Playlist 16.12.18 (8:07 pm)
Experimental music from round the world, mostly of a quiet bent tonight! Including an interview with Andrew Khedoori of Preservation, 2ser, CBAA about his Longform Editions project!
LISTEN AGAIN for beautiful music and great chats. Stream on demand from FBi, or podcast here.
crush crush - plymouth [Eastmint/crush crush Bandcamp]
crush crush - speak to me [Eastmint/crush crush Bandcamp]
This has actually been out since July and I should've gotten hold of it then, but for some reason missed out on it being released! crush crush is a duo made up of songwriter/composer/multi-instrumentalist Evelyn Ida Morris (who has released a solo, mostly piano, album and a soundtrack this year as well as this!) and contemporary clarinettist Aviva Endean (who has also released a solo album this year!) The music here finds Morris's as always beautiful songwriting backed mostly by Endean's gorgeous clarinet, bass clarinet and harmonic flute, with some keyboards & electronic treatments - pensive, often quite challenging, highly rewarding.
Juana Molina - Dedication, Consecration [Temporary Residence]
Stuart Hyatt - Formation 3, Revisited (Matmos Remix) [Temporary Residence]
Paul de Jong - All These Things Are Real [Temporary Residence]
Nick Zammuto - I Am Alive - Cities And Eyes [Temporary Residence]
Here are a few excerpts from a massive work - or collection of works - under the banner of Field Works, inspired by or derived from the field recordings and conceptions of Stuart Hyatt. There are full songs and post-classical compositions by musicians from around the world, along with compositions and performances of Hyatt himself, and many field recordings - whether it's recordings from deep space or within the planet, sounds of brooks and streams, or people themselves from the locations being featured. There's a huge number of really interesting artists involved - see Temporary Residence's page for the whole list. At 7 LP records plus pictures and lots of text, it's a lot to take in... Here Juana Molina contributes a lovely piece of her usual looping Argentinian song, here in service of a work looking at the collision of urban and rural in Lancaster County, PA. The magnificent Matmos remix a work by Hyatt himself, based around field recordings as he walked along a single street in Indianapolis... Meanwhile, although The Books broke up a while ago, both Paul de Jong and Nick Zammuto appear here, on separate tracks, both showing their skills at melody, arrangement and electronic production...
Ekin Fil - Windblow [Longform Editions/Bandcamp]
Interview with Andrew Khedoori from Longform Editions...
Steam Vent - * Swells [Longform Editions/Swells]
Andrew Khedoori has had a hand in bringing a considerable amount of music to the world through his Sydney-based Preservation label for years, as well as making radio and for many years being music manager at longtime Sydney community radio station 2ser. He's someone who explores the deeper limits of the music world, unearthing many wonderful artists active in cassette and net labels in all parts of the world - and that's something he brings to his curation of his new project, Longform Editions. The project is aimed at being a hub for people to find music that escapes the bounds of the short-attention-span culture - every 2 months they will release 4 tracks from 20 to 60 minutes (or potentially longer) that encourage deep listening - although there's not prescriptivism here, and if you want background music to accompany a walk or studies, that's fine too! There have already been some well-known names like Richard Youngs and Matthewdavid and there are many more coming. From the latest batch tonight we heard wonderful Turkish artist Ekin Fil, who creates quiet, ambient songs. And we heard the entire, incredible "* Swells" from Sydney artist Del Lumanta, here under the name Steam Vent - a deep work that combines digital/synthetic guitar sounds with absorbing field recordings. I love this piece. Lumanta's a prolific artist under various pseudonyms, and also currently facilitates All Girl Electronic (AGE), a free electronic music production workshop program for young women, trans and non-binary youth from Western Sydney at Information and Cultural Exchange, Parramatta.
Śruti - Skein [eilean Records/Bandcamp]
Ljerke - Marwylgen [eilean Records/Bandcamp]
Aries Mond - Ld 32 [eilean Records/Bandcamp]
Benjamin Finger - Voices Beyond Eyelids [eilean Records/Bandcamp]
At the end of every year, French ambient/experimental label eilean Records releases a compilation featuring all the artists they've released that year - and every year I hear a bunch of great tracks and kick myself for not picking up the limited edition CDRs when they came out. So tonight's selections are all along those lines - wonderful new discoveries. Śruti is a duo of Egyptian experimental musicians, Mohammed Ashraf aka SikSik and Omar El Abd aka Omrr, contributing a lovely piece of electro-acoustic sound-art. Ljerke finds Kleefstra brothers Romke (guitar) and Jan (spoken word) with various musicians including, notably on this track, the thudding, ricocheting, scratching sounds of Michael Francis Duch's double bass, and the trumpet of Hilde Marie Holsen. French artist Aries Mond is of the muted piano persuasion, but with lovely tactile sounds around the edges... and versatile Norwegian sound creator Benjamin Finger brings us some wheezing accordion and other sound.
Benjamin Finger - Gravity's Jest (excerpt) [Forwind/Bandcamp]
Benjamin Finger - Melanphony Waltz [Flaming Pines/Bandcamp]
The aforementioned Frank Benjamin Finger is entirely unwilling to pinned down by genre. I wish I'd had time to feature more of his music. As well as the record for eilean this year, he also released an LP on the excellent Forwind, with two long tracks and two short ones. Longform deep listening notwithstanding, I only played a short excerpt tonight of the track "Gravity's Jest", all string drones but developing into all sorts of other territory - I strongly recommend immersing yourself in the whole 18 minute track and then the rest of this album. Meanwhile I somehow totally missed the lovely album on Flaming Pines from last year called For Those About To Love, a psychedelic journey skipping from minimalist electronics to strummed acoustic guitar, strings, voices, and processed sound.
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