Journeys in Sound & Music
Running from late June into August, Moderna Records‘ 2020 Summer Single Series presents a stellar collection of piano-centered pieces ‘made in isolation’ by a collective of pianists/composers spanning the globe. Working in the constraints of forced isolation, the artists have primarily worked from home or in stripped down settings to create intimate works the label…
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Watching a city awaken on autumn morning through rivulets of rain running down a coffee shop window seems only fitting while while listening to the new album created by Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh with his 10-string hardanger d’amore and pianist/producer Thomas Bartlett aka Doveman while musing on the implications of their selection of ‘Snow’ (1960) by…
Read MoreThresholds is the 6th studio album from SASO, a project formed in Dublin, Ireland in 2000 by composer & multi-instrumentalist Jim Lawler and producer/recording engineer Ben Rawlins and one which extends the duo’s collaboration with pianist Kevin Corcoran first heard on Mysterium (2016). The inspiration for the record came from the passing of Jim’s father, Brian Lawler, a musician and composer…
Read MoreAs spring dissolves into summer, the stillness of beautifully crafted ambient drones and languid electroacoustic soundscapes are just the ticket for the right state of mind. Fortunately some of the finest artists in the field have unveiled new recordings for us to enjoy and here is a look at eight of them you won’t want…
Read MoreA little over a year after his patient fusion of close mic’ed solo piano with delicate synthesizer constructions on The Words She Said (reviewed here), Irish-born, Montreal-based composer/producer Paddy Mulcahy returns with an enigmatic foray into finespun electronica & percussion in the form a striking five-track EP entitled From Water. It begins with the shimmering “You…
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How does one capture the essence of a landscape so as to describe it to another who has never been there? The vast majority of us would rely on words and pictures, but how many of us would think of trying to do this strictly with sound? Not music, mind you, but sound. That is…
Read MoreIt has been a little while – too long in fact – since we have visited the shores of the Eilean, an imaginary territory the map of which is now dotted & colored by 60 albums covering a broad and eclectic spectrum of ambient, electroacoustic, and modern classical music. The label saw five outstanding releases…
Read MoreOn his most fully realized album to date, composer/producer Paddy Mulcahy offers up eight beautiful experiments in juxtaposing solo piano minimalism with vibrant synthesizer constructions. While some of his previous releases demonstrated Mulcahy quite capable of inventively sketching and improvising in a compressed time frame, the music on The Words She Said was cultivated over a two-year…
Read MoreThe music of Sheridan Tongue has traveled the cosmos with Stephen Hawking and Brian Cox and haunted the gritty, shadowy worlds of characters like detective inspector Alan Banks (DCI Banks) and spy-master Harry Pierce (Spooks, aka MI-5). After years of helping bring the visions of others to life, the BAFTA nominated composer unveils a narrative of his own…
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Stationary Travels 