Austere retrace

Casting off the hairshirt in which we clad our Furtive 30 key 2012 releases before Christmas (no more than one pick from any artist or label per co-author...), here's a further raft of 80 new sounds that last year would have been much the poorer without. They include a group of exceptional pieces - most notably, Below Sea Level, Coda (For WK),  For/Not For John Cage, Lichtung, Portraits, Recurrence, Secret Photographs, Superstorms & Valence - that only failed to make the original 30 because of its self-imposed constraints. Which begs a question over those constraints, but still...

Even though he claims two slots as it is (one with Steve Roden), other Machinefabriek pieces might well also have been classed in this group - his collaborations with Chris Dooks & Michel Banabila, listed below too, for example. Perhaps the thought reflects these ears growing further into his sound world, but 2012 seems to have been one of the Rotterdammer's finest. 

No other artist is represented as frequently in our two lists this year (even if you lump the fecund Quiet Evenings family together...) - though Stephan Mathieu comes close, inevitably. Fine installations & other commissioned pieces, such as The Breaking Water for the Rotterdam Film Festival, supplemented a raft of memorable Machinefabriek releases. 

Anyway, while this additional list risks irrelevance by only shambling out well into the new year, it still seems important to acknowledge the array of talent & achievement beyond our Furtive 30. So we round out our Hot 110 (ahem) with this appreciative roll-call - plus the obvious but necessary health warning that 2012 featured even more great records than we've found space to acknowledge: 


Alex Durlak/Damian Valles - Guitar and Drums (Komino)
Andrea Belfi - Wege (Room40)
Attilio Novellino - Through Glass (Valeot)
Anne Chris Bakker - Weerzien (Somehow)
Banabila & Machinefabriek - s/t (self-released)
Between - s/t (12k)
BJ Nilsen - Draught #1 (Touch)
Celer - Truth Abandons (Prairie Fire)
Chihei Hatakeyama & Asuna - Scale Compositions (Home Normal)

Banabila & Machinefabriek (album preview)

Chris Dooks & Machinefabriek - The Eskdalemuir Harmonium (Komino)
Dino Sabatini - Shaman’s Paths (Prologue)
Eli Keszler/Keith Fullerton Whitman - Split (NNA Tapes)
Ekkehard Ehlers - Adikia (Staubgold)
Eugene Carchesio - Circle Music (Room40)
Evan Caminiti - Dreamless Sleep (Thrill Jockey)
Ex-Easter Island Head - Mallet Guitar Two/Music for Moai Hava (Low Point)
Felicia Atkinson - A River (Space Slave Edition)
Fieldhead - a correction (Gizeh)
France Jobin - Valence (LINE)

Evan Caminiti f/ Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Rideaux de Nuit

Gareth Davis & Frances-Marie Uitti - Gramercy (Miasmah)
Giuseppe Ielasi - Untitled, 2011 (Entr'acte)
Grant Evans - Jewels from the House of Worms (A Guide to Saints)/Solos for Muted Transparent (Tranquility Tapes)
Gregg Kowalsky w/Josef van Wissem - Movements in Marble & Stone (Amish)
Helm - Impossible Symmetry (PAN)
High Aura'd - Sanguine Futures (Bathetic)
Hildur Gudnadottir - Leyfdu Ljosinu (Touch)
Je Suis Le Petit Chevalier - An Age of Wonder (Shelter Press)
Joe Evans - Affected Piano (runningonair/Somehow)

helm - impossible symmetry (album preview)

Kangding Ray - The Pentaki Slopes (Raster Noton)
Kane Ikin & David Wenngren - Strangers (Kesh)
Kleefstra Bakker Kleefstra - Griis (Low Point)
Koen Holtkamp - Liquid Light Forms (Barge)
Kyle Bobby Dunn - In Miserum Stercus (Komino)
Lawrence English - For/Not For John Cage (LINE)
Lee Noble/Ensemble Economique - Motion Forever (Hands in the Dark)
Leonardo Rosado - A Long White Sleep (Laverna)
Machinefabriek - Colour Tones (Fang Bomb)/Secret Photographs (Important)
Motion Sickness of Time Travel - Traces (A Guide to Saints)

Plateau ( a single source of truth ) by Kangding Ray

Mike Shiflet/Joe Panzner - s/t (Rubber City Noise)
Mind Over Mirrors - Small Portion (Digitalis)
Nicholas Szczepanik - La Luna del Este/We Make Life Sad (self-released)
Oren Ambarchi - Audience Of One (Touch)
Pete Swanson & Rene Hell - Waiting for the Ladies (Shelter Press)
Pillowdiver - Cassette Recordings (Analogpath)/Frozen Soundtracks (Nomadic Kids Republic)
Pinkcourtesyphone - Elegant & Detached (Room40)
Portraits - Portraits (Important)

pinkcourtesyphone - elegant & detached (album preview)

Primitive Motion - Two Ellipses (A Guide to Saints)
Pye Corner Audio - The Black Mill Tapes Volumes 1 & 2 [Second Edition] (Type)
Quiet Evenings - Patience Folding Waters (Hooker Vision)
Richard Chartier - Recurrence (LINE)
Richard Skelton - Limnology/Verse of Birds (Corbel Stone Press)
Rick Tarquinio - Waves (Resting Bell)
Seaworthy - Bellows & Breath (Preservation)
Shackleton - Music for the Quiet Hour/The Drawbar Organ EPs (Woe To The Septic Heart!)
Simon Scott - Below Sea Level (12k)

Limnology - Richard Skelton (Preview)

Steinbruechel - Sinus (The Tapeworm)
Stephan Mathieu - Coda (For WK) (Minority/12k)/Palimpsest (w/Sylvain Chauveau; Schwebung)/Strings (w/David Maranha; Cronica)
Steve Roden & Machinefabriek - Lichtung (Eat, Sleep, Repeat)
Superstorms - Superstorms (Experimedia)
Taylor Deupree - Faint (12k)
Terrence Dixon - From the Far Future Part 2 (Tresor)
The Swifter - The Swifter (The Wormhole)
Tim Hecker & Daniel Lopatin - Instrumental Tourist (Software)

Part 2 by Superstorms

TVO - Red Night (Broken20)
Two People in a Room - Endless Bummer (Rural Colours)
Unrecognizable Now - Two Rooms (Kesh)
Villages - Theories of Ageing (Bathetic)
Voices from the Lake - Voices from the Lake (Prologue)
Windy & Carl - We Will Always Be (kranky)
Yann Novak - 3 Surfaces (Reductive)/Fata Morgana (w/Robert Crouch; Murmur)/Paradise & Winchester (Unfathomless)

Villages - The Narrows/Growth Rings



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

Line In

2013 transmissions from Basinski + Chartier, AGF, and Simon Whetham notwithstanding, still being received here are four Line Ins from 2012. Lest its late-period labours at the interface between digital minimalism and microsound go unsung, here’s an ear-pique at a spread of chewy offerings from this once Difficult Twin of LMYE label of 2012, 12k (now, of course, non-aligned, under sole stewardship of Richard Chartier) that further cement its place in the vanguard of experimental electronics.

 















 







Built Through finds Line manager Chartier once more ‘exploring inter-relationships between the spatial nature of sound, silence, focus, perception and the act of listening itself’ with trademark microsonic prowess. He ideates an engrossing enquiry into acoustic architecture with more feet-in-the-soil sonician, Robert Curgenven, dealer in immersive resonances via turntables and custom-made vinyl, instrumental harmonics and guitar feedback, and field recordings from remote areas. Built Through’s four pieces find Chartier’s ideology of relationism between sound, silence, focus and the listening act fully realized with Curgenven’s collusion,variously fusing digital and organic. All very academic and process music pukka, to be sure, but does it butter the listening product parsnips? As if in reply, the kat booms: ‘Their sounds are of an incredibly fine calibre and arranged with such a sense of unfolding, albeit abstract, narrative, that we’re sucked in to near-extreme levels of concentration to focus on the slightest fluctuation, and sent reeling by the presence of such overpoweringly physical bass frequencies.’



























Previously on Line, there was Curgenven’s Oltre on which ‘his orchestrations of slight textural shifts, the interplay between hum and drone, found sounds and vinyl crackle effect a satisfyingly uneasy suspension between rapt contemplative and grim angst-ridden.’





The Subharchord, a rare electronic instrument built in a limited edition during the 1960s at the RFZ, the technical centre for radio and TV of the East German postal service, is the obscure object of Frank Bretschneider’s desire on Kippschwingungen. His aim, in line with contemporary electronic music’s current fixation with its pioneering history, is to harness the technology of Then to the music and production methods of Now. It pares things back to basics - one sonic generator and a reduced range of functions. The album deals largely in droning pitches and ring modulator-type sustains, interspersed between rhythm-driven pieces. A sound, in fact, not entirely unfamiliar from a recent release…



… though Kippschwingungen (= ‘tilting oscillations’) ends up quite differently configured from Bretschneider’s recent signature style, whether the tech-gnosis of Komet or the bass-space-funk of Rhythm. A Mancy enthusiast finds it: ‘A long alluringly austere continuum of sound unfolding into astringent spaces - eerie alien plateaus of tone give way to insectile sounds evoking all kinds of minimal rhythm explorations’ and ‘A wormholing 37-minute experience, deftly and intently exploring the machine’s limitations to discover mind-warping cosmic turbulence and penetrate extraordinary, otherworldly sonic dimensions whilst somehow sustaining a tangible narrative arc.’




















 






Those who thrilled to LMYE 2011 pick, The Peregrine, will find in Lawrence English’s For / Not For John Cage a less effusive but no less engrossing work. Cage’s centenary inspired what was conceived as homage to a man who has been a constant touchstone for English; he sought something that offered an openness, that might invite a new perspective of exploration of Cage’s ideas, alighting upon a less celebrated piece - the film for solo light performer, One11.



With video artist Scott Morrison they developed a new piece, One11 (refocused), devised from diverse esoteric Cageisms. The audio outcomes are immediately compelling - soft-edged slightly eerie whorls in slow-mo whirls, shapes with form dissolving, colours collapsing, ravaged by radical reverb - indeterminacy drawing tones from consonance to dissonance and back again, in its shape-shifting blurscapes. ‘It is almost as if themes of music and texture have been extracted from various sections of this original work and gone on to become or inform a much more cosmic and arguably contemporary counterpart,’ projects Fluid Radio, before pertinently observing ‘there is no real extreme positive or negative effect to any of the tracks, the otherworldliness is instead at the forefront and thrusts the listener into a strange, exotic mental space where such psychological concerns are skewed and thrown into a rather more mysterious abstract.’



























Returning to source, Chartier’s Recurrence is a re-imagining of inaugural Line release, Series, which, after its coming out in 2001, apparently remained unperformed, even “unperformable” due to noise and audio system limitations of live environments. More recently a revisiting was finally essayed - to impressive effect, as heard on “Recurrence (room/crosstones),” an exploration of wavering sinetones captured from (one assumes) room reverberations; essentially a slow-mutating tonal throb, it has echoes of his Transparency (Performance), though a more assertive than customary demeanour yields an unusual hybrid reference point: ‘the kind of low-end destruction you’d more likely expect to hear from doom pioneers, Sunn o))), but with the meditative edge of Steve Roach.’ 



‘If Transparency was a spotless white laboratory room, Recurrence is a swamp of thick vibration, deliberately swirling crumples of static in with the whines and beeps of the foreground’ is this writer’s analogy, further extended to ‘throbbing gently like a power generator or chirping like electronic crickets, or stuttering between tone and static like a radio transmission falling away from clear signal.’





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.

Evening fog

Both because of its longevity & its fiercely non-strident aesthetic, LMYE's Label of 2012 is easily overlooked. So long an essential part of the fabric of what we term 'less obvious music', it can seem that 12k - the standard-bearer for accretion over assertion - has always been there.

Lauding its output this year is partly a prod against complacency over a treasured imprint, then. No label is just 'there', least of all in the current environment. Sustaining one - especially one that works with more challenging music of limited commercial appeal - is clearly a struggle. The most obvious dimension: piracy that brings "nothing but hurt", as 12k founder Taylor Deupree notes in an exclusive interview below. 

Recognition (which follows its earlier selection as 'staggering consistency label' in our first set of label awards, back in 2009, & adds it to Type, Low Point, Experimedia & Room40 in our roll call of overall winners) is also about celebrating what will go down as an exceptional year - even within a body of work as rich & deep as 12k's over the past decade & a half. Framed by two Japanese-inflected (like so much of its output) pieces - the exquisite, jisei-enjoined Zen songs of Steve Peters & Steve Roden's Not A Leaf Remains As It Was in February (one of our Furtive 30 essential 2012 releases) & the 'supergroup' (Tomoyoshi Date, Marcus Fischer, Corey Fuller & Simon Scott in tandem with Deupree) Between's gorgeous self-titled Kyoto performance in December - the label unveiled a thrilling, near-flawless run of misty, intensely textured releases. 

Further key moments in this were Scott's glowing, dense Below Sea Level (previous coverage); Kane Ikin's hazily blurred & warped Sublunar (another Furtive 30 pick; NB: each LMYE co-author was limited to one release per label/artist); & Deupree's spare, delicate Faint, as well as Stephan Mathieu's Coda (For WK) - rightly blurbed "a journey into the essence of sound".  

This sequence further refined what Deupree characterises as 12k's "hushed & delicate" sound, adding impressionistic warmth. It & other releases also carried the label towards a more acoustic, sometimes voice-centred music. It explained the two developments as "continuing to move away from the “electronic” tag" & "further play[ing] the line between experimental electro-acoustic sounds and structured music."

While Deupree offers a valuable reminder below of previous "eras" in the 12k sound, he also concedes (of Gareth Dickson's Quite A Way Away (featured on of Mountain7's outstanding best of the year list, incidentally...)) that "if you played me this album 14 years ago and told me i was going to release it i wouldn't believe it." He relates this to his & the label's identity. "12k is always simply a reflection of my own tastes and continues to evolve and change."

Even so, for a 15 year-old label to still be pushing at the boundaries of its sound (also this year via the subversive post-pop of The Boats' Ballads Of The Research Department) seems like a powerful index of vitality. 

So too its appetite for extending the scope of physical formats - most obviously in the case of Scott's 80-page book of geography & memory in the East Anglian Fens that accompanies Below Sea Level. The recent Faint boxed set (augmented with photographs & a bonus CD), as well as that of Deupree & Fischer's earlier In A Place Of Such Graceful Shapes (photos & a 7"), are further instances. 

What next? Further Deupree collaborations, a second Illuha album & a new solo Fischer are scheduled for the new year. Several vinyl releases are due too. 

But the most tantalising prospect is an undefined format innovation Deupree reveals below ("it's not USB, but it's taking a lot of work and will be a really exciting development for some time to come"). Whether this relates to the beguiling Mono/logues video that recently trailed 'A new series, coming in 2013' is not yet clear. But while only a fluttering moment the clip offers much in any case...     



How has 12k developed this year? Have you done anything different in 2012? Anything new you want to keep doing now it's started?
"i think the obvious thing that sticks out this year was the release of the gareth dickson CD. 12k has obviously explored guitars and acoustic sounds over the years but to have something so straightforwardly singer/songwriter is quite different. if you played me this album 14 years ago and told me i was going to release it i wouldn't believe it. it just reinforces the fact that 12k is always simply a reflection of my own tastes and continues to evolve and change.

starting late last year, with mine and marcus fischer's "in a place of such graceful shapes" boxed set and continuing this year with simon scott's "below sea level" book edition and my own boxed set for "faint" i think the idea of expanded physical packaging is something 12k will do more of going forward."

Did you always expect to make it to your 15th anniversary? Do you anticipate following Touch's lead & making it to your 30th?
"i never had a doubt about that. 12k is who i am and i will always do it even if the music industry falls apart so totally and no one needs labels anymore... that it becomes a label i release only my own work on. i see no reason why i would stop doing it. it's not terribly profitable, which is a good thing. it doesn't need to make enough money to make business partners happy, it only needs to make enough to print the next release.

i started the label in 1997.. january 1st ..... so, jan 1st 2013 will mark 15 years complete.. onto the 16th year... it's great!"

Is being an US label significant for 12k? How do you assess the state of US 'experimental' music currently?
"i think being a US label has hurt 12k over the years. there are certain distributors and magazines that seem quite anti-US... like the people and artists are as bad as our politics, which simply isn't the case. there is so much great music being made in the US, but it's never been as "cool" of a place as a lot of other countries so it never gets taken as seriously. it's a weird thing, but it's been on my mind a lot since i started the label."

Do you see yourself & the other 12k artists as working in any kind of tradition? Is there a 12k sound or typical artist? 
"i don't think any of us are thinking about traditions or genres or trying to fit into one thing or another, we're just creating what comes naturally and exploring techniques that interest us. most of the current crop of 12k artists are pretty firmly rooted in what they do and have developed their own styles after years of creating. it's not so much about fitting in or putting themselves in a certain niche, just more about creating and doing what they do, and let the press or listeners place them wherever they want for whatever reasons they need to. 12k definitely goes through periods of sound as the years go on. periods that get marked as "eras" in 12k by the general sound. it meanders and evolves as the years go by. i don't think, at this point, i would be very eager to categorize 12k though recently there's definitely been a marked move towards hushed and delicate music."

Any 12k artists you believe merit more attention than they've had so far?
"all of them, of course! it's always the lesser-known ones, though, who perhaps just release one album and then sort of disappear from the light a little bit. artists like jodi cave or motion... such brilliant, beautiful releases but no one hears much from them anymore!"

How do you see 12k developing in the future? Any new artists you can mention &/or forthcoming new releases from established 12k artists? 
"i never like to project or guess how things will develop, i prefer to just let them go naturally. early in 2013 i hope that the new Illuha album will be ready, which is going to be a beauty. i've also got a couple of personal collaborations coming up which i'm excited about and will be on marcus fischer's case to finish a new one next year. the door is always open for established artists and we'll see about new artists. nothing planned yet."

Will you be releasing vinyl in future? Cassettes? Other media (DVDs/USB sticks/etc)?
"there's been 5 or 6 vinyl releases so far and that will continue in the future. i've got a vinyl-related series coming up in 2013 that should be pretty interesting as well. i'm not sold on cassettes as a final medium, though i do like the sound of them for recording.... DVDs.. perhaps... there has been a project on the back burner for too long already... USB sticks.. who knows? nothing's out of the question, i guess. there is a very exciting development we've been working on for the past few months that i hope sees the light of day in 2013 ...it's not USB, but it's taking a lot of work and will be a really exciting development for some time to come."


Mono/logues (2013) from 12k on Vimeo


Best thing anyone's said/written about 12k music? Worst?
"there's always the occasional negative review about an album, but i still love what the late alternative press magazine said about 12k many years ago which was "too minimal for its own good." i once turned that into a full page advertisement in a magazine. though lately i've been hesitant to throw around the term "minimalism" mostly because i try to stay away from any sort of genres or descriptors at all.

best thing? i'm touched by every positive review and kind word from listeners, though being compared once to factory records wasn't a bad thing. for all of factory's blunders and craziness, it's probably my main inspiration behind starting 12k."

How important is artwork to your releases? Who decides it?
"yes, of course, always. finding a visual theme was very important in setting up the label identity. i sort of took that idea from Fax records with its instantly recognizable package design. but 12k is also about a very anti-design aesthetic. by that i mean design that is very simple, nothing fancy, very much inspired by dieter rams and his ideas of functional design. the special editions and limited series gives me a chance to break away from the traditional 12k design to play around a bit more, but otherwise i'm really just trying to be as simple as possible.

i design all of the packages and do most of the photography for the covers. however, sometimes an artist will have a particular image they want to use and that's fine by me as long as it works with the overall aesthetic."

How challenging a time is this for labels? Are you tempted to go digital-only? Or the opposite?
"it's a very challenging time! almost entirely because of the pirating of music. on one hand it's a great time because we can offer releases in a variety of formats as well as downloads with many easy ways to purchase them. the social media outlets offer both a great way to reach fans but also make it a lot of work for us because we have to stay on top of all of these little areas.... but it's really the music pirates stealing the music that give us the most challenge. i don't care what argument they give for "helping" labels and musicians but it does nothing but hurt. i don't ask them to do their jobs for free and they shouldn't force that on us either.

digital only? i guess if you're going to talk about the death of 12k... that day would be if i ever decided to go digital-only. i have no desire to become a digital-only label and i've yet to meet one artist who prefers a digital release over a CD, vinyl or other physical format. yes, you're correct, it's quite the opposite. we'll be offering more music that's NOT available as download."

PS Where does the label's name come from?
"the name 12k came from the file size of midi song files on my computer during the creation of the album "12k" by one of my old musical projects (with Savvas Ysatis) called Arc. we released the album, as Arc, "12k" on KK Records (BE) in 1996 (it's now available digitally from 12k). i started the 12k label the year after and wanted to use that name for the label because it was short, abstract, mathematical, technical, and graphic. while technically it comes from "12k kilobytes" it can mean a few things.. like "12k kilohertz" or "12,000" or .. or it can mean nothing at all. most important to me now is that it's short and abstract and has taken on a life of its own."

Water Veins by Steve Peters & Steve Roden

Europa by Kane Ikin

Between (excerpt) by Between

Dreams Of Stairs by Taylor Deupree

_Sealevel.6 by Simon Scott


Kane Ikin - Rhea from 12k 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.

O Come LMYE Faithful

Furtive30version by Albient on Mixcloud

A bit like a low-rent Pop Ambient, it’s become an annual tradition for LMYE to pop a peck of its Festive picks into a homespun cloud-mix (see 2010 and ’11), but with JL going over to the spotty side, you might wonder if rdio killed the mixcloud star. Well, we're keeping the cloud flag flying in this wing of Earslend Mansions with an alternative Furtive 30 version (n.b. leaning towards al picks as missing half of JL’s).

albient furtive30version (track list)
Lee Gamble - Digbeth
Heathered Pearls - Left Climber
Damian Valles - Movement III
Kyle Bobby Dunn - Diamond Cove (And Its Children Were Watching)
Drape - Solo in High Dreary
Gimu -You're No Longer On Sertraline Hydrochloride
Erstlaub - Marconi’s Shipwreck
Kane Ikin - Compression Waves
Silent Harbour - Aquatic Movement
Stephan Mathieu & Caro Mikaleff - Radioland [Panoramica]
Alex Cobb - The Immediate Past
Pausal - Fertiliser/Horticulture/Mower
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Blood Variations II
36 - Deluge
En - Elysia
Ian Hawgood - The Shattered Light
Radere - Good Evening, Ghosts (Version)
Fescal - Alchemical Wanderings
Thomas Köner - Novaya Zemlya 2
Robert Hampson - Antarctica Ends Here

Mix note: composed mainly of edits of long tracks seguing from one to another, sympathetic fades and felicitous overlaps were sought, 1 part design to 2 parts indeterminacy; final section diverges, running 2 tracks in parallel rather than in series to play Köner lows off against Hampson highs, the similarity of theme of geographical extreme providing further pretext for convergence.
Track sidenote: seeing as ’tis the season to be jolly and all, those with ears properly lent will find a seasonal note provided by Fescal, whose Ambient Drone recon of “Silent Night” starts at 1:13:30. 

Quick Yuletube: 



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