Journeys in Sound & Music
This is a category I especially enjoy each year for its variety, eclecticism, and nomadic spirit. Here is a selection of memorable releases from the musical edge lands where electroacoustic music and field recordings meet folk, jazz, and other analog experiments in sound.
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The act of creating a sense of a place or capturing a moment in time is a fairly common motif in a great deal of instrumental music, especially ambient, but it is intrinsically at the very core of these works released in 2022. Some are personal narratives or depictions of landscape either real or imagined while…
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Svaneborg Kardyb are the multi award-winning Danish duo of Nikolaj Svaneborg (Wurlitzer, Juno, piano) and Jonas Kardyb (drums, percussion) based in Aarhus, Denmark’s second largest city. The by-product of fruitful early morning sessions caffeinated with “the blackest of coffee”, Over Tage (‘over roofs’) marks their Gondwana debut where it is right at home among such intrepid explorers of jazz-leaning experimental music as…
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After nearly three years of staying close to home, there is something particularly appealing about taking a virtual journey to the other side of the world, especially when it involves the electroacoustic artistry found in this collection of recent releases originating in Australia. Of course, the antipodal perspective is in the location of the beholder,…
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Collaborations between artists can be planned, but the kind of sweet serendipity that makes them magical cannot. It either happens or it doesn’t. The idea of Italian pianist & composer Bruno Bavota making an album with Dutch singer & musician Chantal Acda certainly had the potential to be a magical one. Bavota is known for…
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Portland-based guitarist Jamie Stillway‘s new album was conceived in a 196 square foot cabin with on an island in the Puget Sound where she moved in the autumn of 2019. Lullaby for a Stranger was inspired by the solitary journey taken 70 years ago by a pregnant woman driving alone from Minnesota to Oregon to…
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The guitar is an instrument for all seasons, but there is just something especially alluring about it as the waning days of summer give way to the golden light of autumn. In that spirit, here is a round-up of six excellent albums some of which released earlier in the year and some still to come…
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Wickerbird is the atmospheric dream-folk project of Blake Cowan rooted in the sylvan beauty of the wild foothills of Mt. Rainier where it all began. From early albums like The Crow Mother (2012) and The Westering (2013) to the masterful The Leaf Maker (2015), he has carved his own path by distilling daydream-filled walks in the…
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Gondwana Records is an independent record label founded in Manchester, England by composer/musician/producer Matthew Halsall in 2008 to shine a light on the talent he heard in the local clubs. Since then, it has become blossomed into a genuinely international label with additional offices in Berlin and London and a roster that boasts such well-regarded artists as GoGo Penguin,…
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Stationary Travels 