my personal library
I first watched this on VHS, in the basement of the department store I worked at for a year in the mid-Eighties, while I was supposed to be doing admin stuff of some kind. It’s lived in my head ever since, and it’s a joy to finally have a decent copy of it.
(Re-)Building my Jean Cocteau library. Necessary things. I’m gonna need more space in here.
Visionary Hours is a project of Hayden Berry, a musician from Hebden Bridge, UK that combines the sound of strings, guitar, voice, flute and clarinet, to create slowly-evolving modern classical pieces, full of space and gently revealed micro melodies.
Hypnotic. Magnificent.
Recorded in various undisclosed caves and secret locations within the French Pyrenean landscape, we are now witness to a very unique channelling of forces emanating from these two singular ritual acts… The conductive element within these recordings is water, sound sources recorded from cave lakes, streams and rivers are featured through out these recordings, carefully merged with stark, cavernous drone soundscapes and disquieting chants, guiding us to unknown territories as we venture within these singular chambers and places.
Wonky photo – see previous post about incoming new coffee machine hahah
Línia / Pedra / Paisatge / Solc (Line, stone, landscape and groove in Catalan) is a sound composition in two parts, based on the skyline that can be seen from the top of the ruins of the castle of Culla, a small village inland of the Castelló province (Eastern Spain). The first piece (Línia / Pedra) is composed based on the skyline between northeast and southwest. The second piece (Paisatge / Solc) has been composed using the skyline between southwest and northeast.
The line is the voice that describes the landscape. The stone is the central element, a source of history, legacy and shelter for those who live in this hard land. The landscape is all around us, it extends in-clemently into the stratified and muffled horizon. The groove is the drawing of man in this land, a cut on the ground, and the groove where the sound travels in this album.
Both sonic pieces were recorded and composed at the old school at Pla del Sabater nearby Culla, during October 2018. All sound sources used in the production of this work were captured during a period of a week living in residence on that isolated place. Sound sources include field recordings and voice, nothing else.
Adding to my collection of works from guitar-based sonic landscape artist Takahiro Yorifuji.
The discography is immense and daunting.
DRONE ISLANDS is a collection of fantastic international drone music. One listen of just one of the CDs on streaming meant I had to own them both. Also, another of the MUSIC SURVEY collections from Unexplained Sounds – I have several of these now, and they are excellent curations that introduce me to many new things. This is good. It’s a big world, and I want to hear it all and find out what it can teach me.
This is the part of the 21C internet that continues to work for me – the sounds from everywhere.
Been waiting for this.
The LASTGLACIALMAXIMUM CD is an album of recordings for the landscape of the British and Irish peninsula as it lay most recently under ice. The general consensus among glaciologists is that the British and Irish Ice Sheet attained its greatest extent — the so-called Last Glacial Maximum — between 27 and 21 thousand years ago.
The shifts in timbre and texture between succeeding recordings on this album is imitative of what are known as ‘Dansgaard–Oeschger events’ — rapid cycles between cold and warmer climatic conditions during the last ice age.
This is gorgeous. Careful and crepuscular, an exploration of a strange space in the deep of the night.
“Ea” was recorded over three nights in a small church in the Netherlands. As usual the group invited other musicians to join, as they did on the first two albums and also during their live concerts. On “Ea” the group is expanded with the Polish violist Olga Wojciechowska and Portuguese cellist Joana Guerra. Just like on previous recordings The Alvaret Ensemble began to play without scores or discussion.
from the online sleeve notes at Bandcamp
