Monday 25 September 2023

Non-Music Roundup (Sept 23)













Here's my latest roundup of fantastic non-musical recommendations for you all...

And as always - if you like what you see/hear, please considering supporting these tremendous artists & labels by buying their albums and following them on Bandcamp and/or social media.

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Lucie Vítková - Cave Acoustics  


(Skupina, 2023)

Lucie Vítková is a composer, improviser, and performer (accordion, hichiriki, synthesizer, harmonica, voice, and dance) from the Czech Republic, living in New York. 

'Cave Acoustics' is an album made of recordings in caves in the Czech Republic, and an abandoned Gothic church in Slovakia. It consists of four (mostly) longform sound compositions, combining a beguiling exploration of the physicality and acoustics of these unique locations with profoundly personal themes of family legacy and roots. 

On Track 1 ('Trash Trio') you will hear the mesmerizing movements of the Vítková sisters inside Výpustek Cave, prepared and adorned with their individual ''sound costumes'', which consisted of metallic tins and coins. These choreographed movements make the noises dance, drift, swirl and echo throughout this cavernous soundscape, making a variety of steel rattles, shimmers, clanks, clatters, bangs and clangs... which builds towards an intense and visceral cacophony, accompanied by faint distant voices reverberating throughout the dark empty spaces of this environment.
On Track 2 ('Hair Score') you will hear the Vítková sisters raise their voices in meditative ambient howls and wails, which ebb and flow in haunting waves throughout the tunnel systems, while prepared cans rattle and vibrate frantically. This performance was a sonic attempt to process grief - their mother's death in particular. It was also a physical one - using swaying movements and mournful wails in ritualistic fashion. A wonderful piece of primal expression.
On Track 3 ('Stones') you will hear a group of performers using only stones to create exquisite sound art. All kinds of stones with different sizes and shapes were knocked, banged, rolled, rubbed, scraped and bounced in rapid succession around the cave to create a frantic cacophony of different textures, tones and rhythms. This piece was composed by Christian Wolff.
On Track 4 ('Inside The Ritual') you will hear insects chirriping and buzzing on a hot summer's evening. Gradually you will begin to hear subtle sounds and quiet textures of human shuffling. Then the iron sound of rattling cowbells emerges through the mix, creating a strange and gentle clamour. Eventually Lucie's improvised vocalizations and Japanese hichiriki flute fill the soundscape with a peaceful yet unsettling atmosphere. This piece feels more lonely and personal than the previous ones. An ideal ending to this strange cavernous sound journey.

'Cave Acoustics' is a cathartic and hypnotic album of physical performance art, delicate field recordings, haunted improvisations, cavernous echoes and bizarre acoustic phenomena. The story and circumstances surrounding these performances, along with the unique setting that it was recorded in makes for such an eerie, evocative and enticing listening experience.

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Cole Peters - Four Unbindings


(LINE Imprint, 2023)

Cole Peters is a sound & visual artist based in Winnipeg, Manitoba (Canada). His work in sound builds on the techniques of musique concrète, field recording, and reductive synthesis. His recordings examine texture, pressure, place and time as subjects unto themselves and as scaffolds in an evolving thematic framework drawing on the natural sciences and sensory experience.

'Four Unbindings' is his latest release. It's an album of minimally-processed field recordings, and a sonic exploration of the origin and identification of sounds found within these recordings. It consists of four longform compositions - three recorded in Central Canada, the fourth recorded in the ancestral lands of the O’Odham and Piipaash peoples, Southwest US. 

I'd be lying if I said I could identify a lot of the individual environmental sounds captured in these recordings, but what I can say is that the overall atmospheres that Peters has created in this album are utterly mesmerizing and immersive. These soundscapes are filled with (what sound to me like) cold howling winds, rattling fences, squeaking gates, steel objects scraping together, tree branches swaying and crackling, grass rustling, the occasional twittering of birds, crickets chirruping, crunching footsteps, shuddering waves of atonal noise, airy stillnesses, electronic glitches, eerie drones and lonely environmental ambience. There's a lot of tension and pressure that runs through this work, and a lot of vague subtleties buried in the haunting layers of sound that begs for closer listening, and repeat visits...

'Four Unbindings' is an album of minimalistic, beautifully textured and richly atmospheric soundscapes. The exquisite drones, vibrant ambience, mysterious sonic abstractions and environmental phenomena that Peters has captured makes for a spellbinding and evocative sensory experience.

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Lisa Lerkenfeldt - Shell Of A City 


(Room40, 2023)

Lisa Lerkenfeldt is a multidisciplinary artist working in sound, gesture and performance living in Melbourne, Australia. Her multi-disciplinary work embraces musique concrète, environmentalism, noise and classical motifs in their composition and imagining. Concerned with disruptions in form and broader ecological crisis, she arranges with experimental ensembles, electronics and field recording.

'Shell Of A City' is her latest release. Recorded in Naarm, the album consists of one 40-minute long sound composition, pairing two channels of site-based improvisation into a time-altering minimal structure.
As the title suggests, the soundscape that Lerkenfeldt has created in this album is one of a vast, empty, hollowed-out city. It's filled with shimmering metallic drones, windy swells of abstract noise, long eerie reverberations, mysterious echoes, slow haunting rumbles, drifting fuzz, glistening shudders and desolate ambience. These resonant gong-like swells of metallic sound and lush sweeping drones are so hypnotic and dreamy in their slow, languid repititions...making you feel like you're floating ghost-like through the skeletal architecture of a strange uninhabited (possibly abandoned) city. This composition was made though contact recordings of a highway's substructure, and mutated and transformed into this wonderfully surreal environment.

'Shell Of A City' is an eerie yet contemplative audio excursion through a uniquely haunted and hollow soundscape. Whilst it's relatively simple and minimalistic sounding piece on the surface, there's a lot of gorgeous subtly and wonderful ambience to get lost within during these 40 minutes. A  rich, captivating and utterly immersive listening experience.

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Steve Peters, Marco Scarassatti, Slavek Kwi - Drosera


(sirr-ecords, 2023)

Steve Peters is a sound artist whose work is often site-based, combining location sound with voices, instruments, electronics, and found or natural objects.
Marco Scarassatti is a sound artist and composer who undertakes research into musical education, and also researches and constructs sculptures, installations and sound emblems.
Slavek Kwi is a sound-artist, composer and researcher whose main interest lies in the phenomena of perception as the fundamental determinant of relations with Reality. He also writes and releases under the alias Artifical Memory Trace.

'Drosera' is a compilation album of three plant-themed sound works from these three sound artists.
'High Desert Florascape' by Steve Peters consists of various sounds made by different specimens of flora found along the High Desert of New Mexico. It's a hypnotic collage of thin dry crispy rustling, muted gurgles, delicate scratchings, tiny ploppings, raspy vibrations, granular squeaks and gentle crunching noises - all against the beautiful ambient backdrop of the soft desert winds....

'Mata' by Marco Scarassatti starts as a droning noisescape made from various audio scraps that signify the destruction and devastation of the tropical forest at the hands of human beings. Within this noisescape you will hear the grinding sounds of industry (electric chainsaws), fires crackling, ominous bursts of thunder, the distant hum of motorized vehicles, rattling machinery, howling winds of whooshing noise, human shuffling and the creaking sounds of underground tree roots. Towards the end of the piece, the noise dies down you will hear the gentle and tranquil environmental ambience of a field recording taken in a small village in Brazil. This calmness is punctuated by the sweet sound of birdsong.

'is Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) dreaming about flies?' by Slavek Kwi begins with a series of fractured birdsong and buzzing insect sounds - some raw, some heavily manipulated. In the midst of this strange and surreal collage, you will also hear subtle atmospheric drones, electronic glitches, erratic scratching noises and layers of atonal ambience. As the piece developes, it becomes gradually more and more eerie and bizarre. Bird noises are reversed, pitch-shifted and caked with various effects, along with the sounds from other domestic pets, buzzing flies and other sonic abstractions. There is also a bit of musicality to this piece, adding some nice subtle colouring to this rather unnerving soundscape... and some interesting environmental sounds and weather noises.

'Drosera' is an album of wonderful nature sounds, strange atmospherics, environmental ambience, haunting drones and dreamy field recordings. It's such an inspired and beautiful sonic love letter to the plant world, and an exquisite and mesmerizing listening experience.

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Natasha Barrett - Reconfiguring the Landscape


(Persistence of Sound, 2023)

Natasha Barrett is a British-born composer, performer and researcher in the field of contemporary electroacoustic art music that currently lives in Norway.  As a composer, her work encompasses acousmatic and electroacoustic concert composition, sound installations, theatre music, large-scale outdoor media productions, sound-architectural works and interactive art. She regularly collaborates with designers and scientists, as well as musicians and visual artists.

'Reconfiguring the Landscape' is her latest album, released through Persistence of Sound - an artistic research project investigating how 3-D electroacoustic composition and sound-art can evoke and provoke a new awareness of our outdoor sound environment.
The album opens with recordings of (what I presume to be) the hustle and bustle of Venice. In this busy urban soundscape you will hear the familiar street sounds of human chatter, children playing and screaming, bicycle spokes, barking dogs, gulls squawking, water flowing through canals and all kinds of frantic activity... but it doesn't take long before this audio environment shifts and evolves into areas of the imagined, and the surreal. What you may perceive initially as the natural gong-like sound of cathedral bells (heard in most major cities around the world) gradually emerges out of the mix and completely takes over the foreground. These tolling church bells shimmer, echo and resonate through the landscape, against a backdrop of gurgling watery textures, murmury choral singing and echoed voices. From this point onwards, the albums becomes more and more wacky and otherworldly...

I don't have the technical know-how or musical knowledge to explain how Barrett creates these intricate audio collages and mysterious sonic spaces, but they're full of intriguing abstractions, woozy noises, strange anomalies and psychedelic sound phenomena. Every time you latch onto a recognizable sound, Barrett seems to twist and manipulate it into something challenging and bizarre. The mundane blends with the surreal, and transforms into all kinds of pulsating shapes, rippling forms and eruptive noise. These swirling echoes, fluttering timbres, trippy tones, liquidy textures, glistening bells, vocal fragments and powerful sound design make for such a strange and captivating sound journey...

'Reconfiguring The Landscape' is a fascinating album of unsettling atmospheres, haunting textures, woozy audio manipulation and abstract noise. A bizarre and hypnotic listening experience.

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Tom White - Medina Vibrations


(BrachLiegen Tapes, 2023)

Tom White is an English artist focusing predominantly on sound-based practices such as live performance, installation, recordings, composition for dance and film. He is interested in the physicality and phenomena of sound; how it can be felt by the body and experienced in architectural space. 

'Medina Vibrations' is an album consisting of four long-form electroacoustic works that span installation work, studio composition, and live recordings.
On Track 1 ('Medina Vibrations') you will hear environmental sounds (both indoor and outdoor),  human shuffling, hard labor, distant birdsong, tape hiss, cavernous echoes, mechanical grinding, looped electromagnetic vibrations and fragmented bursts of abstract industrial noise. These everyday sounds mingling with all the atmospheric sonic abstractions makes for a rather unsettling soundscape...
On Track 2 ('Energiser') you will hear a series of soft, shimmering, dissonant tones, dull muted percussive thuds, gentle babbling water, crowing pheasants, haunting reverberations, ominous rumbles, some object making a twisted glissando effect, and other bizarre noise experimentations on a blanket of ambient audio hiss.
On Track 3 ('Hooligan') you will hear bursts of freaky manipulated voice fragments, subtle muted ambience, eerie shuffling sounds, objects being moved around, broken radio transmissions and electromagnetic waves, pulsating tones, mysterious drones, ominous howling noises, swells of feedback, granular textures and lots of stuttering abstractions drifting in and out of the mix in varying rhythms and intensities.
On Track 4 ('Pebbledash Piece') you will hear a lone rippling tone and tiny rattling sounds pulsating in unison in an empty soundscape. Then you will start to hear shuddering noises, lo-fi crackles, percussive wooden knocks, scintillating steel vibrations, swirling fractured winds, humming motors, eerie sine tones and springy thuds of plastic objects rolling and bouncing off surfaces...

'Medina Vibrations' is an album of abstract soundscapes and strangely haunting concréte assemblage that constantly evolves, evokes and challenges the listener, and makes for a uniquely atmospheric and utterly immersive sound journey.

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Manja Ristić - for what they saw would hit them like a bolt


(self-released, 2023)

Manja Ristić is a violinist, sound artist, field recordist, published poet, curator and researcher from Belgrade, Serbia. She is mostly active in the field of electro-acoustics, instrumental improvisation & experimental sound related arts, and has released many albums - both independently and on reputable record labels.

'for what they saw would hit them like a bolt' is her latest release. It's a 21-minute long composition, and part of an ongoing sound art series based on a poetry collection called 'Stories Untold'.
It begins with a gentle, minimal, slowly-rippling drone. After a few minutes you will hear a series of intimate crackling noises, almost like a fire burning in the wild. This is accompanied by beautiful environmental ambience - the faint distant twittering of birds, the buzzing of insects, flowing water and airy reverberations, as the main drone evolves into deeper and more haunting tones. Then you'll eventually hear some very familiar Ristić sounds - water trickling, babbling and gurgling softly over rocks. Different liquidy tones and watery textures overlap and intermingle with eachother while eerie howling noises swirl through the soundscape. In the final few minutes of the pieces, the field recordings gradually disappear and we're left with nothing but a mesmerizing drone...

'for what they saw would hit them like a bolt' is a haunting yet wonderfully serene composition of beautiful nature sounds and hypnotic drones. To fully appreciate this piece, you should really listen to it through good quality earphones. A dreamy, meditative and captivating listening experience. 

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Roberto Vodanović Čopor - Submurged Memories 


(Sono Space, 2023)

Roberto Vodanović Čopor is an experimental musician & multimedial artist from Zadar, Croatia. In his music he often incorporates the sounds of nature, the sounds of cities and everyday found objects as part of the atmospheres he creates.

'Submurged Memories' is one 54-minute long sound composition exploring the contrast between the peace and quiet of nature by the sea and the crowded and lively city environment in Dubrovnik. This project uses field recordings from different parts of Dubrovnik to create a unique sound experience that will take listeners on a journey through different aspects of the city.
The composition begins with the sound of beautiful churning sea waves, accompanied by sparse tinkling notes of poignant classical piano music. The notes have a slight delay effect on them, which creates a kind of subtle and vague unease...
Then the music fades away and you will hear the different tranquil tones and soothing watery frequencies of the natural sea. After a while, you will start to hear some slightly sinister drones and dissonant ambience in the background of this gentle image, until you're eventually listening to the sounds of murmured conversation and familiar city noises of the crowded city of Dubrovnik. You will hear footsteps, church bells, distant motors, music through speakers, lively conversation and all the other typical sounds of the hustle and bustle. About halfway through the piece, Čopor does some minimal acoustic guitar experimentations, which is interwoven with the voices of the city. In the latter section of the song, you will hear eerie ambient textures drifting in and out, whilst the field recordings take on a bit more of a surreal aspect. The atmosphere becomes darker, the voices become more ghostly and distant, and haunting echos spread through the soundscape... 
Whether this was done during the production of the album, or whether it naturally occurred in the environment/location it was recorded in - I don't know.  The piece ends with (what I think is) the sound of running water from a city fountain, which is a very fitting way to complete this project.

'Submurged Memories' is a delicate, mesmerizing and slightly eerie sound art composition, full of intriguing field recordings and subtle atmospherics. A satisfying and immersive listening experience. 

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Brandon Auger - OS : IS 


(Tool Use Imprint, 2023)

Brandon Auger is a sound artist, improviser and structural builder based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His minimalistic work promotes the amplification of sonic idiosyncrasies in both acoustic and synthetic environments.

'OS: IS' (outer sounds:inner systems) is an album ''composed of mercurial street finds and construction site treasures''.
In these recordings you will hear metallic grinding and banging, mechanical clanking, steel shudderings, tiny drillings, frantic rattling, rapid vibrations, sonorous rumbles, rhythmic clanging, tinkling bells and various kinds of whirring machinery, repetitive drones and industrial noises... all made with raw organic materials that Auger collected, salvaged, built and constructed into his own bizarre devices, which he then brought to life and recorded for this captivating collection of abstract sound art pieces.

'OS: IS' is a unique and fascinating album of bricolages of found objects, sonorous mechanical noises, intense grinding and mesmerizing atmospheres. The elaborate sound sculpting, intricate audio collages and intermingling of noises makes for a rich, immersive and enthralling listening experience.

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nd dentico - hydration / development 


(Histamine Tapes, 2023)

nd dentico is an experimental artist based in East Montpelier, Vermont. His music tends to incorporate (and drift between) non-musical sound art, electro-acoustic drone and noisy ambient. He also runs the lo-fi experimental tape label Histamine Tapes.

'hydration / development' is a 2-song release of prepared bass loops and drones. Both of these recordings (of exactly equal length) are minimalistic, raw and organic.
'hydration' begins with the eerie, trembling rattle of steel bass strings, accompanied by a low droning gong-like resonance. The muted plucks, the steel shimmerings and the quiet broodiness of this performance creates a tense atmosphere of foreboding that constantly varies in its intensity. A dark, fragile, immersive drone piece.
'development' begins with a mesmerizing rattling loop, chugging away in mechanical repetition. As the piece progresses, the power and intensity of this frantic sound gradually increases, creating an organic pulsating drone effect. It's even more stripped down and bare than the previous track. There is no musical accompaniment, or background noises... just a singular alluring sound to get lost within.

'hydration / development' is a short and hypnotic release of bare minimalistic sound art, haunting drones, rhythmic rattles, percussive loops and unsettling atmospheres. An immersive, intimate and creepy listening experience.

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Concr​​​è​​​te Bending Vol. III - Independence Day 


(Veinte33 Records, 2023)

Concr​​​è​​​te Bending is a Uruguayan field recordist. This release is Vol.III in an ongoing series of non-musical recordings captured throughout various parts of Montevideo, at various points in time.

'Independence Day' is one 30-minute long field recording of the daily candombe parade in the Palermo neighborhood - one of the main places of Afro-Uruguayan culture - on two separate dates.
Candombe is a style of music and dance that originated in Uruguay among the descendants of liberated African slaves. This music is played during carnival times in Montevideo, and is performed on various percussive drums.
This recording begins with the sound of busy crowds gathered in the streets, getting ready for the festivities. The atmosphere is lively, energetic and jubilant. You will hear people talking and laughing, vehicles beeping, dogs barking and percussive instruments being tuned up and prepared. You will hear various bangs, rattles and rumbles along the way...
Eventually the music kicks in and the soundscape comes alive with cacophonous handclapping, rhythmic drumming and energetic movements. These syncopated rhythms are so wild, powerful and infectious - you can't help swaying as you listen. Around the midway point in the song, it sounds as if the microphone is much closer to the drums than earlier. You can hear and feel the rattles, vibrations, tones and timbres of these hollow wooded instruments, while birds chirp loudly and freely...
Towards the end of the recording, the volume and intensity slowly but gradually decreases, and the boisterous racket fades, until you're just left with an ambient room tone, some human movements, faint voices, distant traffic and dog barking, and a lone cat miaowing. Such an intriguing and engaging listening experience.

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Saturday 9 September 2023

Sonification (Fletina Guest Mix)

I had the great honour and privelege to have been recently asked to contribute a guest mix for Sonification radio show.

Sonification is Devin Sarno’s monthly internet radio program hosted by CAMP Radio (located in Aulus-les-Bains, France.) 

Devin Sarno is an experimental L.A musician/composer who I recently collaborated on a track with. You can stream/buy/download it below, if you wish...

Devin Sarno & Fletina - Sound Study Fifteen


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Anyway, here's my guest mix for Sonification, if you wanted to give it a listen. I had such a blast compiling and sequencing this hour-long non-musical sound journey.

I've included Bandcamp links to all the albums that these songs came from. I'd highly recommend all them... even my own, haha!

 
1. Fletina - From What's Gathered (excerpt)

2. seah - typography of a tree

3. Lalén Ríos Luna - A Field Thinking Noises 4

4. Jo Montgomerie - A View From Snell's Window

5. Conducive - Flâner

6. Coagulant - Abstractions in Three Dimensions (excerpt)

7. Paul Nataraj - Happy And Yet No Peace

8. Mollbury Medical Research Centre - Sector 5 (At Night)

9. Micaela Trombini - Target (excerpt)

10. black_ops - Fugue State

11. Patrick Corcoran - I

12. Peter Wullen - Step Into The Light, Lazarus III

13. Homogenized Terrestrials - Vibration 9

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Friday 1 September 2023

Non-Music Roundup (Sept 23)

 









Hey guys. Here's my latest roundup of great non-musical sound recommendations for you...

As always, if you like what you see/hear, please considering supporting these tremendous artists & labels by buying their albums and following them on Bandcamp and/or social media.

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Bacfora - Undisclosed Spaces (US5) 


(self-released, 2023)

Bacfora is the musical moniker of Andrew Burge, who makes minimal lo-fi noise/drone compositions on cassettes & digital. His work places an emphasis on atmosphere, tone and texture. 

This is the fifth and final release in a series of albums that Burge released throughout June 2023 called (and based on the theme of) 'Undisclosed Spaces'. It consists of two 18-minute long noise/drone compositions recorded through a 2-track tape machine.
Track 1 begins with the sound of a low, tremulous, fuzzy drone, which is soon accompanied by the sound of drifting, flickering tape hiss. As the track progresses, the ambience of the soundscape flutters rapidly and intensifies dramatically. At a certain point, some faint subtle melody fights to emerge through the hazy mix of sounds that have accummulated and expanded. On top of all this, there's some  reversed noises that create a pretty demented effect, along with various shudders and wavering tones drifting in and out of this strange audio environment. Throughout the course of this piece, there's a lot of subtle frequency shifts and textural changes...
Track 2 begins with a low, wavering, rumbling lo-fi drone that crackles and glitches, creating a very unsettling atmosphere. Gradually some fuzzy textures and soft glimmering ambience can be heard faintly through the mix. Eventually you will some distant crashing sounds, creepy abstractions and stuttering wind-like noises spreading and soaring all throughout the soundscape. As a whole, I would say this composition is more muted, reduced and subtle than the previous composition, but no less powerful. Both these pieces paint vivid images of ambiguous desolate landscapes and strange unhabited places. It kind of reminds of the sound design in some old sci-fi movies that I love.

'Undisclosed Spaces' is a dark, vague and haunting album of grainy textures, mysterious atmospheres ambient tape hiss, ominous tones and eerie lo-fi drones. It's a really powerful sound work for something so bare and minimalistic. A rich, atmospheric and captivating listening experience. I'll need to check out the rest of the albums in this series...

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Stuart Bowditch - Resounding 


(Courier, 2023)

Stuart Bowditch is a sound artist & field recordist whose practice is located in places and communities that exist on the fringes, both geographically and socially, with a particular interest in the sonic landscape, capturing overlooked and overheard noises and using sound as a documentative and creative medium.

'Resounding' is a series of 10-minute field recordings where Bowditch followed in the footsteps of JA Baker, author of The Peregrine, to document the sound of locations marked with a 'P' on one of Baker's maps.
In these calm pastoral recordings you will hear lots of environmental ambience, tranquil drones and a plethora of familiar sounds captured around the villages and small towns of rural England, such as cacophonous birdsong, dogs barking, the resounding echo of distant gunfire, airplanes passing overhead, sea waves lashing shorelines, the deep humming of boats on the bay, murmured voices, wind blowing through trees, grasses swaying, bushes rustling, creek water sloshing, rivers gurgling, etc... on top of which there are more ambiguous noises and found sounds that are harder to identify and define, which forces you to listen closely and give it your full attention.

'Resounding' is an album of gorgeous field recordings and subtle sound art. The idea behind this album is dead simple, and you can feel the love and passion that went into it. I was googling all the different place names as I was listening to these recordings, and the particular combination of these sounds and visuals left me feeling calm and serene. These tranquil soundscapes make for such a peaceful and meditative listening experience, and a beautiful album of non-musical sound.

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Peter Wullen - Step Into The Light, Lazarus


(nostalgie de la boue, 2018 / self-released, 2023)

Peter Wullen is a Belgian poet, writer, sound artist and field recordist. He has released a variety of works (both solo and collaborative) - independently and through various labels. This album was originally released on the nostalgie de la boue record label back in 2018, but has recently been re-released on his own Bandcamp page

'Step Into The Light, Lazarus' (titled after a line in a Gillian Welch song) is an album comprised of field recordings taken from train stations, tubeway stations, snowfall, cemeteries and churches located around Brussels, some of which was then electronically manipulated to create soundscapes of ''Ultraquietness''.
It consists of both long-form compositions and a series of short fleeting sound sketches. I was instantly hooked by the opening track - a 24-minute long immersive noisescape that I got completely lost in. The source of the field recordings are very vague in this piece due to them being stretched, looped, mixed and manipulated beyond recognition - a purely joyous darkened sound, which ends with ominous footsteps - reverberating loudly off of hard floorboards.
Throughout the rest of these recordings you will hear sinister rumbling noises, murmured voices (possibly from a TV?), dripping water (in what sounds like a dark alleyway), creepy echoes, frightening growls, ambiguous shuffling, shimmering loops, faint ambience, windy drones, environmental phenomena, whooshing white noise, small objects being bounced off surfaces, various sonic abstractions and of course - more footsteps. The whole thing is dark and disturbing, but in a very vague kind of way.

'Step Into The Light, Lazarus' is an album of eerie noisescapes, immersive drones and haunting sound design. I don't really know what the artistic intent is behind this album, but it doesn't really matter. It's a mysterious, slightly unsettling and highly enjoyable listening experience.

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Matilde Meireles - Vanishing Points 


(Crónica, 2023)

Matilde Meireles is a Portuguese sound artist, field recordist & research fellow who makes use of field recordings to compose site-oriented projects. Her work has a multi-sensorial and multi-perspective critical approach to site, where Matilde investigates the potential of listening across spectrums as ways to encounter and articulate a plural experience of the world — human and otherwise.

'Vanishing Points' is one 25-minute long sound composition based on the idea of ''sonic abundance'' in busy urban environments, created from unprocessed field recordings and heavily transformed electromagnetic pulses. You should read the artist's presentation/blurb on the Bandcamp page for an enhanced understanding and appreciation of this piece...

It begins with a warbling, fuzzy, slowly-evolving drone...which is made up from heavily-processed electromagnetic pulses, painting a very lonely and somber image...
Then you will begin to hear the hiss of indistinguishable field recordings emerge through the mix, along with a soft rhythmic crackle. After a few minutes, the drone starts to fade away and you will hear unmistakable and familiar city noises take over the entire soundscape. Listening closely you'll be able to distinguish the whoosh and zoom of passing traffic, locomotive P.A announcements, falling rain, faint conversations, motor drones, engines humming, trains chugging and many other sounds of the urban hustle and bustle. 
Around the midway point of the piece, you will begin to hear the voice of a sports commentator emerging through layers of hissing TV static, alongside the clattering cooking sounds of a domestic kitchen...and then the return of the dreamy pulsating drone you hear at the beginning of the composition, which creates a rather surreal Lynchian atmosphere.
Eventually you will hear murmured voices and traffic sounds fighting their way through the spectral noisescape. In the final section of the piece, the layers of ambience gradually become more and more minimal and bare, and the intensity decreases. As the textures and tones quieten down and thin out,  we're left but nothing but a swirling, mournful, organ-like drone, signifying the end of this bizarre sound journey...

'Vanishing Points' is a mesmerizing and haunting audio excursion through busy urban environments and quiet domestic life, highlighting the intriguing juxtaposition and merging of both worlds in an abstract and creative way. The hypnotic sound collages, fuzzy textures, fascinating field recordings and ominous dissonant drones that Meireles has created makes for such a rich, dreamy and exquisite listening experience.

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Demetrio Cecchitelli - Vertice 


(asonu, 2023)

Demetrio Cecchitelli is an Italian musician whose research in the field of sound has been applied to different kinds of media (discography, live set, radio, audio vision, theatre, dance, performance, installation). He has released many works on numerous record labels across Europe, United Kingdom, US / North America and Japan.

'Vertice' is one 45-minute long ambient sound composition, blurring the lines between minimalistic ambient/drone music, acoustic sound ecology and quiet noisescapes.  
It begins with a low, slow creeping drone...quietly crackling and undulating for the first few minutes of the piece. As the composition progresses, subtle higher frequencies, spectral ambience and distant swells of atmospheric noise fill the soundscape and make this dark abstract environment come alive. If you listen very closely, there are certain sections within the track where traces of faint beautiful melody drift in, providing some nice fleeting colours before they vanish completely...
The environment is mostly filled with vast mysterious echoes, long sustained reverberations, hypnotic loops, deep rumbles and muted ambient noise. Great dronescapes to sink into...

'Vertice' is a mesmerizing and immersive sound journey that will appeal to fans of ambient music and non-musical sound art alike. Its dreamlike tones and soft soothing textures makes for such a beautiful and atmospheric listening experience.

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Bad Groupy - Topless Mimosas


(zeromoon, 2023)

Bad Groupy is an international duo of experimental noise artist Jeff Surak (Washington, D.C.) and Estonian-born free-form improviser Kris Kuldkepp (Hamburg, Germany). The duo explores Trans-Atlantic improvisation using double bass, prepared objects, voice, guitar tapes, and analogue electronics.

'Topless Mimosas' is an album that consists of two 20-minute compositions - recorded live at Jauna Muzika Festival, Vilnius, 2023. It's described by the artists themselves as ''an audio sculpture viewed from two sides''.
In this album you will hear a wild amalgamation of crackle noisescapes, ominous rumbles, monstrous swells, frightening whooshes, rhythmic putters, laser-like zaps, lo-fi gurgles, metallic shimmers, stuttering feedback loops, scintillating gong sounds, harsh squeals, eerie sine waves, fluttering tape hiss, dissonant screeches, mysterious vibrations, fuzzy drones, motor-like roars, frightening howls, brutal white noise, wavering static, erratic distortions, industrial ambience, robotic chugs, demented percussion, brooding tones and an array of unnerving sonic disturbances and frightening power-electronics. At times quiet and tense, at other times loud and explosive - the diverse noises and rich harmonic textures that make up these long-form audio collages are great to get lost in.

'Topless Mimosas' is an unsettling yet intriguing album of dark nightmarish soundscapes, sinister atmospheres, avant-garde sound art and abstract power-electronics by two skilled artists in their field. These unpredictable improvisations and wild noise experimentations make for such a cathartic and rewarding listening experience.

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Jacob Kirkegaard - Under Bjerget


 (Posh Isolation, 2015 / self-released, 2021)

Jacob Kirkegaard is a sound artist & composer from Denmark who works in carefully selected environments to generate recordings that are used in compositions, or combined with video imagery in visual, spatial installations. His works reveal unheard sonic phenomena and present listening as a means of experiencing the world.

'Under Bjerget' (English translation - Underneath the Mountain) is an album consisting of two 25-minute long compositions that were created from recordings taken from the basement of the old Carlsberg factory in Copenhagen, Denmark. Kirkegaard captured the vibrations of this 150-year-old shut down building and crafted them into the magnificent drone music that's presented in this album.
In these recordings you will hear eerie environmental ambience, dark rumbling drones, dissonant shimmering, mechanical humming, industrial white noise, rhythmic vibrations, hissing steel, windy whispers, subdued howls and all kinds of rippling, rattling sound phenomena that naturally occurs in that old abandoned factory.  
Two years after these recording were made, it was presented as a 16-channel sound installation inside four large and pitch dark rooms in the now abandoned Carlsberg basement. What a perfect audio environment to experience this lush atmospheric sound work, and luxuriate within...

'Under Bjerget' is a wonderful album of rich exquisite sound art and powerful drones. Through various electronic manipulation techniques and skilful sonic processing, Kirkegaard has created these unique industrial soundscapes of haunting and desolate atmospheres that make for a mesmerizing and immersive listening experience.

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post doom romance - fragments 


(Somnimage, 2023)

Post Doom Romance is the collaborative audio/visual project of sound artists Mykel Body & Seah. Together they explore inner and outer soundscapes, and create love letters from the abstract language of granular synthesis - a communication through particles. The process creates an aesthetic - the third "thing" that arises when two objects presence each other. 

'fragments' is their latest release - a series of tracks dedicated to their online Bandcamp subscribers. The album consists of 11 sound ''fragments'' - each one dedicated to an individual subscriber. It's a really cool idea, and a special treat for their fans. In these recordings you will hear a dark and intriguing mixture of eerie drones, fuzzy pulses, grainy textures, puttering vibrations, creepy echoes, abstract noise particles, bleak shuddering tones, ominous ambience and possibly some cello (?) - all intertwined with field recordings taken from (what I assume to be) the duo's recent trip to the AARK Artist Residency in Korpo, Finland. The natural sounds of open air, churning waves, seaside birds and a plethora of watery textures and tones are strewn throughout this entire album, giving a more earthy aspect to these surreal and haunting dreamscapes. 

'fragments' is a brooding and shadow-filled sound journey through a maze of ghostly atmospheres and abstract noise environments. Its subtly powerful dronescapes and haunting sound design makes for a really ominous and immersive listening experience.

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Bjerga / Iversen - Birds Of A Feather Flock Together 


(Grisaille, 2023)

Sindre Bjerga & Jan-Morten Iversen are two experimental musical artists from Norway. 'Birds Of A Feather Flock Together' is their new collaboration album, which consists of two long-form atmospheric noise compositions.

Track 1 begins with a shimmering ghostly drone, drifting darkly across the soundscape, accompanied by slow swells of eerie noise. The more you listen, the more you will hear slight shifts and evolutions in the textures and tones of the ambience, while ambiguous objects are being shuffled about in the background, creating a rather creepy atmosphere. After a certain point in the piece, you will hear high-frequency electronic notes, dissonant melodies, subtle violin squeals, heavily-distorted guitars and strange tape manipulations filling the entire soundscape, making a cacophonous yet soothing racket of unsettling noise, which gradually dies away during a long fade-out...
Track 2 begins with low ominous rumblings, erratic violin vibrations and swirling scraping sounds. Then you will hear sustained dissonant tones emerging through the mix, creating sinister vibes of unbearable tension and suspense...like something terrible is about to happen. The soundscape gradually fills with spectral noises, haunting drones, wailing tones, ambient tape hiss and weird psychedelic experimentation. Towards the end of the composition you will hear very faint bursts of slow distant melody trying to break through the layers of noise. And like the first track, this one also has a long dramatic fade-out...

'Birds Of A Feather Flock Together' is an album of hypnotic noisescapes, haunted atmospheres, eerie drones and unsettling ambience. This kind of sound collage and noise experimentations is so wonderfully immersive, and makes for a troubling yet strangely beautiful listening experience.

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there are no birds here - bleached memories  


(self-released, 2023)

there are no birds here is the moniker of Matthew Shenton who is an experimental musician & sound artist whose work explores the rural landscape of Suffolk with a particular focus on the morphology of the working class soundscape of the Shotley Peninsula. 
His work uses manipulated field recordings, homemade instruments, music concrete and modified electronics salvaged from potential landfill to create textural explorations of timbre with instinctive, chance-based arrangements that mimic the rural soundscape.

'bleached memories' is his latest release. It consists of five compositions based on recordings of an old slide projector that the artist captured, then sampled, looped and digitally manipulated...
In these compositions you will hear erratic bursts of noise, soft explosions, unsettling crackles, ghostly echoes, hypnotic whirs, dissonant static, stuttering loops, eerie clicks, rapid glitches, broken transmissions, wavering static, creepy scratches, howling hisses, quiet rumbles, ominous frequency shifts, tortured squeals and a plethora of other weird sonic abstractions...against the backdrop of haunting cavernous drones and spooky atonal ambience.

'bleached memories' is a dark and inventive album full of eerie soundscapes, unsettling ambience and creepy noise experimentation. I really admire how Shenton manages to create such sinister atmospheres and powerful sound design using such a bare and minimalistic approach. A disturbing yet mesmerizing listening experience.

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uœrhe - traum manifold 


(Molt Fluid, 2023)

uœrhe is an experimental sound collagist from the Czech Republic. I don't know anything about this artist, but this album of his was one of the two launching-off releases from brand new label Molt Fluid.

'traum manifold' is an album consisting of two long-form audio collages ''for microcassettes, found sounds, field recordings, no-input mixer and tape feedback.  Rough sounds for rough times – dilettante concrète – microcassette abuse''.
In this album you will hear ambiguous voice fragments, crackling tape distortions, wavering pulsations, environmental reverberations, erratic rattles and bangs, psychedelic electronic swirls, harsh squeals, lo-fi drones, creepy tingling bells, fractured rumblings, rhythmic noise abstractions, eerie shudderings, boomy explosions and ambient hiss. The soundscapes that uœrhe has created have an unsettling and haunting effect. They feel claustrophobic, yet you don't want to escape...

'traum manifold' is a unique album of unpredictable and atmospheric tape collages. It goes from quiet eeriness to eruptions of noise to feeling like you're being electrocuted. An unnerving yet immersive listening experience.

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Tukahdus - harhakuvat 


(self-released, 2023)

Tukahdus is an electronic musician & experimental sound artist from Finland. He designs haunting sounds and emotive atmospheres.

'harhakuvat' is his latest release. In this album you will hear dark shimmering electronic tones, smothered industrial noises, shuddery rumbles, metallic drones, lo-fi hiss, manipulated voice samples, distorted echoes, crackling textures, rushing static, faint eerie nature recordings, throbbing synth notes, (very) minimalistic post-rock guitar, swirling feedback, spooky dark ambience and an overall ghostly sound design. I really like how the artists can build all these layers of haunting noises and electronic loops without it coming across as abrasive or unpleasant. These atmospheres just suck you in and hold you there from start to finish...

'harhakuvat' is a bleak and atmospheric album of abstract foreboding soundscapes, full of tension and suspense...and it never gets too dull or unpredictable. A surreal, immersive and slightly sinister listening experience. 

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Cody Shaffer - Marvelous Scandal


(self-released, 2023)

Cody Shaffer is a Chicago-based experimental musician & sound artist interested in perpetual care, objects, intention and ghosts. Over the last few years he has self-released a variety of works in a variety of different styles on his Bandcamp page.

'Marvelous Scandal' is his latest release. In these nine sound works you will hear a raw and abstract mixture of voice samples, hypnotic rustling, ukelele improvisations, shuffling movements, papery textures, rattling beads, environmental drones, room sounds, water running in a bathtub, surfaces being lightly scraped, small objects being knocked around, and a darkly amusing snippet of Whitney Houston's 'Dance With Somebody' being covered on some local access TV show...all against the subtle backdrop of gentle ambient tape hiss. It's really absurd, yet somehow utterly intriguing...

'Marvelous Scandal' is a wonderful little album of minimalistic lo-fi audio collages. It's a strange but satisfying blend of raw field recordings, abstract sound art, free-form improvisation and weird noise. Shaffer leaves these pieces totally bare and exposed, giving us a little glimpse of some quiet abstract environment, and the sonic elements that exist within. A bizarre and soothing listening experience.

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