There are more albums than you could possibly listen to this year in this week alone, so here's the breakdown on what to check out and put some effort into listening. Obviously with the size of this list we might have missed a group, too, so if we did, please leave a comment. First off, don't miss what Travis has in store. Ode to J. Smith should not only find your player this week, but we want your feedback since we expect big things. Also from the U.K. is Oasis [...]
Having had to miss out on the tasty Teutonic treat of Hauschka & Mapstation a couple of weeks back, here's some offcuts from this duo's very considered decompositions. The stately shimmer of Red Pencil , which I'm guessing involved both of them, is particularly satisfying. Hauschka - Red Pencil (from sessions for Substantial , Karaoke Kalk ) [hauschka.de giveaway] [...]
Volker Bertelmann's Hauschka project is on the verge of releasing a new album, Ferndorf , on Fat Cat , and it's a good 'un. While continuing with the German composer's interest in prepared piano-- the instrument is still at the center of the music, alternating percussive metallic plinks and plunks with the untreated notes-- Ferndorf fleshes out the pieces with additional instrumentation including cello, violin, and trombone. "Freibad" is a nice illustration of how it works when it [...]
classical // electronic Let me go where you take me - childhood's hour of bewildering delight. A pause only for concerns lasting moments already forgotten; where radiant lights and sounds shimmer all haphazard perfections into play. Harmonious adventures in remarkable surroundings, subsisted by slight glitter, and twitter, from flitter placed upon piano strings; lifting you like a carousel's jubilee. Volker Bertelmann 's forthcoming album, Ferndorf {Distant Village}, begins with improvised unlockings of the wonderful journey that ensues. At times a piano may tiptoe your way [...]
I'm needing some peace and quiet here lately, and I'm finding myself turning to an interesting fellow named Volker Bertelmann, for you can't really have a quiet house or you'd surely go mad. I stumbled across Hauschka , as he is more generally known, awhile back on someone's blog, (before I knew better than to not keep track of where I was getting things so as to be prepared to thank them here.) I always loved piano pieces. Classical music was never a love, however. But piano music was somehow different and I could lose myself in [...]
I'm needing some peace and quiet here lately, and I'm finding myself turning to an interesting fellow named Volker Bertelmann, for you can't really have a quiet house or you'd surely go mad. I stumbled across Hauschka , as he is more generally known, awhile back on someone's blog, (before I knew better than to not keep track of where I was getting things so as to be prepared to thank them here.) I always loved piano pieces. Classical music was never a love, however. But piano music was somehow different and I could lose myself in [...]
So here's something I haven't said in a while. I've got some new music for you. Two tracks from two new acts courtesy of the bods at Fat Cat Records . Having already released one of my favourite records of the year in 'Midnight Organ Fight' , Fat Cat dropped these two tracks into my inbox earlier in the week. And if there's one thing I've learnt over the years, it's that anything released by Fat Cat is at the very least worth a listen. Their releases tend to be on the experimental side [...]
I tend to agree with Steve Reich on the subject of minimalism, a self-proposed genre whose label is borrowed more from a chronological standpoint than the actual musical content involved. As Reich claimed, it is merely a "convenient way" of classifying artists in the vein of himself, Philip Glass, and John Cage (among several others), all composers who use prevalent trademarks of unified minimalism such as focused repetition and melodic stagnation within a tone that is usually representative of classical or electronic music. Despite such glaring stylistic similarities, every prominent minimalist musician sounds remarkably different from one another in their [...]
There is no magic any more, We meet as other people do, You work no miracle for me Nor I for you. You were the wind and I the sea— There is no splendor any more, I have grown listless as the pool Beside the shore. But though the pool is safe from storm And from the tide has found surcease, It grows more bitter than the sea, For all its peace. - Sara Teasdale , After Love . [...]
#10 - Fiery Furnaces - Widow City ( Thrill Jockey ) I fratellini americani per eccellenza. Bravissimi dal vivo, con l'enorme capacità di rinnovarsi ogni volta, stravolgendo i generi musicali, passando dal pop al progressive come se niente fosse. "WIDOW CITY" review on INDIE FOR BUNNIES Mp3: Ex-Guru [...]
3rd Street Bridge, 2007 the past few weeks have been strange to say the least. actually, the whole year, so far, has been.....weird. a ton of change is coming, so i'm trying to charge up the batteries for the long journey ahead. if you are told of what your future holds, is it a comforting piece of information to have ......??? Modeselektor - The Dark Side Of The Sun feat. Puppetmastaz (Needletrasher) (Hip Hop, Abstract) - a crazy shortened version of the original. i guess it could make [...]
Photo by David Greenwald Hauschka (pronounced "amazing") is a little off the beaten path of typical Rawking Refuses To Stop! artists. It's not indie rock, folk or even ambient, really. Instead, Room To Expand is an album of prepared piano -- instrumental, modern classical songs performed on a piano fitted with rustling papers and miscalaneous objects between its strings. The quirky qualities they imbue the music with fit beautifully. The horn section that appears on a few tracks is an even more welcome addition. This is the [...]
German composer Volker Bertelmann explores the possibilities of the prepared piano on his debut for FatCat, Room To Expand . In an ever expanding genre of composers with a cinematic scope, Bertelmann adds an element of uncontrolled disarray to his beautiful vignettes that brim with candid emotion. Like realizing for the first time that routine has become you, the pieces reveal the layers underneath the piano's perfect surface. The pieces themselves expressive and quirky; begin to feel worn by blips and odd clunks of hammers hitting clamps and decisively placed bits of leather strapping. The mellifluous plinking of piano [...]
Funkstörung - Spacek - 1st Stroke (!K7 2007) Funkstörung - Appendix / !K7 At the first stroke of Funkstörung's first remix from their final album, you're sure you've stepped into a darker Junior Boys record where Berlin sleaze has overtaken the crisp, refreshing Canadian air of So This is Goodbye . It only partly sets the precedent for things to come, because the two guys sitting behind the boards manhandled artists in a way their [...]
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FoeWeel
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Raven Sings The Blues
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Pin-Ups Before and After
