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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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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Composer, trumpeter, and sound artist Peter Knight frames his new record Shadow Phase as a meditation on the nature of connection, the backdrop being conversations while walking with his old friend and teacher, Ania Walwicz during the COVID lockdown of 2020 when they were restricted to overlapping 5-kilometer zones near Docklands, an inner-city suburb of…
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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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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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A coming together of a musical kind, Collisions is a new project from pianist/clarinetist Tom Hodge, multi-instrumentalist Ciaran Morahan, and drummer Ollie Howell that lives up to its name, a meeting of creative forces that creates a dynamic exchange of energy. The origins of the project go all the way back to 2009 when Hodge produced a…
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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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L’ansia che cura, or ‘ the anxiety that cures’, is the paradoxical title of an absorbing new long form composition by Sardinian musician – and founder of rohs! records – Andrea Porcu under the moniker of Music For Sleep. It is an abstract meditation on a difficult period of his life during which he feels…
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Sometimes you come across an album that just feels like home right from the first note – one you know you are going to keep close at hand and retreat into often. With its warm confluence of melody, mood, and texture and delicate blending of electroacoustic minimalism with cinematic flourish, Geneva by Chris Bartels, aka…
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Stationary Travels 