If you are familiar with my musings, by now you know that although my interests span a variety of genres, at the end of the day I always return to my favorite instrument: the piano. I am a classically trained pianist, and although I still tend to play almost daily on my baby grand, my […]

With about 60 releases since 2000, the LINE imprint has built a firm reputation as “a programmatic sound platform with a strong inclination towards the visual arts and multimedia, born from the desire to take the tactile qualities of audio installations from the gallery space to listeners’ living rooms.” Curated by Richard Chartier, LINE not […]

It should be no secret by now that besides the melancholic modern classical or meditative ambient works I also listen to the darker, harder end of sound. Enter Ad Noiseam, a Berlin-based label run and operated by Nicolas Chevreux, which I have been following almost since its inception back in 2001. But it wasn’t until […]

Dacapo Records is a Danish National Label featuring contemporary classical, experimental, and electroacoustic music by Danish composers. This Sound Bytes special offers a sampling of the latest recordings from the label, featuring some abstract and experimental selections. Kanding / Bretschneider Auxiliary Blue The first release in this column which grabbed my attention is the one […]

Talvihorros & Matthew Collings A Thousand Plateaus hibernate This short four track EP, released on a limited edition 3″ CDr and digital download as part of hibernate Postcard series, collects pieces for Talvihorros and Matthew Collings‘ headline tour of September 2011. Fluctuating between incoming waves of sound and receding plateaus of silence, the duo experiment […]

Frag’mnts Enig’matik When it comes to ‘glitch’, Australian Enig’matik Records skims the cream off the the top from the deep pool of talent, leaving the rest to stay luke warm and sour. Following two successful compilations, Painting Pictures On Silence (Volumes 1 and 2), the label boss, Sun In Aquarius, curates another special showcase of […]

OH/EX/OH Extant The Geography Trip The Geography Trip is an independent label which is dedicated to the “weird vortices of the British countryside and beyond.” Launched in 2012, the Manchester-based (UK) label has released a cassette tape and an LP showcasing new and previously unheard talent. The latter, Extant, is the child of a mysterious […]

Sidsel Endresen & Stian Westerhus Didymoi Dreams Rune Grammofon Rune Grammofon has been at at the forefront of Norwegian electronic, experimental, and improvised music since the late 90s. The label is responsible for releasing albums by Biosphere, Skyphone, Alog, and Supersilent, as well as the solo works of the latter members’, Deathprod and Arve Henriksen. […]

If you’re just catching up to Peter Rehberg’s Editions Mego label, you’re in luck! The label was born in 2006, but in the last six years it managed to continue the legacy started by the now defunct Mego label, and document the releases by groundbreaking artists such as CoH, Fennesz, Florian Hecker, Mika Vainio, Angel, […]

Akatombo False Positives Hand-Held Recordings Akatombo is an alias of Paul Thomsen Kirk, who is running his own label, Hand-Held Recordings out of Hiroshima, Japan, and False Positives is his third full-length album. Here’s how it goes. The menacing sound of the concrete decay is mixed with an uplifting rhythmic beat, exploring the themes of […]

Ingenting Kollektiva Fragments of Night Invisible Birds Ingenting Kollektiva make the kind of organic ambient drone that washes over your senses like a slow rolling fog, seeking to create an environment which reflects on the “quality of light, sound and atmosphere” explored in the films by Ingmar Bergman and Sven Nykvist. The four members of […]

Jono McCleery There Is Counter Here’s is another one of those rare occurrences in which I make an exception and review an album full of good ol’ songs, lyrics and all. It’s possible that the first thing that attracted my attention to a new album by Juno McCleery was his appearance on Ninja Tune XX: […]

Hildur Guðnadóttir Leyfðu Ljósinu Touch It’s time to get even more intimate with Hildur Guðnadóttir. As if her previous works weren’t full of emotion already, Guðnadóttir invites us to sit even closer to her delicate cello. Except this time Guðnadóttir also sings. Free of any post-production and processing, the thirty-five minute piece, Leyfðu Ljósinu (Icelanding for “Allow the Light”) was […]

Anyone who knows Rutger Zuydervelt must be amazed by the amount of work this man can produce. From my count, there are about five full length albums in 2009, six in 2010, seven in 2011, and about four half way into 2012 – and I’ll bet there’ll be four more before the year is over! Besides […]

Gareth Davis & Frances-Marie Uitti Gramercy Miasmah Gramercy begins in the darkness. At 2am to be precise. Gareth Davis lacerates on the brooding clarinet as Frances-Marie Uitti anguishes over the distressed cello. Both instruments cry and wail in agony, scratching over strings, escaping the tone valves, and stirring the vibrations in the still of the night. […]

Fennesz Seven Stars Touch It’s time for me to catch up to my favorite releases from Touch. And what better way to kick it off then with a short four-track EP from Christian Fennesz one of the top experimental composers known for using his guitar as the source instrument in laptop aided electronic music. Anyone familiar […]