin work on his full-length debut, Lava Diviner (Truestory), which appeared in 2013. Dimming Awe, the Light Is Raw dropped in 2015 as a limited LP, the success of which prompted a reissue shortly after; guests included rapper R.A.P. Ferreira (FKA Milo) and Leaving Records founder Matthewdavid (who has also mastered all Botany projects to date). In 2016 Botany released Deepak Verbera, a surprising and drumless excursion into what he calls “free-psych”, invoking artists like Alice Coltrane, Harold Budd, and Popol Vuh while drawing praise from The Wire, and FACT Magazine who declared Deepak one of the top 50 LPs of that year. Stephenson returned to beat-based form in 2017 to deliver Raw Light II, followed in 2018 by a moody and sociopolitical one-off album with east coast emcee Lushlife under the moniker The Skull Eclipses. The Botany canon is expected to expand in 2020 and beyond. Artist notes: Fourteen 45 Tails was created by recording the final downbeat of fourteen different 45 singles chosen at random from a stack I keep next to my workspace. Using my turntable’s pitch control to key-match, each of these fourteen record tails are looped on top of each other, with each layer having its own runtime. Because of their varied lengths, the loops interact differently with each repetition creating a feeling of density despite the fact that each individual loop consists mostly of space, and that space itself is the run out groove of each record. I used reverb to erode the distinction between the sounds in the middle third of the piece, and let the dry sounds gradually reappear in the final third. The goal was to create a feeling of movement from solidity to dissolution and back again. While some of the singles I sampled were acquired during record store trips as expected, most found their way to me from the collections of deceased relatives. This reminded me of a theory that a friend of mine mentioned when his grandmother passed away: that maybe the afterlife is actually the tiniest sliver of time right before brain activity ceases, stretched out by some neurochemical mechanism as to become a virtually infinite dream-state, so that a life seems to never quite end to the one living it. In reference to that idea, Fourteen 45 Tails is made out of the final moments of fourteen records that once belonged to people who’ve long since lived – or from another perspective may still be living – their own final moments. released February 12, 2020
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Josh Mason - 'Aumakua (20:00) 24Bit Josh Mason lives and works in Jacksonville, Florida. He is exploring "personal music” – sounds derived from a variety of tools and various processing environments, both analog and digital, that examine themes of family, community, mental health and location. His work has been published by Eilean Records, FET Press, Desire Path Recordings, Own Records, Digitalis, Sunshine Ltd. and others. Artist notes: For guitars and synthesisers. My grandmother passed away in the afternoon on July 24, 2016 (which is also my wife’s birthday). I lost my grandfather two years later on February 21st. She was born in the morning on June 5 (which is the day before my birthday) in 1921 and he on April 27th of that same year. After growing up in a small town in South Carolina, where most of the population at the time never left home, they were married when my grandfather, who was a lieutenant in the Air Force, returned home in November of 1945 – and from then till 1971, the traveled from duty station to duty station, all around the continental US, the Panama Canal Zone, and most importantly, The Pacific Rim. As a child, I spent a great deal of time at my grandparent’s home when my parents worked, and was regaled with stories from when my grandfather was stationed in Bangkok, and especially their time spent on the Hawaiian Islands. They would continue to travel there all the way up to the last years of their lives. It got to the point where I began to think of her especially as being from those places. Their home was decorated with exotic shells. Their furniture made from bamboo and wicker, flowering plants on every available surface. An island sensibility blanketed the life they had built. I made it through most of my life until now never having lost someone. After her burial, I struggled with how to feel about a world without this person who shaped so much of who I would turn out to be. I felt guilty for any time that would lapse in my day without thinking of her – as if her impact would be lost if she was forgotten; as if I was the only one in the world capable of that burden. About 9 months went by until I stumbled on this book from the library about Hawaiian religion and magic. There was an interesting concept covered in it that I had never heard of before – the ‘aumakua or, the deified ancestor. While it is not something I subscribe to on a spiritual level per se, on a typical sunny day in Florida, I can identify the manifestations I’ve assigned to them and meditating on these things is much preferred to the thoughts I have of her hooked up to machines in a cold hospital room, or him struggling to maintain an empty home as well as his independence. The view of a lonely cumulus in a sea of blue or a bird jetting between palms can instantly transport me to a lunch on the porch, an evening at the beach, a holiday morning with my family. The sounds presented here are a loose take on a Hawaiian vamp (also thought of as a turnaround in jazz music) in C. This usually small section of music is often used as a staging area between one section of music and the next. For me, this serves as a connecting bridge between the time I knew with them and the time I’ll spend without them. The length of the piece follows the timing of a typical progression of this sort, in that the first two chords span an equal amount of time and the third spans the same time as the first two combined. So, instead of 2 counts + 2 counts + 4 counts, it’s expanded and interpreted as 5 + 5 + 10 minute sections respectively, to allow one time to live in each. My family fostered my creativity, spurred on my imagination. They taught me which tools were right for which jobs. They were the embodiment of generosity – and they were my friends. Extended and intimate time with sound, either internal or external, allows one to sidestep the juggernaut of frenetic activity in modern life. Immersive listening can broker trades of emptiness for enrichment; isolation for connection. For John and Elsie, whom I loved. released February 12, 2020
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Shy Layers - Composition For Loud Magic (27:28) Shy Layers is the musical incarnation of Atlanta-based multimedia artist JD Walsh. He made his debut recording on Hamburg's Growing Bin Records, fusing elements of Krautrock, 80s R&B, African Highlife, Balearic Pop, and free-form modular-synth jams. This self-titled LP was named one of 2016's top 20 Electronic records by Pitchfork. His visual artworks have been exhibited internationally. His sophomore LP "Midnight Marker" was released in 2018 on Tim Sweeney's Beats in Space label. He has been profiled in Pitchfork, Stereogum, Uproxx, and The Guardian, among others. Artist notes: Composition for Loud Magic is a work written to be heard in an exhibition of sculptures by Sonya Yong James. This exhibition occurred at Whitespace Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia in 2019. James' work uses materials such as horsehair, cotton, clay, and silk to conjure images of dream states, ghosts, and shadows. I wanted the audio to be both reflective of this, and to be complimentary on its own. The work was written in four movements: some melodic, some textural, some with large swaths of silence, punctuated by bursts of activity. The composition weaves together manipulated found sounds, improvisations on the modular synth, and recordings made with contact microphones that were then processed in the Max/MSP programming environment. Like a lot of ambient music, the work is meant to be engaged with at any level of attention that the audience sees fit, and was originally intended to be looped and happened upon in a non-linear fashion. I was lucky enough to meet Pauline Oliveros at a few key points during my artistic development. The first was in my early twenties, where she'd been collaborating with teachers of mine (Andrew Deutsch and Peer Bode) in a group called The Carrier Band. Being exposed to the practice of listening as a theory, especially the idea of listening as an active process, really changed the course of my thinking inexorably. With its implications for the environment, for meditation, for the body, nature, and the subconscious, I felt (and still feel) that music can not be complete without the audience/viewer/listener's presence and participation. This has allowed me to make works in both the sonic and visual realms that are more open-ended, and less constrained by things like duration, narrative, or notions of so-called "good taste". Instead, it's allowed me to use a wider spectrum of sounds, both musical and non-musical, and to use chance and randomness in many aspects of my creative process. released April 15, 2020
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Penelope Trappes - Gnostic State (25:28) 24Bit Penelope Trappes, is a London based vocalist, musician and ethereal soundscaper originally from the Northern Rivers of NSW, Australia. She spent 2016 writing and recording what would become her first solo album, ‘Penelope One’ in a piano studio in East London. Composed of mostly percussion-less, reverb-heavy haunting atmospherics with dystopian themes, the LP was released via Optimo Music in 2017 on vinyl and as a photo book. The first single ‘Puppets’ premiered by opening the Fendi SS17 runway show. Penelope signed to Houndstooth in 2018 and released her sophomore LP ‘Penelope Two’ to critical acclaim. The minimalist, ethereal album was built around field recordings, meditations, guitars, synth drones, piano and reverb, and deals with mortality, predestination and empathy. 2019 saw the release of ‘Penelope Redeux’ consisting of reworks of songs from ‘Penelope Two’ by Cosey Fanni Tutti, Mogwai, Félicia Atkinson, Nik Colk Void and more. ‘Penelope Three’ will be out in the second half of 2020 on Houndstooth. “Summoning the great ghosts of vintage 4AD and Kranky, the Australian singer and producer makes inky dream pop that’s as heavy and welcoming as a weighted blanket.” Philip Sherburne, Pitchfork Artist notes: Gnostic State references a world punctuated with mercurial and arcane moments. Expansive space, mentally and musically, makes way for what at first seem like imperceptible turns: hints of voice, breath, plants, synths, field recordings of relatives and of myself in my studio. All become part of an unpredictable and far-reaching sphere. I felt very free focusing in and creating this in one day – it truly felt like a microcosm of life as we try to find universal knowledge in all daily happenings, looking for links between incident and reason. I feel that listening comes from a receptive place in oneself, to explore more subtle levels of meaning and intention in sound. It is an ongoing practice of suspending egotistical, reactive thinking and opening one's awareness to the unknown and unexpected. I believe that these contemplative moments, with their cultivation of self-awareness and compassion, may offer the best hope for transforming dysfunctional and damaging social habits, and might possibly be integral for future survival. Perhaps humans could bring about a major shift in our society by better learning to micro-listen, empathetically and compassionately, across diversity and difference. released April 15, 2020
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Inoyama Land - Fuku-Ura (29:04) 24Bit Inoyama Land was formed in 1977 by Makoto Inoue and Yasushi Yamashita. In 1983, their first album produced by Haruomi Hosono, Danzindan-Pojidon, was released on the Yen label with a 2020 vinyl re-release. In the ‘90s, the pair became involved in sound design for various sites such as museums, international stadiums and installations. For the past few years, previous works have been re-released from ExT recordings and Inoyama Land returned to live performance. In 2018, they appeared as a headliner with Morgan Fisher at Camp Off-Tone, the only ambient music festival in Japan. In 2019 they performed at Kakou Ryuryoku, the finale of the Red Bull Music Festival in Tokyo. Their latest release is a compilation of later environmental compositions, Commissions, on Empire of Signs. Artist notes: There is a place called Fortune Bay (Fuku-ura) near the studio where we worked on the piece. It's filled with subtle movement of bright waves, small old fishing boats, fishery fire seen offshore after sunset, and morning wind. These are the things that control tempo and tone of the piece. When you become aware of deep listening, you realise your ear and mind were fully occupied with unwanted sound. It's a stimulating experience once you open up your covered ears and try to absorb the sound. released April 15, 2020
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Ruven Nunez - Within Dreams, Without Dreams (28:00) I was born on the 13th of May in 1987 and grew up in a small town in Switzerland. After leaving school, I worked in a record store for about five years. Since then I worked all kinds of jobs, without ever settling on one. I don't remember when I got my first guitar, but I started to play very frequently some time in 2008. My first true meeting with the guitar was in 2013, after somewhat of a nervous breakdown. It was during a session of practice, which I also happened to record, which ended up being my first album, Evening Prayer. That's when all things fell into place for me, whatever that means. Artist notes: Within Dreams, Without Dreams is a patchwork-like collage that I've been working on periodically for about two years. It is based on personal experiences and emotions in regard to sleeping and waking, as well as their relation to each other. I wanted to assemble all of these rich and colourful feelings into one single piece of music, merging into one another, just as dreams do while we sleep. I wanted to transform my confusion with life's many realities into sound. I suggest that music is one of the many playful ways of the cosmos to express and experience itself, through each one of us. Trying to be conscious in everything I do, and because I'm very sensitive to life and its sounds, I can't listen to music in any other way than what you would describe as deep listening, or in other words – conscious listening. When you surrender to sound, it is a profound and spiritual experience. You dissolve, and only the sound is present. It's a holy moment, that puts us into our natural state and brings us very close to where we come from. Deep listening is essential. released April 15, 2020
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Carmen Villain - Affection In A Time Of Crisis (20:05) 24Bit Norwegian-Mexican artist and producer Carmen Villain makes atmospheric music made up of tapestries of field-recordings, flute, piano, vocals, zither, programmed drums and synths, culminating in her own distinctive sound combining elements of fourth world, dub and ambient. So far she has released three full length albums and a handful of 12 inches and EPs for Smalltown Supersound. Artist notes: This was born out of processing sounds through granular synthesis, on which the harmonies were built upon. It includes sampling, field recordings from various places, breath, alt-flute, and synth and voice. The flute is performed by my regular collaborator Johanna Scheie Orellana. Listening to something for a long time reveals new layers and details and tones, for me, it engages and relaxes the mind in the best possible way. Produced and mixed by Carmen Villain. Published by Sony ATV. released June 17, 2020
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Chihei Hatakeyama - Blue Goat (19:46) 24Bit Chihei Hatakeyama is a sound artist and musician living on the outskirts of Tokyo. He has performed for years under his given name and also as one half of the electroacoustic group Opitope, along with Tomoyoshi Date. Hatakeyama polychromes memory-evoking soundscapes with various recorded materials of electric, acoustic instruments such as electric guitars, vibraphone and piano. His releases are on Kranky, Room 40, Under The Spire, Hibernate Records, Magic Book Records, Home Normal, Own Records And Spekk (as Opitope) Artist notes: The song was composed with an old Alpha Juno analog synth and a modular synth. I recorded a number of improvisations to make sure that the minimalist playing would hold up with a minimum number of notes. I’ve summarised the most outstanding performances for this piece. The subtle melody is influenced by the melody of Angelo Badalamenti, who I listened to when writing this piece. released June 17, 2020
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Celer - For The Meantime (1:00:29) Celer is Will Long, an American artist living in Japan. Artist notes: The idea of change is ever-present. Reduce the scale. Look at yourself. You can change something in your life, but it’s usually as a result. I learned a lesson. I gave up a bad habit. New Year’s resolutions. But then I didn’t. We’re supposed to adapt, to conform. No. I wish I had done that. I wish I could do that. I’ll do things differently next time. I might. You should have done that earlier. I wish you were like you used to be. I wish you hadn’t changed. Little child, you can change the world. Yes, we can work together for that. I don’t want you to change. Stay just how you are, and don’t let anyone change you. For the meantime, let’s pretend we can keep this moment forever. Recorded 2018–20, all music by Will Long released June 17, 2020
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Michael Vincent Waller - A Song (21:10) Michael Vincent Waller (b. 1985) is an American composer of contemporary music based in New York City. His music has been described as lyrical and introspective, drawing inspiration from impressionism, post-minimalism and world music. His work situates these familiar elements within decidedly unconventional and individual frameworks. He has been recently described as “a rising star composer…” and his recent album Moments on Unseen Worlds was named “one of the last year’s best contemporary classical releases” (Brooklyn Rail). Inside out An essay by Nick Storring Hearing the improvisations of someone who primarily identifies as a composer is imbued with a very particular kind of intimacy, akin to reading the letters or diaries of poet, or discovering that one's favourite painter was also an equally accomplished photographer, yet hadn't shared this side of their work publicly. There's a familiarity in the contours, syntax and cadence of their phrases. The hues are equally saturated or muted. The glue that holds it all together even has the same viscosity, but it's as if everything has been turned inside out. And on a certain level it has. For composers, such as Michael Vincent Waller (b. 1985), who don't regularly give improvised concerts, it's a private, quotidian, yet utterly vital counterpart to their public-facing creative endeavour. It's an activity that feeds into gestation of compositions, without being subservient to it. It's not as though its sole purpose is to generate content that could later find a more refined form on the page. Rather, it exists as a reciprocal realm to composing in which one's aesthetic concerns are addressed in a more casual, instinctual, fluid and vulnerable discourse. Fortunately for listeners, Waller has recognised the beauty of turning this process outward. –––– Prior to the 20th century there wasn't always such a sharp distinction between these two paradigms of creative music-making. It's no secret that countless canonised composers from Bach to Liszt were revered improvising virtuosi on their instruments. Historically, spontaneously-generated cadenzas were commonplace – offering the performer compositional agency, and the permeability to various forms of impromptu embellishment during the Baroque is widely noted. Yet as artists' creative processes started to interrogate the presumed fundamentals of music itself, idealistic and ideological stances on the matter of composition vs. improvisation took hold. John Cage was notable for his qualms with the latter on account it asserting the subjectivity of its creators. At the opposite end of the spectrum, some would go as far as touting improvisation as the ultimate musical manifestation of a liberated, egalitarian utopia (in contrast to the rigid hegemonic structure apparently posed by written-out music.) While this division lingers in certain corners of the vast and varied exploratory music community, the perspectives and practices of present-day artists tend to be more supple. There tends to be an increased awareness of the conditions that destabilise the purported solidity of composition, and also a corresponding understanding that improvisation is unconsciously composed by one's training, musical habits, body, listening diet, performance context and relationship to the instrument. –––– The body of work that Waller has generated thus far does not make a deliberate attempt to engage with these notions – at least not directly. The music is lyrical, personal and often quite delicate, embracing traditional shapes as much as it does contemporary restraint and coloration. His approach is staunchly intuitive, grounded in the very sensation of making music itself, rather attempting to narrate or illustrate some sort of commentary through sound. It's very decidedly music that comes from listening, and gently insists that those interpreting it or witnessing it engage in listening of the same intensity. The music heard here – an extended piano improvisation – remains true to his ethos, but the contrast in method it offers from Waller's other work speaks to his position within the above question, and does so with candour and eloquence. At first blush, A Song might not even read as an improvisation at all. Driven neither by fiery virtuosic urgency nor exploratory meandering, it unfolds in a careful, stately manner, thoroughly reflecting upon – savouring – each moment, before moving forward. The sustained, transparent-sounding arpeggiations, presented in a strong, steady, but never forceful dynamic, evoke the tolling of bells. Elsewhere he will hovers quietly within a simple chordal texture, or, such as in the closing two minutes, unfurl a robust melodic statement over a sturdy bass progression. Waller's real-time sense of proportion is remarkably acute. The piece's shifts of texture, such as the brief movement into surging repeated chords at roughly 11 minutes in, though surprising, come off with a lucidity one associates with composition more than freeform extemporisation. Though commendably clean in its construction, this piece still speaks to the fluidity and magic of improvisation – the fact that it as a medium can serve as a mysterious agent of cohesion. The intricate but informal way in which the entire structure is articulated, keeps the listener engaged with the piece in way that feels constantly fresh and somewhat unpredictable. As such, it also draws the ear toward attributes that are idiomatic improvisation. We're privy to the unique fluctuations of Waller's own internal clock which impart an idiosyncratic sense of breath one could never coax from an interpreter. Additionally, on a number of occasions throughout the 21 minutes, Waller touches upon material whose character is enhanced by the sincerity of the spontaneous flow, but might not end up translating in a written-out-for-someone-else context. There's an irrefutable momentum behind the authenticity of the gesture. To that, this recording gives listeners deep glimpse into Waller's impulses as a musician. Certainly A Song is full of ideas that one could imagine nestled in a more settled framework, but here they're charged —directly and palpably so – with Waller's own internal curiosity. The energy that accompanies the arrival of each musical statement is the foundation and what make it so evocative. Waller's scores already emerge from an intuitive and inward-oriented position, and in addition to playing freely, he's long used improvisation as a tool to generate, develop, manipulate his material. Admitting listeners into that once-private domain seems like natural and logical extension of his existing approach and the resultant music confirms this impression, too. It channels his imagination with the same focus and fidelity, while allowing it to speak with newfound vitality. Performed by: Michael Vincent Waller (piano) Recorded by: Ryan Streber, at Oktaven Studios, Mt Vernon, NY, October 6th, 2018; (recorded in a single take improvisation, with no editing). Mixed by: Charles Mueller, Ryan Streber, at Oktaven Studios, Mt Vernon, NY. Mastered by: Denis Blackham at Skye Mastering Artist notes: Deep listening can be understood as a state of mind, that facilitates a deeper awareness of sound, as with one's experiential involvement with musical listening. I think this awareness of listening (inside) the sound, can build deeply complex relationships. There is an objectivism in how we perceive musical structures, in the harmonies; but, yet in subtle fermatas, we can perceive a new sense of space – wherein choices have a subtle gravity and inward gaze. released June 16, 2020
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Efrim Manuel Menuck - Starling Troubles Sparrow (21:30) 24Bit born 1970 in Montreal, Quebec. son of a doctor and a nurse. mother left in 1973. came back briefly 17 years later, and then left again. hebrew day school from grades 1 through 9. kept kosher but did not believe in god. grew up in toronto, and left home at age 17. only punk-rock from age 15 until 20. high school dropout at grade 11. no jobs and no home. student welfare then grown-up welfare. first love. too many drugs, and then a nervous breakdown at age 20. quit the drugs. moved back to montreal. no music from age 20 to 24. found good people. pre-internet. many beers. started the "godspeed you black emperor!" band at age 25. started the "silver mt. zion" band at age 29. drove many miles. been on the road since 1996. times have changed. hate the industry. hate all industries. no more beers. co-owner of thee mighty "hotel2tango" recording studio. recorded good and bad bands there. a loudmouth sometimes. and can be a moody motherfucker and a total drag. stubborn. worried. out of step. ezra's father. Artist notes: Built out of one simple looped piano phrase. Filtered mechanically and electrically in real time while running through a pair of rattling guitar amplifiers, re-amped and re-recorded, until dust ensued. All of it happened while the sparrows and starlings battled in a pair of trees across the street from here. The starlings intent on stealing the sparrows nests. The sparrows call out and a gang manifests quickly, yelling and poking. The sparrows are better organised, and all the starlings have is brute strength. Song is dedicated to any all who rise thusly, together in spite of or not at all. released August 19, 2020
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Nadia Struiwigh - Analog Dream (21:12) When playing live, Nadia Struiwigh feels detached from her consciousness and instead rides on her own inner flow. She shares stories that come from deep inside of her and are based on her own memories and inspiration. Once translated into sound, they become narratives common too many of us and take listeners deep into their own psyche. As hippie as that may sound, Struiwigh is also a technical nerd who deeply analyses everything she does, and so by now can truly convey herself through her Korg, Moog and Sculpt synths. For as long as she can remember, Struiwigh’s head has been lost in music, floating on melodies, analysing sound and trying to understand why it has such a profound impact on us. She felt it was her calling to take it to the next level. "Life is like a melody to me, a harmony. I really can’t express myself with words so music is my main language", she says. Since 2009 Struiwigh has been making music like some people write a diary – daily sessions to capture what she is feeling at any given time. As long as the ideas flow freely, she continues to make tracks that are often steeped in distortion, with occult lullabies, crunchy textures and a melancholic air. If it feels forced, she stops. Making music is a way for her to reset and clear her mind. Sharing it is a way to find out if other people feel the same way and understand the hidden messages within it. Artist notes: My approach to this piece was very different to the one I took last year. I was forced back into a living space studio as I just moved to Australia. I must say, I love it. I love to work on a longer piece like this, especially when I can sit in my own bubble, just low key on a coach, with my beloved synths. I've created a lot of spacey retro patterns and I was actually just jamming around. I pressed the record button in Ableton, and the first take was the final take. At the end I felt really emotional – lots of old emotions came up and I felt I've started a new chapter in my life. This piece is very dear to me. I will ask you to close your eyes, and to dim the lights and float on this analog synth piece! I prefer deep extended pieces, because I feel I can connect for a longer time with the artist or with myself. I try to put a lot of different emotions in one track, so the longer the better. I can tell even more. For me it’s an experience, a mindset and a full psychedelic trip. It's asking us to be open for whatever comes and to create our own memories with the song. released August 18, 2020
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Green-House - Passiflora (21:41) Green-House is the project of Los Angeles based artist Olive Ardizoni. Approaching their projects with an intentional naivety, they craft songs that find freedom through simplicity. As a non-binary artist, they hope to create a space with fewer barriers as both a performer and a listener. Their first release as Green-House, Six Songs for Invisible Gardens, was written with the intention of transforming the listening environment and augmenting domestic space. The music is designed as a communication with both plant life and the people who care for them. Artist notes: The intention of this piece was to evoke the process of bud, to flower, to transcendence. The melody comes in to note the first sign of spring and moves into the swell of the growth of the bud then the piece moves back and fourth as they swell and separate, revealing its centre as it finally blooms, spreading its seeds and then gently closing and returning back to the earth. Deep listening is the somatic experience of listening, feeling the physical movements of a piece and feeling the stillness. much like looking at a picture and allowing yourself to be swept away with the emotion of the piece rather than allowing the intellect to overpower the moment. released August 17, 2020
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. K. Leimer - Slight, Far (32:39) Seattle-based composer K. Leimer has been making ambient and experimental music since the mid 1970s, releasing the majority of it on his own Palace of Lights label. Inspired by the tape loop experiments of Brian Eno and the free-form cosmic explorations of krautrock groups such as Cluster and Neu!, he began creating similar sounds at a time when interest in these forms of music was virtually unheard of in the United States. Leimer’s music began attracting more interest than it ever had during the previous decades when RVNG Intl. issued A Period of Review, a collection of previously unreleased works. Artist notes: Slight, Far is a self-deterministic, digital, instrumental, approximation of the tape technique used by Anthony Moore in his Pieces from the Cloudland Ballroom. Packets of expanding and contracting phrases occur in a rudimentary phase music setting, further randomised by manually varying the intervals between events so that, unlike Pieces, there is no likely resolution point. To imply distance, the results were then layered into differing “depths” of an artificial soundstage with the additional goal of intimating the organisational effects of position. Even as a child I felt that, as incomprehensible as music was to me at the time, it was always too fast; too rushed. Especially lovely sounds – like feedback or the crumpling of an overloaded microphone – were almost always quickly passed over. Like virtuosic playing, an established aesthetic of neatness that attempted to avoid the actuality of the recording medium seemed aimed purely at entertainment and distraction. This sort of experience of music, I thought, ignores and wastes the vast detail, interest, and beauty carried inside every sound. released August 16, 2020
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Claire Rousay - It Was Always Worth It (20:13) 24Bit claire rousay is a person who performs and records. She currently lives in San Antonio, Texas. Her performances and recordings explore human relationships and self perception. Artist notes: I've recently been exclusively working with field recordings and text to voice programs. This piece was a weird detour for me. The inclusion of synthesizer sounds completely caught me off guard. I guess I was missing harmony. D major, as usual. “it was always worth it” documents a romantic parting of ways. The voice to text is sourced from various love letters over the last six years. Domestic “field recordings” from the last week of the relationship fade in and out while synthesisers hold everything together. The synthesiser sounds are a detour from my recent work. I only recently started to incorporate harmonic elements into my music and this felt like a good chance to try and dive deeper into that world. Harmony is emotional right? I don’t know. Other thoughts/phrases that come to mind when I think of this 20 minutes of sound include “emo ambient”, “breakup album”, “uncomfortably revealing”, etc. I love the domestic sounds, sounds where the microphone is involved in the environment, sounds where things change, sounds where things stay the same. Water recording sounds are overdone and I don't mind. I love the sound of voices, especially the voices of my loved ones. Those are the sounds I listen to. Deep Listening: A Composer's Sound Practice by Pauline Oliveros is what anyone should read. Written and recorded by claire rousay Violin by Alex Cunningham “Innocent” written and performed by Our Lady Peace Mastered by andrew weathers Thanks to Mari, Sabney, and everyone I've shed a tear with released October 14, 2020
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Taylor Deupree - Canoe (20:39) 24Bit Technology and imperfection. The raw and the processed. Curator and curated. Solo explorer and gregarious collaborator. The life and work of Taylor Deupree are less a study in contradictions than a portrait of the multidisciplinary artist in a still-young century. Deupree is an accomplished sound artist whose recordings, rich with abstract atmospherics, have appeared on numerous record labels, and well as in site-specific installations at such institutions as the ICC (Tokyo, Japan) and the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (Yamaguchi, Japan). He started out, in the 1990s, making new noises that edged outward toward the fringes of techno, and in time he found his own path to follow. His music today emphasizes a hybrid of natural sounds and technological mediation. It’s marked by a deep attention to stillness, to an almost desperate near-silence. His passion for the studio as a recording instrument is paramount in his work, but there is no hint of digital idolatry. If anything, his music shows a marked attention to the aesthetics of error and the imperfect beauty of nature, to the short circuits not only in technological systems but in human perception. And though there is an aura of insularity to Depuree’s work, he is a prolific collaborator, having collaborated with the likes of Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Sylvian, Stephan Mathieu, Stephen Vitiello, Christopher Willits, Kenneth Kirschner, Frank Bretschneider, Richard Chartier, Savvas Ysatis, Tetsu Inoue and others. Deupree dedicates as much time to other people’s music as he does to his own. In 1997 he founded the record label 12k, which since then has released over 100 recordings by some of the most accomplished musicians and modern sound artists of our time. Many share with Deupree an interest in stark minimalism, but the label has also found room for, located a common ground with, the acoustic avant-garde, the instrumental derivations of post-rock, and the synthetic extremes of techno. Artist notes: Like all artists who have been working through and processing life during a global pandemic it can be difficult not to take one’s situation into account when creating. While I did not actively set out to write an “isolation” or “pandemic” piece of music I was, for some reason, drawn toward the idea of being lost at sea, a feeling many are probably experiencing at a time like this. Not in a life-threatening, panicked sense, but in a more mysterious, foggy, or even calming way of feeling. A sense of letting go, of floating, but not knowing where you are, like a child who closes her eyes while swinging high on a playground swing. I suppose as with much of my music I was after the balance on that line of fragility between the insecure and the comforting. I have spent a lot of time in my life in a canoe, on lakes and rivers. In the very early fog-covered mornings, or the dusks of evening searching for a place to camp for the night. Canoes are peculiar vessels. A way of traveling solo or with only one or two others into hidden areas not often seen from land. They are very sensitive to balance and weight distribution. Standing up in a canoe is not always recommended. It is these characteristics of the canoe that influenced this piece of music. Something with which I am deeply familiar yet still teetering on the unknown, and, literally, attempting to keep balance. With “Canoe” I hope to instil a sense of solitude, loneliness, and the hushed searching for and unknown something, just out of reach. Despite recorded music (generally) being a finite format; one with set beginnings and endings, I enjoy recordings in which these points are blurred, or have little meaning. I am fascinated most by music which is less about linear, horizontal movement and more about placing the listener into an environment simply where they exist to find their own path in or out. released October 13, 2020
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Clarice Jensen - Platonic Solids 1 (24:38) 24Bit Clarice Jensen is a composer and cellist based in Brooklyn, NYC who graduated with an MA from the Juilliard School. In her role as the artistic director of ACME (the American Contemporary Music Ensemble), she has helped bring to life some of the most revered works of modern classical music, including pieces by Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Gavin Bryars, and more. As a solo artist, Clarice has developed a distinctive compositional approach, improvising and layering her cello through shifting loops and a chain of electronic effects to open out and explore a series of rich, drone-based sound fields. Pulsing, visceral and full of colour, her work is deeply immersive, marked by a wonderful sense of restraint and an almost hallucinatory clarity. Meditative yet with a sculptural sharpness and rigour that sets it apart from the swathe of New Age/DIY droners, she has forged a very elegant and precise vision. Her music has been described by Self-Titled as “heavily processed, incredibly powerful neo-classical pieces that seem to come straight from another astral plane”; by Boomkat as “languorously void-touching ideas, scaling and sustaining a sublime tension”; whilst Bandcamp remarked upon “a kaleidoscope of pulsing movement rich in acoustic beating and charged with other psychoacoustic effects, constantly shifting in density and viscous timbre”. Artist notes: After reading about architect Anne Tyng and her work, I became interested in the platonic solids, the five polyhedra for which each face is the same regular polygon, and the same number of polygons meet at each corner. Plato wrote about these and assigned each with an element: earth, air, fire, water and ether (quintessence). I've begun using these shapes to create graphic scores, and for this piece, I placed them in the following order: Icosahedron (water); Dodecahedron (quintessence); Icosahedron + Dodecahedron; Cube (earth); Octahedron (air); Cube + Octahedron; Tetrahedron (fire). I sought to portray sound that evokes stasis and movement at the same time, and very generally, to explore the perception of sound through dimensional space and time. I'm fascinated by what happens to my perception of time when I'm listening to music, particularly work that is minimal and long, whether it be rhythmically active or still and duration-based. My regular and deeply embedded sense of rhythm and time is replaced by complete absence, and when I'm brought back to regular rhythm (when the piece is finished), it feels like both (or neither) an eternity and a brief moment have passed. As well, when listening this way, through repetition or duration, the details of sounds become very large, changes in sound are monumental; I find myself getting lost in galaxies inside the minutiae of something my ear has attached to. What begins as a passive and placid listening experience becomes a quite dramatic and multifaceted journey. Listening to the same piece again yields a different experience. released October 12, 2020
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Strategy - The Babbling Brook (39:53) Strategy is the singular, long-running alias of Portland mainstay Paul Dickow. Originally conceived in 1999, Strategy came of age during the early heyday of Portland’s emergence as a hotbed of experimental DIY music culture, and has grown over a 20-year adventure. Despite the sense of ‘intention’ conveyed by Strategy’s alias, his musical creations originate in unexpected surprises and visceral exploration and discovery. Strategy’s omnivorous, unpredictable, multi-directional approach to genre has made him something of a cipher; while some artists use multiple aliases to cover diverse musical ground, Strategy’s discography is a puzzle consisting of interlocking and hybridized aspects of ambient, dub, techno, house, audio-visual performance, and noise. Strategy has emerged as an enduring figure with a strong cult following and sustained acclaim from music makers, DJs, and critics. With appearances at international festivals like Mutek, Sonar, New Forms, and Decibel, and 20 years as direct support for some of the most challenging international artists visiting Portland, he is considered both an ambassador for and champion of Portland’s electronic music community. With acclaimed releases on Kranky, Idle Hands, Mule Musiq/Endless Flight, Further, Khaliphonic / ZamZam, DFA, and many others, Strategy is not only a music producer but a musician as well, who has had tenures in a variety of live bands and collaborations, instilling all his music with live and improvised musicianship. Artist notes: The Babbling Brook was commissioned for an event called Currents in late January, 2020. The Currents series is a highly intimate, inclusive, invitation-based deep listening event in a cozy Portland home; the charge was to provide people with a meditative, immersive and highly personal experience. Poignantly, only four weeks later after performing this piece for a room full of people lounging on cushions, we were collectively contemplating the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., which immediately put a stop to events of this intimate nature. This recording was improvised directly to stereo digital audio file using just a couple of looping devices, a filter box, and a mixer, mostly equipment I either salvaged and repaired, or built myself. The “babbling brook” effect is something I have tried to evoke for nearly 20 years of ongoing work in ambient music, and refers to the unique effect of listening to the movement of water in which there is continual, roiling change and chaos, but within a narrowed, highly specific range of dynamics and timbre – a sort of controlled, pseudo-random condition. The intent was to unfurl elements of a continually shifting sound collage in the manner that might recall the perpetual motion of the brook. This concludes a long series of explorations of unsequenced, improvised approaches to music which does not commit fully to the traditional sense of “ambient” music as purely contemplative in nature, but instead offers moments of confrontation, surprise, dream logic, or disorientation interwoven with sustained, immersive elements. I have never been able to achieve a meditative or 'mindful' state under any conditions except when listening to music. Deep listening is an act of defiance against the speed, appetites, and fragmented 'multi-tasking' demanded by the conditions of late capitalism. It is the only activity which has the power to slow or suspend the passage of time, and it's this magic that brings me back to longform improvisation and a search for a kind of ultimate 'fermata'. released October 11, 2020
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Sofie Birch - Behind Her Name Chestnuts Fall Forever (38:28) 24Bit Sofie Birch is a sound artist working with electronic hardware, electroacoustic setups and field recordings. She has a profound interest in the healing nature of sound and vibrations and works across disciplines with other artists on expanding our understanding of mind and body through art. Recently Sofie Birch released Hidden Terraces (DE), a musical sound piece exploring wild bird life in Colombia right after the album Island Alchemy (CA) that Pitchfork reviewed with the words “If this is music for dreamers, it’s for the ones who pay close attention to the details in their nighttime reveries, for whom every small moment is full of meaning”. Right now she is on a mission with artist duo Baum & Leahy on opening peoples eyes to the secretly and breathtaking world of microbes and bacteria inside our bodies. In March 2021 they will exhibit their performance installation Sonic Cellumonials as part of CPH:DOX at Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen. Artist Notes One of my own personal favourites of long and slowly evolving sound pieces is without any doubt Prati bagnati del Monte Analogo that Raul Lovisoni and Francesco Messina released in 1979. This record puts me into a vacuum of stillness, longing and magic I’m obviously deeply inspired by their work in my piece Behind Her Name Chestnuts Fall Forever. I decided to visit my father in his country house where my grandmother's piano collects dust in the living room. And I recorded a long session of improvised piano early in the morning. If you pay attention you will hear when the neighbours chickens start to chatter. Very subtle in the background. Imperceptibly the chickens are weaved into a new field recording of other birds I recorded later that week to make a transition into a new piano theme. The whole piece is built upon these improvisations from the same morning. I close miked the piano with a stereo setup of two Røde NT5 and in the room I set up an old B&O ribbon microphone—a very beautiful little microphone that my friend had lent me particularly for this. With these 3 channels I’ve been able to play with the stereo picture and the very dusty and noisy mono sound to weave in and out of each other. Later I recorded the synths and the voices in my studio in Copenhagen. My father always says “I better understand your music when there is also an acoustic element”. Referring to that of my music where I only play synthesisers. Maybe he is right, that this combination holds a special quality because we are not alone with the machines and isolated from the creator but we sense the human behind. Though I think it has more to do with how the instruments are played and not if they are acoustic or not. I spend a lot of time playing electronic instruments with a very hesitant hand and without ever editing the sound afterwards. I’m very fascinated by playing arpeggio-like synth figures without a grid. This whole piece is arranged and played without tempo and grid. I think when working with very minimal compositions it leaves room for other very small things to stand out. Such as repetitive figures that slightly move in tempo and intensity constantly aware of itself and its context. It is these details that makes a minimal composition work because the listener either unconsciously or very carefully recognises small changes. It feels alive. It feels present and personal. I do love very sharply produced music that mechanically repeats itself in a predictive way. But I love just as much the very opposite. The vulnerable and fumbling music that makes me curious and aware. Still with a certainty that all of what I hear is intended. That all of the small changes and vibrations have been through the creators ears who carefully decided to keep them, so I could experience the same flaws and details as her. It is all about listening. And choosing. The creator listens and chooses. The listener chooses and listens. Listening to extended sound pieces demands a lot of time and space. Both for the creator and the listener. And this creates a special band between those two. A silent contract of patience and awareness. From the studio of the sound artist to the living room of the listener. When playing live shows I’m always so thankful that people actually sit there and pay attention to such boring music. I mean, they only listen. I have to do something. And I am indeed very impatient and temperamental of nature. But we chose to be in the same room only to listen and I trust that people are there because they appreciate the long form and the anticlimax. We go into a personal and vulnerable state of mind together, we are bored together. Forced to relax and let go. And that is indeed one way of experiencing musical ecstasy. So very different from experiencing loud and rhythmic concerts. In Behind Her Name Chestnuts Fall Forever we are on a journey together through the fall. The fall of the year. The fall of chestnuts. The fall of the past. And the fall of expectations. We are left open to new beginnings and new changes. Slowly the chestnuts open their torsos to reveal their brown shiny hearts, like wide open eyes staring into our thoughts from the ground. I always get drawn hypnotically into collecting at least one staring chestnut when I come across the big trees in the fall. And my pockets abound with brown eyeballs for many months. Then winter comes. And time disappears like everything else and I don’t think about chestnuts. And suddenly spring awakes with its pale face and I grab into my pocket to warm my hands, but feel a little something. Out I pull this little jerky nut. It always makes me smile and think about how round and juicy it was the last time I saw it. How cycles rise and fall. Falls into my pocket. I wish my language had a name meaning chestnut. I would call my daughter that name. Instead she can have this Longform Edition. released December 16, 2020
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Omni Gardens - Divine Mother (27:41) Omni Gardens is the experimental ambient/new age project by Moon Glyph records head Steve Rosborough. Artist notes Divine Mother was created through improvisational sessions on an iPad and Roland V-Synth. Slowly sculpted with a more deliberate focus on timbre dynamics between acoustic samples, digital synthesisers and patient rhythms. As a psychedelic art form, ambient and new age music rewards deep listening with a transporting and heavenly feeling. Sitting patiently and letting sounds wash over you is such a simple and effective comfort. released December 15, 2020
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Masahiro Sugaya - Au. Pt. C (30:18) Almost completely unknown in the west, Masahiro Sugaya has been composing and producing music since the 1980s in an exceptionally wide range of fields and practices. From arrangements for musical acts like the acoustic guitar duo Gontiti to acousmatic diffusion at spaces like Paris’s Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM), Sugaya’s reach is almost exhaustive in its breadth, but it was in the 80s bubble-era kankyō ongaku scene that he first found his musical voice. Curated by Visible Cloaks' Spencer Doran and Maxwell August Croy for their Empire of Signs label, Horizon, Vol. 1 collected several recordings from this period. (with thanks to Empire of Signs) Artist notes The name of the piece, Au. Pt. C. comes from one of my interests. I have been thinking about the inexplicability of the thing called value. Gold, platinum and diamonds have already been in the ground just under our feet for a long time. The sound I collected in the field is the same as them, too. I just refine the sound into worthwhile pieces. To be honest, all of these things are in hindsight. In 2012, when I was working on the piece, there were many shops in Tokyo that said "We buy gold, platinum and diamonds," after the nuclear disaster, and the sound that was played on a loop from those shops was annoying. I just parodied it. Au. Pt. C. is a piece made for 8ch speakers system. Therefore, the stereo version of it is, so to say, like a pressed flower. It still has width, but loses depth. This piece contains many words as a soundscape. They always fill our city in Japan. For example, a child shouting "Helicopter!", an advertisement announcing the start of sales of Windows 8 OS, fragments of speech from a rally against nuclear power plant, and so on. Of course, it could be helpful to understand the work if you could understand what they saying. I agree with that idea for a moment, but then I think again. Then, I find that it need not be so. People are shouting something, and that is enough for me. The important thing for me is that we have unclear meanings, and each of us can imagine all sorts of things. We cannot help but have some images in our mind which respond to our surroundings. It could be human nature. Then again we cannot help but trying to find some meanings of the images. It could be human nature, too. Sitting in front of speakers and listening only to sounds extracted from our surroundings is a human experience that has become possible. When we listen only to the sound, again, we can not help but having some images and trying to find some meanings of them. I am interested in unclear image. I am interested in unclear meaning, too. released December 14, 2020
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Robert Curgenven - Bardo (Shortform) For Three Turntables, Pipe Organ & Piano (22:12) 24Bit Robert Curgenven is an Ireland-based, Australian-born artist producing albums, performances and installations. His work emphasizes physicality, our embodied response to sound and its correspondence to location, air, weather and architecture. His recorded output includes SIRÈNE, pipe organ works, for his Recorded Fields Editions; Oltre and Built Through for LINE imprint; and Climata, recorded in 15 Turrell Skyspaces across 9 countries. Curgenven has produced works and installations for National Gallery of Australia, Warsaw Centre for Contemporary Art, Palazzo Grassi (Venice), Transmediale (Berlin) and the National Film and Sound Archive (Australia). He has performed at festivals such as Sydney Festival, Maerzmusik (Kraftwerk, Berlin), TodaysArt (The Hague), Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), Ultrahang (Budapest), Gamma (St Petersburg), Cork Midsummer and was an artist for the EU's SHAPE platform in 2019. Artist notes: A non-place, an in-between zone, Bardo is a spatial and temporal suspension permeated by an aetheric tactility: sounds disorientingly enter and leave, merging and confusing the boundaries of interiority and exteriority. Bardo underscores the physicality of sound—not just the physical impact on the body but the way in which sound can shape our perception of space and the flow of time. The piece draws on the tension, both physical and perceptual, between two contradictory positions—while cumulatively fostering a state where the listener simultaneously holds both equally—where one not only expects things to change but also to remain as they are. Listening is to hear not only sound but also disturbances in the air in a given location. This engenders an embodied and physical experience, where quiet undisturbed air is audible as much as a fierce wind. This kind of listening is also about being attendant to the specificities of the air—changes in pressure, temperature and humidity and their effect on the air and sound—the importance of the context of that location over a given duration. Mastered by Antti Sakari Saario, Cornwall, 2020. Turntables recorded at 4 The Field, Nancledra, Cornwall, 2011, using assorted vinyl, acetates, dubplates and mixing-console/noisefloor manipulations. Fazoli grand piano recorded at HörSaal, Berlin, 2004-05. 16-foot pipe organs recorded in Cornwall at the churches of St Paul (Ludgvan), St Winnow (Towednack), St Uny (Lelant), St Wyllow (Lanteglos), St Cyrus & Juliette (St Veep) and in Ireland at St Mary's COI Marmullane (Passage West, County Cork). Mixed at: 4 The Field & Trewetha, Cornwall (2011-13), Civic Trust House, Cork (2017), The Ashes, Cork (2019) and Connemara, Ireland (2020). Previously exhibited as a multichannel installation of unlimited permutations and variable duration: 3 channel at RAM Projects, Berlin (2011); 5.1 channel at DDK Węglin, Lublin, Poland (2012); 7.1 channel at Reverse Gallery, New York (2013); 3.1 channel at Wandesford Quay Gallery, Cork, Ireland (2017). released December 13, 2020
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Sam Prekop - Spelling (25:21) 24Bit Sam Prekop’s boundless imagination is guided by his strong sense of melody. For more than 25 years, as a solo artist or as part of The Sea and Cake, Prekop creates a singular sound inventive and warm. His distinctive vocals, guitar playing and work on modular analog synthesisers are inventive, delicate, and always bear his signature sense of melody. Artist notes: Listening like a photographer waiting on the light. Walking in a straight line, still meandering. It’s a wonder we get anywhere and so it goes on, just like we had hoped. One moment after another, catching up and loosing speed, keeping pace, waiting on the light. As it gets darker the sound is longer, heavier, there is less time, but it’s worth waiting for. released February 17, 2021
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Kasper Bjørke - The Beast. The Tree. The Man. (23:41) 24Bit By now Kasper Bjørke has built a long, impressive back catalogue these past fifteen years—while continuing to push forward, exploring new territory—both as a solo artist, in various studio collaborations, and as a remixer and as a DJ. On his acclaimed fourth solo album ‘After Forever’ (2014) Kasper created a new take on contemporary, melancholic synth pop, merging his productions into a multi coloured soundscape with echoes from Post Disco/Punk, Kraut and New Wave. It was a step away from the disco and house sound, that brought him into making music in the late 1990s. The full remix version of the album, ‘After Forever Revisited’ (2015) included luminary interpretations—where especially the Michael Mayer remix grew into a proper club anthem. Kasper then released a club workout of his own, ‘Fountain of Youth’ (2016), a seven track mini-LP which was accompanied by remixes from Weval, Gerd Janson, Marvin & Guy, Multi Culti, Thomas Von Party and Marc Pinol. In 2017 Abstraxion and Kasper Bjorke teamed up for their second collaboration, the EP ‘Matin / Nuit’, and Kasper also co-produced another EP, entitled ‘Black Magic’ together with French artist Colder, released on New York label Throne of Blood, along with remixes by The Golden Filter, Mutado Pintado (Paranoid London) and Pilooski. Simultaneously though, Kasper was working on something entirely different, which would turn out to be a milestone in his career. The ambient album, ‘The Fifty Eleven Project’ (released on Kompakt Records in October 2018) is a two hour long completely beat-less ambient voyage. Credited as the efforts of a quartet, since Kasper recorded and composed the 100% analogue album together with his musician friends Claus Norreen (Synthesisers), Jakob Littauer (Piano) and Davide Rossi (violin, viola and cello). The album was highlighted as number five on ‘The 10 Best Contemporary Albums of 2018’ in The Guardian and on ‘Best of 2018’ lists on i-D Magazine and XL8R, while Musik Week named it “A shimmering, nocturnal masterpiece” and Uncut wrote “sketch lines between the modern chamber music of Ólafur Arnalds and the collapsed-star ambience of early Tangerine Dream”. Artist notes: I made this piece during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic during lockdown. I spend a lot of time in the countryside of Denmark with my family—right by the ocean, in the summerhouse, and this is where I recorded the music. It is actually the only piece of music I worked on during that time and somehow stands as a personal diary of those months in isolation. I tried to let the composition evolve in a natural flow, from airy soundscapes and field recordings, mixed with classical elements, which then around half way turn into a repetitive, hypnotic structure that draws on techno patterns and influences. The title ‘The Beast. The Tree. The Man.’ comes from a famous quote by the native Indian chief Seattle (1786–1866), who was speaking about the symbiotic relationship between nature, man and wildlife…something to think about during the climate crisis, “All things share the same breath—the beast, the tree, the man. The air shares its spirit with all the life it supports”. I use deep listening and in particular ambient music in my daily life as a way to calm down, as a de-stress tool and to contemplate or spark creativity…even while running. I have no doubt that ambient music has a healing effect on the mind and can really help in dealing with anxiety, which I also have done in the past. released February 16, 2021
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Ka Baird - Brooding Exercises I (Second Movement) (57:42) 24Bit Ka Baird is a multi-instrumentalist, recording artist, producer, and performer based in New York City. She is heralded for her boundary pushing live solo performances that involve energetic body movements, extended vocal techniques, interactive psychoacoustics, and innovative use of live electronics. She creates a radically present tense and vigorous type of “body music” that seeks extreme release through physical exertion and psychic extension. Her debut solo album ‘Sapropelic Pycnic’ was released through independent Chicago label Drag City in 2017. Her latest recording ‘Respires’ was released through Brooklyn based imprint RVNG Intl. in October 2019. Artist notes: This recording is from a performance that was filmed on my Greenpoint Brooklyn studio rooftop at sunset on October 9, 2020 for The Kitchen's (NYC) On Screen series. The piece was timed to capture the eclipse of the day’s light, incorporating peaked ambient sounds of the outdoors environment and cityscape; a contact mic’d ground surface; and closed-off, direct input sounds from voice, electronics, and digital piano. My contribution to the Longform Editions is the second movement of this performance where I play plodding piano chords as the sun eclipses. The piece can be divided into five distinct Broods, with electronics and field recordings at time of shoot bridging the five parts together. The electronics were provided by Baltimore intermedia artist Max Eilbacher, who mostly processed and synthesised the sounds of the digital piano to create textures and drones. The piece felt “of the times”, in a time of great suspension and uncertainty, especially in the US in October. Not only were we facing a long winter of the pandemic but also an election that seemed of absolute urgency and importance. The external world seemed to be in such a precarious place. My best and only defence was to slow down and listen. I am hovering here on the unknown, needing to meditate on the spaces between notes more than ever. Listening is a portal that keeps opening up further portals. In other words, the more you listen the more you realise how much there is to listen to. Listening is political, a way of making space. Over time, we create habits and patterns of action and thought that block out certain stimuli from the outside. Deep listening or concentrated listening is a way of opening that back up, a technique for meditation and dissolving the separation between the self and its environment. It goes in with open ears, leaving judgments of right or wrong or any other types of qualitative descriptions in suspension. It is to encounter that sound as if for the first time. released February 15, 2021
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. C. Lavender - Transient Seclusion (17:28) C. Lavender is a Brooklyn, New York based multi-disciplinary sound artist, sound healing practitioner and educator whose work spans through live performance, recording, installations, compositions, videos and workshops. C. Lavender has performed, lectured and hosted workshops at MoMA, The Whitney, The Guggenheim, Hirshhorn Museum, Issue Project Room, The Rubin Museum, The Brooklyn Public Library, The Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Museum of Moving Image, Fridman Gallery, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, among other venues. C. Lavender has albums and recordings featured on the labels Editions Mego, Ecstatic Peace!, and RVNG Intl. She is a 2020 Pioneer Works Musician-in-Residence and Harvestworks Technology Immersion Program Scholar. Her debut book ‘Transcendent Waves: How Listening Shapes Our Creative Lives’ was published by Anthology Editions in December 2020. Artist notes: Sound exists as vibration, a constant movement within a space. The sensation of momentum, traveling, and listening to scenes as they cross the landscape can instill brief moments of insights and intrigue. This experience exists as perhaps one of the most dynamic listening spaces. Transient Seclusion incorporates vignettes, like that of a film soundtrack, to foster a sense of movement in the listener who is most likely listening from a place of stillness. Featuring binaural field recordings from the realm of transportation, taken as an auditory witness, rather than a participant. This past year I wrote a book, ‘Transcendent Waves: How Listening Shapes Our Creative Lives’, which is about how listening internally and externally can inform our creative processes, in any form of making and doing that we take on, not just those typically associated with listening. The preface states “You are a conduit at the centre of the infinite world of sound. By taking the time to listen intentionally, you become a more thoughtful participant in your life”. released February 14, 2021
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Angel Bat Dawid - Harkening Etudes (18:04) 24Bit Angel Bat Dawid is a Black American composer, improviser, clarinetist, pianist, vocalist and DJ. In 2018 Angel composed ‘Song of Solomon: A Cosmic Space Opera’ that was performed by prominent free jazz musicians in Chicago. Her critically acclaimed album ‘The Oracle’, released by Chicago label International Anthem was created entirely alone – performing, overdubbing and mixing all instruments and voices by herself – recorded using only her cell phone in various locations, from London, UK to Cape Town, RSA. In the fall of 2019, she composed and premiered ‘Requiem for Jazz’ at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, and in 2020 composed ‘Peace: A Suite for Skylanding’ commissioned by the Art Institute of Chicago for Yoko Ono’s outdoor ‘Skylanding’ Installation. Angel tours internationally with her septet Tha Brothahood and released their album ‘LIVE’ making NPR’s best of 2020 list. She also leads the all-woman trio Sistazz of the Nitty Gritty, and has released the album ‘Message from the DAOUI’ with electronic artist Oui Ennui as the duo DAOUI. Angel performs clarinet in Damon Locks Black Monument Ensemble and hosts a monthly music show on NTS Radio. "Music is a language, you see, a universal language." – Sun Ra Artist notes: Harkening Etudes 3 Numerical Insufflating Sound Exercises Composed by Angel Bat Dawid Etude 1: 4/4 Etude 2: 5/8 Etude 3: 6/8 According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary an Etude is a composition built on a technical motive but played for its artistic value. These three original compositions for clarinet and piano are designed to insufflate breath into the ears as sonic creative adventures monitored by the time signature of each etude. This technique is to abide the harkened in transmuting sound and breath into the ears. I wanted to include breath as part of the listening process. I really want folks to inhale and exhale and then go on a ride of different sounds. Breathe into your ears…they need air too. Breathe with your ears… Practice the skill. released April 14, 2021
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Theodore Cale Schafer - It's Not A Skill, It's A Curse (20:02) 24Bit Theodore Cale Schafer is a Detroit based musician. His work primarily consists of laptop manipulation of field recordings, digitally sourced audio, and instrumentation. Artist Notes: I usually try not to talk too much about my own music. I feel like it has a face value and everything else drawn from it is reflection. It has personal meanings, but in a way that is abstracted and singular. I don’t want to talk about it like it’s important. The track is a handful of ideas I may or may not have developed over the past year. Spent a lot of time in Louisiana just looking around at the nature I was in. Drove from there to Kansas City, saw some friends. Then I was home and got to hang out with my parents. It happened in between all of that and trying to be social enough to feel okay about life during Covid. I have been thinking a lot about what I expect from music, for better or for worse. I have never really considered doing any deep listening. I know I have done a version of it many times, mostly while driving on the freeway. released April 13, 2021
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Judith Hamann - Hinterhof (32:54) 24Bit Judith Hamann is a cellist/performer/composer from Narrm (Melbourne), currently based in Berlin. Judith’s recent work has focused on an examination of ‘shaking’ in live solo performance practice and the creation of new works for cello and humming, as well as electro-acoustic fixed media composition articulating collapse as a generative imaginary surface. Judith likes working with and thinking-with other artists which sometimes includes people like Marja Ahti, Oren Ambarchi, Charles Curtis, Golden Fur, the Harmonic Space Orchestra, Sarah Hennies, Eiko Ishibashi, Yvette Janine Jackson, Alvin Lucier, Éliane Radigue and La Monte Young. In the past, they mostly focused on performing as a process/practice, which took place in many contexts and locations. This included things like Tectonics, Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), Maerzmusik (Berlin), The Los Angeles Philharmonic Fluxus Festival (LA), Tokyo Experimental Festival (Tokyo), AURAL (Mexico City), SiDance Festival (Seoul), No Idea Festival (Austin), and Dark Mofo (Hobart). Judith’s work has previously been published by labels including Blank Forms, Black Truffle, Another Timbre, Marginal Frequency and caduc. Artist notes: Composed by Judith Hamann 2020-21 Additional mix and mastering by Alan F. Jones, Laminal Audio, Tracyton WA In July 2020, after several years without a home, I ended up moving into a small, one room apartment in Moabit, Berlin, a pandemic fallout accident/lucky break. The apartment is in the hinterhaus (back house) in the Mietskaserne configuration of Berlin apartments, where the street facing vorhaus (front house) is large and originally housed the bourgeoisie, while the smaller apartments behind it were for the working class. Historically, the further back you went, the darker and smaller the dwellings were, and the poorer the inhabitants. The idea behind this approach to urban design, was that despite the marking of social and class difference, building economic diversity into each overall ‘house’ would in some way insulate neighbourhoods against economic mono-cultures, and that despite not aiming to actually change economic disparity, that shared spaces would create a more integrated, harmonious society. My apartment is at the very back of the back house, and looks onto a small configuration of (inaccessible) divided gardens shared by three buildings, a secret little hinterhof; a backyard if you will. It is leafy, and in summer oh-so-green in that northern European way, populated with sycamore and firs, slick leaved ivy advancing up the wall, european magpies with their brush of luminous cobalt green tail feathers, rare and magical visits from two shy woodpeckers, a pair of nesting pigeons, a charm of goldfinches, a ubiquity of sparrows, collective nouns for days. I’ve never lived in Europe and I’ve also never really lived like this, in such dense stacking, with so many lives audible at once. I’ve always lived in sprawling lower density cities, Narrm (Melbourne), San Diego, always within easy reach of eucalyptus and visible horizons. This hinterhof acts as a reverberant sound space, a constellation of reflective angular surfaces that mean that all sound that finds its way in, from its inhabitants and the surrounding streets, bounces around this shared basin. There are resonant frequencies to the hinterhof, a tiny glow of 100hz, an aura of 350-ish blooming around certain sonic events. Each conversation, bird call, fork against plate, gust of wind or sheet of rain, amateur music practice hour, home renovation activity, traffic snarl, party or quarrel, ends up part of my field of listening. Sometimes I feel a little like an eavesdropping version of Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, but listening for contour instead of content, a different kind of trace. In the autumn, these sounds floated in through wide open windows, but as the weather changed, so did the kinds of sounds and the filters and bandwidths for how I heard/could hear this quasi-hive space I now inhabited. In the Berlin low skied winter, the voices of my neighbours seep in through the ceiling, my heating whistles, fridge clicks and hums, water pipes sing, the old bathroom window that doesn’t ever quite close letting in brittle breezes and rattling leaves, discussions between the birds. I don’t really want to think about this piece as yet-another-lockdown-piece (which of course in many ways, it is), yet the limits of my space and resources, the horizons of my day to day listening have of course shaped it. The hinterhof is in many ways the only collective sounding I can respond to right now. I’ve been recording the porous space that is my apartment for months now, dangling a mic out the window while I’m reading, recording the drones of the heating, the snatches of neighbours practicing, construction workers next door drilling with the radio on, the snow. I had been thinking about the idea of collapse in relation to sound fields a lot in the work I was making last year, and that has also seeped into this project. I don’t mean that in any representational sense, but more that by collapsing temporal layers, days into days, different kind of spaces and weather and time into each other, whether that can create a new imaginary listening space, an impossible surface that still communicates something, generates some kind of new field of hearing, which in turn, for me, folds into other kinds of mingled, imaginary musics. Sometimes I feel I may have become quite strange. So, I started humming along with the heating and the contours of voices leaking from upstairs, playing cello along with the low-mid range resonances of the hinterhof, weaving in recordings of people’s voices who are far away and who I miss so much, fabricating a kind of imagined shared space. The pitched material is drawn out from the frequencies I hear in the hof recordings, via the mediation of listening to/with the apartment. From extending them outwards, through that process I uncover harmony, relational connections, gestures, interplay. In a way, I am mapping and then feeding back into the space the same territories, just through different filters: through voice, electronics, through the mediating bodies of the cello and my own body. My friends and loves are often my dreams these days, and I appear in theirs. A friend’s dream about my death made its way into this piece, he sent me a video message about it, about crying dreams, about how it feels to touch that space in dreamed worlds. Listening with the hinterhof over several months has made me think about communal listening, shared listening, thinking about how we can connect through hearing the same space, how we might touch on a shared feeling through a shared hearing, in some kind of analogue to how we might touch in dreamed spaces. I know that we don’t/can’t experience or hear the ‘same’ thing and that listening positionality plays a significant role in this, especially my own: that of a white, settler-colonial listener. The thing I’ve been thinking about as I worked on this piece is that while I don’t know my hinterhof neighbours, us back-of-the-back-house people who ended up sharing this yard, in some way we do form a community via this aural space. We hear each other, we somehow navigate by a communal composite sounding, albeit it, perhaps, mostly unconsciously. What does it enact to share a quotidian sonic space, to hear the same reflections, frequencies, and contours, even if mediated by windows and floors, ceilings and walls? More specifically to this time perhaps, what does it do or comment on in relation to questions of isolation? Can you consider yourself part of a community that is framed only by a shared listening experience? Is it possible to feel a sense of solidarity or belonging despite our atomised apartment living, via what we hear? I know that this space for listening has affected the shape and the weight of my own loneliness this winter lockdown, in the way one might bounce its heft on your palm like a stone, feeling its material loading, its density, contours, and textures. I also think about the kinds of poverty and density of living which this house would have once held. The listening space of this hinterhof was designed for a particular class and economic strata of people, so in some ways, we are all listening through an old instrument: a sonic space whose resonance is defined via a residual architecture of inequality, intended for a very different audience (although I doubt that ‘audience’ was ever really considered with sonic intentionality in this design at all). Perhaps this piece is a kind of working through, a process of uncovering and responding to my own listening position in relation to where I am now. Deep Listening, to me, speaks to a kind of porous listening space, a practice of allowing other beings, phenomena, into an embodied and responsive kind of hearing. There’s a section in Dylan Robinison’s (brilliant) book Hungry Listening, where there is a discussion between two settler listeners about deep listening as a movement towards an “ideal”, and thus a process, a practice, something in motion that troubles the world/self distinction in a specific way. I think perhaps its framing these days, often, is posed as some kind of interface between a nature/culture binary, but I think it’s more about a process/practice of undoing that opposition. I would also suggest that deep listening is not passive, it is a kind of action but it is also not about control or mastery. A lot of my work and research inhabits these process/performance based spaces specifically, living in-between concept and outcome, I’m interested in the navigation of the task of performance and the materiality of that practice, in the idea that the ephemeral is not immaterial (hi Muñoz), in how we might begin to consider ways to un-settle performer positionality. I suspect that folded into this, is a kind of relative, a cousin or thereabouts, to deep listening: that of an active, multi-perspectival listening/performer assemblage. Deep listening is also, I feel, a way of entering into a queer listening frame or practice, not only because of its origins in queer femme community and of course, Pauline Oliveros’ work, but also through what it shifts, where it places us, its troubling of the listener as either a universal or a singular subject position. Is there a relationship between deep listening and durational or long-form listening in this piece? In some way, perhaps. I think here about La Monte Young’s “tuning is a function of time” quote, which directs us towards the notion that compositional material asks something of us, that its relational properties enact a claim of desire, in a sense: that of determining the rate and scale of a temporal unfolding. I’m not sure that this piece is necessarily a very good example of deep or durational listening on my part… It’s much more active and episodic, it is blurry, far thicker with information than how I mostly work and make sounds, but I think for now, that this is merely part of my process of trying to be actively listening-with/within this space, with this yard, part of the new sonic community I have arrived in, some kind of dwelling space in between resonance and interruption, or perhaps, an embrace of the idea of interruption as, in itself, a kind of resonance. released April 12, 2021
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. R Beny - We Grow In A Gleam (20:17) 24Bit r beny is an ambient electronics project from Northern California-based musician Austin Cairns. It is an outlet for the processing of the volatile conditions of emotion and nature, primarily expressed through the use of synthesisers, samplers, and other electronic instruments. Artist notes: This piece of music is a map. Tones, textures, and echoes representative of a geography and a time. (0:00) A river of reflection begins to emit a sparkling glow. I think of you in passing sometimes, sometimes often. A singer hums in duet with the light of the river. (5:16) The singer hums alone. (5:50) Alone in the pavilion. The corridors of memory are filled with static, its resolution degrading softly in time. (9:02) The buildings are long gone. A forest knoll, roots and soil woven. I’m sorry things didn’t end up the way we thought it would. (13:36) Every wave erodes the land (16:40) until there is nothing left, but seafoam and dust. (17:00) The singer hums along with the organ, somewhere in a meadow jutting out over the sea. I consider deep listening as listening with entities other than your ears. With your mind, your body, and your soul. Resonating with recorded material on a deeper frequency. Written and recorded from December 2019 to December 2020, at home in Northern California. Composed with Novation Summit, Tasty Chips GR-1, Ciat-Lonbarde Cocoanuts, Oto Bam, Marantz PMD-420 tape recorder. released April 11, 2021
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Eiko Ishibashi - Torn Page (19:54) Eiko Ishibashi is a Japanese multi-instrumentalist who works in the areas between singer-songwriter albums to scores for film and television to improvised music and instrumental music. She has collaborated and worked with artists as wide ranging as Keiji Haino, Merzbow, John Duncan, Oren Ambarchi, and Jim O’Rourke. Recent solo works include The Dream My Bones Dream (Drag City) and Hyakki Yagyo (Black Truffle). Eiko Ishibashi - Voice, flute, electronics Daisuke Fujiwara - Tenor saxophone Artist notes: I am not a relaxed person. I'm impatient, and as soon as I get an idea, I have to put it into action. I get anxious whenever I have free time. I can't sleep well at night. When I am exhausted, I feel like walking aimlessly in the city. I think my nature has influenced the way I compose music, the way I pack sounds, and the way I develop them. Also, I worry too much that people will be bored. When I was invited to produce a piece for Longform Editions, I decided to try to correct this characteristic of mine. This is because I have recently come to believe that when I listen to music, the most important thing is to listen to music while being exhausted. released June 16, 2021
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Golden Retriever - Sense of Place (20:41) 24Bit Golden Retriever was formed in Portland, Oregon in 2008 by multi-instrumentalists Jonathan Sielaff and Matt Carlson. Beginning with a focus on the relationship of two primarily monophonic instruments (modular synth and bass clarinet), and utilizing layering with a deft balance of improvisation and composition, the duo has expanded their sound world into ensemble compositions and collaborations with other musicians and artists. Artist Notes: We often end up talking about the music from a somewhat analytical, technical place because that is easy to explain. In actuality, the focus is very spiritual. My intent in my playing or composing is always to channel something that cannot be fully articulated in words. Something that can only be articulated through the emotion of the music. I want to gather this unspoken energy and channel it through my playing in a way that can move and uplift others - to be a healing force. The success is varied (and maybe debatable!), but that is the place I want to come from rather than making something that sounds cool or fitting within a certain genre or scene. The technical aspects of the music are just the framework for that channelling. The means and not the end. When we pick names and images, it is usually pooled from whatever we have each been reading or interested in during the making of the music. Everything we do informs our work and resonates through it, so we just compile lists of topics and words from our lives and interests, put them together and choose something that resonates and feels "right". In this case "Sense of Place" felt right when I read it from Matt's list. I could read into that in different ways: I like the idea of a piece of music having a sense of place similar to the way a physical space would. I think about the way some of my favorite places make me feel and how they sit in my memory and the articulation of this piece takes me to a similar feeling or emotional space. – Jonathan Sielaff The first time I remember consciously thinking about something like Deep Listening was when I was 17 or 18, and I noticed that some music was really great if you focused attention on it completely, but if you just had it on in the background it seemed annoying, boring, or otherwise bad. I developed a practice of beginning my days with a cup of coffee and loud, weird music blasting out of a small PA I had in my (very patient) parents' basement. I wouldn't really do anything while the music was playing, just sipped my coffee, listened, and came into the day. This habit came to really shape how I listen and the development of my relationship to recorded music. After college, I spent some time traveling with my girlfriend at the time, and I went without recorded music for two months. This was when there wasn't really the concept of a "connected device", and I didn't have an MP3 player or a laptop or anything. Anyway, after the two months we finally sublet a place for a month that had a stereo. I went out and bought some CDs, and started re-establishing this morning listening routine. I remember that after this fast, recorded music seemed so active, alive, and engaging to me. It felt like watching a movie or reading a book. I couldn't imagine feeling the need to also be doing something else at the same time. Fast forward to 2021, and while listening to music the urge to pull out the phone and check stuff out is often overwhelming. There's a lot of music that survives this attentional shift and still works just fine. But for some stuff, I notice the effects of this diminution of connection. It's like the music loses its ability to speak. It's tempting to attribute the arising of this impulse to a failure of the artist, as if maybe if they'd been doing their job well I wouldn't have been tempted to bail on them in the first place. But given what we know about the portable slot machine/Skinner box we keep in our pockets, this attribution of blame hardly seems fair. In our current context, that of a corporate arms race to control our attention and consequently manipulate our behaviour, the practice of deep listening feels more liberating, self-respecting, and radical than ever. — Matt Carlson released June 15, 2021
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Brett Naucke - Arctic Watch (21:24) Brett William Naucke (b. 1985) is an American electronic composer, recording and performing artist based in Chicago, Illinois. Naucke’s sonic output has been primarily focused on marrying an ever-evolving practice of audio synthesis with personal and conceptual narratives for recording and live performance. With recording, Naucke’s work has been documented physically on over a dozen albums on national and international labels to a wide array of critical acclaim. His most recent release; EMS Hallucinations (Sept, 2020) recorded in Stockholm Sweden in 2019. Each recording represents a ritual or method of working exclusively with audio synthesis in both hardware and digital domains to translate conceptual ideas and visual projections into sound. With performance, Naucke has primarily focussed on presenting works for extra sensory performance which has included multi-layered video projections, unusual physical spaces or environments, sound installation, and presented many works for multi channel speaker arrays. Artist notes: Arctic Watch was fully conceived in 2020 as a free flowing and meditative work for live modular synthesiser. The work originates from patches created in 2019 for more ‘energetic’ live performances and slowly evolved into a slow, meditative and therapeutic practice. From a visual perspective, the work reflects standing still and watching time move past at a glacial slowness, like watching ice move past from a ship in the dark months. The patch created for this work is set up to generate a myriad of slowly evolving harmonic elements and requires no human involvement to unveil itself. Each human touch or interaction sets off a string of electronic activity but the user is ultimately guided by the patch itself. This work was created and largely used in the winter of 2020 as a meditative work, a way to let an instrument guide you during the literal figurative ‘dark’ times of the pandemic. This final recording of this human-machine conversation was recorded on the shortest/darkest day of 2020, December 21st. I think meditative may be the key word here. This work is as introspective as it is engaging in my opinion. I found recording this piece and playing the piece very different experiences. It’s something that while immersed in it, sounds very different than listening back. Deep listening plays a huge part in both my creative process and listening process. With creation, my work always follows visual narratives as I have a visual arts background. I spend a considerable amount of time working with sound palettes, especially with synthesis trying to bend them into sounds that reflect the visual image I'm trying to convey. While it’s hard to fully explain, the most simple thing I often say to myself is “what does this image sound like?”. Or what does this sound look like? if going in reverse. If I allow myself to be immersed in the sound both audibly and mentally, I will be able to communicate feeling, emotion, and image throughout the sound without expressing words. This was why Ive chosen synthesis as my practice for over ten years as it has always allowed me to start with a visual idea, and build its' sonic counterpart from the ground up. With Arctic Watch, I often thought of watching the coast from a ship, glacially slow-moving, and unveiling itself visually through the clouds. With that image, I slowly built up a sound palette to match. released June 14, 2021
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Kelly Ruth - Persistence Beyond All Truth (39:21) Kelly Ruth is a sound and visual artist from Canada. She has been activating her textiles and tools through using electronics, sound, and integrating microcontrollers into the foundations of her woven cloth. In her visual art she includes dyeing with plants, and weaving, recognizing these as early technologies, and a relationship that humans have had with the land. Her work is primarily concerned with the interplay between class, economics and ecology. In performance she uses contact microphones and effects pedals on her weaving loom, spinning wheel and other fibre related tools, along with sound machines she has built. Using contact microphones and effects pedals on her weaving loom and spinning wheel, she collects the sounds from the moving parts and through dragging her hands and tools on the surfaces on the machines. Through improvisational playing she layers the sounds in loop pedals. In place of a spindle on her spinning wheel, she has stretched elastic bands used to create a low fi pitch akin to the sound of a bass guitar. She also recently built several light controlled oscillators which are featured in the recording. The pitches are controlled by waving flashlights above the groups of oscillators to create the fuzzy drone sounds that come in and out of the composition. Artist notes: Throughout the year of the global pandemic I realized what I missed most as I became more and more isolated was the experience of going to live shows and the random meetups between acquaintances new and old. I enjoy being a part of the fabric of a society or culture and similarly the joy of exploring and discovering new spaces, cities, communities etc. One way that I have been able to satisfy this during the past year has been to revisit my on again off again interest in virtual worlds. This time around on my journey, I am thinking more about the human’s experience within the metaverse since as societies we are deeply entrenched in the metaverse whether we consider ourselves to be exploring a virtual world or not. I have witnessed people blurring the lines between reality and fantasy in the virtual world, and I witness this as well in how people process media as we are continually tossed around in the waters of knowledge and information. Truth appears to be subjective. I also believe that virtual worlds are coming to take us away and I am not sure we are prepared for this. In the future I wonder what happens to a society should it slip entirely into a post reality? How can humans remain objective and avoid becoming islands within themselves as their worlds dissolve into many fractured visions of one’s own projections? Persistence Beyond All Truth is for me the soundtrack to my journey through the lands within the virtual world as I think through all the philosophical challenges that have come up for me during this time. I spend a lot of time in as much silence as the world will afford me. As a result when I listen to music I do it intentionally, and after an extended period of relative silence the music I get attracted to seems to blow my mind. I enjoy this sensation, that the world is repeatedly new and I think it keeps me curious and invigorated. When I take the time to not rush through my environments I notice the sounds around me and particularly how each place has a unique set of sounds. released June 13, 2021
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Lori Scacco - The Order of Things (33:10) 24Bit Lori Scacco is a composer and producer based in New York City. Using micro-sound, melody, resonance, and analogue and digital processing, she creates liminal, elemental music through synthesis. Her scores and site-specific installations span the worlds of art, film, classical dance, and performance. Select commissions have been presented by the Joyce Theater (NY), the Lancaster Museum of Art and History (CA), the Miller Theatre (NY), and MoMA PS1 (NY), as well as film festivals worldwide. Scacco has been an ensemble member of Savath + Savalas and Helado Negro, and is one half of psych-folk duo Storms with Eva Puyuelo (Savath + Savalas). She has remixed patten, Holopaw, Certain Creatures, Same Waves, and more recently Leverage Models. She released her first solo album, ‘Circles’, on Prefuse 73’s Eastern Developments imprint, and was the co-founder and guitarist of Seely, the first American band on Too Pure. Her last solo output is 2018’s ‘Desire Loop’, on Mysteries of the Deep, and her most recent work is the score to ‘Another Hayride’, a documentary by Matt Wolf. Composed, produced, and mixed by Lori Scacco Mastered by Keith Reynaud Artist notes: I wasn’t quite sure what to say about this piece, or about art that is made or not made in a pandemic. I started on it well before New York City went into lockdown in March of 2020, paused through a long period of collective trauma and reckoning (social, political, personal), and finished it in June of 2021. If anything it’s a map, tracing a suspended reality in which the chronology of routine was my pendulum. And more than about deep listening, it became about time – the way music reveals itself with duration; a pathway to opening up; an illumination. “Sounds silence ordinary language, put it to sleep. Music is the vibration of time itself in an uninterrupted surge, the modulation of thinking, the moon's hidden side, making time inevitable.” – Etel Adnan, ‘Surge’, 2018 I’m grateful to Longform Editions for re-energizing both my consciousness as a listener and my relationship to my work with their support of this piece. released August 18, 2021
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Melanie Velarde - Deep Circles (29:51) 24Bit Melanie Velarde is an electro-acoustic composer and improviser, who creates soundtracks to imaginary plots and places. Her practice includes composition, site specific performance and video/film work. She has performed across genres and continents, from ambient to noise, and developed an extensive collection of field recordings covering deserts, seas, mountains, jungles, caves, tunnels and volcanos in the Americas, Europe, China and Australia. Melanie Velarde keeps a sonic diary/blog called ‘Temporary Archives’, archiving cinematic, and mostly unreleased scribbles and fleeting emotive moments for the last decade. She has released two solo albums, ‘Parcel’ and ‘Bez’ on RVNG Intl./Commend. Artist Notes: I am interested in the unexplored, the broken and residual. Fascinated by landscapes, time and the inexplicable in human conditions, I connect to fragility as sensory experience. Through improvisation, aleatoric and chance encounters, I look for cracks between memory and history, imagination and lost dreams. Music in composition is an intuitive process for me, deliberately unprepared and in flow. Not particularly interested in an overly complex technical or logical approach, I try to embrace what a given moment has to offer on tools and space and welcome imperfections. My tale for Longform Editions was composed mainly on the road, on a journey teetering between trepidation and hope with fellow humans bringing an intensity of built up emotions to which I listened deeply. released August 17, 2021
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Olivia Block - October, 1984 (20:51) 24Bit Since the release of her recording ‘Pure Gaze’ (Sedimental Records) in 1998, Olivia Block has remained a prolific and influential media artist, and one of few women in the field of sound art from her generation. Her body of work includes sound recordings, performance, multi media installations, scores, production, video and pedagogical practice. Block has performed in multiple festivals including LUFF (Switzerland), Moog Fest (U.S.), Sonic Light (Netherlands), Send+Receive (Canada), TIME SPANS (U.S.) and Red Bull (U.S.). She has exhibited work in museums and galleries including Arthur Ross Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania, CEAM at Flagler University, MCA Chicago, Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech, Museo Reina Sofia, and University of Chicago. Block is in the faculty of the Sound Department at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and in the faculty of the Sound Arts and Industries program at Northwestern University. Artist notes: In 2017 I purchased a small lot of used micro cassette tapes on eBay. I discovered that one of the tapes contained recordings of a man with an elegant voice describing (apparently to himself) his experience as his father lay dying in the hospital. The tape was recorded in October 1984. This tape came into my possession right after my own father died in February 2017. There were uncanny similarities between this stranger’s narrated story from 33 years prior, to my own experience in 2017. We both experienced frustrations with the medical staff at the hospital, and feelings of overwhelming loss while being faced with a litany of mundane tasks related to family notifications and funeral plans. The micro cassette tape became the impetus of this composition. The sound piece includes portions of the micro cassette tape sounds (names edited to anonymise the narrator), interwoven with field recordings of wind and water. I wanted to create a sonic fever-dream; a place where pieces of recorded voices wash up on a shore, then blow away in the wind. I wanted to create a transformational energy, as if the sounds were fleeting memories or souls between realms. Additionally, I included recordings of a 2019 performance by The Chicago Youth Orchestra, playing my related orchestral score, ‘Streams and Cycles’, conducted by Thomas Madeja. The inclusion of these young musicians was meant as an infusion of hope, and a necessary contrast to the themes of death and loss in the composition. I am interested in the cycles of listening and memory which are possible in long form sound compositions. As a long composition unfolds, the listener can sink into the sounds, fully concentrating, or listening deeply, then forget. In this long form piece, there is no melody, and therefore no inherent cultural coding, so the listener is not directed how to feel. After a long duration of time has passed, the listener may forget to listen for a while, then later remember to concentrate and listen again. I appreciate the ability to forget or let go of certain memories as I grow older, which feeds my interest in this type of listening cycle. released August 16, 2021
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Bride - Serene Fear (20:40) 24Bit Bride is a UK born, Berlin based sound artist, experimenting with field recordings and synthesis. Artist notes: ‘Serene Fear’ is a piece intended to exist in the subconscious and crossing boundaries of noise and fiction. My idea for this piece was to evoke a kind of silence in the listener as the static rises and falls. By harnessing found sounds combined with synthesis, I uncovered a droning wall of sound that envelopes and, as the subtlety of movement, moves into chaos. Through this, I understood deep listening to be about an inner confrontation, that challenges brittle emotions and scenes. I wanted this deep listening experience to seem chaotic. Mastered by Simon Scott at SPS Mastering. released August 15, 2021
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Yvette Janine Jackson - Test Flight No. 1 (19:44) 24Bit Yvette Janine Jackson is a composer and installation artist who brings attention to historical events and social issues through her radio operas. She blends experiences with her work as a theatrical sound designer and electroacoustic musician into a narrative style of composition. ‘Invisible People (A Radio Opera)’ and ‘Destination Freedom’ were released on the album ‘Freedom’, produced by the Fridman Gallery, and she debuted her ‘Radio Opera Workshop’ ensemble during the premiere of ‘The Coding’. Yvette’s work has been featured at Fylkingen, Museums Quartier Tonspur Passage, San Francisco International Arts Festival, Borealis Festival, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and in residence at Stockholm Elektromusicstudiom. Artist Notes: This invitation to contribute to Longform Editions coincides with a moment of return to developing an ecosystem of compositions that I began at the start of the century. Crate digging through personal archives of abandoned projects and synthesising with current directions connects me to my past and future selves. The composition process is guided by listening with the body for narratives within the sounds. Sometimes this leads to claustrophobic panic attacks and, at other times, I find myself in a state of restorative meditation wherein I lose track of time. I do not intend for the listener to respond in either of these ways. ‘Test Flight No. 1’ is an etude for a series of compositions themed around commercial space tourism. It picks up where Destination Freedom left off. (Destination Freedom is a radio opera that begins in the cargo hold of a tall ship transporting Africans to the Americas and morphs into a spacecraft in search of freedom.) It is informed by ‘The Coding’, a video concrète that introduces my Radio Opera Workshop ensemble, and it influences ‘The Coding No. 2 (Synthetic Truths)’, an audio-visual installation created for the send + receive festival in Winnipeg. Longform Editions reminds us to slow down and become intimate with the music. There are so many approaches to listening; it’s an activity that can be cultivated by individuals and practiced in communities. One can spend a lifetime learning how to listen to the world, local environments, strangers and loved ones, and ourselves. We are all out of practice. released October 13, 2021
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. William Tyler - Frozen Shelter (39:08) William Tyler is a composer and sound artist based in Los Angeles via the American South. He believes in chasing melodies and memories and feels that deep listening is the only kind of listening. Artist notes: This piece evokes the feeling of being in a bomb shelter during the end of the world and somehow the music on some radio station that has survived the initial blast keeps playing—eerie and comforting. Ghostly music for a ghostly landscape. I was trying to distill some of the isolation of the last two years and some of the beauty that pokes through the loneliness even if it sounds far away, buried, or not even totally present. It’s all recordings of AM radio heavily processed through tape saturation and specifically this pedal made in Knoxville TN called the Microcosm. released October 12, 2021
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Fuubutsushi - Good Sky Day (24:50) Fuubutsushi is a quartet featuring Chris Jusell, Chaz Prymek, Matthew Sage, and Patrick Shiroishi. The group creates their recordings by collaborating remotely, with all four members living in different states. They formed their group at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and completed a four album series based on the seasons from 2020–21. Artist notes: Matt: This piece departed some from our usual approach which was really refreshing. For a majority of our work the compositions are written mainly by Chaz or myself and then we build from there. On this piece Chris created a structure, a narrative, and started several of the compositions. It was great to be able to add colour to Chris’ narrative and ideas here. So far as inspiration, I think we have so many touchstones for our sound, but I was really excited to be pushed (by Chris) into some melodically complex places that I hadn’t really been before. I am not an expert at working with dissonant melodies, but I think we ended up doing some really interesting things as a group by incorporating dissonance into this composition. As per usual, I am surprised by how our pieces click together. Though we are never in the same room when we work, there is a vitality to how we collaborate that is always exciting to me. This piece is no exception! I try to listen deeply to the world as often as possible, and that deep listening hugely informs my solo work as M. Sage, but I think the opportunity to stretch out past conventional song lengths for us as a group, as Fuubutsushi, was an invitation to engage in a very narrative and dynamic kind of collaboration, both as listeners and as musicians. I think collaborating remotely how we do demands a kind of listening, at least for me, that is also imaginative; we aren’t just listening closely, or deeply, or slowly, we are also listening to hear the life in our collaborators files and to find where we can live with them there. Listening is an invitation here. To hear a collaborator and hear them make room for another collaborator to contribute to the conversation. Extended deep listening on this project for me is as much about modulating as it is about demodulating. Patrick: A lot of the music we have created as a group has had the intention of bringing about different sensations to the listener whether it be through the specific melodies, instrument choice, timbre, field recordings and electronics used. For this piece, we still strive for that same feeling but through a more narrative lens. Stretching out in this ‘longform’ was refreshing and might be an exciting avenue to continue to explore down the line. Chaz: I used to teach at a Forest School in Missouri, and we had two listening games that we played, the first was to listen and try and hear the thing closest to you, your breath, a fly on you, your jacket swishing, then we would listen to the furthest sound we could hear, then layer by layer fill in the gaps, What did it sound like in the field across the street? What did the trees sound like from where you are standing? What does your breath sound like now? Then compare what each other were hearing and try and hear it that way, often enough we couldn’t hear it the same, but when we put it altogether, we could get a huge picture of what was going on around us. The second game was, I would play a clip of an animal making a call of some sort, without letting any of the kids see the video. They would have to make guesses using all of the sounds from the clip. Who was the animal? What landscape were they in? Where on Earth were they? Wildly enough, the kids, more often than not, would nail it. Or at least get weirdly close. This a lot of my approach to recording. On this project, I gave everybody’s instruments a character, a child, the wind, water, the light, and wrote with that in mind. What could they hear? How did that sound feel to them? What information were they getting from the sounds? Also, to know what’s happening in my friends and bandmates lives when we are making these songs, to already be fans of my bandmates and get to be stoked on what they are making and there for them in their lives outside of music is a means of listening that I feel like permeates our music. To hear friendship and admiration being played. Chris: Chaz and I both drive around a lot for work, and Chaz sends our group chat (usually active every day) pictures of trees he's climbing or the sky from his car. One day he sent multiple photos of particularly moody weather, and we had already discussed me leading the Longform Editions project as far as ideas/direction. I got excited about the idea of using Chaz's pictures as some sort of narrative arc of mood: looking at the sky throughout a day, and having your feelings and activities decided by that, and especially the tension of seeing clouds pile up and darken and not knowing whether it will actually break into a storm. The band had also created a track that didn't fit onto the last seasonal album that we decided to use as a starting point here; it had samples of beach sounds and a calm, sunny atmosphere. So I mapped out a rough plan for the sky over an afternoon that sees clouds roll in, stress and dissonance accompany that, and (as if squeezed through a vice) rather than rain, the protagonist and listener are transported to the beach. A sort of trade, water for water, like a strange fairy tale. released October 11, 2021
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Matthew Liam Nicholson feat. Miguel Atwood-Ferguson - Nine Movements (39:09) 24Bit Matthew Liam Nicholson (b. 1977) is a composer and recording artist, originally from Australia, now living in the mountains of Northern California. His work is grounded in a universal mysticism both gritty and ecstatic, and has been noted to blur the lines between improvisation and composition, between song form and sound art. His music has been called “a foray into transcendentalism”, that “stretches the ethereality of dream-pop into blissout” (Pitchfork) and “reverent, expansive, magical realist folk music” (Uncut) with a “clear, authorial voice” (Wire). His previous bands include AT/ALL, Function (Ensemble), Outshine Family and The Golden Lifestyle Band. From his bizarre teen tape collages mixed with shards of early songs to expansive recent works, Nicholson creates unique, beautiful realms into which the listener is invited. For the past decade he has been working primarily as composer for film and media arts, recently spending five years working in Los Angeles. His original compositions are featured in film, TV, media and art installations around the world. Nine Movements is the first release under the artist’s full name. Artist notes: ‘Nine Movements’ was composed to be performed and received in an immersive, meditative, comfortable setting, indoors or outdoors, most often horizontally. It is intended as an instrumental guided meditation and invocation, to relax, engage and balance the being. The harmonic relationships throughout are generally designed to be heard or felt by each bodily energy centre in ellipses throughout the 39 minute piece. Whilst it also works played quietly, it is intended primarily to be listened to fairly loud in a single full session, as a sequence of nine movements—and such that the sub bass and frequency stacks can be felt in the physical, emotional and mental and bodies as much as heard through the ears. Earlier versions of ‘Nine Movements’ were performed to audiences sound bathing under the stars, in gardens, yoga centres, halls and homes, with my partner Michelle and other guests—and was featured in full multichannel spatial audio for a week at a massive outdoor temple at Burning Man. The lockdowns put a halt to our performances, but created space for the piece to be embellished and completed for release. The many singing bowls that form the base of the sound bed were recorded previously in Australia in a regional community hall with a small group, for use in my score for the multimedia component of an installation in the Bargello National Museum of Florence, Italy. I took some of my favourite sections of those recordings and arranged them in a series of movements—and began adding layers of tones that worked with the often complex and strange harmonic relationships between the metal bowls. The first big sound that drops in the first minute, signalling the beginning of the meditation, is one of the largest and oldest singing bowls being circularly played, which took three people to lift. Apart from the natural harmonics of the singing bowls upon which the composition was built, the main body of harmonic tones moving and floating throughout, are many tone swells generated from my acoustic guitar, amplified, processed, stacked, delayed, looped, re-sampled—shifting clouds of harmonic layers passing by, creating a constantly changing harmonic field guiding the listener through the meditation. The musical guests we had performing didgeridoo and saxophone at the live shows also performed on the recording. The piece also comprises field recordings collected from around the world. The combining of sounds from multiple distant points in time and space, into a single immersive audio scape, has always interested me as an experimental, evocative process. Los Angeles is home to such an intoxicatingly rich swathe of humanity’s creativity—magnetised there from all over the world. LA native Miguel Atwood-Ferguson was one particularly exceptional human to cross my path there—we hosted a number of live string salons with Miguel in Los Feliz, which were always magic. I was thrilled and honoured when he responded strongly to an earlier version of Nine Movements and added his violin layers, taking the piece to entirely another level and initiating our ongoing collaboration. Miguel introduced me to his long time friend Carlos Nino, who also responded to the piece and added his layers of perfectly timed sensitive space percussion, which completed the textural palette of Nine Movements. Another of my favourite humans in LA, John Hendicott, an English spatial audio expert, completed the mix with me and mastered the album. Whilst dreaming I occasionally hear, and merge with, ecstatic, complex multidimensional celestial music whose origin is a total mystery to me, and is not able to be transcribed or often even quite understood upon return of the waking state. But it sure is inspirational, I think I’m less its composer than an interactive participant. Extended deep listening experiences have been essential to my development as artist and human. Initially, the punk/experimental/rock music community I came from in Australia in the 90s spawned many noise acts whose effect was some combination of duration and wild volume, which could be extremely transporting when done right. I’ve since been involved in a lot of scoring for film and long form art installations, as well as chanting and long form sacred musical offerings with mostly Indian musicians, all of which use extended duration as primary means. Durational participation, the commitment to a piece of art or music for a set time, allowing oneself to go through a process in relation to the art, tends to get lost in the world of expendable content, and it is obviously very important for the communication of serious ideas and artistic transmissions. We now live between two spring fed mountainside creeks and the sounds of the water are constant—becoming the field replacing silence. As a strongly auditory person, and closet researcher of ET phenomena, I feel that I’m just beginning to learn of the possible scope of the virtually unlimited powers of sound. Therein lie many mysteries which intrigue me. As my own practice of life and meditation deepens, so does my practice of listening. Deep listening these days to me also refers to the process of intuition and trusting it—listening to the deepest parts of oneself in order to harmonise with the Whole. As we further wake up as a species I’ll bet that the importance of sound and frequency cannot be overstated. We are porous beings and pure sound to me is the most sweetly invasive medium. It can be designed in a practically infinite number of benevolent ways and that certainly interests me. Hopefully my recorded work can transmit something of the mystery, depth and beauty that is native to everyone. Credits: Matthew Liam Nicholson: Composition, arrangement, acoustic guitar, processing, synthesizers, field recordings Miguel Atwood-Ferguson: Violin Carlos Niño: Space Percussion Michelle Hodnett: Crystal Bowls, Tuning Forks Scotus Dunshee: Didgeridoos Adam Weiss: Tenor Saxophone Bellarine Singing Bowl group, Australia. Tibetan and Japanese singing bowls, directed by MLN Mixed by John Hendicott and MLN. Mastered by John Hendicott Full spatial audio masters can be made available for installation. released October 10, 2021
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Phew - The Waiting Room (21:20) 24Bit Phew was a founding member of the legendary punk band Aunt Sally. After the band’s breakup in 1979 she continued her career as a solo artist, releasing a collaborative single with Ryuichi Sakamoto in 1980 and her first solo album ‘Phew’ with Conny Plank, Holger Czukay of CAN, and Jaki Liebezeit in 1981. In 1992, her third album, Our Likeness, was released on Mute, again at Conny’s studio, with Jaki Liebezeit of CAN, Alexander Hacke of Einstürzende Neubauten and Chrislo Haas of DAF. Since 2010 she has released a series of works that combine voice and electronic music and has gained international recognition as an electronic artist. Pitchfork has described her as “Japan’s underground legend”. She has also released collaborative works with Ana da Silva (The Raincoats), Seiichi Yamamoto (ex-Boredoms) and others. Her latest solo album New Decade was released on Mute in October 2021. Artist notes: When I was invited to participate in Longform Editions, I thought about how to express the time of the piece itself—20 minutes—rather than a long piece of music. In other words, I wanted to make a piece that would allow the listener to freely choose the focus of the sound on a time axis, as if appreciating a painting, rather than a musical time that is formed by a one-dimensional flow of time with a single acoustic change that never returns. Please experience the empty waiting room—the stains on the wall, the plastic chairs, and that unattended 20 minutes. released December 8, 2021
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Danny Norbury - Rue D'Aligre (18:08) Danny studied cello at the Royal Northern College of Music and lives and works in Manchester UK. He has collaborated with The Boats, Library Tapes (as Le Lendemain), Ian Hawgood, Nancy Elizabeth and Demdike Stare. His solo work as been released by Lacies Records, Flau, Wist Rec and Brian Records. Artist notes: The main elements of the piece were made in 2013, and I brought them together with some further additions and subtractions before finishing the piece this year. The title and the voice fragments come from a small sound walk my friend Emily and I took in Paris. On rue d’Aligre there is a very lively market. Many different voices and many different languages, that for the non-speaker become immediately interesting for their musical surface features—rhythm, timbre, pitch, intensity, etc. If I listen to the field recording of that walk in isolation I’m struck by how vivid the memory is. Almost as if I can feel the weight of my own footsteps again; I'm almost re-tasting the apple I bought. It's strange and endlessly fascinating to me because I don't really understand it. Perhaps it is enough to just accept it. Around this time I began recording with coil pick-ups; I was interested in their capture of the sound of electrical circuits in operation, which is a sound that is by its nature fugitive, and one that reveals more and more details the closer one listens. Other sounds are from a Dulcitone, a Michelsonne toy piano, an upright piano and my cello. Morton Feldman wrote that the true nature of a sound was to be found in the decay; the sounds are leaving us. A beautiful thought. I love listening to near silence. I was recently alone at home in the daytime and for some reason had a feeling of great peace. I went to cook something and realised there was a power cut. Then later the power came back on I heard all the sounds that I accept in my life: the compressor of the fridge, a general high-pitched sound that comes from god knows where, etc. And yet, all those sounds will never happen again in quite the same way. They will never be punctuated by a siren, nor by a neighbour shouting at that very moment ever again. That almost nothing that is so beautiful. released December 7, 2021
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Zoltan Fecso - Butterfly Hands (29:44) 24Bit Zoltan Fecso is a musician and composer based in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia. His interdisciplinary approach to sound explores the experiences of active listening. Zoltan's first major body of work centred on repeating single notes of various lengths to form ever-changing tonal permutations. These ‘Pointilist’ compositions were inspired by the post-impressionist painting movement of the same name. His first album in this style was released on Hush Hush Records (USA) and subsequent albums appeared on Shimmering Moods (NL), The Slow Music Movement (PT) and Whitelab Recs (UK). Zoltan’s body of work also includes sound installations, sculptures, ensembles, radiophonic works and podcasts. Artist notes: Butterfly Hands is a piece for solo prepared piano. Although I’ve released a lot of guitar-based music over the last two years, piano was my primary instrument from a young age and is very dear to me. The piano in this recording is my childhood upright, which now lives happily in my home studio. When I started experimenting with prepared piano in mid-2020, I found a string of bells, which I arranged between the hammers and strings of the piano. The result brought out a gestural, textured playing style inspired by the shimmering intensity of 1970’s era spiritual jazz records by Alice Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders. The hands are in constant motion throughout this piece, even during sparse moments, to lightly shake the bells or create soft impacts on the piano strings—hence the title Butterfly Hands. A big realisation during the recording of this piece was the frame of mind I needed to be in, in order to perform it. I found myself losing concentration or overthinking/overplaying parts in early takes. Fatigue was another thing. If I wasn’t present in playing, my hands would cramp and get really sore. It was only when I approached the piece with clarity, presence and openness that I could play it in its entirety. I realised that I had trouble being present while performing, even though so much of my practice is informed by that very idea. I reflected on how I had felt when playing live in the past, on the inner voice that would tell me to ‘move things along’ or ‘make this more interesting’. So much joy, fascination and connection comes from listening attentively to the world. In the writing and performing of this piece, I noticed a habitual disconnect from that state of listening, which I had to address. The focus on performing can sometimes distract from deep listening. I'm interested in the moments where performing and listening exist as one. released December 6, 2021
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Julia Reidy - Gardening (17:30) 24Bit Julia Reidy makes music for processed and acoustic instruments (mostly guitars). Their recent recorded work—‘brace, brace’ (Slip, 2019), ‘In Real Life’ (Black Truffle, 2019), and ‘Vanish’ (Editions Mego, 2020)—can be described as a series of non-traditional song forms which combine unstable harmonic territories, rhythmic elasticity and abstract narrative over stretched, episodic forms. They have performed at Tectonics Festival (SCT), Send/Receive Festival (CA), Mona Foma (AUS), Berlin Jazz Festival (DE), Angelica Festival (ITA) and Borderline Festival (GR). Artist notes: This piece began as a study to explore a tuning in 13-limit just intonation. The harmonic material was an adventure in voicing chords outside of the range of the guitar. The 16 pitch sets were all devised more-or-less intuitively and plugged in (quite painstakingly) afterwards instead of playing them live. The synth tones are all digital and digital-sounding—quite pure and cold— a sound I either like or have convinced myself I like out of not being able to afford or operate an actual synthesiser. The environmental sounds are recordings of me tending to a garden plot that I shared with a person I love a lot, an activity which at certain points has felt like an important ritual in nurturing something we’d started together. ‘Gardening’ attempts to establish a kind of suspended harmonic space, with scenes from this particular environment shifting in and out of focus. Mastered by Simon Scott at SPS Mastering. released December 5, 2021
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Gavilán Rayna Russom - Trans Feminist Symphonic Music (1:11:14) 24Bit Movement I: Elegy Movement II: Expansions Movement III: Beauty Movement IV: Truth Gavilán Rayna Russom is an interdisciplinary artist based in New York City. Over the past two decades she has produced a complex and compelling body of creative output that fuses theory with expression, nightlife with academia and spirituality with everyday life. Rayna’s renowned prowess with analog and digital synthesisers as composing instruments locates itself within her larger vision of synthesis; an artistic method of weaving together highly differentiated strands of information and creative material into cogent expressive wholes. The central thread of this practice is the exploration of liminality as a healing agent, a phenomenon she has been engaged with since childhood and has researched at an astounding depth. Her work is cumulative and experiential. It requires time and attention to take in, and it powerfully rewards those who bring their time and attention to it. In March of 2020 Rayna founded Voluminous Arts, a creative network for supporting and disseminating works by boundary pushing artists. released February 16, 2022
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Ulla - Hope Sonata (23:20) 24Bit ulla (Ulla Straus) is an artist by ways from Kansas and California, but currently based in Philadelphia. She has released music on an array of labels such as Quiet Time, Experiences Ltd, West Mineral Ltd, and her most recent record, ‘Limitless Frame’, on Motion Ward. Artist Notes: saying goodbye leaves a residue. in the presence of intangible things; lies the longing that gives me hope. I. II. III. IV. Mastered by Simon Scott at SPS Mastering. released February 15, 2022
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Maggi Payne - Through Space and Time (15:20) 24Bit Maggi Payne is an electronic/electroacoustic music composer, video artist, recording engineer, historical remastering engineer, and flutist. Her works often incorporate images ranging from those of nature to the abstract. Her works have been presented in the Americas, Europe, Japan, Hong Kong and Australasia. Her works appear on Aguirre, The Lab, Innova, Lovely Music, Starkland, Asphodel, New World (CRI), Root Strata, Centaur, Ubuibi, MMC, Digital Narcis, Music and Arts, Frog Peak, and/OAR, Capstone, and Mills College labels. She received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Bourges, Prix Ars, several awards for her video works, and a residency at Montalvo Arts Center. She taught Electronic Music, Recording Engineering, and Composition at Mills College, in California, where she was Co-Director of the Center for Contemporary Music from 1992 to 2018. released February 14, 2022
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Carlos Niño & Kofi Flexxx - In The Moment, Part 3 (22:51) 24Bit Carlos Niño & Kofi Flexxx met in London somewhere, at some point, that neither of them totally remembers, then later in Venice Beach in 2018 at the venue that Niño runs (below Townhouse) on Windward Avenue. They had been listening to each other's music for a while and became quick friends. While on tour in California Flexxx reached out to Niño about playing Duets and the two met up at Studio 4 West in Venice Beach on Monday, March 11, 2019. Niño refers to Studio 4 West (that he works in often) as a “treasure chest”. ‘In the Moment, Part 3’ is the final improvisation from that Session. It was recorded by engineer Andy Kravitz, and the mix was made on the spot. Both Niño and Flexxx are prolific producers, frequently collaborating with a wide array of artists, and always deeply listening. What Andy sent them home with wasn't touched, The two thought it was perfect as is. Niño set up a large percussion rig and also utilised drums and other instruments that were in the narrow apartment studio, located steps from the Venice Beach boardwalk. Flexxx brought his tenor saxophone that day. It could have been clarinet, or flute, but tenor was the Vibe that day. The two opened up and created for two hours, without discussing anything regarding their approach. Niño says, “It was all psychic, together, us spontaneously composing”. When finished, they packed their instruments and listened back while Andy finished the mix. Of this piece, Kofi Flexxx commented to Niño in an email “The recording sounds amazing! Was such a special session, so glad we got a good document of our first duo connection.” Recorded and Mixed by Andy Kravitz at Studio 4 West in Venice Beach on Monday, March 11, 2019 Mastered by Simon Scott at SPS Mastering Carlos Niño leads his group Carlos Niño & Friends carlosnino.bandcamp.com/music Kofi Flexxx travels the world, composing, arranging, producing, recording and performing. released February 13, 2022
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Perila - Corridor Between Days (20:00) 24Bit Perila is a St. Petersburg-born, Berlin-based sound and visual artist, DJ and performer exploring sensitive borderlines and depths of subtle matter. She is a co-founder of radio.syg.ma, WET boss and is also engaged in several other music projects such as Aseptic Stir. Her music is dense narratives drifting through a rich sound palette submerging a listener into a pretty personal trip. Constantly shifting moods and textures, Perila creates comfort space for emotions to float, merge, evaporate and ride in a deep context. Her practice is aimed to challenge and overcome boundaries and share this expansion with the Other. released April 13, 2022
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Matt LaJoie - Trine (33:00) Matt LaJoie is an American musician and visual artist born, living, and working in the state of Maine. With over two dozen solo guitar releases in the past four years, and hundreds of other recordings released since 2005 under various solo aliases and as a member of several improvisationally minded groups, Matt has remained a prolific DIY recording musician for the past two decades. Since 2017, most of his new music has been released through Flower Room, the self-run in-house private press label he co-founded with Ash Brooks. released April 12, 2022
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Between - Prelude (00.00) (19:52) 24Bit prelude (0:00:00) began as the first of several hours of recordings, initiated by Taylor Deupree and Stephen Vitiello during a five day retreat to an undisclosed corner of the sea in December 2021. A small studio was set up offering a clear view to blue skies and a sliver of an ocean expanse. The goal was to lay down groundwork for a network of collaborators and create a new album under the moniker Between, a revolving collective defined only by a minimum of four 12k artists recording together. The idea born in Kyoto in 2016 resulting in the first, self-titled, release that year. The tone for prelude (0:00:00) was set by a modulated noise pattern, which became something of a gravely swath of sand over which others added layers of warmth and tonality. Collaborators, initially to be flown in, responded remotely, from three corners of the globe. Corey Fuller, recording piano from his studio in Tokyo, laid the first melodic foundation and pacing of the piece. A Zoom call with Federico Durand from his rural studio in Argentina was a connection that melted away the miles between the artists. Conversations about sound and future travels to a breathtaking mountain concert requiring a five mile hike to a venue that has no electricity but lots of kindness. Over time, Michael Grigoni (lap steel guitar) and Molly Berg (clarinet) contributed melodies covering different sonic spectrums and crafting the pieces ending. The mix changed day to day as the addition of one meant carving out additional space and finding a satisfying sum of all parts. The recording sessions, despite global travel restrictions, were very much the essence of Between, where friendship and stories are ultimately more important than the music. Thoughts of our dear friend Steve Roden (who was supposed to take part) and his film work, monochrome blue (a year of skies) played in the back of our minds for days and influenced the mood and stressed the importance of making the effort to create these sessions while we all can. released April 11, 2022
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. KMRU - Imperceptible Perceptible (20:42) 24Bit Currently studying sonic arts in Berlin, Joseph Kamaru, aka KMRU, is a Nairobi-born, Berlin-based sound artist whose work is grounded on the discourse of field recording, noise, and sound art. His work posits expanded listening cultures of sonic thoughts and sound practices, a proposition to consider and reflect on auditory cultures beyond the norms, and an awareness of surroundings through creative compositions, installations and performances. In 2020 he released ‘Peel’ on the avant-garde label Editions Mego with follow up albums ‘Opaquer’, ‘Jar’, and ‘Logue’, each on different labels, and all of which received high praise from Resident Advisor, DJ Mag, NPR, and Bandcamp. KMRU is part of SHAPE platform roaster of artists for 2021. His works have been presented in NyegeNyege Festival (UG), CTM Festival (DE), Atonal (DE), GAMMA (RU), and Mutek (CA/ ES) and 2022 was inaugurated with a collaboration with the London Contemporary Orchestra at the Barbican. released April 10, 2022
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Sam Prekop - Saturday Sunday (22:10) Sam Prekop’s boundless imagination is guided by his strong sense of melody. For more than 25 years, as a solo artist or as part of The Sea and Cake, Prekop creates a singular sound inventive and warm. His distinctive vocals, guitar playing and work on modular analog synthesisers are inventive, delicate, and always bear his signature sense of melody. Artist notes: This piece, Saturday Sunday, is presented as a studio journal of sorts, written over the span of two weeks or so, it’s a faithful document, an impression, a contour of my daily practice during this time. Consciously leaving the ambition for the piece absolutely open ended, with intention to follow the work as it evolved. In a sense a protracted improvisation on a micro and macro level, of split seconds and entire days and nights. Hoping to be surprised, perhaps confronted with all of the accumulated choices that add up to making the music. To finish the piece, with hopes to hear it differently than the day before, as if never before, to call it complete. released June 15, 2022
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Foodman - Percussion Oyaji (17:08) 24Bit Takahide Higuchi, better known as 食品まつり(Shokuhin Matsuri) aka foodman, creates music that defies categorisations– and is one of the few artists that actually fit this overused description. There are traces of almost every electronic music genre, from juke, footwork, ambient, house, techno, to noise, but those elements are dissected and morphed together then driven to extreme without giving you a second to come up with a definitive genre. The noisy technicolour of these borderline versatile or schizophrenic collages is borne out of his experiments (or accidents) and has titillated, confused, and enchanted music obsessives far and wide. After releasing his debut album from NY/OH on experimental label Orange Milk, his music has been released by international labels including Diplo’s Mad Decent and its offshoot, Good Enuff. His ever-evolving and mutating musical vocabulary draws from every kind of music he stumbles across, from Chicago footwork to Okinawan folk music of his roots, ambient to J-pop, Talvin Singh’s Indian classical music/drum and bass fusion to classic video game soundtracks, then twists them all with his playful psychedelia. This extends to his remixes and DJ mixes, including his monthly residency at NTS radio and i-D magazine’s i-DJ guest mix. In July 2021, the album ‘Yasuragi Land’ was released on Hyperdub and voted oner of the year’s best by many national and international media outlets. Artist notes: The image of this track is a minimalist sound with percussion, which I have been pursuing for the past few years, in a long scale. I’m conscious of sound that changes little by little. Music can take you to another world the moment you listen to it. Each of us has our own way of listening and thinking about music, but I think that by listening deeply you can see it in a new way. released June 14, 2022
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Megan Alice Clune - Digital Auras (20:28) 24Bit Megan Alice Clune is a musician, composer and artist based on Gadigal/Wangal country, Sydney, Australia. Her work explores the dynamic relationships between music, technology, the body and temporality through composition, performance and installation. Her 2021 album, ‘If You Do’, was released on Room 40 to critical acclaim. Artist notes: I shut my eyes to meditate and the inverse glow of the computer screen sears the back of my eyelids. Digital Auras consists of manipulated percussion samples, synthesiser drones and improvised singing. The piece is a continuation of my exploration of the voice and technology, but this time, writing felt loose and organic. The mind playing with the tools it had at hand in a state of flow. After spending some time tinkering with the samples and my analogue synthesiser, pushing them almost beyond recognition, I felt my Auto-Tuned, reverb-soaked voice drift through the Ableton session with a simple melody. The improvisation captured a sense of weightlessness; the recording captured a moment in time. As the digital era presents us with infinite reproductions, I wonder: what happens to the aura of the original? Listening, the way that we listen, has always been an area of great interest and research for me. I learnt a deeply focused listening from my studies as a classical clarinettist: listening to the sounds within sounds, how to manipulate sound as it carries and morphs within the concert hall. But there is a hierarchy at place here and a strict sense of right and wrong, which I came to resist when composing in favour of a de-centred approach. In de-centred listening, the body of the listener and the environment in which listening takes place are held equally to the music. Much of my music is written with this in mind, leaving some space in acknowledgement that it will be consumed on a train, in a car, while cleaning the house, as much as it will be heard live or on a dedicated sound system with undivided attention. The context plays a similar role in writing music too: after finishing Digital Auras, I realised the pitch of the synthesiser heard at the opening is the same as my fridge that sits only two metres away from where I wrote it. You could say that the drone is the truest form of ambient music – it’s in the buzz, the hum that’s heard everywhere in urban landscapes, if we pay attention, if we only listen. released June 13, 2022
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Nailah Hunter - Forest Dwelling (32:33) 24Bit Nailah Hunter is a multi-instrumentalist and composer based in Los Angeles. Her music for harp, electronics and voice shimmers with spiritual radiance, full of magic, wonder, and healing energies. Artiat notes: Cadmar Fitzhugh and I recorded ‘Forest Dwelling’ after a long weekend spent in Yosemite. We spent the trip ruminating on how life in the city makes it hard to live in our mutually preferred state of perpetual nature-worship, and the fact that we’d both be happy to sacrifice the community that living in a city brings for the solace of a life spent in a quiet wood. This piece is a sonic representation of us exploring what that life could look like. We imagined ourselves as the tiniest forest spirits; living in acorns and hollowed trees, and we imagined ourselves as the tallest mountains, feeling moonlight shine down, cold and bright upon our faces. ‘Forest Dwelling’ is about our desire to commit to our relationship with the earth. Longform music is a celebration of rest and relaxation, but it is also a wonderful opportunity to be present. It’s as much about tapping in as it is about tapping out. released June 12, 2022
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Kane Ikin - Boundary Curve (29:10) 24Bit Exploration of collisions, asynchronous, superpositioned and dispersed, bled into and around each other. Drifting textures. Alien familiarity. Loops that aren’t. Layers of stone, wood, ceramic and metal. A matrix-1000 pushed into and out of itself, refracted and re-assembled. One track spirals into another, or, one track dives into itself. In complete flow. Each pushing out, the other pushing in. Out of the dream a grain of the map. For me deep listening is a submission. I have early memories of pouring myself into albums, collapsing onto my bed, headphones on, submerging into the details—letting the outside disappear. This form of listening never really went away. Sound and music is the first and last thing I notice and pay attention to in any environment. I think this is why my work tends to be so sonically overloaded and enveloping. I don’t like to leave space for anything else to get your attention. You could needle drop to any point in Boundary Curve and slip into or out of a moment, but I hope it’s listened to as a longform work with its duration pulling you in as deep as it can. Produced, mixed and mastered by Kane Ikin. Kane Ikin is an Australian composer, producer, DJ and live artist, currently based in Naarm/Melbourne. Drawing from a range of stylistic influence, including techno, trip-hop, experimental electronic, soundtrack and jazz, his music coalesces a deliberate blend of sustain and release, grippingly widescreen, warmly immersive, weighted down by a production style that's measured and detailed. Since 2012 he has released a number of albums ranging from the deteriorated and hazy Sublunar (2012, 12k), the tense and atmospheric ‘Basalt Crush’ (2016, Latency), the shuddering and autonomic ‘Modern Pressure’ (2016, Type) and the exploratory shoegaze-techno on ‘Sensory Memory’ (2016, Echovolt). released August 17, 2022
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Fia Fiell - Endless Filament (15:37) 24Bit Deep listening is healing, and meditation through sound. In the process of making this music, I listened more deeply than I had for a long time (for a much longer time, too), and when I was finished, I noticed that I had changed. My mind was clearer and sharper, and I knew myself better. Everything somehow felt easier. I don’t think deep listening needs to even involve ‘thinking’ about music or sound, in the way we usually characterise thinking. There’s no need to analyse or define, or to try to uncover some sort of theoretical or practical foundation for something; instead the skill is in ‘tuning in’ and opening oneself up to a connection. Maybe we can be more like animals. By relinquishing language and just listening, we can discover more ways to get to the ‘heart’ of something. We can relinquish control, and be passive and attentive at the same time, which can lead to greater understanding. We can be more exploratory, because we’re open to more possibilities. We simply open ourselves up. Mixed by Carolyn Schofield with additional assistance from Joe Talia. Mastered by Simon Scott at SPS Mastering. released August 16, 2022
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Natalie Rose LeBrecht - Star Water Shapeshift (21:40) 24Bit I had been composing a new album that was very ambitious in its scope and complexity, when I found myself stifled by perfectionism. I noticed it was this agenda which was causing me to feel stuck, like in a finger trap. So I chose to put a hold on this composition and go back to basics, letting go of any grand designs. Instead I recorded this piano improvisation in one take, which flowed out effortlessly and with joy. When I listened back I was able to appreciate the natural quality of subtle winds flowing through my nervous system and expressing themselves through the keys. I love that through musical composition one can translate and shape an auditory vision through careful thought and attention to craft, yet I also deeply value musical improvisation because it springs forth organically, unfiltered. It can be expression in its purest form, as there is a magic in letting go of the self and becoming one with the moment: an instrument playing an instrument. Accepting what manifests can be the hardest part, and I’m pleased to say I accept ‘Star Water Shapeshift’. To me it has the resonance of wind hitting chimes, evoking a fluid fingerprint or shapeshifting snowflake, holding a unique quality in its flow that is both beyond me and yet retains the imprints of my style. Deep listening is the foundation of respect, and respect is the key to unlocking the true harmonic magic of the universe. released August 15, 2022
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Ross Gentry - Absence Recorded (32:56) 24Bit This piece of music is about levity. About memories existing in a dream state. The idea was to create an uninterrupted, deep listening piece of music that lives in that out of body space just before sleep. That space to me feels equally absent and present. The mind is awake and the body is asleep. It’s a place where I have consistently found endless inspiration. I am always inspired by the vague mysterious nature of my dreams. I never quite remember them fully. Only small segments and images. It began as a recording to be used as a personal sleep aid. A series of minimal, formless drones to help my mind wind down and enter a meditative state before sleep, slowly began to find more purpose and form as I allowed certain tones to ring out and modulate naturally. I began adding synth textures and piano to build upon the background layers of low drones. The ghostly voice recordings layered throughout are processed recordings of my great grandmother singing traditional Appalachian folk songs on her back porch. The progression of this piece is meant to become more linearly engaging and pulsing as it moves forward, with the introduction of rhythms and pulses toward the end and finally a processed acoustic guitar movement. Perhaps an attempt to imitate or emulate the feel of a back porch in Appalachia. Extended and deep listening music has always played a very important part of my existence as a listener and as an artist. When I am recording I am always striving to achieve an uninterrupted, fully engaging experience that draws the listener to that out of body space. As a listener I make frequent conscious efforts to eliminate all distractions, sit down in front of the speakers and engage with long form music the way the artist has intended it to be heard. It’s important for me to find these moments with sound where time seems to cease to exist for a moment and I can fully reset my headspace. For me it is the highest form of meditation. Mastered by Simon Scott at SPS Mastering. released August 14, 2022
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Claire Rousay & E.Fishpool - Distance Therapy (19:59) 24Bit claire rousay is based in Los Angeles. Her music zeroes in on personal emotions and the minutiae of everyday life – voicemails, haptics, environmental recordings, stopwatches, whispers and conversations – exploding their significance. E.Fishpool is a Yuin artist based across Budawang and Walbanja Country. Their work maps processes of unlearning and (re)learning identity through sampling sound, dialect and field recordings. Distance therapy was composed in response to Sol LeWitt’s ‘Wall drawing #955, Loopy Doopy (red and purple)’ (2000), installed in the John Kaldor Family Hall at the Art Gallery of NSW, as an enhanced audio reading of LeWitt’s work. Artist notes: Creating this piece over email felt, to me at least, extremely fluid and relaxed compared to other long distance collaborations I’ve been involved in. Both mine and Emily’s roles seemed extremely flexible, no one was expected to bring anything specific to the collaboration outside of what occurred in the moment(s). The time difference between locations was an unexpected element. Some days I would wake up to a new draft of the piece or an email with questions about what I had sent before going to sleep the prior evening. I am not sure how this played a role in the creation of the piece but I can imagine the pace of the project impacted it in some way. Listening to any musical work is such a personal thing. I think it is important to meet people where they are at, with no expectations or rules on how they interact with the work. Hopefully it is with an open heart and mind – beyond this though, I don’t know. claire rousay The collaboration was kind of challenging. Mostly due to the distance and time difference. But now looking back I can understand how this contributed to the work’s form. It’s kind of sparse but I think that’s what makes it so beautiful. Some of the contributions don’t feel finished, I think that’s what I like about it the most. e fishpool released October 12, 2022
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Chuck Johnson & JWPATON - Tangled Mirror Yarn (36:51) 24Bit Chuck Johnson is a composer, producer, and musician residing in Oakland, California. He approaches his work with an ear towards finding faults and instabilities that might reveal latent beauty, with a focus on pedal steel guitar, experimental electronics, alternate tuning systems, and composing for film and television. JWPATON is a Yuin musician based in Western Sydney. He uses alternative sounds and field recordings from both the natural and the human-made worlds to create rich, thick, time-stretched padded ambience. Tangled mirror yarn was composed in response to Sol LeWitt’s ‘Wall drawing #955, Loopy Doopy (red and purple)’ (2000), installed in the John Kaldor Family Hall at the Art Gallery of NSW, as an enhanced audio reading of LeWitt’s work. Artist notes: ‘Tangled mirror yarn’ was recorded in our respective homes in Oakland, California, and on Darug Country in Western Sydney. It began with each of us sending the other sounds that were inspired by the ‘Loopy Doopy’ drawing and the works of the central desert artists that share the gallery space with the LeWitt work. We then processed each other’s sounds until we had the building blocks that could be sequenced and mixed into the final arrangement. We took special inspiration from knowing people who have installed the LeWitt work in the past who have said that the installers sometimes take Tylenol to help cope with the intense effect of the scale, colour, and height of the work. We try to recall this feeling of dizzying disorientation in certain passages, as well as moments of calm and relief that comes with a shift in perspective. Our process began with sounds and sonic textures rather than notes or chords, so the entire work is based in listening. Listening as a practice – in the sense that Pauline Oliveros taught it – sometimes involves holding the entirety of your sonic environment within your attention, in a way that doesn’t focus specifically on any discrete sounds. It can be as though everything that you hear in any given moment can be heard as a composition. It is similar to inhabiting the space with the LeWitt drawing and the paintings of Emily Kame Kngwarreye and Gloria Tamerre Petyarre that are currently in the main gallery at AGNSW in that it’s impossible to “see” all of it at the same time. And yet the works are in dialogue, and are part of a greater whole. - Chuck Johnson released October 11, 2022
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Tatsuhisa Yamamoto - scoria (18:39) 24Bit Tatsuhisa Yamamoto is a drummer from Yamaguchi, Japan. He is well known throughout the country for his work with a surprisingly wide range of musicians including Phew, Eiko Ishibashi, Jim O’Rourke, Keiji Haino and Oren Ambarchi, as well as composing scores for theatre and film. Artist notes: For ‘scoria’, I referred to the feeling of muscle fatigue caused by repetitive motion, which occurs when playing the same drum pattern over and over for a long time.I used many ways how beats can melt for this piece. Listening in this track means that you can use your ears to experience the process of muscle recovery through muscle fatigue caused by repetitive motion. If you keep eating salty food, you will not feel salty food as salty, right? This track uses that kind of effect. released October 10, 2022
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Ruven Nunez - Untitled No. 51 (20:05) I was born on the 13th of May in 1987 and grew up in a small town in Switzerland. After leaving school, I worked in a record store for about five years. Since then I worked all kinds of jobs, without ever settling on one. I don’t remember when I got my first guitar, but I started to play very frequently some time in 2008. My first true meeting with the guitar was in 2013, after somewhat of a nervous breakdown. It was during a session of practice, which I also happened to record, which ended up being my first album, ‘Evening Prayer’. That’s when all things fell into place for me, whatever that means. Ruven Nunez Artist notes: When I play the guitar, I always want to get to the source of all things as close as I possibly can. Playing the guitar the conventional way didn’t give me the space and foundation to be able to do that anymore. I needed to find a new way in musical expression. I figured only the most basic, imminent and pure form of approach would give me that liberty. So I had to restrict myself in regards to technique. This I did by playing only single notes – fading them in and out with the volume knob, layering note after note on top of each other and listening how it all takes form. I call it ‘Mental Music’ because it sounds very fluid and entwined, like thoughts or mental images. I feel that for the first time in my life I am truly able to connect with the cosmic mentality through sound. My new approach to playing the guitar is all about presence in the moment and no-braining, and that’s exactly what deep listening would be about. To forget oneself and to not let the slightest thing come between music and listener – to achieve absolute fusion. released October 9, 2022
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Richard Youngs - Automatic North (18:27) 24Bit Richard Youngs (b. 1966, Cambridge, England) is a musician based in Glasgow, Scotland. In a career spanning more than 35 years, his prolific output defies the existence of any discography. His work is an ongoing experiment in sound and song form, straddling the traditional and avant-garde, encompassing every genre and no genre. Artist notes: Summer 2022, we are moving home, and for the first time in my adult life I have a dedicated music room. ‘Automatic North’ is the sound of me in this room playing what came first out of the packing boxes: an analogue synth, a drum machine, a snare and a shaker. All digitally edited, since as well as playing instruments, I find that fun and exciting too. I don’t do background music. When I listen, I listen. Nothing is casual about sound. Even music I don’t particularly like gets my attention. So, in some way, all listening is deep. As for extended listening, growing up – pre-internet – when often the only way to hear a piece of music was to buy the record, one thing I looked at on a sleeve were the track durations. Long tracks intrigued me. Side long tracks were the ideal. So, while my attitude was more punk than prog, the soundtrack of my teenage years was more prog than punk. I’ve since come to like everything and nothing, yet I continue to be drawn to long track durations. Stretching out still strikes me as something to aspire to. Made Summer, 2022. Richard Youngs: analogue synth, digital editing, drum machine, hand percussion and snare drum. released November 23, 2022
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Noémi Büchi - Paroxsym (21:00) Noémi Büchi is a Swiss composer and sound artist that creates electronic, symphonic maximalism. Her music is defined by a delicate synthesis of textural rhythms and electroacoustic-orchestral abstraction. Büchi has played at prestigious festivals and was awarded a Culture Award of the City of Zurich. Her 2019 debut EP ‘Matière’, released through Light of Other Days, drew widespread acclaim. In 2020, she released a second EP ‘Prismic Passages’ on the Leipzig- based tape label Visible Dinner. -OUS will be releasing her debut album ‘Matter’ and its prelude ‘Hyle’ in 2022, as well as the debut album of Musique Infinie, a collaboration between Noémi Büchi and composer and sound- and installation artist Feldermelder. Büchi explores the potential of consonance and dissonance, contrasts rhythmic physicality with disruption and playfully emphasizes irregularities, creating an expansive listening experience marked by detail and elevation. Artist notes: Actually it’s quite simple: there are short sounds, and there are long sounds. Among them there are harmonic and disharmonic sounds. I am interested in shapes based on these very simple parameters—concrete sound shapes that I can mould any way I want, like a sculpture, and create relations among those shapes. My piece Paroxysm starts from a puristic dry rhythmic structure. The second part then goes into a fusion of rhythm and harmony. The question that preoccupied me was on one hand how these two main elements of music relate to each other and what shapes they can create together. On another hand I was preoccupied by how the listening behaviour adapts and changes to the compositional structure and sound events. The sound world in this piece is characterised by warm, dense, orchestral and at the same time by very filigree, dry, electro-acoustic sounds. I also used my own voice in interlaced harmonic shapes that are made rhythmic, giving the overall mood an almost sacral character. My voice appears fragmental and tries to assert itself in the complexity of the rhythm. Slowly everything degrades into polyrhythmic structures, with harmonic components taking the upper hand more and more. The listening behaviour is redirected here. The harmonies are repeatedly broken abruptly by the rhythm. I work across genres in my music. Familiar elements from classical music, jazz, folk and also techno can be recognised. There is nature, and the outside world to hear, made of plastic, metal, wood, water and earth. The subject of matter continues to occupy me in my musical work, and I try to get as close as possible to the physical world through sound. I’m very concerned about the method of reduced listening. It is a way of listening that focuses on the character of each individual sound shapes without carrying about their sources or meanings. Also, this kind of listening is about specifically picking out the individual elements, distinguishing them from each other, and understanding their relationship to each other. I cultivate a special interest in such listening techniques because on one hand I really appreciate to create structures that make sense to me in a very raw compositional understanding, and on the other hand these kind of techniques teach me to go within and focus with deep conscious concentration. It is very similar to meditation and trains and shapes our whole consciousness, and thus our connection to reality. At the end what interests me precisely how the listening behaviour changes according to the sounding event. I find it fascinating how sound guides us and how we unconsciously adapt our perception to the sound happenings. With deep listening, one can consciously focus on such phenomena and suddenly explore and get to know previously unexplored things about the unconscious. It is as if one gets to know oneself in depth during this process, like in a deep meditation. Mixing and Mastering by Manuel Oberholzer (VFBM, Fribourg Switzerland) noemibuchi.bandcamp.com soundcloud.com/noemibuchi www.noemibuchi.ch released November 22, 2022
----------------------- foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Lia Kohl - Untitled Radio (Futile, Fertile) (23:00) 24Bit Lia Kohl is a cellist, composer, and multidisciplinary artist based in Chicago. She creates and performs sonic landscapes utilising cello, synthesisers, field recordings, and live radio to explore the mundane and profound possibilities of sound. She has presented work and performed at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Walker Art Center, Chicago Symphony Center, and Eckhart Park Pool. Her debut solo album, ‘Too Small to Be a Plain’, was released on Shinkoyo/Artist Pool in March 2022. Her work has been featured in The Wire, Downbeat Magazine, The Chicago Reader, The Chicago Tribune, and on Bandcamp’s Album of the Day and Best Experimental Music. In addition to her solo debut, recent albums include duos with Macie Stewart (Astral Spirits), Zachary Good (Parlour Tapes+), and ZRL (American Dreams Records). As an improviser and collaborator, she has participated in cultural exchanges in Mexico, France, Germany, Denmark, China and the UK, and toured on four continents. As a sound and visual artist, she has presented gallery shows at Roman Susan Art Foundation and Experimental Sound Studios’ Audible Gallery. She has been a resident artist at ACRE, Vashon Artist Residency, High Concept Labs, dfbrl8r Performance Art Gallery, Mana Contemporary, Stanford University, and Mills College. She tours regularly with puppet theater company Manual Cinema, and helps create 60 Songs in 60 Minutes, a quarterly show with The Neo-Futurists. Artist notes: The basis of this work is a series of improvisations with live radio static, created while in residence at ACRE in northwestern Wisconsin. ACRE is situated outside of Steuben, WI, an area rural enough that pockets of it get little to no radio signal. Instead, the FM signal offers a rich and varied palette of drones, percussive stutters and pops, prompting the ear to invent myriad sonic architecture: harmonies, melodies, landscapes. I’m drawn to the radio for its particularly physical expression of sound; these waves are all around us, all the time; broadcasting weather and emergencies and prayers and pop tunes, we only have to turn it on to hear them. These long recordings of static have a futile and fertile quality: full of possibility, transmitting nothing. Though these radio improvisations could stand on their own as musical objects, here they serve as scores or guides for further response. This work is a collection of four of these responses, utilising synthesiser, cello, voice, and processed field recordings. My responses to these scores can vary dramatically in each realisation. Sometimes specific tonalities or clear melodic fragments emerge, other times I’m more struck by noise, or focused on a close recreation of the static sound. I am careful not to impose preconceived restrictions on the process, offering myself the opportunity for present and attentive listening, honouring the fact that listening is a responsive act. There is no single sonic truth. The more often I explore this practice, the more it changes. Mastered by Simon Scott at SPS Mastering. released November 21, 2022
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Michael Grigoni & Bill Seaman - The Long Sky (19:30) 24Bit Michael Grigoni is a multi-instrumentalist who specialises in dobro, lap steel guitar, and pedal steel guitar. He has released several instrumental albums on Other Songs, and more recently, two albums on 12k, Mount Carmel and Slow Machines (with Stephen Vitiello). His latest album, Earth Awhile, is a collaboration with Chihei Hatakeyama and Stephen Vitiello on White Paddy Mountain. Bill Seaman’s artworks often investigate a media-oriented poetics through various technological means. Such works often explore the combination and recombination of media elements and processes in interactive and generative works of art. Seaman enfolds image, music and text relations in these works, often creating all of the media elements and articulating the operative media-processes involved. Recently Seaman has been exploring the creation of a transdisciplinary search engine related to Neosentience (a new approach to AI that is informed by the functionality of the human body through biomimetics and bio-abstraction) called The Insight Engine. Seaman sees this work is a mixture of conceptual art and science. Artist notes: On April 8, 2022, Michael Grigoni accompanied a dance performance at the ChoreoLab Spring Dance Concert at Duke University. The performance was a work by Brooks Emanuel titled, ‘What Should We Do’, which arose out of a choreographic processes course taught at Duke by Michael Kliën. Grigoni’s accompaniment was an improvisation on lap steel guitar that responded to the movements of the dance ensemble, and it had a number of audio qualities related to room sound, the use of effects pedals, and the nature of the performance itself that Bill Bill Seaman felt would be amenable to his style of composition. Seaman constructed a sample library from selected fragments of the performance and then composed an initial pass of ‘The Long Sky’ using these samples, as well as samples from his own improvised piano performance. The piece then went through several iterations, with Michael adding additional lap steel from his home studio. In ‘The Long Sky’, Grigoni and Seaman explore how elements of movement and dialogical exchange might be carried over from the space of an improvised music/dance performance to the arena of collaborative musical composition. Over the 2021–22 academic year, Grigoni participated in many such improvised dance performances in the context of Michael Kliën’s Lab for Social Choreography, providing music for choreographic situations involving both professional and non-professional dancers. He found that, within these performances, a feeling of openness, exploration, and experimentation naturally emerged between the musicians and dancers. ‘The Long Sky’ explores how these qualities, preserved and made accessible in the form of samples, might inform and structure a collaborative composition that centres dialogical exchange—a call and response between piano and lap steel guitar. Lap steel guitar and samples by Michael Grigoni. Piano, sample construction and abstraction, and additional samples by Bill Seaman. Initial mixing and production by Bill Seaman with final mixing by Michael Grigoni. Recorded and mixed in the homes of Michael Grigoni and Bill Seaman in Durham, North Carolina in 2022. The performance from which Grigoni’s lap steel guitar samples were derived was recorded by Christopher Scully-Thurston in The von der Heyden Studio Theater, Rubenstein Arts Center, Duke University, April 8, 2022. Seaman’s piano samples were recorded by Rick Nelson in Bone Hall, Duke University, May 3, 2022. Mastering by Taylor Deupree at 12k. michaelgrigoni.com billseaman.com released November 20, 2022
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Jeremiah Chiu - Leaving Grass Mountain (19:00) 24Bit The combination of modular synthesiser and viola is an uncommon one, but Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer manage to create a distinctive dyad that comes together with grace and truth. They’ve accomplished this by bringing much more than their respective axes to the table. Years of collaboration, co-habitation, shared experience, and separate but equally inspired commitments to utilitarian cultural work bind the disparate timbres together into a singular aesthetic reality. The two artists met, appropriately, as members of a large ensemble performing Terry Riley’s ‘In C’ for an annual concert organised by Bitchin Bajas at Chicago modern music hub Constellation. Honer & Chiu had been living and working in Chicago for a long time, both active members of the notoriously interconnected improvisational and experimental music scenes, but they were somehow not previously introduced. Chiu’s musical CV to that point included work with bands like Icy Demons and Chandeliers, but he was mostly known for his visual and graphic design work as Some All None. Honer had primarily worked as an instructor in Chicago, as well as a member of the ensemble Quartet Datura. In 2014, a year after their first collaboration, together, they decided to migrate to Los Angeles to continue developing their respective careers and crafts in sunnier climes. Relocation to L os Angeles has proven to be fruitful for both artists. Honer has since become a first-call session player for the likes of Adrian Younge and Beyoncé. She’s also played on recordings by Chloe x Halle, Angel Olsen, Fleet Foxes, and Stanley Clarke, among others, including five recordings with Grammy nominations. Along with her session work, Honer is on the music faculty at California State University. Chiu has expanded his visual work in numerous capacities, in addition to becoming an active intersectional community organiser, and refocusing his musical practice to electronic music composition and sound art. He’s an Assistant Professor at Otis College of Art & Design; has exhibited/performed at The Getty Center, LACMA, and other distinguished locales; has become a resident programmer for Dublab; and has generated a strong unit of regular musical collaborators that includes Celia Hollander, Booker Stardrum, Ben Babbitt, Dustin Wong, Takako Minekawa, and Sam Prekop. Artist notes: ‘Leaving Grass Mountain’ is the first piece we collaboratively composed following several months of live performances. The composition pulls from several in-studio improvisations that were recorded and developed further. The title refers to the Yangmingshan National Park in Taiwan which was originally called Grass Mountain. As the story goes: officials during this period were worried about thieves stealing sulfur from the rich deposits in the area, so they would regularly set fire to the mountain. Thus, only grass and no trees could be seen. In many ways, the notion of leaving something as is, versus trying to control something, frames our approach to composing music from improvised parts. There’s a balance between improvisation and composition – a sort of automatic composition – that we are interested in exploring. It should sound human, even if we're working with electronic instruments. Listening is this wonderful practice of focus, attention, and time. For me, longform or extended sonic works allow my attention to experience time in different ways – new temporal experiences – which are, of course, a spectrum of experiences. If we could experience a plant growing in human-time, it would certainly change things. Jeremiah Chiu released February 15, 2023
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Matt Valentine - Omni Love (Environments) (24:00) 24Bit I’ve been making a lot of noise/space since being born. Back in 1999 I established The Child of Microtones Terran Library of Exploratory Music with my inspiring partner Erika Elder. It’s more about a small footprint than it is about microtones, although it is about those too. The name of the label was inspired by Joseph Jarman and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. It’s also about freedom, the ability to make a choice. That’s what free folk is. Artist notes: I love nature in all things, this is the main inspiration for my music and art… being my sonic dharma. I try to harness what is around me and channel it – the environments have a huge impact on what I create. Living deep in the Vermont forest helps me see/hear the intervals better and I react. I am grateful for my family and the sound/vision of Alan Wilson, Michael Flower and Takehisa Kosugi. Endless thanks to open minded listeners and supporters everywhere. ∞ The ‘dov_electronics bantar’ is my modified 1940s kay banjo. The instrument came to me in a junk store deep in the Blue Ridge mountains at the beginning of the 21st century. I heard it before I saw it. Erika comes from that geographic region – we were visiting her family. It sounded like an east/west banjo when I got it (maybe more Bengal/gujarat). I remember Erika’s dad asking if I could play something “normal” on it. I loved how it could play microtones cleanly and projected well. It still had the original animal skin. My good friend Barry Weisblat (dov_electronics) has helped me for many years and has built/gifted me many sonic things. He created the bridge for it, which is also the pickup to amplify the instrument. This creation is what produces the jawari (the buzzing strings) which gives it such a rich sounding raga tone. I play longform music every day. Even when I don’t pickup an instrument I’m playing. I like to get involved in it, that’s my thing… often I can cycle around whatever it is for a long time. When I’m doing that I might find a micro nug to be part of something or I might wanna just linger on, stravaig. I’ve been wandering with music for a long time but really not very long at all. I feel best when I’m within it. Matt "MV" Valentine: dov_electronics bantar, tambura, swarmandal, swarsangam, prophet 600, mini moog, mridangam, electronic tabla, tabla programming, COMpact effectors. released February 14, 2023
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Valentina Magaletti - Different Rooms (20:44) 24Bit Valentina Magaletti is a drummer and percussionist who has spent most of her life making music. She is well known for telling stories through her inventive drumming approach. She lives in London, UK. Artist notes: Different Rooms is a piece about searching for inner peace, walking along a corridor of sound and opening countless doors. Curiosity and humour prevail and take us to undiscovered dimensions. It was written and edited after a long recording session in Valentina’s home studio, trying to redefine her sonic approach to collage art, layering field recordings, cheap keyboards, beatboxing and processed distant free jazz drumming. Will the ear ever settle for a specific landscape? Cheap thrills, irregular beat and seasonal drones generate tension and release. Behind every door lies a chance to find a new completion. Mastered by Marta Salogni. released February 13, 2023
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Steve Gunn - Looming Change / Building Fabric (40:32) 24Bit Steve Gunn is a New York-based guitarist and songwriter. With a career spanning nearly fifteen years, Gunn has produced volumes of critically acclaimed solo, duo, and ensemble recordings. His albums represent milestones of contemporary guitar-driven material, and forward thinking songwriting. Gunn has steadily processed his inspirations into a singular, virtuosic stream. Close listening reveals the influence of blues, folk, ecstatic free jazz, and psych in his continually unfolding output. amby downs is the musical pseudonym of interdisciplinary artist Tahlia Palmer, whose work explores; history, identity, connection to Country through layers of distorted noise, cavernous reverberations, abstracted and found images, and field recordings. Artist notes: I was thrilled to be asked to create this piece for this series because I worked for Sol Lewitt as an assistant years ago, and was lucky enough to spend some time with him in the later years of his life. He was an incredibly gracious soul, and his philosophies about art, music, and life in general were encouraging to my young mind. It was also incredibly inspiring to learn about his great affinity of Anmatyerr Artists Emily Kame Kngwarreye and Gloria Tamerre Petyarre, and to see their direct influence on his work. Making this piece with Tahlia (amby downs) for the Art Gallery of New South Wales was a full circle experience for me as an artist, as I have always kept my experience working for Sol dear to me. Creating this music made me think about Sol’s process all over again, and how I could incorporate some of his layering process ideas into what I was doing musically. I think Sol would have appreciated this attempt, as he was a lover of all kinds of music, and I think it informed what he did. While working on this piece I kept in mind ideas of layering, and tried to loom tracks together as Tahlia sent me field recordings of her environment. Sol would weave lines and waves or colour together in a lot of his work, and I weaved tones and textures together in a way that could somehow accompany the visual elements of the pieces in the gallery. I thought a lot about vibration during this work, and it was lovely to see how his ‘Loopy Doopy’ piece and Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s work at the Art Gallery of New South Wales resonated throughout the museum. To fill the room of the gallery with sound to accompany the experience of this work was truly an honour. I consider this piece to be a meditation of sorts. Tones build for a while in the beginning, and a dialogue starts when Tahlia's recordings come in. Throughout the 40 plus minutes, the piece arcs towards the end and fades out – hopefully conjuring up some thoughts or visualisations for the listener. Some good headphones are preferred. Steve Gunn released February 12, 2023
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. More Eaze - Eternity (43:08) 24Bit More Eaze is the project of composer/multi-instrumentalist Mari Maurice. Her work touches upon myriad genres and often explores themes of gender, intimacy, identity, perception, and the mundane. Resident Advisor categorises Maurice’s work as “accomplished ambient pop” and The Quietus has said that her work “unearths a raw poignancy in what can often be a coldly academic field”. Her music has been widely released on a number of international labels including Orange Milk, Mondoj Astral Spirits, Phinery, and Lillerne Tapes among others. As a performer, Maurice regularly collaborates with artists such as claire rousay, Nick Zanca, Amulets, Seth Graham, Dntel, Christina Carter, and more. She also has contributed mixes for a number of radio stations and podcasts including NTS, Dublab, Noods, KXLU, and HOC. Artist notes: I often think about how to say the same thing a different way. How do I communicate that I love someone or something beyond just saying those words? How does that message transcend language and speech? I’ve also been thinking a lot about how those words change and morph over time and in different contexts. I say “I love you” to my dogs. I say “I love you” to my partner of a year. I say “I love you” to my best friend. And i still say “I love you” to a former partner I was with for more than a decade. It’s the same words and the weight feels real and palpable but the way time and interlocking personal histories have transfigured that sentiment make it mean something different in each context. For me, that’s what ‘Eternity’ is about. There is a motif and a theme that is constant but how it is contextualised and framed is changing constantly. I am constantly looking for immersive listening experiences that start in one place and end somewhere else totally new whether that be through a subtle shift or something more jarring. Deep listening allows us to experience sounds on a level that we wouldn’t fully perceive otherwise and can turn even the smallest of gestures into an emotional experience. Mastered by Simon Scott at SPS Mastering. released April 12, 2023
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Rich Ruth - Settling In (21:18) 24Bit Rich Ruth – a.k.a. veteran Nashville-based musician Michael Ruth – took a break from touring with various bands in 2018 and dedicated himself to composing ambient music in his small home studio, focusing on the diverse traditions of ambient, new age, spiritual jazz, Kosmiche, and minimalist music. His ideas became fully realised with the inclusion of additional players, pairing his repetitive, droning synthesiser movements with spur-of-the-moment improvisation to transform the material into something much more lush and unpredictable. One summer morning, Ruth was held up at gunpoint and carjacked by two people outside of his home. His music allowed him to work through this personal struggle, infusing his 2019 debut album, ‘Calming Signals’, with striking layers of angst and emotion. ‘Where There’s Life’ followed in 2021, a collection of meditative pieces written in the early months of the pandemic manifesting the collective sense of uncertainty and solitude of the time. Artist notes: This piece represents a really nice moment in my life from 2022. I had just returned to the US from a six-week European tour playing solo and was touring in the states for weeks prior to that. I hadn't been home or in my studio in a few months and had a lot to process emotionally and creatively. I had known about the longfrom prompt prior to leaving so I was eagerly anticipating working on it when I returned. For about a week I would spend hours every day recording 30 to 60 minutes of music, letting it flow out of me in a very natural state. Some of the pieces morphed into new ideas for my next record, others were drawn out ambient drones. This particular set of sequences that dictates much of the piece felt unique and inspired. As I crafted some movement in and out of it, I was fortunate to work with a handful of regular collaborators. Spencer Cullum played pedal steel through reverse delays. Caleb Hickman improvised a lot of tenor saxophone over the whole thing while creating modulated sax drones through pedals that are intermittent through much of the music. James Green played flugelhorn over the back half while much of the twenty-or-so minutes were weaved together with various synths, loops, and noise. I wanted to pull from a lot of influences and veer away from a fully ambient set. Like much of my work I wanted to build tension and release, combining tranquility alongside sonic chaos. I am listening to music throughout most of my waking (and much of my sleeping) hours. Throughout most of my life though, I have always valued sitting with music in a concentrated setting – be it through headphones or a nice set of speakers. The world has become so fast paced and distracting that I think now more than ever is the era to set aside and immerse yourself in extended listening. Whether or not music is challenging doesn't really matter to me – that all depends on my state of mind. I just think as an artist and listener it is extremely important to set time aside and just listen to music. Mastered by Simon Scott at SPS Masteirng. released April 11, 2023
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Maria Moles - A Spark, A Reminder (24:22) 24Bit Maria is an Australian drummer and composer based in Naarm/Melbourne. Her solo percussion performances draw on ideas from the Kulintang music of the Philippines and contemporary electronic production to weave hypnotic webs from layers of unmetered pulse that slowly undergo subtle textural transformations. In collaborative contexts ranging from free improvisation, jazz and contemporary composition to experimental pop, Maria contributes an acute sense of touch, placement and timbre, unashamed virtuosity and a powerful rhythmic drive. She has performed and collaborated with some of Australia’s most renowned artists, including The Australian Art Orchestra, Anthony Pateras, Jim Denley, Amos Roach, Lucas Abela, Krakatau, Andrea Keller, Dave Brown, Jenny Barnes, Carolyn Connors, Scott Tinkler, James Rushford, Ernie Althoff, Stephanie Lake, Robin Fox, Tenzin Choegyal, and The Splinter Orchestra. Maria’s debut EP ‘Mondo Flockard’ was released in 2016 through Perth label Tonelist, and was listed on Avant Music News under Best Albums of the Year. In 2017, she composed and performed a percussion and electronics score for Ben Christensen’s 1922 film ‘Haxan’ at Dark Mofo festival in Hobart, Tasmania. Performing on solo drums, Maria has opened for Claire Rousay, MY DISCO, Clever Austin (Hiatus Kaiyote), Chris Corsano (Bjork, Thurston Moore, Evan Parker), Oren Ambarchi, and Alex Zhang Hungtai (Dirty Beaches). Her solo LP ‘Opening’ was released through Nice Music in January 2019. Maria was a recipient of the Art Music Fund in 2020 and released her second album ‘For Leolanda’ via Room40 in 2022. Artist notes: When beginning this piece, I wanted to create something percussively driven whilst being drone-based and meditative. The piece underwent many transformations to become what it is now. One percussive idea sparked a melodic idea, which then sparked another percussive idea, and so on. It made me think of how things are always in a state of constant flux and suspension, though they may appear stagnant. I am often drawn to music that has this feeling about it. The piece naturally split into three sections: a long drone, building to a frenetic percussive climax, a gentle improvisation between the toms and the snare drum, and a slow, relaxed groove supporting a verbed-out sparse melody. Mostly, my intention behind this piece was to explore what I love about music that leans towards minimalism; restraint, texture, hypnotic rhythm, and beauty. Whether or not I achieved that is, for me, beside the point, as what emerged during the process became something that I feel represents my musical voice well. We have constant distractions and limited attention spans with new technologies designed to send our brains into overload by feeding us vast amounts of information in short bursts. Extended deep listening gives us a chance to escape that and reminds us to be receptive to sounds happening around us. Composed by Maria Moles Maria Moles: Drum kit, percussion, synthesizer Tim Harvey: bass Drum kit recorded by Tim Harvey Mixed by Maria Moles Mastered by Simon Scott at SPS Mastering. released April 10, 2023
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Tracklist:01. Patrick Shiroishi & Daniel Wyche - The Oldest House In The World (21:49) 24Bit Patrick Shiroishi is a Japanese-American multi-instrumentalist and composer based in Los Angeles. Daniel Wyche is a Chicago-based guitarist, composer, and improviser. Working with a wide range of physical preparations, extended techniques, and pedal instruments, his solo recordings and live performances are characterised by long-form structured improvisations and multichannel guitar. He has been a curator with the Elastic Arts Foundation in Chicago since 2013, where is work has been described as “crucial” by Dusted and “vital” by the Chicago Reader. In March of 2020, Daniel co-founded The Quarantine Concerts in collaboration with Chicago’s Experimental Sound Studio. The series has been widely praised as a model for online/streaming live music. Along with his solo guitar work, Daniel is involved in several ongoing collaborations, most notably the trio of Wyche, Mark Shippy (US Maple), and Ben Baker Billington. His new solo record, ‘Earthwork’, was released on American Dreams Records in 2021. Artist notes: This music is the second set of recordings Patrick and I have ever done, and it is not a coincidence that this is also the second time we've ever hung out in person. I encountered Patrick’s music through the web of mutual friends and connections, but I think it was primarily through Gabriel Vanlandingham-Dunn that I was inspired to really take a deep and focused listen around 2018. In 2019, I was taking a trip to LA to visit my sister and Patrick and I got in touch and made plans to do some recording as a trio with the percussionist Ted Byrnes. That session had a kind of energy of the time: it was loud, hard, intense, noisey, and chaotic. It was how we were feeling then, that day at least, and with the first note everything was just pure communication. In the time since then, we've collaborated remotely, mostly through the Quarantine Concerts, a series I helped found in March 2020. But with a few years between us, everything is a bit different, everyone in a new headspace and both of us were thinking to try something different. This time, it felt intuitively right to approach this next session with gentleness, patience, care, and maybe even a sort of kindness. So in October 2022, we did what we did the last time we met: made music. And as I said, the intuitions were, for me anyway, just the same, even as the content was different. There was a quiet care right there from the first sounds, and it all just waded into this wash, and here we are. For my part, I try to make the kind of music that I listen to. That means a lot of things, but I spend a large amount of time every day reading and writing, but also just sitting and listening. In all those cases though, even while working, I listen to music that to me makes sense as something that is there, that accompanies my day and what I'm doing, and which cultivates a kind of overall focus, though not in some kind of overly grim way. This is the case even more so with the kind of directed listening I hope that music like this also facilitates. I think we are all indebted to Oliveros and Cage and Ellen Fullman and the many, many others that collectively and individually cultivated and created the conditions and thinking that goes alongside this kind of deep and dedicated listening. I have been very interested in the Wandelweiser Group for years, and as I live in Chicago, I am blessed with the many, many New Music ensembles based here, and have been able to see many performances by and of composers like Jurg Frey, or people like Michael Pisaro. My friend Sarah Hennies is probably my favorite living composer, and she brings all of this into another level: I recall the debut of ‘The Reinvention of Romance’ and I am still holding my breath. But I think at the same time that these examples are both important but misleading. This piece with Patrick is certainly inspired by this general movement of gentleness, of music that asks for your attention, that you can't talk over or you’ll miss a string squeak or the click of a key on the horn, music that feels like you're breathing out. But I think this is also true of the loud, blistering music that Patrick and I made before. So, while they are sonically different, they are spiritually commensurate: this music, however loud and whatever the landscape, will, I hope, call attention to the small details, and invite re-listening and re-hearing in the moments when it is time for listening. We are thankful for the quiet, but we, after all, care a great deal for sound. – Daniel Wyche Mastered by Simon Scoitt at SPS Mastering. released April 9, 2023
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Аудиокодек: FLAC (*.flac)Тип рипа: tracks Продолжительность: 22:07 Наличие сканов в содержимом раздачи: cover Tracklist: 01. Cole Pulice - If I Don’t See You In The Future, I’ll See You In The Pasture (22:07) 24Bit Cole Pulice (they/them) is a saxophonist, composer, and improviser living in Oakland, California via Minneapolis, Minnesota. Drawn to the intersection of improvisation, modern composition, and electroacoustic experimentalism, Cole combines their saxophone playing with live signal processing to explore sonic spaces both surreal and delicately beautiful. Their work explores dynamic scales of time and place; senses of self, gender and identity; ephemerality, dream and memory. Cole has released music on Moon Glyph, Orange Milk, Cached Media, and Aural Canyon. Artist notes: If I Don’t See You in the Future, I’ll See You in the Pasture is influenced by the ephemerality of time with those I hold dearly, processing love and the grief of loss, and the interconnected Eternal Now of memories across the past, present, and future. I wrote this piece amidst a transitional moment where some important chapters in my life were coming to a close just as new chapters were beginning to open, and I really wanted the landscape of the music to be imbued with the duality of that experience. In other words: holding the grief of letting go with the hopeful emotions of embracing new horizons, and the sort of cosmic intertwining of all of life’s possible unfoldings, regardless of how things feel like they’re shaking out on a small day-to-day scale. The seed for this piece appeared to me during an improvised solo set I played at the January 2023 Drone Not Drones festival in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Immediately after the set was over, I could already sense the totality of the final piece hidden somewhere within what I had just played, so I was very excited to get back to the Bay and start uncovering it. I knew I really wanted to preserve the energy and aura of the live solo performances in the recorded studio version. My recorded work tends to represent more crafted and distilled versions of ideas I find while improvising live or in the studio, but the nature of this being for Longform Editions felt like the perfect moment to try and capture the breadth, pace, sonic landscape of what I try to do when I play solo electroacoustic saxophone live. To that end: the only instrument I used for the piece was tenor saxophone with live hardware signal processing (in other words, there’s no post-production signal processing happening, everything you hear is happening live). This piece unfolded in the studio really intuitively: I only recorded two complete takes of this piece, and while there is some light editing in a couple spots between takes, what you hear is effectively one live take that is played, performed, and processed live and in the moment (I control the saxophone with the hands and mouth and the signal processing with my feet). I think with my recorded music it’s easy to think that there’s lots of overdubbing and layering…while I have a couple pieces where that is true, largely all my signal processing saxophone music is done completely live in single takes with minimal post-production, and I really wanted this piece to capture that! Lastly: If I Don’t See You in the Future, I’ll See You in the Pasture’feels like a capstone to some creative threads and a certain sonic palette that I’ve felt deeply intertwined with the last few years (both technically and aesthetically). This piece feels like the most complete and direct manifestation of something I feel like I have just been capturing glimpses of some of my other recent work. Deep and deliberate practices of listening can be both incredibly personal and communal experiences that are portals into alternate planes. It can change your perception of time and space, your sense of self, the way you feel and process emotions, how your interior world interfaces with your exterior surroundings…listening rituals are forms of magic. I used to feel this figuratively, but increasingly I find myself thinking this more literally, as in: literally a form of spellcasting. I’ve frequently heard music making and listening practices spoken about in ways that are mutually exclusive (for instance: when asking people if they make music I’ve often been met with responses like “Not really, I’m more of a listener/appreciator.”)…but it seems to me that the relationship between musical listening and creating is deeply interrelated, even symbiotic – they necessitate each other. In other words: listening can be a form of composition, and composition a form of listening. Mastered by Simon Scott at SPS Mastering. released June 14, 2023
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Аудиокодек: FLAC (*.flac)Тип рипа: tracks Продолжительность: 20:02 Наличие сканов в содержимом раздачи: cover Tracklist: 01. Melanie Velarde - Alley Soup (20:02) 24Bit “Sound is the colour of a moment.” – Melanie Velarde Mastered by Simon Scott at SPS Mastering. released June 13, 2023
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Аудиокодек: FLAC (*.flac)Тип рипа: tracks Продолжительность: 36:27 Наличие сканов в содержимом раздачи: cover Tracklist: 01. Jana Irmert - Time Piece (36:27) 24Bit Jana Irmert is a German sound artist and composer whose work ranges from live performance to multichannel composition and film soundtracks. While aspects of temporality, impermanence and the ecological crisis permeate her work, she creates atmospheric audiovisual and sonic spaces ‘that work with dis/harmony in such a way as to mirror our imperfect world at the moment.’ (Toneshift) She received the German Documentary Film Music Award in 2019 and has been nominated for an Icelandic Edda Award for her sound design on Jóhann Jóhannsson’s film ‘Last and First Men’ in 2021. Her releases have appeared on Fabrique Records and Important Records. Artist notes: Perched on volcanic rock that pushes out of the sea, I listen below the water's surface. It's the reef talking to me – shrimp and fish clicking, crackling and grunting in an amazing intense cacophony. My ears extend like tendrils down into the moving water through the hydrophones. I sit and listen while the sun goes down. I knew then I wanted to make a piece from these recordings. I started working with the reef sounds, but somehow the composition didn't develop. A few months later I was in Stockholm for a residency at the Elektronmusikstudion, and there I could play with these fantastic big old modular synths, the Serge and Buchla 200 systems. Looking for ways to create sounds that appealed to me, I ended up with layers of noise that oscillated on different frequencies. And there it was – this feeling of vastness and infinity, of waves and currents surrounding me. To a 90-minute session in which I had recorded layers and layers of these waves and oscillations, I then added tonal parts with a Halldorophone, a cello-like string instrument that generates and lets you control feedback as the sound source. Throughout the composition, pulses of different measures and seemingly uncorrelated rhythmic patterns appear, which I treated less as musical elements and more as movements in space – floating things, each with their own drift velocity beyond my control. There is a certain perception of entropy when you are inside a system, unable to zoom out enough to see the bigger structure. A few months before I made the recordings of the coral reef on the Canary islands, I completed my diving certificate, something I had dreamed of doing since childhood. Diving is one of these things where you are not only confronted with the elements, but you kind of are becoming the element yourself. You need to think how the ocean thinks, to consider the currents, the depth, the drift, the animals, all of that. Experiencing the vastness of the ocean from within the ocean is just so incredibly beautiful. After all, we are creatures of the ocean, descendents of animals that crawled on land and adapted to live on dry land. And still we are suspended in water in order to be born. Our bodies are made of 74% of water in the first months of life. The ocean covers 72% of Earth’s surface. And of course, as soon as you start looking at the ocean and listening to the ocean, you come across the devastating destruction that takes place. There are dead zones, aquatic deserts of bleached coral reefs, and underwater wastelands. Still, beauty and peacefulness exist in this fragility, and I tried to invite them into my work, probably because I needed that myself. The recordings of the coral reef became islands of sound that appear and disappear throughout the piece. And in hindsight, that really makes sense to me – these reefs are islands of rock, of land in the water, surrounded and washed over by the sea. And then the currents carry us elsewhere. Mastered by Simon Scott at SPS Mastering. released June 12, 2023
foobar2000 1.2.5 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1  Аудиокодек: FLAC (*.flac)Тип рипа: tracks Продолжительность: 31:46 Наличие сканов в содержимом раздачи: cover Tracklist: 01. Ayami Suzuki - Strands (31:46) 24Bit Ayami Suzuki is a Tokyo-based musician, artist and improviser. Her practice revolves around creating site-specific ambient soundscapes that incorporate her folk influences in a synthesis of songwriting and improvisation. Since returning to Tokyo in 2019 after several years of studies in Ireland and the UK, she has become an active performer, collaborator and solo artist. Her recent releases for Lontano Series, Healing Sound Propagandist, Ftarri and Cosima Pitz showcase her singular approach to vocal ambient music, often fusing her ethereal vocals with environmental sounds in a way that feels formless, immersive and expansive all at once. Artist notes: This piece is a live recording of a performance at the event Silent Shadow Vol. 7, which took place on 22 October 2022 at the venue Nanahari in Tokyo. Using my voice as the primary instrument, I navigated through various effects and equipment, transforming into different beings, elements and phenomena. Detached from my body by loops, they wandered autonomously through the space, forming their own ecosystem. I tried to circulate them and sometimes to touch their stories. Maybe it’s because I used to dance a lot when I was a teenager, but when I listen to music, I feel as if it resonates throughout my entire body. But after a while, when I become deeply immersed in the sound, I lose the awareness that I am listening to it. The boundaries between my senses become blurred and my body becomes like an afterimage of a flame flickering in the wind of sound in the darkness. Mastered by Simon Scott at SPS Mastering. released June 11, 2023
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