Field Recording and Fox Spirits
What are field recordings? “My memory is not what it used to be, David,” my grandfather, Syd Senior, said to me as we huddled round a fireplace in 1979. Thanks to a cassette tape I have the memory of his gradual loss of memory, hearing him speak of Queen Victoria’s funeral and the severity of patriotism back in those old days, 1901. Syd Senior is long dead, no longer part of the field of living relations but still within the field of memories that can be revived by technology, albeit an old one …
Schaum
Faitiche is very pleased to announce the release of a Schaum by Masayoshi Fujita & Jan Jelinek. Since their debut Bird, Lake, Objects they have played improvised concerts around the world. Japanese vibraphonist Masayoshi Fujita prepares his instrument with various percussion elements as well as metal objects and toys, while Jan Jelinek layers loops made using small-scale electronic devices. Schaum (German for froth, foam) is the duo’s second album.
Bird, Lake, Objects
Queried on his favourite word in the German language, Masayoshi Fujita will pick ‘getragen’ – without a sliver of hesitation. Further questioning will reveal that he loves the term’s semantic signifiers, its inherent sense of “expansive, deep, quiet and sombre.” And yet, ‘getragen’ leaves plenty of room for interpretation: depending on context, it might also indicate wearing apparel or the state of being carried – two more mundane interpretations that I would rather keep from him.
Does Masayoshi…
Slow Music
Records are almost always more than they seem. For all the sound and joy that they bring, they are works of art in multiple that indicate vast networks of happening, history, and ideas; beacons to be chased, leading to understanding beyond themselves. Particularly in the case of historical works, whether they emerge from dusty crates or as reissues and archival releases, these objects can reveal unexpected creative intersections that defy our notions of what was. Aguirre’s first-time reissue of …
Undercurrent
Black Truffle announce Undercurrent, the new LP from the long-running Milanese duo of Giuseppe Ielasi and Nicola Ratti. Following on from high-profile releases on Boomkat Editions and Shelter Press in the last few years, the eight untitled pieces making up Undercurrent continue the pair's hypnotic and disorientating practice of improvisation based on tape loops. Often sitting halfway between electro-acoustic technique and beat-based production, the music of Bellows obliquely recalls aspects of h…
Breaking the Elephant’s Legs
Marc Behrens presents six extended surrealist songs ranging from psycho rock to dismantled R&B, crossing into doom jazz and spoken word. Animal field recordings; electronic boom and buzz; synths; detuned sitar; violins played by Portuguese master musician Carlos Zingaro. None of this is in any way what you would expect.
Introspection / Migration
From an ocean of black, sometimes there is a slim chance you might emerge clean and translucent, with another life chapter under your belt and a renewed story to tell. J.H. Guraj, our favourite wandering bird, is back with his first proper opus on Maple Death: Introspection / Migration.
Sometimes records lead off into an unknown path that never considers release schedules or the outside world, inhabiting the abysses of the artists’ mind and dropping a hefty anchor in the murky waters. Dominique …
Italian Airs
When Simon Van Honacker (°1994, living in Ghent BE) approached me to do an intern with ECN he caught my intention with his plan to study Flemish Folklore, yet from a Deep Listening perspective. Imagine the sound of fanfares, people getting drunk during braderies (tr. street fairs), cover bands, the general buzzing atmosphere during reenactments, … All aligned as parts of an Organic Symphony for deep listening. I don’t consider pioneering, or the striving for the freshest new idea, as purely nece…
Insular Monographs
Two albums, slightly touched...
'Ke Ala Ke Kua': a flashback to july 2010, when I created this afterimage in the timespan of more or less one week. An afterimage of paying a visit to Joan Ocean’s hotspot, the Kealakekua Bay, and to islands of Hawai’i and Oahu. Miss Ocean wrote a few books about her hanging and having conversations with dolphins at Kealakekua, thus i couldn’t resist going over there and seeing what it’s all about.
'Canto Arquipélago': recorded under a volcano on a portable fourtr…
Superstition
The members of Minamo(Keiichi Sugimoto and Tetsuro Yasunaga) have known Moskitoo (Sanae Yamasaki) for many, many years and have worked together in all sorts of ways. They have not, however, performed a live set or recorded together before what has become Superstition. Superstition is a gathering of close friends creating music they love to create and exploring the small crevices and details of electric, electronic, and acoustic sounds. While the songs sound intentionally composed and arranged, t…
This Valley Of Old Mountains
This Valley Of Old Mountains quietly creates the folklore of an imaginary land. From a hemisphere apart, Taylor Deupree and Federico Durand share simple sounds with complex stories. Their music balances an edge between translucency and exploration, focusing on obscurity, repetition and a shared fascination of the mountains between them. Recorded in La Cumbre (Córdoba, Argentina) and Pound Ridge (New York, US) between July 2019 and April 2020.
The Inner Treaty
**CD edition** With the wake of his blessed collab with The Congos and his 'Ancient Romans' side still shimmering in our memory, Cameron Stallones returns from his mystic regressions to present a sixth solo LP as Sun Araw. With his return comes a startlingly fresh-faced clarity to his sound, as though millenia of metaphysical sonic travel have dislodged the overbuild of dusty amp wax and really let some cosmic sunshine thru. It's perhaps also down to some assistance in the final process from Pet…
South from the Future
**Limited edition cassette. Risograph artwork** The debut album by C. Blumberg (living in Berlin DE) is a series of composite images. Anecdotes with distorted perspectives. Documents or maps - impressions...? However if you look a bit closer you see something very different, quite like a technologic fantasy.
The second track, 神奇森林上海 (tr. Shanghai Magical Forest), holds a certain key to enter the psyche of the album. Here Blumberg is inspired by a photo found on Flickr. The author of the photo ga…
Eistla
**Edition of 200. 12" Vinyl LP. Risograph print cover** The ability to create moving music with no words, no beats and no conventional instruments is rare, but San Francisco Bay Area-based modular synth artist Austin Cairns - who records under the name r beny - is such an example. Belgian label Dauw are reissuing his first four albums separately and as a box set. Eistla was the final one of these, first released at the end of 2018.
Saudade
**Edition of 200. 12" Vinyl LP. Risograph print cover** The ability to create moving music with no words, no beats and no conventional instruments is rare, but San Francisco Bay Area-based modular synth artist Austin Cairns - who records under the name r beny - is such an example. Belgian label Dauw are reissuing his first four albums separately and as a box set. Saudade was his third overall and the first of two full-lengths released in 2018 alone.
Cascade Symmetry
**Edition of 200. 12" Vinyl LP. Risograph print cover** The ability to create moving music with no words, no beats and no conventional instruments is rare, but San Francisco Bay Area-based modular synth artist Austin Cairns - who records under the name r beny - is such an example. Belgian label Dauw are reissuing his first four albums separately and as a box set.Cascade Symmetry was his 2017 sophomore effort.
Full Blossom Of The Evening
**Edition of 200. 12" Vinyl LP. Risograph print cover** The ability to create moving music with no words, no beats and no conventional instruments is rare, but San Francisco Bay Area-based modular synth artist Austin Cairns - who records under the name r beny - is such an example. Belgian label Dauw are reissuing his first four albums separately and as a box set. Full Blossom of the Evening was his 2016 debut.
Voor Anderen
**Edition of 150 copies on risograph sleeves** After having released several albums under his Oaktree moniker, de Roover decided to continue under his own name. New name, new music. Where Oaktree combined electronic music with neo-classical elements, his new direction is more centered around abstract, yet playful, sound design. His new EP continues in the same vein but offers a more minimal and quiet approach compared to his first full-length album Leaves which saw the light last year. Voor ande…
Arrow
Sarah Lipstate’s work as Noveller, the vehicle through which she explores the possibilities of instrumental, primarily electric guitar compositions, has resulted in a rich body of work, one that has elevated her to the level of similar innovators like Vini Reilly and Roy Montgomery. Arrow continues that journey, further developing her darkly beautiful work in songs that combine the tranquility of meditation with elements of tension and unease.
Album opener “Rune” is based around a deep, pulsing …
Customer's Copy
**12" pink-hued clear RTI vinyl pressing** Customer’s Copy is the debut LP of contorted cosmic jazz and eccentric minimal electronics by Exotic Sin. The duo of Naima Karlsson and Kenichi Iwasa first came together for a performance celebrating the art and music of Karlsson’s grandparents, Moki and Don Cherry, before continuing as an independent unit that still incorporates some of the Cherrys’ instruments as well as their synergetic integration of music with artistic practice.
Preferring the star…