Hello everybody. I'm back with my first roundup of new/newish non-musical recommendations in quite some time..
I was on a fairly lengthy hiatus from blogging for several reasons, but I've recently felt the burning itch to get back into it, so here I am. I really do love writing about my latest non-musical discoveries, so I've decided that I'm going to try my best to carry on maintaining this blog for the meantime... but as all music writers will tell you - it's a (mostly) thankless task, and the only way I'm going to do it without completely burning myself out is to take a completely selfish approach to it and do it at a much slower and more manageable pace...
Anyway, without further ado - here are a bunch of new (or relatively new) sound art albums that I've been enjoying lately...
And as usual - if you like what you see/hear, please considering supporting these great artists & labels by buying their albums and following them on Bandcamp and/or social media.
---
Houser/Jacques/Montiel/Salinas/Weathers - Light Flies Out of Us
(Editions Glomar, 2015)
'Light Flies Out of Us' is a collaborative album between five different sound artists that resulted from a guided sound walk and recording session at an art farm outside of Lubbock, Texas. The artists were Justin Houser, Anne-F Jacques, Ernesto Montiel, Veronica Anne Salines & Andrew Weathers - all of whose individual work I was already familiar with, so checking this out was a no-brainer...
The album consists of two lengthy sound compositions, inspired by the sound of the wind in that area from the perspective of tumbleweeds, and performed on a multiple of different objects and instruments.
'Tumbleweeds' begins with some airy room tones, soft windy howls, distant creaks and quiet squeaks and squeals from brass instruments, with lots of emptiness, miniature movements and subtle environmental sounds coloring the background. As the track progresses, you will hear swirling echoes, metallic shimmers, crackling electricity, small objects being bounced and rattled and scraped, ambient synth notes and gentle bell-like sounds resonating and ricocheting off the walls in this unique creative space...
'Wind Index' begins with a series of quiet crackly bursts of electrical noise, haunting rumbles and soft windy melodies, which is eventually accompanied by a variety of brooding drones, tiny rattles and vibrations, muted percussive knocks, airy ambience, rippling tones, and all kinds of strangled frictional sounds... creating a tense yet delightfully meditative atmosphere to lose yourself in...
'Light Flies Out of Us' is a fragile and spacious album of minimalistic sound art, hushed improvisation, rich acoustic ecology and dreamy environmental ambience. It's amazing that there can be five talented sound artists performing in one space, yet no one person hogs the spotlight for themselves - quite the opposite, really. The whole thing is so subdued and restrained and minimalistic. A delicate and mesmerizing listening experience.
Stream/Buy/Download :
-
Laura Not & Andrew Hulme - Almost Something
(Infant Tree, 2025)
Laura Not is an artist, sound collagist and DJ. She hosts (x)=musik on Lyl Radio, co-runs the label Final Image and has released music on various experimental record labels.
Andrew Hulme is an experimental musician, and one half of the English post-industrial/ambient duo O Yuki Conjugate.
'Almost Something' is a collaboration album between these two artists, consisting of two longform sound compositions that were based on recordings taken in both London and Berlin.
'In The Course of Events' begins with the busy sounds of locomotion and public transportation. The sonic backdrop fills with police sirens, whooshing traffic noises, rumbling drones and environmental sounds, while in the foreground you can hear some kind of repetitive tinkling, like someone stirring ice cubes in a glass... after which you will start to hear shimmering metallic tones and dissonant frictional ambience, causing squalls of resonant feedback...
Throughout the rest of the piece you will hear airy environmental drones, shuffling noises, glistening high-frequency tones, rumbling traffic, grainy textures, the screeching sound of (what may be) some kind of stringed instrument, quiet eerie ambience and a variety of bizarre sonic abnormalities and ambiguous abstractions. Near the end of the track you will notice the initially tinkling sound returns, against a background of subtle musical flourishes...
'Finding Midday At Two' begins with some quiet haunting ambience, gong-like bell tones, surreal gurgling textures and slow swells of abstract noises. As the track progresses, you will hear the soundscape fill with beautiful ethereal ambience with soft dreamy echoes and long swirling reverberations. For the rest of the piece, you will hear rapid fluttering/drilling noises, resonant bells, ghostly howls, mournful melodies and soft warbling drones...
'Almost Something' is a wonderful album of rich vivid field recordings, surreal dronescapes and beautiful sound experimentation. I'm not sure who does what in these pieces, but they blend together in such a fluid and seamless way. A strange and intriguing aural journey, and an exquisite listening experience.
Stream/Buy/Download :
-
Marie Rose Sarri / Bruno Duplant - deux études
(Ftarri, 2024)
Marie Rose Sarri (a.k.a MonoLogue, a.k.a Moon RA) is an Italian musician and sound artist who makes skillful use of both analog and digital instruments, field recordings and all types of sounds in composing and creating works of music.
Bruno Duplant is a prolific French musical composer and sound artist living in the north of France. He has released a vast array of solo works on many different labels, and has collaborated with many musicians around the globe.
'deux études' is a recent collaboration album of theirs, consisting of two longform sound compositions.
'étude no. 1' begins with stuttering layers of trippy textural noise, accompanied by swirling field recordings of unknown source. You will also erratic bursts of mechanical puttering, surreal reverberations, electronic gurgles and a plethora of other fleeting sonic abstractions. There are moments of discernable rhythmic patterns strewn throughout this piece, but they're very short-lived, as the piece continues to evolve at a rapid pace.
Throughout the rest of the composition, you will hear strange haunting drones, fuzzy ambience, ghostly rattles and vibrations, glitchy electronic tones, crackling textures and squalling bursts of ambiguous noise. At around the halfway point you will unexpectedly hear quiet guitar harmonics playing out a sweet melody amidst the surrounding chaos of collaged sounds...
'étude no. 2' begins with atmospheric layers of stuttering noises, warped field recordings and melancholic ambience, before the sounds evolve into strange hypnotic polyrhythms, glitchy electronica and repeating patterns of sonic weirdness.
Throughout the rest of the piece you will hear (what sounds like) mechanical insects, eerie whooshing drones, otherworldly bells and chimes, haunting whistles, gurgling liquid-y drips, spacious guitar plucks, dark echoes and strangled bursts of erratic noise.
'deux études' is a spellbinding and mysterious collaborative album between two uniquely skilled experimental artists - both of whom I'm already a big fan of. There's A LOT going on in these pieces, much more than I can describe in this little capsule review. Having spent quality time thoroughly listening to both Sarri & Duplant's individual creative outputs, I can easily identify both in the sound of this album... which proves how both these artists bring an original musical (and non-musical) stamp with them, wherever they go and whoever they get involved with. A captivating and absurdly beautiful listening experience.
Stream/Buy/Download :
-
Phil Maguire - faint red / pencil lines
(farpoint recordings, 2024)
Phil Maguire (1989) is a Cork-based Scottish artist and composer, producing microscopic sound works for synthesiser and computer that explore emptiness and emergence, of self and of machine. These works are informed by his experience composing, performing, and presenting works across the gamut of Minimalism.
'faint red / pencil lines' is his latest album, consisting of two longform minimalist drone compositions. It's a study in endless yet microscopic electronic music...
'Untitled1 (Morning)' begins with a slow and softly-pulsating drone that quietly emerges out of the background, engulfing the listener in its constant rippling motion. Within these minimalist waves of synth notes and computer-generated sine tones, you will hear a faint melody and shimmering harmonies that ever-so-slightly fluctuate and intensify as the piece pushes forward...
At about the midway point, you will notice that the drone starts to gather a bit more power and mass. An additional fuzzy textural drone emerges out of the mix, ebbing and flowing within this continual sound...
'Untitled 0 (8)' begins with a higher-frequency singular electronic drone that contains very subtle undulations, if you listen closely, like some kind of slow mechanical breathing...
As the pieces progresses, more tones enter the mix, creating lovely dissonances and barely-perceptible variations in frequency, and feel...
'faint red / pencil lines' is an album of subtle, quiet, glacial-paced electronic dronescapes that entice and mesmerize with their meditative frequencies and shimmering stillness. Maguire namedrops the abstract painter Agnes Martin as an inspiration and influence on his work - both sharing a similar stark minimalism and ''sense of infinity'' in their approach, and both of their outputs (in my opinion) go hand-in-hand... Such a serene and immersive listening experience.
Stream/Buy/Download :
-
seah / susan drone - split
(Somnimage, 2024)
Seah is an experimental sound artist, musician and visual/performance artist who has released a number of solo works, as well being one half of the experimental noise duo post doom romance.
Susan Drone (a.k.a Susana López) is an electroacoustic composer, sound and visual artist based in Murcia, Spain.
This is a 2-track split release between both of these exceptional drone artists - available to purchase on 7'' lathe cut vinyl...
seah's track 'hypogean' begins with the rising swell of a haunting cello drone, surrounded by swirling winds of airy noise. As the track progresses, you will be sucked into a dark howling soundscape of slowly-rippling ambience and dissonant tonal tensions. A very cinematic and mournful composition.
susan drone's track 'Immanence' begins with a ghostly shimmering drone, accompanied by some ambiguous environmental sounds. You can hear the faint muttering of distant voices, metallic whooshes and reverberated clatterings, clanging away as the central drones gather intensity and momentum, creating dense layers of hypnotic sounds that could listen to for a long time...
This is a short but immersive split release between two expert sound sculptors. The way these two experimental artists are able to manipulate and transform field recordings (or however else they gather their source materials) into these noisy melancholic atmospheres makes for an eerie and beautiful listening experience.
Stream/Buy/Download :
-
Jacob Kirkegaard - Snowblind
(Helen Scarsdale, 2025)
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.
'Snowblind' is his latest release, based on a failed attempt for a team of Swedish explorers to reach The North Pole by balloon in the late 19th century.
It begins with a slow, cold, ominous dronescape that swirls around like a strong whooshing wind of bleak noise. This icy hostile audio environment is punctuated by (what sounds like) swells of a brass horn and other electronic abstractions. Then you will start to hear eerie metallic tones, ebbing and flowing in an empty lonesome place. These tones overlap with each other and create a spellbinding dissonance...
Throughout the rest of this album, you will hear a series of sinister drones, freezing ambient textures, shimmering timbres, brief melodic flourishes, desolate echoes, cavernous reverberations, rumbling percussive knocks, mysterious crackling tones, rippling environmental sounds and cacophonous swells of haunting noise.
'Snowblind' is a cold and doom-laden album of bleak nature sounds, ominous drones and isolationist soundscapes. Kirkegaard's haunting sound design and immersive sonic experimentation makes for a dark, tense and atmospheric listening experience.
Stream/Buy/Download :
-
Kate Carr and Matt Atkins - Organelles
(Flaming Pines, 2025)
Kate Carr is a London-based composer and field recordist whose work uses sound to explore the spaces we create together. She is particularly interested in shared public spaces, and the ways we deploy sound to connect, occupy, immerse and remove ourselves from locations, events and each other. Her live work is centred on objects, chance events and textures.
Matt Atkins is a prolific sound and visual artist based in London. He works with percussion and found objects, and uses tape manipulation techniques to create intriguing sound collages and his own unique brand of musique concrete.
'Organelles' is a collaboration between both artists, inspired by the tiny processes and interactions that occur within cells.
The album begins with layers of sizzling textures, quivering static, puttering thuds, windy moans, shimmery howls, crackling swells of noise and soft ambient chimes ringing slowly and eerily around this unique inner soundscape.
Throughout the rest of the album you will hear all sorts of atmospheric percussive hits, audio pops, tiny gurgles, crunching sounds, miniature vibrations, quiet rumbles and moments of beautiful glistening ambience, which adds a lovely dream-like quality to these strange and constantly-fluctuating sonic environments.
'Organelles' is a woozy and hypnotic album of microscopic movements and delicate sounds that wonderfully capture the life and activity that occur within these unique tiny inner worlds. The atmospheres that Carr and Atkins skillfully sculpt throughout these pieces really ignite the imagination, and paint vivid aural landscapes through intelligent and delicate sound experimentations. A dreamy and captivating listening experience.
Stream/Buy/Download :
-
Ian Wellman - Can You Hear The Streetlights Glow?
(Room40, 2025)
Ian Wellman is a sound artist, field recordist, and an IATSE 695 Y-1 sound mixer who combines slowed and distorted tape loop textures along with field recordings to create dynamic landscapes.
'Can You Hear The Street Lights Glow?' is an album that was created from recordings of mercury-vapor streetlights surrounding the artist's new home in Pasadena, California. Wellman placed various types of microphones and electromagnetic sensors on metal sensors, which resulted in a series of fascinating sound compositions.
The album begins with an ominous droning mass of fluttering rumbles, rattling textures and ghostly howling sounds. Then you will start to hear walls of fuzzy static, mechanical drones and squalling layers of electromagnetic noise experimentation. Throughout the rest of the album, various tones and frequencies disintegrate and decay, atmospheric field recordings engulf, and unsettling environmental ambience fills these rich vivid soundscapes with a feeling of thick unknown dread...
'Can You Hear The Street Lights Glow?' is a short but stunning album of evocative sound art, haunting dronescapes and abstract electronical noise experiments. An incredibly immersive sound journey, and a wonderfully atmospheric listening experience.
Stream/Buy/Download :
-
Raphael Malfliet - Tracce Di Luce
(self-released, 2025)
Raphael Malfliet is a sound artist, composer and performer based in Antwerp Belgium whose work revolves around the attempt to translate characteristics of generative art to the composer/performer role. In doing this he withholds himself from creating in a certain style but will use any means possible to support, challenge and question the subject of the research.
'Tracce Di Luce' is a sound dramaturgy and short audio documentary that captures the intricate layers of memory, history, and atmosphere in the village of Castelnuovo Al Volturno, in the Molise region of Italy. You can read the full story/description at the Bandcamp link below...
It consists of one 20-minute long sound composition, which begins with a series of body movements, shuffling sounds, crackling textures and metal scrapes against a tranquil background of quiet airy ambience. Then you will start to hear some joyous whistling, crunchy footsteps and lots of solitary indoor house sounds. The segment ends with a brief interview with one of the local residents of Castelnuovo, who recalls his own personal memories of living in the village during the 80s, when it was far more populated. This interview is punctuated by the languid ringing of church bells and gentle winds...
Throughout the rest of the piece, you will hear local stories and commentaries (in both English and Italian), radio static, frictional noises, beautiful birdsong, rumbling thunder, heavy rainfall, singing, the pounding of hollow receptacles, running water and many erratic bursts of noise.
'Tracce Di Luce' is a beautiful and delicate audio documentation of a small rural place that has a rich and vibrant history. The love and care that Malfliet has put into researching this project and crafting this sound work comes through very clearly. The field recordings and spoken excerpts are so captivating, and paint a vivid image of the atmosphere of Castelnuovo. A quiet, serene and emotional listening experience.
Stream/Buy/Download :
-
Wohnen - Puddles
(self-released, 2024)
Wohnen is the sound project of Beth Robertson. It's an inter-disciplinary enquiry into the entangled hybrid worlds of the more-than-human. Her practise comprises different conceptual and practice-led projects, investigating collective listening as a form of activism and sounding out the symbiotic relationships we have with the world within, amongst and around us. She asks how we can learn to listen to the voices of those silenced, othered or disappeared...
'Puddles' is a 22-minute composition of sounds from beneath, above and around ponds, puddles, tide pools, streams, flushes and potholes. You can read more specific details at the Bandcamp link below...
It begins with the sound of a soft subtle gurgle of water against a backdrop of cavernous reverberation and haunting wind noises. You can hear lone solitary drips and the gentle crackle of water flowing over small pebbles and rocks, causing soft frictional knocks. Then you will begin to hear the muffled murmur of voices, hurried footsteps and distant traffic sounds emerging from the background. Throughout the rest of the piece, you will hear environmental drones, seagulls squawking, and more water - of course... water being softly sucked through drains, gurgling in small puddles and pools, dripping eerily from above, rumbling at dark depths and streams flowing in full spate... interspersed with the artist's ambiguous sonic abstractions.
'Puddles' is a soothing and meditative audio collage of watery soundscapes, environmental ambience and raw minimalistic sound experimentation that highlights and celebrates the activity and flow of these special little bodies of water that are located everywhere, yet as the artist says herself - they give us little time to marvel. A beautiful and hypnotic listening experience.
Stream/Buy/Download :
-
Sara Retallick - Sift
(self-released, 2024)
Sara Retallick is an artist, composer, and researcher living and working on Wurundjeri Country in Naarm (Melbourne). Her work explores multisensory listening as a core concern by creating tactile sonic encounters in audio and object-based installation, multichannel sound system arrangements, sound design and performance.
'Sift' is a collaborative exhibition between artists Liv Boyle and Sara Retallick exploring material exchanges and relations in contemporary jewellery and sound art practices. This sound study consists of two recordings...
'Side A' begins with the gentle scraping and percussive rattling of some sort of hollow object/receptacle, accompanied by a frantic and mesmerizing cacophony of steel tinkles - possibly jewellery?
As the piece progresses, you will start to hear a variety of different textural layers and electronic manipulation sounds. Small objects churn away in an almost-mechanical rhythmic pattern, caked with erratic bursts of warbling reverb, and listening closely you can hear all sorts of subtle vibrations and frictional noises...
'Side B' begins with a series of haunting bangs and scrapes, like some large piece of furniture is being slowly dragged across the room. Reading the album blurb on Bandcamp - this might have something to do with a floor tom...
Eventually you will begin to hear more glistening metallic clinking noises, like miniature bells knocking into each other. Throughout the rest of the piece, you will hear strangled breaths blowing through some kind of thin flute-like instrument and airy drones, creating a series of stifled choking noises, high squealing frequencies, low fuzzy moans, soothing ambient tones and an all-round pretty eerie atmosphere...
'Sift' is a short but fascinating album of minimalistic sound art, playful improvisation, subtle electronics and abstract sonic experimentation. The delicate and restrained performances by these two skilled artists capture the tensions and interactions between these unique materials, which are made up from a selection of materials that Boyle uses in her work as a jeweller. An intriguing and strangely meditative listening experience.
Stream/Buy/Download :
-
Andy Fray - Scrapes
(self-released, 2025)
Andy Fray is a reductionist sound artist & field recordist who practices abstract minimalism. He also releases stark atmospheric compositions of abstract surrealism under the name Vorval.
'Scrapes' is a longform sound recording of paint being scraped off the walls of a quiet corridor in the artist's apartment building. Although the idea may seem quite laughable and ridiculous, it actually makes for a strangely captivating recording.
The piece is split into (roughly) two lengthy sections - the first being the actual scraping off the walls with some kind of tool - a chisel or a knife, I'm assuming... and the second being the remnant mess being swept off the wall. In the background you can hear subtle room tones and background noises in the apartment building - the odd faint murmured voice, soft bangs from the heating system, doors being opened and closed... but apart from that - all you hear is the ambient stillness surrounding this mundane chore. A strangely relaxing and hypnotic listening experience.
Stream/Buy/Download :
-
No comments:
Post a Comment