5:4
  • About
  • Patrons
  • The Lists
    • List of compositions reviewed on 5:4
    • List of albums and EPs reviewed on 5:4
    • Festivals reviewed on 5:4
    • Best Albums of the Years
    • The Proms premières – Poll results
    • Complete list of ratings
  • Mixtapes, etc.
  • Contact
    • Contact Form
    • Submission Contact Form
  • About
  • Patrons
  • The Lists
    • List of compositions reviewed on 5:4
    • List of albums and EPs reviewed on 5:4
    • Festivals reviewed on 5:4
    • Best Albums of the Years
    • The Proms premières – Poll results
    • Complete list of ratings
  • Mixtapes, etc.
  • Contact
    • Contact Form
    • Submission Contact Form
5:4
Category:

CD/Digital releases

  • CD/Digital releases

    Anna Þorvaldsdóttir – Rhízōma

    by 5:4 November 3, 2020 • 11:44
    November 3, 2020 • 11:44

    Something that comes up a lot in my writing about music is polarities. Perhaps it’s understandable; many composers strive to establish some kind of drama in their work, which often involves the juxtaposition and/or interplay of polarised types of material or behaviour. A lot of the satisfaction and enjoyment from…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Catherine Lamb – Prisma Interius VII & VIII

    by 5:4 October 28, 2020 • 15:42
    October 28, 2020 • 15:42

    Back in 2017, when writing about the fifth and, at the time, latest in Catherine Lamb‘s ongoing series Prisma Interius, i talked a lot about consonance and dissonance, the way that its pitches began life around a central point from which they emerged and split off, ultimately creating a harmonic…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Bára Gísladóttir – HĪBER

    by 5:4 October 21, 2020 • 11:25
    October 21, 2020 • 11:25

    At the more intriguing end of the Icelandic contemporary music continuum is HĪBER, a new album of electroacoustic pieces by Bára Gísladóttir. When writing about Bára’s performance at this year’s Dark Music Days (with Skúli Sverrisson), i remarked how “what we heard in the first five minutes … was essentially…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Kjartan Sveinsson – Der Klang der Offenbarung des Göttlichen

    by 5:4 October 20, 2020 • 12:44
    October 20, 2020 • 12:44

    One of the aspects of contemporary music from Iceland that i find most fascinating is its tendency to position itself at extremes, rooted either in slavish convention or daring unorthodoxy. It’s a polarity that’s revealed itself again in some recent releases of Icelandic music, the results of which have been…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Autechre – SIGN

    by 5:4 October 16, 2020 • 15:57
    October 16, 2020 • 15:57

    In recent years i’ve realised that, more than with most artists, i tend to listen to each new Autechre release in the context of what came before. i know it’s hardly a mistake to listen like that – and it obviously makes sense for anyone wanting to appreciate it on…

    Read more
    1 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Andrew Leslie Hooker & Nick Janczak – Black Earth / Red Earth

    by 5:4 October 9, 2020 • 14:43
    October 9, 2020 • 14:43

    Another electroacoustic collaboration that’s been impressing me lately is Black Earth / Red Earth by composer Andrew Leslie Hooker and trumpeter Nick Janczak. The nature of the collaboration, involving methods being developed as part of Hooker’s ongoing PhD, is interestingly back-and-forth. The starting point comes from an electronic “sound-object” created…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    John Wall & Alex Rodgers – v03b-[ds.nla]

    by 5:4 October 5, 2020 • 15:29
    October 5, 2020 • 15:29

    One of the most interesting things to emerge amid the massive glut of stuff released last Friday – in order to coincide with Bandcamp’s latest fee-waiver day; interesting how this has come to dictate so many musicians’ output during 2020 – is something that, once upon a time, would have…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Remixed, remastered, revised, reissued: John Oswald (Part 2)

    by 5:4 September 4, 2020 • 05:00
    September 4, 2020 • 05:00

    It would be disingenuous to downplay just how laugh out loud funny is so much of John Oswald’s music. And this is surely one of the main reasons why he has fallen foul of the more simple-minded legal “brains” in the pop industry, since a casual encounter with his later…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Remixed, remastered, revised, reissued: John Oswald (Part 1)

    by 5:4 September 3, 2020 • 09:58
    September 3, 2020 • 09:58

    To return to the theme of reissues that i was exploring recently, another composer whose work has hitherto been languishing relatively unheard is the Canadian John Oswald. i first encountered his music around 25 years ago, at a Birmingham Symphony Hall concert where the Kronos Quartet included his astonishing electroacoustic…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Various – Epicycle II

    by 5:4 August 27, 2020 • 14:08
    August 27, 2020 • 14:08

    Released tomorrow is a new album of eight works by Icelandic composers, all of which have been curated by – and in some cases created in collaboration with – cellist and vocalist Gyða Valtýsdóttir. The general tone of these works, all of which are quite brief, is meditative in nature,…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Liquid Transmitter – Arboreal; Jeff Carey – index[off]

    by 5:4 August 5, 2020 • 15:50
    August 5, 2020 • 15:50

    Despite being located at opposite ends of the aesthetic / behavioural spectrum, i’ve recently been finding that two new releases pose the same questions about the distinction between long- and short-term listening. In the case of Arboreal, the latest album by Canadian musician Jamie Drouin’s alter ego Liquid Transmitter, this…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Erkki-Sven Tüür – Mythos

    by 5:4 July 29, 2020 • 13:23
    July 29, 2020 • 13:23

    A couple of years ago i wrote about the world première of Erkki-Sven Tüür‘s Symphony No. 9, subtitled ‘Mythos’. It was a fantastic performance of what turned out to be a marvellous piece (i often find myself marvelling while listening to Tüür’s music), so it’s exciting to see that original…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Remixed, remastered, revised, reissued: irr. app. (ext.)

    by 5:4 July 24, 2020 • 11:11
    July 24, 2020 • 11:11

    The most fascinating – and the most extensive – campaign of reissuing earlier work that i’ve ever encountered is by US artist Matt Waldron, better known as irr. app. (ext.). His earliest releases date from the late 1990s, a time when Waldron’s access to and capabilities with technology were apparently…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Remixed, remastered, revised, reissued: Paul Dolden

    by 5:4 July 21, 2020 • 05:00
    July 21, 2020 • 05:00

    Another composer who has been polishing off, smartening up and reissuing old works recently is Canadian Paul Dolden. It always surprises me how underappreciated and even unknown Dolden’s music continues to be, particularly as it’s among the most extreme stuff i’ve ever encountered (and, for good or ill, people love…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Remixed, remastered, revised, reissued: The Hafler Trio

    by 5:4 July 16, 2020 • 05:00
    July 16, 2020 • 05:00

    A few months back i wrote about about the appearance of various releases by The Hafler Trio on Bandcamp, which quite apart from being highly unexpected (hitherto Andrew M. McKenzie had seemed opposed to his output being released in a digital format) is a very good thing indeed, since most…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Remixed, remastered, revised, reissued: Roland Kayn

    by 5:4 July 14, 2020 • 05:00
    July 14, 2020 • 05:00

    A noticeable musical side-effect of the lockdown has been to take the opportunity to reissue composers’ earlier work, usually in some newly-polished or otherwise revised form. Four artists in particular – Roland Kayn, The Hafler Trio [Andrew M. McKenzie], Paul Dolden and irr. app. (ext.) [Matthew Waldron] have reissued work…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Naomi Pinnock – Lines and Spaces

    by 5:4 June 19, 2020 • 13:08
    June 19, 2020 • 13:08

    It’s fitting that the first portrait disc devoted to the music of UK composer Naomi Pinnock should be titled Lines and Spaces. Not merely because one of the four works featured on the disc has that as its title, but due to the fact that every time i’ve listened to…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Zeynep Gedizlioğlu – Verbinden und Abwenden

    by 5:4 June 10, 2020 • 11:09
    June 10, 2020 • 11:09

    Composer portrait albums tend to go one of two ways, highlighting either the broad diversity of their output or the more single-minded consistency of a central idea permeating multiple works. In the case of Verbinden und Abwenden, a new disc exploring the music of Turkish composer Zeynep Gedizlioğlu, it’s most…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    V/Vm (Leyland Kirby) – The Death of Rave, now available

    by 5:4 June 1, 2020 • 13:55
    June 1, 2020 • 13:55

    Nine years ago, in a series of articles about ‘Contemporary Epics’, i wrote about The Death of Rave, Leyland Kirby‘s gargantuan paean to the world of rave culture. Originally released in 2006 as a free MP3 download in 20 instalments (under Kirby’s occasional nom de guerre V/Vm), it vanished from…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Cyrillus Kreek – The Suspended Harp of Babel

    by 5:4 May 29, 2020 • 11:14
    May 29, 2020 • 11:14

    i’ve been waiting for this for three years. At the 2017 Estonian Music Days, i experienced a double onslaught to the head and heart courtesy of choir Vox Clamantis performing the music of Cyrillus Kreek. For this reason more than any other, i’ve clung to the memories of that first…

    Read more
    1 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • …
  • 12

Nils Henrik Asheim: Lydkilder Sound and Image: Aesthetics and Practices Music Beyond Airports: appraising ambient music Simon Cummings | 間 Studies vol. 6

  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Mixcloud
Footer Logo

© 2008-2021 Simon Cummings