honest words on honest music
Mike Jedlicka
I’ll show you mine…
Take a peek into the collection of records owned by the host of Optic Echo Presents.
Taylor Deupree – Sti.ll
An excerpt from a project released in the newly launched FOLIO format on greyfade
In the studio with Lisa Bella Donna
“… music and recording should always be a joy… never a resistance to the miraculousness of the music to be made…”
In the studio with Hania Rani
“… I usually try to bring new elements to the process or deliberately limit myself to one instrument…”
In the studio with Eluvium
“… many of my favorite compositions have been created using pretty simple and relatively cheap tools…”
The Audio CD Flaw
My journey into a rabbit hole of bit-perfect data transfer
How to fall in love with digital music…
All about appreciating the medium from a connoisseur’s point of view…
… how childhood mishaps, a well-worn dehumidifier, and 9-euro earbuds shape a creative journey…
Bogdan Raczynski
You’re Only Young Once But You Can Be Stupid Forever
“… perfect miniatures…”
The album is conceived around themes of late-stage capitalist brutality, hyper-consumerism, online doom and algorithmic apocalypse. Beauty in the face of planetary collapse and 24/7 live-streamed genocide.
November 17th, 2024
America has spoken. Congratulations. Well-deserved. I guess it’s time for dark music as we slowly recede …
NAKAMURA Hiroyuki
Voices in the Void
… exploring complex soundscapes, merging East and West in a kalleidoscope of post-orchestral sounds…
Linus Alberg
Signs from Outer Space
“… intimate soundscapes with piano, strings, and harmonium, evoking quiet warmth and comfort…”
Hammock
From the Void
… the soul-soothing soundscapes offering a bridge from Love in the Void to their next sonic journey …
The latest release from Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson, blending four previously unreleased songs with four new compositions inspired by their celebrated album.
Black Swan
Somewhere But Here and Time Loop
“… exploring the shadowed depths that linger at the periphery…”
Jonas Munk
Mirror Phase
“… like cloud formations in the sky…”
Bruce Brubaker
The Big Ship
“… solo piano interpretations of Eno’s iconic ambient pieces […] organic spaces and mesmerizing textures…”
Alessandro Cortini
NATI INFINITI
“… balancing dark ambience with pulsing textured rhythms, creating an unforgettable visceral experience…”
Explore Alessandro Cortini’s latest album, featuring his Strega synthesizer, which he co-designed with Make Noise. A primordial, evolving sonic journey, now out, via Mute.
November 3rd, 2024
AI reminds me of the need for honest words on honest music. This week’s finds echo that sentiment …
October 20th, 2024
Discover new music in this week’s column, featuring releases from Marta Mist, Rival Consoles, Gábor Lázár, and more.
Max Richter
In A Landscape
“… between the external and the internal, electronic and instrumental, the technological world against the natural world…”
Max Richter returns with his ninth studio album on Decca employing his minimalist approach to themes of the big questions of life and the quiet pleasures of living.
r beny
fir-sweet and mossed
“… a contemplative journey inspired by nature and the quiet details of the world around us…”
Six Missing
Storm
“… capturing the hollow moments of a struggle and the flickers of hope that keep us kicking along…”
Richard Skelton
the old thrawing crux
“… inspired by the landscape and loss, capturing the ephemeral beauty of fading memories and meditative spaces…”
Recorded on a reel-to-reel using the unique ‘Carna’ clavophone, this album blends atmospheric textures with deeply emotive soundscapes.
Label Profile
YUKU
My long-time friend and I [name omitted for privacy, but he knows who he is] love …
Joachim Spieth
Longing
“… slowly filtering through the sonic biotopes until the sounds extend across the spectrum in full frequency…”
“… I look for good quality in almost anything. It’s more than just an aesthetics but a way of living in the world…”
Jon Hopkins, Clark, µ-Ziq
“… from meditative journeys to visceral film scores and nostalgic breakbeats…”
Marcus Fjellström
Last Morning Watch VII.
“… a remarkable sonic line from contented exploration, to staggering decline, to death…”
Malcolm Pardon
Side Effects
“… just like the distressing notion of your own inevitable passing, it is disquieting, beautiful and final…”
Purple Decades
Completely Still
“… an invitation to slow down and contemplate the vastness of time and the universe…”
“… an important step for me regarding ideas is to not search for ideas…”
Mike Lazarev
Saturated Signals
“… a continuation of heavily layered synthesized and organic textures initially explored on Sacred Tonalities…”
Kaito
Summer Ocean
“… perceiving the sadness of the memories alongside the pure beauty of nature…”
Kiasmos
II
“… eleven tracks of pure and lighthearted bliss, ideal to lift your spirits and quench the thirsty mind…”
The duo of Ólafur Arnalds and Janus Rasmussen are back with their follow-up on Erased Tapes triumphantly bridging cinematic and modern classical sound with micro-sculpted tech-house beats.
Joep Beving & Maarten Vos
The boat
“… reflecting on a period of introspection […] coming to terms with the events that have transpired…”
Julia Gjertsen, nonkeen, Unstern
Julia Gjertsen’s ambient piano melodies, nonkeen’s jazzy keys with Nils Frahm, and Unstern’s atmospheric debut…
“… the world is truly a canvas where we can identify some patterns and learn to appreciate its chaotic aspects…”
Dustin O’Halloran
1 0 0 1
“… an auditory exploration into the crossroads of artificial intelligence and our comprehension of existence…”
Beginning its life as a collaborative dance piece with choreographer Fukiko Takase, the new solo album on Deutsche Grammophon probes the deep questions surrounding nature, consciousness, technology, and the profound implications of AI.
Dustin O’Halloran
Blue Summer Mixtape
“… capturing the feeling of waiting for an Icelandic summer which leaves as suddenly as it arrives…”
Alva Noto
HYbr-ID Noh Talk
“… heterogeneous compositional methods that converge in music fusing geometries, dystopias and scientifc references…”
Illuvia
Earth Prism
“… an even keel of a floating buoy in the stormy weather of my mind…”
Listening to Illuvia is like waking up in a tent still covered with frosty dew to the sounds of the rave ongoing through the night. It’s a nostalgic feeling of my youth, and perhaps that’s just one of the reasons why I keep returning to this album.
“… the human sense of hearing does not perceive all sound, and there is much more unconsciously excluded sound in the world…”
Grand River and Abul Mogard
Sulle barcane
“… a vast, open space for the imagination to fill with reflection, contemplation, and abstract thoughts…”
“… I must be moved in some way; it doesn’t matter if for good or bad, positive or negative, as long as I’m emotionally involved…”
“… a particular flavour of sonic tenderness which pulls on my heartstrings with a sombre reverberation of the keys…”
Jega, Yagya, Nils Frahm, Thom Yorke
Celebrating Headphone Commute’s many years of content, I am highlighting albums from the past…
Snorri Hallgrímsson
The Girl in the Dark
“… blending a tragic quality of an intimate felted upright piano with the emotional weight of the orchestra…”
“… to foster creativity, it helps to understand how different phenomena appear in the universe…”
36
Trance Anthems For A Sunken Generation
“… an aggressive inversion of euphoric sound […] fractured and beaten into submission…”
Dennis Huddleston smacks us in the face with his rawest emotion to date.
Ben Frost
Scope Neglect
“… frosty fragile fretful armadillo crawling on your naked back…”
The familiar aural chemistry of metal is immediately untethered, isolated in the vacuum, stripped of its cultural trappings and heavy armory, and loaded into a particle accelerator.