Horn of Plenty

 

As a further part of broadening the recognitions in LMYE's Festive Twenty for 2020 (list / compilations / alt list [to follow]), here are 10 'projects' that went beyond the bounds of a single release - sometimes far beyond, either by sheer weight of output or - in a couple of cases - being part of a larger work in several media...

The self-description of one entry - :zoviet*france:'s long-running, unceasingly exploratory A Duck in a Tree mix series on Resonance FM - more or less encapsulates them all, happily: "genre-refusing, zero BPM, hypnatropic & maximinimalist recordings that have grabbed their attention".

Note that both Broken20's 'proper ambient' Slow Notes series & Front & Follow's inspired Isolation & Rejection benefit deeply worthwhile charities. 

Equally, Touch: Isolation - whose sprawling brilliance parcelled out across the lockdown spring was on a scale only matched by Boomkat's Documenting Sound (though without an Akira Rabelais mega-mix as the completist's reward...) - sought to support artists through the pandemic. 

Like other Bandcamp subscriptions, Scanner's Fan Club served this role for an individual artist - providing an insightful stream of often compelling exclusives from installations & other unreleased output. 

Sprawling brilliance also describes the continuing unfurling of A Year In The Country's 'year-long explorations of an otherly pastoralism, the undercurrents & flipside of bucolic dreams' - now entering their seventh year...

Longform Editions has featured in this slot before, but no matter: 2020's editions (including members of the LMYE pantheon like Celer, Robert Curgenven, Taylor Deupree, Chihei Hatakeyama & Strategy, as well as a host of welcome discoveries) were some of the strongest yet from this exceptional initiative. 

Unexplained Sounds Group's amazing geographic anthologies follow Electroacoustic Lebanese Music forming part of LMYE's unpublished selection of 2019, for what that's worth...

Finally, Le Berger's 'faint, warped, imperfect' pale blue dots: 

"The prism by which we should measure progress is the way we treat one another; locally, globally. Also the way we treat & share our habitat."

 The list:

12/13/14/15/16/17 (Longform Editions)

Anthology Of Post Industrial Music From Balkan Region / Persian Experimental Music Vol. II / Experimental Music From Mexico (Unexplained Sounds Group)

dat pale blue dot tho I/II/III/IV/V - Le Berger (self-release)

Documenting Sound (Boomkat) 

A Duck in a Tree (:zoviet*france: / Resonance FM)

Isolation & Rejection series (Front & Follow)

Scanner Fan Club (self-release)

Slow Notes series (Broken20)

Touch: Isolation (Touch)

Year 6 (A Year In The Country)

 

Touch: Isolation showreel

Top photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech. Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Thirty-three & a third

You may know the drill by now: in a sincere though inevitably clunkily artificial attempt to spread recognition as widely as possible without devaluing it too much, LMYE’s co-authors each independently pick 15 releases that particularly mattered to them during the year – but under two faintly hair-shirted constraints: no more than one selection per artist & one per label. 

Duplication across our 2014 line-ups was very limited. Only Lawrence English’s Wilderness of Mirrors (a highlight of another stand-out year for his Room40 imprint, our 2012 Label of the Year), Fennesz’s Bécs (eMego), Stephan Mathieu’s Sacred Ground (Schwebung) and Janek Schaefer’s Lay-By Lullaby (12k) featured on both initial drafts. 

This year we expand the resulting master list to a Festive 33-1/3. In particular, we throw in two epic collections that were too significant to exclude, even if they weren’t strictly speaking new music: Chris Dooks’ The Motherlode & The Otherlode (Broken20) & Kenneth Kirschner’s Imperfect Forms (Tokafi). 

In addition, a wry part-vote for Le Berger’s Interwoven Sonic Tapestry – formally released at a minute to midnight (EST, presumably) today “to ensure avoidance of any 2014 and / or 2015 'top' lists” – rounds out our initial 2014 roll-call. 

Mandatory health warning: plenty of other artists & other labels than those featured here made great music this year. As previously, we’ll acknowledge the broader universe of releases that resonated with us in a follow-up post…

Anjou – Anjou (Kranky) [jl]
Thomas Ankersmit – Figueroa Terrace (Touch) [jl]
Andrea Belfi – Natura Morta (Miasmah) [jl]
Nicolas Bernier – frequences (a / fragments) (LINE) [jl]
Alex Cobb – Marigold & Cable (Shelter Press) [jl]
Robert Curgenven – SIRÈNE (Recorded Fields) [jl]
Dalhous - Will To Be Well (Blackest Ever Black) [al]
Deaf Center – Recount (Sonic Pieces) [jl]
Loren Dent - Anthropology Vols. 2 & 3 (Infraction) [al]
Chris Dooks – The Motherlode & The Otherlode (Broken20) [jl]

Kyle Bobby Dunn - Kyle Bobby Dunn & the Infinite Sadness (Students of Decay) [al]
Lawrence English - Wilderness of Mirrors (Room40) [al/jl]
Lawrence English & Stephen Vitiello – Fable (Dragon’s Eye) [jl]
Fennesz - Bécs (eMego) [al/jl]
Chris Herbert – Constants (Room40) [jl]
The Inward Circles - Nimrod is Lost in Orion & Osyris in the Doggestarre (Corbel Stone Press) [jl]
P Jørgensen – Gold Beach (Low Point) [jl]
Kangding Ray - Solens Arc (Raster-Noton) [al]
Sima Kim - Debris (Soft Corridor)
Kenneth Kirschner – Imperfect Forms (Tokafi) [jl]

Le Berger – Interwoven Sonic Tapestry (in the key of) (self-released) [jl]
Stephan Mathieu – Sacred Ground (Schwebung) [jl/al]
Neel - Phobos (Spectrum Spools) [al]
Duane Pitre & Cory Allen – The Seeker & The Healer (Students of Decay) [jl]
Abdulla Rashim - Unanimity (Northern Electronics) [al]
M. Sage - A Singular Continent (Patient Sounds) [al]
Pascal Savy - Adrift (Eilean Records) [al]
Janek Schaefer – Lay-By Lullaby (12k) [jl/al]
Shifted - Arrangements in Monochrome (Part 1 & 2) (Avian) [al]
Nicholas Szczepanik - Not Knowing (Desire Path) [al]






TCF - 415C47197F78E811FEEB7862288306EC4137FD4EC3DED8B (Liberation Technologies) [al]
Tegh - Night Scenes (Inner Ocean) [al]
Mike Weis – Don’t Know, Just Walk (Type) [jl]
Cody Yantis / Nathan McLaughlin / Josh Mason / Joe Houpert – Line Drawings (Desire Path/FET Press) [jl]



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

Normal Service Resumed

Close to an LMYE best label award for contributions to 2013 (Annual Hairshirt), it was A Very Good Year for Home Normal, which recently celebrated its 5th birthday. After a shaky early-’09 inception (Sketches) an increasingly stronger run of releases has seen the Tokyo-London enterprise slowly grow to the status of a beacon of stylistic tone-setting, sustaining a burgeoning ambient drone and organic electronic community. Despite relatively high print runs releases are often sold out at source—further cause for celebration for Ian Hawgood, for whom, in the face of a flagging mainstream music industry and his ‘not promoting the hell out of it,’ (interview, Tokafi), it's been business as usual. LMYE has been meaning to resume Normal service since the turn of the year, so here goes… 

One of the stand-outs in ’13-14’s stream was Fabio Orsi + Pimmon’s Procrastination—but blow me down if this didn’t come out last February, so ffwd-ing to now in the interests of currency, we find a certain Mr Margraff ditching duck-down-delving nom de disque and coming out as plain old René, maybe a way to say that Phasen comes from a more authentic self—more guard-down hair-let-down. Over eight smeared—presumably steel string-wrung—textural meditations Margraff shapes shudders of unsettled mien from slender means—getting closer to source sounds’ core, small grabs blurred and transformed—a shift from previous ethereal and shoegaze orientations to bleaker, more fragile but more focused compositions.

The aptly titled Continental Drift (previously earslent) is the outcome of a cross-continental communion between LMYE fave, Sam Landry (North America), aka Le Berger, and musician mates—René Margraff (Europe) again, with Fuzz Lee (Asia), aka elintseeker, making up Faures. The eponymous earth alluded to is the least salient element evoked here. Rather they are air—palpable musical gestures of soaring, water—sequences suggestive of submersion, especially in the longer-form “Asthenosphenic Movement” trilogy, and crackling fire, all converging in highpoint, “Magnetic Striping.” The trio fuses controlled grainy rushes with more composed unfurls in a shimmering son et lumiere. Overall, a notably neo-romantic deep-water, wide sky, beyond-horizon, into-the-spheres affair, this unlikely ambient-drone supergroup engage in an unwontedly pretty poesis of sound design. The trio spin this accompanying quote into their semiosis of sound: ‘It let them float and drift, break apart and converge. Where they broke away, cracks, rifts, trenches remain; where they collided, ranges of folded mountains appear.’ (geologist Hans Cloos re: Wegener’s theory). 

Back to 2013, on a completely different tip is c60 / tmkutekt by wndfrm, which is real Oregon kid (geddit?) Tim Westcott (who some may have caught as Cloudburst for Resting Bell release, Katedra) with two long-form ’scapes sourced from location recordings of the Biosphere Museum of the Environment in Parc Jean-Drapeau, Montreal’s geodesic dome, which showcases the water ecosystems of the Great Lakes-Saint Lawrence River region. Westcott’s dome of enclosed sound is initially all restraint, silence abounding, then a deal of metallic hiss as a backdrop for an odd back-quack; the further it peels, the more it reveals, ending in a kind of intense long thin wire drone. The second piece sets out like an industrial dryer before chatter enters followed by remote reverbed clank, the whole then drowned out by a passing plane. If, as the sleeve has it, Canada Council for the Arts funded this, I’m putting in a proposal. In the meantime, a virtue with c60 / tmkutekt is definitely patience.

A propos of patience, Ithaca Trio offers Music For Piano & Patience. With previous on Hibernate and Under The Spire, Oliver Thurley plots a path from a lowlight Leeds with a set of nicely reel-to-reeled piano loops. Obvious reference point is Lord of the Decadent Tinkled Ivory Loop, William Basinski, but these two half-hour pieces are sui generis; the first lets loops spool out somewhat scatter-gun, with a warm grain of tape saturation, skips and crackles, weathered-seeming—as if from some unearthed old vinyl find from a loft stash; the second—more structured—sounds like someone stopping off for a pensive plonk at an old Johanna in a deserted church.

Far from—let alone up—any notional alleys approaching the al wing of Earslend Towers is Place For One Day—trailed as a sort of alternative minimal-electro-folk record—by a project called Birdt (violin/vocals - Janne Mansens|accordion, synths, vocoder, glockenspiel - Sascha Schmitt|bass clarinet - Gareth L. Davis|guitar, vocals & lyrics – with a bunch of mates playing, singing & helping along). Likewise leaving your LMYE scribe’s chimes unrung, though undoubtedly well-crafted, is At Home - Piano Book (Volume One) by Sardinia-based Stefano Guzzetti—a set of ivory-tinkling lyricism to please Dustin O’Halloran types.

 

Chronovalve aka Mike Engebretson has been under the radar for some time now plying his ambient trade; associated with the (now sadly defunct) Smallfish enterprise half a decade or so ago, he (re-)surfaced last year with Trace of Light which has oodles of lush textured ambiance and a few neo-choral wisps with lashings of synthi-ness. For the sleep-deprived, this is the right somnific stuff—cloud-watch micro-symphonies, billowing, undulant drift, reminding of the days/daze of fave ‘snooze-to’ records (Somnium, DJ Olive, anyone…?). Currents swirl, waves coalesce in fleeting intermesh, then peal off in a rendering of sonic light bathing sounding object in halation effect.

Finally, commemorating its 5th birthday is a 5-disc comp, Elements, featuring 60+ artists from Home Normal past, present and future, raising money for 5 different charities. 

Last word to HN: ‘In this modern digital age with its constant stream of information, we've sought to work as quietly as possible, firmly rooting our ethos that things can be released in a subtle, quiet way. 'Organic' has always been the key word, and we are so thankful that people seem to still appreciate the natural path we've chosen, ignoring all the noise that surrounds our chosen way.' 

Chronovalve - Trace of Light from Chronovalve on Vimeo.



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

Excellent adventures

Taking a painfully overdue moment today to laud Ted's excellent adventures - the Ted in question being the 'shoegaze cellist' Ted Laderas (who goes - a bit bafflingly, to me at least - by The OO-Ray), & the adventures his fine collaborations this year with Marcus Fischer (a self-released digital-only typhoon fundraiser for The Philippines) & Le Berger (a 50 copies-only C20 cassette for Twin Spring Tapes)...

The inspiredly-named Le B'OO-Ray is a new & almost certainly virtual Montreal-Portland partnership. In contrast, the pairing of Ted & Marcus (Rayfish?) is a quite long-standing collab of Oregon neighbours that produced the Tessellations release back in 2012.

Though linked by the sonorous Laderas cello, of course, & a kind of shared restraint, the releases are likewise dissimilar. The largely acoustic Tulong is a pair of delicate, hushed & affecting mutual explorations of tone that swell & recede like the archipelago waters of their setting. The more shaped (composed, really) V is a more textured to & fro between its parents - a glinting, echoing unfolding in crepuscular half-light

Let it also be said: the bleary beauty To Be Twice Put In Jeopardy ("Composed by Le Berger, inspired by The OO-Ray") is one of the most ravishing things yet from LMYE's cherished Berg...  

Tulong context: "Tulong is Tagalog for aid or assistance. All Proceeds will be donated to Humanitarian Response Philippines, a charity that is assisting in the rebuilding of homes of those devastated by Haiyan. Marcus Fischer + Ted Laderas/The OO-Ray are both of Filipino descent. Upon hearing of the destruction wreaked in the Philippines by Typhoon Haiyan, they immediately wanted to help. The result is the Tulong EP. This EP continues their long standing collaboration (starting with their LP Tessellations) with two long form pieces, one improvised live (“Deluge”), and one recorded especially for this EP (“Reconstruction”). They use synthesizers, guitar, cello, and loops to build two distinct sonic pieces that evolve to powerful conclusions."

B'OO blurb: "The three minimalist pieces that comprise "V" play like something lost to time...akin to a fond memory retrieved over and over throughout the years until it is uncertain what is left: reality or fantasy? So too, are the simple refrains of "V". They are like those threads of muted memories becoming more bare as time moves on - less certain, more surreal. The progressions may seem to be the same, but the context is always changing, influencing an accurate sense of recall. Yet, however ambivalent the musical progressions may be, they evoke an austere sense of conviction as if something DID happen and it WAS meaningful, but...that is where the thread ends - the point beyond which memory can no longer breach. The rest will have to be summoned by another means. Perhaps by you, dear listener..."









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

Shirt listing

A quick supplement to our recent Festive 30: from 30 releases that particularly mattered to us in 2013 (each co-author restricted, as noted with tedious if sincere scrupulousness, to a single pick per artist & label...) a playlist from the 15 available on Spotify - 3013. 

Drawn roughly half & half from each co-authorial selection, the line-up comprises William Basinski & Richard Chartier (jl), Boards of Canada (al), Dalhous (al), Eluder (al), Bruce Gilbert & BAW (jl), Tim Hecker (al/jl), Jon Hopkins (al), Kiln (al), Main (jl), Mohammad (jl), Tomas Phillips & Kenneth Kirschner (jl), Orphax (jl), Pausal (al), Slow Walkers (jl) & Savvas Ysatis & Taylor Deupree (jl). 












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

Seismicity zones

Continental Drift could hardly imply earth much more (so too the album’s 'Geologist Monthly' track titles). But earth – in all of its worthy, grounded, lumpen-ness – is the least of the elements here. Rather, to these ears this is an airborne, grandly* soaring sound, mostly, with moments of timeless marine submersion & calm (particularly in the luscious, longer-form Asthenosphenic Movement trilogy) as well as of fiery crackle & roar. 



Each is at play in the thrilling high point, Magnetic Striping. A controlled, faintly abrasive rush provides a richly contrasting sound bed for a slower unfurling of trio trickery – a shimmering, glinting son et lumiere a trois. 

Faures - Magnetic Striping

Peeled out from behind their baffling Faures moniker (perhaps it means more in German?), Sam, René & Fuzz sound more like a scrubbed, marketing-friendly boy band than an ambient-drone supergroup (the trio’s tri-continentality another form of ‘drifting’ collision, of course). & in a way that’s fitting since a snappily melodic ear uncharacteristic of the genre underlies much of CD – particularly the two song-length Uplift pieces (Isostatic & Orogenic, as if you needed telling…). 



Another way of putting it: CD is a largely unexpected slab of pretty (though hardly cute or winsome) - a notably romantic excursion out across deep waters, vast skies, even beyond the horizon & up into the spheres – a soundtrack to ascension, or immersion. 

Sam is a brewer. So, finally, some tasting notes: rich, lingering body with only a touch of offsetting bitterness, not cloying, little spice, some intense top notes, elongated finish. 
    
*Grand, certainly, & occasionally grand-standing but rarely grandiose…

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

Eureka reduct

Having unveiled our 2012 picks characteristically late in the day, here's an anticipatory 'Best of' for the new year to jump the gun on next December's list frenzy - & even provide some kind of benchmark for our eventual contribution. The list is unencumbered by the restrictions - no more than one pick per artist/label - imposed on the recent Furtive 30...

This initial selection of some 20 coming highlights ranges from Stephan Mathieu's ravishing David Sylvian remix album, Wandermuede, which is already out as a download & has an imminent formal release,  as does his Un Coeur Simple, to more speculative ones. They also include long-awaited pieces such as Aurora Liminalis from William Basinski & Richard Chartier on LINE - the pair's first since their Untitled series was expanded in 2008 (having begun in 2004). 

This 'pined-for' category also features Chris Herbert's Constants (label unannounced), which will end an absence even longer on some measures - since Mezzotint in 2006. Nor has there been a full release from Mark Templeton to savour since 2009. 

Several works in progress will add further lustre to 2013 if/when they surface. These include a new solo album from Steinbruechel & an epic remix/re-interpretation/e-book project for Kenneth Kirschner (involving Steinbruechel, incidentally...) 

Also factored in: prospective debuts from two drone collaborations, Andere (Anduin & Radere) & A pond waiting for you to leap (Le Berger & Pascal Savy). The latter may still be some way off (though, happily, Sam Le Berger threatens "much more music" this year in any case).

NB: obviously enough, this year will bring many more great releases than those highlighted here. Many outstanding artists & labels are unrepresented here. Please let us know what else these ears should be anticipating... 

Andere - s/t (label unknown)

A pond begging you to leap - title unknown (label unknown)
Chris Abrahams - title unknown (Room 40)
Chris Herbert - Constants (label unannounced)

Cory Allen - The Great Order (Quiet Design)
David Sylvian/Stephen Mathieu - Wandermuede (samadhisound)
Duane Pitre - Bridges (Important) 
Kenneth Kirschner - remix album/e-book (Tokafi)
Lawrence English - Lonely Women's Club (Important)

Mark Templeton - Jealous Heart (Under The Spire)
Mountains - Centralia (Thrill Jockey)
Philip Jeck - title unknown (Touch; also Rosy Parlane/Sohrab 7"s)
Steinbruechel - title unknown (label unknown)
Stephan Mathieu - Un Coeur Simple (Baskaru)
Tashi Wada & Stephan Mathieu - Revenant (Schwebung)
Taylor Deupree & Ryuichi Sakamoto/Taylor Deupree & Stephen Vitiello - titles unknown (12k)
William Basinski - Nocturnes (2062)/Aurora Liminalis (with Richard Chartier, LINE) 
Yann Novak - Blue.Hour (Farmacia901)/Undefined (with Richard Chartier, Farmacia901)

Mark Templeton - Buffalo Coulee

Mountains - Living Lens

Cory Allen - The Great Order (Movement II) [re-up]

Stephan Mathieu - Félicité

william basinski & richard chartier - aurora liminalis (excerpt 2)

Yann Novak - Blue.Hour (Excerpt)


Yann Novak - Blue.Hour

Nunki (unmastered final) by chris herbert

A pond begging you to leap - Celeste's Fall [re-up]


Slips Into The Ether (Excerpt) by Andere.


Lawrence English's Lonely Women's Club

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