Archive for November, 2011
About a year ago, Headphone Commute’s Sound Postcards feature started its new chapter, with contributions from our favorite artists, sending in snippets of field recordings, creative phonography, and previously unpublished pieces. I suppose today is as a good of a day as any to celebrate the project’s one year anniversary with a beautiful recording from [...]
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It’s getting chilly out there… Here’s something to drop into your coffee as you wake up all hot-headed and ready to take on the world. Whether you want to chill out with these beats, or (as in my case) just waking up and need something to give you that tiny boost, I promise you will [...]
Filed under: Mixes | 2 Comments
Tags: dubstep, post-dubstep
Serein
In 2010, a Wales-based Serein label made a move from a free digital-only distribution to physical compact disc pressings. The two releases by Nest and Olan Mill received global critical acclaim, and were both featured in Headphone Commute’s Best of 2010 lists. In 2011 the label is trying something different, concentrating all of the efforts [...]
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Hauschka – Youyoume (Serein)
Well, excuse me, if it’s not good ol’ Volker Bertelmann making an appearance on the last installment of Serein‘s Seasons series as Hauschka! Having released Salon Des Amateurs earlier this year on FatCat‘s 130701 imprint, as well as a collaboration with Hildur Guðnadóttir, Pan Tone, on Sonic Pieces, and a two track long player with [...]
Filed under: Album Reviews, EPs | 1 Comment
Tags: modern classical, piano
Nest – Body Pilot (Serein)
All this week, Headphone Commute has been featuring a Serein Label Special, profiling its 2011 Seasons series, which is composed of four limited 10″ vinyl records, released over the course of the year, pressed on heavyweight vinyl with hand numbered outer sleeves. And now we come to the highlight of Serein’s artist roster. Nest is [...]
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Tags: modern classical
Waking up this morning, a day of Thanksgiving (and more importantly a day off), I gravitate towards my studio and power on the system. Across the river, the sun is rising, and its bright yellow fingers sweep the cold Autumn skin. On this early day in November I gather my thoughts of all music, in [...]
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Tags: ambient, minimal
Does the sad, minimal, and drony music compliments the rain, or does the wet, dark, and windy morning makes that music so much better? These are some of the thoughts on my mind during my rainy commute, as the scratching little noises of Donato Wharton‘s guitar, floating synth ambiance, and seemingly random lo-fi acoustic frequencies [...]
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Tags: abstract, ambient, experimental
For the first entry in the label’s Seasons 2011 series, Huw Roberts of Serein invites a Chicago based crossover jazz duo, Charles Rumback and Charles Gorczynski, to contribute a four-track EP as Colorlist. Recorded by John Hughes (aka Slicker and owner of Hefty Records) and Joshua Eustis (one half of Telefon Tel Aviv), the duo [...]
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Tags: future jazz, jazzy
With a mysterious and at-once bright beginning, Tone Sketch booms in its own comfortable extents, both experimental and purely different from the future pop, awakening and triggering novel inspiration. After successful releases on labels such as Cotton Goods, Dynamophone, The Land Of, and Symbolic Interaction, Hideki Umezawa, known solely as Pawn, ushers into his musical [...]
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Tags: glitch, idm
Maps and Diagrams – Lights Will Call On You // The Town Beneath The Sea (Nomadic Kids Republic)
Tim Martin has been very prolific this year. Wasn’t it only a this past spring, when he released a limited edition c30 cassette as Maps And Diagrams, titled Red Moon Rising on Chemical Tapes? And wasn’t there another ambient album in June released by Handstitched Recordings, titled The Voices Of Time? And wait, didn’t we [...]
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Tags: ambient, experimental
Learning that Ben Frost and Daníel Bjarnason decided to work together on a project has already sent torrents of anticipation through the experimental and modern classical music communities. Finally experiencing the album is a whole other journey. Part of me is not surprised that Frost and Bjarnason partnered for this collaboration. I have previously heard [...]
Filed under: Album Reviews | 4 Comments
Tags: ambient, cinematic, modern classical
Here’s one of my favorite quotes by Elvis Costello (courtesy of Tigon’s blog) - “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture – it’s really a stupid thing to want to do.” This concept becomes even more pronounced once one spends many years engaged in this [absurd] activity. Myself included. Verbs, nouns, and especially adjectives, repeated [...]
Filed under: Album Reviews | 11 Comments
Tags: electronica, glitch, idm
Nomadic Kids Republic
As if Ian Hawgood did not have enough to do between running Home Normal and Tokyo Droning labels. As if producing countless albums on labels such as Experimedia, Slow Flow Rec, Dragon’s Eye, hibernate, Phantom Channel, and Under The Spire was not enough to occupy all of his time. As if his mark on this [...]
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For its fourth catalog release on Ian Hawgood’s Nomadic Kids Republic label, scratching strings and menacing piano chords come crashing down upon twisting, breathing, and howling nightmare of Haruki. On Falling, a Ghent-based (Belgium) sound artist Boris Snauwaert, recording under the pseudonym of Japanese sounding Haruki [makes me think of Murakami, as I'm reading one [...]
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Tags: dark ambient
Mix : Vuurwerk – Vuurmix
Mixing it up a bit with some bass heavy post-dubstep and instrumental west-coast beats is a selection of tracks from a somewhat mysterious Belgian artist going by the name of Vuurwerk (tr. “fireworks”). With a four track EP under the belt, the ‘post-apocalyptic tree house’ / ‘whatever’ / ‘music made by a couple of kids’ [...]
Filed under: Mixes | 4 Comments
Tags: post-dubstep
Editor’s Note: The following article is written by James Kirsch and republished on Headphone Commute with permission of the author. James kindly updated the contents of the text, which was originally written in 2008. I’m going to lay out a couple of things I’ve learned in the past decade of producing free music. They would probably [...]
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Originally released in 2008 as a digital download on Rope Swing Cities (a Denver-based netlabel responsible for albums by Celer, Jamie Drouin, and Ian Hawgood), Subtle Trees matures into a physical album for the third catalog entry in the Nomadic Kids Republic family. This gorgeous seven-track album explores the subdued modern-classical side of Jason Corder, [...]
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Tags: ambient
In an unprecedented move, we receive a special sound postcard featuring not one, but two of our favorite musicians working together – offthesky and Morgan Packard. To be even more unconventional, Jason Corder submitted a video created exclusively for Headphone Commute‘s Sound Postcard series: the video was shot several years ago on a lumix DMC [...]
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Interview with Ian Hawgood
First, I want to talk about Nomadic Kids Republic. What brought on the birth of this new imprint into your family? Where does the name come from? When I first thought about actually forming a label, I came up with the name ‘Noakk’. I liked the idea of having an autumnal, large old dead trees [...]
Filed under: Artist Interviews, Label Profiles | 1 Comment
I suppose a part of me suspected that after Brock Van Wey released Tribes At The Temple Of Silence on Home Normal, it would not take long for him to engage in some kind of a collaboration with the label’s curator, installation artist and prolific musician, Ian Hawgood. I just didn’t expect it to happen [...]
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Tags: ambient, ambient dub, minimal
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