Archive for April, 2009
This morning I’m a little bit on edge. In part because of continuous wet and cold weather that makes my bones and muscles ache. In part because of Robert Logan and his new release on Slowfoot titled Inscape. As I commute to music on my way to work, disturbing images flicker behind my eyelids: abandoned [...]
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Tags: dark idm, leftfield, rhythmic noise
Tell us about the abandoned factory in Hungary and the inspiration for the album. I like to go exploring, and Hungary has some very unconventionally beautiful environments to discover. On one of these exploits I found an old factory in the middle of a forest. It was summer, it was twilight, and I found this [...]
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On some level, I’m a little surprised that no one is talking about Ametsub as much as I am. And I’m not just hyping up this Tokyo-based Japanese artist. Even Ryuchi Sakamoto has allegedly proclaimed, “I love this album. I have become a fan”. Meanwhile, I’ve been listening to Ametsub’s music since his debut release [...]
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Tags: future jazz, glitch, idm
When Mark Pritchard first released EP1 (Warp, 2008) under his newly refreshed moniker, Harmonic 313, I got extremely excited about his comeback. After all, I’m a huge fan of his output under a number of aliases, the most favorite being Harmonic 33 and Global Communication. The EP stepped up in bass, and dropped down to [...]
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Tags: dubstep, instrumental hip-hop
Windy Weber & Carl Hultgren have been releasing minimal ambient and experimental post-rock music since the late 90′s. The catalog of this Michigan based husband-and-wife duo spans an eclectic selection of notable labels such as Icon, Ochre, Darla, Brainwashed, and of course, Chicago-based Kranky Records. Songs For The Broken Hearted is Windy & Carl‘s fourth [...]
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Tags: ambient, drone, post-rock
Can you describe the process of recording this album? i will only, at this time, give a shorter answer to this…….in the midst of a very difficult time in life, carl and i started recording. we were supposed to have gone on vacation, but instead stayed home for 4 days and simply recorded. 2 days [...]
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The Sutemos collective is a Lithuanian net label which has been releasing free EPs and compilations since January 2004. Intelligent Toys is one of their best series, in which the label collects works from a roster of eclectic electronic musicians across the globe. And this fifth installment is one of my absolute favorites. First of [...]
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Tags: ambient, electronica, idm
It is dark, dense, and brooding. The sky is gray. Winter is refusing to leave. Wind becomes the rhythm; dissonance – the melody. In the delicate hands of the Berlin-based (but Icelandic by birth) Hildur Guðnadóttir, the cello whispers and moans. Perhaps it’s grieving for an uncertain future, perhaps accepting a buried past. The voice [...]
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Tags: modern classical, neo classical
What do you mean by “Without Sinking”? Without Sinking refers to a feeling of going up, but still holds the quality of going down. It also gives a feeling of water, which is a strong influence on my music. The music on your album is very melancholy. Is there a story behind it? I understand [...]
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I first discovered The Refractors through their hand packaged and physically painted copy of All Colors Run EP, which they self released in 2008 and were kind enough to send over. I say “discovered” not because I want to take any credit for finding them before they got picked up by San Francisco based Dynamophone [...]
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Tags: ambient, modern classical
What brought on an idea behind this conceptual album? History being cyclical and the lessons unlearned. With the title such as 8 Year Sleep, are you implying that you/we are awake now? We would refer to a certain proposition that was passed here in California as clear evidence that many are still under a waking [...]
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The shadows recede into their coldness. She shows up this morning. With her light breeze and the blue skies, Spring begins another cycle. The light synthetic chirping in my headphones joins that of the birds. And they all sing. On the train, I read Haruki Murakami‘s Dance Dance Dance (1994). The atmospheric swells and the [...]
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Tags: ambient, experimental, minimal, modern classical
Alva Noto returns with a second installment in his five-part planned Xerrox series. On this follow up to Xerrox Vol. 1 (Raster-Noton, 2007), Carsten Nicolai turns up the volume in static electricity working with the concept of copying sounds. A copy of a copy of a copy in digital format may be flawless, so what [...]
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Tags: ambient, experimental, glitch, minimal
When I posted the Headphone Commute’s Best of 2008 list, I received a lot of emails that amounted to “You forgot Lulu Rouge!” What? Lulu who? Yes, I’m sure there was an album that I missed in 2008 (I missed hundreds of them). But with enough pokes in the same direction I was tempted to [...]
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Tags: downtempo, dub, dub techno
How did you come up with the name Lulu Rouge? We had a Sunday club which we had to name, and after the usual name brainstorming session, our good friend Trentemøller actually came up with the name Lulu Rouge. When the venue ended after many years of Sunday fun, it seemed very natural to keep [...]
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Tell us about your process of recording rain, city sounds, and nature atmospherics. I didn’t record the atmospheres myself. I’m actually rather surprised that some people think that. I think people who have lived in Iceland hear that right away/from the start -it doesn’t sound like Icelandic rain. We have no thunder here, for example. [...]
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Descending down a steep slope, I slowly enter a cavern populated with dripping stalactites, swinging wind chimes, and wondering whispers. The dark atmosphere soaks up the humidity of a distant buzzing organism and spews it out through DSP filters and control voltage modulated synths. Through repetitive patterns, nested recursion, and looped iterations, Lissom experiments with data-structure-precise evolving [...]
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Tags: abstract, ambient, experimental, minimal
Since you’re also a video artist, do you have a particular piece which accompanies Nest of Iterations? Is it possible for you to tell us in words a bit about it? I am currently developing a live cinema performance that will contain pieces from Nest of Iterations. For me it is a natural progression, there [...]
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