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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This March will see the release of the long anticipated second full-length record by Japanese composer & pianist Daigo Hanada. The gap since his debut album Ichiru (2017) has encompassed an EP along with scattered singles and collaborations but also unfortunately the onset of a sudden and debilitating physical illness which has resulted in numerous…
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The EP is often overlooked when it comes annual round-ups, but this format continually proves it can provide us with outsized moments of wonder and delight and the year in music would not be the same without them as these 16 releases demonstrate.
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From the intimacy of a solitary piano to the harmony of an ensemble or the mysterious alchemy forged in the studio where the analog is fused with the electronic, here is a selection of some especially memorable journeys in modern & post classical music released during the past year.
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A selection of memorable releases from the year from the musical edgelands where electroacoustic ambient and field recordings meet acoustic, folk, 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 2021. Some are personal narratives or depictions of landscape either real or imagined while…
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By his own admission, German composer & sound designer Edward Sikorski has thus far taken a relatively simple approach to his solo work born as much of impatience and practical limitations as aesthetic choice. By introducing a collaborative element on his new EP entitled Basic Colours, however, he has been finally been able to realize…
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Fusing together the sound of two artists on the vanguard of the Hungarian modern classical music scene, “Untold” is a collaboration between Andor Sanderson who goes by the moniker Wave of Sound and pianist/composer Tamás Vághy aka vaghy, a composer and pianist whose own “abandoned forest” was premiered here not long ago in parallel with…
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Circular patterns are at the heart of the first collaborative album between Kinbrae (twin brothers Mike & Andy Truscott) and fellow Fife-based writer and artist Clare Archibald. Much of the meaning behind what they have created is condensed into its succinct title – Birl of Unmap. Birl is a Scots word meaning ‘to spin’ –…
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Stationary Travels 