Painstakingly prepared, one by one – inevitably proceeding the preceding. The oven inducts (in a different way), to ensure each is evenly heated en route to their destination. The process balances uniqueness and uniformity, resulting in both a dietary delight and danger – cookies, by induction.
Featuring synthesizer, bell, flute, clarinet, strings, harp, drums, muted trumpet, and effects.
It takes all of a second to realise that, in terms of guitar instrumentals, Geiger Von Müller’s ‘Alien Fig Yogurt Incident’ isn’t entirely of this world. It opens with a flurry of insanely high pitched harmonics, creating more of a mood than a melody. This immediately catches the ear, but makes the listener wonder where things are actually headed. A saner guitarist might flesh out such a technique with a couple of broad chords to make things palatable, but not this guy…
Müller then adds extra texture by offering a slide note that’s more akin to a quick interjection from a swanee whistle, then drops into a semi-atonal descending melody that uses the slide to add Hawaiian influences. There’s a melody growing, but again, it’s not from your typical school of guitar based instrumentals.
(realgonerocks.com)
Official music video:
youtu.be/dGK6HoSmxco
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We have another debut on MiMi Records. Japanese artist Ryo Kawawada brings us “Paludarium”, an ambient and introspective album that blends the softness of acoustic guitar with natural sounds, creating a serene and contemplative atmosphere.
Kawawada uses the guitar delicately, creating subtle sonic layers that evoke images of peaceful landscapes, like a walk through a swamp. The album conveys a sense of calm, yet maintains a slight tension, inviting deep listening.
With a minimalist approach, “Paludarium” is a work that celebrates the connection with nature and the ability of music to create hypnotic and evocative soundscapes.
Illusive sliver lures evils:
Rules rile, lives live –
Will lies sell?
Slier, wiser, sillier,
We vise ills – use wires – view silver –
Swell, swirl, rise,
Survive.
Featuring piano layered with strings.
Wondering what will, we.
Originate our own –
Understanding, until:
Later lives, listening,
Do drought – doubt – death.
Featuring piano.
Shortcuts went on a beach holiday! They came back with an EP in their luggage, which is tellingly titled “Strand”.
It is sometimes about “lying in the sun” or “swimming in the sea”, “journey” in the literal and figurative sense is a recurring motif. But anyone who expects a kind of vacation report set to music or even concept music is thinking too short-sightedly.
There are a few things different on “Strand” than on the previous two releases. The record is not only the most electronic, but also the most guitar-heavy in the band’s history to date. The music is also much more straightforward this time, which brings the duo closer to their live sound. “Strand” is also the first Shortcuts record with completely German lyrics. Another special feature is that Jule does not play drums on any of the songs, as usual, but guitar.
The rest remains the same. On “Strand” Shortcuts again live up to their name: you can hear short, concise songs in which nothing more is said and played than necessary.
To grow, you must build on what came before. To encourage growth, you must understand what came before.
Featuring choir, orchestral strings and woodwinds, piano, harp, wind chimes, and glockenspiel.
Events occur – time passes. What happened still happened, yet enough stillness gives separation. Ideally, this detachment is partial – a boon of timely perspective, allowing appreciation of other things while retaining connection to that which was.
Featuring clarinet.
You start something – and stop it – but don’t finish. Unceasing conclusions linger, demanding an addendum of effort and tailpiece of thought. But the end is final, even if incomplete, and we are not afforded such supplementary luxuries. Experience, create, and accept.
Featuring clarinet.
In the time we have, there is much to appreciate. Fresh angles are precious, as it is easy to fall into a seeming sameness. Though ultimately we tend to opt for comfort, the journey to other perspectives is what gives contentment context. Music is multifaceted.
Featuring clarinet.
Neck and nape, through cityscapes, the racers swiftly sped:
though racer one once held the lead, the second comes ahead.
To and fro, they strive astride, that one might claim the prize –
a Sisyphean struggle, with a cyclical surprise.
Featuring piano and two violins.
To be a bird and not to soar, rather like a dinosaur. Essence and nature aren’t always aligned. Wondering, aspiring, perspiring – the flightless bird is grounded.
Featuring clarinet.
“Check out the latest single from London-based Geiger von Müller, known for his experimental adventures in slide guitar. ‘Radar Truck’ is a blend of blues guitar and Müller’s cosmic sonic explorations. With just his acoustic guitar, Müller creates a range of sounds and rhythms, taking us on a sonic journey with a real groove. The ‘Radar Truck’ in the song’s title relates to the classic Lego space range, which has featured in a number of Müller’s videos. One of the key messages is that this range of toys prioritised exploration over conflict, with no weapons available in the original sets – something to think about in our turbulent times.” =Americana UK
The audio single comes with B-side psych experimental remix by Xqui:
Official music video:
What is the nature of uncertainty? Is it a true thing that is unknown, or an unknowable thing that is true? How can we search for things when we don’t know their shape? And what is an answer if it is simply more questions in disguise?
Featuring improvised piano.
Attempting truth, one tries many things. Up, down, left, right, directions that are seemingly expansive yet form a stricture we wish to free ourselves of. What is a diagonal pitch? Can things overlap, separately? And what exists beyond the horizon of the manifest?
Featuring clarinet “sightreading” (improvisationally interpreting) the cover image, itself titled “True Glimpses 1” by Franziska Baumann (franziskabaumann.ch).
Walking through the parking lots,
Seeing where there’s trees (and not) –
Wond’ring if the other people
Also see the world this way.
All must see with their own eyes,
And in private they surmise –
Neighborly Perambulations
Fail to bridge the minds’ divide.
Featuring improvised clarinet.
Parallel worlds, unsuspected and also longed for within this often amorphous reality.
Near and new sounds… rhythm and longing.
Solid ground and the universe.
A human journey.
Infinite images, questions and answers that multiply.
Love and humor beyond this life.
Ángela Acuña (@musicadeangela)
(Santiago, Chile. Julio / July 2024)
“Horizontes en Fuga” (Horizons in Flight) is an album extracted from the audiovisual project of the same name by the Delight Lab collective, in collaboration with Marco Martínez and Chris Manhey, who manage the immersive audio devices.
The album is a true space-time journey, utilizing diverse sonorities that merge into an inseparable whole. It blends sonic textures ranging from the earthy and abyssal—using the low frequencies of idiophones like gongs from traditional Asian music, along with the euphonic, another metallophone linked to experimental electroacoustic music that occupies the sonic space— and with digitally processed human voices that evoke a sense of ancestral ritual translated into the futuristic language of electronic bits and music concreté. Melodic elements and tempered harmony are also present in timbres generated by synthesizers.
All of this creates an infinite sum of harmonics covering the entire audible frequency spectrum in a web of suggestive vibrations that provoke synesthetic sensations where the auditory evokes the visual. Beyond the fact that the group works in both perceptual realms within an immersive audiovisual project, the album alone bridges both universes through the sense of hearing, complemented by tactile sensations, as frequencies penetrate the entire body, engaging each cell in the experience.
The combination of sounds and textures from such diverse sources gives it a timeless and universal quality, where the past, present, and future converge, similar to how starlight from a remote past reaches our current experience, somehow signaling the future.
The sonic timbres overlap transiently and gradually, giving the sensation of moving through an ever-evolving and transfiguring acoustic landscape. This evokes a sense of journey through an infinite geography of stimuli suggesting mystery, trance, ritual, magic, and the transcendental nature of human existence.
Cuti Aste (@cuti_aste)
(Santiago, Chile. Julio / July 2024)
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Como “composiciones intensivas” define Valentina Maza las piezas que componen su más reciente disco. “Busco espacio” es un trabajo solista ideado, interpretado y registrado en vivo durante tres semanas de residencia artística en el Centro GAM, de acuerdo a un proceso creativo a tiempo real.
Tres piezas electroacústicas y dos remezclas proponen a quien escucha reflexionar de cuántas formas se puede “hacer espacio” a través del sonido, pues la música ocupa tiempo, cuerpo, equipamiento, decisiones. “Esa idea fue dando lugar a un sistema híbrido de grabación y a una música que casi no tuvo edición posterior. Son piezas que no quise cortar ni maquillar, en el sentido de que me abstuve de muchos efectos, y dejé un sonido más de cámara”, describe Valentina.
La creadora combina su trabajo con máquinas y viola, como instrumentos principales, con el uso de su voz “como gesto performático, para marcar ciertos momentos. Como sucede cuando se cantan canciones de cuna”, en sus palabras. Puede escucharse como una invitación a insertarse en un ritmo alternativo al del ajetreo urbano, más íntimo y atemporal. En ese “busco espacio” del título hay, en realidad, la creación de un entorno sonoro nuevo.
Valentina Maza defines the pieces that comprise her latest album as “intensive compositions”. “Busco espacio” (Searching for Space) is a solo work, conceived, performed, and recorded live during three weeks of artistic residency at Centro GAM, and arising from a real-time creative process.
Three electroacoustic pieces and two remixes invite listeners to reflect on the myriad ways one can “make space” through sound, as music occupies time, body, equipment, and decisions. “That idea led to a hybrid system or recording and music that had almost no post-editing. These are pieces that I didn’t want to cut or manipulate much, in the sense that I refrained from using many effects, and left a more chamber-like sound” , describes Valentina.
The creator bring her work together with machines and viola as the principal instruments, using her voice “as a performative gesture, to mark certain moments. Like when lullabies are sung”, in her words. It can be heard as an invitation to immerse oneself in an alternative rhythm to that of the urban hustle, at once more intimate and timeless. In the “searching for space” of the title, there is, in reality, the creation of a new sonic environment.
Marisol García
(Santiago, Chile. Junio / June 2024)
Credits :
Johann Bourquenez, piano, rec, mix
Music by J.B. except :
2. (from a melody sung in Joris Lachaise’s film)
3. (Ukrainian patriotic march)
4. (Christian Pacaud)
Recorded on 25 February 2024 at AMR, Geneva (CH)
Mixed at Studio de l’Astéroïde, Loriol (F)
Cover design by Déborah Legivre
photo from “Mémoire de boîte à chaussure”
Révérence : Renaud Millet-Lacombe
reference : AST-01
Released 23 April 2024
“The tune itself is of the shorter breed, featuring alternating thumb picking finger-style slide guitar. This good old stylistic tradition is embedded in a futuristic environment, while the mix parades all the Western-ghost reverb that the cosmos would have if it was possible for sound to travel in vacuum. All in all, the effect is cinematic. The single is released as A and B sides, with the extended video version and album version, respectively.” [Sound Cafe Magazine]
music video:
