Posts Tagged ‘minimal’
I have to admit that I’m mildly surprised by where my musical preferences are taking me these days. Until recently, I didn’t really have much patience for drone and noise music. I found it intriguing but I couldn’t really wrap my head around it. Now I find myself increasingly gravitating toward these more abstract forms [...]
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Tags: abstract, experimental, minimal
It’s easy to write about beautiful music. When the ambient pads wash over the gentle picks of a guitar and the distant eavesdropping of radio frequencies, it’s easy to write. When the soft piano chords are smothered in a generous dose of warm reverb, spreading over the field recordings of a rainy city street, it’s [...]
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Tags: ambient, minimal
Opening in mist, with disassembled activity both hidden and continuous, Seas Between is a work containing the solemnity of temporality, trembling tenderness, and the brightest side of sightless imagination. Corey Fuller was born in the United States, but while still very young, he relocated with his family to Japan, where he spent the next 20 [...]
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Tags: ambient, minimal
Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto are unquestionably among the masters of modern experimental music. Noto has crafted a musical language all his own based on the most elemental of sound sources – electricity, static, white noise – and helped to raise laptop production to new heights. Sakamoto has such a varied an brilliant career, ranging [...]
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Tags: abstract, glitch, minimal, modern classical
The dub sound of Intrusion is like an early stroll along the empty beach. Waves of white noise and minor chords splash and bounce against the glistening, polished, and rolling bass. The rhythm is measured, natural and hypnotic. The background four-four beat creates a trance-like experience. And the overall emotion is indeed seductive. Although the [...]
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Tags: ambient, dub techno, minimal
Once again it is tough for me to write a proper review. At most I feel as if I’m paying homage to a passing soul from one realm to the other. As if I’m finally saying these words a little too late. As if the words can fill an empty space for an unfulfilled obligation [...]
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Tags: ambient, minimal
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
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
Ø – Oleva (Sähkö)
You would think that by being one of the prominent sound engineers and pioneers in experimental music since 1993, Mika Vainio would have run out of steam. You would think that numerous copy cats would push his sound design into obscure corner of just another knob tweaking artist. You would think. But Vainio treads on. [...]
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Tags: experimental, minimal, minimal techno
Exploring the rhythm beyond its regular structure is the main objective in this abstract and experimental album by Kamran Sadeghi, titled Through Thickness. Like little insects beating their wings against an aquarium where rabid fish circle the dying microphone, the sharp frequencies in the swirling noise of clicks is just one image floating to the [...]
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Tags: experimental, minimal, noise
Analog Caverns and Digital Crypts
Simon Scott - Headphone Commute


