Journeys in Sound & Music
Isolarii is a word with roots going back to the Renaissance age that means ‘island books’. It represents a distinctive literary form that fuses many place-specific components together into a singular narrative that encompasses maps, nautical charts, travelogues, and history blended with elements of myth and legend. Its mere description ignites the imagination and so…
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“Two States of Mind” is more than just the moving final coda for Rose Ribel’s Do Not Move Stones. It also the piece that is perhaps most emblematic of the rich dualities that animate the album. A classically trained professional concert pianist who studied in both Sydney and Vienna and who has performed at some…
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In 2015, Brighton duo Grasscut released Everyone Was A Bird, an album author Robert Macfarlane tells us in his liner note essay was “born of footfall”. Its eight pieces explored places important to composer Andrew Phillips and writer/musician Marcus O’Dair from the north coast of Jersey or a fallow field in the South Downs of…
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Born in the remote Icelandic town of Blönduós, we are told that as a child pianist & composer Eydís Evensen would stand in the howling wind and stare out the wild Westfjords pretending to conduct the clouds. Indoors she was exposed by her parents to a breadth of music from very early on ranging from…
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Canadian composer & multi-instrumentalist Cédric Dind-Lavoie reaches back through time to find a very special group of collaborators for his first full-length release since the wonderful 88 (2018, Preserved Sound). Archives is a specially treated anthology of songs from the 40s and 50s that have been drawn from the collections of distinguished folklorists of the…
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It is fair to say that over the past year most of us have spent more time inside our homes than ever before. As a former commuter now working remotely, I’ve embraced the adjustment quite willingly, but it has still been a profound change in many ways. No longer walking in late with the brain…
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Now recognized as one of the great masterpieces of nature writing, The Living Mountain is a personal memoir of journeys into the Cairngorm mountains by Scottish author Nan Shepherd. Written during the Second World War, but not published for another 30 years, its twelve chapters convey her experiences in sparse but lyrical terms to present…
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“In Scotland, when people congregate, they tend to argue and discuss and reason; in Orkney, they tell stories.” George Mackay Brown After soaring with the birds on Solan Goose and taking to the sea for Sule Skerry, award-winning multi-instrumentalist, composer, & producer Erland Cooper turns to the land and its people to conclude his Orkney-themed…
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As lifelong residents of Minnesota’s Twin Cities, musicians Chris Bartels, aka Elskavon, and John Hayes share a common geography, but it was their shared interest in ambient-classical composition that eventually led them to forge a connection. Having been introduced by a mutual friend, a collaborative project was probably inevitable and so it has come to…
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Stationary Travels 