Journeys in Sound & Music
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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The days are growing shorter and the last leaves of autumn are fading embers that will soon disappear. The transition of fall into winter seems especially dispiriting in a pandemic year, but there is still comfort and consolation in the anodyne effects of music. The six albums that comprise this journey come from artistic voices…
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However long it takes to put this seemingly interminable pandemic in the rear view mirror, one day down the road we will get the chance to look back fondly on the bright spots of kindness, creativity, and friendship that illuminated the darker times. But that does not mean we can’t savor them now where we…
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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…
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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…
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When I first began to really diving into ambient music I was surprised just how much of what I liked what what was classified as ‘drone’. The name just seemed off-putting. For the uninitiated it appears to promise something monotonous, something to zone out to rather than tune into. As I quickly learned, however, in…
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During these difficult days, simple pleasures are something to cherish, all the more so when they are as artistically rewarding as this lovely new offering from First Terrace Records. The A-side of this gem of an EP features Peter Broderick performing a pair of solo piano reworks of songs taken from Canadian cellist Justin Wright‘s…
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A member of Canadian music group Timber Timbre from 2008-2012 and a part of Agnes Obel‘s touring band from 2013-2014, Mika Posen records her solo work under the name of Merganzer. Her new album Montage released on So Sorry Records last October is a spellbinding collection of painterly vignettes and neoclassical reveries which Posen wrote…
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From the glacial post-rock soundscapes of Canvas (Polar Seas Recordings), Monuments (Sound in Silence) and Resolven (Polar Seas Recordings) to the sprawling drones of the more recent Departures series, Brad Deschamps & Mike Abercrombie have shown a willingness to change tack as they have navigated their North Atlantic Drift project over the years since their…
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