honest words on honest music
Olivia Belli
“My music reflects what I observe every day, finding my place in the world every day. And I hope that’s how it might help other people too – to carry them through the day and to help them find their place in it, where they feel safe.”
BEST OF 2020
Revealing only one list per day, here’s the long-awaited thirteenth edition of our favorites of the year! Start here.
In the studio with Biosphere
“… I often start a composition by creating a theme with an acoustic-digital filtered sound. Over this, I often try to integrate pure synthetic sounds from a synthesizer…”
Interview with Max Richter
I finally catch up with one of my all-time favourite contemporary classical composers to talk about his latest record, VOICES and touch a little on SLEEP.
Tom Blankenberg
dear
…music to listen to when one is alone… and that one can confide in…“
LTO
Cad Goddeu
“… a mysterious and deeply textured journey that could be set in both the distant past and an uncertain future, on this planet or beyond…”
UNDISCLOSED
Final Discography Sale
“… to reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim…”
Shomyo: Buddhist Ritual Chant
Moonlight Mantra
“… clad in brightly colored monastic robes, the choir alternates between monotone stillness and ecstatic polyphony…”
Ambientologist
Sustain Series, Vol. 1
“… an ongoing fluid project aimed at recycling unfinished musical material, and creating collaborations in the process…”
n5MD label boss lets us into his abode…
A #PianoDay special, featuring exclusive track premieres, videos, and sound bytes from Tom Blankenberg, Muriël Bostdorp, Garreth Brooke, Akira Kosemura, Jameson Nathan Jones, and Mike Lazarev.
“… there’s always a point where you just have to let it go, and any imperfections left are almost always insignificant in hindsight…”
Gimmik
Carters Final Transmission
“… a weightless journey above the clouds floating through melodic electronica…”
A mix prominently featuring one of my favourite contemporary classical instruments
Valgeir Sigurðsson
Kvika
“… a sound to get lost in […] shimmering above the earth, fleeting and momentary…”
Music used to soundtrack a wartime film by Slovakian director Peter Magát, titled Malá Ríša.
“… I like to think that we have to find each other throughout life […] and take responsibility for who we are, rather than fantasizing about what we are not…”
Faten Kanaan
Mist & Madrigal
“Infinite, intimate. A parallel, a tangent.”
“… a much-desired segment in the arsenal of modules to produce complex textures and granular soundscapes…”
Kinn
Black Sinking Clouds
“… lamenting the diminishing role of the sacred and the supernatural…”
A Strangely Isolated Place
2020 | Label Compilation
A label showcase
“… getting confused by echo – variations on its depth or repetition, or even by its sudden absence – is unique and unexpected and beautiful to me...”
Christopher Royal King & Nico Rosenberg
Healing
“… on synthesizers, textured lo-fi loops, and a remote musical conversation…”
“… reminiscent of winsome memories, having something to live for by keeping the past alive, and centring our minds around the optimism of having that back again…”
Matt Emery
Anxiety Mist
“… anxiety is at the core of rising tones, increasing tension in dynamics as if performed in one big breath…“
Reza Safinia
Within
“… a fusion of two worlds, marrying classical orchestration with elements of contemporary electronic music…”
Deniz Cuylan
Object of Desire
“… my primary issue is heartbreak – the inherent, abstract heartbreak we all have…”
Ivan Zoloto
The Door Is Open
“…contorting timbres from the scratchings of the bow against the monster of an instrument…”
“… music is medicine for both the artist and the audience…”
Mathias Van Eecloo
eisOtones 13
50 tracks from 50 releases of 2020
Pêtr Aleksänder
Remains Of The Day
“…an expansive, cinematic, textured sound filled with strings, electronic undercurrents, and the creaky, muted piano…”
Sébastien Guérive
Bellatrix
“… a unique mix of ambient atmospheres with a strong presence of sound design and minimalist melodic themes…”
Christian Löffler
Dir Jehova
“… a soundtrack for a modern love story…”
Simon Goff
I Filled My Lungs with the Necessary Air, and Yelled!
“… a feeling of letting out a controlled, cathartic cry…”
“… it is where the past, present, and future all collide into a place where everything is connected…”
Elori Saxl, Henrik Meierkord, Of Thread & Mist
If you’re in search of new artists, new sounds, and new composition to explore, you can always first turn to your trusted labels
Jacob David
Styrhus
“… the solo piano drifts and waltzes through dim corridors of purposely forgotten memories, occasionally opening up the dusty shades…”
“… finding sounds is like looking through a jumble sale and finding something that really catches your senses until you become slightly obsessed with it…”
Sustain, Invisible, More Light
A trio of compilations for you to dig into this weekend, discovering new sounds among many faves!
Spindle Ensemble
Caligo
“… rooted in spontaneity and improvisation […] resulting in truly captivating sonic soundscapes…”
“… I often start a composition by creating a theme with an acoustic-digital filtered sound. Over this, I often try to integrate pure synthetic sounds from a synthesizer…”
Cristian Vogel
Pendula
“… crafted through 2020’s solitude, anxiety and hope…”
Animated Matter
Tide
“… an aural encounter with a shapeshifting, mythological ocean creature…”
A vinyl-only mix from Mike Jedlicka celebrating his favourites of the year from this still-spinning format…
Phoria
Mass (Re-Imagined)
“… an unfolding steep climb to the summit, which will leave you breathless as you peak and soar…”
Dadub, Vril & Rødhåd, Lustmord, and Linus Hillborg
Some beautiful darkness to match with your mood…
My first review of a synthesizer module. This one is a very special one, so I just had to share!
“… all the great recordings were made with what people had available to them at the time, and Picasso already knew: when I haven’t got any blue, I use red…”
noition
kôrʹəl pēs
For this final episode of the year, noition compiles a selection of peaceful and choral music
Hotel Neon
Moments
“… a lullaby for all the uneasy…”
Recorded in the span of just eight weeks Moments is one of the more minimal and textural albums Hotel Neon have ever made
“… the stigma of a performance, especially from on-stage or even from the educational theatre side, has this theme that I can’t relate to…”
James Murray & Mike Lazarev
Suññatā
“… where fragile tones appear to hang in an infinite amount of space…”
Following last year’s reworking of ‘Living Treasure’ James Murray and Mike Lazarev present a collection of post-classical compositions woven into delicate ambient textures
“… a tranquil place in a world full of turmoil…”
A flashback to an episode originally broadcasted by the Contemplative Classical community, which is now part of Headphone Commute!
Pleq & Hakobune
Adrift (offthesky Remix feat. Silverness)
“… an album of organic ambiance, warm texture, and minuscule glitch…”
“… I put a lot of focus into the sound design, atmospheric composition, and structure, […] it is the one formula that I use to make my sound audible…”
Tilman Robinson
The Mind Scans and Maps the World Behind
“… coalescing with ever-increasing frisson until its eventual ignition…”
Adam Wiltzie
How To Disappear Inside A Thirty Piece Orchestra
“… a slow-burner of an orchestral immersion…”
“My compositions are bound by the parameters of where they were created. And so to prevent my creativity from stagnating, I need to change those parameters every now and then…”
Danny Mulhern
Flow States
What forgotten wisdom resides in us?
Joachim Spieth
Jiwa
“… like ebb and flow…”
“… a tranquil and radiant place, slightly subdued in its faint hazy colors…”
“…I find it very useful to invite people to the studio, to listen ‘through their ears’… even without saying a word, you can tell if a piece works or not just by listening together with someone…”
Constantine Skourlis
Eternal Recurrence
“… delving into the abyss that is the human psyche and its inevitable dualistic nature of beauty and of violence…”
I want to call this genre “cinesonic” for its ability to trick the mind into a kinetic journey through imagined space. Recommended for fans of dynamic, physical, and psychological music.
Rutger Hoedemaekers
The Invention Of The Moon
“… as one age ends, so another begins…”
Sebastian Plano & Maarten Vos
Silk & Sand
“… patterned textures swirling to the frequencies of organic sound…”
Thomas Farnon
Protest
“… the journey of an idea, a passion, and the belief that resonates with others coming together in protest…”
“… I don’t feel too bothered about complexity, context, relevance, or reinventing the wheel in music…”
Ben Chatwin
Ghost In The Machine
“… emotive accumulations […] harnessed as melodic anchors among electric storms of pulsating sound…”
Roger Goula
Ontology Of Things
“… a collection of songs that encourage you to wander with the mind…”
Clark
Daniel Isn’t Real
“… a dark and euphoric dreamscape that evokes both rapture and dread…”
Chris Clark’s soundtrack for Adam Egypt Mortimer‘s psychological horror released on the revered classical Deutsche Grammophon label.
Sebastian Plano & Maarten Vos
Dense & Density
“… a beautifully shimmering piece resolving into a liquified bliss…”
“… my whole aim is to try and work as quickly as I can before my critical brain can catch up and force me to overanalyze…”
“… I find that ideas need time to mature, or perhaps it’s my perception and experiencing the ideas that need time…”
Simeon Walker
Captive
“… the threads unravel and unwrap to finally release the past that binds us…”
