The music of Markus Seiber as Aukai has always embodied a spirit of wandering and a palpable sense of the outdoors. Informed by his wide-ranging travels across Europe an the Americas and a deep appreciation of nature, Aukai’s redolent, peregrine style owes much to his use of the ronroco, a small guitar originating in the…
Category: Acoustic/Folk
Travelogue: A hibernate recordings Collection
After a relatively sparse 2019, it is very nice to see a flurry of new activity over at hibernate recordings, the Yorkshire-based ambient label founded a little over a decade ago by Jonathan Lees. The catalyst has been something called the 2.6 challenge, a charitable initiative intended to fill the void left by the cancellation…
Sound Impression: Literature by Tomotsugu Nakamura
Tomotsugu Nakamura is a musician and graphic designer residing in Tokyo, Japan who composes music with fragments of minimal acoustic & electronic tones and field recordings. My first exposure to his work was the last year’s monologue, an excellent recording that appeared on the Audiobulb label and became a shoo-in for the annual round-up of…
Travelogue: At home with La Petite Chambre Records
Affectionately named after a tiny room in Belo Horizonte, Brazil where a group of friends would gather to quietly rehearse and record new ideas, La Petite Chambre Records has been publishing a uniquely warm and colorful style of experimental music for over a decade. The label has created their own space for artistic expression in…
Travelogue: The Whitelabrecs Home Diaries
Since its inception, Harry Towell’s Whitelabrecs label has been nothing less than prolific with release after release that seems to bring out the best in any artist that appears on the roster. In fact, Whitelabrecs made more appearances in my 2019 retrospectives than any other label. Given the creative impetus that represents, perhaps it is…
Sound Impression: Residence on Earth by The Green Kingdom
Ever since becoming infatuated with his 2012 album Egress, I’ve always looked forward to anything new from The Green Kingdom, a solo project from Michigander Michael Cottone. Few artists match his deftness at blending organic and electronic sources while maintaining a delicate balance between melodic structures and textural soundscapes. He makes his first appearance on…
Video Premiere: Stormen Kommer by Vargkvint
It was exactly a year ago that Sofia Nystrand aka Vargkint released her concept album about the sea entitled Hav on Piano and Coffee Records (readers may remember the premiere of the haunting ballad “Drivved” on these pages last spring). Since then, Nystrand has developed a newfound interest in making stop motion films and marks…
Sound Impression: Ammil by Ishmael Cormack
Ishmael Cormack is a British sound artist living in rural Somerset. His published body of work has grown significantly in the past year and focuses on what he describes as “gathering and weaving found sound with acoustics”. The quality and extent of that work is such that many followers of electroacoustic ambient music who would…
2019 In Review: The Art of the EP
The EP is often overlooked when it comes annual round-ups, but this format continually provides us with memorable outsize moments and the year in music would not be the same without them as these 16 releases demonstrate.
