My previous copy of this was a not-great DVD transfer that didn’t play on some devices for no good reason. So fuck it, I splashed out a little bit. Space is the place.
WARREN ELLIS LTD Articles.
Arrow Films are having a sale. They have battled through the pandemic to bring me these goods. It’s going to be a good day after all. (And, look, I finally replaced my rotted old VHS copies of TETSUO.)
Heard this for the first time a few weeks ago. Released in 2010. Hunted down a CD copy on Discogs. Give it a listen on Bandcamp.
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“Fully immersive electronic music by US composer Maggi Payne, inspired by the arctic winds. Maggi Payne’s sound worlds invite the listeners to enter the sound and be carried with it, experiencing it from the inside out in intimate detail. The sounds are almost tactile and visible.
“The music is based on location recordings, with each sound carefully selected for its potential—its slow unfolding revealing delicate intricacies—and its inherent spatialization architecting and sculpting the aural space where multiple perspectives and trajectories coexist. With good speakers, some space in your schedule, and a mind-body continuum willing to resonate with Payne’s electroacoustic journey, but then it will take you to places that other music can’t reach.
“From the sounds of dry ice, space transmissions, BART trains, and poor plumbing she immerses the listener in a world strangely unfamiliar.”
I believe this now completes my collection of the available work of Forndom on CD.
Give them a listen for yourself at forndom.bandcamp.com.
“The culture, history, traditions, and melancholic landscapes of the rural parts of central Sweden is the main elements within the musical universe of Forndom.”
I remember sitting in front of the VCR with a brand new tape in hand, getting ready to record this off its BBC 2 transmission. Which might have been its only transmission? Directed by Alex Cox, featuring Peter Boyle giving every appearance of enjoying the hell out of himself, and an intense young Christopher Eccleston. An approach very strongly inflected by European and South American comics, in my memory, and also a perverse bit of the Warren Beatty DICK TRACY film. I remember being one of the few people genuinely delighted by this presentation, and when I tripped over a copy of a DVD release online the other day, I knew I had to have it.
Alex Cox, wherever you are, thank you for this.
DEATH AND THE COMPASS (UK) (US)
2 CD set, arrived Friday. You can order the set here at projektrecords.bandcamp.com and listen to a bunch of it. It came out in 2003, and is a classic of the ambient form. All four CDs are going into the machine momentarily and that will be the soundtrack into early evening.
Well, this is exquisite, and soothing my ruined body today. This set includes a blu-ray of a performance of the suite, narrated by the wonderful Tilda Swinton, whom I had drinks with in Edinburgh once, and we remained in touch by email for some time afterwards. She is just as fantastic a human as you would expect, as well as being one of the great actors and voices of our time.
A gorgeous, inventive and melancholy work.
Just arrived on CD, from Smithsonian Folkways. I pre-ordered this a while ago, because I found it completely transporting.
Wu Fei and Abigail Washburn’s debut collaborative release is a testament to the connective power of music across seemingly disparate cultures. Merging American old-time music and Chinese folksong, Wu Fei & Abigail Washburn features gorgeous, impressionistic renditions of traditional material from the hills of Appalachia to the prairies of Xinjian province, each tune flowing seamlessly into the next.
Have a listen for yourself:
Finally obtained some of her work on CD, thanks to Winter-Light. Have a listen to her marvellous work at leilaabdulrauf.bandcamp.com.