Imagine yourself riding through the country in your brand new convertible on a summer day… Imagine drifting above the stretching fields following the sunset towards the horizon with warm wind in your hair… Imagine floating above the clouds, climbing to the heights where the air is thin, and then diving off the coast towards the salty ocean… These are the images and feelings that are evoked when listening to Dive, Scott Hansen‘s latest studio album as Tycho released on the remarkable Ann Arbor based (Michigan, USA) Ghostly International.

Hansen first came onto the scene with his 2004 release on Gammaphone, Sunrise Projector. In 2006, he got picked up by the now defunct and dearly missed Merck, where Tycho gained critical acclaim with the expanded version of Sunrise Projector, published as Past Is Prologue. When Merck closed its doors in January 2007, Hansen was one of those musicians looking for a new home. He immediately found Ghostly International to be suitable for his sound with a digital release, The Daydream / The Disconnect. In 2009, Hansen teased us with a Coastal Brake EP on Ghostly, and finally unleashed Dive – a collection of floating melodies, uplifting beats, and dreamy vocals.

Many thoughts and memories well up when listening to Dive. I immediately flashback to the days of electronica when lush textures, warm layers, and upbeat rhythms accompanied me on many occasions. Hansen hints on elements of time in his compositions:

“Nostalgia is a common thread in my work, but this album wasn’t driven by that idea. I see these songs as artifacts from a future which might have more in common with our past than our present.”

It’s nearly impossible to avoid comparisons of Dive to the sonic fields of Boards of Canada, synth soundscapes of Ulrich Schnauss, lounging head nodding of Bibio, childhood longing of M83, and mnemonic washes of Telefon Tel Aviv. Known in the graphic design world as ISO50, Hansen paints his auditory canvas with sun drenched colors and earthy tones. With nearly effortless yet flawless execution, Hansen justifies the long wait, and delivers one of our favorite albums of the year – featured in Headphone Commute’s Best of 2011 : Music For Missed Friends, Barbecues And Turntables.

tychomusic.com | ghostly.com

A long time contributor, a sonic curator, and musical journey vanguard, Cole Pierce, returns to Headphone Commute’s podcast series with his latest auditory map – LAKE ODESSA. This latest installment is more than a mix – it is an extension to Pierce’s sound installation for the Born Digital Exhibition at CAM Raleigh, which is opening today (January, 28th, 2012).

“My piece in the Born Digital Exhibition is a listening station and a limited edition run of hand-made mix CDs. There is a vague theme running throughout the music mix about obscured language and limits of human behavior.  The mix is fairly drawn out, comprised of austere ambient and abstract electronic music, with a groovy set in the middle.  I wove a variety of found sounds and field recordings throughout the mix; Buzz Aldrin on the moon, snippets of conversations about phobias, artificial christmas trees, and Brian Eno’s ideas on limit making.” 

Cover art by Cole Pierce, silk-screen print on 90lb cotton paper, edition of 100. Originally designed with Mixel, based on collages by Able Parris and Paul Soulellis.

colepierce.com | prestosamo.blogspot.com | camraleigh.org

[ S T R E A M ] | [ D O W N L O A D ] | [ P O D C A S T ] | [ i T U N E S ]

• Cole Pierce – WORD
• Cole Pierce – Go Lightly
• Cole Pierce – Zombies and Vampires
• Cole Pierce – Later

I somehow stumbled upon Sun Glitters in March and the album hasn’t left my player ever since.  Luxembourg based Victor Ferreira (also known as sug(r)cane) is quite prolific and seems to regularly add to his oeuvre with remixes and stand alone tracks popping up on his bandcamp on a fairly regular basis… Upon initial listening I raved to those who would listen, describing Sun Glitters as “like Boards of Canada making house music” or “probably quite good with Nitrous,” but don’t take my word for it… the official bio describes the sound as such:

“Sun Glitters sound is an ocean of lush melodies, pitch-shifted vocal samples, ghostly digi-diva choirs, warm bass melodies driven by alternately dense and relaxing beatwork combinations between downtempo and wonky beats.”

Having had this music with me for over 9 months, it really has soundtracked some memorable moments of my year… When I went to the Bangface Weekender, this is what we would wake up to in the early afternoon; when I drove to a week’s holiday at the seaside, this was the soundtrack I’d play in the car; when I have to get up at 5.30am to go to work, this shuts out the noise of the London Underground; when I had a summer barbecue, this was the album I played as the sun waned over the horizon. When Headphone Commute asked me to do a podcast mix this summer, it was no fluke that I featured several Sun Glitters tracks and remixes.

With Everything Could Be Fine, Ferreira officially reached his all time high, performing at many festivals, getting interviewed by many journalists, and of course being selected as one of the best albums of the year. The album got picked up by LebensStrasse Records for a CD release, as well as We get By label for a limited edition cassette reprint. Ufolk Records wasted no time and released a 17-track remix album, Everything Could Be Remodeled And That’s Fine, featuring reworks by Blackbird, Space Ghost, :papercutz, and many others. Ferreira also released a four-tarck split EP with South London’s Halls, and his very latest 2012 offering, high ep, released via upcoming label music/is/for/losers.

Sun Glitters – It Takes Me from high ep

sunglitters.com | sunglitters.bandcamp.com

Review by Orangewarrior, originally appearing on clockworkshorts.com. Republished with permission of the author. Additional text by HC.

It seems like an awful long time since Rustie’s Jagz The Smack EP came out on Stuffrecords. Well, 4 years to be precise. Remembering to back then, his bass-heavy “aqua krunk” style of instrumental hip hop left chinstrokers unsure if this was dubstep or something similar. In 2008, I had the pleasure of seeing him and fellow Glaswegian wonky beat-maker Hudson Mohawke dj twice in Barcelona – playing mostly hip-hop with the odd bit of a wobble, but still getting everyone who was paying attention very excited indeed.

Jump forward to 2011 and the electronic musical landscape has changed considerably – HudMo’s Butter LP came out on Warp 2 years ago seemingly leaving Russ in the dust, and bass-based dance & wobble music has evolved at an exponential rate. Quite honestly, I don’t think I was the only person to wonder what had happened to Rustie (despite the odd random quality remix), so it was a great relief to see him finally step up and deliver on the promise of those early productions.

Glass Swords, like all the best electronic albums has one eye on the future, the other on the past, and has then fused both into a sound that somehow manages to sound nostalgic and future-looking in one contemporaneous shard – crystallizing the moment, you might say. Surprisingly for someone whose early works seemed quite moody, there’s a sense of unabashed joy and freedom that permeates each track – dayglo trance drum rolls and hands-in-the-air euphoric rave synths, which are gleefully thrown into the mix alongside what sounds like 1980′s hair metal guitar samples and an infinite play chest of toy percussion.

“[...] Rustie time travels for the cocaine-addled synthesizer washes and searing guitar tones of 1980’s pop, the cash-infused bombast of new-millennium R&B, the pit-of-your-stomach ecstasy high of the most classic rave memories and the bloodshot scowl of white-hot pirate radio broadcasts.”  -Warp Press Release

The sounds themselves are of a strangely fuzzy home-made quality, sounding like an energetic drummer trying to replicate an Essential Mix as he listens to it live on the radio. This is by no means a bad thing, but it does mean that there is something uniquely Rustic about the tracks here that would make them hard to blend into a DJ mix of otherwise polished-to-perfection dancefloor smashers. Whilst appropriating the templates of current musical vogues: dubstep, juke, techno, wobble hip hop, and so on, the album manages to sound like none of them at all, but something beamed down from another plane entirely.

The second track on the album, “Flash Back”, instantly reminded me of Vince DiCola’s synthy score for the 1980′s animated Transformers Movie and I suspect this isn’t coincidental.. a clonky retro-futuristic element is definitely there in the fabric of the music. Meanwhile, neck snapping tunes like “City Star” and “After Light” sound (unexpectedly) like something Afrika Bambaataa might have made, had he grown up on a diet of Irn Bru and fish suppers. It’s yet to be proven, but I suspect you could happily play this album from end to end over a compilation of 80′s sci-fi movies and it would fit perfectly…

warp.net

Review by Orangewarrior, originally appearing on clockworkshorts.com. Republished with permission of the author.

Jamie Teasdale, formerly one half of dubstep duo Vex’d, is now working solo as Kuedo. Fittingly released on Mike Paradinas’ Planet Mu record label, it harkens back to the mid-1990′s Artificial Intelligence series of albums on Warp that led to the somewhat unfortunate genre name of “IDM.” There are certain keywords that appear to be obligatory when talking about this album, so let’s get them out of the way: Vangelis, Blade Runner, Tangerine Dream, Carly Simon, Tony’s Theme From Scarface, Chicago’s footwork, and ‘coke rap’. There we go. Whoops, nearly forgot 808. That’s better.

Severant in some senses shares a lot of DNA with Rustie‘s Glass Swords (Warp, 2011) – there’s definitely a sci-fi element at play here and indeed the 1980′s nostalgia is up front and centre. Wilfully low-fi sounding instrumentation is an element of both albums too – Severant appearing to be almost hand crafted rather than edited together on a computer: I can happily imagine a live band behind a huge bank of synthesizers, 808s and Keytars playing this album to their hearts’ content. Where the two part company, however, is that whilst Glass Swords is like an ADD-afflicted blipvert of influences, Severant is defiantly consistent in its sounds and atmospheres.

“As reality shapes imagination and escapism affects your choices in the real world, there is a strange relational loop between the two and the space in between the two. There’s a bitter sweetness in that gap, it has a certain emotive quality, kind of in between being and non-being. I wanted to capture a really futurist sentiment, kind of melancholy and grand luminescent, so I used the instrument that most evokes that for me – that sweeping Vangelis brass sound.” – Jamie Teasdale

There’s a glacial flow and mathematic, almost architectural precision to the 15 emotive tracks of this album. No track overstays its welcome, and the album as a whole is a brisk listening experience, as well as a wholly immersive one. Tentative, tinkling melodies dapple the big brassy synth washes like plankton dancing around a killer whale; jittery spiders-legs percussive rhythms call to mind a long-forgotten time when Autechre were an act one could relax to. Ultimately, Severant is a beautiful body of work that manages to sound both upfront and horizontal at the same time (I’d be fascinated to see how people react at any live shows). Don’t just take my word for it though, you can stream the entire album on the Planet Mu website.

planet.mu

Review by Orangewarrior, originally appearing on clockworkshorts.com. Republished with permission of the author.

For this vinyl only mix, Mike Jedlicka of Optic Echo selects over 90 minutes of his favorite releases on wax for this Best Vinyl of 2011 journey. Full of incredible ambient soundscapes and modern classical marvels, Jedlicka crafts an itinerary worthy of repeat revisits and appropriate for another end of year celebration. Besides being a programming director at Portland Radio Authority where Jedlicka runs the Optic Echo Presents show, Mike also curates his label, Optic Echo Records, with an upcoming vinyl release by Marcus Fischer.

Be sure to check out Mike Jedlicka – Fleeting Desolation

opticecho.com

[ S T R E A M ] | [ D O W N L O A D ] | [ P O D C A S T ] | [ i T U N E S ]

Hey Simon, where are you now and what did you do this past week?
I recently moved to California and spent this week working on material for the upcoming Krusseldorf & Behind Blue Eyes album coming up in 2012.

Can you talk a bit about your different aliases? How is each one different and how do you separate the music when you produce under one verses another?
Krusseldorf is my free form project where I can test out new music theories and technical theories and put them into action, not all material gets used due to the reservations to where one can release material that currently has no definitive scene. But the project is very much about experimentation and my most MUSICAL project. Atrium Carceri is completely different and I produce this under strict rules and when experimenting with my psychological theories on how sound manipulate thought patterns, emotions and enlightenment, I use test groups of listeners for AC to report how they got affected from the material and it is a very personal project because it reflects my travels beyond the physical. Za Frûmi is the project I do with Simon Kölle and that project is much more like creating a soundtrack for a movie that was never made, in a way. We work a lot with recording field sounds at various locations and often try out new ways for the surroundings to influence us (The album Simon Magus from our side project Abnocto was recorded in an underground bunker of sorts deep down under the ground). Alembic is the project I do with Zekazy and is mainly a pooling of resources from both of our personas, what new theories we learned and are interested and testing out and so on. Kronox is my dubstep project which is just about having some fun.

What is your studio setup like? Care to share some production secrets?
The most important thing about the studio is my Rokit RP8s in combination with the TC TWIN, the next most important stuff is all the microphones I use but they are far too many to list here. Production secrets hmm, I can share something that keeps bugging me. The volume Race! Non producers often perceive a loud sound as sounding better than low sound volume, this has resulted in the overuse of limiters and compressors when masterers work, but it destroys the dynamics of the audio. Use your volume knobs!!!! To all who listens, stop the madness!

You have been producing since the Amiga days – does that mean you were into the whole demoscene back in the days, with 4-track MODs and 8-bit samples?
I was never a good programmer, but I used a lot of tracker software back in those days and I was a consumer of the demoscene for sure. 4kb demos still blow me away.

What was the story and inspiration behind the music on From Soil to Space?
I carry over this from Atrium Carceri I guess, but I never explain my artwork, texts or story of any of my projects. The inspiration is all over the planes, but mostly my inner travels and audio theories I wanted to test out.

How is the music scene in Sweden?
We don’t really have a good music scene for listening to music live here, most people attend parties to, well, party. Not listen to music.

Tell us about your upcoming work with Behind Blue Eyes.
There is an upcoming album in 2012 as of yet untitled, with groovy pumping 4/4 beats. The project is always morphing and changing as we both fuse our energies into it having vastly different experiences in audio and music productions. The upcoming album has a different style than the previous one, but still very much has that deep Iboga Progressive sound tattooed on its forehead.

Read Headphone Commute review of From Soil to Space

krusseldorf.com

Before I go into the details of this review, I’d like to take a moment and talk about the label. Glacial Movements is an Italian label, specializing in “glacial and isolationist ambient”, founded and curated by Alessandro Tedeschi, also known as Netherworld. The label was launched in July of 2006, with a customary introductory compilation. The second catalog release was Netherworld’s Mørketid (2007), followed by Rapoon‘s Time Frost (2007). The minimalist aesthetic of the dark ambiance and icy drone continued with releases by Lull, Skare, Aqua Dorsa, and Francisco López.

I finally discovered the label with a beautiful album by bvdub, The Art Of Dying Alone (2010), and then kept my ears open for Netherworld‘s follow up, Over The Summit (2011), Loscil‘s Coast/ Range/ Arc (2011), and of course bvdub‘s return for the interpretations on Tedeschi’s above mentioned first release - I Remember (Translations Of Mørketid). It’s no wonder that the label quickly climbed to the top of my favorites, as I tracked down and purchased the back catalog. Here’s an introductory paragraph from the label’s page:

Places that man has forgotten… icy landscapes… fields of flowers covered eternally with ice… Icebergs colliding among themselves… The boreal dawn that shines upon silent white valleys in the Great Northern lands… an explorer lost among the Antarctic glaciers looking for the way home… The cold and silent night that falls upon the glacial valleys… creatures that look for shelter from the Great Northern cold… Glacial Movements is a label born to describe and spread these thoughts/images through sound.

Yes, fans of Biosphere, William Basinski, Deathprod, and the minimalism of Taylor Deupree, Robert Henke, Richard Chartier and Yann Novak will appreciate any and all of the above mentioned albums. Not to mention the most amazing upcoming release schedule from Pjusk, Marsen Jules, Phobos, Aidan Baker & Troum, and Celer!!! Did that get you excited? OK, now back to Snowbound!

Stormloop is the brainchild of Leeds based (England) Kev Spence, who has been producing and self-releasing ambient albums since 1999. There are about a dozen albums available via his bandcamp page, if you get hungry for more. Snowbound* (written with an asterisk), is Spence’s very first release for a record label, and it is a perfect fit for Glacial Movements! Collecting the material recorded during a two-week snow fall in December of 2009, the album tells the story of solitude and detachment through slow evolving sound and straightforward titles such as “Cold Winds”, “Dense Fog”, “Melt” and “A Blizzard”.

Soft layers of synth pads and bass drift through the landscape like a heavy cloud. It is impossible to avoid references to early mist, murky fog and smoky vapor when describing a hazy atmosphere painted by Spence. But unlike the organic ambiance of guitars and strings by some of the above mentioned artists, the music of Stormloop is a little synthetic, spacey and futuristic. As if Snowbound* is a soundtrack for an alien planet, covered in gaseous atmosphere and frozen rock. Wind picks up, but it lacks the oxygen. Instead it is thick with heavier elements that cover the caverns hungry for sun. Just writing these words with the music in the background sent chills down my spine…

Composing usually late into the night, watching the heavy snowfalls was the inspiration for these tracks, and the feeling of been lost in some remote cabin, safe but warm, with good food and drink, staring out at the depths of winter snow that covers the land… These crystalline soundscapes, take us from the cold winter nights, then out towards the bleakness of space. Snowbound* is an authentic full-immersion into the cold, and you can really feel the snowflakes on your skin.

Spence has also released a complimentary album, Snowbound** The Tracks Left In The Snow, as a ten track digital-only download via his bandcamp, recorded during the same sessions as Snowbound*. Photography by Bjarne Riesto is once again featured on this Glacial Movements release, adding to the overall aesthetic of the label that I’m falling in love with… Now I need to go and boil some water for my green tea…

glacialmovements.com

It is difficult to know whether to be more impressed by the sheer size of Brock Van Wey’s portfolio as an artist or the level of quality that he manages to sustain. Regardless, Van Wey, or bvdub, surely stands out as one of ambient music’s most influential figures. His recent collaboration with Ian Hagwood, The Truth Hurts, for Nomadic Kids Republic, reviewed by Headphone Commute in October, and his curation on the compilation Air Texture Vol 1, speak to bvdub’s growing reputation in the industry. His output as a solo artist is showing no signs of slowing down, however, and I Remember is his sixth
release in 2011!

Van Wey’s work is laced with emotion, typically drawing on themes seemingly close to his heart. I Remember epitomizes this, and is, for me, by far the most affecting of his recent solo releases. The theme here is nostalgia, with song titles evoking regret and, ultimately, retribution. Musically this approach has the effect of drawing the listener in to bvdub’s world; this is not ambient music that blends into the background but rather a shared journey. The opener, “This Place Has Only Known Sadness”, sets the stage well. It is less beat driven than many tracks on Tribes at the Temple of Silence (Home Normal, 2011), instead creating an epic soundscape that circles around haunting vocals. “We Said Forever” is similarly crafted and leads in to the album’s highlight “The Promise (reprise)”.

This is an exquisite example of a track that marches to its crescendo, peaking around the eight minute mark, before lingering, and very, very slowly drifting away (think Autechre’s “Piezo” from Amber). It is among the most exhilarating and moving pieces of electronic music I have heard recently and stands out as the centre piece of this album. The remaining songs on the album come together to make this a substantial piece of work, clocking in at just over the hour mark. The final track, “A Taste Of Your Own Medicine”, a bracing send off of soaring intensity and energy, ends this journey into bvdub’s world in thrilling fashion.

[Ed.: I beg your pardon for including Brock's notes on the album verbatim]

“Alessandro Tedeschi, aka Netherworld, has become a dear friend of mine since his kind invitation to produce an album for Glacial Movements last year, and his vision, kindness, and honesty have been an inspiration. He had sent me a copy of his album ‘Mørketid,’ and from the opening notes I was mesmerized – not in a typical way, as his music is far too subtle for that, but on a much deeper level, as the music brought a flood of memories surging forth that I had long thought lost. It took me back to those times when ambient music was so pure, and so true… so when he then asked if I would be interested in doing a translation of the album, I couldn’t have said yes any faster.

I call them translations, as they are not remixes. I used his original work as a base, and it is indeed interwoven in the translations, but my translations serve more as my own narratives on the memories and feelings his original work evoked. The translations are about memories… memories of dreams lost, and never fulfilled… but also the beauty in knowing that dreams exist… as whether they come true or not, it’s in their pursuit that life means anything.

The original album brought back all my memories of my time in the early rave scene, the dreams I (and everyone, really) had for the beautiful utopia that only existed in our minds, and which we were only able to reach but a few times – but also my current surroundings of China, where in a rapidly changing environment, I am constantly reminded of unrealized dreams – deserted buildings that stand as monuments of once-great visions, and echoes of so many voices once yearning to be heard, wanting only for the world to remember them for a moment. And so it has been a strange kind of full-circle experience, as I stand in this place with no connection to my former life, yet in it I realize that every ‘scene’ is the same – we all just want to be heard, by someone – and to be remembered.”

Newcomers to bvdub can be overwhelmed by his extensive catalogue of releases – latest albums include Then (AY, 2011),  Resistance Is Beautiful (Darla, 2011), Songs For A Friend I Left Behind (Distant Noise, 2011), and the very latest, Serenity (Darla, 2012) - but the consistent quality of Van Wey’s work is irresistible. I Remember represents bvdub at both his very best and his most personal, similar to how we found him on The Art of Dying Alone, released by Glacial Movements in 2010. For its emotional intensity and electronic craft, this album comes highly recommended!

bvdub.org | glacialmovements.com

Review by Ben Rutter exclusively for Headphone Commute.

As another year begins, I race to catch up on missed albums from my favorite labels. Israeli Aleph Zero Records has consistently put out some of the most interesting psychedelic, downtempo and IDM albums to date. Previous releases have captured the [hopefully coveted] spot on our Best of the Year lists, with Eitan Reiter’s Places I Miss That I Haven’t Been To in 2010 and Fredrik Öhr‘s Falling Through The Earth a year prior. I have been loyally following the releases by the label since Shulman‘s In Search of a Meaningful Moment (2003), and am always interested in discovering their latest offering.

For their eighteenth album catalog release, Aleph Zero  signs a veteran musician and prolific artist, Simon Heath. Recording under the moniker Krusseldorf, Heath has released numerous albums and EPs on Sofa Beats, Beats & Pieces and Iboga; and that’s not counting half a dozen albums released under his Atrium Carceri alias on Cold Meat Industry; and yet another eight albums in collaboration with Simon Kölle as Za Frûmi on Waerloga Records. A track by Krusseldorf has also previously appeared on Aleph Zero’s last compilation, Dark Room Beats (2010), so I was prepared for the best…

Throughout the album, Heath implements glitchy percussion, processed synth melodies and plenty of IDM elements to craft psybient atmospheres from another world. Listening closely reveals digital structures of spacial textures full of many rewarding moments for fans of stripped down, intimately complex, and micro constructed rhythms. Listening from a perspective of a casual observer, the music takes on a futuristic spacey feel, apt for a science fiction story where planetary spheres slowly revolve around their orbit in a never-ending gravitational fall. The music invigorates your imagination and triggers the retired synapses exercised in fantasies and lucid dreaming.

“The outer reaches of our fragile mind always strive to explore new places both inner and outer. This album was made using a large number of techniques to reach the other side of the looking glass and we greet any listener with open arms that would delve deep enough into our collective psyche to connect and dance with us in the plummeting caves of humanity’s cradle.” (from the liner notes)

Some tracks remind me of the dearly missed music of early-to-mid 00′s, with acts like Neo Ouija’s Geiom, Bauri, Sense, and Seven Ark, with a bit of psychill flavor from Bluetech, Aes Dana, and, of course, Aleph Zero’s own Shulman. This is a great album to chill out (and warm up) to, full of sonic and intelligent delights. Recommended for fans of early morning chill out beats and sparkling psychedelic vibes… Another wonderful release to land on our Best of 2011, Music For Awakened Spirits And Open Minds.

Check out Interview with Krusseldorf

krusseldorf.com | aleph-zero.info

Tell us about the evolution of your sound since your earliest release…
Jesus… I guess I’m never good enough both production wise and in the arrangement. It can always sound better and can always have more tricks n detail so is in a state of constant evolution. Those have been the constants really, that and 95% of the time it being big, hectic and dirty. I’m influenced by what I love at that certain moment in time, music, film etc.

And what about the progress of hardcore and breakcore genres? How do you feel about their influence of and fusion with dubstep?
What I think is more noticeable and relevant to me is their fusions with drum and bass, where in the past we’ve been frowned upon or scoffed at by some I think. Now though, some hard drum and bass is sounding very core influenced. And drum and bass’s production values and influence shine through in some particular core artists work (myself, Deathmachine for example). It’s pretty exciting that everyone’s accepting other things and open their minds a little on all sides of the pigeon hole multiverse, it’s been a long time coming and I’ve been waiting for it I guess in many ways.

On your latest release, Trainwreck Magnetism, you managed to gather up some of my favourite taste makers from the electronic music scene. How do you come upon remixing tracks from Hecq, µ-Ziq, Drumcorps and the like?
Well, Ben (Hecq) approached me to remix Spheres of Fury quite a while before the album started taking shape. It was for the 1st release on his own label. I’m still in shock that he asked me of all people as I hold him in such high regard. I had a lot of fun remixing Spheres; he said he wanted a heavier remix so in that respect I guess he did ask the right person. Id wanted to get my teeth into Mu-ziq’s ‘Siege of Antioch’ since the very 1st time I heard it after getting ‘Bilious Paths’ and it just came up in conversation while we were hanging at a gig or something. I’m lucky to have got the chance to remix Mike, he was very important to the shaping of my sound. As for Drumcorps, well it’s kind of like the Mike story, I wanted to mash a couple of Aaron’s tracks together for a dj mix and then ended up with an idea for a track n it grew from that. It’s a banger…

Are there any artists that you would love to work with?
Myself and Tommy Broken Note have talked for a year or so about a collab so I want to get that started next year. I’d love to collab with Limewax and I think a collab between me and Enduser is long overdue. I’ve got quite a couple of collabs lined up for 2012 though, including a Drumcorps project. I think as I said before, the merging of these genres will really show its face next year… bring it.

Where does the title of your album come from?
Hahaha, a journalist a few years back said that I had a sort of train wreck magnetism ‘quality’. Likening me to the feeling you get when driving past a train/car crash and being drawn towards it/not being able to stop looking at it… I’ve taken it as a compliment! hahaha

Your latest sound indeed sounds pretty “hard”… What prompted you to explore such darker territory and unleash the destroyer upon the listener?
I actually think it’s a lot lighter and musical than the 1st album, whereas that was an album written pretty much solely for moshing to and worked as a unit/full album as one this is more separate pieces. It still is pretty damn heavy though, I just can’t help but write like that. Even when I try and make something, say, minimalistic and light, it comes out like a rapid fire sledge hammer cannon.

The production quality of Trainwreck Magnetism is pretty tight… Even with all the distorted kicks, my monitors have no trouble peeling off the higher frequencies. Tell us about your production setup. What hardware/software did you use for composing these tracks?
That’s good to hear! I used only software for all projects up until very recently. Cubase, Kontakt, Reaktor are the staples. In fact iv only very recently bought a mixing desk, rack compressor and some other toys but hasn’t used them at all. I’ve had a time out in 2011 believe it or not… 2012 will be a very different beast. After a year break I feel really refreshed and focused. It’s good.

What are you working on right now, and what’s next for The Teknoist?
I’m working on moving studio/house after a year off (kind of). I’ve been resting but releases that have been waiting have come out this year so it’s made me look busy still. 2012 I’m planning on being pretty busy both in the studio and gig wise. In 2011 I turned down 95% of shows and strongly considered having a few years off but things have changed for the better since a dreadful 2010 and early 2011 personally. I’ve got a lot of work to do to fix some things but I’ve had time to think and get healthy again after 5 or so years of international touring every weekend.. So I’m motivated again and tbh I don’t think I could have stayed away.

You have an impressive background in music composition, yet this is your first studio album. What inspired you to make this transition.

Akara is the culmination of a musical journey I’ve been on for about ten years. I have been obsessed with making a kind of otherworldy music of luminous beings for about that long, writing concert pieces with invented light-language and these kinds of fusion gamelan/Indian/I-don’t-know-where melodies. And indeed I made some studio recordings before, but I never made it to a whole album. Eventually I had to come to terms with the fact that instruments are great at some things, but can only approximate others (synth bass being a perfect example), and to really create the immersive soundscapes I was hearing in my head, I would need to mix instruments with synths. A lot of what I did in Akara seems obvious in retrospect but it actually took a very long time to figure out what this music wanted to be, and what the proper way would be to do it.

And then, on the other side, there was a lot of time that needed to be spent getting all the proper gear and software and learning production at the same level (or nearly so) as I had learned acoustic composition. When I first got the software Omnisphere, which, amongst its many features, allows you to use organic, acoustic soundsources in a really intelligent way as the basis for synthesis (turning, for example, a tuvvan throat singer into a bandpass analog synth like I do about two-thirds through Projection), I started crying because I knew I would finally be able to make the music I had dreamed of.

Tell us a little bit about Femke. How did you meet her and how did the project come together, bringing a decision to include her vocals on the album?

Well, the idea of the vocals on the album predated Femke. I had a very clear idea of wanting to create this otherworldly goddess energy presence, and had written a lot of the vocal parts already before I found her.

I met Femke via a craigslist ad and a very long process of listening to demos and auditions. I was looking for a particular “breathy, elfin” sound, and I went through a lot of singers to get to Femke. She’s an incredible musician (she plays guitar, piano, and accordeon), engineer, singer, songwriter, and while I don’t use half her talents in Akara, I’m really happy to have her on board. I went through 60 applicants for the singer spot of Akara, of whom I auditioned ten, of which maybe four or so were in any way possible, but Femke was very clearly the best of the bunch.

What’s interesting is that I almost didn’t audition her – she sent me her music, and I listened to it, and I thought “well, this girl is a fantastic songwriter and has a great voice, but I’m not sure it’s really what I want for Akara.” So I wrote her an email, telling her this, and asking whether she wanted to come over anyway. She came to the studio, asked me what kind of vocal sound I wanted, and after I told her, she said, “well, how about this?” and did a perfect take of the opening melody from The Far Shore. And then she asked me whether I would be able to provide her with sheet music of all the parts when she sang them in the studio – this to a classical composer for whom notating music is the default way of communicating with musicians – and I knew it would be a match made in heaven.

Who is the protagonist in Extradimensional Ethnography, and what is his/her story?

Well, I see the listener as the protagonist. You find yourself in another world, seeing rituals and dances and songs from beings from that world, not being able to fully understand what is going on at a surface level of meaning, but getting a deep, nonverbal sense of the communication and energy.

Listening to your aural dreamscapes, I can’t help but hear relationships with Shpongle, Shulman and maybe some Ott… Who are your influences and what inspires you in creating these sonic places?

Shpongle and Ott are definitely big influences on the sound of Akara. The biggest difference between Shpongle/Ott and myself is the dub influence: Akara is not about a dubified universe of reactions between echoy psychedelia and a deep bass; rather, the psychedelia/effects are more of a constant presence, a texture rather than a color or object. Also, for Akara, I am not interested in weirdness or wackiness per se as a category. Shpongle is more of a carnival – Akara is more of a temple, though there is some of each in both.

The question of what this music is is a good one, though. You call this music “psybient”, and I think, broadly speaking, it is. I think that what defines what a music *is* for us, more than anything, is the broad strokes way it tells a story, and the way that musical gestures are used. As much as this music is influenced by lots of things, it really does feel like electronica first. Somehow, it isn’t “an orchestra piece with a laptop,” but rather a “dance music album with an orchestra.” It’s interesting that there’s a distinct difference between the two objects and I think it is because the grammar of this music – the way it uses the bass drum, the way the phrases are arranged, the buildups and hits, what we expect it to do – are that of psybient/electronica/post-dubstep rather than of classical music.

Basically there are four main strands of music that flow into Akara: Western classical music, psychedelic electronic music, gamelan, and Indian music. The Western classical influences are the strange and unique Canadian composer from the 1980s, Claude Vivier, the minimalists Steve Reich and Phillip Glass, Classical music is what I started out by studying, gamelan and Indian music are what I studied later, and psychedelic electronic music is the world I am trying most to inhabit and learn from. And what unites the latter three musics (and makes them different from any form of Western classical) is that they have what are called colotomic structure, which is a way of saying that they are structured towards big downbeats: the sam of Indian classical, the gong of gamelan, and the big drop of dance music. And I’m trying to create that, too – a kind of giant celestial gamelan, a giant clockwork thing of beauty moving towards and inevitable arrival to a dimensional tipping point…

But it’s also important to single out Claude Vivier – it’s in his music, specifically the pieces Prologue Pour Un Marco Polo, Bouchara, Lonely Child, and the unfinished Glaubst du an die Unsterblichkeit der Seele – where he creates an alternate universe with different characters speaking invented language. His music is more ascetic, harder to approach than mine, but it is deeply, deeply mystical. And what’s interesting is that it only got that way for maybe two years – he was developing his voice, and then he came to a kind of crystalline spiritual clarity in his music – and then he was murdered. In any event, Vivier is kind of a counterpoint in my mind to Shpongle in terms of setting up a model for what Akara is.

I think this is the first psybient album (forgive the categorization once again) on which I heard a _lot_ of acoustic instruments. It almost sounds like you have put together a whole orchestra for the project. Tell us a little about all of the world instruments used and how this collaboration materialized.

Well, I do use the word “orchestra” to describe Akara, though when a classical orchestra plays my music it’s a whole lot more people. But there are still two violins, viola, cello, flute (doubling on alto flute and piccolo), french horn, harp, Indian mandolin, as well as some assorted percussion. What’s different about me than I would guess all other psybient producers is that I do have this classical training, so this music was created by writing all of it out. It’s all composed and notated – there’s a score! – which really results in a different kind of texture and development than the usual “sample phrases and rearrange them” technique favored by most producers. That said, I do know that I’m not the only producer who notates parts – Shpongle, Gaudi, and I would guess Emancipator also use notation in their music. But there are a few tricks of instrumental writing that I bring into the field that I think are pretty fresh.

The only exception to this way of working was my friend Noam, who plays the Indian mandolin. His parts were part-improvised, part composed by me, and we worked on them in the studio together.

What’s next for Akara, and what are you working on right now?

Mainly what I want to be next for Akara is just to play this music live, in lots of places, preferably with the full band. It’s been amazing to feel the response and energy that have come from playing this music for people and the next step for us in a lot of ways has to do with doing it a lot more. That said, the next thing we are going to do is a remix album. It will feature remixes by Jef Stott, Kaminanda, and Kalya Scintilla – three producers whose work I enjoy a lot! I’ve heard some early versions, and they are fantastic!

Also, I’m working on the next Akara album, which will probably be an EP. I’ve been working with some darker material – though the light is always there – and also working with some tracks and sounds with a little more bass – a little harder and more danceable. We’re also going to be adding accordeon to the instrumental mix for the next album. Femke is actually a virtuoso accordeon player, amongst her many talents. I had written most of the songs on the Extradimensional Ethnography before meeting Femke, but now with her in the band, I am so excited to let her do some of the other things that she does!

Read Headphone Commute’s review of Extradimensional Ethnography.

akaraproject.com

Japanese instrumentalist Taishi Kamiya’s Spectra of Air is the artist’s first studio album. Released by the ever impressive Home Normal, the album is a departure from Kamiya’s previous focus on improvisation. Instead we find a carefully constructed soundscape, rich in steadily built texture and detail. The result is both immersive and intriguing.

The artwork on Spectra of Air’s cover, a gorgeous snow covered landscape, hints at a cold, minimalist album. When opening track “Calm” begins this is indeed the impression created as a solitary, isolated tone slices through the silence. But as the track progresses the sound gradually builds into something more textured and warm. Like the sun rising on a cold winter’s morning, the effect is one of beauty and hope.

The album continues to engage and “Northern Nature” and “Misty Morning” together form the album’s highlight. The first is an expansive, sprawling song that scatters rain drop like sounds over the murmur of electronic drone. It finishes with Kamiy’s saxophone, used here to create a fluttering end to the track. “Misty Morning” follows, and it is a truly exquisite piece. The warmest, most hopeful song on the album, it is an example of perfectly executed ambient music. The following track, “Air”, makes full use of the saxophone, this time creating a sober, brooding piece. The closing track “Drowse” is more deconstructed and minimal. Scattered glitches create a sparse ending that drifts away slowly. The sun setting, perhaps.

Spectra of Air is a fantastic album. It can be cold and remote, even sombre at times, but its scattering of hope and beauty, flickering away between the snowflakes, will draw you in. Like the sight of sunlight on a winter’s day, this album is a rarity and one that is highly recommended. Taishi Kamiya is set to release an improvised work, also on Home Normal, which, judging by Spectra of Air, should be well worth checking out. Meanwhile, there’s a three track EP, titled Moor, released by Twisted Tree Line in January of 2012.

windtail.com | homenormal.com

Review by Ben Rutter exclusively for Headphone Commute.

I first came upon a solo piece from Christina Vantzou when I heard her work on Ghostly‘s SMM: Context compilation. There, her beautiful track, “11 Generations Of My Father”, was comfortably sandwiched alongside some of my favorite modern classical and ambient composers, such as Svarte Greiner, Jacaszek, Goldmund, Manual and Rafael Anton Irisarri. That appearance alone caught my attention. The same year, in 2011, Vanzou contributed a track to yet another fantastic compilation - Keith Kenniff‘s Japan Relief Benefit, For Nihon (Unseen, 2011). In fact, both of the above releases were reviewed alongside each other on Headphone Commute’s Sound Bytes special, Music To Lift The Spirits. So yes, you can be sure that have I noticed her work!

Upon further offline research, I realized that Christina is actually one half of The Dead Texan audio/visual duo, with a self-titled release on Kranky back in 2004. Oh, and the other half is none other than Adam Wiltzie! He’s the chap that’s been capturing our hearts with his work alongside Brian McBride as Stars Of The Lid! He also managed to collaborate with Dustin O’Halloran on A Winged Victory For The Sullen‘s self titled debut on Kranky in 2011 as well! With this background in mind, I set off to listen to Christina Vantzou debut with a trembling anticipation… And I wasn’t let down…

After various collaborations and a short tenure as a touring member of Sparklehorse in the summer of 2007, Christina began composing the music for this album. She worked in isolation over a three year period using synthesizers, samples, and her voice. Then, a long distance collaboration with Minna Choi, director of Magik*Magik Orchestra transformed the sprawling 45 minute single track into a score for a 7 piece orchestra, resulting in a two day recording session with Magik*Magik at TIny Telephone studios in San Francisco. The album was finally mixed in Brussels with production assistance from Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie (Stars of the Lid).

Full bodied strings envelop the air and wash over the morning like late stubborn rain. Brass instruments announce the approach of serenity, with percussion remaining absent. The clearly audible seven-piece orchestra overrides any synthetic residuals, slowly rising in dynamics as if Vanzou just held down a chord. This purely organic ambiance seeps through the core of the album, transforming this ten-track neo-classical composition into a full-fledged symphonic suite.

Since Christina Vantzou is also a visual artist, she created videos for pretty much every track on the album (one of which is embedded in this review above). With the title like No. 1 Vantzou hints at classical naming conventions (such as Opus 1), and builds up on the promise on many great things to come from this Kansas City born, and now Brussels based, new star of the ambient and modern classical world of music. No .1 has been featured in our Best of 2011 : Music For The Film Behind Closed Eyelids. Highly recommended!

Read Interview with Christina Vantzou

christinavantzou.com | kranky.net

You previously appeared on Kranky alongside Adam Wiltzie in The Dead Texan project in 2004. How did you come about releasing your first solo album?
I got a little lost as I became involved in the music side of The Dead Texan. The Dead Texan started touring in 2005, I played onstage with Adam and we toured on and off for about three years. My leap into the music side of the project started as a practical necessity, Adam couldn’t do everything himself otherwise he would’ve. I came up with a few sounds for live shows and messed around on my own quite a bit. I didn’t have the balls to make a solo record so my ambition was to infiltrate The Dead Texan- make it more of a music collaboration. To my dismay I couldn’t convince Adam, and for good reason. The Dead Texan album was the result of a particular time and place unique in both our lives so in the end we decided to let The Dead Texan rest in peace. I just kept on with my noodlings without any ambition until the next logical step was to make a solo album.

Tell us about the process of composing the music.
I spent 3 years fumbling around with Reason and sound samples I’d collected or made or stolen. I composed quartet parts in Reason using a midi keyboard. I had no idea what I was doing.

And how did you get involved with Minna Choi?
I was visiting Berlin and gave Dustin O’Halloran the music. At this point it was about 40 minutes- synths samples and midi strings with my voice vaguely on top. I told Dustin I was looking for someone to collaborate with on notation to create an orchestra score from the blueprint I’d made. Honestly, this could’ve sounded somewhat delusional or just plain over ambitious and stupid but he kindly listened and told me about Minna. Dustin had worked with Magik*Magik on tour and his buddy Volker (Haushka) has just recorded with Minna and Magik*Magik. I wrote Minna right away, sent her the sounds and she liked it.

Talk a little about the transformation of your originally composed work into an orchestra score.
The orchestra bumped everything up to another level. It wasn’t decided that I would record with an orchestra until the demo was complete. When I found Minna and we started working together I told her which instruments I wanted to use and sent detailed notes. I knew I wanted a string quartet, french horn, and clarinet. She proposed adding the flute. I resisted at first, being like most sane people and cringing at the thought of the pan flute’s general contribution to the history of music and therefore anything flute-esque. I didn’t have a label and was digging a pretty big financial pit for myself. We ended up recording at Tiny Telephone with a 7-piece orchestra and I left the studio with a mammoth Pro Tools session. I was so intimidated by it I didn’t open the session for weeks. Mixing was meticulous and one bastard child was born- Super Interlude pt 1, the French Horn track. The biggest transformation- credit to Minna here- is the climactic ending to Super Interlude Part 2. People have been curious, maybe suspicious even, of how the demo sounded before the orchestra was recorded so I posted it on my soundcloud page.

What about the video pieces that you created to accompany each piece? This sounds like a large undertaking. Tell us about the visuals inspired by the music?
I’ve been making videos for a long time and it’s become a habit to collect, shoot, and organize footage for no apparent reason. The video I ended up making for the album has footage going back ten years. At some point I wrote a short story involving a female character which acted as some kind of glue for me to put the pieces together. There are 9 chapters in the final video and the chapter titles are text from that short story. Keeping the story in tact or publishing it wasn’t important. I’ve posted 2 excerpts and these act like music videos but the whole 47 minute video is meant to be seen its entirety. I guess I wanted to make something other than individual music video for each track so I made an abstract film.

How does your work with visuals influence your music?
There’s a lack of structure in how I work with both sound and image that is at the same time liberating and retarded. I mean it can be a slow way to work. I guess in both cases I’ve learned to work and re-work something until it achieves the desired sensibility. There’s no map, I just research what I’m doing until I’m satisfied. I’m aware this must take a bit of psychosis. No one in their right mind would spend so many hours, months, and years on something of no commercial value.

I hear that there’s also a remix album in the works with quiet an amazing roster of many artists! What was the inspiration behind this compilation and when do we get to hear it?
It was like unwrapping Christmas presents when the remixes started rolling in. They’ll be released on CD together with the entire video on DVD. The release date is set for January 23, 2012. There are 10 remixes in total- they’ll be listenable/downloadable on bandcamp on the week of the release. You can already hear the loscil remix on Soundcloud.

What are you working on right now?
Touring, getting my shit together for performing which includes developing a homemade system of notation. I most recently used this notation system for a show in Stockholm where I performed with a string quintet. I’m also working on Nº2 sound and vids.

Aha! So there _is_ a No 2! :)

Read Headphone Commute’s review of No. 1

christinavantzou.com

NOTE: ALL ENTRIES ARE LISTED IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER BY ARTIST

Battles – Gloss Drop (Warp)
Belong – Common Era (Kranky)
Biosphere – N-Plants (Touch)
BJ Nilsen – Vinyl (Touch)
Com Truise – Galactic Melt (Ghostly International)
Dakota Suite – The Hearts of Empty (Karaoke Kalk)
FaltyDL – You Stand Uncertain (Planet Mu)
Field Rotation – Acoustic Tales (Fluid Audio / Denovali)
Field Rotation – And Tomorrow I Will Sleep (hibernate)
Martyn – Ghost People (Brainfeeder)
Oliveray – Wonders (Erased Tapes)
Peter Broderick – Music For Confluence (Erased Tapes)
Phoenecia – Demissions (Schematic)
Pimmon – The Oansome Orbit (Room40)
Reinhold Friedl – Eight Equidistant Pure Wave Oscillators (Room40)
Semiomime – From Memory (Ad Noiseam)
Somatic Responses – Concrete Glider (Hymen)
Stormloop – Snowbound (Glacial Movements)
SubtractiveLAD – Kindred (n5MD)
Vladislav Delay – Vantaa (Raster-Noton)

With this we officially conclude Headphone Commute’s Best of 2011

Now on to 2012!

It still hasn’t snowed on the east coast of the US. The temperature does dip below 30, but then there are days when it’s over 50 degrees, and the sun is blaring into my studio, its warmth so strong I still haven’t turned on the heat. The trees have shed their withered leaves, but the earth is too warm for the flurries to stay. This latest mix from Dave Michuda is perfect for this morning. Titled Illusions of Autumn, the selector behind low light mixes takes you on an eclectic trip through Arve Henriksen, Daniel Lanois, Harold Budd, Steve Tibbetts, Maps & Diagrams and more…

Check out Dave’s previous entries in Headphone Commute Podcast:

• Low Light Mixes – pno 2010
• Low Light Mixes – The Landscape Listens

lowlightmixes.blogspot.com

[ S T R E A M ] | [ D O W N L O A D ] | [ P O D C A S T ] | [ i T U N E S ]

NOTE: ALL ENTRIES ARE LISTED IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER BY ARTIST

Ahnst Anders Home Ant-Zen		Black Swan The Quiet Divide Experimedia
Enduser Even Weight Ad Noiseam		Eye-D & DJ Hidden Peer To Peer Pressure PRSPCT
Kaboom Karavan Barra Barra Miasmah		Millipede Powerless Hymen
Mobthrow Mobthrow Ad Noiseam		Tapage Overgrown Tympanik Audio
The Teknoist Trainwreck Magnetism Ad Noiseam		Undermathic Deleted (1999?-?2006) Tympanik Audio

Make sure to return here tomorrow for yet another thematic list of favorite albums! See our selections in Headphone Commute’s Best of 2011.

NOTE: ALL ENTRIES ARE LISTED IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER BY ARTIST

Access To Arasaka Geosynchron Tympanik Audio		Amon Tobin ISAM Ninja Tune
Bop The Amazing Adventures Of One Curious Pixel Med School		Hecq Avenger Hymen
Instra:mental Resolution653 Nonplus		Lucy Wordplay For Working Bees Stroboscopic Artefacts
Nebulo & Druc Drac Urbatectures Hymen		Plaid Scintilli Warp
Surgeon Breaking The Frame Dynamic Tension		Void No Sudden Movements M_nus

Make sure to return here tomorrow for yet another thematic list of favorite albums! See our selections in Headphone Commute’s Best of 2011.