honest words on honest music
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.
“… 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…”
Jasmine Guffond & Erik K Skodvin
The Burrow
“…The most beautiful thing about my burrow is the stillness. Of course, that is deceptive. At any moment it may be shattered and then all will be over. For the time being, however, the silence is with me.”
— Franz Kafka
“… 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…”
ASC
Pattern Recognition
“… a type of ‘grey area techno’ that falls somewhere between atmospheric wonderings, intergalactic space travel, and post-apocalyptical crawl…”
In this mysterious and deliciously dark space, your mind meets face to face with angst and anger. Endorphins fire. Dopamine’s released. And you relax among the cradling rhythm that carries you in peace into the void.
Martyn Heyne
Neuwerk
“… touching on loud and soft, brutal and tender, subjective and universal…”
Tukico
Carnim Aiso
“… a callback to 80’s kosmiche musik, early ambient, and modular synth explorations…”
“Some ideas slip away, like beautiful shooting stars. Others, by dint of playing them, begin to structure themselves. But there are no rules…”
Quiet Places
Volume 1
“There’s many things about this place that I find unusual. One of the things I find fascinating is how quiet it gets. It’s the quietest place…”
A brand new project from Dennis White, Charlie May, and Dave Gardner that will take you on a journey to the early days of electronica and chill out…
“… we like to try to make acoustic instruments sound like they are electronic and electronic instruments sound like they are acoustic…”
Flica
White Woods
“… our journey to the north was where we became oneness…”
Leah Kardos
Bigo & Twigetti Mix
“… a sampler of the label’s offerings to showcase the catalog and introduce you to new acts…”
I catch up with Uwe Zahn and chat about his sound design, advanced synthesis, and favorite software.
Goldmund, Richard Luke and Fossil Hunting Collective
A trio of beautiful records, full of lush ambience, a touch of melancholy, and a breath of hope.
Frank Bretschneider, Bunita Marcus, Av3ry, and Hecker
“… one sound can give birth to thousands of tones through self-fertilization…”
Echo Collective
The See Within
“… achingly beautiful and mournfully devastating…”
The Echo Collective breaks out with their debut release of all original material, echoing not just the past encounters and moments, but in its very essence, the present moment which goes on.
“My pianos will always be my favorite piece of hardware. They are the most complex, honest, and imaginative gear in my wheel barrel.”
Christopher Tignor
Ode to Joy
“… of yearning and nostalgia better suited for these troubled times…”
Olivier Alary & Johannes Malfatti
I Can’t Even See Myself
“… a brilliant exploration of mediated modern communication…”
Aukai
Game Trails
“… the sense of nature is in every piece, and from that comes a sense of calm…”
Markus Sieber takes us on a journey through his inner world, inspired by traversing pathways left by animals in their nomadic quest.