Hello everyone. I'm back with another list of fantastic non-musical recommendations for you in the intruguing realm of sound art, field recordings, musique concrète and experimental drone/noise...
As usual - please consider supporting these great artists & labels by buying their albums and following them on Bandcamp and/or social media.
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Ernesto Longobardi + Demetrio Cecchitelli - Maloviento
(LINE Imprint, 2024)
Ernesto Longobardi is a multidisciplinary research artist with particular attention to sound and electro-acoustics of which he experiments dynamism in contrast to a static fixity of image.
Demetrio Cecchitelli is a musician/sound artist focused on principles of semantic interpretation, ontology, and imaginative poetics, his research is based on various methods of electronic transformation and instrumentation that coexist as a device of the creative and compositional process, giving a strong combination of sonic memory and deep listening as an integral part of a spontaneous plastic language.
'Maloviento' is a collaborative album from these two Italian sound artists, consisting of four minimalistic/reductionist compositions.
The album begins with a series of rich, intimate, crackling textures against a backdrop of soft subtle harmonica notes, ambient room tones and some rattling steel vibrations that sound like they could be coming from a tambourine, but I'm not totally sure. An intriguing introduction...
The second track begins with the slow ebbing and flowing of audio hiss and a dark rippling drone, which soon transitions into segments of subtle airy tones, crispy static, ambiguous field recordings and windy drones.
Then on the third track you will hear a distant wind-like noise, which is soon accompanied by a ghostly drone. Following that you will start to hear some intimate rustling sounds and tiny barely-audible cracklings. As the track progresses you will also hear some minimal vocals swells, drifting and swirling through the background of this barren soundscape...
The fourth (and last) track begins distant swirling ambience and layers of glitchy audio and shuffling sounds. You will then hear some beautiful transverse flute melodies reverberating and ringing out, along with a series of atmospheric drones and ambiguous environmental sounds. A long immersive piece to end the journey...
'Maloviento' is a beautifully-minimalistic album of subtle sound art, mesmeric textures, soothing ambient noise and skillful audio experimentation. The exquisite sound design techniques and restrained musicality that these two Italian artists employ in this release makes for a rich and spellbinding listening experience.
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Mountain Laurel - windless
(self-released, 2024)
Grace Papineau-Couture (Mountain Laurel) is a Canadian interdisciplinary artist working primarily in sound from Edmonton, Alberta and currently based in Chicago (Illinois) whose work focuses on themes of drone and noise drawing on otherworldly and embodied experiences using the language of folk horror, ritual and superstition.
'windless' is a little EP consisting of two fairly short sound compositions...
'windless' begins with a soundscape filled with dark whooshing noise, shimmering bells, ominous atonal drones, percussive sistrum rattles, ghostly ambience and haunting metallic reverberations against a background of lo-fi audio hiss. The sounds ebb and flow and swirl around this mysterious audio environment in a very unsettling way. Towards the end of the track you will hear a series of slow rhythmic bangs, steel chimes, tape glitches and objects clicking, scraping and rattling...
'incantation for...' begins with a singular sinister drone, ghostly dissonant wailing sounds and various clicks, shuffles and pops. Then you will begin to hear the eerie trickling of water from an unidentifiable source, along with the steel resonance of some kind of hollow receptacle, and swells of menacing noise. The cavernous reverberations and desolate echoes create a rather spooky atmosphere.
This piece moves really slowly, and constantly evolves...like some kind of living being. Towards the end of the track you will hear subtle choral vocals emerge out of the background, and a steel object being slowly dragged across an unknown surface...
'windless' is a haunting little EP of atmospheric drones, spectral ambience, lonely field recordings and abstract sound experimentation. The artist's minimalistic sound sculpting and ritualistic repetition makes for an intriguing and hypnotic listening experience. Wonderful stuff.
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Ryan Marino - The Evidences
(self-released, 2024)
Ryan Marino is an New York-based artist working with film, sound, and collage. In addition to creating the soundtracks for his own films, his sound work includes original compositions and commissioned soundtracks for short films and theater productions. By day he works as an audiovisual archivist.
'The Evidences' is an album consisting of nine textural sound compositions. They were created from tapes and loops of field recordings, and incidental sounds recorded amid the lush flora and hostile terrain of the Big Island (Hawaiʻi).
It begins with some kind of high-frequency sine tone against a backdrop of a low rumbling drone, subtle shuffling sounds, tape hiss and some weather-related environmental noise. As the track progresses, you will hear signs of sonic fragility and audio decay, as ominous crackling textures drift in and out of the mix.
Throughout the rest of the album you will hear windy rumbles, haunting drones, distant vocalizations, shimmery atonal ambience, ghostly howling sounds, eerie dissonances, strange static, faint vibrations, tape hiss and fractured layers of mysterious noise...
'The Evidences' is a strange and atmospheric sound journey through abstract and slightly unsettling environments. Marino's beautifully captured field recordings and haunting audio manipulation techniques makes for intriguing soundscapes, and a rich and mesmerizing listening experience. Great album.
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Makhun - The Air Is Unable
(self-released, 2024)
Makhun is a Filipino sound artist living in the UK that practices intriguing audio experimentation with minimal field recordings.
'The Air Is Unable' is their Makhun's debut full-length album, consisting of eight minimal sound compositions.
The album begins with a strange compressed airy drone, along with ominous footsteps, weird warbling tones and distant environmental noise... only for it to abruptly end and be taken over by a wall of static and slow sweeping waves of manipulated sound.
Throughout the rest of the album you will hear empty room tones, warped birdsong, murmured voices, mechanical drones, tropical forest sounds, creaking wood, tuneless pipe noise, tremulous frequencies and atmospheric crackling textures.
'The Air Is Unable' is a beautifully mesmerizing album of uniquely manipulated field recordings that have been transformed into intriguing abstract atmospheres and haunting dronescapes. A marvellous and rewarding listening experience. I can't wait to hear more from Makhun.
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https://makhun.bandcamp.com/album/the-air-is-unable-
anne-f jacques - l'ampoule et l'insecte
(Molt Fluid, 2024)
Anne-F Jacques is a sound artist based in Montréal, Canada. She is interested in amplification, oblique interactions between materials and construction of various contraptions and idiosyncratic systems. Her particular focus is on low technology, trivial objects and unpolished sounds.
'l'ampoule et l'insecte' (English translation : 'the bulb & the insect') is her latest release, and is comprised of six minimalistic sound experiments. There's no information accompanying this release, so I have no idea what equipment or recording techniques were used to creates these pieces, but the overall result is spellbinding.
The album begins with the frantic ticking, tapping and zapping noises of what literally sounds like a fly banging itself off a brightly-lit glass bulb in a small empty room. As the piece progresses, you will hear the tones, movements and frequencies of these rapid strikes and vibrations fluctuate. There's a desperation and urgency to the sound. It feels like a flickering light bulb that's about to burn out...
The second track is relatively more mellow, consisting of a quiet series of dry crackling against a backdrop of audio hiss.
Throughout the remaining compositions you will hear the raw lonesome sounds of miniature vibrations, faulty electrical connections, slow inhalations and frictional noise. The repetitive nature of these pieces will quietly lull you into a weird trance-like state...
'l'ampoule et l'insecte' is a very meditative album of intriguing textures and stark minimalism. These fragile recordings and desolate audio environments make for an eerie yet strangely soothing listening experience.
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black_ops - Exeunt
(self-released, 2024)
black_ops is an experimental noise/soundscape artist from the UK. He also hosts and curates the black_ops radio show - ''sound-tracking the darkness with experimental sound art, drone & psych, spoken word, found and manipulated sound.''
'Exeunt' is his latest album. It begins with a dark menacing atmosphere of puttering noise, sinister rumblings and a chilling foreboding sound sample taken from a short movie... a very haunting and ominous introduction...
The second track takes you to a rapidly-fluctuating industrial noisescape, full of subtle and eerie audio phenomena, while the rest of the album consists of dark howling ambience, distant knocking sounds, rippling drones, ghostly whispers, chugging mechanisms and all sorts of mournful tones - drifting slowly through these unsettling sonic environments.
'Exeunt' is a dark and engaging album of atmospheric field recordings, immersive drones, hallucinatory ambience and bleak industrial noise. A frightening yet enjoyable listening experience.
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Karoline Leblanc / Paulo J Ferreira Lopes - EDGED ONCE FRACTURED
(atrito-afeito, 2024)
Karoline Leblanc is a Canadian pianist/improvisor based in Sintra, Portugal. Paulo J Ferreira Lopes is a drummer, improviser and sound artist born in Lisbon, Portugal.
'EDGE ONCE FRACTURED' is their latest collaborative release - a longform piece created from a series of improvisations recorded in Montreal.
It begins with a metallic clang, shortly followed by series of intense shaking, rattling, scraping and knocking on various steel objects and percussive instruments. Then the sheer intensity dies down and you will hear the tuning (or de-tuning) of an instrument I can't identify, squeaking string tones and some trembling vibrations of objects being dropped on surfaces... along with some avant-garde sound experimentation with a piano and harpsichord...
After that the piece becomes a little bit more musical (but not much) with the introduction of a droning pipe organ, and other instruments creating these tense swells of noise, which makes for a rather creepy and ominous atmosphere... like a horror movie soundtrack.
Throughout the rest of this piece you will hear tiny steel rattles, the plucking of piano strings, the rubbing of tinplates, percussive shakes, warped tones, tortured squeals and hollow reverberations - all punctuated by brief moments of unnerving stillness.
'EDGE ONCE FRACTURED' is a tense and atmospheric sound piece, filled with avant-garde free improvisation and haunting audio experimentation. At times cacophonous and frightening, at other times quiet and ominous - these two talented musicians have created their own little unique world with this piece. An eerie and captivating listening experience.
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jimmy peggie - book of erosion
(self-released, 2024)
jimmy peggie is a sound artist that operates in the minimal realm of experimental sound and radiophonic art (often along with still and moving images) with a focus on environments, atmospheres, and transmissions.
'book of erosion' in his latest album. It begins with some kind of stuttering muted noise, which instantly creates a dark atmosphere of abstract tension and subtle dread. This is accompanied by waves of whooshing noise that gradually becomes more prominent, intense and menacing as the track progresses - swirling around this barren soundscape like a strange ominous wind...
Throughout the rest of the album you will hear haunting sounds of destruction and decay - brooding noisescapes, lonesome drones, undulating layers of dark ambience, stuttering swells of distortion, singular howling tones, manipulated radio transmissions, gurgling water, low ominous rumblings and plenty of eerie spectral frequencies...
'book of erosion' is a highly atmospheric and darkly beautiful album of industrial dronescapes and minimal sound art. It's great repetitive music to soundtrack your slow drifting thought patterns, and makes for a quietly captivating and meditative listening experience.
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post doom romance - glimmers on the archipelago
(Somnimage, 2024)
Post Doom Romance is the collaborative audio/visual project of sound artists Mykel Boyd & 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.
'glimmers on the archipelago' is an album consisting of two longform sound compositions, based on recordings the artists made while staying in Korpo, Finland.
The album begins with a slow fade-in of dark haunting drones, singular melodic tinkles and layers of slightly-menacing granular synthesis, which ebb and flow with a cinematic intensity. Then you will start to hear a series of echoing bells, atmospheric Carpenter-esque synth chords, howling ambience and rumbling wind-like whooshes of noise...
Throughout the rest of the hour-long composition (split into two parts), you will hear the soundscape fill with heavily-processed field recordings, doom-laden distorted drones, orchestral swells of fleeting melodies, shimmering tingling sounds, warbling ambient tones, crashing sea waves, swirling fuzz, manipulated low cello notes (?), metallic vibrations and tremulous layers of ominous noise.
'glimmers on the archipelago' is an intense and atmospheric sound journey through vast barren environments. Its vaguely-apocalyptic atmospheres, haunting drones, ambiguous noisescapes and beautiful synthesis makes for a riveting and trance-inducing listening experience.
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Marlo De Lara - cannae
(Scatter Archive, 2024)
Marlo De Lara is a sound artist based in Maryland, Baltimore who works within the realms of sound performance, visual distraction, and film. Previously under the moniker ‘marlo eggplant’, De Lara's sound works are textural compositions which develop from microscopic tone landscapes into dense and expansive states of noise. The works aim to blur the definitions of the (un)intentional and the myth of permanence.
'cannae' is an album consisting of 17 sound compositions. The album begins with a series of bare scraping noises and deep low background rumbles, before it abruptly transitions to a dreamy arpeggiated melody, some shimmering atonal drones and minimalistic ambience.
The rest of the album consists of a variety of constantly-evolving sound collages. In these collages you will hear detuned vocal samples, watery sink sounds, woozy drones, muted swells of distortion, found objects being rubbed and rattled against various surfaces, rumbling thunder, manipulated noises from a broken omnichord, beautiful birdsong, dissonant signals, crunching paper, wonky piano music, humming machinery, and a plethora of different vocal sounds and environmental noises.
Each individual piece feels like fleeting fragments of a surreal journey, and you get totally immersed in the various tones and textures within each unique minimalistic soundscape that the artist has skillfully crafted.
'cannae' is a bizarre and compelling album of intriguing lo-fi field recordings, atonal dronescapes, and avant-garde noise art. De Lara's abstract sound sculpting, unique amplification methods and haunting sound design makes for a strangely enthralling listening experience.
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alëna korolëva - premonitions
(forms of minutiae, 2024)
Alëna Korolëva is a Toronto-based artist and curator, who works with sound, photo and video. Her sound work is focused on field recordings, acoustic ecology, soundscape studies and acousmatic composition. Her technique employs elements of documentary storytelling and experimental music.
'premonition' is her latest release, which consists of one longform sound composition. It begins with squealing vibrations of stridulating insects and the clicking/churring sounds of water beetles against an ominous backdrop of crashing thunder. These penetrating frequencies slowly and gradually intensify, as you will start to hear some subtle creeping drones, and layers of atmospheric atonal noise emerge through the mix.
Throughout the rest of the composition, you will hear a series of unnerving metallic scrapes, steel clangs, menacing rattles, cold windy whooshes, muted warbles, whistling kettles, rattling pens and a huge variety of non-human voices and cacophonous animal sounds - meowing cats, clucking chickens, grunting pigs, buzzing flies, chirruping crickets, barking dogs, hooting owls, croaking frogs, trumpeting swans, etc...
You will also hear soft watery splashes, mechanical clatterings, human shuffling sounds, ghostly drones, swarming honey bees, and performed trumpet tones that imitate and parallel the swan's vocalizations!
The piece climaxes in huge dramatic fashion with the rather sinister sounding drones and (almost orchestral) crescendo of blaring truck horns, squawking seagulls, eerie echoes, plaintive reverberations and ambiguous environmental audio phenomena. This album is permeated with a heavy feeling of melancholy and dread, yet it's also strangely gentle and playful, and even amusing at times. It takes an impressive level of discipline and artistry to strike that particular balance so well...
'premonition' is a meditative and mesmerizing sound composition that blends familiar recordings of everyday mundane existence with haunting surrealism. Korolëva's skillful sound collaging techniques, and the way she juxtaposes these tranquil field recordings with dark, tense, brooding atmospheres and sonic abstractions makes for an equally beautiful and unsettling listening experience.
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Alma Laprida - Venice
(self-released, 2024)
Alma Laprida is an Argentinian multi-disciplinary artist whose creative pursuits encompass composition, improvisation, performance, installation, and radiophonic pieces. She works with sound using an intimate, contemporary language and explores the territories among composition, improvisation, performance and installation.
'Venice' is her latest release - a 2-song EP based on field recordings taken when Laprida was staying in Venice.
'Piazza' begins with the hypnotic gong-like sounds of cathedral bells - shimmering, swirling and resonating, against a backdrop of urban ambience. You will hear distant murmurs of conversations, crowds of pedestrians flitting by, faint strains of street music and other familiar city sounds, while the bells slowly ring out and eventually fade into singular dulcet tones...
'3PM, 3AM' begins with more distant bells and human shuffling sounds, but it's very short-lived. The field recording fades away pretty quickly, and you will hear some softly-wavering minimalistic drones drifting through the soundscape, which creates a rather dark and brooding atmosphere. After that, more field recordings emerge from the background of the mix.
Throughout the rest of the composition, you will hear some subtle watery sounds (perhaps from the Venice canals?), reverberated voices, crunching footsteps, ominous ambience, dissonant drones and more haunting church bells being struck in a series of varying frequencies, speeds and tones.
'Venice' is a short and fascinating sound journey into a unique city, and a unique sonic environment. Laprida's gorgeous field recordings, atmospheric sound sculpting and subtle collaging methods makes for a meditative and subtly haunting listening experience.
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zhu wenbo - voices from volunteers and audiences
(self-released, 2023)
Zhu Wenbo is a sound artist based in Beijing, China. He focuses on "music unlike music," which could be thought of as a drift away from China's traditional experimental/noise/improvisation music scene. He also runs the cassette label Zoomin' Night.
'voices from volunteers and audiences' is an album consisting of two longform experimental sound compositions based on multiple recordings of ''small mouth sounds'' from Wenbo's social media followers and audience members.
'voices from volunteers' begins with a frantic gaggle of whispers, murmurs, sighs, inhalations, exhalations, gurgles, muttered words and abstract vocalizations against a backdrop of airy birdsong and strange distortions. As the track progresses, more and more voices (in various languages and tongues) enter the soundscape. You will hear soft singing, deep breaths, meditative humming, tortured croaks, tuneless whistling, deep rumbles, faint conversations, weird buzzing drones, vocal pops and other absurd mouth sounds.
'voices from audiences' begins with the distinct ambience of a small brunch room in Wujin. You will hear footsteps, people speaking and coughing quietly amongst themselves, and shuffling around in their seats. In this recording, Wendo asked the audience members to record small mouth sounds onto their phones, and then play it back to them. A very interesting idea...
This piece seems to more intense and cacophonous than the previous one, and certainly more abstract. In this track, I think the voices are more electronically manipulated, which creates a more wild and surreal atmosphere. The collage of voices, along with the various other sonic abstractions you can hear seem to gather together and flit around this audio environment in a mad delirium of atonal noise...
'voices from volunteers and audiences' is an album of bizarre cacophonous vocalizations, avant-garde sound composition and free form live improvisation. This unique and fascinating experiment has made for such a strange and spellbinding listening experience.
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Conducive - Open Day
(self-released, 2024)
Conducive is an experimental sound artist and from the UK who uses field recordings, audio manipulation and sound collages to create interesting and immersive noise pieces, against a very subtle backdrop of minimalistic textural ambient music.
'Open Day' is a 15-minute long sound composition, created from various field recordings and minimalistic ambience.
It begins with the repetitive rotating, creaking and squeaking of a carousel. The slow, subtle, churning sounds of this mechanism, along with the surrounding airy environmental noises creates an ambiguous atmosphere, and lulls you into a strangely meditative mindset. As the piece progresses, you will hear the slow emergence of melancholic synth ambience and soft whooshing industrial noise and be enveloped in its lonesome tones and textures. On top of this, you will hear the murmured voices and acoustic ecology of some kind of public gathering area, along with (what sounds to me) like some kind of tour guide giving a speech to the audience...
'Open Day' is a somber and mesmerizing sound piece comprised of intriguing field recordings, plaintive drones and ambient noise experimentation. The sound sculpting in this piece is so beautiful, and makes for a mournful and trance-inducing listening experience.
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