High Aura’d & Josh Mason | Lower Yr Voice Whited Sepulchre Records (LP/DL) “A non stationary bouquet of ambient/drone experimentation” The title of an album such as Lower Yr Voice, brings with it a demand, something that you should enforce upon yourself. Is this something mandatory? A request? A pledge? High Aura’d hailing from Ohio, […]
PBK | Thinking of Eternity Table Sports (LP/DL) How suspect and peculiar is having a silkscreen of a cassette emblazoned upon the jacket of a limited edition vinyl release? Likely only someone like sound-bender PBK (Phillip B. Klingler) could pull such a meta move, thanks in large part to Lisbon/Brussels-based imprint Table Sports. Not only […]
Zahn / Hatami / McClure | Ypsilon N5MD (LP/DL) One curious aspect of collaborative efforts is the degree to which the potentially diverse styles and approaches of those involved can lend themselves to a unified outcome or, as is often the case, instead proffer an award juxtaposition of incongruous voices. By prioritising their existence as […]
Distant Animals | WeavesHallow Ground (LP/DL) Distant Animals returns to the Hallow Ground label for his second album of modular synth explorations. On this LP, the project of Daniel Alexander Hignell investigates a spacial and often quasi-rhythmic approach to sound making. Where his debut album for the label, “Lines” traded in low frequency drones (case […]
Biosphere | The Senja Recordings Biophon Records (2xLP/CD/DL) Geir Jenssen is one of those rare artists who sets the modern standard for chill ambient electronic music. This work is an elegy to Knut Fjørtoft (1960-2017), a Norwegian artist who passed away in his prime, and who had created beautiful artwork for past Biosphere recordings. At […]
My Cat Is An Alien | Spiritual Noise__Vol.1 Antigravitational Records (LP+BK/DL) The return of prolific brother duo My Cat Is An Alien (Maurizio and Roberto Opalio), with two lengthy tracks making up their Spiritual Noise__Vol.1. Starting with Spiritual Apocalypse these outsiders bring the mysterious sound of effects and machines to new squeaky, howling silences. This […]
eRikM and Anthony Pateras are two of the most interesting and prolific figures in the field of contemporary electroacoustic music. While Pateras is known for his revolutionary approach to piano playing and his compositions which attempt to extract characteristics typical of electroacoustic music from regular instruments, eRikM is considered one of the most prominent experimentalists […]
Joseph Branciforte & Theo Bleckmann | LP1 Greyfade (LP/DL) Vocalist Theo Bleckmann and producer Joseph Branciforte bring something new to the vast table of elemental sounds. In four tracks that run over a half hour, at first the duo locks into a fragile microstatic pattern with a wavering rhythm and breathy overtones via 6.15. What […]
SSSS | Walls, Corridors, Baffles Präsens Editionen (LP/DL) “Harshness, etherealness, rhythm” Samuel Savenberg is an electronic musician and producer hailing from Switzerland and this is his debut LP with the SSSS moniker. Walls, Corridors, Baffles is an electronic album above all. I am using this umbrella term on purpose. Moreover, it has its portion of […]
Jacob Kirkegaard | Black Metal Square Important Records (LP) Based on the sculptural installation, Black Metal Square (2015), these three pieces are the latest work by field recordist and sound ‘alchemist’ Jacob Kirkegaard. This is a limited edition of one hundred copies. “The installation refers to Kazimir Malevich’s famous painting Black Square (made one hundred […]
Lee Ranaldo / Jim Jarmusch / Marc Urselli / Balazs Pandi Trost (CD/LP/DL) Two American composers, a Swiss-Italian producer and a Hungarian drummer walk into a studio…This might sound as the beginning of the most bizarre joke ever, but it’s basically the premise at the core of the Grammy awarded studio technician Marc Urselli’s idea. […]
9T Antiope & Siavash Amini | HarmasticeHallow Ground (LP/DL) Harmitice is the second vocal-based album Siavash Amini has been involved in just six months, and it is testament to his ability as a composer, and collaborator, that it is so remarkably different than its predecessor. Whilst the aforementioned Second Shift used spoken word fragments to sign-post a […]
Pierre Bastien | Tinkle Twang ‘n Tootle Marionette (LP/DL) French composer Pierre Bastien has been recording since the late 80’s, solo as well as in ensembles and other collaborations. I’ve only been exposed his his work scantly over the years, and listening to this I wonder why I haven’t dug in much deeper. His sound […]
Rafael Anton Irisarri | Solastalgia Room40 (LP/CS/DL) Rafael Anton Irisarri‘s new work Solastalgia couldn’t come at a more crucial time in our environmental history. In fact, it would seem that artists across the world should take a stand, in their own way, to combat any powers that be that would deny the negative impact of […]
Thomas Hamilton | Pieces for Kohn Mental Experience (LP) This is a reissue of an ingenious record that was originally released during the spirit o’ 1976 (Sonmath Records), and didn’t officially resurface until now, forty three years later thanks to Spanish imprint Mental Experience! Producer Thomas Hamilton‘s work Pieces for Kohn is a bit of […]
Neunau | Il Ciclo Del Vuoto Boring Machines (LP/DL) “Industrial, drone, avant-garde cooked masterfully” Sound research is a never-ending endeavor, unpredictable in terms of researched material. Structured or maybe chaotic, apocalyptic and almost hallucinogenic in its process. Neunau is the sound art moniker of Sergio Maggioni, hailing from Italy. His sound research is combined with […]
There Is A Flaw In My Iris (12″/DL) KrysaliSound Don’t Worry Mother, Everything Is Going To Be Okay (CD/CS/DL) Shimmering Moods Records Despite the ecological hiccup I was taken aback back this new title, not because of the music, or the stunning visuals, but the title itself. As a gardener this is the second year […]
SPIME.IM | ExalandOUS (LP/DL) SPIME.IM is a media art collective from Turin (Italy) known for their cutting edge audio-visual live performances and digital sound. Their debut album Exaland is composed by Gabriele Ottino and Davide Tomat and released on the new-coming label OUS. At a first glance the album feels a bit stereotypical. The references […]
Tapage & Gareth Davis | STATESMoving Furniture Records (LP/DL) Tapage (Tijs Ham) is a composer and researcher from Holland, based in Bergen (Norway). During his long activity he has built a strong aesthetic identity and has been working with the exploitation of chaotic elements in algorithmic composition, to develop responsive and generative systems with a […]
Dren | Time & Form Hard Art/Zoharum (LP/CD/DL) This is one of those recordings that plays with all the colors in the Crayon box. Born out of a shared fascination of black metal and jazz music comes the Polish duo Dren and their debut Time & Form. From the very first second they bring a […]
This past week the shelf was chockful of works that address planetary concerns from the elements to climate change to interplanetary dependence, and those chasms in-between! The first four are full-length efforts and the final two are EPs (a few of these with vocals) which we rarely cover, though I felt it was necessary to […]
To kick off my first reviews of June, here is a triple set of compilations that have come across the radar at Toneshift. First is on a new label, Subject To Restrictions Discs. The “Kampf Der Welten EP” is a sampler of sorts, a mission statement to showcase this fresh imprint that deals with synth-led […]
Sontag Shogun | It Billows Up Youngbloods (LP/CD/DL) This trio of Ian Temple, Jeremy Young and Jesse Perlstein combine field recordings, keyboards, tapes and electronics to create a delicate sound that is as if you are streaming in and out of consciousness. They deploy a deft hand when it comes to ambient textures that toy […]
Earthen Sea | Grass and Trees Kranky (CD/LP/DL) Earthen Sea is American producer Jacob Long. Making work since around 2003, this new release is grounded by its resolve to sooth, yet keep to a stimulating mix. Hints of Basic Channel fuse with an aerated set of warm ancestral beats. Earthen Sea has a clean, contemporary […]
Jordan Reyes | Close American Dreams Records (LP/DL) This is Close by Chicago-based musician and label-runner for American Dreams + American Damage, Jordan Reyes. Out on June 14th in a regular vinyl edition as well as a limited version (signed/numbered) that comes with a crazy colorful print by cover artist JJ Cromer of Virginia. The […]
Conjecture | V Amek Collective (12″/DL) V arrived in a gorgeous marbled gray wax, the latest from Vasilis Angelopoulos and his project Conjecture. From the start we are immersed in a dark, lush set of drone, recessed and amid explosive contortions. With each tiny eruption on Ύπνος (Sleep) the listener may take pause as this […]
Kölsch | Fabric presents Kölsch Fabric (2xLP/CD) This is the fourth full-length from Danish artist Kölsch (Rune Reilly Kølsch) who’s been recording for just about a decade now. And this sounds as fresh, if not fresher, than his debut way back then. Opening on US1873 with a slow tribal beat, I’m excited as this teases […]
Edgar Valcárcel | Electronic Compositions for the Andes (1967-2006) Buh Records (12″/DL) Edgar Valcárcel (1932-2010) was one of those rare Peruvian orchestral and chamber music composers from an era that also saw fellow avant garde craftsmen like César Bolaños, Leopoldo La Rosa, and Francisco Pulgar Vidal. Electronic Compositions for the Andes (1967-2006) is like a […]
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 […]
This month Toneshift is curating a selection of conversations with international sound artists. The series runs for the entire span of May, however, during this time we have received a number of outstanding work in various genres and hybrids thereof, some which it would be a shame to overlook despite our primary focus at the […]
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