It was an honor to fill in for Hanna McKittrick's SOAK program on 106.7PBSFM. SOAK's sound features immersive post-minimal & alt-folk, if you listen to her show, you'll know there's a bunch of lovely, warm ambient textures going on in her musical choices. So, it's with greater pleasure still - I love this genre, that I share a handful of my favourite ambient releases from 2021. Playlist.
Adam Casey has folded The Boy Who Spoke Clouds, and out of the ashes of that, created Adam Casey and the Liminal Choir, releasing Nether | Aether, on the New Zealand based East Cape Calling label. He's joined on this album by Katie Walsh on vocals and bells. Some of BWSC's sound was quite visceral and ritualistic (I'm thinking Secret Corridors .. ), albeit suffused in spaciousness, and while The Liminal Choir have a ritual like quality, I reckon it's in a kind of cyclic, come mantric way. They explore a sound world that is predominantly soothing. Their is nuanced shading however. Slight, yearning melancholy. I played The Aether. Hey, suss this interview with Adam Casey and Cas Castle who broadcasts The Modernist, it'll give you an idea of what Adam's creative process and intention is.
Rivulets (Nathan Amundson) released a number of albums and eps over 2021. I played a Nathan, and a Rivulets track this evening; Horses On the Plain is the B-side from Nathan's 2015 ep. Western Songs - an inward, chilled jam. Horizon intentioned? I dunno.
This segued into a bridge from Celer, aka Will Long. The track, The Suggestion of a Loss comes from a recent release on the Brisbane based ROOM40 label.
This first set closed through looking back to the swansong from The Boy Who Spoke Clouds, Below, Below, released in 2020.
The final set began with a track from Dutch composer and musician Michel Banabila. Michel has created some of the most compelling Fourth World music around. Its very painterly. Much of his music is suffused with location recordings; radio and television talk; a span of warm analogue acoustic and electronic sound sources/instruments; sound ephemera. I played, In Other Words (Web SDR Mix) lifted from his recent Echo Transformations album on Knekelhuis out of the Netherlands.
Nick Malkin is someone I discovered in 2021, through his self released Nothing Blues album. It was produced by Stephan Mathieu, who has released albums through 12K amongst others. It has gamelan like resonances with some subtle echoic location recording backgrounds. The track is called, Net Negative Still Life.
Gigi Masin followed this with Closer from his Kite album released in 2018. I know nothing about Gigi, excepting his 1986 album Wind is reputed to be an absolute classic of ambient new age.
Gigi segues into Rivulets' track Can't I Wonder (Solo Version). Tender. Delicate. Just so.
Closing the final set with Andrew Chalk's Nocturne St.Matthew from his Painted Screens ep released in 2018 on the French An'archives label.
And leaving with a very hacked and shortened BADBADNOTGOOD track, Unfolding (Momentum 74) from their latest release, Talk Memory.
No comments:
Post a Comment