Journeys in Sound & Music
This is a category I especially enjoy each year for its variety, eclecticism, and nomadic spirit. Here is a selection of memorable releases from the musical edge lands where electroacoustic music and field recordings meet folk, jazz, and other analog experiments in sound.
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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,…
Read MoreIt almost sounds like a pitch for a screenplay. European jazz guitarist travels to New York and answers and ad for an open room posted by an experimental electronic music producer. Kindred spirits who followed very different musical paths, the two hit it off and end up creating an album of music together. Only it’s…
Read More“Just trying to slow the world down” is Sebastian Buccheri‘s pithy summation of his Jazzdefector music project. And slow the world down he does with the reverb-saturated aural webs he creates as a backdrop to his intimate jazz-inflected compositions and improvisations a dozen of which comprise his newest album Solo recently released on Whitelabrecs.
Read MoreTom Hodge and Franz Kirmann return to Denovali as Piano Interrupted with a vibrant new record entitled Landscapes of the Unfinished which sees the addition of some fresh ingredients to the already sophisticated mélange of modern classical, jazz, and electronica that made The Unified Field so enjoyable. For one, the new record seeks to capture more of the essence…
Read MoreA look back at some of the most memorable journeys in music taken this year in post rock and electronica. It is clearly not a comprehensive look at either genre, but rather a selection of albums I connected with, enjoyed, and enthusiastically recommend. Expansive, dynamic, sophisticated, clever, and cathartic – all those qualities are here in…
Read MoreI think of this group of albums as a beautiful Venn diagram from the perspective of music covered on Stationary Travels. Familiar elements of ambient, electronic, modern classical, and post rock appear, but so do many others in a prominent way – pop, shoegaze, folk, jazz, and trad. But these are only reference points, not…
Read MoreI Did That Tomorrow by Tess Said So Tess Said So refer to themselves simply as “an indie classical band…one piano player, one percussionist”. Not unlike their music, the description is concise, accurate, and lacking pretentiousness. But perhaps it does not convey the level of sophistication and inventiveness that is revealed in their debut album…
Read MoreOn September 25, 1956 the first submerged transatlantic telephone cable system, known as TAT-1, was inaugurated. On July 1, 2013, a superb new album called “Hotline” will be released on Reveal Records which is brilliantly centered around and inspired by this piece of history. The album is a solo project from Aidan O’Rourke who is…
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Stationary Travels 