Manuel Göttsching - Live at Mt Fuji (2006)

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

Brian Eno - Music for Prague (2001)

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

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

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)

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

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

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)

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

Brannan Lane - Hypnotic Drift (2002)

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

Roger Eno - Voices (1985)

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

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

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)

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

Ketil Bjornstad and David Darling - The River (1997)

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

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

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)

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

Suns of Arqa - Cradle (1994)

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)

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

Jon Hopkins - Opalescent (2003)

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

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

"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

Alexander Knaifel - Svete Tikhiy (2002)

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

Dan Hartman - New Green Clear Blue (1989)

"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

Klaus Schulze - X (1978)

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