Another treasure from Sound Process, a Japanese label, book publisher, and sound design consulting firm founded by Satoshi Ashikawa, whose Still Way was included in the label’s short and excellent catalogue (as was Hiroshi Yoshimura‘s cult favorite Music for Nine Postcards). Oscilation Circuit was a four piece outfit, and this was their only release. True to the label’s ethos of sound design not as a means of filling up space, or “decorating,” but instead as a highly-conscientious way of paring sounds down to those that “truly matter,” Série Réflexion 1 is extremely minimal, though it feels uniquely adjacent to minimalism in its more academic Steve Reich-esque sense when compared with many of its Japanese ambient peers (particularly closing track “Circling Air,” which is almost certainly an homage to Terry Riley). There’s no synthesizer. There are no field recordings of birds or running water. No bells. Minimalist minimalism? Ideal winter listening. I started ketamine infusion therapy last year and this has been a favorite soundtrack during my infusions. I hope it brings you some joy too.
This is a selection of music composed by USSR artists from 1976 to 1995. The cover picture has been taken from the cover of the album Oiseaux Des Plaines Russes by Борис Вепринцев. I prepared this playlist right after my second (Ella) was born and during pandemic times, hope you enjoy it.
Here’s my most recent episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio. It’s two hours of late-summer ambient and ambient-adjacent sounds, meant to capture the hazy, humid, golden quality of August and September, featuring field recordings, sunbeams, and bugs. It’s ideal for mid-day napping. (It’s also kind of a sequel to this mix from two Augusts ago, if you’re curious!) A modified one hour version of this was broadcast live on the air last week, so this extended two hour version is a director’s cut of sorts. Thanks as always for listening and being here; I hope this can serve as a moment of quiet in what, to me, feels like a very loud time. You can download an mp3 version here.
Tracklist:
1. Richard Burmer – Riverbend
2. Jean C. Roché – Nightingales: In A Waste Ground Beside A Stream In Provence, June
3. CFCF – Lighthouse On Chatham Sound
4. Finis Africæ – Ceremonia Màgica En El Estanque (Magical Ceremony In The Pond)
5. Elicoide – Mitochondria
6. Takashi Kokubo – 満月の木陰
7. Notte & Bush – Wake Up In Baby’s Room
8. Steven Halpern & Daniel Kobialka – Pastorale
9. Toshifumi Hinata – ミッドサマー・ナイト (Midsummer Night)
10. Hiroshi Yoshimura – Green Shower
11. The Durutti Column – Vino Della Casa Bianco
12. Susan Mazer & Dallas Smith – Kalimbo
13. Haruomi Hosono – Wakamurasaki
14. Joanna Brouk – The Space Between (Excerpt)
15. Goddess In The Morning – 14
16. Virginia Astley – It’s Too Hot To Sleep
17. Constance Demby – Om Mani Padme Hum
18. Michael Stearns – As The Earth Kissed The Moon (Excerpt)
19. Ghostwriters – Slow Blue In Horizontal
This is a a selection of Czechoslovak music from 1974 to 1994. Please enjoy!
Tracklist:
1. Iva Bittová – Proudem Mléka (1990)
2. Irena Havlová a Vojtěch Havel – Ta jemná gamelánie III (1992)
3. Richter Band – Křišťálové Ráno (1992)
4. Mirka Křivánková ▪ Jiří Stivín & Co. – Mlhavé Doteky (1985)
5. Jaroslav Kořán, Michal Kořán, Marek Hanzlík – Ta Naše Jediná A Nejlepší (1991)
6. The Ecstasy Of Saint Theresa – Her Eyes Have It (1994)
7. Energit – Jarní Rovnodennost (1978)
8. Zuzana Homolová – Sneh (1989)
9. Poloviční Chytání Richter Band – Čínský Potůček (1989)
10. Michal Kořán ft. Marie Steinerová – Meditace a moll pro samplované rádiové alikvóty (live) (1994)
11. Irena & Vojtěch Havlovi – Ledová Krůpěj Medová (1992)
Pristine minimal ambience from Italian musical giant Giusto Pio. Best known for his many collaborations with Franco Battiato, Pio was a composer and world class classical violinist born in Castelfranco Veneto in 1926. He was sought out by Battiato as a violin teacher, but the two went on to sculpt Battiato’s sound from post-prog to minimalism to Europop, with many other projects along the way, like their contributions to this Francesco Messina record. Among these collaborations, Battiato produced Pio’s first solo album, considered to be Pio’s crowning achievement and a holy grail of avant-garde minimalism: 1979’s Motore Immobile. Pio continued to release solo records until 1995. He passed away in 2017 at the age of 91.
Alla Corte di Nefertiti, however, is a very different beast. Though it was released by Battiato’s publishing company L’Ottava S.r.l. as a subsidiary of EMI Records, Battiatio wasn’t involved in production. The record is two long-form tracks of synth impressions, the first of which is more of a holistic composition and the second of which is a reflection, or “frammenti,” of the first, sonic pieces broken up and scattered with spaces falling where they may. I like the more pure minimalist moments the best, where single vibrating tones are left to hang in the air like washes of color, but there are also some great moments with synthetic choirs of angels radiating concern from plastic celestial bodies. A few moments of percussive texture, some which have a cinematic urgency that feels appropriate for Pio’s background, but for the most part Alla Corte di Nefertiti is just drifting in pillows of sound. Made on an Akai MG1212. Excellent for working to, or waking up to. Thanks for all the music, Giusto.
Another progressive and very beautiful collection of compositions from undersung genius Daniel Lentz. Missa Umbrarum, or “mass of shadows,” is named in part for its use of 118 “sonic shadows” in the title piece, produced using a 30 second tape delay technique. It was originally written in 1973, and a first version of “O-Ke-Wa” was written for eight voices in 1974, so I’d assume that “Postludium” was written around the same time. Though it includes a singing of the Agnus Dei, the piece explores similar tonal territory to “Lascaux,” which appears on his excellent On The Leopard Altaras well as on some later releases of Missa Umbrarum.
A mystical invocation of the Christian Last Supper, much of the titular mass employs a severe, fixated kind of devotional singing that makes me think of Geinoh Yamashirogumi, though it also includes wine glass resonance, with the pitches shifting as the singers drink. On the first repetition of a phrase, the lowest notes of the segment are played, and then the singers drink from the glasses before adding the next layer at a higher pitch. Though there are only eight voices in the piece, between this layering technique and the use of the tape delay “sonic shadows,” we eventually end up with a very large choir, cut through with the weightless ring of the glasses. Lentz has long been interested in both the sonic and aesthetic value of wine in performance–please refer to this bananas interview for more information.
The other two pieces are gentler, more pillowing explorations of vocal dialogue, the soft bubbling percussion of Native American bone rasps, and an even more expansive wine glass resonance that very much evokes a cathedral full of sound. When asked about the closing piece in an interview, Lentz had this to say:
Interviewer: “O-ke-wa (North American Eclipse),” a piece for multiple voices, drum, bone rasps and bells, is based on the O-ke-wa, the Seneca Native American dance for the dead. Ritual appears to be implicit to this 1974 piece in terms of structure and explicit in terms of performance.
Lentz: In [both versions of “O-ke-wa”], each singer is a soloist having his / her own text and melody. The melodies become the harmonies via the singers extending the notes of each of their melodies. It’s to be performed with the performers moving around the listeners, allowing individual lyrics and music to always be somewhere else when it sounds again. It is also how the original O-ke-wa dance was done in the Seneca Native American death ceremony – usually from dusk to dawn for them. The ritual element of this piece is very important to me, as it is for “Missa Umbrarum.” I am a small part Seneca, briefly a Catholic as well. The piece works best in a resonant environment.
My newest episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio is a two hour long late summer ambient special. Long, lazy instrumentals with river sounds, crickets, cicadas, and bees. Ideal for heavy, thick weather, and for mid-day napping in it. If anyone remembers the two hour mix I made for LYL Radio awhile back, this feels like the more summery counterpart to it. You can download an mp3 version here.
Tracklist:
1. Hiroshi Yoshimura – Time After Time
2. David Casper – Green Anthem
3. Masahiro Sugaya – Straight Line Floating In The Sky
4. Roedelius – Wenn Der Südwind Weht
5. Yutaka Hirose – In The Afternoon
6. Inoyama Land – Glass Chaim
7. Haruomi Hosono – Wakamurasaki
8. Gabriel Yared – Un Coucher De Soleil Acchroche Dans Les Arbres
9. Maurice Ravel – Miroirs: III. Une Barque Sur L’ocean (Paul Crossley)
10. CV & JAB – Hot Tub
11. Virginia Astley – Summer Of Their Dreams
12. Satoshi Ashikawa – Still Park Ensemble (excerpt)
13. Ernest Hood – August Haze
14. Harold Budd & Brian Eno – A Stream With Bright Fish
15. Alice Damon – Waterfall Winds
16. Jansen / Barbieri – The Way The Light Falls
17. Yoshio Ojima – Mensis
18. Toshifumi Hinata – End Of The Summer
19. Carl Stone – Banteay Srey
20. Gervay Briot – Science
You may remember Piero Milesi from his excellent The Nuclear Observatory of Mr. Nanof(hi Adam, thanks again)–here he’s in collaboration with Daniel Bacalov, another linchpin of Italian minimalism from whom we’ll definitely be hearing more in the future.
The two made La Camera Astratta as a score for a large-scale dance and performance piece, also referred to as a “video opera” by Studio Azzurro and Giorgio Barberio Corsetti (you can see some excerpts here). Though the record was released in 1989, it looks as if the score and the piece itself were both made in 1987.
The score is most memorable for its use of samples, which are often treated as percussion: water splashing, a camera snap, gasps, exhales, shushes, shouts, and sighs. At times it becomes difficult to distinguish between sample and instrument: “Camera 1 Parte” is perforated by what sounds like crickets but (I’m pretty sure) is some kind of percussion; regardless, it blankets the song in a hushed evening pastorality. Elsewhere, the dry, blunt avant-gardism of “Sequenza Ragazze 1 Parte” might appeal to Meredith Monk fans; and personal favorite “Acqua” is deeply playful (despite being used to accompany some pretty anxious moments in the performance piece)–a calypso-esque percussive backbone punctuated by bathtub splashes, camera snaps, a cash register bell, worked up into nine frothy minutes. Though La Camera Astratta might seem deceptively academic upon first listen, it opens up with increasing generosity, revealing something deeply thoughtful, meditative, and even joyful.
Another dear favorite from Penguin Cafe Orchestra, a project spearheaded by UK-born composer and musician Simon Jeffes. Jeffes saw PCO as the ongoing soundtrack to a dream he had had while suffering from food poisoning in the south of France, as well as a vessel through which to explore his interest in “world” folk music, particularly African percussion. The project that didn’t exactly suffer from under-exposure, if their dozens of commercial song placements are any indication. Still, I think the music very much belongs here. Plenty of ink has already been spilled by much more knowledgeable people about the group, so without attempting to poorly explain what makes this music great, I’ll say that what I love about this record, as with much of PCO’s catalogue, is the way it challenges and subverts what background music is and what it can do.
Though the exuberant “Music From A Found Harmonium,” named after the discarded pump organ upon which it was composed that Jeffes found in an alleyway in Japan, is easily the record’s most famous track, I’m a huge sucker for more pared back moments like “Prelude & Yodel,” which milks little more than three string instruments for far more than the sum of their parts; and the heartbreaking “Isle Of View (Music For Helicopter Pilots).” Elsewhere are hints of reggae (“Music by Numbers”); baroque, as per usual (“Sheep Dip”); and the perfect Latin jazz riff “Heartwind,” co-written by none other than Ryuichi Sakamoto. Lofty, nostalgic, and unabashedly sentimental, but with enough warmth and playfulness to keep it precise and never saccharine. Razor sharp and meticulous musicianship from a group of musicians who, by this time, had fully locked into the ethos of what they were doing and how best to play with each other. I hope you have a great time with this.
