ambient
Album Review: Portico Quartet – ‘Monument’
I can still remember the kerfuffle Portico Quartet sparked off at Womad 2012…Where’s the hang drum? What’s this, loops? Is this dance music? For a crowd expecting the pastoral acoustic soundscapes of their first two records, the Mercury nominated ‘Knee Deep in the North Sea’ and follow up ‘Isla’, the sweeping electronica fused with upfront …
Album Review: JESSICA’s ‘With Reverie’ has a gorgeous ghostly presence filled with longing and loss.
With a delicate piano filigree dusting a series of gorgeously quiet and reflective songs, the new album from Sydney artist JESSICA has the elegance and enigma of an Eric Satie piece fronted by Dusty Springfield. ‘With Reverie’ is essentially a series of haunting vignettes deliciously encapsulated into (mostly) three minute interludes, filled with emotion and …
Track: Leo Abrahams’ ‘Harm Organ’ refracts solo guitar through a hall of ‘tronica mirrors
LONDON-based guitarist, composer and sonic manipulator Leo Abrahams has shared another track of out-six string journeying from next month’s album for figureight, Scene Memory II. it’s called “Harm Organ”, it’s a real hall of mirrors, and you can listen to it below. An alumnus of Marylebone’s Royal Academy of Music, and besides being one half …
Premiere: New Zealand’s enigmatic Birds of Passage gives us an exclusive listen to new album ‘The Last Garden’ before its official release
We are very honoured to provide you with an exclusive listen to the new album from New Zealand’s mysterious Birds of Passage, ‘The Last Garden’, ahead of its release on Friday, 5 November 2021 through Denovali Records. Other than being the nom de plume of New Zealand based poet and songwriter Alicia Merz, there is …
Premiere: Wade Jackson releases the electronic dreamy fugue of ‘Sensationalized’
Wade Jackson is a multi talented songwriter, musician and film director whose new track ‘Sensationalized’, which we are proud to premiere today, is a mesmerising soundscape that bubbles and flows along with an electronic thrum. Wild synth sounds ebb and flow over the circular undercurrent, before launching into an exuberant flange half way through the …
Track: John Thayer explores percussive ambience and field recordings on the beautiful ‘Kites’
NEW YORK percussionist, audio engineer and all-round musical polymath John Thayer, fresh from two collaborative, cassette-only albums last year – Untangling The Ghost, on which he sparred with reeds player Stank Zenkov, and Mountain Rumors, in tandem with Craig Schenker – is not about to depart this grinding year of our lord 2021 without dropping …
Album Review: Land Trance & Aging produce utter cinematic-sonic immersion with ‘Embassy Nocturnes’
Very rarely does a record manage to capture a spectrum of cinematic detail in it’s profoundly illustrative composition, spinning yarns across it’s runtime like neighbouring scenes. However – with far greater ambition and grace than any crassly conceived concept album – the new collaborative project between Land Trance and Aging does just that, envisioning a …
Album Review : Twofish release the cinematic and transfixing album ‘At Least A Hundred Fingers’: a dynamic sonic landscape that defies genre.
The album ‘At Least A Hundred Fingers’ by duo Twofish is an epic, cinematic musical journey that ebbs and flows with intensity and dynamism. Difficult to slot into any genre, it has the vibrancy of Dead Can Dance with an infusion of world instrumentation – many synthetic, some organic – and a syncopated thrum throughout …
News: Simon Heartfield to release new album, Brief Unity of Time
“This is an album I’ve wanted to make for some time” says multi-talented producer, performer, DJ, and one half of techno duo Total State Machine, Simon Heartfield. It draws on his influences and experiences from post-punk, techno, ambient and modern classical. This must listen to 10 track album takes you on a thrilling, dark, enchanting journey with enriched …
Album Review: Sydney’s Fabels weaves a shimmering and exotic cloak of many colours in their brilliant and evocative new album ‘Minds’.
Deep in the heart of ‘Minds’, the new album from Sydney duo Fabels, is an exotic mysticism and ethereal glow, emanating from the mysterious vocals and the layered sonic landscapes. The result is something that is quite splendid: an electronic classicism that is borderless and transcendent. Fabels are Hiske Weijers, Ben Aylward (plus live, guest …