Just Another Garden

Tangerine Dream - Live in Paris: missing artwork

2009-02-17T04:48:00.000-08:00

Manuel Göttsching - Live at Mt Fuji (2006)

2009-02-15T10:37:00.000-08:00

Well, this is just a fantastic live album by Manuel Göttsching, pionneer of the German electronic music of the seventies, with his band Ash Ra (Tempel) , and forerunner of the the most innovative part of the techno scene, with his concept album E2/E4.

Live at Mt Fuji is a very contemporary album, mixing repetitive rythms "à la Steve Reich" with electronic soundscapes and inspired electric guitar. Psychedelic dance music, contemporary chill out, ambient experimentations: the sound, the feeling, the aesthetic, the modernity of this music and of this concert are just unbelievable. Manuel Göttsching succeeds in creating a unique crossroads of so many paths that made the history of new musics since the 70's of the last century.

Beautiful sound, inspired music, post-modern rythmics... Is it the first Zen album of the XXIst century ?

link : mp3

MG.LaMF.zip

password: olduvai

Joachin Joe Claussell meets Manuel Göttsching (2006)

2009-02-15T10:11:00.000-08:00

In the so-called "Electronic School of Berlin", Ash Ra Tempel was as important and as influential as Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze. It started as a psychedelic & experimental rock band (Klaus Schulze played the drums) and then explored the trends of "kosmische musik", with different line up. Manuel Göttsching was (and still is) the main creator of the Ash Ra Tempel sound: a beautiful mix of keyboards layers (organ, string ensemble), repetitive an subtle rythmic loops and a solar guitar sound, played to create strange repetitive patterns or to draw magnificent solos...

With Manuel Göttsching, German electronic music meets Californian sun and coolness, cosmic journey are rythmed by a unique swing, and the music of the seventies meets the techno scene of the XXIst century... Göttsching was a precursor, and explored new spaces of repetitive music, for example in his famous E2 / E4 album, as influential as Music for 18 musicians by Steve Reich was for contemporary music...

In the three tracks of this album, the basic materials were provided by Manuel Göttsching solo or Ash Ra concerts (1976 and 1979). Joachin Joe Claussell added new loops and beats on two tracks ("Deep(e) Distance" and "Ain't No Time for Tears". This is not really a remix, it is more like an enhanced version of the original live recordings. It is a perfect introduction to the musical world and skill of Manuel Göttsching...

link: mp3

JJG.MG.Rx.zip

password: olduvai

Tangerine Dream - Live in Paris (March 31, 1986)

2009-02-15T09:34:00.000-08:00

On March 31, 1986, Tangerine Dream played two concerts at the Olympia (and not "Olympic") Theater in Paris. Their last concert in Paris was in 1981. These two 1986 concerts were a surprise for Parisian TD fans. First, they discovered a new line-up of the band: Johannes Schmoelling was replaced by a young Austrian musician, Paul Haslinger. Then, Tangerine Dream had a new sound, more digital, more percussive, with impressive multilayered sequences, precise harmonic and melodic arrangement: the music was played very loud and the audience discovered a kind of new electronic music, sophisticated and full of the same kind of energy a rock band could display. Last, but not least, the band played with an impressive light show, perfectly synchronized with the music.

23 years after, these Paris concerts remain very special... They opened the way to a new step in Tangerine Dream career, but the trio Franke - Froese - Haslinger was the most creative link between the early eighties and the nineties.

Christopher Franke's art of sequencing was at its peak... Computers, samplers and digital synthies replaced the old analogic Moog sequencers: they added a new percussive dimension, new rythmic possibilities. As far as I know, few musicians went as far as the programming work of Franke on some parts of this concert...

Here is the Tangerine Tree archive of one of these concerts. It is number 69 of the series...

I hope you will enjoy...

link: mp3

download

password: olduvai

Brian Eno - Music for Prague (2001)

2009-02-08T09:13:00.000-08:00

This music was conceived for a 1998 installation of Brian Eno, collaborting with Jiri Prihoda in Prague. The CD was donated to an auction in aid of South London Arts in January 2001 and raised £ 400.

As Thursday Afternoon, Music for Prague is a long ambient track, where piano notes and melodic lines evolve very slowly. It is another perfect realization of Eno's concept of generative music, where different tracks are blended together in a randomly way, and one should listen to the installation at least 10.000 years to hear the entire possibilities of a single piece.

Quiet music for our hectic times, Music for Prague is the perfect soundtrack for a winter evening... To be played and listened to in infinite repeat mode !

link: mp3

Be.MfP.zip

password: olduvai

Stephan Micus - Desert Poems (2001)

2009-02-08T08:48:00.000-08:00

In the scene of world music, Stephan Micus (b. 1953) is a world by himself. Most of his works were released on ECM: he recorded 20 albums so far, pure gems of ethno-ambient music, where he plays many musical instruments he gathered during his travels around the globe. Sarangi meets dilruba, shakuhachi meets flower pots, human voice meets nay, kalimba or doussn' gouni... Stephan Micus could be the Mike Oldfield of world music, and multitrack recording equipement allows him to create strange symphonies blending musical cultures, beautiful polyphonies with his own voice or a single instrument.

Each album of Stephan Micus is like a travel, were beautiful landscapes are painted with the sounds and the unexpected hybridation of musical traditions: from India to Africa, from Bali to Japan, we are travelling with him along an imaginary and a spiritual Silk Road... Micus' compositions are fully contemporary and personal, they are ambient and contemplative, they create an intimate and beautiful mood where the musician and his listeners get closer through a same meditation....

link: mp3 / 320

SM.DP.zip

password: olduvai

Light and Colours

2009-02-08T08:34:00.000-08:00

Abstraction 1 (2007)

"All forms of beauty, like all possible phenomena,

contain an element of the eternal

and an element of the transitory,

of the absolute and of the particular.

Absolute and eternal beauty does not exist,

or rather it is only an abstraction

creamed from the general surface of different beauties"

Charles Baudelaire

Tangerine Dream - Live in Brussels (9 February 1976)

2009-01-31T09:50:00.000-08:00

On 9th February 1976, Tangerine Dream was playing at the Auditorium Paul-Emile Janson in Brussels (Belgium). It was a fantastic show, one of the best live performances of the trio Baumann, Franke and Froese in this period. Fortunately, someone in the audience recorded the show. This 1st generation tape was re-mastered by 3N and a splendid artwork was created by Giuseppe Milazzo. This concert is volume 27 of the Tangerine Tree Project, gathering almost all the live performances of the band. It should be noticed that Tangerine Dream gave its agreement to this project, as far as it was a non-profit venture, produced by fans to fans. The music is "a perfect mix of sequencers, mellotrons, guitar". One should add that it was one of the most creative period of Tangerine Dream and that their live performances were unique events where improvisation played a very important part. This Brussels concert was exceptional by the interplay between the three musicians: some parts remind Ricochet or Encore, two official live recordings.

The sound quality is very good, and the silence of the audience is just impressive... Tangerine Dream concerts had such an hypnotical power...

I hope you will enjoy, and I will post in the future a selection of Tangerine Dream shows, my personal "best of" for the musical as well as for the audio quality...

link: mp3 : 2 parts

TDTr27.1.zip

TDTr27.2..zip

password: olduvai

Harold Budd - By the Dawn's Early Light (1991)

2009-01-30T10:23:00.000-08:00

This is a splendid album, perhaps the most personal album of Harold Budd. Mixing together the reading of some of his beautiful poems and ambient musical soundscapes, Budd creates unique atmospheres, between day and night, between light and darkness, between sleep and awakening. Playing piano, Hammond B3 and synthesizer, Harold Budd is surrounded by B.J. Cole (pedal steel guitar), Bill Nelson (acoustic and electric guitars), Mabel Wong (viola) and Susan Allen (harp).

The result is magical and moving, deep and ambient, and a subtle and aerial chamber music surrounds Harold Budd's texts: his voice, the rythm and pauses of his reading are parts of the music.

Imagination meets memory, silence found its voice, words and sounds are just colours painting a beautiful, quiet, serene and ambient atmosphere...

link: mp3 / 320

HB.BtDEL.zip

password: olduvai

Bernard Parmegiani - La Création du Monde (1986)

2009-01-30T09:54:00.000-08:00

Bernard Parmegiani is a French composer (born in 1927) who belonged to the Groupe de Recherche Musicale (GRM) founded in Paris by Pierre Schaeffer. Among many compositions, La Création du Monde is probably the best introduction to his musical universe and to his unique way to blend together sounds from different origins, concrete, acoustic, electronic. Parmegiani creates unique soundscapes suggesting ephemeral events, various material surfaces and shapes, the motions of air, the transparancy or non transparancy of space, the plays and illusions of sonic mirrors surrounding the listener.

La Création du Monde reminds me early Tangerine Dream albums such as Zeit or Atem: this music is abstract but generates so many inner visions, it plays with sounds and spaces in a very visual way, it is ambient and quiet while exploring all the dimensions of the "objets sonores" that are the trademark of Pierre Schaeffer and his followers at the the GRM.

This music should be listened to late at night, at a low level: you will be surrounded by unknown flying sonic objects and through your closed eyes, you will see the creation of the universe...

link: mp3 / 320

password: olduvai

part1

part2

Thanks....

2009-01-30T09:47:00.000-08:00

... for the nice comments !

I am happy some cyber butterflies enjoy the musical flowers of my garden...!

Dreamer

Meredith Monk (with Robert Een) - Facing North (1992)

2009-01-18T13:04:00.000-08:00

Is it a song or a cry ? A voice or a breathe ? Is it vocal music or organic noises ?

It could be a song byn a seagull or the cry of some unknown animal...

It could be a shaman's incantation or the language we speak in our dreams..

It is Meredith Monk's vocal music...

Human voice explores unknown territories and plays with their border zones...

Could human voice invent new languages, universal languages, going far the borders of signication in order to share a common exploration of non verbal communication ?

Facing North is a great album, featuring Meredith Monk (voice, piano, organ, pitch pipe) and Robert Een (voice, pitch pipe).

This music is closely linked with theatrical performance... Gestures, play with space, silence, body art are obviously parts of such a performance.

I love this record, because it is so emblematic (among many other records) of what ECM is about: exploring the borders of silence...

link: mp3 / 320

MM.FNo.zip

password: olduvai

Stuart Dempster - Underground Overlays from the Cistern Chapel (1985)

2009-01-18T12:28:00.000-08:00

Art would be so boring if there was not a part of crazyness in it. The recording industry would be just a routine if there were only studio sessions, without risks and imagination... Life becomes more interesting when one is going to the very end of his (her ?) dreams, concepts, abilities..

Most of New Albion records, this innovative company based in San Francisco, shared such features. They are extreme, exciting, experimental, innovative, and never, never they take into account commercial, economic, market data, to frame creativity within borders and limits.

Stuart Dempster is a veteran composer and performer in the American new music scene.

This Cistern Chapel project is crazy, incredible, bold, on the edge...

Stuart Dempster and his trombone class went inside a giant water tank close to Seattle. In this place, there is a natural reverberation of 45 seconds... Conches, Dijderidu, Tibetan cymbals and nine trombones create these unique soundscapes, atmospheric drones, ambient climates, multi-dimensional acoustic spaces...

Meditation ? Exploring the borders of consciousness ? Mapping new audio territories ?

These Underground Overlays do not allow simple definitions. They are an invitation to share a unique acoustic and ambient experience.

If you think that true musical creation should open new spaces and break all the existing borders, then you should definitely explore the superb ambient world of Stuart Dempster and his students...

Enjoy !

link: mp3 / 320

StD.UndOv.zip

password: olduvai

Tangerine Dream - Live in Shefield (1974)

2009-01-10T02:55:00.000-08:00

This is the second volume of the Tangerine Tree series. Edgar Froese, Chris Franke and Peter Baumann played at the City Hall in Sheffield, on October 29th, 1974. This is a pretty good recording (soundboard ? radio broadcast ?), remastered by Jabberwock. The design is by Maff & Gustavo Jobim

In this 44 minutes long track, Tangerine Dream's music is serene, floating and meditative: it is a long improvisation, where mellotron, organs, EMS Synthy and treated piano create beautiful soundscapes: it is true electronic chamber music, creating slowly evolving climates, with a kind of special German romantic touch...

Enjoy !

mp3

link

password: olduvai

Winter dreams...

2009-01-05T08:21:00.000-08:00

Winter dreams (2006)

"There is no way to peace, peace is the way"

A.J. Muste

Ketil Bjørnstad - Floating (2005)

2009-01-05T07:47:00.000-08:00

This is not a ECM release, but it looks and sounds like... Palle Danielsson (double-bass) and Marilyn Mazur (drums, percussions) add a subtle rythmic and sonic touch to Ketil Bjornstad lyrical and inspired piano playing, and the three of them built up beautiful climates, where melody, swing and atmosphere are mixed in a very creative way... Is it jazz ? ambient music ? chamber music ? As often, with ECM artists (and the three of them are ECM artists), labels and definitions are useless and disappointing...

Let say it is a kind of ambient chamber music whose strong identity and originality results from the unique way Ketil Bjornstad plays piano (delicate, introspective, melodic and melancholic) and from the way the two other musicians listen to him...

Floating is a perfect title for this album: it is floating music, a quiet melodic soundscape that will surround you at the heart of the night...

link / mp3

password: olduvai

part1

part2

Brannan Lane - Hypnotic Drift (2002)

2009-01-05T07:21:00.000-08:00

Brannan Lane is a very creative composer in the US ambient scene: his discography is impressive (26 ambient albums recorded so far...), as a solo artist or in collaboration projects (for example with Vidna Obmana, Zero Ohms, Amir Baghiri, Robert Carty, Tom Larson, Ashera....).

As an introduction to his discography, I chose a very meditative and ambient album, Hypnotic Drift. You are invited to explore eleven "zones" in a 63 minutes sonic journey, with deep and space out atmospheres, slowly evolving electronic polyphonies, beautiful sounds and climates that could be compared to Steve Roach's most floating works (without ethnic drums).

Very remote from the new age musak, the music of Brannan Lane follows its own path and it built up its own style and beauty...

This is a quiet, deep and spacy music to be listened to after midnight or when you need just to chill out or to slow down from our hectic and crazy world.

Most of Brannan Lane's recordings can be bought online at Itunes and emusic, and they are highly recommanded !

link: mp3 :

download

password: olduvai

Hope

2008-12-30T11:17:00.001-08:00

Sea, Sand and Sky (2008)

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow"

Albert Einstein

Roger Eno - Voices (1985)

2008-12-30T10:50:00.000-08:00

Slow, deep, meditative, sensitive, playing with silence, impressionist... Such key-words usually help us to define ambient music at his best. And Voices is ambient music at his best... One should try however to find what makes this album so special and moving, so beautiful and so unique... Perhaps it is this melodic turn so obvious in the way Roger Eno plays piano. Perhaps also it is the unique art of Daniel Lanois, who is behind the mixing board and produces this album. Or should we consider the specific way of Brian Eno to treat anything, sound, light, time, space, even the music of his brother ? Brian is credited for the treatments on this beautiful album: deep reverbs, unexpected harmonizations, creative ways to open unexpected listening spaces... Let's add that Michael Brook was actively involved into the remastering of this album for the CD re-release (in 1990).

However, don't be mislead. Voices invites you to listen to an original voice, Roger Eno's voice, playing in a creative way with the rules and the principles of a new musical genre, ambient music.

Since 1985, this music did not loose its magic, its power, its originality...

Close your eyes, and enjoy the trip !

link: mp3 / 320

RE.V.zip

password: olduvai

Peace

2008-12-30T10:47:00.001-08:00

"Hold fast to your dreams,

for without them,

life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly"

Langston Hughes

Gavin Bryars, Arturs Maskats, Valentin Silvestrov - On Photography (2005)

2008-12-30T09:45:00.000-08:00

Gavin Bryars is one of my all time favorite composers, and I would take at least one of his records if I was to live in a desert island.. He followed a unique path through the most interesting territories of the new musics map, through the most creative record companies (ECM, Point Music, Obscure and EG, Sub Rosa...), among the most interesting musicians of our time (Brian Eno, Balanescu Quartet, Hilliard Ensemble, Tom Waits, Bill Frisell, Julian Lloyd Weber, Charlie Haden, Tony Oxley, Derek Bailey...). One of the starting points of this unique journey is the famous instrumental suite The Sinking of the Titanic, whose first version was released in 1975, as the first release on Obscure, the label founded by Brian Eno.

On Photography is a splendid album of vocal music, performed by the Latvian Radio Choir. Gavin Bryars' compositions were written in 1983 for Robert Wilson's operatic project, The CIVIL WarS. Unfortunately, this endeavour collapsed, and Bryars' parts remained unreleased until he built up a new artistic project in 1994, On Photography, blending various inspiration sources such as American writer Susan Sontag, Pope Leo XIII (who wrote a poem Ars Photographica) and Jules Verne (who met Leo XIII in 1884).

While preparing live performances of these pieces with the Latvian Radio Choir in Riga, Gavin Bryars attended by chance rehearsal sessions, while the Choir was working on pieces by Latvian composer Arturs Maskats and by Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov. He was so moved by what he heard that he decided to include their pieces in this splendid CD, released on his own label, GB Direct.

On Photography is a pure gem of choral music, with rich harmonic climates, a deep sound and a serene and meditative atmosphere.

It is a true masterpiece that could be compared to the best productions of ECM New Musics (Arvo Pärt, or Valentin Silvestrov's Silent Songs, Bagatellen und Serenaden, Leggiero & Pesante, Requiem for Larissa, Symphony for Larissa and Metamusik & Postludium albums).

If you like this CD, please buy Gavin Bryars and the Latvian Radio Choir's most recent work: Glorious Hill, Cadman Requiem (2008).

link: mp3 / 320

GBOP1.zip

GBOP2.zip

password: olduvai

Michael Stearns - Chronos (1985)

2008-12-30T09:09:00.000-08:00

Michael Stearns is one of the most interesting composers of the Californian electronic scene, with Steve Roach, Robert Rich, Iasos and a few others. In the 80s , they invented a new style of electronic music, exploring different spaces from those of the so-called "Berlin School": sea and desert, alternative ways of life and new spiritualities, these musicians were the forerunners and the most inspired musicians of the new age movement, when it was still a quest and not yet a commercial market for muzak.

Chronos is the soundtrack of the IMAX film by Ron Fricke (one of the the creators of Koyaanisqatsi). One could define it as an electronic symphony (a single track of 41:30, with seven movements): few musicians can reach such a degree of expressiveness, of strength and power, of space and crescendos with synthesizers. Michael Stearns used a Serge Modular System, as well as Oberheim, Emu and Yamaha synthesizers, blending analogic and digital textures in a true symphonic way. Constance Demby added her impressive "Space Bass" sound, while a human choir added a lyrical touch to the composition. Slow and meditative or carried away by the hectic tempos of Western megapoles, Chronos is a unique sonic journey through the paths of time and memory, of origins and progress: this soundtrack will inspire you many visions even if you don't watch the movie...

link : mp3 / 320

MS.Ch.zip

password: olduvai

Horizon

2008-12-30T08:59:00.000-08:00

Sand, Sea and Sky (2008)

"The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved

by skeptical or cynics

whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities.

We need men who can dream of things

that never were"

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Ketil Bjornstad and David Darling - The River (1997)

2008-12-21T12:31:00.000-08:00

This is a splendid ECM album recorded as a side project, during the sessions of The Sea, the quartet album of Ketil Bjornstad (with Terje Rypdal, Jon Christensen and David Darling).

In the 12 tracks of this album, we can listen to a very inspired dialogue of Bjornstad's piano and Darling's unique cello sound. One of the starting point of these sessions was William Byrd's and Orlando's Gibbon's melodic invention, translated into a modern idiom. Improvisation and unexpected creative moments offered the materials for the other tracks.

Chamber music, experiments in harmonic ambient music, exploration of all the creative possibilities between two gifted musicians, research in the blending of sounds and climates...

The River is an emblematic recording (among hundred of others) of what ECM is about... Intimate, deep, conceptual and emotional at the same time, crossing all the borders, creating its own place, its own identity at the crossroads of so many roads...

Ambient music at its best, music to swim through, if you love to dive into deep sound...

Link / mp3 320

KBDD.zip

password: olduvai

Tangerine Dream - Live at the Reims Cathedral (13 December 1974)

2008-12-21T12:01:00.000-08:00

The Reims Cathedral concert is among the most famous, the most exceptional concerts ever played by Tangerine Dream. The location was unique, the scandal was huge, the rumor followed Tangerine Dream for years...

German cosmic music met one of the most famous French cathedrals. Electronic meditations, pop culture, uncontrolled young audience, drugs... It was too much, and special religious ceremonies were performed after the concert, to restaure the cathedral's sanctity.

This high quality recording from a radio broadcast was remastered by 3N and is volume 30 of the Tangerine Dream Tree series (92 volumes), a team project realized by fans for fans, offering the best live recordings of Tangerine Dream since its early beginnings, with great audio mastering and splendid artwork. Let's add that Tangerine Dream gave its agreement to this project, just asking the live recordings to be shared for free.

This concert at the Reims Cathedral is so great... Peter Baumann, Chris Franke and Edgar Froese played two long parts, where improvisation and experimentation were at the forefront. Mellotron's flute and string parts, Moog sequences, EMS synthies effect, organs, electric piano, various delays and electronic treatments: no computers were involved, just three musicians interacting in real time, creating cosmic and floating climates, where neo-classical melodies meet avant-garde bruitages.

The Reims Cathedral concert allows us to listen to Tangerine Dream at the Phaedra and Rubycon era. Playing live, outside the security of studios, with all the risks linked with analogic equipment, with improvisation, with a real audience in a mythical place... It was a big challenge...

This concert has a vintage sound, I love it... This is cosmic and electronic music with a unique human touch... I am sure you will enjoy it...

link / mp3

TDReims74.zip

password: olduvai

Bruce Kaphan - Slider - Ambient Excursions for Pedal Steel Guitar (2001)

2008-12-21T11:30:00.000-08:00

If you are fond of Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois team work on Apollo, if you enjoy Bill Nelson's collaborations with Harold Budd or Ry Cooder's sound, then, you will love this debut record by Bruce Kaphan. Pedal Steel guitar added to Apollo its unique touch of spacy country music. Bruce Kaphan has a wide range of experiences as a pedal steel guitarist, from American Music Club to REM, Chris Isaak, John Lee Hooker and David Byrne. He is also very creative in the movie industry, and one could quote his recent soundtracks for Masked & Anonymous, No Easy Way and Crank Calls.

Slider - Ambient excursions for pedal steel guitar is a pure ambient gem, offering floating and liquid climates, where country music meets Indian raga and pure atmospheric music, with deep reverbs and intriguing harmonic climates.

The sound, the feeling, the atmosphere are unique, and this record is blending the roots of American music with the outer space.

Slider got the following comment from the Rolling Stones magazine: "Kaphan makes Zen music for dustbowl airports, bewitching instrumentals, sweet dreams of light and flight in which Kaphan's licks ring like prayer bells across an open Texas plain".

Sweet dreams of light and flight... yes, it is a fair description of this album...

link / mp3

Sl.Amb.zip

password: olduvai

Russell Mills & Undark - Pearl & Umbra (1999)

2008-12-16T03:34:00.000-08:00

Russell Mills should be a familiar name to all the ambient music fans, since he designed the artwork of many Brian Eno's and David Sylvian's recordings, among many other artists. Russell Mills also created many installations and designed stage set up for Harold Budd and David Sylvian's concerts, among others. His paintings and his sound installations are displayed in art galleries all around the world.

Russell Mills is also a musician and a sound sculptor, and he released several beautiful CDs, mixing ambient soundscapes and post-rock climates in a very creative way.

Pearl & Umbra is a rare and impressive recording, involving 34 musicians. The gotha of the new musics scene is contributing to this album: Eraldo Bernocchi, Michael Brook, Harold Budd, Sussan Deyhim, Brian Eno, Roger Eno, Peter Gabriel, Robin Guthrie, Bill Laswell, Paul Schutze, David Sylvian, Ian Walton and Hector Zazou, to name but a few...

Enjoy...

link / mp3

RM.PaU.zip

password: olduvai

Blue and green

2008-12-15T12:19:00.001-08:00

"Colors, like features, follow the changes of emotions"

Pablo Picasso

Suns of Arqa - Cradle (1994)

2008-12-15T11:51:00.000-08:00

I discovered one or two years ago Suns of Arqa, a unique and creative world music team, founded by Michael Wadada. Suns of Arqa is an open band concept, some 200 musicians from across the globe passed through its ranks mixing musical cultures, technologies, spiritual inspirations and composition patterns in an open and innovative way...

Cradle is a possible introduction to this musical universe, where Indian raga meets reggae, where ambient dub meets electronics, where tablas meet synthesizers, where tribal roots meet classical traditions. Well, it is true world music, and not only a unique world's musics...

Indian shenhai, flute, violin and keyboards are involved into Cradle, a serene and meditative album, opening new listening spaces between trance and ambient music...

It is ethno-ambient at its best...

link / mp3

SACr.zip

password: olduvai

Iasos - Angelic Music (1978)

2008-12-15T11:13:00.000-08:00

Iasos is born in 1947 in Greece, but his family moved to the USA in 1951. He is one of the most intriguing and innovative composers linked with the developement of the new age musical trend in California. Actually, he is one of its forerunners, since from 1967, he started to imagine a new kind of music, "paradise music". He was then a student at Cornell University, and he graduated in anthropology in 1968.

Angelic Music was released in 1978 as a tape. I bought it in the early 80's and it was at the top of my personal playlist for a long time. One can be interested or not in Iasos spiritual and new age discourse and concepts. I was not... But the music was really innovative and inventive, there was such a unique way to manipulate acoustic and electronic sounds, to play with tape recorders speed, with reverse playing of tapes, with various reverb and echoes treatment...

Iasos' music is very floating and ethereal, it is wide and deep as the sky... Listening to it is a unique experience...

Angelic Music offers two long tracks, "The Angels of Comfort" and "Angel Play".

The CD release added a new dimension to this already multi-dimensional music...

If you like this music, you should support Iasos and buy Elixir (number 2 in my Iasos playlist).

Realms of Light and Essence of Spring could be your next steps to reach the new dimensions explored by this unique musician...

Relax, forget anything else, and enjoy the music !

link / mp3

IaAnMu.zip

password: olduvai

Many thanks...

2008-12-15T11:00:00.001-08:00

... for your kind comments and your patience... It is nice to meet so many music lovers, fond of non-commercial music, of ambient, electronic and avant-garde musics...

It is fun also to realize that some of my musical tastes are shared in Japan or in Brazil, in Canada or in China, in New Zealand or in Hawai, and by so many fellows in Europa and North America and in so many other places...

I apologize, once again, for the random updates of this blog... Please, visit my garden whenever you want, if you are lucky, perhaps you will find some new and unexpected musical flowers...

Last but not least, excuse my English... This is not my primary language... and I do... my best..

Kind regards to all

Dreamer

Jon Hopkins - Opalescent (2003)

2008-12-06T11:04:00.000-08:00

I discovered only recently Jon Hopkins and I did not expect how much I would be impressed by his music.

Opalescent is the work of a 21 years old British musician. He is said to play piano since the age of 5, and at the age of 12, to study piano and composition at the Royal College of Music, where he won, among other awards, the Concerto prize... Just amazing !

Opalescent is a splendid album of chill out and ambient music, where electronic soundscapes meet very inspired guitar lines and a subtle way to program irresistible grooves on drum machines.

Sincerely, I don't know how I could compare Jon Hopkins to any other musician. His style is unique. There is such an originality in the global sound, in the feeling, in the mixing, in the concept...

Let me try to suggest something... Manuel Gottsching (Ash Ra) meeting Brian Eno and Hector Zazou ? Yes, it could work... Opalescent is a clear allusion to "Opal", the name of the record company of Brian Eno...

I definitely love this record, and it is very refreshing to see that a 21 years old guy can bring such a freshness and an innovation to the Chillout scene...

There is an incredible feeling in this album...

If you enjoy Opalescent, please, buy Jon Hopkins second record: Contact Note

Amazon.co.uk: Contact Note: Jon Hopkins: Music

Here is a mp3 demo version of Opalescent:

JH.Op.zip

password: olduvai

Wim Mertens - After Virtue (1987)

2008-12-06T10:16:00.000-08:00

Wim Mertens belongs to the bunch of my all time favorite musicians ... This Belgian composer (b. 1953), after studying social sciences at the University of Leuven, discovered American repetitive composers, such as Philip Glass and Steve Reich. From 1978, he worked as a producer for the Belgian TV and from 1982 he started an amazing career of musician, composing musics for theatrical plays and for movies (for example Peter Greenaway's The Belly of an Architect and Louis Delluc's La femme de nulle part).

His first album was released in 1982 (For Amusement Only - The Sound of Pinball Machines).

His whole discography, until 2007, includes 71 CDs !!!

Wim Mertens wrote many pieces of chamber music for small ensembles or solo instruments, he also recorded many albums as a solo artist, playing piano, sometimes with vocals.

Defining Wim Mertens' music is not easy. I would say it blends minimalism and classicism in a very intimate and poetical way, with a personal lyrical touch... This music is serene and dynamic at the same time, melodies are at the forefront, there is a unique feeling... Wim Mertens' music is intemporal, at the crossroads of classical traditions and of the exploration of new patterns and atmospheres...

As an introduction to his musical universe, please listen to After Virtue, and try to buy some of Wim Mertens' 70 other recordings ;-)

link: mp3 / 320

WMAV.zip

password: olduvai

Yes, this blog has a future...

2008-12-03T02:24:00.000-08:00

It is the answer...

But, please, be patient...

Next posts next week-end

Dreamer

Is there a future for this blog ?

2008-11-16T11:12:00.000-08:00

It was the question...

Jon Hassell - Earthquake Island (1978, CD release in 1989)

2008-11-09T10:46:00.000-08:00

This beautiful album played an important part in the development of world and fusion music.

It was recorded in 1978, two years before the meeting with Brian Eno and the release of Fourth World Vol. 1. Possible Music. Jon Hassell already found his unique trumpet sound and style, inspired by the vocal lessons of his master Pandit Pran Nath, with its fluid vocal modulations and its beautiful and sensual glissendi effects.

Earthquake Island is a sunny place where musicians from India, Africa and Brazil meet, share and exchange their sounds and musical technics, and blend different musical languages, such as electronics, minimalism, ethnic musics and jazz.

From India, Badal Roy, a former member of Miles Davis and John McLaughin, plays tablas. From Brazil, Claudio Ferreira and Ricardo Silveira, two exceptional guitarists. In this record, one can also find Miroslav Vitous, a member of Weather Report. Nana Vasconcelos, who played with Jean-Luc Ponty and Milton Nascimento, brings his unique musical toys, such as congas, beerembau and a lot of other percussions. Clarice Taylor, an Afro-American, is only vocalist of the album.

Earthquake Island is a beautiful album, with a new sound, a new synthesis of musical trends, a new feeling, a new vibe, sensual, warm, primitive and avant-garde at the same time...

link: mp3 / 320

JHEaIs.zip

password: olduvai

Brian Eno - Lightness. Music for the Marble Palace. The State Russian Museum (1997)

2008-11-09T10:35:00.000-08:00

"The music of this CD is a 1 hour section of a hypothetically endless piece composed and recorded by Brian Eno for his installation at the marbe palace, The State Russian Museum, St Petersburg, in November 1997".

The two tracks of this album, "Atmospheric Lightness" (32:00) and "Chamber Lightness" (25:00) are made with slowly evolving electronic layers, using the generative capabilities of the Koan Pro software. The result is a very quiet and minimal music, with beautiful harmonics created by the randomly driven polyphony. In the large room where this installation was displayed, computer-programmed projectors created randomized and colourful patterns on a series of screens, while another part of the room was dark.

This is a quiet music for a quiet times in a quiet place...

link : mp3 / 320

BELight.zip

password: olduvai

Jon Gibson - In Good Company (1992)

2008-11-09T10:11:00.001-08:00

Jon Gibson is a composer and a musician (saxophone, flute), born in Los Angeles in 1949, who played a key-part in the American minimalist scene. He played works by the most important composers in this trend, such as Steve Reich (1963-1972), Terry Riley (1964-1966) and Philip Glass (from 1968). He collaborated with composers such as La Monte Young, Frederick Rzewski, Alvin Curran, Anna Lockwood, to name but a few.

"In good company" is his first solo album, released on Point Music, the record company created by Philip Glass. Indeed, Jon Gibson is here in good company: this record is produced by Michael Riesman, who also plays keyboards, La Monte Young plays digital piano, Martin Goldray plays piano, and John Snyder and Bill Ruyle are credited for various percussions.

Jon Gibson plays compositions by Steve Reich, John Adam, Terry Jennings, Philip Glass and Terry Riley. He also plays his own compositions, and my favorite one is the very ambient and moody "Extensions II".

This is a beautiful and intimate record, built around Gibson's various saxophones and his unique way to play with them. From the hypnotic repetitive structures of Steve Reich to the lyrical minimalism of Philip Glass, from the raga structrues of Terry Riley to John Adams, Jon Gibson is travelling freely through the history of American new musics.

link: mp3 / 320

JGIGC.zip

password: olduvai

Alexander Knaifel - Svete Tikhiy (2002)

2008-11-02T11:30:00.000-08:00

This is a splendid album released on ECM New Series: where else could one find such an ethereal music, slow and minimalist, ambient and lightly experimental at the same time ? "Svete Tikhiy" means in Russian "O Gladsome Light": it is one of the three oldest Christian hymns included in the Russian Orthodox Vespers. It provides the album with its title but defines also its general mood, spiritual, introspective, contemplative.

A first piece, "In Air Clear and Unseen" is played he Keller Quartett and Oleg Malov (piano).

Then, the Russian soprano Tatiana Melentieva sings "the Song of the Most Holy Theotokos" (Svete Tikhiy) and her voice is treated by a digital sampler (Andrei Siegle) in order to create beautiful choral patterns.

This beautiful album is a masterpiece, and it is very difficult to compare it with anything else.

One could say, as a rough definition, that it might be located at the crossroad of Brian Eno and Arvo Pärt...

link: mp3 / 320

AK-ST.zip

password: olduvai

Forest

2008-11-02T11:22:00.001-08:00

Forest (2004)

"Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest,

which co-mingle their roots in the darkness underground."

William James

Dan Hartman - New Green Clear Blue (1989)

2008-11-02T10:49:00.000-08:00

"The subsconscious mind is a powerful world possessing experiences and feelings we do not necessarily recognize in our daily movements: but nonetheless they influence our entire lives. The tones and shades in this collection were performed live and intuitively for the purpose of opening channels by which the listener may visit their own subsconscious".

Dan Hartman provides his listeners with a fair description of what this ambient CD is about. Released by Private Music, the Peter Baumann's company, New Green Clear Blue is a beautiful and minimalist album, and Hartman acknowledges the musical inspiration of Vangelis and Harold Budd. Lyrical and intimate, most of the tracks are compositions for digital synthesizers: melody and harmonies are at the forefront, beautiful treatments create a far open space around the electronic sounds.

Dan Hartman is probably best known for his work as a songwriter and a musical producer. In the late seventies, he reached number-one in the Dance Charts with his singles, "Instant replay" and "Relight my fire". In the eighties and until 1994, he worked as a producer with artists such as Tina Turner, Joe Cocker, Paul Young, James Brown, Nona Hendrix and Steve Windwood, to name but a few...

He died in 1994.

Private Music was used to offer to main stream artists a private creative space for more intimate and experimental projects. This 1989 album allows us to discover an unexpected side of Dan Hartman's talent, his interest in ambient music, his admiration for Harold Budd.

New Green Clear Blue is a beautiful CD to be listened to after midnight...

link: MP3 / 320

DH-NGCB.zip

password: olduvai

Next update very soon !

2008-10-30T05:33:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

I am a little too very much busy...

but next update to my blog will come very soon...

Thanks for your patience ;-)

Dreamer

Penguin Cafe Orchestra - When in Rome, Recorded live at the Royal Festival Hall (1988)

2008-10-24T12:52:00.000-07:00

How could I describe the music of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra ? Lets imagine a wedding party, where musicians invite everyone to dance and to have fun... Let's imagine a nomad band, travelling from city to city, and creating incredible parties, each time it stops in a particular place... Let's imagine yodel's art blending with American country music, let's imagine blues, jazz, classical music, rock blended in order to create a unique instrumental music, challenging any attempt to classify it... Let's imagine a pub, where an inspired music invite you to dance all the night...

Penguin Cafe Orchestra followed a very unique musical path, crossing many musical genres and creating unexpected dialogues between instruments and genres... I love the simplicity and the sophistication of the arrangements, the subtle blending of acoustic instruments, the inventive play on harmonies and rythms...

Guitars, percussions, piano and harmonium, cello, mandolin and ukelele.. Well, there so many instruments that it is impossible to list them...

If I was to locate the Penguin Cafe Orchestra on a map, I would pinpoint its place at the crossroad of minimal and chamber music, but I would like to add a third coordinate: pleasure and fun..

"When in Rome'" is a live recording... You will feel the incredible feeling, the unique instrumental skill, the fun, the inspiration of this so creative band.

Simon Jeffes died in 1997. He was the main composer of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, he was its soul and he contributed to create its unique sound and mood...

I love this live recording... So much energy, feeling and creaticity.. Such a creative dialogue between musicians and instruments...

This is a great album !

link : mp3

PCOWiR1.zip

PCOWiR2.zip

password: olduvai

Klaus Schulze - X (1978)

2008-10-24T12:29:00.000-07:00

Klaus Schulze is a musician who played a very important part in my life. I love him so much that I am willing to introduce him to the readers of my blog who never listened to his music, I respect him that much that I do not want to share all his discography, just an album that could give a fair overview of his musical world...

I chose... a 2 CDs boxset from 1978: X. It was still the time of analogic and modular synthesizers; it was the rule of the Big Moog and Minimoog, of the ARP 2600 and ARP Odyssey. These instruments had to be explored and to be mastered, many tricks were to be used in order to retrieve a specific sound or climate. It was before MIDI, computers and samplers...

"X" offers six compositions, from 5:25 to 29:32 minutes and allows us to discover a very romantic and symphonic Klaus Schulze, obviously influenced by composers such as Mahler or Bruckner, and trying to invent new creative roads between rock, krautrock and classical music.

Harald Grosskopf (from Ash Ra Tempel) plays drums on several tracks.

"X" is an attempt to create musical biographies of characters such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Georg Trakl, Frank Herbert, Friedmann Bach, Ludwig II von Bayern, Heinrich von Kleist...

Klaus Schulze is exploring the cultural history of Germany through his unique set of electronic instruments...

Thirty years after its release, "X" remains a unique album where a vintage musical technology created unforgettable climates...

Is Klaus Schulze the last romantic of the XXth century ?

"X" is among the CDs I would bring to the desert island I will have to live in, sooner or later...

If any reader of my blog does not know Klaus Schulze, please, listen to this album, it will open many doors and you will not watch the sky anymore as you were used to...

link: mp3 / 320

KSX1.zip

KSX2.zip

Password: olduvai

Jon Hassell / Farafina - Flash of the Spirit (1988)

2008-10-24T12:08:00.000-07:00

Jon Hassell, who played a pioneering part in the exploration of the Fourth World musics, meets Farafina, a unique band of African musicians from Burkina Faso. Founded in the early '80s, Farafina plays traditional music, inspired by the dances and songs of their medecine men, mixing together balafons, flutes and koras. Farafina is still a very active band, teaching traditional musics to young African people, linking traditions with modernity, creating new musical landscapes where the instruments and the knowledge from the past meet digital technologies.

Flash of the Spirit is one of the albums who played a very important part in the development of the world music concept and scene.

Jon Hassell's unique trumpet sound meets African traditionnal musics, in this beautiful album co-produced by Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois.

The sound and the feeling are unique, the message is generous: music is a shared language, beyond all the borders. Feeling, understanding, sharing, respect, friendship are the key-words of this unique joint-venture.

One can just admire the sincerity and involvement of Jon Hassell... This Ambient-African music remains a real UFO in the sky of new musics...

Link: mp3 / 320

FJH-FofS.zip

password: olduvai

Serenity

2008-10-24T11:59:00.000-07:00

"Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm"

Unknown buddhist monk

"Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend".

Bruce Lee

Harmonia Ensemble & Roger Eno - In a Room (1993)

2008-10-20T09:42:00.000-07:00

"The rich subtle music of Roger Eno has forever remained dreamily suspended between an electronic appeal and high brow tendency. This record proposes him as a composer of pure chamber music, featuring acoustic melodies for piano, cello and clarinet. The CD also includes tracks for piano solo".

The liner notes of this CD, released on the Italian label "Materiali Sonori", are a good introduction to Roger Eno's music. Roger is Brian's brother, and he shares with him the same interest in ambient musics (he was involved into the Apollo album, with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois). Pianist and singer, Roger Eno is also a composer of chamber music, subtle and elegant, with a unique style. Orio Odori (clarinet, bass clarinet), Damiano Puliti (cello), Alessandra Garosi (piano) create an intimate and beautiful mood, while playing these 16 compositions. Listening to this record will take you from track one "Classical Music for those with no memory ( 4th Movement)" to track 16: "A Dance with no people (Aromatic Tango)".

This is a beautiful musical journey....

link: mp3 / 320

HERE.zip

password: olduvai

Propeller Island - Hermeneutic Music (1988)

2008-10-20T09:05:00.000-07:00

Lars Stroschen is a multimedia artist living in Berlin, working in many different fields, such as photography, architecture, design of furnitures, drawing and music. As a musician, he started in the late eighties a solo project called Propeller Island (after the name of a Jules Vernes novel). He collected original sounds recorded during his travels and built up a electronic music studio. He composed various pieces for dance performance at the Berliner Schaubühne and in 1988, got a contract with the German Erdenklang label. During the following years, he creates his own label and will release many other records with music and sound sculptures, or unusual sounds libraries on CD-Roms. He was also involved into TONART, a composer community featuring, among others, Conrad Schnitzler: they released five records of extreme and fascinating avant-garde music.

Hermeutic Music is Propeller Island's first CD. Relying on various synthesizers, audio computers and samplers, on grand piano and gongs, on goblin voices and gamelan chorus, the 18 tracks of this album provide us with a very original electronic music, ambient and experimental at the same time, focussing on the sound design and cultures, on the painting of climates with electronic layers and soundscapes recorded in various locations. It is strange, lightly surrealist, very remote from the music of the so-called Berlin school (Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze), although it shares with its great forerunners a kind of quest for originality, for new sounds and new composition patterns.

This Hermeneutic music is not hermetic. Let's say it provides the listener with a creative part: it is up to you to make sense of it, and you should not miss the trip ;-)

link: mp3 / 320

PIHM.zip

password: olduvai

PS) Lars Stroschen created a unique "art hotel" in Berlin: he conceived all the design and furnitures. This post is illustrated with a few views of this hotel rooms...

Hans Otte - The book of Sounds (1984)

2008-10-17T10:51:00.000-07:00

Hans Otte (1926-2007) was a very creative German composer and artist, as creative in poems and drawings as in sound installations or music for theatrical plays. He helped a lot in promoting in Germany artists such as John Cage, David Tudor, Terry Riley, La Monte Young, in his Bremen radio Festival. As a musician, Hans Otte was a student of Paul Hindemith and of piano maestro Walter Gieseking.

The Book of the Sounds or Das Buch der Klänge is among Hans Otte most significant compositions. He played live this composition in many places. This 1984 recording by the Kuckuck German record company is the best introduction to his musical world, where Western minimalism meets Eastern spiritual traditions. John Cage, Terry Riley, Morton Feldman are obvious references, if one tries to compare Hans Otte's piano music to someone else...

What fascinates me in this CD is the quest for new sounds through a traditional musical instruments...

Hans Otte conceived and played piano as anyone else...

For lovers of experimental music, this original CD calls another one: "Das Buch Der Klange" played by Herbert Hencke on ECM New Music...

The interest of Manfred Eicher and ECM for the compositions of Hans Otte is enough to tell its importance in the landscape of contemporary music...

Link: mp3 / 320

BofS1.zip

BofS2.zip

password: olduvai

Adham Shaikh - Journey to the Sun (1996)

2008-10-17T10:15:00.000-07:00

While I was commuting from my working place to the place where I live, today, in the late afternoon, while I was in the train, my Ipod, after Mozart and Chet Baker, selected this album by Adham Shaikh, Journey to the Sun... The late afternoon (or early evening) sun was shining and there was a surrealist light through the window of my train. I was among many commuters, going back to their places... I was sad and tired, hopeless and depressed, as sometimes (too often ?) it happens in my life, in others lives too, perhaps ?

Journey to the sun added a unique poetical and ambient touch to my commuting travel... Floating and ambient music, so deep, so far out, so minimal, so inspired, so tasteful, avoiding all the clichés of the chill out mode... Adham Shaikh has a unique way to blend Indian sitar or flute sounds with Western electronic layers and atmospheres (I guess he used, among other tools, an old ARP 2600 analogic modular synthesizer, since I am familiar with this instrument).

It reminds me Brian Eno and the pioneering experimentations of the Berlin School. It evokes too the sun of California, the light of the most creative New Age trend, with musicians like Iasos or.. Aeoliah (who is German by the way...).

It creates a unique atmosphere, blending ambient sounds, found voices, soundscapes from the street with floating electronic climates... It is not the cosmic space of Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream, it is the ambient soundscapes of our contemporary world and cities, where languages, traditions, cultures are trying to melt together in a creative way...

Journey to the Sun is a true chill out album. I followed the path and I found the light of a hopeful horizon at the end of a bad day...

Could a musical blogger be subjective sometimes and talk about himself ?

Any good blog is the mirror of the real guy behind...

At least, I would love to think so...

Please, listen to Journey to the Sun by Adham Shaikh. One of the most original ambient music waiting to be discovered...

NB: the link was deleted upon request. Please, buy this great album on emusic or on Itunes Store...

Chris Hughes - Shift From the music of Steve Reich (1994)

2008-10-13T11:16:00.000-07:00

Point Music was a record label that was started in 1992 as a joint-venture between Philips Classics and Michael Riesman and Philip Glass. It specialized in cutting-edge contemporary Western music. It was shut down in 2002.

Chris Hughes was fascinated by Steve Reich's music since his childhood, when his father took him to see the European premiere of Steve Reich's Drumming at the Hayward Gallery in London.

The Shift project started as Chris Hughes pushed forwards his exploration of Steve Reich's musical universe. He met Steve Reich in the mid-80's and decided to work on a series of variations on Reich's early works.

Shift is strongly inspired by Drumming, Violin Phase, Piano Phase and adds something special to the original Steve Reich's works.

The Synclavier provide Steve Reich's music with a new geometry, a new temporality, new patterns of repetition and variation.

Shift is a deep exploration of the world of rythms and patterns, of loops and phrases, of electronic gamelan and sequences. Mathematics and time-codes create a unique hypnotic and ambient climate, where space and time are manipulated through computer programming.

By the way, Chris Hughes became one of the most famous British producers and drummers and he worked with Peter Gabriel, Robert Plant, Enya, Tears for Fears, Paul Mc Cartney and Wang Chung, to name but a few....

Here is the user's guide to this Shift album: "Melt in the sofa, close your eyes, relax and listen". Do it !

link / mp3 320

Shift.zip

password: olduvai

Junior Homrich with Brian Gascoigne - The Emerald Forest/ OST to the John Boorman's movie (1985)

2008-10-13T10:49:00.000-07:00

I love this John Boorman's movie, devoted to the green and deep world of the Amazonian rainforest, to its native people, to the quest of a father looking for his son, to the struggle between modernity and technologies, on the one hand, and a natural and ancestral way of life, on the other hand... This is for me a great movie inspired by a great humanist and ecologist vision...

I love the soundtrack too... Electronic layers and tribal percussions (clay pots, silver goblets, Jew Harp, marimba, body percussions, drums and African drums) mixed with various acoustic instruments (ethnic flutes, saxophones, ethnic oboe) and vocalizations create a deep and a mysterious atmosphere, a unique climate...

This is a beautiful ambient soundtrack, that explores an unknown world, whose survival is threatened by the developement of our modern and western civilization... Junior Homrich and Brian Cascoigne were successful in blending the most up-to-date musical technologies with shamanism and tribal trance...

Link / mp3 320

EmerFor.zip

password: olduvai

Sky, Earth and Sea

2008-10-11T02:18:00.001-07:00

Sky, Earth and Sea (2007)

"It is good to have an end to journey toward;

but it is the journey that matters,

not the end"

Unknown Zen master

Harold Budd, Ruben Garcia, Daniel Lentz - Music for 3 Pianos (1992)

2008-10-11T01:55:00.000-07:00

Music for three Pianos is the result of a long-standing friendship between Harold Budd, Daniel Lentz and Ruben Garcia. Inspired by Morton Feldman's multi-piano pieces, this album explores the border between silence and music and invites the listener to navigate along dreams and memories. Minimalist and ambient, this music is stripped to the essential, and could remind Erik Satie's atmospheres. Simplicity, depth, sensitivity, this is a beautiful dialogue between three outstanding musicians who are more interested in the essence than in the surface, this Music for 3 Pianos is a true melodic and ambient gem. This album should be listened late at night, when the surrounding silence will create its own harmonics with the music and your own feelings...

Link / mp3 320

M43p.zip

password: olduvai

John Adams conducts - American Elegies: Charles Ives, Ingram Marshall, Morton Feldman, John Adams, David Diamond (1991)

2008-10-11T01:28:00.000-07:00

All the compositions of this album share a common feature: a quiet and reflective mood, an elegiac feeling, blending together lament and memory. As the title of the opening track by Charles Ives suggests, this CD could be considered as a meditation about "The Unanswered Question", as an elegy for the inharmonious folly of the world itself.

The Orchestra of St. Luke's, conducted by John Adams, plays compositions by Charles Ives (among them, Five Songs, for the splendid soprano voice of Dawn Upshaw), Ingram Marshall (Fog Tropes), Morton Feldman (Madame Press Dies Last Week at Ninety), John Adams himself (Eros piano, played by Paul Crossley) and David Diamond (Elegy in Memory of Maurice Ravel).

This is a beautiful journey through the territory of American new musics, beyond all the usual borders of genres and sub-genres. One could say that a particular form of minimalism is displayed into these delicate orchestral atmospheres, as intimate as chamber music, as evocative as memories fading away...

link / mp3 320

JAAmEl.zip

password: olduvai

Sea and Sky

2008-10-05T08:58:00.001-07:00

Horizon, 2007

"The viewer disappears along with the scene,

The scene follows the viewer into oblivion,

For scene becomes scene only through the viewer,

Viewer becomes viewer because of the scene"

Seng-t'san

Terje Rypdal - Waves (1978)

2008-10-05T08:29:00.000-07:00

Electronic soundscapes of ARP Synthesizer, RMI Keyboard Computer, Tac Piano and Ring Modulator; melodic lines of the trumpet and fluegelhorn of Palle Mikkelborg; the drums of Jon Christensen; the 6 & 4 string electric basses of Sveinung Hovensjo... and the space guitar of Terje Rypdal, between fire and ice, earth and sky, rock and jazz, atmospheres and melodies....

Waves is another landmark in the history of ECM and in the musical journey of Terje Rypdal.

The shades and haze of the Northern landscapes are illuminated by the music of this quartet, ambient jazz with a light electronic touch, where vintage instruments add their unique colours to this beautifully produced album (Manfred Eicher producer, Jan Erik Kongshaug engineer).

Splendid and nostalgic...

link: mp3 / 320

TRWv.zip

password: olduvai

Tangerine Dream - Ricochet (1975)

2008-10-05T07:56:00.000-07:00

If I was to choose 10 CDs as an ideal collection for living on a desert island, Tangerine Dream's Ricochet would be one of them. This is one of my all time favorite albums... and if anyone among you, dear blog visitors, does not know it, do you a favor... and discover it now !

Ricochet is an album that, more than thirty years after its release, does not sound outdated or old-fashioned... It kept all its mystery and beauty, it is among the few great masterpieces of the German electronic music of the seventies.

The basic materials are live recordings during concerts in England and France by the trio Peter Baumann, Chris Franke and Edgar Froese, but these materials were edited, mixed and reorganized in studio, in order to create these two long and splendid tracks.

Tangerine Dream's previous albums, Phaedra and Rubycon, already featured electronic sequences, but they were still minimal and experimental. In Ricochet, sequences are at the forefront and create innovative harmonic, melodic and rythmical patterns. Nobody used Moog sequencers in such a way, beyond the mere repetition of loops or basic grooves, as a leading melodic voice. And I don't see anything equivalent in the more recent electronic music relying on computers.

Everything is perfect in these two tracks, from the haunting romantic piano notes opening part two to the spacy guitar leimotiv of part one, from the overdub of drums upon some bass rythm to the use of delays on the most melodic sequences.

Ricochet contains the quintessence of the concerts of the Dream in the seventies, a flight outer space, very far out, a psychedelic travel through the waves of the sound, and a very human and romantic feeling, between rock and classical music...

Absolute masterwork...

link: mp3 / 320

TDRic.zip

password: olduvai

Hubert Bognermayr & Harald Zuschrader - Erdenklang Computerakustische Klangsinfonie (1982)

2008-10-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

This record is part of the history of electronic and computer music. In 1982, it was avant-garde... In 2008, it is a vintage recording, although a part of its innovative concept and new aesthetics is still alive and challenges the listener...

Hubert Bognermayr and Harald Zuschrader's album provided the German record company Erdenklang with its artistic manifesto: exploring new directions in electronic music and deviating from the cosmic genre of the so-called "Berliner school".

The Fairlight Computer Musical Instrument offered new sampling and sequencing possibilities, a new level of sound quality, through its digital technologies, and it was heavily used in this "Computerakustische Klangsinfonie". Mixing together concrete and natural noises, industrial sounds and samples of a large vocal chorus or of various acoustic instruments, Bognermayr and Zuschrader were exploring a new style of electronic music, experimental and popular, melodic and abstract at the same times, avant-garde without being hermetic.

link: mp3 320

ErdCompSyn.zip

password: olduvai

Jean-Philippe Goude - Ainsi de nous (1994)

2008-10-01T08:29:00.000-07:00

Jean-Philippe Goude (b. 1952) is a French composer who wrote many soundtracks for movies, TV shows, adverts and dance companies. Some of his compositions were also commissioned by music festivals and symphonic orchestras.

Ainsi de nous is a good introduction to Goude's musical universe (his discography includes 5 other CDs): chamber music, with an intimate and a very subtle atmosphere, the twelve tracks of this album put the emphasis on melodies and refrains, blending neoclassical influences, a light jazzy swing, and a frivolous elegance that could remind the style of the Penguin Orchestra...

Clarinet and saxophone, basson, cello and violin, piano and harmonium, acoustic bass and accordion provide these compositions with their specific colours, and one can notice, among the musicians involved, jazz artists such as Bruno Fontaine or Renaud Garcia-Fons.

This beautiful album is a gem quite representative of the new musics trend "à la française"..

link / mp3 320

JPhG.zip

password: olduvai

Herbert Distel - La Stazione (1990)

2008-09-27T23:01:00.000-07:00

This is truly an amazing and beautiful CD, released on the Hat Hut "Now series" label, that reminds me of Brian Eno's On land or of some urban soundscapes of Blade Runner.

The basic materials of these two long tracks (26:31 and 19:24) are field recordings in the Central Station in Milan (Italy): noises, voices, announcements, etc. These materials are processed electronically (delays, reverbs, harmonizers...), organized in loops, mixed and superimposed in such a way that the result is an ambient and hypnotic symphony, where concrete sounds and announcement voices are metamorphosed into strange tonal and rythmical patterns.

These two compositions were premiered at the Kunstmuseum in Berne on March 2, 1990, and were played on a broadcast of Radio DRS2, on May 16, 1990.

I quote some words of Heinz Reber in the booklet: "The work is an enigma. As well as the only empty space, the short rest, the quiet, the silence before the powerful, dignified beat, before the low sound. One (still) throws a nostalgic glance at the sensuous nature from an immovable observation point, referring to the analogous noise in that station hall. The individual sequences dissociate: sound becomes a tonal material - scarcely a hint, fine. In fact, meanings get lost in this aimless place".

Deep and strange atmospheric music, painting unexpected soundscapes and blending sounds and noises, La Stazione will change the way you will walk through a railway station hall...

link: mp3 / 320

HDLaSta.zip

password: olduvai

Sea and Sky

2008-09-27T11:43:00.000-07:00

Sea and sky (2007)

"Once, while St. Francis of Assisi was hoeing his garden, he was asked: "What would you do if you were suddenly to learn that you were to die at sunset today ?" He replied: "I would finish hoeing my garden..."

Jan Garbarek - Visible World (1996)

2008-09-27T10:37:00.000-07:00

Jan Garbarek is obviously one of the artists who contributed to define ECM sound and unique aesthetics. His discography is a part of the history of European jazz and new music and it follows a free and creative path, between solo and band projects, and through many adventurous collaborations, with the Hilliard Ensemble or with Keith Jarrett to name but a few...

Visible World is a splendid CD and it is impossible to categorize it... Jazz and ambient, contemporary and world music, avant-garde and tradition...

Jan Garbarek plays soprano and tenor saxophones on all the pieces, indeed, but also electronic keyboard and additional percussion on some and Meraaker clarinet one one. He is accompanied by other ECM stars, such as Marilyn Mazur (percussion, drums, shakers), Manu Katché (drums), Eberhard Weber and his unique bass sound, Rainer Brüninghaus (piano), Trilok Gurtu (tabla and spiral), Mari Boine (vocal on one track).

This music blends grooves and atmospheres, it is lyrical and intimate at the same times, it is very inspired and produced with a lot of subtlety (Manfred Eicher, who else ?, produced this album).

Inspired by traditions of the Chiricahua Apache traditions, commissioned for movies soundtracks, ballets or music videos, the 15 tracks of Visible World explore new islands in the archipelago of new instrumental musics...

It is the perfect soundtrack for all your inner movies...

link: mp3 / 320

JGVW1.zip

JGVW2.zip

password: olduvai

Jon Hassell / I Magazzini - Sulla Strada (1982/1995)

2008-09-26T10:04:00.000-07:00

This rare album is a soundtrack composed by Jon Hassell for a theatrical play written by Federico Tiezzi from texts by Jack Kerouac, and performed at La Biennale in Venice, at the Teatro Malibran on May 28th 1982. The CD was released by "Materiali Sonori" in 1995.

In the booklet, Jon Hassell comments upon his musical project: "The style of music which I call "Fourth World" is a continual exploration of ways in which exotic musics from the tribal cultures of the Southern Hemisphere might be fused with the technological possibilities of the Western world (primitive future). It is an attempt to create music which dissolves the dichotomy between the structural and the sensual (classical and popular in western terms).

The music for Sulla Strada is partially inspired by cerimonial music of the Beti and Bemileke of Cameroon. This is blended with other compositional and less geographically-specific elements in an attent to create a kind of musical scenery which is not entirely "primitive", not entirely "future", but some place impossible to locate either chronogically or geographically. (...)

The aim is to create a dense, ritualized sound atmosphere in which the stage action might take place and be formed within, in the same way that the density of water can be said to form the movements of a swimmer".

Jon Hassell (trumpet, synth, tapes) is accompanied by Nana Vasconcelos (udu drum), Michael Brook (guitar and mix), Miguel Frasconi (percussion).

Italian voices can be heard sometimes, but the nine tracks of this album offer beautiful and hypnotical climates, where loops, percussions and synthesizers create the dense and ritualized atmosphere Jon Hassell mentions in his comments...

A rare album by one of the most important musician and composer of the ambient planet...

link: mp3 / 320

JHSs1.zip

JHSs2.zip

password: olduvai

Bang on a can - Music for Airports / Brian Eno (1998)

2008-09-26T09:24:00.000-07:00

Brian Eno's Music for Airports (1978) played a very important part in the concept and development of ambient music. One could say that ambient music is not a music to be listened to, but a music to be heard, as a subliminal background creating a soundscape for various places or buildings. Supermarkets and elevators are usually places where a poor music is played, one calls it muzak. Brian Eno's idea was to conceive a sophisticated musical soundscape instead of this anonymous FM music, and he chose airports as the best places where such a music could be heard and understood, creating an unusual and quiet sonic background among all the noises and announcements of a airport terminal.

Music for Airports is a masterpiece, with its subtle piano tracks, its complex electronic treatments, its choral parts, and its slow and organic development.

In 1998, Point Music, a label directed by Philip Glass, released this amazing interpretation of Music for Airports by Bang on a Can: Robert Black (bass), Lisa Moore (piano, keyboards), Evan Ziporyn (clarinet, bass clarinet), Maya Beiser (cello), Steven Schick (percussion), a choir of female voices and additional musicians playing pipa, flute, horn, trumpet, trombone, violin, cello, mandolin and mandocello.

This chamber music ensemble plays Eno's compositions with fidelity and creativity at the same times. The acoustic instruments create a rich harmonic soundscape and add a very original touch to the original recording.

This peaceful, quiet and slow music is very evocative and poetic: the cover version is as beautiful as the original...

link: mp3 / 320

BoaCMfA.zip

pass: olduvai

The tempo of this blog

2008-09-21T07:54:00.000-07:00

I will not update this blog every day, but as regulary as possible.

I chose a selective and eclectic approach, quality over quantity, musics that do not float on the main stream of the music business...

Each artist presented in my blog played an important part in my life and inspired me dreams, feelings, thoughts and memories.

I would be happy if some of the visitors of my blog could discover unknow musicians...

I hope the itinerary drawn by this blog makes sense for someone else than for myself...

Comments, as always, are welcome and appreciated ;-)

I wish you a pleasant flight !

Web

2008-09-21T07:45:00.000-07:00

Web (2007)

"The artist is a receptacle for the emotions that come from all over the place:

from the sky, from the earth,

from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape,

from a spider's web"

Pablo Picasso

The Edge with Michael Brook - Captive (OST) (1986)

2008-09-21T07:02:00.000-07:00

This is a beautiful collaboration between U2 guitarist and Michael Brook, with Sinead O'Connor singing on track. This soundtrack is closer to Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois ambient work than to U2: the links between these two universes are obviously Michael Brook and his infinite guitar sound which will be used by the Edge.

Ambient and atmospheric music, this soundtrack of Captive, the Don Boyd's movie, is composed of 10 atmospheric tracks, where guitars, keyboards, percussions (Larry Mullen on drums) create a haunting climate...

Link / mp3 320

TEMBCaptOst.zip

password: olduvai

Harold Budd - The Pavilion of Dreams (1978)

2008-09-20T03:43:00.000-07:00

Harold Budd is an American composer (b. 1936) who played (and still plays) a very important part in the minimalist and ambient scene, either as a solo artist or through his collaborations with musicians such as Brian Eno, Zeitgeist, Hector Zazou, Andy Patridge, John Foxx, Daniel Lentz, Ruben Gardia, Cocteau Twins, Robin Guthrie.

The Pavilion of Dreams was released in the famous series Obscure Records, where Brian Eno produced still unknown composers such as Gavin Bryars and Michael Nyman. It was Harold Budd's second album, and it revealed him to a wider international audience.

Ambient and impressionist music, intimate chamber music, quiet melodies in the vein of Satie and Debussy, The Pavilion of Dreams offers "an extended cycle of works begun in 1972". Harold Budd (electric piano) is accompanied by a small ensemble of musicians (harp, celeste, marimbas, percussion, vibes and vibraphone, chorus). Among them, Lynda Richardson (mezzo soprano), Marion Brown (Alto sapophone), Michael Nyman (marimba) and Gavin Bryars (glockenspiel, voice, celeste).

Quiet music for an hectic age, The Pavilion of Dreams explores the poetics of slowness. Mysteriously ambient, lightly melancholic, deep as an horizon, these compositions opened new perspectives in the trend of ambient musics, and they could be considered as a foreword to Ambient 2 / The Plateaux of Mirror, composed in 1980 with Brian Eno.

link / mp3 320

HB.TPofD.zip

password: olduvai

Hector Zazou - Les Nouvelles Polyphonies Corses (1991)

2008-09-20T02:50:00.000-07:00

Hector Zazou died in Paris on September 8th. He was 60 years old.

On October 6, his last record will be released by Crammed Discs: In the House of Mirrors, featuring musicians from India and Uzbekistan (Toir Kuziyev, Milind Raikar, Ronu Majumdar, Manish Pingle), and Western guests such as Nils Petter Molvaer, Diego Amador, Carlos Nunez, Zoltan Lantos and Bill Rieflin (former drummer of R.E.M.).

Zazou is now beyond the mirror...

As a tribute to this so creative French musician and producer, we could listen to this 1991 album, Les Nouvelles Polyphonies Corses (it won a Victoires de la musique award in 1992). Traditional songs from Corsica are surrounded by a instrumental tapestry featuring among others Steve Shehan (percussions), Richard Horowitz (ney), Manu Dibango (sax), Jon Hassell (trumpet), Ryuichi Sakamoto (piano), Christian Lechevretel (trumpet), Pierre Chaze (guitars), Renaud Pion (sax soprano), Lightwave (electronics), John Cale (piano), Shaymal Maltra (tablas)...

It is a splendid album where traditions from the past meet the new musical technologies...

Sacred music, lyrical inspiration, and delicate electronic soundscapes are the main features of this album: it will never be outdated...

Zazou, we will not forget you !

links / mp3 320

Les_Nouvelles_Polyphonies_Corses_1.zip

Les_Nouvelles_Polyphonies_Corses_-_2.zip

password: olduvai

Next update in a few days....

2008-09-07T08:16:00.000-07:00

I will be out of town for the few next days...

So the next update should be next week-end !

In the meantime, enjoy this musical garden, take a seat, and listen to some sonic flowers...

Dreamer

Before the night

2008-09-06T08:11:00.001-07:00

Before the night (2007)

"In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary"

Aaron Rose

Brian Eno - I Dormienti (1999)

2008-09-06T07:50:00.001-07:00

"This music was made for an installation of sculptures by Mimmo Paladino at the Undercroft of the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm, London. Collectively the sculptures - about 30 reclining terracotta figures with about 20 attendant terracotta crocodiles - form a work called "I DORMIENTI" - "The Sleepers".

The elements of the music were distributed over 10 CDs (such that each CD carried just one layer of the music), and then played on 10 CD players positioned around the space. The CDs are of different lengths, and carry different numbers of tracks (some of which are silent tracks). Each player was set to "random shuffle" so that the exact overlay of elements at any given moment would not be predictable. The total playing time of such a piece (i.e. the time before it precisely repeats) is effectively infinite".

Random, infinite, overlay, non predictable, installation, space, repeats: perfect key words for describing this deep and mysterious ambient music, surrounding sleeping bodies who remind me the petrified corpses of Pompei inhabitants, when the Vesuvius volcano destroyed the city.

Beautiful atmospheric music, to be played and listened to in infinite mode...

Link: mp3 / 320

BEMfD.zip

password: olduvai

Golden World

2008-09-05T11:42:00.000-07:00

Golden World (2007)

"Form does not differ from emptiness;

Emptiness does not differ from form.

Form itself is emptiness;

Emptiness itself is form.

So too are feeling, cognition, formation, and consciousness"

Heart Sutra

Maria Callas - Lyric and Coloratura Arias

2008-09-05T11:24:00.001-07:00

I do not define Ambient music through technical and instrumental criteria or through precise musical features. Ambient music relies, for me, on a specific way to listen to music, where the listener, the place and the time of the listening are as important as the music... Ambient music opens windows, creates spaces, paints backgrounds, rises memories, creates thoughts and feelings... It is like an Encounter of the Third Type, between a listener and a musical emotion, between the mood of the listener and the mood of the music... It is just a miracle, something to be experienced, an intimate experience...

So Opera is for me part of the most inspired and moving ambient music...

What I love in this vintage recording of Maria Callas is the magy of a voice singing and singing again, of a voice inspiring so many feelings and dreams each time it is heard... There is such an energy, such a creativity, so much strength and expressiveness in these songs that they make me shiver...

Maria Callas, I love you...

Link: mp3 / 320

CLCAr.zip

password: olduvai

Piano One - Private Music (1985/1990)

2008-09-05T11:04:00.000-07:00

Joachim Kuhn, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Eddie Jobson and Eric Watson : where else could we find so creative and so different pianists than on this Piano One release by Private Music, creating in the '80s and early '90s new territories for instrumental music.. ? Jazz, progressive rock, neo classical... this music just goes beyond the usual borders... We have just solo piano music here, but piano is played with such an elegance and a subtlety, recording and production are so perfect, that it is just a musical and audiophile paradise...

In these last years of the last century, some innovative record companies were trying to invent new musics for new audiences... In the ocean of so often disappointing New Age music, Private Music is like a treasure island where one can still find pure musical gems...

Enjoy !

Link : mp3 / 320

POne.zip

password: olduvai

Spices

2008-09-02T00:33:00.001-07:00

"Variety is the spice of life"

Unknown Zen cook

Hellen Merrill & Ron Carter - Duets (1989)

2008-09-02T00:20:00.000-07:00

Music to be listened to after midnight, at home, when quiet sounds and voices are the colors of darkness..

This is a splendid album by two giants of jazz music, who chose the format of a duo instead of the big bands, quartets and trios they are accustomed to play with.

Hellen Merill's voice is unique, sensual and deep, evocative and nostalgic. Ron Carter's acoustic bass is the perfect accentuation of Hellen's a capella songs...

The two of them revisit standards such as "A child is born", "Autumn leaves", "My funny Valentine", and they chose a minimalist and intimate approach, where silence plays its own music between the words...

I rediscovered this album yesterday and I love its unique atmosphere, its poetry, its delicate swing and mood.

Hellen Merrill is one of my favorite jazz singers...

Link: mp3 / 320

HM_RC.zip

pass: olduvai

Peter Baumann - Trance Harmonic Nights (1979)

2008-09-01T23:53:00.000-07:00

The name of Peter Baumann appeared already in this blog, since he was the founder of Private Music, a New York based record company specialized in new music in the eighties and early nineties.

Peter Baumann was also a member of Tangerine Dream, in the seventies, and he played a key-part in the musical odyssey of this German band, exploring the infinite possibilities of synthesizers for sound design and new composition patterns.

Peter Baumann left Tangerine Dream in 1977 and devoted himself to various production projects and to a solo career. Trance Harmonic Nights is his second solo album (the first one, Romance 76, was released in... 1976).

Trance Harmonic Nights is a beautiful album, and shows Peter Baumann's skills as a composer and a sound designer. Instead of the long cosmic and improvised tracks of Tangerine Dream's early recordings, Trance Harmonic Nights offer shorter tracks, structured around sequences, with melodic lines and spectacular sound effects. The music is at the same time impressive and intimate, with a romantic and a poetical touch.

Peter Baumann used a synthesizer prototype, built by American company EMU. This Projekt Elektronik modular synthesizer offered a digital multichannel sequencer, which was one of the most advanced piece of equipment at that time. Peter Baumann used it for all the sequences of this album.

Romantic German music for vintage synthesizers and avant-garde rythms, Trans Harmonic Nights is still a very pleasant album today....

link: mp3 /320

PBTHN.zip

password: olduvai

Ingram Marshall - Three Penitential Visions & Hidden Voices (1990)

2008-08-31T12:13:00.000-07:00

Ingram Marshall is another great composer of the New Albion record company, based in San Francisco. As an introduction to his musical universe, I chose this Elektra / Nonesuch recording..

Three Penitential Visions (1986) surfaced as a radio work, part of a series called "The Territory of Art", sponsored by the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.

Hidden Voices (1989) draws must of its substance from recordings of ethnic vocal music from Eastern Europe, particularly the strange wailing laments heard typically at funerals. Ingram Marshall wrote: "It has been my intention not only to exploit, but to pay homage to these found voices. The sources used are from Central Russia (...), Northern Russia (...), Romania and Hungary"

Into the mix, processed electronically through digital delays and often combined with their own echoes, Marshall has stirred a live soprano, singing the old Anglican hymn "Once, in David's City".

These ambient soundscapes rely on the mixing of natural sounds, voices, synthesizers. The result is totally original and has a kind of haunting beauty...

It is impossible to compare Ingram Marshall's music with anyone else. Brian Eno could be, however, a possible challenger.

The mood, the soundscapes, the sonic depth are unique...

link: mp3 / 320

IngMars.zip

password: olduvai

IngMars.zip

Paul Bley - Fragments (ECM, 1986)

2008-08-31T11:48:00.000-07:00

Paul Bley is among my all times favorite jazz pianists. I just love the moods and atmospheres he creates, his lyrical and poetical playing, the way he is playing with silence, a unique musical creativity that makes all his recordings unique, either as a solo artist or within a trio or a quartet.

As an introduction to Paul Bley's musical universe, I chose this gorgeous ECM historical recording, featuring some of the finest ECM artists: John Surman (Soprano and Baritone Saxophones, Bass Clarinet), Bill Frisell (guitar), Paul Motian (drums).

Is it still or is it only jazz ? Musical categories are not relevant here, as it happens frequently with ECM releases...

Pure magy of studio sessions, under the inspired direction of Manfred Eicher... "Etats de grâce", where musicians can understand each other and play together without exchanging words, just following the path, listening to the sound, writing music while they play it.

Fragments of pure beauty, of deep feeling, of such an ambient soundscape that this recording does not seem to be more than 20 years old...

Did I say it already ?

ECM is my favorite record company... ECM music makes my daily soundscape for almost thirty years...

Since a long time, I wonder how I could tell Manfred Eicher and his artists how much their music matters for me...

Perhaps introducing a few of you to ECM could be an answer...

link: mp3 / 320

Fragments1.zip

Fragments2.zip

password: olduvai

Bernard Xolotl and Daniel Kobialka - Procession (1983, rip of the 1993 CD)

2008-08-31T11:17:00.000-07:00

Okay, let's start the third week of my blog with an almost forgotten gem, by French electronic composer Bernard Xolotl (born 1951). As a teen, he discovered electronic music through the works of musique concrète French school, with composers such as Pierre Henry or Pierre Schaeffer. Pink Floyd, Klaus Schulze and Ash Ra Tempel, Riley and La Monte Young were Xolotl's main inspiration during the early seventies. In the late seventies, Xolotl, who created his studio in California, was a forerunner of the forth-coming "new age scene" through his work with Cyrille Verdeaux (Prophecy, 1980). Procession could be considered as one of his most innovative works. He used, among others, PPG Wave 2.2, Yamaha C60, Arp Analogic synthesizer, vocoder, Korg Monopoly etc. Violin player Daniel Kobialka joined him for this project.

Procession was released as a cassette, and in 1993, was released again as a CD, with some additions and editing, by German company Erdenklang.

Procession is pure "kosmische musik", very close to Klaus Schulze's Dune and X albums, wherehe worked with cello player W. Tiepold. Procession could be a French interpretation of what the Berlin School was about...

I rediscovered Procession during recent archeological excavations in my CDs collection... And I still love Procession's mood, sound, atmospheres, climates... Space music, with vintage synthesizers, symphonic climates mixed with a violin solo voice, analogic sequencers mirrored through echoes...

It is a very Schulzian album, and at the same times, it is also a step in the history of Californian new age music.

It is space music at his best....

Close your eyes, you are in outer space...

links: mp3 / 320

BXPro1.zip

BXPro2.zip

password: olduvai

This blog is 2 weeks old....

2008-08-30T09:46:00.000-07:00

- Today my blog is two weeks old...

- I know, Charlie, I know... Two weeks is already such a long time in the cyberspace... Happy celebration !!

- It is my first blog ever, Snoopy, and I have fun with it..

- Really ?

- Yes... I wonder if I had already a few visitors.. ?

- Who knows, Charlie, who knows...

- There are so few comments... I noticed that someone is plucking flowers in my garden... so, there are probably a few people at least who enjoy the flavour and the colour of the flowers in my musical garden...

- Maybe, Charlie, why not... all the tastes, even yours, are allowed...

- I don't know if my blog is okay, if it is interesting, if it is even a very little bit original...

- Who knows, Charlie, who knows.....

Night and Lights

2008-08-30T07:57:00.000-07:00

Night and Lights (2007)

"The stars are the street lights of eternity"

Night Ragas, Volume Four (1990/1992)

2008-08-30T07:39:00.000-07:00

This is an extract of a 16 CDs series entitled From Dawn to Midnight, reflecting the changing moods of morning, afternoon, evening and night music through ragas. This series was produced by the Indian label "Music Today" (New Dehli).

Here are three ragas to be listened to during the night:

- Raga Naiki Kanhra: Shruti Sadolikar (vocals). Time: night.

- Raga Des: Pandit Jasraj (vocals). Time: late night.

- Raga Darbari: Amjad Ali Khan (sarod). Time: midnight and after.

These three haunting and meditative ragas need the depth of darkness to unveil all their beauty and mystery...

link: mp3 / 320

1990-NRag1.zip

1990-NNRag2.zip

password: olduvai

Somei Satoh - Mantra & Stabat Mater(1988)

2008-08-30T07:11:00.001-07:00

Somei Satoh is a Japanese composer (b. 1947), strongly influenced by Japanese music and dance as well as by an almost 19th century sense of Romanticism, updated through extensive use of electronic instruments and processing. Shintoism and Buddhism are the underlying philosophies of Satoh's musical work.

This album offers two compositions recorded live in 1987, at the Masonic Temple in New York City.

Mantra relies on Satoh's own voice, which was layered repeatedly during the recording and processed though delays and reverbs. It is is a very meditative piece, that reminds sometimes the overtones of buddhist prayers.

Stabat Mater is a composition for soprano (Jane Thorngren) and for a capella chorus (The Pro Arte Chorale). The mood is also meditative and is dedicated to women everywhere who have suffered such loss as Maria at the foot of the cross.

These two long ambient compositions create a world of infinite spaces and suspended times...

This is a New Albion recording: New Albion is a unique label for contemporary, minimalist and experimental music and you should definitely support them, browse their online catalogue and buy the recordings at emusic.

links: mp3 /320

SS.MStM_1.zip

SS.MStM2.zip

password: olduvai

Terje Rypdal - Descendre (1980)

2008-08-30T06:55:00.000-07:00

"Descendre", that is "going down", "cooling down", "chilling out". The title of this album sets the mood for the listener: atmospheric music for the free flight of thoughts, feelings and memories...

Terje Rypdal (b. 1947) is a Norwegian guitarist and composer and is an icon, among others, of ECM, the innovative record company of Manfred Eicher. Terje Rypdal appears on ECM records since 1970 !

Descendre is a splendid album of ambient and floating music, for guitar and keyboards (Terje Rypdal), for trumpet and flugelhorn (Palle Mikkelborg and his unique sound and feeling) and for subtle drums and percussions (Jon Christensen, who is an emblematic ECM drummer). Intimate mood of a trio of chamber music, slow jazzy groove, aerial guitar, dialogue of the guitar with the trumpet, ghostly organ and string ensemble in the background: this music evokes landscapes of Norway, cold seas and white mountains, and a crepuscular light, after sunset or before sunrise...

The beauty and the mood of this album are intemporal...

Link: mp3 / 320

TRDesc.zip

password: olduvai

Reflections 4

2008-08-29T05:59:00.000-07:00

Reflections 4 (2006)

"See with your eyes,

hear with your ears.

Nothing is hidden"

(Tenkei)

Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass - Passages (1990)

2008-08-29T05:22:00.000-07:00

This beautiful album is another project of Private Music, the Peter Baumann's company in the 80's and early 90's. It is an interesting complement to Tana Mana (see below).

Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar met for the first time in Paris in 1965. Philip Glass was studying music with Nadia Boulanger, Ravi Shankar was recording a score for Chappacqua, the movie of Contard Rook. Philip Glass was earning pocket money doing notation and was assisting the sound engineer in the studio where Ravi Shankar recorded his sitar parts.

Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass spoke together, and Shankar answered many questions about Indian classical music and raga compositions.

This 1990 collaboration was a way to push this early dialogue a step forward. Passages is a rare instance of classical music reciprocity, each composer presenting thematic materials to the other as raw material from which the finished pieces were fashioned. Passages offers two Glass compositions on themes by Shankar, two Shankar compositions on themes by Glass as well as one piece from each composer completely of his own devising.

Links: mp3 / 320

RSPG1.zip

RSPG_2.zip

password: olduvai

Hector Zazou - Geologies (1989)

2008-08-29T05:08:00.001-07:00

Hector Zazou is one of the leading French composers and producers in the field of "new musics" and electronic music. He is famous for his innovative concepts and his many collaborations with artists such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Dead Can Dance, David Sylvian, Jon Hassell, Brian Eno, John Cale, Harold Budd, to name but a few.

Geologies is one of his early recordings, released by the Belgian company "Crammed Discs". One could define Geologies as chamber music for electronic instruments, string quartet and various acoustic instruments (flute, guitar, trumpet, saxophones). Intimate, climatic, melodic, neoclassical and aerial at the same times, this is a beautiful ambient music with a specific French touch, with reminiscences of Satie, Debussy and others.

The mixing and overall production are superb, and almost twenty years after its original release, this record did not loose its poetical and mysterious atmosphere...

Links: mp3 / 320

HZG1.zip

HZG2.zip

password: olduvai

Tomita - Live at Linz, 1984 "The Mind of the Universe" (1985)

2008-08-29T04:57:00.000-07:00

On September 1984, Isao Tomita presented a live, outdoor concert on the shore of the Danube river in Linz, Austria, for an audience of 80.000 people. Through his interpretations of classical music, Tomita was attempting to describe the 15-Billion years history of the universe. He employed 13 channels of sound, including one from a helicopter 1500 feet above the river, multichannels sound systems on either side of the river, and on a ship that also carried musicians and a chorus of 100 Austrian singers.

The live recording includes electronic performances of Holst, Ravel, Vaughan Williams, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Wagner and Beethoven (Ode to Joy from the 9th Symphony).

links: mp3 / 320

TLL1.zip

TLL2.zip

password: olduvai

Vangelis - Blade Runner Esper Edition (Bootleg, 2003)

2008-08-29T04:28:00.000-07:00

Vangelis soundtrack plays a very important part in the atmosphere of Blade Runner, Ridley Scott's masterpiece (1982). The official Vangelis score was released only in 1994. However, it offered only selected parts from the soundtrack. In 2007, celebrating the 25th Anniversary, a 3-CD set was released: the 1994 score was remastered and two bonus-CDs provided additional music edited by Vangelis.

There are many unofficial versions of Blade Runner's soundtrack, collecting music and ambient sounds from the whole movie, editing and ordering them in different ways. The Esper Edition is one of the most authoritative bootlegs: it provides a comprehensive soundtrack and some background music that has never been released.

The 33 tracks of the Esper Edition provide us with almost two hours of music: it is the best way to rediscover Vangelis fantastic music, haunting and melodic, with sophisticated soundscapes.

Blade Runner's music remains today an absolute masterpiece...

link: mp3

VBREspEd1.zip

VBREspEd2.zip

password: olduvai

The Ravi Shankar Project - Tana Mana (1987)

2008-08-27T01:28:00.000-07:00

This album was released on Private Music, the record company founded by ex-Tangerine Dream Peter Baumann in the '80s (see Sanford Ponder's post below). And Peter Baumann was one of the producers of this album, with Frank Serafine and Ravi Shankar himself.

Tana Mana is not an album of classical Indian music, but rather an experimentation in fusion and in world music, mixing Eastern and Western sounds and traditions. Tana Mana means "body and mind", and it could be a key to discover this album where Indian sitar meets digital samplers and synthesizers.

Among the musicians involved into this album, George Harrison (auto-harp and synthesizer), Frank Serafine (vocals), Patrick O'Hearn (bass), Al Kooper (guitar). Lakshmi Shankar is credited for vocals, while other Indian musicians are credited for sarod, sitar, tablas, tanpura and other percussions.

Tana Mana could be considered as a pioneering step in the history of world music and world beat, and it displays Ravi Shankar's unique sitar playing skill at his best as well as his musical open-mindedness.

link: mp3/320

RSTM.zip

password: olduvai

Eduard Artemiev - Urga (1991)

2008-08-27T01:11:00.000-07:00

Here is a splendid soundtrack by Eduard Artemiev for Nikita Mikhailov's movie, Urga. Let's read these comments by the movie director: "The word "URGA" is a strange word for most people. For some, it means a hooked stick, with which Mongolian sheperds catch animals, but for the man who has for centuries lived in the infinite space called the steppes, "URGA" is the symbol of love, loneliness and power".

Urga won the "Lion d'Or" at the Mostra of Venezia in 1991.

Eduard Artemiev (b. 1937) is a famous Russian composer, who wrote many soundtracks for movies of directors such as Andrei Tarkovsky, Andrei Konchalovsky and Nikita Mikhailov. He is also an electronic music pioneer.

The Urga soundtrack was produced by Steve Hillage, who plays acoustic guitar on a few tracks. Electronic instruments are mixed with the strings of the Bolchoi Theater Orchestra. Guy Bertrand plays flutes, while Richard Galliano plays accordion.

This is a beautiful, serene and inspired music, quite symphonic at times, with haunting flute melodies and occasional voices singing Mongolian traditional songs.

The music and the movie are a poetical hymn devoted to the wide spaces of the steppes and to the nomadic tribes living there...

link: mp3 / 320

Urga.zip

password: olduvai

Jardin secret

2008-08-25T10:39:00.001-07:00

Jardin secret (2007)

"All that's visible springs from causes intimate to you"

Dogen (1200-1253)

Tomita - Pictures at An Exhibition (1975)

2008-08-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

As requested by imi, vintage synthesizers and an inspired version of Moussorgsky's masterpiece !

Enjoy !

link: mp3 / 320

ToPicExhib.zip

password: olduvai

Brian Eno - "An Ending (Ascent)" remixed by Leama and Moor

2008-08-24T08:12:00.000-07:00

An Ending (Ascent) is one of my favorite songs in Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks, the ambient masterpiece of Brian Eno, Roger Eno and Daniel Lanois (1983).

Two famous DJs of the dance / trance scene, Leama & Moor (aka Andy Beardmore and Martin Smith) remixed this song and produced an amazing result: ambient dance music, mixing together an uptempo techno rythm with a subtle enhancement of Eno's original piece.

I love very much this inspired remix, and although I admit it is a radical change from the original, it adds a great mood and feeling, and it is a floating and psychedelic song.

Here are the original Eno's piece and the remix by Leama & Moor:

ELMoor.zip

password: olduvai

Tomita - Back to the Earth - Live in New York (1988)

2008-08-24T07:19:00.000-07:00

Isao Tomita (b. 1932) is one of the most important pioneers in the history of electronic music. He started using a Moog III Modular Synthesizer in the late '60s. Like Walter Carlos, with his famous Switched on Bach series, Tomita was interested in performing classical music scores with this new generation of musical instruments, providing the musician with an infinite range of sounds and climates. Snowflakes are dancing was his first record in 1974: Debussy was among the classical composers reinvented through synthesizers. Tomita then reinterpreted pieces by Mussorgsky, Stravinsky, Mahler and Holst, among others.

Back to the Earth is a live album recorded during a spectacular concert in New York City, on September 13, 1986, in and above the Hudson River and in the entire area of lower Manhattan, in commemoration of the centennial of the Statue of Liberty. Musicians from the United States, Soviet Union, China and Japan were brought together and performed with Tomita for a 100,000 audience.

Today, this live recording sounds as innovative and spectacular as in 1988: the sound quality, the mixing of symphonic orchestra, human choirs, Japanese and Chinese instruments is impressive. The expressiveness and spatialization of this music is amazing, as well as its overall feeling and mood.

During the concert, Tomita played some of his favorite tracks written by composers such as J.S. Bach, G. Mahler, R. Strauss, C. Debussy, R. Wagner, A. Dvorak and Stravinsky, among others. Tomita's arrangements are superb and inspired...

Links : mp3 / 320

Back_to_the_Earth._Live_in_New_York1.zip

Back_to_the_Earth._Live_in_New_York2.zip

password: olduvai

Colours of Fall

2008-08-24T07:07:00.000-07:00

Colours of Fall (2007)

The body is like the tree of enlightenment,

The mind like a clear mirror stand;

Time and gain wipe it diligently,

Don't let it gather dust.

Shenxiu

Sanford Ponder - Etosha - Private music in the Land of dry water (1985)

2008-08-24T06:27:00.000-07:00

Etosha was one of the first productions of Private Music, a new record company founded by Peter Baumann (ex-member of Tangerine Dream), in the early '80s. Private Music was devoted to new instrumental music, either electronic or acoustic, and its productions featured a bunch of new artists, such as Patrick O'Hearn, Yanni, Lucia Hwong and others.

When Sanford Ponder was signed to Private Music, he was playing clubs in New York and creating music for dance performances and poetry readings. He was a pionneer in digital synthesis, sampling and digital recording, while driving a taxi to make a living... He became a Fairlight Computer Music Instrument operator for artists such as Kuris Blow, Psychedelic Furs, Nile Rodgers, Lou Rawls etc.

Etosha was one of the first albums to be produced only through digital technologies, and it was also among the first records available as CDs. The Fairlight CMI was the main instrument used: as Sanford Ponder said, it was the first sampling computer music workstation. "State of the art at the time, it cost as much as a house and had a whole 8 voices with 64k (that's kilobytes !) of memory per voice".

If Etosha was an avant-garde work in the '80s, it is now almost a vintage recording, but it keeps its originality: it is a minimalist and electronic music, sometimes close to repetitive music (Etosha was mixed at Philip Glass's studio in NYC), puting the emphasis on the musical structures and loops.

This album is one of best testimonies on the innovative part played by Private Music, as a "art oriented" label, in the 80's Sanford Ponder released another album on Private Music: Tigers are Brave (1986).

link: mp3/320

SaPoEto.zip

password: olduvai