CD/Digital releases

It’s some time since i’ve explored movie soundtracks on 5:4, but there have been three this year that have stood out from the crowd, all very far indeed from the conventions of cinematic swooshery. That in itself isn’t terribly surprising, as their respective films are, to differing degrees, at some…

My favourite album of 2012, Kreng’s epic Works for Abattoir Fermé 2007–2011, dove into the deepest depths of doom-laden, gothic, dark ambient. It’s not going to find an equal any time soon, but there have been two albums this year that have come particularly close. The first is by Paul…

New and not-so-new CD and digital releases have had pretty short shrift on 5:4 this year, which might suggest not much has been making an impression. Not only is that wrong, it’s almost ludicrously so in the case of the most recent CD in Wergo’s ongoing ‘edition musikFabrik’ series. i’ve…

A few weeks back, NMC Recordings brought out the latest in their ongoing ‘Debut Discs’ series, this time devoted to the music of Joseph Phibbs. It’s an ambitious album, presenting two lengthy song cycles alongside a cluster of additional songs and a pair of instrumental works, focusing on soloists Helen-Jane…

Newly available this week from the thoroughly ambitious Huddersfield Contemporary Records is Exposure, a collection of choral works performed by contemporary music’s most adventurous cluster of vocalists, Exaudi Vocal Ensemble, directed by James Weeks. As with all of HCR’s releases (the rest of which are well worth exploring – details…

Despite the fact that writing about amazing music is such an unalloyed pleasure, there are times—many more times than i would care to admit—when the music skitters away, becoming elusive when confronted by one’s attempts to speak of it. Perhaps there’s no dishonour in being confounded by glory, but the…

Among the recent releases from the NMC Recordings stable i was pleased to see one devoted to the music of Kenneth Hesketh. Ken’s music has intrigued me for some years, and i’ve had the good fortune to conduct one of his works (Fra Duri Scogli) back in 2010. The new…

* Please note this list has how been superseded by the one on the Best Albums of the Years page * The lists reduce the vastness into controllable sizes, into the size of things that can fit into our mind, where they can expand again to the size of everything.…

* Please note this list has how been superseded by the one on the Best Albums of the Years page * This is a list surrounded by other lists leading to other lists, lists … that explain everything by being gateways into worlds of sound, feeling and information… …the love…

The list is what brings a world of chaos into some kind of pattern. The list fixes a broken world floating out into the outer world of emptiness. The list links us to ourselves, places us together, puts us in order. The list soothes us in the way it organises…

In my 2011 Best Albums of the Year list, in third place was an album that remains one of the best examples of ambient music i’ve had the pleasure to hear: Monty Adkins‘ Fragile.Flicker.Fragment. Describing it as ‘ambient’ is, in some ways, to do it a disservice, as—unlike most deliberately…

A release i’ve been anticipating for a while came out recently: the self-titled debut EP from Alone Architect. Much of the best electronica-fuelled songwriting in recent times has emanated from Canada, and Alone Architect is no exception, being the project of Montreal musician Jeff Feldman. Feldman posted a couple of…

i’ve commented in the past about the number of contemporary composers drawn to writing violin concertos—they’ve been a regular fixture among the works premièred at the Proms in the last few years—but personally, i’ve always been more drawn to the cello concerto. Composers exploring this medium seem, almost unavoidably, to…

Anyone with even a mild interest in contemporary music can’t have failed to encounter the music of Tansy Davies. She’s clearly going through something of a vogue at the moment, the high-profile commissions (including the Proms and King’s College, Cambridge) and performances being complemented more recently by CD releases of…

i don’t think it’s hyperbole to describe NMC Recordings as one of the bastions of contemporary music in the UK. For as long as i’ve been listening to new music (more than two decades now), NMC’s output has been a dependable point of continuity, and many of their releases have…

Many’s the time in the last few years when, both in the concert hall and at home, i’ve found myself listening to yet more music for random-acoustic-instrument plus electronics—and been absolutely bored off my face. The quest for novelty seems to have ruled the electroacoustic roost for years and years,…

Twenty years ago today, The Orb released one of their finest and most legendary creations, the single Blue Room. It became famous immediately due to its length; at 39’58”, it was tantalisingly close to the durational limit set by Gallup, who ran the UK charts, which classified anything of 40…

There are times when a composer wins you over instantly, the cogency of their arguments captured in a transparent marriage of sound and idea that’s instantly familiar and welcoming. This has emphatically not been my experience with the music of Aaron Cassidy. Over the last few years, i’ve oscillated around Cassidy’s music…

Despite my fondness for more avant-garde beat-oriented music, for a long time it’s been disappointing to see the current state of such idioms overshadowed by its champions. The likes of Aphex Twin, Autechre and Aaron Funk have, on the one hand, deeply moved and inspired composers and musicians to seek…

Having spent several weeks focusing on music of an introspective and ascetic nature, it’s time to let off some steam, and to that end let me flag up the latest release from Lindstrøm, titled Six Cups of Rebel. In nearly 10 years of music-making, this is only Hans-Peter Lindstrøm’s third…