THE CUT: Due to our just concluded Interview Series, and because of the influx of so many interesting records flowing through our office in a short period of time, it makes sense to do our first-ever Toneshift Shorts. This will be a random inclusion in our programming that may pop-up at anytime, but especially when we have too many special things on our plate (er, platter) that we don’t want you to miss out on, and not enough time and person-power to cover them all. Below you will find an excruciatingly brief synopsis with appropriate links to spread these resonances cross the globe. Each inclusion here has been on replay for the past several weeks, and we cannot get enough of what this diverse batch of artists have to offer. Listen closely…….
Alex Marenga | Materia | Eclectic
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Materia is a collection of experimental tracks played by interacting the electric guitar with electronic and digital devices. The project is inserted in the framework of the discs for “augmented guitars”, where with this term we indicate the uses of the guitar enhanced by the interaction with the digital technologies.
Bjarni Frímann Bjarnason | Chateau | Radio Bongo Edition
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After making his name with legendary electro outfit GusGus, President Bongo has spent the past two decades on a mission of discovery. The President‘s hard work is amply reflected in the music presented on Les Adventures de President Bongo, where he assumes the role of producer/instigator/writer/artistic director, tasking some of modernity‘s most revered musicians with expanding their horizons and testing their limits.
Bunte Truppe | Träumen Ohne Dinge | Play Loud! Productions
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Before we get lost in the labyrinth of music, let’s rather prick up our ears and devote our attention to the astonishing sounds hiding in this recording: full of life and seemingly carefree, but (at the same time) always heedful of each other, the members of the Bunte Truppe start playing as free as a bird, and manage to unite apparently incompatible musical opposites without any effort. The material cannot be mastered, it has suffered enough already.
David Chalmin | La terre invisible | Ici d’ailleurs
If the genres Intelligent Dance Music (IDM) and Berlin School seem to be the most obvious way to present his compositions, they’re not sufficient to describe the variety of this album La Terre Invisible as it also contains industrial or classical inspirations.
DJ Marcelle/Another Nice Mess | One Place for the First Time | Jahmoni
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On her new LP One Place For The First Time we find nine tracks brimming with ideas that ignore stale production norms. Sure, the pulsing drum ‘n’ bass-esque ‘Hippies Use Side Door’ is weirdly danceable, just like the cackling stomp of ‘Respect Caged Animals’, but can we dance to ‘Technicians and Their Smoke Machines’? (Answer: We’d certainly enjoy trying). It’s almost…jazz from a different world and has proven to be a dancefloor smash when she’s played out the dubplate over recent months.
Thomas William Hill | Grains of Space | Village Green Recordings
Grains of Space started life as a series of minimal loops, recorded using a viola da gamba – a stringed instrument most popular in the Renaissance and Baroque eras – and a loop pedal. Using the negative space within each loop as the primary drive for composing, Thomas began a process of ‘joining the dots’, allowing the silence to dictate the next layer, informing the length, pitch and timbre of notes.
Jardin | Maqui de Hierro | Buh Records
Jardín‘s work can be related to that of other great luminaries of rhythmic repetition such as Silver Apples, Suicide, Esplendor Geométrico or Pansonic, a sound that finds in Maqui de Hierro a singular incarnation: metallic drum machines that lead the trance between echoes and layers of reverberant sounds, in a kind of rhythmic drone dub trip.
Mira Martin-Gray | Kissing Infinity | Arachnidiscs Recordings
Toronto-based composer/improviser Mira Martin–Gray describes her process as working “with conventionally undesirable sounds.” Her latest long-form piece, found here on Kissing Infinity, is a nearly twenty minute concerto for toilet, washer/dryer, and sine waves, titled “Cleanliness is next to moral panic (The better angel of our nature calls)” that swerves between domestic doldrums, tensions and bliss.
Rew | Patina | Anticausal Systems
The result is Patina, which uses these building blocks to envelope the listener in layers of mangled sound samples and burbling textural walls. The eight diverse compositions on Patina unravel into peculiar atmospheres, twisting and turning through tension, frivolity, pensiveness, and turbulence.
Samsuo | The Other Gold Side | Whitelabrecs
The Other Gold Side is as murky as it is fragile, both resting and haunting at the same time. A substantial amount of the music was built around guitar and synth improvisations, looped and with additional overdubs.
Ernstalbrecht Stiebler/Various Artists | Reworks | Karl Records
Celebrating 85 years, one of the first German composers involved with minimalism and ranks among the pioneers of reductive, repetitive, sound-oriented music. Although honored with several prizes (e.g. the “Bach-Preis der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg”), up to the current day only true connoisseurs of contemporary music are familiar with his oeuvre.
Mick Sussman |The Rosenberg Algorithmic Music Generator: Selected Works, Vol. 2 | Anticausal Systems
The Rosenberg Algorithmic Music Generator, software that creates a unique composition with the push of a button, is an evolving, long-term project. In this second volume of its work, Rosenberg shows off new and improved techniques. Its distinctive oddball personality remains.
Véhicule | Le Temps du Chien | Midira Records
Véhicule is the moniker of French artist Sylvain Milliot and his debut album Le Temps du Chien is a beautiful experimental modern classic ambient jazz trip. This album takes you on a journey that needs attention. It’s no music for chilling or background listening, but if you take some time, you will be surrounded by an arcane orchestra.
Robert Worby | Factitious Airs (Electronic Music) | Persistence of Sound
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Factitious Airs (Electronic Music) is Robert’s first solo release, reflecting his interest in the electronic techniques of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Henry, and the groundbreaking electronic music produced in the 1950s & 60s.
Brian Harnetty | Shawnee, Ohio | Karlrecords
Shawnee, Ohio focuses on eleven portraits of local residents recounting their lives, work, friendships, and deeds. They talk and sing of mining, disasters, underground fires, social life, protest, and hope. They include women and men, are black and white, and are across generations and centuries.
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