Journeys in Sound & Music
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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Born in Hawaii to Hungarian parents, Lara Somogyi’s introduction to harp-playing skewed toward the traditional until she began to lean into an improvisational approach while studying at the Royal Academy of Music in London and composing to color schemes and visuals. Another sensory layer emerged in her work after a series of chance meetings with…
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As a composer primarily for film, Jonas Colstrup has released several soundtracks, including two with the late Jóhann Jóhannsson who proves to be a key influence for his new album four years in the making. Unhurried by the rigorous deadlines associated with scoring, Colstrup was able to “dream big” as it were and take the…
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Described as “a musical fresco in seven pieces”, Missing Island will be the third album from Snowdrops, a French chamber collective comprising multi-instrumentalists Christine Ott and Mathieu Gabry accompanied by violist Anne-Irène Kempf. A sequel to Volutes, which gained recognition as one of the top 10 contemporary albums of 2020 by The Guardian, the new…
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Who doesn’t enjoy curling up on the sofa over a weekend and taking in a film or binge watching a great television show? You can certainly do that with the productions shown here, but the focus of our little travelogue is the music that was created for each by a group of composers whose solo…
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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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Chiming bells and a lone piano set the scene in “Fantasia Opening”, as if summoning a gathering to take place. Different instruments answer the call … Thus, we are introduced to the first single from The Whole World Laid Out Before Me, the forthcoming new album by Pêtr Aleksänder, an alternative modern classical project from…
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An award-winning composer, music producer and multi-instrumentalist based in Stockholm, Jakob Lindhagen is known for combining the piano with less conventional instruments and other sound experiments on both his studio material and his award-winning film scores. On his first solo album since 2017’s Paces (1631 Recordings), Lindhagen draws on these techniques to conduct a musical…
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The heart of a song lives in the performer… Ólafur Arnalds In the spirit of collaboration that permeates the work of Icelandic musician & composer Ólafur Arnalds, this autumn will see the release of a collection of songs from his 2020 album some kind of peace reworked on the piano by a hand-picked group of…
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Stationary Travels 