Free from fear

This blog inevitably shares the online bias towards shiny newness, but with the conflict in Yemen still killing & maiming children please find some cash for Dronarium & hibernate's exemplary Salaam for Yemen (released last December) if you haven't already...

A raft of artists from the LMYE pantheon contributed to this fine, genuinely charitable ("100% of profits raised from this album will be donated to War Child") compilation. Its 26 tracks include compelling work from Giulio Aldinucci, Anjou, Anthene, Phillipp Bückle, Ekoplekz, Hotel Neon, ISAN, Aaron Martin, Mind over MIDI, Moss Covered Technology, offthesky, øjeRum, Olan Mill & Pausal.

"to grow up free from fear & violence, to develop to their full potential & contribute to a peaceful future"

 

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Arse about face

Once more into the hair shirt, dear friends...

Having already named the four projects falling outside normal 'release' boundaries that complete our list, we press on somewhat arse about face to present LMYE's Festive 33-1/3 in full. 

Clunky though it clearly is, our approach remains the same: two sets of 2018 releases (15 each) that meant especially much to us over the year, selected independently with both sets limited to no more than one pick per artist/label. 

Once overlaps have been horse-traded into a final 30, the list is supplemented with our additional quartet.

In all of this, our goal is always to spread recognition as far as possible: over & above LMYE's desire to embrace - rather than limit  - the multiplicity of sounds & artists we love, this is an attempt to acknowledge & respond to year-end lists' inevitable partiality. 

It's never comfortable to reflect on how different ours might look on another day or in another mood, given every year's surfeit of compelling music..

Moreover, some labels' outstanding output forces unpalatable choices. Notable releases like Jana Winderen's Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone, Triac's Departure & M. Geddes Gengras's Light Pipe (all ineligible because of labelmate selections) are clearly still core parts of the year's best...

Note that a number of fine labels regrettably unrepresented here, such as ACR, Polar Seas & Schwebung, will feature in a follow-up piece on the year's key compilations.

As always, for a more inclusive picture of our listening please explore the monthly Lend Me Your Radio series on SoundCloud, al's Mixcloud & jl's Bandcamp (collection & wish list)...

ASC :: Trans-Neptunian Objects 2 (Auxiliary)

Monty Adkins :: Empire (LINE) 

William Basinski & Lawrence English :: Selva Oscura (Temporary Residence)

Tomasz Bednarczyk :: Illustrations For Those Who (Room40) 

Lea Bertucci :: Metal Aether (NNA)

Philipp Bückle :: Paintings (Moving Furniture)

Casino Versus Japan :: Suicide By Sun (self-release)

CMD094 :: Kagami Tears (No Problema) 

The Caretaker :: Everywhere at the end of time (self-release) 

Kate Carr :: the thing itself and not the myth (Glistening Examples)

Dominic Coppola :: Serenity Channel (Strange Rules) 

Sarah Davachi :: Let Night Come On Bells End The Day (Recital Program)

Etelin :: Hui Terra (Soda Gong)

Forest Management :: 21st Century Man (self-release)

Gray Acres :: Gray Acres (Sound In Silence)

Rafael Anton Irisarri :: El Ferrocarril Desvaneciente (Umor Rex) 

France Jobin & Richard Chartier :: DUO (mAtter)

Laura Luna Castillo :: Laminares (Genot Centre)

Mordançage :: Mordançage (Fluid Audio) 

øjeRum :: Selected Organ Works (Vaknar)

Orphax :: Summer's End (Low Point)

Jim O'Rourke :: Steamroom [#38-42] (self-release)

Pausal :: Volume Flow (Hibernate) 

Francis Plagne & Crys Cole :: Two Words (Black Truffle)

Poemme :: Moments in Golden Light (Constellation Tatsu)  

Positive Centre :: Forever Optimum (Horo)

r beny :: eistla (self-release) 

Mike Shiflet :: Tetracosa (self-release) 

Geneva Skeen :: A Parallel Array Of Horses (Room40) 

Tapes and Topographies :: Opiates (Simulacra) 

Ultrafog :: How Those Fires Burned That Are No Longer (Motion Ward)

Various :: All (Longform Editions)

Various :: Live at Human Resources (Touch) 

Ian Wellman :: Susan's Last Breath Became the Chill in the Air and the Fog Over the City's Night Sky (Dragon's Eye) 

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Bells At Boudha

Two exemplary, contrasting releases in support of Nepal: Hibernate's Dayalu / for Nepal & Aaron Dilloway's Sounds of Nepal Volumes 1 - 3. Beneficiaries are the British Red Cross & the America Nepal Medical Foundation, respectively. 

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Nature Boy

Beguiling Being in Nature via “Farewell, Brother” from latest Rural Colours release, Afar, Farewell. Who’s doing all this Germanic-sounding Being-in-Nature? It’s offthesky finding fellow-feeling with Man Watching The Stars, known to his Mum as Brendan Paxton. Bristle-based bros Fluid Radio enthuse ‘…these five tracks quiver with a tension that evokes the twilight moment between daylight and darkness, and thrum with a grandeur borrowed from mountains and canyons,’ clinching the deal with ‘…what is most special about “Afar, Farewell” is its ability to enact this kind of ‘being-there’, of being in Nature, even if this turns out to be a kind of mythologised and yearned-for Nature rather than anything concrete.’ 

"Farewell, Brother" by offthesky & Man Watching the Stars by Man Watching the Stars

Hibernate supremo, Jonathan Lees, up yon in Yorkshire, pronounces it ‘one of the most breathtakingly moving albums ever released’ on his junior label, Rural Colours. Hyperbole aside, Afar, Farewell’s five helpings of sustaining guitar string-melt with nice fuzz around the edges go down very nicely, notably failing LMYE’s Enovian ignorability test, resolutely refusing to fade into the background, various textures and timbres – chief among which MWtS’s ‘experimental violin’ - colluding with Jason Corder’s chords to keep ears not only well-lent, but royally tweaked and twirled. Get it here or there.

Offthesky & Man Watching The Stars: Rime Of The Bloodsands Pyre by Rural Colours



While we’re at it, consider that this is just the latest in a stream of offthesky - 20+ emissions over the last decade, incl. collabs with blokes like Radere, Darren McClure, and Billy Gomberg, to name but three. Recently there was Offthesky Vs Kinder Scout’s The Curio Collection on Home Normal with ‘Dusty neo-classical/ambient exhalations from Jason Corder (Offthesky) in trio with cellist Danny Norbury and Home Normal's intercontinental CEO, Ian Hawgood (Kinder Scout). … Across six tracks they paint a slow moving and faded soundscape glowing with the soft peal of bells, creaking strings and crackling location recordings which mingle and diffuse with tender subtlety, the focus given to a blurry mid-ground while a shifting patina of vocal glossolalia and drones lend a dreamy momentum to the whole thing.’ Out of stock, but still downloadable and cloud-streamable:

homen034 offthesky vs Kinder Scout 'The Curio Collection' (album preview) by Home Normal



Around a year ago we had T’Beautiful Nowhere (Northern version ;-)) on Hibernate, apparently inspired by the Appalachians (Wot? not the Pennines?), deemed by some scribe at foxydigitalis to ‘…carry a sense of place that is reminiscent of the work of Richard Skelton (but with only occasional strings).’ Seemingly the typically geetar-totin’ Mr Corder had ‘initially set himself a loose rule to use as many acoustic instruments as possible, whilst limiting the use of heavy electronic processing techniques. Instruments including guitar, harmonium, cello, toy piano, violin, kalimba, vibraphone and voice were recorded in a cabin near Carter Lake, Colorado in the peace of a beautiful, yet remote space. It was this secluded environment that encouraged and an existential state of mind and the resulting material gleaned of ideas relating to isolation and the surrounding rural landscape.’ Everyone knows this is nowhere…

offthesky - the beautiful nowhere (album preview) by experimedia

Cutely appraised, incidentally, by the nicely downhome wasistdas up in Hebden Bridge (home of Hibernate – serendipity or some relation?), whose previously handwritten reviews are now video-mediated here.



























And more recently dropping from offthesky came The Lowern Decay on Wist Rec, or digital, again featuring the delicate fizz and scrim of processing with more nature-loving guitar tones peeking through. Ooh.

offthesky - Lowern decay (fragment) by Wist Rec

Not to neglect the other half, MWtS has previous: Elements 1, a compilation from Mumbai-based collective, The Future Elements, and Qoheleth, a collection of live improvisation performed and recorded in September 2012 ‘meant to capture bare expression, live composition, and spiritual reflection through sound,’ available for free download.

The Fires of Spring Incarnadine by Man Watching the Stars

Qoheleth (Album Preview) by Man Watching the Stars

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Pink slime

A delve into Anthony Harrison's rich body of work as konntinent is long overdue here, though we did feature his epic, shape-shifting Havlíčkův Brod in Lend Me Your Shorts last year. As a quick & dirty down-payment on something more substantial, consider his Sold On You - the stand-out track from the new Audio Gourmet/Hibernate compilation Hidden Landscapes 2. 

Working with pretty familiar tropes (feedback shards, epic build, ethereal counterpoint...), konn constructs a divertingly lovely piece - persuasively accentuated with industrial clonk & echo, deeply satisfying in its 5-minute arc & somehow wholly self-contained. 

More (much!) at SoundCloud, last.fm & Spotify.

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Fifty-fifty balls

After Monday's first instalment, a further 50 exceptional artists/releases to complete LMYE's 2011 Festive 50 + 50. Not, of course, that our centurions' were the year's only worthwhile sounds - we're intensely conscious (particularly after relishing others' deeply-felt - & very different - lists, notably Anti-Gravity Bunny's, Gacougnal's, The Liminal's (& its contributors'), The Milk Factory's, Suborno's, Fluid Radio's & 5:4's) of how much more thrilling music 2011 had to offer & how partial even our expanded selection must inevitably be.


Still, as with our earlier batch, each of these artists/releases resonated greatly with one or both of us over the year. Some will with you too, hopefully...

Keith Berry - The Ear That Was Sold To a Fish (album preview)


Sublamp - Girl, Calling to an Empty House [via pdis_inpartmaint]


kreng - grimoire (album preview)

Further 50 (or so...)

3ofmillions :: Abstruction (Rufus) / a. d. l. r. :: Foam On The Waves Of Space-Time... (Non Projects) / Aquarelle :: A Shifting Visage (Low Point; split w/Alex Cobb)/Sung In Broken Symmetry (Students of Decay) / A Winged Victory for the Sullen :: A Winged Victory for the Sullen (kranky) / Keith Berry :: The Ear that was Sold to a Fish (Infraction) / John Chantler :: The Luminous Ground (Room40) / Chubby Wolf :: Turkey Decoy (Digitalis) / Cleared :: Cleared (Immune) / Dark Class :: Gendie/Music For A Destroyed Landscape (Heat Death) / Deep Magic :: Lucid Thought (Preservation) / / d_rradio :: Forecast (Heat Death) / Ensemble Economique :: Crossing the Pass, by Torchlight (Dekorder) / Erstlaub :: The Last Few Seconds Before Sleep/The First Few Seconds After Sleep (Broken20) / Keith Fullerton Whitman :: 101105 (Dekorder; split w/Alien Radio)/Regaining Composure, Negating Freedom (Ekhein) / Ellen Fullman :: Through Glass Planes (Important) / Steven Hess & Christopher McFall :: The Inescapable Fox (Under the Spire) / Ezekiel Honig :: Folding Live (self-released) / The Inventors of Aircraft :: The West Country (Rural Colours) / Ithaca Trio :: Quiet, Please (Coma Architects) / Jasper TX :: The Black Sun Transmissions (Fang Bomb) / Leyland Kirby :: Eager To Tear Apart The Stars/Intrigue & Stuff Vols 1-3 (History Always Favours the Winners) / Kenneth Kirschner :: Twenty Ten (12k) / Kreng - Grimoire (Miasmah) / Will Long :: Rosy Reflections (Avant Archive) / Loscil :: Coast/Range/Arc (Glacial Movements) / Machinist - Of What Once Was (Moving Furniture)

The Inventors of Aircraft - Calling Out My Goodnights


Dark Class - Music For A Destroyed Landscape


machinist - of what once was (album preview)

Marsen Jules :: Nostalgia (Oktaf) / Nickolas Mohanna :: Reflections (Preservation) / Moss :: Moss (12k) / Mountains :: Air Museum (Thrill Jockey) / Yann Novak :: Presence (Hibernate) / Oneohtrix Point Never :: Replica (Software/Mexican Summer) / Fabio Orsi :: Stand Before Me, Oh My Soul (Preservation)/The Theft of a Rose (Time Released Sound)/Wo Ist Behle? (Boring Machines) / Ous Mal :: Ous Mal Is Dead...Long Live Ous Mal (Preservation) /  Duane Pitre :: ED09 for string ensemble, live at The Stone (Basses Frequences) / Pleq & Spheruleus & Various :: A Silent Swaying Breath (Audio Gourmet) / Pollen Trio :: Peaks/Roll Slow (hellosQuare; also Austin Buckett (of PT) :: Stuttershine) / Raime :: Hennail (Blackest Ever Black) / Nicola Ratti :: 220 Tones (Die Schachtel) / Steve Roach :: Sounds From The Inbetween (Timeroom Editions) / Leonardo Rosado :: Opaque Glitter (Feedback Loop) / Sam Rosenthal :: The Passage (Projekt) / Ryuichi Sakamoto :: Flumina (w/Fennesz; Touch)/summvs (w/Alva Noto; Raster-Noton) / Pascal Savy :: Liminal (Feedback Loop)/Passing Light (Hibernate) / Martin Schulte :: Treasure (Lantern) / Sohrab :: Shouting At Dictators/You Are Not Alone/You Are Not Alone II (Touch) / Spartak :: Nippon (New Editions) / Sublamp :: In Our Hiding Voice (Hibernate) / Tape Loop Orchestra :: Maybe I Told A Small Lie (self-released) / Mark Templeton :: Scotch Heart (Sweat Lodge Guru) / VCV & Shinobu Nemoto :: Jovian Clouds (Install) / Vladislav Delay :: Vantaa (Raster-Noton)/Vladislav Delay Quartet (Honest Jon's) / Moritz von Oswald Quartet :: Horizontal Structures/Restructure 2 (Honest Jon's) / Christopher Willits :: Gold (self-released)

(al/jacl/joint)


Oh, & a log-rolling extra - albient :: PyschogeoGraphic Designs Vol. 1 / 2 (unreleased)...

Cloud Four - VCV & Shinobu Nemoto


Steven Hess / Christopher McFall - IV

alva noto + ryuichi sakamoto - summvs (album preview)

Photo above by Christopher Willits. Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.