Optimization, tautologically, improves – to a point. A point in multidimensional space, representing some metricized maximum. But whence the metric? And whither the goal?
One can oppose it directly – declare that art will simply not optimize. But, in the spirit of creativity, it is best to first ask – why?
Featuring clarinet.
Things come in pieces – but not to them. Rather, the pieces assemble, albeit loosely. These clusters join, painting – or sculpting – or neither. But still, thinking – imagining.
Featuring piano.
Sometimes, it’s good to be proud. Proclaim to the world that which is true to you. Stand UP, and be counted – and join the party!
Featuring overdubbed bass clarinet, frame drum, and shaker.
What matters.
What matters?
This matters.
That matters.
Who clatters?
Those ratters,
in tatters
that shatter.
The matter
of Matter
is chatter,
not latter.
Featuring flute.
Always zip, (and also latch)
Ensure your cargo is attached.
Failure to heed this mandate
Lets your goods fall to their fate.
Tumbling can be quite tragic,
Requiring repair to restore the magic.
So, remember this simple quip:
Secure your latches, and always zip!
Featuring bass clarinet.
Takashi Izeki presents Life, a sonic universe where the guitar breathes through ambient and atmospheric sound.
His music blends hypnotic rhythms with lush textures, guiding the listener on a serene and deeply emotional journey.
Between Memories, echoes of the past illuminate the present; Deep Sea and Labyrinth plunge into the depths of the soul; Wish transforms hope into a distant horizon.
His environmental music reveals minimalist, warm, and beautifully crafted synthesizer compositions, where every sonic landscape invites contemplation, inner balance, and discovery.
A contemplative, intense, and deeply immersive album, meant to be experienced without haste.
What is a vacuum? What does it accomplish?
If it functions well, it achieves nothing.
Featuring clarinet and robot vacuum.
Journeys through familiar places can proceed in strange ways. It is difficult to capture how, as we either fall back on tropes or into noise. Despite the distance between these extremes, their bounding lines are thin – porous.
Featuring clarinet.
Triumphantly approaching, from either side – diving and dodging, far and wide. Success is at hand, but not yet here – the drive to continue is strikingly clear.
Based on the concluding fanfare from Liszt’s Les Préludes, as featured in the 1940s Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe. Featuring orchestra and improvised overdubbed clarinet.
What is the sound of a color? Is it the same as the color of a sound? If so, it must be both bright and dark, rich and dry. It must sing its hue to the world, and paint its pitch across the sky.
Featuring bass clarinet.
When I lived in a tiny godforsaken fishing village in Crimea, I had a collection of antique glass fishing floats, picked up on the shores of the Sea of Azov – just like the ones they collect in Japan. Only photographs remain now, because I no longer know where that home of mine is.
And a street that no longer exists for me. A window with erased coordinates. Blue glass floats in a digital media only. Not too much for recollection, I can’t help not to recollect.
—
■ Vu iz dos gesele (as an echo) // Crimean Memoir
A 5-minute raw hauntological document captured accidentally during a Zoom H2 field test.
An enharmonic intersection of the Japanese C In Sen scale and F Harmonic Minor, where the ghost of a traditional melody involuntarily bleeds through a rigid modal space. Left unedited with all the room tones and industrial rumble from an open window.
Video: Shifting light on the original archival photographs of my lost glass floats.
Breaks expose facets – facets offer perspectives. Such variety is less transparent, but it rewards amply. Yet it also carries risk – the danger of a a breach too far, and an edge too sharp.
Featuring piano.
Being well-used does not necessarily entail being used up. Many items require a period of breaking in – resulting in a resilient litheness that allows for optimal performance.
Featuring clarinet.
“Stay well, stay kind to each other, do unto them as you would have them do unto you, be a good person, and enjoy music. This is the story of life. Enjoy music, and be a good person – be a good person to other people, and enjoy music. Then you’ve got it all.” – Sonny Rollins
Featuring jazz trio of organ, drum kit, and clarinet.
In the embrace of the unreal real, we are often overwhelmed. We chase loose notions, seeking candor but finding confusion. It is only through directness that we can discover our intention – act simply, and simply act.
Featuring tenor saxophone.
Well, what’s this? The guitarist who usually goes berzerk on the guitar with “Die Leere im Kern deiner Hoffnung” is now releasing an album of acoustic songs as FC Stoffel. Few people have seen this side of him so far, but that’s about to change.
As a father of two and a proven master of spontaneous songwriting, it’s no surprise that FC Stoffel has written songs from time to time over the years to entertain his children. And that he’s occasionally performed them for small groups. Of course, always only upon their insistent requests. Due to the ever-growing demand, he has now recorded these songs under his bed over the course of the past year. Recorded and sung in one take with just two microphones. Everything is very direct and unvarnished, a bit raw and not perfect, but full of wit and charm. May young and old and small and big alike enjoy it.
“Rezumar” is configured as a transmission system from an aquatic and subterranean environment, where sound is not projected—it seeps through.
The work unfolds as a network of relationships between water, matter, and electricity, articulated through an assembly of hybrid devices. The water phone and the “Après-Baschet” resonators do not establish hierarchies; instead, they complement one another: one explores states of liquid resonance, impact, and friction, while the other oscillates between rhythmic pulses and extended atmospheres, generating a pendular movement that structures the listening experience.
The Oceanic tamtam and the Euphonic expand this field, activating micro-vibrations, displacements, and shifting densities. Each moment of the album corresponds to a transformation of the environment: from the opening of the ocean, through zones of pressure and instability, to the entrance into rocky cavities and an interior space of shelter.
A presence moves through this system. It does not observe—it calibrates, activates, and translates. Its movement is almost imperceptible, yet sufficient to alter the balance between elements.
“Rezumar” proposes a mode of listening in a state of immersion, where the boundaries between instrument, body, and environment dissolve.
Yadak + Kýmatha
(Santiago, Chile. Mayo / May 2026)
Breaking in isn’t always about burglary – it can also refer to the process of getting a new thing settled. Fresh, crisp – but not yet pliable. It takes use and time for many materials to reach their optimal point.
Featuring clarinet.
It asks a little of us here – it asks of us a certain height.
We must choose.
Featuring Eb clarinet.
You can go somewhere, come back – and not fully return. It is not a place you are attached to, but an idea – an experience, a feeling, a mind.
Featuring piano.
When one considers, what is one doing? Meditative effort is effort nonetheless, though how meditative it is is debatable. Inference informs that most forms of energy are neither fully at rest nor in motion.
Featuring soprano saxophone and reverb.
Smell, like sound, permeates a space. But smell is physically inculcated onto and into the substances it reaches, where sound simply bounces off. Imagine experiencing music as a smell, allowing the sound to stay with you.
Featuring bass clarinet.
Empathy isn’t always what it seems – it might simply be sympathy for the plight of another. Superficially, such efforts are still noble – but a deeper understanding requires genuine connection. Supposed empathy, sometimes ominously, fails to meet this bar.
Featuring piano.
Once upon a time there were two mice. Despite their size, they imagined a world where they could do whatever they wished – where all other forces submitted to their designs. They had this dream quite frequently – essentially, every night.
Featuring metronome and saxophone quartet – baritone, alto, tenor, and soprano.
