Journeys in Sound & Music
When you hear the first sad, tender notes on the piano at the beginning of his new album you might be forgiven for not realizing that Snorri Hallgrímsson was thinking of his happy place. Landbrot is a beautiful new suite of music that takes its name from the location of his family cabin in rural…
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Exploring creative ways of integrating ambient sounds with modern composition is a focus for Josh Alexander, a classically trained composer and musician based in Bristol (UK) who is set to release the follow up to his 2018 debut ‘Hiraeth‘ on Moderna Records. Bright Morning Jetlag Blues offers up six polished neoclassical gems featuring piano recorded…
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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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When thinking of hotbeds of neoclassical and electronic music around the world, cities like London and Berlin may spring first to mind, but right in the American heartland there is a cadre of musicians staking their own claim to this burgeoning genre. Among them are Jacob Pavek and Philip Daniel who have teamed up on…
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Moderna Records‘ Fall 2019 single series has gotten off to a fine start with releases thus far by Hiroco.M (Hiroko Murakami) and Jacob David and now Montreal-based pianist Adam Daudrich. “Swells” is a selection from Daudrich’s solo release ‘The Wooden Box‘ which explores the use of muted upright piano, harmonium, and Wurlitzer electric piano in…
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The first time I heard Julia Gjertsen‘s music, it was ‘Slow Motion Stories’, a lovely collection of four ambient piano vignettes which she released in 2012. Anyone who has had the pleasure of hearing that EP or the various singles, Piano Day releases, and remixes she has produced since will be thrilled to hear she…
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Tambour is the musical project from Simon P. Castonguay, a Montreal-based composer and self-taught multi-instrumentalist who also has a background in film studies and has done work in the world of theater. This summer sees the release of Tambour’s third album which was written largely in the fall of 2017 at the Banff Centre for…
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When we first met Japanese composer & pianist Daigo Hanada, it was his 2017 debut Ichiru on Moderna Records, an album written in Berlin and Tokyo over the course of a year and recorded with only an upright piano and a pair of microphones. This summer, Hanada returns to the label with a beautiful EP…
Read MoreThis travelogue entry features the mesmerizing music of the new summer singles series from Moderna Records, a label founded several years ago in Montreal by Évolène Lüthi “to trace a line from electronic sound designers to classical composers, connecting them through the realms of ambient and cinematic music”.
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